Stacking stones

Chapters

Tabula rasa
All wet
Where there's smoke
*Clang*
The long road
First contact
The Ponish Inquisition
Breakfast and Geography

Tabula rasa

(Author notes- Don't worry, this is almost certainly one-time thing.)

This is my first attempt at a proper piece of fan fiction. Don't worry, it is indeed human in Equestria, but it's going to take a couple chapters before the "Equestria" half of that becomes blatantly obvious.
The setting as of chapter one is a mountain downrange from Smokey Mountain, also known as "That place from Dragonshy", so this is hopefully enough to keep this story from from violating any rules. The first chapter is short because it is a test chapter intended to gauge interest in this particular variety of story.

Now that all of that is out of the way, on to the story proper.

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You wake up with a splitting headache. Groaning, you roll over and pull yourself into a ball. Leaves crunch beneath you, and a bird trills somewhere overhead. There's a tickling at the back of your mind that tells you something isn't right, but trying to think about it just makes your headache worse. Thinking about that can wait until later, you decide. After a few minutes of laying down, curiosity wins the mental tug-of-war, and you pull yourself up and look around.

From what you can see of your surroundings, you're in some kind of dense forest, in a small clearing at the base of a cliff. It's pleasantly warm, and there's not a cloud to be seen. Trying to think of other forests you might have been in to see if you can figure out where you are, only draws a blank and another dull throb of pain from your headache. Shaking your head and rubbing your palms into your eyes in an instinctual effort to clear the pain, it finally sinks in that you have no idea where you are. At all. You are completely, utterly lost.

Not that you didn't already realize this, but the ramifications of this fact have settled into your mind. You're in the middle of a forest. You don't know where it is, and therefore you also do not know what weather to expect, what temperatures, wildlife, plant life, hostile cultures, natural dis- you grab a nearby branch hard enough to snap it as you pull yourself out of a panic attack. Once you calm yourself down, you sit down on a mossy rock. Okay, step one. What do you know? First off, you woke up here. You don't remember anything prior to that. You also have a splitting headache, but are otherwise fine.

Something clicks during your self-review. You can't remember a damn thing about how you got here or about yourself, but you can remember plenty of other things. Amnesia. Retrograde, not that you remember how in the nine hells you know that. Nine hells, Dante. The inferno. Slumping backwards on the rock, your mind runs through a flood of useless facts and trivia by association. Somewhere around "A man in France once ate an entire Cessna", you sit up and decide to make for higher ground, if only to get a feel for the area you're in.

You meander around the base of the cliff, before spotting a steep but climbable rock slope that evens out into a rolling hill before meeting sheer cliff again. Slowly, you make your way up, but it's not the easiest climb. Once you haul yourself onto the grass, you lay back for a quick breather. You prop yourself up against a tree, and lazily look out across the forest. In front of you, the trees roll on in an endless sea of deep green, until the haze claims them off in the distance, fading to blue. You let your head slide to the left, and see a mountain range stretching off into the distance, tapering off many miles away. There's no easy way out in that direction. Sighing, you turn your head to the right.

You blink. You blink again. Wow. That's a big goddamn mountain. It in, in fact, so tall that you have to tilt your head back just to see the top of it, where the steep, steel-grey peak soars past the clouds, earning a generous cap of snow. A low whistle slips past your lips in appreciation of the sheer height of the daunting spire. A few minutes crawl by during which you just stare at the mountain, trying to match it up with anything you might know. You don't succeed. Your eyebrows knit as you continuously draw a blank every time you attempt to think of places you have been, mountains you have seen, or mountains people you know have seen. It's fairly easy for you to remember plenty of famous mountains, and even a number of not-so famous mountains, but you're fairly certain the one you are staring at isn't one of them.

Admitting defeat, you pull yourself up. As you scan the the grassy piece of land, you notice a cluster of caves further down the cliff, and some bushes lining the side. It appears the only way up or down is the steep slope you used to get up. That's a relief, at least. God, you hope there aren't bears in those caves. Or mountain lions. Or tigers, oh my. No, that was just cheesy. You walk slowly along the edge of the cliff, making sure to stay far enough away that the rock won't crumble under your feet. The bushes are some kind of berry bush, but you know better than to eat mystery berries. Thankfully, from what you can see, the caves appear very shallow, and the one that isn't is lit by a natural skylight. It's empty. That's a relief.

By this point, the sun is beginning to set, and you need to find somewhere safe to sleep, just in case. Thankfully, you realize the tree you were leaning against is perfect for sleeping in, the branches forming a bowl shape as they split from the trunk maybe six or seven feet up. Only a few branches are lower than that, and the lowest is just far enough down for you to grab if you jump. You haul yourself up and into the tree, feeling very much in touch with your genetic ancestors. Eek eek, ook ook, and all that. Hopefully, you inherited the disposition for sleeping in trees.

As you fall asleep, your mind taunts you with visions of banana splits.

All wet

You wake up with the lingering whispers of a dream rattling around in your head. Something about kilts and hats that yell about wind. You're not sure you want to know. Your headache is gone, but sleeping in a tree is playing havoc with your back. Sitting up, the first thing you notice is the black all of storm clouds rolling in along the mountain range. That's not exactly the first thing you want to see in the morning. You clamber down the tree, nearly falling off of the last branch.

Okay, mental checklist time. First, you're hungry. Second, storm. Third, you still have no idea where you are. Stomach first, questions later. Your gaze wanders to the bushes you saw yesterday, and you decide that just looking can't hurt. You don't even have to get that close to realize they are black raspberries. Cha-ching! Jackpot. You use your shirt to hold the several handfuls of berries you picked as you make your way back to the tree. That's when a raindrop lands right on your nose.

Looking up, you realize that the storm clouds have moved overhead. Not too far in the distance, you can see sheets of rain hammering down on the mountains. As you watch, the wind begins to pick up, thrashing the tree's branches to and fro. You decide the cave looks very good right now, and break into a run towards it, still carrying the berries. The cave you ran for was the deeper cave you noticed before. Hopefully, there's not a bear in it. You jog into the cave just in time for a blast of wind to soak you with rain. Ah, yes.

