To Change the World

“........ Huh?”

“Wow, that was inspiring…” Rainbow Dash deadpanned with a disappointed ruffle of her wings, earning a chiding tail slap from a disapproving Applejack, who rubbed a hoof over her ear so as to clear any cogs preventing her from making sense of the weird… monkey-thing gazing up at them with fear-struck eyes.

“Are you quite sure he understood you, darling?” Rarity stepped in with her own puzzled tip of her head, squinting her eyes as she buried her attention more on the clothes covering the creature's entire body than the quaking human in question. “Mmmm, perhaps he has a concussion?”

Oh, simply nothing but good news flying around! Twilight's stomach made a bad churn. She could feel the contents of that morning's breakfast knocking on the door on their way out, feeling overwhelmingly surpassed by the rising tide of her inadequacies. Words were stolen from her, an unheard-of event. She didn't know what to do except take a page from Discord and cosplay as a statue in the Royal Gardens while eyeballing the poor human, who was one small pony talking perfect English away to piss himself from sheer fright.

Was he injured? Her snout twitched, catching no scent of blood around any of the gathered creatures. Internal bleeding, perhaps? Yeah, that would be fun to remedy without professional help or hindsight. Was he even fully conscious and aware of them? The way the human was darting his small eyes all over her friends around made it look as such.

Twilight didn't need to open an investigation to understand that this ‘specimen’ had been expelled from the rift against his will. Most likely, he was simply an inhabitant of the same world that she’d been trying to screen. Now, to Twilight, it made a lot of sense that that particular dimension had been the easiest one to latch on and pierce, since according to the old stories of their kind, this wasn't the first time their worlds had met.

Or at least, a world from which a human had come. Was this human even from that same world? Twilight’s fleshy hard drive, humming loudly behind her aching horn in a mind-shattering headache, was running out of space trying to fit the millions of questions plaguing her.

“Girls,” Fluttershy stood up from within the group. Her boundless kindness and insight into creatures big and small was doing the talking for her, while the rest of the mares could add little more than wonder and cautious weariness.

However, Fluttershy was not a mare to stand idle and allow a poor creature to suffer alone if she could remedy it, regardless of its looks, or any potential danger it might bring her. More and more to her, this languid creature was on the brink of passing out rather than posing any real danger to her or her friends.

Exuding a surge of confidence and initiative normally alien for the usually shy mare, she bridged the gap between the disoriented human and their entourage, planting her haunches on the floor just shy of a hoof’s reach from his slender rear legs, or at least that’s what she believed them to be. Perhaps just legs, there’d be time to debate terminology later.

The yellow mare sibilated over her shoulder back to the stunned ponies. “This poor thing is gonna pass out if we don’t ease up. So, pleeeeeease, step back… i-if you don't mind…” A shimmer of her normal, retracted self breached through, bringing down her long mane to partially hide her face. Alas her concern for their newest guest quickly overthrew her shyness. The human, watching her in a steady approach towards him, kicked dirt back into high gear and tried to put as much distance between them as the wall allowed, settling back down when the small pony sat herself in front of him, finding insufficient perch to aid him up on his trembling legs.

He sensed no ill intentions from her, but weariness dominated his every action and thought, a poor state of mind blurry anu actions taken.

The human was too absorbed in taking in his surroundings while making sure to track every individual hair of each and every one of the miniature horses eyeballing him like a piece of meat to notice his consciousness slowly-but-steadily detaching from his body while a strange, claggy feeling began slithering up from his limbs and toward his chest to choke the air out of it. It was almost as if he was suffering from nitrogen poisoning, an experience he was familiar with.

Twilight, like the rest of the mares, was initially floored by Fluttershy’s initiative, a sense of shame blindsiding her and punching her gut hard, making her wings sag and ears droop on her scalp. She was the Princess of Friendship, for Luna’s sake! If there was one pony in this wide, green land who was supposed to welcome and reassure new visitors, interdimensional or otherwise, it was her.

Instead, her legs remained rooted as she watched from the sidelines like an ordinary passerby enjoying the latest catastrophic event befalling their cozy home of Ponyville, stiffly joining the mares and dragon in Fluttershy’s request for some space as they widened the tight circle they were unaware they’d assembled around the human.

The pegasus mare in question tried her best to address the creature with her most soothing, critter-friendly voice, the one she’d use only at first before bringing in the ‘Stare’ when the baddest, meanest denizens of the Everfree Forest were reluctant to play nice. While physically unable to press himself further into the wall, the creature at least wasn't lashing or clawing his way out, as had been the unfortunate case of some of Fluttershy’s most troublesome patients. She knew very well that no creature was more dangerous than a cornered one, and that's exactly what the human’s most feral instincts were screaming at him to unleash.

On the other hoof, Fluttershy could also clearly discern the spark of intelligence in the creature’s eyes behind his foggy, black-rimmed glasses; assuming the fact that he was wearing glasses and clothes over him like your average Manehattinite pimp-pump was any real clue as to his sapience.

That didn’t mean she was going to treat him any differently, though. A creature in distress was a creature in distress no matter what they looked like or what they happened to wear over them. Fluttershy could only hope her wisdom on the caretaking of critters could aid her, and by extension, him.

“There, there,” She cooed softly, lowering herself onto her stomach in front of the creature's folded legs, wearing her most gentle-est smile as a wing reached outward slowly to pet one of the human’s legs. “It’s alright. There’s nothing to fear,” She sent a hoof to his other leg, hanging it in the air as she waited for a silent approval from the human before patting the limb gently, thrilled when she found no semblance of aggression in his teary eyes. Fluttershy took in the feeling of the cloth covering the limb on her frog. The fabric felt unfamiliar to her, an educated guess since Fluttershy also knew a thing or two about sewing. Her friend Rarity would clue them more into the matter for sure, her task was to assure this creature’s good health first and foremost.

The human fixed his glasses up his weird snout while gazing down at the unsettlingly adorable horse, feeling the hard surface of her hoof gently patting his shin with the reassurance and kindness he’d give to a scared dog under a shower of fireworks. He knew not whether to feel relieved, humiliated, or creeped out of his wits under the adrenaline rush that kept firing in and out of his system.

In truth, a scared, cowering dog was exactly how he felt. Yet, none of the thoughts storming in his swimming head, with the might and insistence of an Atlantic hurricane, could be formulated into words, leaving him an eyestruck and paralyzed mess under the equine’s sudden care, and the rest of the horses’ weary scrutiny.

The human took notice of the wing petting his other leg just at the same time Fluttershy noticed the way he favored his left arm while holding himself up in his semi-seated position against the wall.

Something was indeed wrong with him. “Oh my, does it hurt here?” Fluttershy felt as if she’d gained enough trust to close on him a little further, but her assumptions were proved wrong when, at the first sign of movement, the creature lashed back with a pained cry as he tried to escape her reach.

Her assumptions about his injured arm struck home when, in his attempt to flee, he put too much pressure on his right arm, which gave up from under him as if it were made of jelly, making his escape last for only a brave second before he found himself kissing the floor unceremoniously. His dark, compact bag slithered all the way down from his shoulder while he groaned in agony, his mind ready to dive in for a full swim of obliviousness when that strange sensation pressing down on his chest became too much to ignore. The feeling of his limbs abandoned him with a flick, and the swirling pressure in his chest became one of pain, making the one pulsing from his right arm feel like just a little scratch.

He could’ve sworn he was dying there and then if he hadn’t known better.

“W-Wait…” Fluttershy stammered, blindsided by his sudden lash-out. The pegasus sought to try again, gentler this time, slower, taking all the time the creature needed, but she was sadly interrupted by a patience-drained Rainbow.

“That’s it! I’m getting the tin heads!” She announced firmly, unfurling her wings in readiness to take herself aloft and out of the cramped room. A pang of searing dread snapped Twilight from her stupor, the consequences of anypony besides the present ones learning of the magnitude of this accident painting a haunting image for her and her future. Humiliating depictions of her possible future flipped through her mind like a fast-paced slideshow of embarrassment.

