Chapter 3: "Thy Fairy Kingdom"

"Such mists in forests I have never seen," said Pistol.

"I do not remember a forest here at all," whispered Bardolph. "Or one that appeared larger inside than out."

The road to Gloucestershire had wound through a small forest. Or at least it had looked small from the outside. Once in, it had seemed to grow much larger, although that could have been primarily attributed to the fog which had descended during the evening.

The trail had changed from dirt to grass as well. But at least it remained clear and relatively straight, so they assumed they were not lost.

Each of the six was more intimidated than they assumed the others were. Well, apart from Falstaff, who everyone there knew had courage in inverse proportion to his mountainous size. He had never been particularly superstitious and reserved his fear for armed foes, but this place would have seemed unnatural to even the strongest of men.

Their silence was broken by the glimmer of what looked like a torch shining through the trees ahead. They heard what sounded like the steps of hooves approaching.

Falstaff drew the sword he had pilfered from the blacksmith and ducked behind a tree. "At last, horses to take. Perhaps bread or coin as well."

"Or wine," said Pistol, raising a stick as he motioned the others behind further trees.

"A drench would be welcome indeed. The fog, thick as it is, is insufficiently heavy to drink."

"Peace!" hissed Doll Tearsheet, and they were silent.

Several horses rounded a curve in the path. A dusky red glow emanated from somewhere near the front.

The horses were small; either foals or Shetlands. That explained why they were riderless. But where were the humans? These horses looked barely waist-high, yet the travelers could see no human figures beside them. And yet they heard voices.

Were children walking Shetlands through the woods at night? What possible circumstances could have led to that?

"Can a Shetland bear your weight, Sir John?" Doll teased. "Or children carry bread to feed your girth?"

"If not, they can lead us whence they came," whispered Bardolph.

The voices were closer now. The travelers went silent and listened.

"...should have worked, but I want to check just to make sure," said a female voice, with a strange accent.

"Hey, I thought you didn't know where it was," said another voice, scratchier but also female.

"I don't know the exact position, but it was somewhere close to here, because this was the center of the negative energy wave."

"And exactly how long do you intent to traipse around out here looking for it, before you are satisfied that it closed?" said a third, a surprisingly refined and posh voice. "I do need my beauty sleep, you know."

"And if it turns out we ain't really closed it proper yet," said a fourth, "you gonna walk all the way back out here again tomorrow to try again?"

"Oh all right. But we will be setting some sort of time limit, at least, won't we?"

"Fine, fine," the first voice replied, "I should be able to scan in–"

And they were cut off, as Falstaff, Bardolph and Pistol stepped out from behind the tree, Falstaff roaring, "Halt! Who goes there?!"

For a moment they all just stared at one another. Then varying degrees of shock, horror, awe or bravado played out upon the various lifeforms on the trail.

One of the beasts spread what looked for all the world like wings, and leapt forward. "We might be asking you the same thing!" came one of the voices before, unmistakably from the mouth of the beast itself.

"Rainbow, let's be diplomatic here," urged the apparent ringleader, stepping towards them hesitantly. This beast was also one of the voices. And as it moved closer, they saw that the illuminating glow came not from a lantern, but from a stubby horn embedded in the creature's forehead.

Another bounced forward as if it had springs attached to its hooves, and said in a squeaky voice at a lightning pace, "Ooh, wow! New animals! Fluttershy, get a load of this!"

Close-up, the creatures were terrifying. The bodies of horses... sort of... but faces that looked more like a cross between humans and cats. A range of colors found on no Earthly animal, and various indicators that would make them almost look like the unicorns and pegasi of ancient myths, were it not for the statures and deformities.

One had a horn, another two had wings, and the purple one had both.

Pistol roared, "What devilry is this?!"

They looked confused. The aggressive one said, "Huh?"

Pistol continued, "I say again, what manner of demonic beasts are you, roaming this accursed forest in the witching hour?!"

"Wow, this thing talks like Princess Luna!" said the rapid-talking monstrosity. "Are you a thousand years old too?" It looked at Falstaff and said, "This one certainly looks like it!"

Falstaff might have retorted, had he been able to form words, as opposed to just standing there, frozen and white-faced.

Another beast spoke, "And such ghastly manners! You look more demonic than we do, even without those appalling rags!"

Mistress Quickly leaned out from behind another tree and shouted, "Oh, forgive us if fashion was a marginally lower priority than our lives!"

"They're trying to surround us!" the fearsome one said, noticing the others behind the trees. "Brace yourselves, everypony, we're in for another round!"

Several of the others took fighting stances, but then the leader once again halted them. "Girls, calm down." It cleared its throat and said, "You said, your lives? Are you in trouble? Is something after you?"

"Tell them nothing!" roared Pistol. "We have far too many Earthly troubles, without the legions of hell dogging us too!"

The creature attempted to make peace. "Wait, wait, hold on. I don't know what was chasing you, but if it came through the dimensional rift, it's gone now. We closed it just a few minutes ago. Look, the fog is even lifting."

The fog was indeed beginning to lighten; but as the mists retreated from the trees, it revealed that those trees were now unlike any they had seen before.

It was around this time that the six travelers decided it would be best to return the way they came. But as they turned tail to run, the defiant monster flew over their heads and landed on the path in front of them. "And where do you think you're going?"

"Rainbow!"

"Twilight, how do we know they didn't come from the rift? I've had just about enough of fighting monsters tonight!"

"Rainbow, they're not monsters! They only threatened us because they're scared!" said the purple one with both wings and horns, who was apparently called 'Twilight.'

Pistol turned back towards the speaker, and raised his stick even more menacingly. "Think'st thou so?"

The bouncy pink thing teased, "Art thou gonna do the Royal Canterlot Voice too?"