Well, there's your shower for the day. You pull your shirt off, carefully setting it on the floor. Your eyes have adjusted to the darker interior of the cave, so you look around. There's a pool of water off to one side with a natural skylight above it. It seems fairly shallow. The floor of the cave is sandy, with the occasional jutting rock. Further back, the cave walls close in and form a corner. Across the cave from the pool of water, there's a slab of stone that's more or less flat. Looks like you found somewhere to sleep, at least. You sit down on the side of the slab, and stare out of the cave. The storm is absolutely raging at this point, and rain is being blown into the cave by the roaring winds. Lightning tears across the sky, followed by a peal of thunder loud enough to make your ears ring.

Well, that was loud. For lack of anything else to do, you lay back on the slab and try to catch a quick nap. The storm roars on outside. You close your eyes and let your mind run free as you relax. You open you eyes. The storm has passed. You fell asleep, apparently. It's dark out. You sit up and stretch, earning a series of pops for your arms and back. Ouch. You eat a few berries, and walk over to the water pool. You scrutinize it, able to make it out from the shaft of moonlight hitting it. Nothing's alive in there, and it seems clean enough, but you decide not to chance it. You walk outside, and look up.

That's not normal. The moon is larger than it should be, and the craters don't match up to what you know it is supposed to look like. In fact, it seems unnaturally devoid of craters or lunar features in general. It's giving you the creeps. You look for familiar constellations, and a few. Some are missing, and others are changed. You feel panic begin to take hold. What the hell is going on? Where are you? A deluge of questions that you cannot answer pours into your mind. You stumble back into the cave, barely holding it together. The last thing you need to do is have a meltdown in an alien environment with god knows what going on outside and- Damn. You just stepped in your food.

You look at your shirt. There's a big splotch of reddish-purple right in the middle of it, and it seeped through both sides. That's going to stain. Actually, you think, aren't black raspberries sometimes used as a dye? You decide the berries are ruined anyways, and thoroughly grind the berries into the shirt. By the time you're done with your makeshift stress ball, the shirt and your hands are both soaked in the red juices of the berries. You wash the shirt off in the pool of water, and hang it on a tree outside. You'll find out tomorrow if it worked. At least it took your mind off of your situation for now.

It's still the middle of the night, and you've managed to throw off your entire sleep cycle because of that storm. You really wish you had a fire right now, but you don't even have dry wood to start one. Why couldn't you have wound up here with a lighter? Wait. You mentally and physically palm your face as you realize you haven't checked your pockets since waking up yesterday. You shove your hands into your pockets and find a distinct lack of anything. Hey, wait! You've got a pack of gum in one of your pockets. It's all melted and gooey from being in there so long, but it doesn't have lint stuck in it, so you pop a piece into your mouth. You set the rest on a rock near the slab.

Minty. You lay back down and chew as you try to think of what you should do. You decide that you're not getting out of here anytime soon, so you begin to make plans for making the cave a bit more livable. Doors are always a good idea, you figure. And shelves. But these require wood, and you don't have an axe. Maybe you can find flint and make a crude knife or something? You groan, knowing you really don't have the slightest clue what to do in a situation like this. You wish you knew some songs to keep yourself occupied, but you don't. Time passes, and you drift off into a dreamless slumber.

Where there's smoke

You wake to the smell of smoke. You scramble off of the slab before your brain catches up to your instincts. You're in a cave. The only thing you have to worry about is the smoke. You hold your breath and cautiously poke your head out of the cave. There's no fire, so you pull your now reddish-purple shirt off of the tree. You wet it on the leaves of the tree, then tie it around your face. You're pretty sure that's supposed to help prevent smoke inhalation, but you're not sure. You cough as you inhale another lungful of smoke. Nope, definitely doesn't help. You untie the shirt and put it on properly. You look around for the source of the smoke. You find it almost at once. The extremely tall mountain you saw yesterday is wreathed in smoke. This is odd, because you are certain that you didn't see any trees on it yesterday.

Your rumination about the smoke is abruptly cut short by a rumbling that seems to shake the very mountains. Shortly after, the cloud of smoke grows larger as more flows from the mountain. That had better not be a volcano. Unsure of what else to do, you sit on the same mossy rock you sat on yesterday and watch the ominously smoking mountain. Like clockwork, there will be a rumble, and another burst of smoke. It seems disconcertingly like the breathing of some titanic beast. Thankfully, the wind picks up and pulls the smoke away from your cave and across the mountains. You sit there, watching the smoke for what seems like hours. It's certainly more interesting than staring at the roof of the cave.

Shortly after that thought crossed your mind, you see something colorful flying around the mountain. It looks like a large bird, but you realize that at this distance, it would have to be at nearly as big as you to even be visible. As it is, it's barely a speck of blue against the smoke. You wait, and hear rumblings from the mountain, this time without a pattern. If you didn't know any better, you would say you heard a party horn in there somewhere. Suddenly, a roar echoes down the mountains, and you tumble backwards from the rock. You sit back up just in time to see the same blue speck go barreling away from the mountain before it comes to a stop and flies back. Now you're even more confused.

A series of thunderous booms echoes from the mountain, followed by a sound somewhere between a roar and a yell of frustration. Another plume of smoke rose up from the mountain, but this one seemed almost horizontal. Silence falls, and then you hear something you didn't expect. You hear a voice. It is so loud that you can make out the words from where you are, even though it is clearly coming from the mountain. You have to strain a bit to hear, but you can clearly make out the words "But that rainbow one kicked me." There are no words for how confused you are right now. Again, you hear the voice. "But, I-" before it is cut off. You realize you are hearing half of what must be a very interesting conversation.

As you begin to question your sanity, the voice begins crying. You don't even want to know. There's a pause, and then something massive and red circles the mountain before fling directly overhead. Your heart jumps into your throat. It's a dragon. An actual dragon. And it's carrying a massive collection of gold, gems, and other valuable and shiny items. Your mind is doing back-flips as you sit in dazed silence and watch it fly into the distance. The smoke dissipates a while after it leaves, and you realize you were hearing a dragon snore. This elicits a chuckle from you, snapping you out of your stunned state. Judging by what you heard, it's not coming back. The thought that there's something out there that can make a dragon cry causes a chill to creep up your spine. Just what are you in for?