She was sooohohoho going to be shipped off straight to magic kindergarten this time, and she could count her lucky stars if Celestia didn’t cage her under Dimeritium while in class. Her overloaded mind was dragging the alicorn into strange corners of her psyche.

Twilight fumbled over her hooves in a feeble attempt to stop Rainbow, but was simply too drained from her spell casting to put any form of opposition. Thankfully, Applejack beat the alicorn to the task.

“Hold yer horses there, sally,” The farm mare bit down on the prismatic tail and dragged the speedy pegasus down onto her rump with a sharp yelp and an aching dock. “Ah don’t think that there’s a good idea.”

“Why not?!” Rainbow rubbed her rump as her raspy cry made the collapsed human flinch in his collapsed state. Fluttershy was already over him, ignoring his previous reluctance to her proximity while fretting over his slumped form in an attempt to rouse him with soft nuzzles and reassuring words. “It could be dangerous!”

“He’s not dangerous.” Twilight chimed in between the mares, to the surprise of the bickering mares while keeping Spike close to her, both for his safety and her comfort. The confidence behind her words was put into question by the way her half-unfurled wings twitched in readiness to put the Foal Range between her and her little brother and the human at the first whiff of aggressiveness.

She only had old stories and faded tales to draw her assumptions from. Some had painted the previous, and only human to ever step foot on Equus as dangerous and unpredictable, while others shared a different view, a more positive one. One thing was clear in the alicorn’s mind as she took in his poor state, making her feel even more like a flank than she already did over the entire situation and the strain she put her friends under.

“Especially not like this…” She stressed the human's current condition, feeling a soul-wrenching sense of guilt washing over her, carrying the rest of emotions in its wake.

‘What have I done?... Oh, Celestia, what have I done?!!’

“Still! We have to do something!” Rainbow cried, feathers ruffled and her tail lashed angrily behind her, with Applejack rebutting her bull-headedness against the prismatic mare’s impatience, dragging them both into another of their verbal duels around the topic of how best to deal with their most recent guest.

While Rainbow held her grounds despite her weariness, Twilight paid no heed to the bickering pair. More likely, she couldn't. Things were happening too fast, unraveling in a spiral that would swallow her whole if she didn't take the reins. There was no way she could have possibly planned for this eventuality. It simply didn't fit the parameters she had established.

But, even in spite of that, Twilight felt a crippling chill creeping over her hooves while her breaths became more labored and strained the further her royal-sized buck-up sank into her heart, shattering her resolve into a million pieces.

“... -IRLS!!!”

A sharp cry for attention silenced both the alicorn's raging mind and the strong-headed mares’ bickering, a heavy stillness filling the room afterward when nopony dared to even flinch. Fluttershy, having tried to win her friends’ attention several times now, was past being her gentle, shy self, sporting a frown only reserved to rein in Discord when he stepped out of line with his pranking and ‘harmless’ chaos. “This nice creature needs medical attention, fast! I need to go to my cottage for my supplies! I-I don’t think they’ll know how to treat him at Ponyville General!”

The ponies’ collective attentions were herded back to the slumped human, his deteriorating state injecting a new shade of urgency into the already strained atmosphere. Fluttershy had managed to partially move him to his side, but that’s where the good news ended. His chocolate-hazel eyes were glazed over as his lungs took in deep, broken gulps of air through his mouth. The only free contact for air, since rivulets of blood cascaded down both his nostrils. Tremors rocked his bipedal frame, paralyzing fear no longer the sole reason behind the quacking.

Something was terribly wrong with him. Twilight was quick to deduce it as a consequence of his forced journey through the rift. Whether it was his crossing the dimensional barriers, or the nasty tumble that welcomed him to her castle, Twilight could only hazard a guess.

Firing up her horn, she parked the question and her gut-wrenching dread for her free time and ran a screening spell, ignoring the aching of her horn. It was the same one she’d cast earlier to check Spike for any internal damage. The little dragon rode on her back, terrified out of his scales and clinging onto her withers for dear life while daring the occasional peek from behind her mane.

Twilight closed her eyes and allowed her sixth sense to fill her, drowning the rest of the physical world out. She fired the spell, and the information it returned almost made her trip up on her own horn. The good news was the spell hadn’t shown any traces of internal damage as far as his similar, yet still-alien physiology revealed to her.

On the other hoof, however…

‘... T-T-That’s not possible!’

“He has no core!”

Twilight found her own discovery mirrored by the only other magic-sensing-equipped pony in the group. Finishing her own spellcasting, Rarity too had now learned about this bizarre trait of the creature.

“Twilight, he’s void! I can’t sense any magic in him!” Rarity sought an answer from their most magic-literate friend, yet she was met with a blank look that perfectly matched Twilight's take on this new discovery. The old, faded tales spoke of the sudden arrival of a human female, as well as the most distinctive traits that painted her as alien amongst the ponies twilight used to bridge a connection with this one. But the absence of magic being one of those defining characteristics was not amongst the already-thin descriptions around her. Twilight had attributed it to their magic being deeply passive, or simply latent, like a griffon’s or even a mule for that matter!”

Against her beliefs, this human was as devoid of magic as an office potted plant. Heck, even a potted plant had at least something going on! But this? No!

This… This actually explained quite a bit about his deteriorating state.

Twilight changed her spell to screen the aëtheric currents filling the room, revealing a tangled mess of conflicting surges and patterns, not strong enough to manifest in any physical sense in from of light or changes in the air, but it would take a while for the ambient magic to harmonize after that earlier light show. And, to her utter alarm, the swirling magic running rampant treated the human as if he was nothing but furniture. It passed and reverberated around, inside and outside him in random bouts, uncaring, with no trace of a magical core to absorb it or dissipate it safely, much less harmonization of any kind. It was an unnatural phenomena unfurling before her.

The magic was harming him. It was the only explanation she could come up with for the wet bout of coughing that followed his prominent nosebleed, trembling limbs threatening to give up once more from under him.

What was more magical than an alicorn princess in a room full of magical creatures under a very much magically-grown castle made up of magical crystal, grown from a magical crystal tree in a world full of motherbucking magic?!

Yeah. This human was as good as dead if she didn't act fast! But why? Megan had shown no signs of any negative reaction toward magic when she appeared in Dream Valley, had she?. Was it something the story had chosen to omit, or was she perhaps some kind of magically-attuned kind of human?

‘Horseapples! I don't have the answers!’

No time to play detective. Twilight could only come up with one temporal solution, far from her preferred choice of a welcome ceremony. It was time to princess up.

“Fluttershy,” The timid pegasus, on the cusp of crying tears for the suffering human writhing on her hooves, was the first one to be commanded. “Fly to your cottage and bring everything you need back here. If you see Doctor Fauna on your way, tell her that her presence is demanded here, on my personal authority if she needs it.” Not waiting for an answer from Fluttershy, Twilight turned towards Rainbow and Applejack. “Rainbow, go outside and find the nearest guard platoon. Then, bring them back here and make sure that they bring a nullifying collar with them,” She then took a lightning-fast peek at the human. “Griffon-sized… Hurry!”

“What?!” Rarity rose up in protest, hearing about the nullifying collar and not liking it one bit..

“Now hold on just an apple-pickin’ minute here…”

“AJ,” Twilight ignored the farm mare’s attempt at a rebuttal. “I need you to carry him downstairs to the dungeons.”

Yes, the tree-like castle had come with its very own set of cells down in the basement, none having needed to be used until this day, though. “Find the cell with the silver-blue-reinforced bars at the end of the block. It’s Dimeritium-coated. Put him inside that cell and wait for us,” Twilight strained her neck to peer back at the still-clinging dragon. “Spike, go with Applejack. You’re a strong dragon, and she might need your help.”

“B-But, Twilight…” Spike mewled, digging his claws harder into her mane.

Her heart squeezed shut in her chest from Spike’s fearful wimpers. Twilight reassured her little brother with a tender nuzzle on his head crest before gently levitating him off her back and near the aforementioned earth pony mare. “It'll be alright, Spike. I’ll join you both in a bit.”

