Birth of a Guardian

It was hours later that we finally finished with the questions.  Twilight levitated the thick stack of papers she had filled into a small bag she put onto her back. They said that we would be paying a visit to their princess afterwards. Meeting royalty huh? Guess I was moving up in the world. The world of cartoon ponies anyway.

It was dark outside by the time we left the library. I had pretty much lost all track of time since my arrival in this place. I stepped out into the pleasantly cool night and was instantly awestruck by the sight. The sky… the sky was so beautiful…

Now I’m not the kind of guy to be all deep or moved by things but this… this was something else…

I stood gazing up into their night sky as the plethora of beaming stars and lights greeted my eyes. The coloured swirls and starlight seemed to dance before me. It was so full of the twinkling light of stars scattered against the deep blue of the night. The ponies trotted up behind me and looked up at me in wonder.

“David? Is something wrong?” Twilight asked me as I continued staring at the sky almost mesmerised by it. It was only by chance that Twilight’s words reached me.

“Yeah I just… your sky. It’s amazing…” I almost whispered as I kept my eyes fixed on the sight. I can remember even trying to memorise every swirl of light, every blink of a star in my memory in case I never got to witness this again.

“What about it? It’s just a sky” Rainbow added floating over. Although the long conversation earlier had eased a lot of the tension and made us all more comfortable with each other, Rainbow still held onto some of the brutish and abrasive traits she had towards me.

“Just a sky?” I gave a shallow smirk at this, “this is not just a sky…” Vaguely noticing the scepticism directed towards me from the group around me I explained it to them. “Back home, where I live, night skies are nothing like this. Our skies are more like a black cloth pulled over the sky. We see the few stars but… it’s like the few we see are barely even bothering.”

Damn… I don’t think I had ever been that deep in my life. But it held the truth. At home it’s like the night sky was having the life chocked out of it. Like other things today, I guess I had never taken any notice of these things. It’s like it was just the normal thing to be. Seeing this with my own eyes and actually being there. It was breath taking. If you could have been there that night, you would understand.

I was broken out of my unusually philosophical state by Applejack nudging a hoof against shin.

“Come on sugarcube, that royal carriage ‘aint gonna wait all night.” Why not? I could…

I remembered earlier how the dragon, I later found out to be named Spike, had written a letter to the princess telling her of the situation and asking her to send transport to take me to see her. I was shocked that how he sent it to her had surprised me after seeing this sight.

“Come along darling, you can thank the princess in person when we get there” Rarity added as she trotted down the road with the others. The princess was capable of this? Damn, back home being royalty was pretty much just a fancy title. To be able to create this sky that princess of theirs had to be a god!

We were being carried through the sky in a large, open topped and very ornate chariot pulled by 4 white pegasus in golden armour. It was large enough for all 8 of us to sit in a kind of circle shape comfortably. It was an exciting experience alright.  The cool night breeze washing over me as I continuously stared at the amazing view.

It had been an interesting day alright. I still had no idea what was going on or what had happened to me but I had realised some things. Firstly this place, Equestria, had to be real. At least on some plane of existence. It was far too in depth and realistic to be imaginary. I had initially thought I was just imagining it or projecting it on reality but… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like, if this is imaginary then how come I can reach out and touch things? How can I feel the breeze of flying through the air? I had to be in some kind of alternate reality.

Whatever the reasons might be I knew that when I return home… I would never forget this. The sights I have seen and the experiences I’ve had, even if most of them were bad. Altough I would have to keep them to myself since no one would believe me, they would probably think I had lost it.

“So do tell Mr. Mason, have you ever met royalty before?” I was broke out of my thoughts by Rarity’s formal and upper class voice.

I turned around to answer. “Unfortunately no” I gave a small smile as I continued, “Today is going to be a first for a lot of things I guess.”

She returned a polite smile of her own.  In the corner of my eye I noticed the yellow pegasus beside her shrink down behind her long pink hair. It had been a repeated response ever since she arrived at the library. I looked towards her curiously. Was she still upset by my presence? The others seemed to be adjusting to it so why was she still acting afraid?

“Oh don’t mind Fluttershy” Pinkie Pie seemed to stretch her head over to me and answered my unasked questions in her hyper pitched voice. She must have been noticing it too. “She usually acts like that, especially when we meet funny new things like you” she explained as she beamed at me.

I smiled at her hyper and cheerful personality. I couldn’t help it; it was like she emitted some kind of aura that made you smile. It was comforting in a way. I turned back around to look over the side of the carriage to the ground below. I rested my arms on the edge of the carriage as the ponies began to chatter amongst themselves about today’s events and my situation. I kept an idle ear on their chatter but soon delved into thoughts of my own.