Then you realize that there might be something up that mountain worth looking at. You decide that come tomorrow, you'll set off to find a way up. Even if you don't, you might find something useful. Walking over to the raspberry bushes, you crouch down to see how many are left. You harvested maybe a fifth of them. There are plenty to bring along for when you set off down the mountains. You just hope you can remember where this cave is if you don't find somewhere else safe. You turn around to make your way back to the cave, and promptly eat dirt as you trip and fall flat on your face.

You spit out the clump of grass and soil as you pick yourself up and brush the dirt off of your clothes. You look back, and see something shine in the grass. It's some kind of metal cuff, gold if you aren't mistaken. Oddly, it seems about the right size to fit on your wrist. Realization hits. There might be other people here! Or maybe the dragon ate them. Still, it's an interesting find. There's a complex looking clasp, which is currently open. You shrug and fit it on your wrist. The first thing you notice is that it's cold to the touch, but warm on your skin. You snap it shut, and admire how seamlessly it fits. There are runes of some kind on it, but it's not anything you recognize. Maybe where there are dragons, there are wizards? Couldn't hurt to check.

You stare at the cuff, willing something to happen. Nothing does. Oh well, it was worth a try. You look for the clasp to take it off. You can't find it. That's not good. You trace your fingers across the entire thing, scratching and prying at any break in the smooth surface. It doesn't release. You growl in frustration and bash it against the rock. It clangs and hurts your wrist, but is otherwise unaffected. With your luck, you think, the thing's cursed. You watch the moon rise, and head back to the cave. You once more lay down, and slip out of consciousness. Your dreams are of snow and ice.

Clang

You wake up with your shirt frozen to the slab. You peel yourself off, thankfully without leaving your shirt behind. Shivering, you sit up and warp your arms around yourself as you try to warm up. The entire cave is coated in frost, and the pool is frozen solid. You look outside, where the sun is shining and the birds are singing. It's warm out. You look back inside where the frost is slowly receding. The ever more frequent sense of confusion presses down on your mind. You look around, trying to pick out anything odd. You tap your hand against a rock a you try to think. The result is a loud clang. What the hell was that?

It's that cuff from yesterday. Surprisingly, you had almost forgotten about it. Now that you think about it, you realize it's not cold. The cave was freezing, so it should be as well. You're still cold, and you're not even made of metal. Against all logic, the cuff is still warm. You wish you were. If only you had a blanket. Or central heating, where the warm air comes up out of the vents. You can almost feel- Wait. You can feel it. You're no longer freezing, you're comfortably toasty. You scrutinize the cuff. Nothing's glowing or moving, but something is definitely going on.

You walk over to the slowly thawing pool of water. You pick a chunk of ice out and place it on the floor of the cave. You look at the cuff and back at the ice. You concentrate, imagining the ice being wrapped in hot air. Nothing happens for a few moments, but then the ice starts melting rapidly. Your concentration breaks, and you can feel warm air waft past you as it disperses. You stare at the cuff. The runes on it are wrapped around in an overlapping pattern, weaved to and fro. You still have no idea what they mean, but apparently they somehow change the temperature around you.

Sighing, you walk out of the cave. Magic bracelet or nor, you're still going up that mountain. Besides, you're hungry enough to eat a horse. The raspberry bushes are your first stop, and you have an idea. You pull your shirt off again, and break a branch off of a nearby tree. After breaking all of the twigs off, you fill your shirt with raspberries and tie it to one end of the branch. Hobo bag complete. Idly, you wonder if there's an actual word for that. Unknown words aside, you now have an easier way to carry these berries around now. You grab a handful from the bush and eat them, wishing you had something more filling. You stretch and look out at the mountain. It doesn't look to be farther than maybe four miles away.

You slide down the slope back down into the woods. Taking a moment to orient yourself, you set off towards the mountain. The woods are pleasant, with the trees being neither sparse or overgrown. As you walk along, all sorts of birds sing overhead, peeking over the branches at you. Speaking of birds, you pick out one call that sounds familiar. It's almost like the clucking a chicken, but not quite. You hear it occasionally as you walk along. Unexpectedly, you hear it right next to you as you reach a brook. A large bird with coppery feathers is strutting about nearby. It's a pheasant, you're sure of it. Your stomach rumbles. Pheasants are game birds. You haven't had anything to eat besides berries in days.

Keeping your eyes on the pheasant, you slide your shirt off the pole you made, and grab a rock. Miraculously, your attempts at making one end pointy pan out, and are quiet enough not to spook the pheasant. You creep forwards, until you are mere feet away from the unknowing pheasant. You ready your pointy stick. Reaching down, you grab for a handhold to steady yourself. A loud clang echoes through the woods. The pheasant bolts. You bury your face in your hands and shout in frustration. Grabbing a rock, you toss it into the brook. Unexpectedly, you spot silvery shapes swimming away from it. Okay, you can salvage this. Fish instead of pheasant.

Five minutes of frustrated jabs at the water later, you have collected exactly zero fish. You're not cut out for hunting. However, an idea strikes you. You concentrate on the water around a decently sized fish, and visualize all of the heat being sucked out of it. In short order, you have a block of ice with a fish in it. Grabbing a rock, you break the fish out of the block. There's no shortage of dry twigs, and there's a patch of dead, dry grass not too far off from the brook. You make the beginnings of a fire before realizing you don't exactly know how to make a fire. Friction is key, but beyond that, you're unsure.

Again, your thoughts slide to the cuff. You don't know what side effects this thing may have, other than apparently turning you into a popsicle at night, but you aren't glowing from radiation or puking out your liver yet, so you figure you should be fine. The sun is creeping towards the horizon, so you focus on heating just one miniscule piece of the grass until it burns. It begins to smoke, and a single ember appears. You quickly bend down and feed the flames. They spread, and you add fuel to the fire. Soon enough you have a decent sized fire. Now, for the fish. You're not sure if you have ever cleaned and gutted fish before, but you're satisfied with your efforts. You eat nearly the entire fish, and a handful of berries.