“Um, Twilight?” Pinkie butted in, having lost her spring and remaining unusually silent this whole time. With an awkward grin, she tried her best not to call out the over-stressed alicorn. “Not to sound like you're acting a teensy tiny bit paranoid, buuuuut…”

“I know what I’m doing, Pinkie!” Twilight cut off Pinkie where she stood with a bossy glare. “I stand by my statements. I don’t believe that he’s dangerous. I’m just trying to help him, not lock him up out of the horseshoe. I need you and Rarity to collect all of his… stuff, and leave it in my bedroom. Please be careful, though; we don’t know what any of his stuff might do!”

“But, sugarcube… What about the platoon of guards?”

Twilight knew how that might cast a contradictory light on her statement. “The rift is gone, but the magic hasn't yet harmonized to normal wavelengths. I fear it’ll solidify back into another feedback loop and open another rift… And this time, I won’t be able to choose what dimension I want to latch on to.” She locked her eyes with the mare’s green ones. “I simply want them stationed here just in case another gap opens. I don’t want anything from the void between worlds slithering through without our knowledge.”

All ponies present felt a sense of foreshadowing dread wash over them. Star Swirl had been keen to stress that was too scared from what he found to paint depictions of the world he managed to connect his mirrors to. However, he did go to great lengths to point out that the space between worlds was, contrary to what he expected, inhabited, and far from a welcome place.

Luna should know about it; the parasite that took hold of her for a thousand years came from that very same place.

“A what in the where now? Wouldn't it be best to simply toss…” Rainbow voiced, only to be met with a commanding leer from Twilight, her patience already wearing thin for further rebuttals. “Y-Yes ma’am,” She curtly conceded, flying out through that very same window she’d smashed on her way in, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake.

Bearing down on Fluttershy next, the silent command was wordlessly communicated to her. While reluctant to part from the creature's side, Fluttershy saw the reasoning in Twilight’s strategy. “Hang in there for a bit longer, please? I promise that we’ll help you.”

With those reassuring words, and an invigorating rub of the creature's short mane, Fluttershy carried herself out of the room on her wings, flying faster than the normally easy-going pegasus was known to partake. Twilight, meanwhile, didn't catch any semblance of a reply from the groggy human. He remained there, leaning against the angled wall of the circular room with a blunt claw over his chest, gripping it tight as if trying to keep everything alive and beating inside him. The other one feebly searched through what Twilight guessed were his pants, patting the cloth at his sides and his butt until seemingly finding what he was looking for, a shade of victory flashing before his unfocused eyes.

“Rarity. Pinkie.” Twilight firmly ushered the mares, not taking her eyes from the human and his movements for a second, who’d now extracted an unfamiliar-looking device from one of his back pockets. Twilight’s curiosity was piqued when he attempted… something with it, perhaps summon a response of sorts from the device by pressing the stubbiest of his foreclaws to the side of the rectangular device.

Whatever the human was hoping to find, a disappointed frown was the only thing that answered his call over the blackened screen, making Twilight wonder what he was trying to achieve in the first place.

Sighing in resignation, he returned it to his pocket before another stinging pain hammered his ribs and caused him to break out into a nasty-sounding fit of coughing.

Pinkie and Rarity obeyed the alicorn without protest, even if they might’ve been harboring private concerns over the human. The unicorns’ dexterity in levitation magic made quick work of the cluttered collection gimmicks and unfamiliar objects, taking them very carefully into her magical grasp and returning them to the abandoned bag. Twilight discerned a bunch of loosely scattered notes not from her own pile, and papers whose contents she wasn't fast enough to discern. Summed to those, an object that uncannily resembled one of the gaming pads from her big brother’s console back at their home in Canterlot, and a pair of long, thick cables that were sporting some inscriptions on their resin or resin-esque surface. Finally, she caught sight of another rectangular device, also black and relatively big in size peeking out from the unzipped side of the bag before Rarity’s magic tucked everything back inside it, closing the zip dexterously.

“Come along, Pinkie,” Rarity ushered the pink party mare, who was in the middle of the hunt for one last device the alabaster unicorn had missed. Taking hold of it from behind Rainbow’s throne where it’d ended up landing, she eyeballed the this-time familiar object with her telltale pep before a light bulb shone over her spongy mane.

“Oooh, Vinyl has one of these too!”

Twilight noticed the resemblance too. They looked similar to the pair of ‘headphones’ that Ponyville’s resident disc jockey would be seen sporting every hour of every day, lost in her ear-splitting ‘wubs’. Not Twilight’s first choice of music, but you know what they say about flanks and likes…

Hooking the pair of headphones over her ears, Pinkie's bubbling expectations came to a disappointing crash when no trail of notes emanated from the earpieces to grace her ears with some kind of extra-equestrial music.

“Aww… no wubs.” Pinkie’s mane deflated a bit before hoofing the headphones to Rarity. Storing them inside the bag with the rest of the stuff, the unicorn ushered Pinkie before marching together outside the Thrones Room. Rarity took the chance to carefully examine the stitching and material that made up the bag, unable to recognize both of them, spiking her own curiosity while Pinkie trailed along, bouncing beside the unicorn and sharing her own, peculiar input to Rarity’s mumbled observations.

“... I trust you know the way,” Twilight then returned to the last remaining two.

“I do.” Spike puffed up, stitching a proud grin on Twilight’s features. The little dragon and Applejack tag-teamed to combat the human’s size as they tried to help get him up and moving.

“Haupff!! Yer a big feller, aren’t ya?” AJ puffed out with strain as she bore the brunt of the human’s weight during the slow and painful progress of lifting him.

Twilight’s hunch was proven correct when she assessed the human's natural, albeit unbalanced stance as a bipedal one. The way his legs folded and back supported him sealed the argument.

The human had towered over them by quite a large margin; an average pony’s head would come in around his lower chest at best, hypothetical horn not included. His clothes weighed down over him into a more natural setting. It was clear that they’d been designed with his two-legged stride in mind. Twilight couldn't help but be mesmerized for the entire second she forgot about her massive screw-up before her mood soured again. She shouldn't be marveling at the sight of a new, alien creature in her castle. He was suffering because of her, after all!

Something she noticed that darkened the colors even more was the fact that the no longer human put up any kind of resistance or reaction to the pony and dragon helping him up. His glazed eyes, ragged breathing, and hunched stance made Twilight think he’d somehow entered some kind of trance or catatonic state as his grip on reality diminished with each passing moment the magic poisoned his alien physiology. More than enough reason for her to act on her own side of the plan.

“Take care, guys. I’ll join you shortly.” Twilight announced before flaring her wings in preparation for lift-off.

“W-Where are you going?!” Spike cried, unaware of her absence in this part of her plan while hurrying to catch up with Applejack and the struggling human.

“There’s something I need to do first. I won’t be long!” Twilight promised, sending her baby brother one parting, reassuring smile before catapulting herself into the heavens, using the smashed window as her impromptu exit before climbing high into the skies.

She had some magic, as well as some steam, to blow off.

Feeling his head fins ripple in Twilight’s turbulent wake, Spike felt utterly lost as to how to proceed. His big sister had always been an anchor of sorts for him. She always knew what to do, and she always came up with an A and B plan in the blink of an eye. She was the smartest of them all, and with good reason.

But now, Spike couldn't remember ever seeing Twilight looking so… so lost. Even while she tried to keep a cool head, she wasn't fooling anypony, much less him, who’d lived his entire life at her side. Spike knew Twilight was winging it at best, swallowing without time to chew things out. In her eyes, he saw the lack of trust the alicorn harbored for her own plan. But, did somepony here have a better course of action?

“Spike!” Applejack hollered, already halfway into the main corridor, using her frame to support the creature’s lancing one, a small trail of crimson being left in their wake as blood kept pouring from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. Underscoring the mare’s call, raspy, labored breaths were everything that came from the human. In his debilitated state, he simply let go, seconds away from passing out where he stood. The feeblest flickers of life were all that was keeping him up and running, but he was unsure how much he’d make it last before succumbing.

