Fallen

“Get up, lazy pegasus.” Wither kicked my neck.
“Unnnnnn…” I groaned as I rose to my feet. I looked around. I was atop a hill in the middle of rolling country. The wilderness around me looked… harsh. Sparse trees and scrub brush dotted the brown-green hillsides surrounding a very cold-looking settlement. It appeared to be made of some hard substance, a very rock-and-steel appearance that sent shivers down my spine.
“Here’s what you will do, pony. You will fly down to that town there, see? I want you to take a good look at the lower part of it. See the group of creatures down there? They’re called ‘humans’. Look at me, I’ve turned into one for you.” I turned sharply to look at the odd creature Wither had become.
One of my eyebrows threatened to rise right off of my face. What the hay…? This… thing… didn’t look like it should be rightly standing. It stood precariously on its hind legs, with no way of counterbalance. No tail, just all of its weight distributed directly above its feet. It was also very small; only by standing erect like that it was able to look slightly downward at me in the eyes.
It kind of resembled a pinkish ape, but it wore clothes like some of the more sophisticated ponies of Canterlot. It was also almost completely bald, except for some thick coating on its head, and some mildly thick hair on its arms and legs. Other than that… it might have absolutely no hair anywhere else. I didn’t particularly want to know.
Its face… could you even call it a face? It was simply a squashed oval with features slapped onto it. It was just so… flat. There was no definite shape to it, and its features looked extremely odd. The nose was just a small lump of flesh with the nostrils on the underside, the eyes were far too small to look proper, and the ears resembled strange fungal growths that simply jutted out from the sides of the head.
I…don’t even know. This thing was definitely weird.
“The group you see down there…” here Wither gestured with one of his forelimbs, which ended in, uhhh… talons? Paws? The tips had no claws on them, just flimsy-looking nails. How the hay do these creatures survive? They have no natural defenses, they looked extremely weak, and they threatened to fall over on their clumsy legs at any moment. “That particular group is the one I want you to meet. They’re the so-called ‘bronies’ who are obsessed with Equestria.”
I looked at Wither warily. “What do you want me to do then?”
“Just fly down there, and do whatever. See what happens.”
“Alright,” I said. I spread my wings, and in doing so, realized that something was off. I looked at my outstretched wings, and realize that they look different somehow. They’re bigger, for some reason, each wing extending longer than a full body length, and about a third as wide. I looked at the rest of my body, and saw that my legs were thinner, my head was smaller, and my body was sleeker, somehow. It appeared that my proportions were changed so that they resembled Princess Celestia’s…
“Yeah… about that. The laws of physics in Equestria are moderately different from the laws here on Earth, so I had to alter your body just a tad when we made the transition between worlds. It might have been what caused you to black out.” Wither pointed at my wings. “See, in Equestria your wings were fine for supporting you, but here it’s not even close to enough. Also, your body needs to be aerodynamic, as humans call it, so your body needs to be thinner, your head needs to be smaller, and your bones need to be lighter. Some of your fat mass had to be converted to muscle.
“Don’t worry, though. I made my changes so that you can still move like you used to.” Wither looked at me while I stretched and found that I could, indeed, move my forelegs like always, even behind my back. “The animal closest in appearance to you here, the horse, which is merely an animal here, can’t do that, see? They look like, well, a pony, but not intelligent at all, so don’t bother trying to converse with them, even though they look like they should be able to talk. They can’t. Humans are the only intelligent life on this planet, and that’s a stretch even to say that.”
Wither’s lip curled. I took that to mean that he didn’t hold these strange creatures called humans in high regard. Not that he held ponies in high regard either.
“Oh. There’s one other thing you should know. One of the greatest mysteries to me. Tell me, this has been bothering me for quite awhile. How, HOW in the blazes, do you hold things in your hooves?” Wither asked me.
