Dreams: Humanity

6: Attentive Intentions of Attractive Attacks

Cian

I woke in the late morning, hours after my battle with a pounding headache and a sore ankle. Well, when I say morning, I mean midday. And when I say woke, I mean I woke, but to the sound of a gunshot.  I leaped from the bed, stumbling as the burning sensation in my ankle intensified and I tumbled through the door, down the stairs and straight into a pony.

The pony was light brown, with a long grey mane and steely grey eyes. “Hey, watch it!” He said in a gruff voice, launching me off of him.

“Sorry.” I replied, finding my feet. “I just got my head kicked in, so sorry if I’m not as accurate quite yet.” I added sarcastically, giving him a look.

“You could hurt somebody; you need to be more careful.” He said, before turning and bolting out of the library. I was ready to follow, when I heard the voice of the lavender librarian leading a certain pink maned pegasus precariously pulling a behemoth stack of books behind her.

“Was that Victor?” She inquired, undoing the harness and letting it fall to the floor, before she undid Fluttershy’s. “He said he wanted to meet you once you woke up.”

That gave me pause, and I thought a moment. Victor is a name I didn’t expect to hear from here. ‘It is odd. Listen, I need a favor.’ What? I’m a bit hurt, I can’t help very much right now. ‘Oh, you don’t have to do anything. Well, unless you want to have a crack at one of the fine mares in front of you. No, I just need you to wait until you don’t have to wait anymore.’ Cool, what, and what? Oh, welcome back by the way.

I shook my head, remembering the mares in front of me. ”I don’t know, he just left.” I left out my accidental assault, but by their faces they didn’t seem to understand.

“After he helped Fluttershy and Solar Flare carry you here, he really wanted to talk to you. I guess he had something to do first?” Twilight suggested, turning back to the books. “Anyways, I checked you over and you’re fine. Fluttershy told me what happened though, and I do have a suggestion: Use your magic. Don’t rely on it, but you have done it before, and it can help you if something like this happens again.” She advised, shooing me away. “Now I have work to do, and a letter to write. Shoo.”

Mirror didn’t object as I was pushed out of the tree by the unicorn with a confused yellow pegasus, who just continued to stare at me. After a few seconds trying to make sense of the situation, I gave up and realized I was being watched. I stared down at the pegasus, who looked away with a squeak.

“Let’s go for a walk, Flutters.” I suggested, regarding the forest path we had taken hours before. She nodded, and we walked together. For a few minutes, I let the silence reign, but my questions got the better of me.

“She said you carried me out of there. That means you didn’t run away.” She shook her head, not looking away from the apparently interesting dirt road. “Why? What if she had tried to hurt you?”

She looked up, ready to reply, when a gunshot rang out farther up the road, towards the woods. We didn’t speak, we didn’t yell, we turned towards the sound. Standing across from each other on the road was the pony from earlier that day, and the woman who shot me, aiming my gun at the equine.

‘Looks like there’s more to this than we thought, huh?’ Mirror joked, though the jokes were unwelcome.

*--^--*

8:12 am, Eden

I watched the pegasus as he worked, dragging boxes across the floor and stacking them against the wall across from the sofa I laid on. I considered helping, but even if I wanted to I shoulder still hurt and I figured I wouldn’t be much help.

I did, however, make conversation when I saw the opportunity present itself. “You say you were a weather pony?” I asked, when he came in with another box.

“Yep! I’m not bad at it, either. I can’t compare myself to Rainbow Dash, or quite a few ponies, but I specialize in weather emergencies, and few ponies can say that they beat me there. Apparently, Ponyville has quite a lot of them, the Everfree produces them or something like that.” I couldn’t share his enthusiasm for the job, but I tried to seem interested anyways.

“What kind of weather emergencies? Tornadoes, Hurricanes and shit, or other magic pony land emergencies?”

Solar Flare gave me a confused look. “Is waste a weather problem in your world? I can’t imagine making a storm out of it, but I wouldn’t put anything past some of the scientists in Canterlot. As for what emergencies there are, those can be a few. Earthquakes and Avalanches aren’t really controllable, but sometimes storms get out of control and that’s why you have ponies like me!”

I giggled at his naivete, “No, shit is a different way of saying ‘stuff’ basically. Damn, you guys really are innocent.”

Solar Flare blushed, “I’m not innocent!” He said defiantly, “Your human words are just weird, that’s all.”He looked out the window, and froze. “Speaking of humans, there's one out there, being carried by Fluttershy and a pony I don’t recognize. Is that the one you fought with?” I jumped off the couch as fast as I dared, rushing over to the window and pulling the drape aside. Sure enough, the yellow pony from earlier was struggling to carry the man who shot me, despite the help from a wingless pony I didn’t recognize either. An “earth pony” Solar had called them.

Solar looked at me while walking to the door. “I’ll help them carry him. Maybe I can talk to him, or at the very least keep them away from here. We can figure out how to introduce you later.” Before I could protest, the pegasus ran through the open door, shutting it behind him. I sighed, watching through the window as he talked with them for a moment, before they continued walking along the path, out of my view.

“This isn’t going to end well, is it?” I muttered to myself, leaning against the wall.

*--^--*

11:21, Eden

I watched the brown colt as he slowly made his way past the house, not taking his eyes away from the structure for any less than a second, only looking away to check that he was walking straight. He disappeared from view, the forest consuming him in its leafy maw. Strange, I thought. Maybe he’s a friend of Zecora’s? That would explain his odd behavior.

It wouldn’t explain the movement from behind me, and as I realized this, I discovered how painful flying through a window could be... Again.

Very, in case you were wondering.