With a startle, Spike broke himself free from his bubble and hurried behind the pair, too late to notice the trail of blood before his claws stepped in it, leaving a second crimson trail in the shape of his claw prints to upset the human’s steady one.

The trot down to the dungeons was one of tense silence, save for the occasional fumble and grunt as Applejack and Spike needed to help the creature up from his bloodied knees both of the times his legs had given up from underneath him. His breathing seemed to have stabilized somehow, as had his bleeding, which had stopped on their way down the spiral staircase.

His gait, however, had done nothing but worsen, to the point that Applejack needed to drag his exhausted body into the cell Twilight had advised them of. Being Dimeritium-reinforced, Applejack could feel the unsettling pull on her innate magic, as the magic-nullifying metal tried to rip it away from her, sending an unpleasant shiver down her spine and all the way to her tail.

Brushing off the nauseating sensation, Applejack walked into the cell and carefully lowered the creature onto the bunk hanging from the wall before taking a much-deserved breather. She couldn't be confident of with all the garments covering him snout to tail, but the farm mare was willing to bet her hat that this creature had some serious meat on his bones, regardless of his superior height. She hoped that trait came with a healthy appetite to boot, and that said appetite didn't include ponies in its menu, for while trotting beside him, she had most surely NOT missed his small fangs every time he winced and clenched his teeth in pain.

Liking the back of her hoof, AJ tried to clean the worst of the dry rivulet of blood kissing his upper lip. She’d trust Twilight in her reassurance that this being… whatever it was called, posed no threat to them. And, in case he did, Applejack had a fire-breathing dragon at her side to convince him otherwise. She’d take her chances with her own Bucky McGilacuddy and Kicks McGee back there to buck some manners into him if the need arose.

“Is he going to be alright?” Spike, keeping the cell door open for them, asked with a worried tilt of his head, green, slitted eyes cutting the gloom of the scarcely-lighted cell block.

Applejack needed a moment to ponder, answering back with nothing but the honest truth. “I’m… not sure, sugarcube,” She eyed the pained creature on the bunk, belly up and limbs sprawling down the bunk. His breathing had at least tune down to a more even pace, gorging in his newfound rest as much as the mare did.

With a knot of sympathy in her tummy, Applejack knew that neither her strength, nor her expertise in apples, was not going to add anything more to his recovery. It was up to the rest of her friends now, and if there was a group of ponies she could trust with his life, it was the girls. “I’m gonna stay here an’ keep an eye on ‘im. Y’all skedaddle now and see if Rarity needs some help.”

The prospect of aiding the alabaster unicorn would’ve normally lifted the young dragon’s spirits up to Cloud Nine, but Spike couldn't seem to draw from any kind of joy. Too many things assaulted his young mind to be able to manifest anything besides concern. Concern for the strange creature bleeding all over their floors, concern for his friends who had all miraculously walked out of that madness-magical mess with only a few bumps and bruises to prove it. And, most importantly, concern for his older sister who, in light of this accident, was surely going to be chewed down to her bones and spit back out by the princesses. Especially Princess Celestia.

“Y-Yeah, I… uh,” Casting one last glance at the resting figure, Spike carried on with his new task, opting to trust in Applejack's ability to rein the creature in with her lasso should he try anything unexpected. “I'll leave you to it.”

Leaving behind the musty, darkened corridor of the cell block, Spike pumped his short legs up the long set of stairs and onto the ground floor of the castle, mentally drawing the necessary path he'd have to take to reach Twilight's room on the first floor’s east wing, and hoping he wouldn't get lost three times on the way, as used to be customary of him to do every time he wanted to go downstairs to grab something to eat.

The farm mare sat on her haunches in front of the Dimeritium-reinforced cell, away from the magic-stealing metal’s influence where her earth pony might would’ve been dwindled. Applejack remained as still as stone, pouring her full awareness into the creature in search of any indication of ill intentions, salivating over her grasp on the lasso in her muzzle, waiting with her hat tilted down in business.

She remained stationary for several minutes, with the trickling of filtering groundwater from some nearby crevice counting down the seconds before the strange creature would try to lunge at her or aim for a hasty escape, even though he wasn't exactly a prisoner according to Twilight's commands.

The light shining from the everlasting torches illuminated only a scarce portion of the cells, painting a shadow of his chest slowly heaving up and down while the rest of him remained as immobile as the mare guarding him. For a brief moment, Applejack could've sworn that he’d died in the time it took her to blink the spots from her eyes after too much time digging them into his shadowed outline. To her utmost reassurance, his pained, albeit steadier breathing told her otherwise.

For as much as she wanted to remain on edge, Applejack was having a hard time believing this creature was in any position to bring them harm of any description, and laid down a bit on her zealous guard.

The farm mare was more than accustomed to dancing with the occasional creep from the Everfree Forest that dared to snoop around her orchard, so it was normal for the members of the Apple Family to be the most wary around anything unfamiliar getting too close to her loved ones. Considering her friends were honorary members of the Apple Family, her suspicion taken on the creature would remain until she was proven otherwise.

Fluttershy would aid him, and soon he'd be on his merry way. That's what the farm mare envisioned as a simple one-two, but quickly remembered the small detail pertaining to the creature's origins. AJ didn't need Twilight's brains to reason the well-read alicorn wasn't going to be trying that stunt again anytime soon.

Spitting out the salivated length of rope from her muzzle, as it was starting to hurt her jaws from clamping over it without any hint of action, Applejack sent her first look of true sympathy over their newest arrival.

“... I'm afraid yer gonna have tuh stick it up with us fer a little while, partner.” She spoke in a gentle voice, feeling her heart reaching out to him, unsure of expecting any kind of answer from him. “We're good folk, so you needn't worry. You play nice, and we'll see ya home in a jiffy, deal?”

“... Nnnnggggmmfff…”

A chuckle rocked Applejack's chest. That's all she was gonna get from the tall fella, it smelled to her.

She could only pray that her friends would hurry, and that there was something they could even do for him. Whether he’d play nice or go around trying to gnaw on somepony rear, the cowmare wanted to hear it from his muzzle.

That is, if he even could.

‘... Does he even speak Equish?’

-

-

-

High above Ponyville’s skies, a purple projectile was precipitously climbing in a straight line towards the endless blue and the blinding sun, trying her hardest to put as much distance between her and her castle as her ruffled wings would grant her.

Twilight knew that it was best to do this until she’d burned off all the excess magic she’d accumulated in her core, tiring herself even more in the process, yes, but she didn't want to risk it more than she already was. Her friends could handle any unexpected event that might step in their way while the mare was making herself safer.

Deep down, however, the true, unmasked force driving her wings into overdrive was one born from shame, and a need to flee away. To run far, far away, where her friends and mentors wouldn't find her, where Twilight wouldn't have to face the disappointment that surely awaited her, or the scolding that would follow to drive her down all the way. She had bucked things up good and proper, perhaps her biggest mess since the day her neurotic side drove her to enchant that doll and drive half of Ponyville’s residents under the spell’s influence to an all-out war. Some ponies still wouldn't let her live it down to this day. Twilight couldn't imagine what would come out of this one the moment other ponies learned about it.

Of the things that she could be sure about, the first and foremost would be kissing her princess status goodbye. No ruler of the land should be granted such a tremendous amount of responsibility after such a selfish catastrophe. Twilight could count her lucky stars if her alicornhood wasn’t stripped from her right behind her title. And, to top it all off, she’d sooner use the lack of wings to throw herself off of Rambling Rock Ridge than face the moment that a censorship bill on her magic-using permits left Celestia’s muzzle, to prevent her from attempting any form of magic above using telekinesis to wipe her flank.

A bergantina's worth of knots weighed her stomach down, making her feel as if she’d just wolfed down a baker's dozen of Applejack’s infamous ‘baked bads’ and washed them down with expired milk. Tears clung to the corners of her eyes, being carried off into mist within the rushing winds as she cut through them all to join the puffy clouds that parted in her path.