I had been in this world for roughly half a day now. I had met six ponies and a baby dragon, and was also about to meet the pony princess. I had gathered from my own observations that the ponies I was with seemed to be of some kind of importance in this land, given that they are well associated with their royalty. The world that I had been transported to was like a fantasy style one where the mythical creatures and legends of my world are common fact here. It also seems to be more reliant on magic than technology. It was like the complete opposite of my world, everything here was just so unusual and weird. I did not belong here, that much was clear.

I felt so out of place here, like some kind of oddity, I guess I was really.  All the more reason to get out of here I thought…

We finally arrived at a huge white castle like city built into the side of a mountain. I looked down at the city as we flew over it and saw the pristine white stone houses and buildings lining the cobblestone streets. I guessed that this place must have been like the capital of their land. Being night time and the very few lights still on in the houses, they entire view of the city was bathed in a quiet grey tint with the few patches of the moon’s light reflecting off the white stones.

“This here is the city of Canterlot, it is our royal city and home of Princess Celestia and her sister Luna” Twilight explained to me as if she was reading it straight out of a book. She probably had done several times before in the past.

“Over there is the royal castle where we are heading” She continued, standing next to me and pointing out over the city to a very large fantasy like castle.

We landed on a large disc like platform that stretched out to the side of one of the castle’s large towers. As we all got out of the carriage I was greeted by exactly what I expecting upon my arrival at the castle of a princess, and that was the pointed spears of half a dozen armour clad guards being lowered at me. Of course even though I was expecting it, having a bunch of sharp weapons pointed at you was very unsettling.

“Whoa easy there fellas, he aint no danger to ya’ll” Applejack kindly steeped in as I put up my hands in a surrendering position.

“That’s right, we are here on order of the Princess to bring him here.” Twilight stepped forward to explain as I took a step back from the worryingly close spear heads.

The identical looking guards looked to each other and back up at me. I gave a nervous smile back to them as they lowered the weapons.

“Ok Miss Twilight, we will escort you to Princess Celestia’s chambers.” One of them answered as they bowed their heads.

I wondered how long it was going to take before they all stopped reacting like that to me. That is if I was around long enough for that to happen. We were taken down a long stretch of hallways and corridors. Some lined with fancy stain glass windows, some with large artworks and banners draping the walls.

We were ushered into a large open room that was decorated in the same banners bearing a sun like mark and marble walls and floors as the rest of the castle. At the end of a long red carpet I saw a flight of stairs leading up to a large throne. A very tall white pony made her way down the steps to meet us. She was far taller than the group of ponies surrounding me, coming to about eye level with me. Her hair was… unusual to say the least. It flowed out to the side like it was some kind of liquid and held a multi-colour hue, much like Rainbow Dash’s but a lot tamer. Gold jewellery adorned her form with a tiara placed behind the long horn on her head.

I tilted my head over to Rainbow Dash who was hovering in the air next to me.

“Let me guess, the Princess right?”

Rainbow simply smacked me across the back of the head with one of her front legs as she placed the other hoof on her face.  The ponies around me all knelt on their front legs as the princess approached. I was not paying attention to this however so Rarity had to nudge my ankle with her hoof and gestured for me to do the same. I mentally cursed myself for already messing it up as I quickly got down on one knee to bow to the princess.

“Ahh so I see this is the strange creature that you informed me about. Certainly a very… peculiar one indeed.”

“Yes Princess Celestia, It is called a human.” Twilight answered as she and the others stood back up. I followed their lead and stood back up to face the princess. “I have researched them and found nothing recorded about them before. However the one we have with us here was kind enough to supply us with some information about them” she continued as she levitated the book of papers from the saddlebag on her back and presented them to the princess.

“I wouldn’t expect any less from my faithful student” the princess chuckled lightly as she took the large stack of papers from her and began to skim through them. I saw Twilight grin widely at the praise. So she was the princess protégé, guess I was right in my earlier assumption about their status.

“Oh, so I see our guests have arrived dear sister” I heard a voice call down from above. I looked up to see another pony fly down to stand next to the princess. It closely resembled the first one, right down to the hair flowing but was a deep blue colour instead of white. She also looked sort of younger and was shorter.

“I take it that this is the creature we were told about?” she tilted her head to the side in curiosity as she inspected me. “It’s certainly an odd looking thing”

“Cheers…” I replied to her sarcastically. She looked at me again, her eyes momentarily widening.

“Ahh I see it can talk, how fascinating!” she exclaimed.