The sun is starting to go down, and you're almost to the foot of the mountain. By the time you reach the treeline, the moon has slipped into the sky. You groan as you realize you're going to have to sleep up a tree again. Scrambling up one tree, you're able to climb onto another which is more suited to sleep in. You hang the pole and bag in the branches, and wait for sleep to take you.

The long road

Waking up, you feel sympathy towards accordions. Trees are without a doubt the worst places to sleep. As you stretch, you can feel pieces of bark fall out of your back. It itches a bit. You pull your... You still don't know what to call this thing. You pull the hobo sack out of the branches, and tuck it under your arm as you gingerly make your way down the tree. Dropping to the ground from the lower branches, you swing the pole back over your shoulder. A little too hard, apparently, because the shirt comes undone and flings blackberries in a wide arc. Well, at least there will be more berries growing here next year. Not that you intend to be here then. Looks like it's time to forage again.

Wandering around, you spot several kinds of mushroom that you don't dare eat, a few berry bushes, and an gnarled looking tree which catches your eye. Approaching the tree, you realize it's an apple tree. The apples are small, but you know for sure what they are. You quickly grab an apple and bite into it. You spit it out almost instantly. Crabapples. God, that's sour. As you scrape your tongue into your teeth trying to get the taste off, you spot something. On the ground near where you spat out the crabapple, you find a wild strawberry. Looking around, you realize you're in the middle of a patch of them. Out comes the bag, and in go the strawberries.

With that out of the way, you once again orient yourself towards the mountain. You weren't too far away from the treeline, and as such you quickly found yourself back at the foot of the mountain. Wandering around the base of it, you find nothing but sheer cliff. However, the sound of running water draws your attention. The source is a decent sized river which runs through a massive canyon. The canyon is not wide, but it is tall indeed. If your sense of direction is right, it cuts right through part of the mountain. You note that the mountain rests one one side, and on the other, a path winds along the cliff. You decide to follow the river. After a mile or two, it winds away into a group of rolling hills and small mountains.

From here, you manage to reach the area on the side of the canyon across from the mountain. Once you've wandered around a bit, you manage to find an animal trail that leads up into the cliffs. It's steep, but you manage to clamber up it. From there, you follow the natural paths along the cliffs until you reach the top. From here, it's apparent that the cliffs slope towards each other. In fact, they're barely three feet apart in some spots. Walking up to one such spot, you give it a cautious whack with the stick. It doesn't crumble. You whack the other side, and it stays solid as well. Taking a running start, you leap across the gap, not intending to test the integrity of the overhang any more than you need to.

You land on the other side. Now comes the task of climbing the mountain. Steep as the slopes may be, they are still fairly easy to climb. You follow a minding route up the side of the mountain, weaving back and forth across it. Eventually, the path reaches a plateau. Sitting down, you catch your breath and eat a few strawberries. As you sit, you go over the twists and turns of the path in your head. If you started out with the dragon's cave on your- You abruptly jump up. Sure enough, the cave sits just beyond the next bend. Carefully, silently, you make your way to the mouth of the cave. Tentatively, you lean your head out past the wall and look into the cave. No sign of the dragon, at least. The walls are supported by carved columns of dark stone, partially sunken into the stone of the mountain. The floor also shows occasional patches of the same dark stone.

By the time you reach the chamber that the dragon must have been using, you are convinced that something or someone else made this place, and the dragon only took advantage of it. Looking around, you spot several small piles of gold and other objects that must have been left behind. Amongst them, you find a tapestry. It depicts some sort of variation on yin and yang. Rather than being black and white, it is pale blue and pale orange. The sun and moon take the place of the dots of opposing color. Even more strangely, two horned pegasi are wrapped around it, each one matching the colour scheme of the side they are on. Maybe the culture here reveres horses? For all you know, pegasi are a real thing that they ride into battle.

Regardless, this thing is going to make a great blanket. The discovery of the tapestry incites a thorough search of the other piles. Digging through the currently useless gold, you find several other items of interest. You find another cuff with the same runes as the one currently stuck on your wrist, but this one has odd indentations. They remind you of the shape of cut gems, but you can't be sure. After that, you find a silver flask engraved "aqua". Now, you're no linguist, but you know that's Latin for water. It's empty, which brings you no surprise. What does, however, is that when you actually say "Aqua", it fills with water. Okay, impressive. You continue your search.

A stylized capital I shaped necklace which has no apparent special properties. A newton's cradle made out of jade, gold, and impossibly rubies the size of your eyes. You have absolutely no use for these, but at least the cradle is entertaining. You find a dozen or so more interesting but otherwise normal items, but little more. However, you do find a gem that looks as though it would fit in the other cuff you found. You are hesitant to put the second cuff on, but eventually decide you might as well. It snaps on, but you are surprised to find that this one has an easily found latch. A simple push and twist causes it to drop from your wrist. You put it back on and insert the gem. Unlike with the other cuff, the effect is visible.

Very visible, in fact. All of the runes flash, and a tendril of what you assume is gold slides out from the cuff and across the gem, holding it in place. Runes seem to etch themselves across it as you watch. You quickly detach the cuff. For a few minutes, you just watch it. Nothing more happens, so you put it back on. Regardless of the weird glowy runes, these cuffs look pretty awesome. With nothing better to do, you decide to mess around with your temperature-bending magic armband. You concentrate on the air in front of you, and envision a sphere of ice. Two things happen that you did not expect. One, water is pulled out of the flask you found earlier. Two, the runes on the new cuff glow. Actually, make that three things. The third is the bowling-ball sized chunk of ice that lands in your lap.

Several minutes later, the ice is disposed of, and you walk back outside. The moon is out, lighting the area in front of the cave as you walk out. It's cloudy tonight, as you find out when your only source of light is blotted out. You groan in annoyance. As you stand up to go back into the former dragon's lair, something catches your attention. Off in the distance, you can see lights. They are faint, and partially obscured by the mountain, but they are there. Lights. Civilization.

You make your way back inside. Wrapped up in the tapestry, you fall asleep with a grin on your face.