If magic was indeed toxic to the human, she was the LAST thing he needed to be close by, much less to offer any help to him through her magic. Twilight felt her own selfish desires to shift the blame rising against her mental defenses, forcing her swiftly cast all thoughts of repercussions aside. She was a grown mare, and she would deal with her mess up according to how her betters saw fit to apportion to her, as much as it made her heart want to leap out of her throat and knock back sense into the mare.

Until the moment for that arrived, her utmost priority should be helping the human she’d just stranded in their world, both in the short and long run, for Twilight would under no condition attempt to bridge the dimensional barriers to find him a way back anytime soon. At best, she’d try again after stripping her spell to its basics and finding the reason everything had gone to Tartarus. And, once she’d done that and parched it, she’d hoof the specifications of her spell to Celestia and let her take charge of his return. There was no way on Faust’s green Equus she was going to be the reason for another buck-up of similar dimensions, she had enough under her belt already.

Two world-threatening scenarios per year were their norm, and she’d just filled the second slot that morning. The princesses would know what to do with him. They always had the answers her endless hours of book-delving couldn’t provide her with.

“GrrrrrrgggGAAAAH!!!”

Twilight flung herself face-first into a nearby cumulonimbus cloud, both seeking to hide herself from the world as well as using the best substitute for her pillow to scream, bite and cuss to her heart's content. She had more than just simple magic to vent explosively from her system.

The poor cloud was subjugated to an unfair, royal-sized treatment from one utterly and unilaterally pissed-off alicorn. Pissed at herself, her ineptitude, her selfishness, and at fate overall, ‘cause you can always curse fate and it won’t make you feel any better. The nimbus, big and puffy enough to cast a considerable shadow over the homely town above which it floated after escaping the local weather mare’s hunt, was reduced to a pathetic wisp of white powder barely big enough to withstand a panting Twilight once she’d concluded her ‘tender’ treatment in her efforts to take her ire out on the punching bag that her new pegasus properties allowed clouds to become.

“Stupid! Stupid! Moronic! Brainless! Doltish! Dull-witted! Dumbflank! GAH!!” Each time Twilight mashed her muzzle and hooves into the cloud, a lightning bolt escaped the other end. The ponyvillians were lucky that the cloud had drifted away from the population’s nucleus, although Cheerilee would have her own choice of questions as to why the top of the Ponyvlle’s school bell now looked, and smelled, like a charred, smoking burrito.

During her flight and the little tantrum with the poor cloud, Twilight had managed to burn off most of her excess magic and collect herself into something more akin to her usual levels, if not a bit under. She felt like she could do better, but reasoned that it was best to keep at least something in the tank, just in case. She’d need to wear lead horseshoes and skip-hop with every step she needed to tread around the human she’d inadvertently dragged into their world.

At any signs of magic poisoning, she’d put several walls of her castle between the two. At least, that way she wouldn't meet his eyes once he had battled the dizziness to understand what the hay had just happened to him, and who was to blame for it.

The tale of Dream Valley had taken residence in her, tainting every thought she could amass about the human while Twilight brought her breathing under control, laying belly up on the fluffiness the cloud provided. She let the climbing sun blind her and force her eyes shut in a rare moment of peace, while her ears flickered under the ticklish caressing of the cloud supporting her head. The shapes her oversaturated cones painted over her shut eyelids were strange, dancing and tilting in a gradient of colors, but not distracting enough to make her shed an iota of angst.

The figure of the human female from the tales of ponykind’s early beginnings was a tainted one, even while remaining basically unknown to everypony except the few bookworms and ancient history geeks deranged or bored enough to even read that far into their collective history. Manuscripts and scholars agreed on her general looks and overall take on the ponies, painting the figure of Megan as a two-legged being, capable from the sweetest of gestures to the most unthinkable of acts.

Some attributed the destruction of Dream Valley to her, while others argued that she was the only reason ponykind even came out of what they thought was their promised land in their earliest dawn. The further and more convoluted the tale disentangled, so did it become blurry and inconsistent.

Twilight knew better than to put all her eggs into one basket, the basket of old legends this time. Her own instincts and a cool head would do the speaking for her, not a raw-nerves dressed mare.

Alas, she wasn’t exactly feeling cool-headed at the moment. Quite the opposite actually, with some tendrils of steam becoming too hot under her flaming self to remain attached to the cloud and wisping away. A few minutes more, and Twilight would’ve drilled a literal hole in her fluffy companion. A couple more after that, and she’d burst out in flames like that one time.

Gosh, it felt like a lifetime had passed since then. And, in all that time, Twilight had made all manner of colorful mistakes, most of them ending in well-meant lessons she carved into her heart and the reports she’d sent Celestia weekly… or bi-weekly if it happened to be due, to her friends' insistence.

Yep, that had been one major whoopsie. But this, this, put even her own crown to shame.

“Ooooh. What am I going to do? What am I supposed to do now?!” She chanted over and over to herself, pulling down on her eyelids and kicking her rear legs. She hoped that repetition would somehow give birth to an answer out of sheer willpower and stubbornness. There’s this thing about madness being defined as constant repetition and expecting different results, but Twilight's hooves couldn't get a better hold in her panic-induced state.

The harsh reaction that the human had presented after he crossed the bridge between worlds… Faust above, he was bleeding all over her castle!! But, her spell told her that he was unharmed on the inside. Possibly. Probably. Could she even trust that spell to work on a human? Could she even trust magic to work on him overall? Perhaps her use of magic on him had only worsened his condition!

It pained Twilight to no end to admit it, but, just as her mastery in magic was undisputed, so was the fact that she was a four-left-hoofed mare without it. Her friends, Rarity included, were a hundred times more resourceful than she was when the problem fell beyond the reach of magic. And no amount of brains and books were enough for Twilight to step out of her comfort zone and open her mind to non-magical workarounds and options. That’s why she trusted her friends to care for the human until she could come up with a better solution. That, and the fact that as the most magical-infused of them all, her nearby presence could pose more of a liability than anything a helping hoof.

Any questions about the human and the world he dwelled from, which were already plentiful enough to fill a small chest, would have to be delivered through non-magical means, such as old, boring letters while she served a sentence in Magic Kindergarten. Sadly, there’s only so much you can fit in a letter, and Twilight was not a mare known for her patience when it came to learning new things.

“Ha!” She cried raspily through teary eyes. “That’s assuming he even wants anything to do with me after he learns of what I’ve done to him.”

Another corner of the issue Twilight dared not carve into. If her friends and the princesses were going to be upset with her, she couldn't even imagine the human’s reaction when he learned she’d virtually stranded him on his flank in a completely foreign world, in essence more than likely poisonous to him in many ways as she’d only recently observed, without the slimmest notion of how to return him safe and limbed within the feeble chance of an opportunity presented itself for a loooong while, if ever.

Even worse, the human still had to pull through before even seeing that slim chance come to fruition, and things were not looking green for him.

“... Sniff. No, not magic kindergarten. I’m heading straight for the Moon…”

“Egghead.”

“GAH!!”

In her startle, Twilight sent her wings flying, dispelling the last remains of the cloud from under her back and plunging herself into a freefall, before flapping up to meet Rainbow with an unamused scowl and crossed forelegs, the speedy pegasus barely able to keep it in behind a crooked muzzle.

“Pffff-BWAHAHAHAHA!!”

The prismatic mare lasted for a full three seconds of stone face before rolling over in the air, cackling like a mad hen while Twilight simply huffed and flicked her hanging tail, waiting impatiently until the laughing fit had run its course. Oh, she’d get her back. Twilight had a long list of pending pranks to cash in, but as of right now, she was far from being in the mood for Rainbow’s usual nonsense.

“What do you want, Rainbow?” Twilight snarled at the pegasus through gritted teeth, feeling the vein in her forehead ready to pop out.

“S-Sorry, sorry. Aheh.” Rainbow apologized, spitting a few last laughs while wiping her eyes, wet with her amusement. “I just came looking for you. The guards are in position guarding the Thornes Room. You wanted this, right?”