I drew the firearm that Solar had returned to me and fired off a shot towards the area of the window. A flash of movement to I right, and I spun to face my attacker, none other than the colt.

“Somebody needs to teach you some god damned manners!” I shouted, my hazel eyes meeting his steely grey ones. My angry gaze met his hard one. "You ruined my friend's window, by the way."

“Somebody needs to teach you to not be so hypocritical.” He replied, glaring at her.

*--^--*

6:12 am, Vaelyn

I woke with the sun, surrounded by woodland creatures big and small, soft and hard, some with apparently friendly personalities, others with personalities that could be seen as wooden.

There were wood wolves. I saw a bunch of wooden wolves. They stared at me with creepy glowing green eyes, but they did little to show aggression or anger, so I didn’t regard them as a threat.

I rose from the animal pile, stretching as I yawned and rose to my feet. I cracked my knuckles before retrieving my sword and sheathing it, and examining the clearing around me. Little had changed from the night before, apart from the grass being flattened by the many sleeping animals. Hundreds of animals of different sizes woke as the sun began to rise, all staring at me curiously.

“Go home, you all.” I commanded, waving a hand at them. Several of them looked too cared for to be wild animals, and I didn’t want their owners to worry. The ones who looked as such left, though the wolves and a few of the other larger animals stayed behind, staring at me. I sighed, and turned to the house I had slept beside. “Time to explore.”

The house, from the outside, looked strange to me. The way it was painted, the strange windows and the structure puzzled me. It looked to be too large to be supportable, and yet I could see no beams through the windows. I haven’t heard of magical houses, but I suppose it could be possible. The paint was made of materials I didn’t recognize, and it smelled odd to my keen nose. Magic paint? Doubt it. The strangest part was the array of pipes I noticed on the walls. What they were used for, I couldn’t figure. They didn’t seem to be doing anything at the moment, however, so I let them be and entered the house.

The area I entered was open, and empty. Every room after that was mostly empty, save one which appeared to be a bedroom, which was missing part of the wall and was covered in bits of wood and clothing. I left it and the house bored and no more informed than before.

7:20, Vaelyn

I jumped to my feet, snapped out of my daze by two loud cracks further into the forest. Quickly, I sheathed my sword and focused on pinpointing the sound. I stood still for a moment as the reverberations of the sound led me deep into the forest. Not hesitating, I ran towards the source of the sound.

7:42, Vaelyn

“Cian?” I paused when I heard a voice to my left, and listened as the sounds of struggle echoed against my eardrums. I slipped through the trees into a small clearing, in the center of which was a circle of flowers. Off to the right of the flowers was a small horse, pulling on the leg of a young man.  “Cian, please wake up.” She said in a quiet voice, straining to move the body. I examined her from afar, looking over every inch of her body, how her blood pumped in her veins. He quietly snarled as his instincts took over. To avoid being seen, he let himself fall backwards, out of sight.

His back arched, and he shouted in pain.

11:28 am. Cian

I watched as the woman launched herself at the brown colt, who jumped over her, kicking her to the dirt. He flipped, landing bipedal for a quick moment.

“Let’s not prolong this, miss. You tried to kill this man.” He said sternly, pulling a knife from inside his black coat and snapping his head to the side, sending the knife into the woman’s shoulder. I moved to intervene, but stopped when the stallion looked at me coldly. “Do not intervene, unless you wish to be hurt further. I will deal with you next either way.”

Mirror laughed, ‘Seems like you should save your energy for him and just let him take care of her.’ Let him kill the only other human here? Fuck that. ‘You’re an idiot.’ She coughed.

The woman pulled the knife from her shoulder and lunged at the pony, who sidestepped the wild swing and leaped onto her back, but was surprised to be thrown away by nothing. She spun around, jumped onto him, and plunged the dagger into his chest. She pulled it out of him, and rolled off of him, panting.

The gasps from behind me were drowned out by the pounding in my ears. I needed to do something, before the ponies did.

Eden looked up as a bolt of lightning hit her dead on in the head, knocking her out cold.

Then I looked and saw a man in a long black coat staring at me, covered in blood and with a large hole in his shirt. He grinned, drawing a longsword from the sheath I failed to notice previously. “Alright, since can’t tell me how I’m here, I hope you know.” He lifted his sword, eyeing the blade. “If not, maybe one of the ponies will.”

I saw Twilight step forward to my right. “You aren’t going to hurt anypony!” She shouted, and several “Yeahs!” from the crowd agreed. I watched the amusement leave his face and he frowned.

“Are you going to stop me? I don’t want to make my old world, but if I have to, I can.” He smiled again, though less amused and more insane. “Tell me how to get home, or I will just kill you all and *bang* I have my world back.”

I held out a hand, stepping forward. “I wish I could say, but I don’t know. I am just as clueless in this as you are.”

He rubbed his beard thoughtfully, obviously considering genocide, when he shook his head in defeat. “Damn.” He looked back to the forest, and nodded. “Well, I apologize for the misunderstanding and I hope you don’t hold it against me, but if you do I don’t plan on staying to hear it.”

“Wait.” I said as he turned to disappear into the forest, “Help me figure this out. I don’t know why I’m trusting you, but I am.” He looked back at me, looked to the forest again, and nodded.

“Fine. Just know now that if you ask me for something I cannot give, you are not to push the issue. And if I tell you something, treat that like the word of god itself.”  He looked away. “With that said, my name is Vaelyn, I am several centuries old, I can shift my shape and no, I cannot take the form of a pony because he was just killed.” He nodded at the unconscious body of the woman. “Let’s get her out of here, and then we can talk further.”