“Very fascinating” Princess Celestia said looking up from Twilight’s notes, “It is a pleasure to meet you” she gave me a warm smile, “I am Princess Celestia and this is my sister Princess Luna, we are the rulers of Equestria”

“Nice to meet you. My name is David, David Mason” I smiled back to them and instinctually offered a handshake. They both looked down at my hand and the obviously unknown human greeting. I mentally kicked myself again for the second blunder. Embarrassed, I awkwardly started to pull my hand back apologising when I saw Celestia slowly and unsurely raise her hoof in the same manner. It was the wrong hoof but it still surprised me. I gave her a small smile as I put my hand on her hoof and shook it gently. She gave me another warm and happy smile as I also gave Luna a hand/hoof shake. The ponies all stared closely in curiosity at the simple human gesture.

“It’s called a handshake” I explained to them to slake their curiosity, especially Twilight’s as I noticed she had another piece of parchment and a quill at the ready and sketched the gesture. “It’s a kind of human greeting”

“Ahh yes, if you would be so kind David Mason, we would greatly love to hear more about your species.” Celestia began to say as she walked back towards her throne. “I understand from my student’s notes that humans are from another world?”

“Yes I believe that would be the most accurate term” I answered as I walked with her and the others.

“I see. So, tell me, what is your world like?” she asked as she sat down on her throne again.

“Err… I guess it’s kinda like this one. Just a lot more detailed… err if that makes any sense” I gathered from their confused looks that it did not.

“And your species? I gather that the humans are the dominant species of your world. Tell me about the human civilisation” she asked as she pressed forward, trying to learn more about what I was directly from me and expand on Twilight’s notes.

“We have expanded so much we cover pretty much all of my planet now. Humans have managed to build vast cities and nations all over the world spanning thousands of years. My kind is a vast and industrious one with a long history. Every one of them on my world has its own individual varied and deep culture and history. I guess the main difference between our worlds would be our technology” I didn’t really know where to start on explaining it all, lucky she already knew most of it from the notes.

“Technology? How so?” her curiosity peaked.

“Well one thing I guess can be said about humans is that we are masters of Science and technology. The leaps we have made in technology over the past few centuries are staggering. From what I’ve seen since my arrival in your world I would say that humans were at your technology level a few hundred years ago. Then again it seems your world specialises magic over technology.”

“Ohh yes, I read from Twilight’s notes that magic is not present in the human world?”

“In a way yes, magic in my world is more close to illusion and trickery rather than physical magic.”

The princess seemed to retreat into thought for a moment as she pondered everything I had told her. The silence was broken only by the hurried scratching on Twilight’s quill as she scribbled down all of the extra information.

“Hmm I see. So a true form of magic is not present on the human world?” she asked as curiosity set on her expression.

“No not at all. It’s mostly used in legends and stories of fantasy.” I answered her, wondering myself what had a hold on her thoughts.

“With your permission David, I would like to test something on you” she said as she stood up and walked closer to me. The surrounding ponies watched on as we conversed.

“Depends what it is.” I answered her, suspicious of what she asking.

“I simply want to cast a harmless spell on you to see the effects. It will not hurt I promise.” Well that made me unsettled. An alien in a strange land and their leader wants to experiment on it…

Sounds worryingly like a lot of sci-fi films I’ve watched…

Then again I didn’t have a choice did I? It’s not like I could refuse or make a run for it. I guess I would have to just let her. Well she didn’t really seem like she couldn’t be trusted.

“Okay then. Just don’t turn me into a frog or something” I answered with a smirk.

She returned my half smile with another of her warm and trusting smiles as closed her eyes and lowered her head. Her long horn began to glow with a golden like bubble as she placed it on my forehead. It felt kinda nice; it was like a warm and gentle touch. This only lasted for a split second as the golden glow dispersed and the feeling vanished. The princess opened her eyes in wonder at me before she lowered her head to try again. The second attempt yielded the same result however.

What was she trying to do? The 6 ponies and the princess’ sister watched us with intensity, I wished Twilight would give that god damn quill scratching a rest…

Princess Celestia raised her head to face me again as her sister walked over to sit at her side. They seemed to be the only ones in the room to know what was going on as myself and the others were left in the dark. They threw each other glances as if they could almost communicate silently. I started to shift uncomfortably on my footing. Finally they both turned to face me again.

“Hmm, it would seem that your kind has some kind of… natural immunity to magic. It’s like you are completely null to the effects of it.” She explained with an almost awestruck expression.

“What?! How is that possible princess? Surely nothing can be immune to magic.” Twilight practically shouted with shock and awe plastered over her face.

“I agree princess, how can something not be influenced by the effects of magic? Such a thing would be impossible” Rarity stepped forward to voice her opinion.  Now I never really believed in magic, at least not until today anyway, but I also found myself silently questioning the fact.