Twilight then noticed a rune-carved metal collar hanging loosely from one of Rainbow’s fetlocks. An inhibitory collar. Currently deactivated, it followed the same principle as a ring for a unicorn's horn, but sized up for larger, hornless creatures like griffons or diamond dogs, even though the latter had little innate magic that needed to be blocked out. Nonetheless, it was as good a temporary measure as any, or so Twilight hoped. It’d chase the ambience magic from the human and prevent it from pooling inside, tearing him asunder in the process.

“Good,” Twilight grumbled, taking the offered collar in her hoof since magic would have little effect on it. “Have you seen Fluttershy returning? I think I’ve loosened enough magic to at least stand nearby without making things worse.”

“Actually…” Rainbow rubbed the back of her mane as her wings kept her aloft. “The girls are all downstairs with the creature already. You’ve… uh… you’ve been up here for a while…”

‘Great…’ Twilight deadpanned inwardly, resigned to the fact that everything was going to go wrong today.

“Then let’s not waste another moment,” Twilight uttered in short, letting gravity take hold of her and plunge her on a free dive toward the ground, aiming her muzzle at the unmistakable shape of her castle while letting her wings carry her in the stream.

“H-Hey!” Blindsided by Twilight’s suddenness, and far from liking being left behind, Rainbow pumped her wings to catch up behind the purple alicorn.

The short glide back took the winged mares above the bustling streets of Ponyville, lined with numerous thatched houses and more than one colorful business. With the early hours of the morning quickly flying by, the market was in full bloom with the town’s residents skipping from post to post, filling their bags with as many goodies and delicious treats as their hearts desired.

In other words, your usual rural landscape, nothing but good news to Twilight, for it seemed her failed experiment and little stunt in leaving the confines of her castle in a heap hadn’t raised a mass flood of panicking ponies, either storming her place in demand of answers or fleeing the town altogether. However, some wayward chatter reached the mares on short fragments. Ponies were wondering what the heck had been that tremor that had shaken the town.

‘Good. Better to keep that accident and the human out of the public eye for the time being. At least, until the princesses can take a look at him.’

Twilight prayed Celestia would continue being the neverending well of wisdom that had always sponsored her since her days as a filly under her personal tutelage. The scandal that would ensue was the least of Twilight's concerns. In her irresponsibility, she’d appointed herself as the mare in charge of not only fixing her mistake and returning the human to where he belonged, but of guaranteeing his safety and wellbeing until then.

Being a princess meant that she'd have more than enough resources to tackle both issues at the same time. What tugged at her withers the wrong way was how the human would likely take the news. If there was something that plagued the alicorn more than any spawn from Tartarus ever could, it was disappointing somepony, especially her close friends.

And now that she had an otherworldly visitor at her metaphorical doorstep, Twilight would rather she become friends with him than the opposite. Both for her innate desire to learn what little or much the human could spare, and because she knew the best medicine he could use right now was a friend or two at his side.

‘Yeah, right. ‘Cause I’ve been such a ‘friend’ to him…’

In a sense, Twilight felt as if the human was now standing in the exact same place she’d stood when first arriving at Ponyville a lifetime ago, but with clear disadvantages compared to her first meetings with the mares who would later become her family away from family.

If nothing else, it made it all much more personal to Twilight, a task hardening her resolve and blissfully clearing her thoughts of everything but that new sole purpose she’d assigned herself. Perhaps she was unworthy of it, but she’d take it nonetheless, out of sheer sense of responsibility as a ground base.

Twilight landed at the stairs leading to the main entrance, with Rainbow fast on her hooves. In quick succession, the alicorn didn't spare a second and teleported them both without warning into the musty corridor that divided the entirety of the castle’s underground cellblock in two halves. Never in her short reign had Twilight imagined that any of the cells would’ve needed to be used. Thankfully, it wasn't exactly to hold a fiend at bay until proper judgment was delivered…

She hoped.

The echo of her teleportation bubble bounced around the stone walls and columns lining every steel-barred hole, ample enough to fit five ponies comfortably on one go if the need arose.

Alarmed by the crack of the spell going off, the ponies learned of the arrival of the last two members of their group, the rest of the mares plus one baby drake having joined Applejack once Fluttershy had returned with Doctor Fauna and her own set of medical supplies for non-equine patients.

In the same way Twilight was feeling regarding her own elucidations and theories on the human, both Fluttershy’s and Fauna's collective knowledge regarding the care of animals could only be applied as far as similarities went between this strange creature and the fuzzy and feathered critters that shared the land with them.

“Girls! Is everypony here?” Twilight called out, dipping her head into the last row of cells where she’d instructed Applejack and Spike to bring the human. She only had the poor illumination of the torches to guide her eyes, since the Dimeritium-reinforced cell would prevent her from casting any sort of spell and, hopefully, would also grant the human a reprieve with the absence of ambient magic harming him, reason why she wanted him down on this depressing depths.

“Over here, sugarcube!”

Twilight and Rainbow followed Applejack's call, the latter squirming uncomfortably with twitchy wings. Her pegasus instincts rejected close spaces. Rainbow still didn’t understand how Fluttershy could tolerate the walls closing in in her cozy cottage.

Twilight, for her part, swallowed an uneasy gulp when coming in contact with the Dimeritium’s magic-stealing influence. With her magic rendered more or less loom, she could clench it if needed with twice the normal magical input, Twilight braved the last few steps into the cell to join her friends.

The accommodations were a bit cramped with all the ponies and the drake filling the space around the human, who had shunned his previous arrangements to plant himself against the far wall of the cobbled cell. Fluttershy and Fauna sat on their haunches in front of him, just shy of brushing his crossed legs, a manner of sitting that painted Twilight as very uncomfortable, if not outright painful. Yet he seemed more at ease than before.

‘How are they bending like that? Ouch.’

Pinkie was more than happy to hold a big, warm-lighted torchlight over her head to grant the two critter professionals some much-needed illumination. Rarity and Applejack stood attentive and curious on their hooves at the edges of the semicircle, the former doing her best to avoid soiling her pristine coat and tail against the musty, depressing walls closing them, her mind already at work clearing a spot in her tight schedule for an emergency spa visit as soon as her hooves could trot her there.

The pink mare craned her neck back to peer behind her, and tapped her rear hooves excitedly. “Twilight, Rainbow, look!” Pinkie chanted with merriment and gusto, nudging the torchlight towards the human’s direction, making the light point directly at his beady eyes for a moment and forcing a grimace on his mouth as he squinted. “He's awake!”

True to Pinkie's lively words, the human at least stood, or better said sat, more aware than before, on top of the fact that he wasn't bleeding anymore, as far as Twilight observed under the bright light of the torch.

Her eyes needed a moment to adjust. He did not have apparent difficulty breathing beyond the steady, albeit deep rising and falling of his chest. Twilight patted herself on the back, her on-the-spot plan having worked like a charm.

It also meant that the collar she was currently carrying in her folded wing should also work to keep the magic from harming him outside of this small safe spot, as this special cell seemed to be succeeding at the task for the moment.

The human, nervous streams of sweat trailing down his brow and cheeks, for the musty ambiance was also starting to warm up with so many fuzzy creatures in an enclosed space, remained very still under the experienced mare’s careful scrutiny. While Fauna had snuck a stethoscope under his clothed chest and was counting the beats in her head with a pursed tongue, Fluttershy attended to the being’s right arm, kept away from supporting his weight while the shy mare exhibited no trace of her regular hesitation. She was gently, but thoroughly testing his arm’s range of mobility in search for dislocation or internal tissue tearing of any kind. Thankfully for the human, what they previously believed would be a serious injury, seemed nothing worse than a nasty bump and some tender flesh. Still, a grimace of pain would flash his fangs to the torchlight every time Fluttershy motioned the limb with her wings to its stretching limit.

Twilight drank in his alien anatomy during the short oasis, this time focusing on the field of movement. Overall, she drew many similarities with her little brother Spike, who was also present beside Applejack, a claw resting on her foreleg for support. The human’s limited range of mobility and limb-bending capabilities was a mirror of the young drake’s with what little Twilight had to work with. She blamed their similar bipedal posture as the culprit. She was nonetheless disappointed with the rich number of clothes hiding most of him, although she, just as their resident fashionista, did not skip a careful look around his choice of ensembles.