"We're not your enemies!" insisted Twilight.

"What are you, anyway?" asked the one called 'Rainbow.' "You look kinda like upright monkeys or something!"

Mistress Quickly took a moment to rant, "Monkeys? We are quite human, thank you very much!"

There was a brief but very noticeable pause all around.

Twilight said, "Human? You're humans?"

The posh beast said, "Humans? Ridiculous! Humans are mythical creatures!"

"Uh, Rarity, Ah'm lookin' at some purty strong evidence they're real," said another.

"Well duh, of course they're humans, silly!" the manic pink one said.

"So they did come through the rift!" Rainbow hovered in the air. "Humans in Equestria, huh?"

"Rainbow, stand down!" Twilight ordered.

The monster alighted and appeared to cool down, though still silently glaring.

"I'd like to apologize for Rainbow Dash, I think we're all a little on edge after an... incident... earlier tonight," said Twilight, whom they now surmised was indeed the leader. "I'm Twilight Sparkle. And you?"

Bardolph was still too stunned to reply, Falstaff even more so, and Pistol was still casting glares in a circle around him. Doll Tearsheet and Mistress Quickly had slowly crept out from behind and were contemplating speaking. They were interrupted, however, by a gasp from the one beast who had not yet spoken. After fleeing from the encounter, it had apparently traveled around the sidelines to watch, and had stumbled across the Page, who was still behind a tree. The child's eyes were wide with fear as the monster hovered close, even with its soft and soothing voice cooing, "Oh, look at this one! It's so cute! What's your name, little one?"

The page could only stare. Mistress Quickly sensed the boy's distress and prepared to answer for him, but then whispered to Doll Tearsheet, "What is his name?"

"How should I know? Sir John just calls him 'page,' or 'boy,' or some insult."

The page eventually worked up the courage to reply for himself. But he recalled some old saying about never giving your true name to a demon, so on the off chance his superstitious grandam was right after all, he said, "I am page to Sir John... 'Page' will do for a name!"

"All right. 'Page,' that's a sweet name. I'm Fluttershy. Now there, there, don't be frightened. Are you hungry? What do you eat?"

'Page' became more attentive at the prospect of food. Still apprehensive, though, he took note of the creature's wings and hooves, and timidly asked, "Are you a pegasus?"

"Oh, I see, you've never met one of us before. I hope we're not frightening you."

"We have read of you in books."

Doll Tearsheet whispered, "He reads?"

Quickly replied, "He's a page, of course he reads."

The whirl of pink frizz and energy laughed, "Oh, I get it! We're just storybook creatures to them, like they are to us!"

There was a rather loud silence.

The forest finally began to clear, and up ahead they could see their destination. Far from the scorching pit of demons that the travelers had expected, the village looked reasonably similar to a human town.

While still apprehensive, the travelers had been too weary to turn down the offer of sanctuary, and were approaching with varying degrees of courage. Falstaff appeared to have brought at least a sliver of color back to his face.

They were greeted by a small purple dragon who came running up, gawked at the humans, then whispered something into the ears of a couple of the ponies. Twilight handed it a small stack of papers, which it promptly incinerated with green fire.

Twilight Sparkle and the magenta tornado (whom they had learned was called 'Pinkie Pie') had barely gotten started on the sightseeing visit for their new acquaintances, when four shadows passed overhead. Two armored pegasi, pulling an empty chariot, arrived and disentangled themselves from the harness. One of them removed its helmet (with a motion of its leg that would have seemed impossible for a regular horse) said, "Ma'am, with regards to the rift that opened up, how did the expedition go?"

Twilight said, "It went perfectly. We closed the rift and cut off the source of the dark mist energy, though it apparently shifted through another couple dimensions before it closed. Now, did we ever find out what caused it to open in the first place?"

"The research team at Canterlot are still working on that; they believe they might have the answer soon. And may we ask who and that these beasts are?"

Twilight tried to reassure them, "These 'beasts' are humans."

"Humans?" The armored steed recoiled. "These things are humans?"

"They look like humans, don't they?"

The officious creature, instead of answering, changed tracks. "Did you check to see if they came here through the rift?"

"Of course we checked, and they admitted it. But they were there by accident and stumbled through."

It snorted. "Accidentally? And you believe them?"

Twilight said, with confirmative confidence, "Yes. I may be wrong, but yes."

"Very well. Mythical creatures have been proven real in the past. Until such time as they open negotiations with their homeland..."

"If you would speak of us," said Pistol, "I should prefer you speak to us."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing," Twilight said hurriedly. "They're just worn out."

"Be that as it may, I hope they will maintain decorum when their species is introduced to the nobility of Equestria."

"Pistol..." Mistress Quickly started to interrupt him, but it was no use.

"We have wined and dined with nobility since thou wert in thy metal diapers," said Pistol triumphantly.

"You might want to watch yourself," said the armored pony, arranging a threatening posture. Pistol returned in kind, and the uneasy Bardolph, Quickly and Tearsheet closed ranks with him.

Twilight tried to protest again, but then Rainbow Dash flew in front of her and matched the guard's posture. "No, no, Twi. The humans are looking for a fight, and I wouldn't want to disappoint our new friends."

"Hah! You half-sized beasts expect to turn the tables on us?" Pistol roared, drawing steel and narrowly fending off the guard in a one-on-one fight. Then he turned his attention to Rainbow Dash and shouted his intentions to drive her back as well.

Approximately two and a half minutes later

"I am so, so sorry about this," Fluttershy whispered through the net that the six half-comatose humans had been tossed into for transport back to Canterlot for arraignment. "Are you okay?"

"I am quite well, do not trouble yourself with needless concern," said Page, over the groans of his five fellow travelers. "We do have some experience with the law."