First contact

The sun is just starting to climb into the sky when you wake. Despite sleeping on a stone floor, you feel unusually well rested. Pulling yourself out of the tapestry, you grab a handful of strawberries and drink a few mouthfuls of water from the flask. Time for the mental checklist again. Okay, lights off in the distance. You remember roughly where, so that's good. What do you have with you? Looking around, you take inventory of what to bring. Okay, bottomless flask. That's coming with you for sure. Hobo bag? Check. An idea strikes you. That tapestry could come in handy. For several minutes, you try wearing it or tying it to the pole in a variety of ways. None of them really work.

Eventually, you opt to just roll it up and tie the ends together. With that done, it becomes fairly easy to carry, reminding you of a duffel bag. A quick search of the small piles of treasure nets you a plain gold pin, which you secure the tapestry's knot with. Spying a piece of jewelry with an iron chain, you pull it out of the pile and yank the heavy gem off of the chain. The chain loops through the flask's lid without a problem. You decide to attach it to one of your belt loops. Right, time to go. As you walk out of the cave, you scoop a handful of gold coins into your pockets. Better safe than sorry, right?

The journey down the mountain is easier now that you know where you are going. In fact, you begin to wonder if the paths are animal paths at all. Once you reach the other side of the canyon, the rocky terrain quickly turns wooded. You trudge on, occasionally taking a drink from the flask, or eating some strawberries. Eventually, you are able to see a break in the trees. Once you reach the treeline, you spot tilled soil. Apparently, you've stumbled onto a path of farmland. Ahead, you can see a dirt road. Rolling hills with patches of farmland and lines of trees line either side of it. The hills are tall enough to block your view of whatever may lie ahead, to your displeasure.

Throwing caution to the wind, you walk out of the trees and to the road. There's nobody in sight, so you decide to walk along the road, heading away from the mountain. It's nearly noon by this point. As you crest the hill that was blocking your view before, you stumble a bit in shock. Ahead of you, a town sprawls across the landscape, and- Oh god, are those thatch roofed cottages? You can see brightly colored dots milling about. Okay, so it's a medieval culture that likes bright colors. That, or this is just a really poor town, and this place has some serious disparity between income classes.

Admittedly, you have no idea. Ahead of you, the path winds into the town. Off in the distance, you can see what you are pretty sure is an orchard. One building in the town is far taller than the others, maybe a town hall or a church. A tall hill sits out in the woods, closer to the town. You make your way through the woods and up the hill, and observe the town. The dots continue to mill around. It looks like there's a market or something of the like in the town square. From here, you can easily make out the orchard from before. Apples, acres and acres of apples. You could really go for an apple right now.

Sneaking up to the fence of the orchard, you crane your neck back and forth. Nobody's around. You hop the fence, and pick an apple. It crunches as you bite into it. The apple is juicy and sweet, unlike your brief experience with the crabapple. Wolfing it down, you untie the tapestry. After dumping the strawberries out of your shirt, you slip it over your head. With the tapestry unfurled on the ground, you begin picking apples and tossing them onto it. Once a decently sized pile has formed, you tie the corners together as tightly as you can. "Hey!" Hey yourself. Wait, what?

You look towards the source of the shout, and see only a stetson on a fencepost, and a small horse. Pony? Whatever. You don't care about the pony, you care about where the owner of the hat is. For all you know, he has a gun. Or a bow, if the thatch roofs are any indication. "Don't you play dumb, ah see all those apples!" Where the hell is she hiding? It's got to be a she. Keeping your head on a swivel, you reach down to pick up the apples. Just as your gaze sweeps over the pony again, "PUT 'EM DOWN." Holy SHIT, did it just talk? Is... Is it glaring at you? The eyes shouldn't be that big. Too expressive. It looks confused, but still angry. "What in tarnation are you, anyways?" Yes, it talks.

You respond in a perfectly calm, rational manner. "WHAT THE SHIT?" As the pony rears back from your unexpectedly loud response, you grab the sack of apples and bolt. Without warning, you tear through the town as you sprint back towards the mountain. Ponies. The entire town is inhabited by talking, huge-eyes ponies. You don't even know what the hell. Jumping a fence, you find yourself in a schoolyard. No time to look, time to escape candy-land. Unfortunately, you wind up tripping on one of the apparently child ponies. As if that wasn't bad enough, you step on it's head wear. Wasting precious seconds, you tear the gaudy tiara out of your boot. You swear you can still hear the orange one chasing you.

Up ahead, the fence is too tall for you to jump. Oh god. Acting on instinct, you freeze the moisture in the air into a block, which you jump onto and then over the fence. Looking over your shoulder, you see not only the orange one chasing you, but also a purple one. Is that a horn? Oh god, you're going to get gored. You feel something tugging at your shirt, and see it enveloped by a pinkish-purple glow. So is the horn of the purple... Unicorn? Unicorn. In the heat of the moment, you belt out the worst one-liner ever written. As you freeze the air around her horn and hooves, you yell "Ice to meet you!". Oh hey, you remember watching that movie.

Sudden revelation of knowing part of your past experiences aside, you've still got an orange pony wearing a stetson and a murderous look chasing you down. You don't think ice is going to stop this one. Even though you are running as fast as you can, she's still catching up. Okay, hot and cold. Uh. Hot and cold fronts make storms, maybe you can just... You're not sure if the laws of thermodynamics are more lenient here or what, but next thing you know, a blast of air knocks the orange one onto her back. Soon enough, you're out of sight of the town. Into the trees you go.

Eventually, you make your way back to the cave. Darkness has fallen, but the moon was absurdly bright as usual. You manage to only trip a couple times on the way up. Crazy pony village is no longer on your list of places to go visit. Maybe you can just stay up here? Wait. What if they know you're up here? You jog back out to the canyon. Staring at the only way across, you come to a decision. If you can blast air, maybe you can do other things involving heat. Lots of heat. You concentrate, and a line of scorching heat forms on the stone. It bubbles and hisses, wearing through the ledge. With a thunderous crack, it falls into the canyon. There's no way across now, unless ponies suddenly grow wings. Wait. The tapestry. They had wings on that.

Well, hopefully that's just a myth. Dumping the apples out into a few golden bowls you found amongst the treasure, you wrap the tapestry back round yourself, and again drift away to sleep. You dream of a great wall, and a tower of stone as black as night.