Twilight found what painted her to be an unzipped jacket of sorts, dark blue with a few pockets on its flaps as well as the chest, a white shirt peeking out from underneath the cozy-looking coat. By the thickness of it, Twilight wondered if the human perhaps originated from somewhere cold, knowing he had no fur under all that silk. His choice of thick cargo pants strengthened her theory. Sewn in a dark cream color, numerous pockets also filled their length down his folded legs. Some were empty, while others sparked Twilight’s imagination around what sort of human gimmicks they could be hiding.

On his rear claws… Twilight was unsure as to how to refer to his rear not-hooves, the human wore a pair of sneakers with a brand symbol that neither Twilight nor Rarity recognized. All in all, they looked stylish enough, but one could only wonder why he needed to wear a pair of those outside of the winter season or terribly arduous landscapes where one’s hooves would be compromised.

Had Twilight caught the human in the middle of climbing a mountain or something? The questions kept piling on and on.

“Um, is it doing alright?” Rainbow, also having taken a hot second to better take in the sight of the human, asked them both, trotting for a place beside Applejack and drawing from her closeness to fight off the innate claustrophobia that plagued all winged creatures worth their feathers… or membranes, take you pick.

Well, all besides Fluttershy, but she had always been a unique case, preferring the ground to the skies.

“He’s lookin’ dandy tah me, Rainbow,” Applejack answered with a bit of a lip, unbothered by the pegasus’ closeness. Having been keeping an eye on the strange fella until her friends had assembled, she could testify that his state had at least seemed to improve a tad under her watch. She’d headed off for a moment to get him some water, the way his breath was coming out like sandpaper being ground all over his muzzle hinting at her of the urgent need for some. The half-full glass and the small jar she’d brought from the kitchen remained to be touched, though.

“I can also give the green light from here,” Fauna called once her de visu examination was over. Having checked his heartbeat, lungs and blood pressure, she also added a quick search for any hidden bleeding and a quick-yet-undisguised examination of those teeth because those predator canines could simply not be ignored. “Hmm, omnivore, it seems.”

Satisfied with her findings, Fauna looped her stethoscope back around her withers, sending a silent prayer thanking Faust for the well behavior of her newest patient, since not all critters reacted well to her pricking and prodding. “Although, I am taking a bunch of liberties here on his vitals. I can confirm a steady pulse and no liquid invading his lungs. But, if you want my opinion on whether or not he’s running a fever, or if there’s something else that’s broken, there’s only so much I can do from here.” Fauna kept a sympathetic frown over the creature, who long ago had lost the will to even return the gesture, simply gazing into the nothingness with hazy eyes as the critter experts ran their tests on him.

He might have been out of danger where his body was concerned, but more than one pony could agree that the striking lack of life streaming out from him was both unnerving and pretty concerning. That was something neither Fauna nor Fluttershy could chip in to fix.

‘Celestia, he looks as if he’s being drained by a changeling.’ Twilight pictured, noticing his pale features and wandering eyes. About the tone of his fur-less skin, she could only draw a line. But in this state, she might as well just tie him to a couple of posts, put up a pedestal, and present him as the entrée piece of her own garden of statues to rival Celestia’s.

“I’m also good on my end,” Fluttershy followed the veterinarian, concluding the short physiotherapy session, caring more about his physical well-being than his emotional state for the moment. “I don’t feel any broken bones, and he seems to be able to move his limb all the way in all directions with only slight discomfort. But… um, there is some swelling on his shoulder, and the skin is turning a bit purple and tender.” Fluttershy’s droopy wings were a mirror for her aching heart that suffered for this new, strange creature. “I guess he took a nasty hit when he came out of that portal.”

At her words, a flicker of life returned to the human. For a moment, Twilight could’ve bet some semblance of understanding was the force behind that small twitch that rocked his body. His attention was not on the immensity of the vacuum separating them anymore, but on the yellow mare who, in her gathering of her own medical supplies, hadn't noticed the spark of awareness in the chocolate eyes fixing on her for a brief spell before falling back to their rag-doll state.

‘He… He can understand us?’

“That’s great news!” Pinkie broke the purple mare’s train of thought in her celebrations. Quick as lighting, she passed the torch to Applejack, tying it up to her hat with a string of ribbon she’d pulled out of somewhere before falling shy of glomping the human if not for Rainbow's quick intervention in keeping her tail rooted. “Did you hear that?! You’re going to be fine! Aaaaaand, you know what that meaaaans~” Pinkie sang with dancing eyebrows, to the slight befuddlement of the human who barely acknowledged her presence.

“Pinkie, dear. I don’t think that this is the best moment for any sort of party planning.” Rarity gently chided the over-sugared mare, not needing to attend to the amusement park that was her mind to guess what was already itching to come out.

“Ah agree with Rarity here, sugar.” Applejack, needing to rebalance her hat with the newly-added weight while making her look as if she were wearing a poor choice of miner’s hat, placed a calming hoof on Pinkie’s back. “Ah believe some introductions are ‘n order first. There’s also a bunch ‘a things we gotta clear out.”

“Awww…” The pink missile deflated like a balloon before the human’s feet. Seeing her energy seeping out for the moment, Rainbow let go of her puffy tail, spitting a few pink hairs from her muzzle in the aftermath.

“Pugh! I’m with AJ on this!” Rainbow butted in roughly, her instincts clawing at her nerves for some sky above her head. Or at least, a very tall ceiling. “But, whatever we do, can we pleeeeease do it somewhere less depressing… and cramped?” She pleaded as far as her tomboyish nature would allow to lower herself. You wouldn’t catch Rainbow ever being as afraid of something like a simple, stupid, highly-enclosed… wing-unfriendly… breath-stealing trap like this one…

Nope, no you won’t. She just needed to use the little fillies room, s’ all.

Pinkie was of the same mind too, citing that gloomy cell absolutely NOT the place to throw out her ‘Welcome to Ponyville slash You survived your first dimensional jump huraaaay’ party. Ooooh, this new creature was a literal sea of possibilities to the pink mare. There were exactly six hundred and eight flavors of cupcakes his poor, uneducated tongue had yet to taste. Pinkie was positive about it, and thus would see it remedied!!

“W-Well…” Just as Twilight was about to chip her two bits against Rainbow’s proposition, Fluttershy spoke her mind, her thoughts still on the recovering creature, still as ghostly and absent as when the purple alicorn first found it. “Do you feel well enough to move around?”

Fluttershy asked, hopeful for an answer of any sort. Her gift of understanding her little fuzzy friends, as if she was talking to the pony next to you, would normally prove invaluable in a situation like this. Yet the shy mare barely managed to gain a half tilt of his head, his chest heaving back and forth with strenuous effort. If those two well-experienced mares couldn't find whatever it was that still ailed him, Twilight wasn’t sure she could add anything else that would not call for the use of magic, assuming that had been the driver of his poor condition to begin with.

Another short, tension-filled silence choked the air from the cell as all present perked their ears expectantly. That was until Rainbow's patience finally ran dry with a snort.

“Bah. I’m tired of this. You gals can fret over him all you want, but I’m outta here.”

“Rainbow, wait!” Twilight hollered just as the prismatic mare was about to hoof it out of there so that she could wing it ever further. The truth was, Twilight saw no other way but to rely on her magic to see this human returned to health. She couldn't think of any other alternative out of the horseshoe. She’d wrack her brains, and call in for all the existing shortcuts and looparounds that her mind could conjure if that's what it took to cast the least invasive magic-requiring spell on him. Just a gentle, superficial arcane brush, with no more push than a unicorn foal’s first wayward bolt of magic out of a sneeze.

Whatever it took. She just had to help him.

“Applejack,” The farm mare perked up under Twilight’s call for assistance. “I’m going to need you to help him back up.”

“B-Buh Twilight!” Applejack cried, yet the alicorn’s mind was set.

“Trust me. I have an idea… Another idea” She assured the orange-furred mare who for a moment felt twilight was toying her in circles. The alicorn then addressed everypony and drake present just the same. She’d have an idea, soon enough, she was sure. Her friends needn't be aware of that minor detail, though.