“Perhaps it is because these ‘humans’ are from a completely different plane of existence to us, that the ways of our world may not work the same with them” Princess Luna offered up to us as an explanation. “Or maybe humans are like a null zone in the magical spectrum so the effects magic has nothing to resonate with and are cancelled out?” she continued as she placed a thoughtful hoof to her chin and continued to inspect me.

… I admit I didn’t understand most of that. I tried to blame that to my sleeping through physics class in school but I doubt most of that would apply to this world anyway. Luckily the other ponies seemed to share the same feeling as confusion set on their faces. All except the ever knowledgeable Twilight who seemed to understand completely. Once again I decided just to roll with it instead of try to get my head around things I knew I had no chance of understanding. Intelligence was never my strong suit after all…

“You humans are an unusual kind” Celestia said as if she was just thinking out load. “Tell us, how did you exactly get here?”

I opened my mouth to answer but I was caught short. I was hoping to ask them that. “To tell the truth princess I have no clue whatsoever how I came here. I can remember this morning back in my world. I was going to work. The next thing I remember was waking up here. I never meant to come here, it just happened. I didn’t even know about this place until today” I tried to explain but I was trying to work it out myself.  “Frankly I was hoping you would know the answer to that princess”

The princess looked deep in thought for a moment. The throne room once again descended into silence as she closed her eyes to retreat into her own thoughts. This continued for several long minutes as both princesses left us in the painful silence to ponder the question. Finally they turned to us once more.

“I am afraid we have no plausible answer for that. There was no unusual activity or events leading up to your arrival here that can be suspected for causing it. Are you certain that you cannot remember anything from before waking up here?”

I tried to think back to this morning and struggled to remember anything that lead to this.

Unfortunately it was all a blurry jumbled mess. “No I can’t really remember any kind of shift between it, it’s like one minute I was home and the next I was here.”

“I see… ” The princess looked down and rubbed her chin, almost as if in worry.

“So erm… Princess? Is there any way to get me back home?” I saw the princess slowly close her eyes and maintain the same position with her internal thoughts. I wondered if she had already been thinking about my question before I even asked it. She looked up at me with a somewhat stern look.

“I am afraid that I do not know if there is any way to send you back David. While there could possibly be a few spells in the archives that could potentially send you back, they would not work on you given your immunity to magic.”

This struck me hard… so hard I even felt as if I was suddenly struck from my own body.

“What do you mean?!” it was a tad louder than I had meant. All of their eyes shot up to me in surprise. All except the princess however who maintained her steel like gaze.

“You have to send me back. I can’t stay here! Not in this world!” the desperation I was feeling gave my tone more of a forceful edge than I had wanted. “If magic does not affect me and it can’t be used to send me back then how did I manage to get here in the first place?!”

“I do not have the answer to that David. I realise your situation but there is nothing we can do about it right now.” Celestia shot back at me. Her voice had taken a more authoritative tone. I realised immediately how I had just acted. I am still a stranger in this land and these creatures are still unsure of me and I had just shouted at their leader…

“I-I am sorry princess.” I bet this comes back to haunt me. What a stupid time to lose it…

Luckily the pony’s expression softened.

“We understand how troubling this must be for you but trust me, we will search for a solution to this. There could be other methods we could use but you will have to give us time. For now the best I can offer is for you to return to Ponyville with my student and her friends. You will be safe in their care until we can sort this out.” She threw me another one of her trusting smiles. So there might possibly still be a way to get back? Guess it’s my best shot, it’s better than nothing… I just need to last until they can figure this out, hopefully that won’t be too long.

“Thank you princess.” I gave a respectful bow, hoping that my earlier outburst made no lasting impressions. The princess returned a smaller and more dignified nod as I turned to follow the other ponies escorting me out.

“And David?” I heard the princess call behind me. I turned around to face the two pony princesses atop the stairs. “I have enjoyed our little conversation…” I half smiled back at them before heading to the carriage with the others.

I was once again being flown through the air in the large royal chariot. I was utterly exhausted. That day had certainly taken a lot out of me. The ponies and the dragon delved into a long conversation amongst themselves, most likely it was about what to do with me but I was simply far too tired to pay attention to it. I settled for sitting back in my seat and enjoyed the cool air brushing past me again. Dawn was breaking as I could see that the sun was beginning to rise up in the sky. As it rose up it coated the previously deep black sky with streaks of orange and purple, making the clouds appear a pinkish colour. It was a new day in this world, I could only imagine what was going to happen to me in this one. I wished that it would be easier than this one was.

It was an interesting day alright…