The Ponish Inquisition

Yawning languidly, you slowly wake. Unexpectedly, your attempts to follow through with your morning stretch are unusually difficult. Blinking off your sleepiness, you try again to move your arms. They are bound. A quick flex of your leg reveals that your ankles are as well. Rolling over, you are greeted with the sight of the same two ponies you outran yesterday, and it looks like they brought some backup. Groaning, you roll yourself into a sitting position and stare them down. The purple one scrutinizes you.

Snark mode engage.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you it's not polite to stare?" Hah, now THAT caught her off guard.
The orange one smirks before turning to the purple one and saying

"See Twi? Ah told you it talks!" Wow, okay. Totally okay to talk about you when you're right there. Not to mention that you now have the nagging feeling that you were just the subject of a bet.

"Hey!" You shout, catching the attention of all five ponies currently milling around your cave. "First thing's first." You nod in the direction of a white unicorn-pony or whatever the hell you call them. "Put that back." The white one sheepishly sets a large jeweled necklace back down. How was she even holding it? It had to be magic. When you witness a total violation of any natural laws, it's magic. That's how things seem to work around here.

You realize you just spaced out in front of your captors. Refocusing, you address them again. "Now, do you mind telling me why you tied me up while I was sleeping in my own home?" Of course, you know damn well that it's because of all those stolen apples. "Worth it. They were delicious." Wait, did you say that last part out loud? Well, damn. The orange one, who had wandered off while you spaced out, whipped her head around so fast her hat turned sideways. That is not a pleasant look that she's giving you.

"You stole from mah farm." She states it in a very matter-of-fact way. "You ran through the town, nearly trampled a bunch of poor fillies an' colts, and froze Twilight!" Twilight, who is apparently the purple pony, clears her throat.

"Applejack, I have a theory as to why he-" You cut her off.

"Or, you know, you could just ask!" Struggling against your bonds, you glare daggers back at Applejack. "If you untie me, I'll answer your questions." Twilight tilts her head at you quizzically. She's clearly trying to figure out how likely it is you'll run. Joke's on her, your legs hurt too much. Twilight motions her friends over to her. Are they seriously doing a huddle? Yes, yes they are. After a minute or two of whispered debate, they break the huddle, and Applejack walks over to you.

"Now, ah don't really know if ah can trust you, but Twilight says we should at least give you a chance, and ah have to agree with her." Well, at least they're reasonable peo- ponies. You can feel Applejack grab the ropes binding you (somehow), and they quickly come undone. Pulling yourself up to your full height, you note that these ponies are seriously tiny. As in, barely waist-level. Rolling your arms to get the feeling back into them, you pull the tapestry over to you and sit on it.

Now eye-level with the ponies, you grab your flask and take a sip. "Okay" you say. "Ask away." As you expected, Twilight is the first one to ask. She seemed like the inquisitive type.

"Where did you get that tapestry, and why were you using a valuable relic as a blanket?" Oh boy, she's glaring at you now. Rubbing the back of your head, you answer.

"I found it in here, and it was warm." The glare softens a little. "It's not like I knew it was valuable at the time. If you want, I'll trade it to you for an actual blanket." Okay, she's not glaring at you anymore. She actually seems kind of concerned. That same look is starting to creep across the face of- Wait, that one wasn't in here before.

A yellow pony with a pink mane is half-hidden behind Applejack. The yellow one whispers something into Applejack's ear, and Applejack's expression shifts from mild surprise to a look of realization. Applejack clears her throat. Pointing at the bowls full of apples, she says, "Fluttershy asked me to ask you why you took all these apples." You wave at Fluttershy. She squeaks and dodges back behind Applejack. Alright then.

You answer Applejack with a flat "I was hungry."

Fluttershy leans her head out past Applejack, and quietly asks "Have you eaten anything besides those apples since yesterday?" You shake your head. Thinking back, the most filling thing you've had in days was that fish. As if reading your mind, Twilight decides to ask another group of questions.

"Doesn't something your size need to eat more than that? What do you eat, anyways? Why didn't you just ask somepony for food if you were so hungry?" Slow down there, speedy. You decide to answer her before she keeps going.

"Yes, I do, and basically anything that grows or moves. I didn't ask because I honestly didn't know what to expect in the town. I didn't even know it was a town of ponies until Applejack caught me." Might as well be honest, right? Except maybe that wasn't too good of an idea. Most of them, with the exception of Fluttershy, are eying you warily. It's Twilight who speaks up.

"What do you mean by 'anything that grows or moves'?" Uh-oh. Ponies are herbivores. No amount of backpedaling is going to get you out of this one, so you answer truthfully.

"I'm an omnivore, so I eat fruit, grains, vegetables, and meat. Nothing sentient though, so don't worry!" You pause. "The uh, the fish aren't sentient around here, are they?" Twilight shakes her head no. That's a relief, at least. Your addendum about sentient things seems to have calmed them down, thankfully.

Unexpectedly, the white one pipes up from the front of the cave.

"What are you wearing?" You look down. What, does she have something against jeans? You look back up at her.

"I'm wearing denim jeans, a cotton shirt, and hiking boots. Why?"

The light blue one wings over near your ear and whispers "Rarity's a fashion nut." Ah. Well, that answers that. Again, 'Rarity' fires off a question.

"Do all of your kind wear so many clothes?"

You raise an eyebrow. "Yes we do, why?"

Her face lights up like a child's at Christmas. You're unsure how to feel about that. The mention of "your kind" gets Twilight's attention.

"What do you call creatures like yourself, and why do you wear so much clothing?" Why didn't she ask that first one earlier?

You answer "Humans, and we wear them to protect ourselves from the elements, and as part of our culture. Plus, you can carry around all sorts of things in them. Pockets are great." It's getting cold in the cave.

You stand up. None of the ponies back away this time. You look down to Twilight. "Would it be possible to go back to the town? Maybe explaining all of this will calm things down." That's not the only reason you want to get to the town. There must be a cold front moving in or something, because it's goddamn freezing. That, or it's because you're way up a mountain.