Reaching behind her, Twilight removed the inhibitory collar from under her wing and slowly presented it to the human. For whatever reason, he seemed to acknowledge her presence more firmly than the rest, but in the means of his body tensing up, some sort of trigger firing inside him, making him flinch and squirm back uselessly against the wall. Seeing this reaction, Twilight would've preferred the silent, detached treatment over this.

The whimper that left his flat muzzle made a very uncomfortable lump find its way into Twilight's throat, the nature and significance of the collar absolutely NOT missed by the beady-eyed human.

“Oh, nononono!” Twilight was quick to assess what had scared him. She’d be shedding her feathers too in buckets if their roles were reversed. “It won’t hurt you, see? I’m not collaring you like that! It will help you.” To prove her words, Twilight undid the latch of the collar and placed it around her own neck. The size was a bit too small to fit properly around her withers, but it should be enough for the human's more slender, shorter neck. “It’s an inhibitory collar. It’s made from null-stone-Dimeritium-alloy. Like these cell bars, nutwith special overhang runes to trigger its effects at will. It’ll absorb the magic intended to go into you and dispel it. It’ll keep you safe outside. Promise.”

It was Twilight’s hope that, even if a language barrier prevented words from being understood, the sentiment of her message somehow found its way into the human. That she meant him no harm. That she wished nothing but to help him, to amend her mistake.

The human for his part contemplated her offer. Asked any other time, he’d have admitted how, besides the fact he was seconds away from pissing himself out of sheer panic, he couldn't help but find this entire situation both enlightening and tremendously humiliating. These talking… fucking talking ponies pretended to put a collar on him. He would bet an arm that a leash was gonna follow it very soon. A tiny part of him wanted to fight for the notion of the roles needing to be reversed. From him, he was meant to hold the leash, not be the one collared by it.

He was beyond sensible reason, though. The fact that these stuffed animals were basically telling him sweet and simple that he was going to be chained up, and most likely paraded around, made him no less enthusiastic of his current situation, but at least confirmed they had it in mind to keep him alive for the time being… he thought.

Actions spoke louder than words, and the human had no words to offer in return.

Twilight saw his prolonged silence as approval of sorts, yet her hooves would not budge the moment she registered a very much pony-like scowl tug on his brows. Having her magic indisposed inside this specially-concealed place, designed to contain threats of levels similar to hers, she’d have to get close and personal to loop the collar around his neck. And the human was not making any invitation to take care of the humiliating task by himself.

Gulping down the ball of nerves, Twilight forced her legs to move, a trembling hoof carrying the collar in front of her while her friends stood on edge behind her, the most physically adept of them ready to jump in at any suspicious twitch.

The human’s larger frame meant she’d need to get waaay closer than what she’d prefer. His crossed legs served as support as she balanced herself on one foreleg, moving the open collar by its front so that the loose rear part would come to loop around his neck. Enough exposed, furless skin peeked free from the seam of his clothes to make it feasible.

Sweating profusely, Twilight clenched her eyes and drew from all her mental resolve to see the task completed with some semblance of dignity, yet the way her rear legs quaked, with her teeth following that example, didn't paint this maneuver in what you’d say was a heroic light.

‘Pleasedon’tbitemepleasedon’tbitemepleaseCelestiahavehimnotbitemeI’llbegoodIpromise!!’

*Click!*

Just as her mind was beginning to send phantom signals telling her that her neck was being ripped open, the collar was fixed in place, resting snugly against his raw skin. Twilight managed to get in closer than she’d expected, her muzzle brushing past the right side of his face since she needed to make sure the lock was secured in place, or the runes wouldn’t fire up, which they did with a soft hum.

Twilight could feel his long, deep breathing tickling her left ear, his chest climbing up and down against her own. Her snout was taking a sample of his scent without a conscious command from the mare. His scent was undoubtedly masculine, yet different from the stallions she rarely held any close contact with besides professional business… Very sad.

A dominant taste of salt, followed by what she could only describe as a mixture of clovers, metal, and something completely unique to him. Far from displeasing, if not a tad captivating, but unmistakably alien.

The alicorn did not dwell on it for even a second longer beyond what she absolutely needed to make sure everything was in order. The moment she was done, she pulled back with the celerity of her speedy pegasus friend on an intercept course for a mug of Applejack’s cider.

To her dismay, and the ponies' surprise, the human reacted, truly reacted, for the first time since having been dragged down to that depressing cell. A hand flew to her withers faster than anypony could react, freezing the mare in place just as her snout brushed the tip of his triangular nose.

Twilight’s heart raced out of her chest and ran a few laps between her shaking legs. All her herd-animal instincts fired in unison, her horn jumping ahead of her mental commands and trying its dammest to conjure a teleportation bubble to put two-thirds of Equestria between her and the human.

Alas, she was as defenseless as a stranded kitten without her magic without overtaxing her magic with reserves she did not currently possess. Twilight would have to trust her friends to reach her before the human could chomp down on her.

Said thing didn't come to pass as the seconds slowly trickled by. The human kept Twilight in place while her friends remained at the edge of their hooves. The scowl on the human’s features had graduated into a hand-chiseled glare, his chocolate eyes fixed on the mare’s pinprick ones. His breath tickled the sensitive hairs of her snout, the mare now able to taste it in her own breathing. This kind of sudden closeness would’ve thrown any mare on her hooves should a dashing stallion have been on the opposite end. Sadly, for Twilight, she understood these were the last moments she’d draw breath.

‘Yep. That’s it for me. I hope one of the girls will take care of Spike for me…’

“T-T-Twilight!” The same drake that filled her last thoughts called out to her on the verge of tears, and a heart attack his little heart barely managed to deal. He was being kept behind a protective foreleg belonging to the resident fashionista, whose horn also glowed a feeble, useless shine.

A growl or a snarl would’ve been expected to come from the human’s throat before the end, a prelude to the impending jugular tearing. Yet, to the befuddlement of one positively frightened alicorn, the time to meet her creator wouldn't come from his hands. In his piercing glare, he searched for something in her eyes, something Twilight could not put her hoof on, but fixed her lavender orbs on his smaller, no less expressive ones. Some many emotions rushed back and forth between alicorn and human, it was an indescribable experience.

A hot minute passed over, where not even the tip of a tail flitched. Having found it or not, Twilight couldn't be sure, but the human released her suddenly, and a tad rudely.

Twilight fell back on her rump, her rear legs and wings kicking into overdrive to drag her sorry flank away from the dangerous creature. The spark of intelligence still shone in his eyes, yet this primal show had erased any semblance of confidence Twilight thought she’d built with him from the mare’s mental chalkboard.

Spike threw himself over his older sister protectively, growling at the offending creature with smoke billowing from his nostrils and fire ready to be breathed from his throat. The human, unflinching against the dragon’s protective display, was too ready for a change of scenery. He felt his right shoulder and dimmed it well enough.

Using his arms as leverage, brushing off the pain emanating from his right one on which he had, indeed, landed, the human rose to his feet. His towering height quickly imprinted on all ponies present, making them collectively take a cautionary step back as far as the cell’s clamped space spared.

“Fry my rump with lightning, that’s a tall fella,” Rainbow mumbled under her breath, Rarity nodding wordlessly at her side.

The human’s dominating stance lasted a full three seconds before another wave of nausea made him reconsider. Haunching down and shifting back his center of weight, his rear and back held his size against the stone bricks while he squeezed his throbbing temples with a throaty moan. For a moment, Twilight feared he'd collapse on them there and then, visually erasing the progress of the last half an hour.

To her relief, or perhaps dismay, her mind was still on the fence about everything, the human pushed through the nausea, fighting it down with some hard bumps of his balled claws against his forehead. Said treatment seemingly had healing properties, for he blinked the last of the spots away and was ready to get a move on, his right arm hanging down somewhat awkwardly while the left motioned towards the open door of the cell.

The crown jewel of that morning came when, against their previous beliefs and, to their utmost and undivided surprise, the human made it well-known that he had, indeed, been following since the very beginning.

“... Lead.”