Twilight hesitantly says "I guess we could do that." You and the five- Wait, shouldn't there be six, counting Fluttershy? You could swear you saw six of them when you woke up.

"Hold on a second," you say. They all stop. "You never bothered to introduce yourselves." Twilight opens her mouth to answer, but the blue one flies up next to you and points at Twilight.

"That's Twilight, she's an egghead." She points at the white one. "Rarity." The yellow one. "Fluttershy." Fluttershy buries her head in her mane. "She's uh, shy." The blue one points at herself. "And I'm Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus in Equestria!" Oh hey, she actually said something useful. Now you know the name of where you are. Applejack coughs. "Oh, and that's Applejack." Rainbow dash taps her hoof against her chin. "Wait, where did Pinkie go?" Well, that answers that question.

Twilight just looks at her. "It's Pinkie Pie. Do you really need to ask?" She turns to you. "Well, now that you know who we all are, what do we call you?"

You smile. "I'm-" Uh oh. Red alert, full stop. "Uhh" Quickly, engage make shit up mode! Blackstone? No. Apple... cup? You're not a pony, so no. Uh. Rainbow Dash pokes you.

"You okay?" You stare blankly at the wall. She waves a hoof in front of your face. You snap out of it.

"Huh?"

She pokes you again. "You kind of zoned out there." Oh right. Name.

"Well, I uh. I sort of may not remember my name?" If her eyebrow went any higher, it would leave her face. You shrug. "Amnesia or something." You walk towards the mouth of the cave, but freeze mid-step. "I think I've got one. I mean, it's not my actual name, but whatever." Rainbow hovers next to you. She looks at you expectantly.

"It had better be cool," she says. You grin.

"Maxwell."

Breakfast and Geography

By the time you and the ponies make it back to the town, none of you are really in any shape to do anything besides sleep. Even though you're practically asleep on your feet, you're still coherent enough to find the fact that Twilight lives in a tree weird. As you stand there staring at it, Twilight walks right into the back of your legs. "Ow!" She just poked you in the back of the knee with her damn horn. Goddamn, that smarts.

"Sorry! Sorry. Are you okay?" It feels like you just got stabbed in the leg.

"It feels like I just got stabbed in the leg." Redundancy achieved. Too tired to care. Where is a place to sleep, where? A moment of vague fumbling with the door later, Twilight guides you into the library.

"Wait, I forgot to ask earlier- where do you come from?" Twilight's curiosity has apparently overcome her sleepiness.

"I come from another planet, I think. Now, do you have a guest room or something? I'm about to pass out."
She says something about a blanket, but you're nearly asleep on your feet. The last thing to enter your mind is the feeling of something soft wrapped around you, and then a deep, dreamless sleep takes you.

Something delicious smelling greets you as you wake. After your brain finally pulls its ass into gear, you hear sizzling and put two and two together. Delicious bacon! It must- wait, no. Herbivores. Some kind of stir fry? Would a stir fry even work for breakfast? Do eggs count as carnivore food? Whatever, it smells delicious. Also, something's fluffy and warm, and wrapped around you. Where did this blanket even come from?

Barging into what is apparently the kitchen, you scare Twilight quite thoroughly.

"WHERE DID THIS BLANKET- Is that a dragon?" It's a tiny purple dragon, holy shit that's awesome. The dragon slowly nods, not breaking eye contact. Then, it speaks.

"Twi...light? Is there an alien in the kitchen? Am I dreaming again?" You pinch a dragon. Common sense has no place in your mind today. Twilight rolls her eyes at the unfolding parade of shenanigans, and hovers a plate over to the table. Is that hay arranged to look like bacon? What. Another plate floats onto the table. Oh man those are PANCAKES. You know they taste delicious, but you can't remember when exactly you've eaten them before. Time to deal with it. By eating them. Now.

"Yes, Spike, he is an alien. Well, in a way. Basically, the ambient magic generated by a large number of artifacts in the hoard of the dragon on the mountain reacted to an unusual spike of energy created by an unknown source (possibly one of the previously mentioned artifacts), resonating on just the right frequency with the fabric of space-time to cause a multiversal cascade event, which-" Any coherent train of thought Twilight had was not only brought to a screeching halt, but derailed, tragically killing all the exposition aboard. This was most likely due to the face that you and Spike had engaged in a pancake-eating contest.

You stare down your scaled opponent. The blasted battlefield (messy table) separates you by mere feet. Both of you are splattered with the blood (syrup) of your enemies (pancakes). As one, you draw your swords (forks), and utter battle cries (actual battle cries) as you dive for your final goal. A resounding clonk echoes through the house as you and Spike inadvertently headbutt each other in your overly dramatic attempts to be the first to reach the last pancake. Twilight stares blankly at the shameless display of showmanship and supreme stupidity on the part of both you and Spike.

"Ow."

"Ow, balls."

"What, like rubber ones?"

"... Yeah, let's go with that."

Twilight continues to practice for poker night as she observes the idiot in it's natural habitat. After you and Spike finish the last pancake (and rubbing your heads in pain), you introduce yourself to Spike.

"I'm Max, and going by what Twilight McAskstoomanyquestions over there called you, you're Spike." You extend a fist. "We're cool, right?" Spike adopts a quizzical expression. Okay, handshake, maybe? This time, you get positive results. Awesome.

"Yeah, we're cool. Uh, Twilight's kind of staring at you." Ah, so she is! It's uh, kind of creepy.

"Spike. Quills and paper now. Maxwell, main room. Chair. No more headbutting." Twilight's current expression could make a nun feel like they did something wrong. Man, you're in the shi- She just winked. WE'VE BEEN HAD, CAPTAIN!

There's a chair and a cushion set up in the main room of Twilight's library/house. Speaking of said pony, she's still chuckling about the look on your face after you realized she was pulling a fast one. Oddly enough, the chair seems to be made for a human. You're just going to assume she made it with magic.
Once you've both settled down, and after Spike divides the paper and ink evenly between himself and Twilight, the barrage, nay, blitzkrieg of questions commences.

"Okay, Max. Name and describe your home planet, in as much detail as you feel you should." Easy enough.

"We Humans call our planet "Earth". Original, Huh? One moon, one sun. Somewhere below three-quarters of the planet is covered by ocean, with two big groupings of landmasses, each with a multitude of smaller islands. The first contains two continents, North and South America."

"Can you sketch them for me?" Despite having basically no idea how to use a quill, you manage well enough. You also fill in the rest of the globe to the best of your ability.

"Okay, so the rest of the stuff I drew is like this. Under South America is Antarctica. It's cold enough to make you wish to be on fire. That's really goddamn cold. It's also icy. That's basically it. This over here is Australia. Basically, everything there can and will kill you if you give it the chance. It's still nice from what I hear, as long as you know what to avoid." The conversation goes on like this for a while.

Twilight hands the stack of shoddy geographical description over to Spike, who starts copying it down onto his stack of paper.

"Okay, can you describe Humans? Just a sort of general statement first. We can get into details after that." Wuh-oh. That's going to be a bit harder than a pop quiz on world geography.

"Okay. How to put this." You grab a piece of paper and a quill. "Okay, diagram time." You draw a line along the paper, and divide that in half with anther line. "Line graph, diagram, close enough." You point to the left side. "Let's say this is the capability for bad things. The further from the center, the worse it gets. On the other side, it's the potential for good." You draw a line that starts just a little bit into the bad side, but extends all the way into the good side, ending in an arrow. "This is the conclusion I have drawn about you ponies so far."

"Fair enough," says Twilight.

"Darn right it is. Okay, so this is humanity." You draw a line that extends all the way from one side to the other, ending in an arrow on both ends. "We can be our own greatest monsters, and yet we manage so many good things at the same time." You stare down at the paper, deep in thought. "Our greatest strength, and weakness, is our diversity and potential."

"Woah. That's deep, Max." That was kind of the point, oh scaled slayer of pancakes.

"That's... huh. Okay Max, how about culture? The arts, traditions, religions. That kind of thing." Oh this is going to be even worse.

"Well, we're a fairly fractured race, culturally. But in general, we really like doing our own thing, and trying new things. There's no shortage of art in every form, culinary masterpieces, so on. Most cultural aspects like food and art get spread globally, and everyone puts a twist on them. Traditions tend to stay contained to the area they originated in, unless tied to a religion. There are exceptions, of course."

"Wait, a religion? Humans have more than one? Why?" She seems really perplexed. That's actually surprising.

"Too many different holy books in the same place at the same time, basically. Plus, conquering civilizations liked to mess around with native religions. And yes, we had lots of wars. Still do, but not nearly as much." War is likely to be a touchy subject with them. I mean, they seem peaceful. So far.

"Who exactly controls the Sun and Moon on Earth?" What. What? You what? I what? What?

"What? The laws of physics do. Gravity, and all that. How exactly does it work around here?" This is going to get weird, you can tell.

"Celestia raises and lowers the sun, and Luna the moon." Huh, that's a new one.

"So the sun orbits the planet?" Don't say yes, don't say yes, don't say-

"Yes." Sun goes up, sun comes down. You can't explain that. Honestly, you're starting to have no idea what to expect of reality anymore.

"Well, that's, uh. That's neat, I guess." Interview over?

"That's it for today, okay Max?" Interview over.

Sliding out of your chair, you pop your back. That chair was ten different kinds of uncomfortable. At least you didn't get splinters from it.

"Oh! I forgot. Max, could you provide an example of a musical from your world?" What? Why?

"Uh, why? Is that important?" Musicals are important to the pastel coloured pony people. What a surprise.

"Musicals are a vital part of Equestrian culture. Due to ambient magic, and the magic contained within all creatures in Equestria, it is possible to-"

"Look, if I sing in my horrible singing voice, will you spare me the lecture?"

"But- Oh, okay. It wasn't even that long of an explanation..." Aww, you made her kind of sad.

"You can tell me later, I guess. I need to think of something for an example. I can't remember anything specific from where I come from, so there's that." Hah, she forgot about that. Maybe you can play the amnesiac card?

"But you said you could remember things, just not how you knew them, or the personal details?" Damn.

"Fine," you say, dragging out the I into a half-joking whine. "Let's see. Musicals. Musicals. Hmm. Famous musicals. Ah!" Please oh please remember the lyrics to this right. Even if you can't sing, remember the lyrics. Here goes.

"I am the very model of a modern Major-General,

I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical

From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news... lot of news. Got it!

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse."

Wait, something sounds off. You can swear you hear- THERE'S A BUNCH OF PONIES PROVIDING A BAND AND CHORUS OUTSIDE OF THE WINDOW, WHAT THE HELL. Wait, you were singing. You were singing well. Hold up.

"Max, why did you stop?" Musical numbers don't just happen like that.

"Because that's not how Humans singing works. You need actors for that. What the hell's going on?" The crowd around the window has dejectedly dissipated, and rather quickly, you note.

"That's how singing works around here, though. Well, usually. It has to do with magic reacting to a-" Captain cutoff, away!

"But I'm not from around here, oh purple science pony. Can you explain THAT?" Apparently, no. Twilight scrunches her face up, apparently deep in thought. Personally, you think it looks more like she just smelled something absolutely goddamn terrible. But hey, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

"Max, things may not work like they do where you come from, but bear in mind that you are no longer where you come from." This is like some cheesy comedic fantasy novel kind of stuff. The kind full of all sorts of cliches and... tropes... A new wave of facts hits you. Tropes, TV. My god, it's full of stars. Countless dozens of tropes flicker into your consciousness, but one stays firm, two words full of subtle horror. Two words that make you realize you may just be in the shit.

"Max, are you okay? Max?" Twilight snaps you out of it, and you shake your head to clear your thoughts, even though that really doesn't do much. The headache returns, but just barely, a dull ache lingering just at the edge of your sense of pain.

"I'm fine, Twilight, but there's a term for this sort of thing where I come from. A term for a land that alters it's inhabitants to a certain set of rules or attributes. For example, such a place might bolster singing skill because musical numbers are "how things work" in said place." Twilight cocks her head to one side.

"You're not suggesting Equestria is not only sentient but also... evil, are you?"

"No, just that it's a Fisher Kingdom."