“Well, you just…” I reached down to pick up a rock. I grabbed it– and it wouldn’t come with my hoof. “…do it…” What? How was I unable to do it? Granted, even I was unsure of just how we ponies managed that, but I kind of just took it for granted before.
“Yeeeeeeeaaahh… so, I was unable to duplicate that so that it would work for Earth physics, so I just left it out. Sorry about that… but you’ll just have to make do without.” Wither didn’t look a bit sorry, but I let it drop. You can’t have everything.
Just as I was spreading my wings again, Wither piped in, “Also, I was unable to duplicate your ability to walk on clouds as well. Apparently it’s caused by ‘innate pegasus magic’, which only works on your world, as there is absolutely no magic on this world whatsoever.”
I turned to him. “Then how can you do, well, weird things here?” I asked suspiciously.
The creature that was Wither puffed himself up. “I,” he said proudly, “am a reality-bender. I can change the laws, remember? As such, I’m not really affected by the rules of any specific world, as I make the rules. So, basically, I can use my powers regardless. Shame about yours, but we must make do with what we have.”
“Then why not change the laws for me? That way you wouldn’t have to, well, alter me this way.”
“Yeah, well.” He looked just a bit sheepish for a minute. “When I say I make the rules, I don’t mean that I can just snap my fingers and make all gravity reverse itself. See, it only works within line-of-sight, and if my changes disagree with the laws of the world, well. I know this sounds insane, but worlds kind of like their laws the way they are, and they’ll start to correct after awhile.
“Basically, you’d have about an hour, maybe two, before the laws of physics dictate that you’ll go plummeting into the ground.”
I turned away, muttering, “Stupid arrogant son of a…”
But I spread my wings nonetheless, and downstroked, leaping off of the hill. Immediately I realized that Wither was right; the laws of physics were all screwed up in this world. It’s kind of hard to explain, but just believe me when I say that it made flying a hell of a lot more difficult.
There were tiny undercurrents everywhere, and the new gravity strained my coordination built out of flying in Equestrian physics. Needless to say, it took me awhile to figure out flying all over again, so I spend a few minutes just circling, diving, and soaring, just to get used to it. I nearly crashed into a hillside when I misjudged the wind above it.
But, I soon got used to it, at least a little bit, and I figured time was a-wasting, so I glided down to the town where I saw the group of humans gathered. It was a little harder than I thought, gliding. Back in Equestria, everything is nice and predictable, because weather is controlled by pegasi, and, as such, each current and thermal is nice and orderly.
Here, I had to constantly compensate for random little eddies in the air around me. It was quite annoying.
As I neared the group, first one, then more and more of the strange creatures took notice of me. When I had the entire group’s attention, I was just about to land. I heard squeals and gasps of delight and wonder, at my arrival, and I wondered just how weird these humans could get.
As soon as I lit down, the group mobbed me. I mean, literally. They swarmed all about me, petting me on the mane, flank, and sides. They were really starting to weird me out. Weirdest of all, I caught sight of some of them in what could only be defined as shell-shock, wide eyed expressions on their faces. They kept pinching themselves all over for some reason. What…? Oh. They must not believe their eyes, and making sure they’re not dreaming. I guess if one of these creatures suddenly dropped onto my doorstep, I would be in the same position.
“Uh, ahem. Can I get a little space to breathe, please?” I asked them.
The entire group silenced. I wouldn’t have thought it possible before, but their eyes got even wider.
“You… you can talk?” One of the humans, a male specimen (I think) with long dark hair tied back said incredulously.
“Yes, he can! Dude, Richard, this is a pony! Look, he has a cutie mark!”
HOW THE HECK do these creatures know what a cutie mark is? Oh, yeah, Wither told me. These humans know all about Equestria from… stories? I’ll have to pick his brains later…
Meanwhile, I was again being swarmed by these bald apes, who had now surrounded my hindquarters, squinting at my cutie mark, which was the same (At least Wither hadn’t changed that…) Great. Now I have apes checking me out.
“Ahem… humans? Can I please have a little space?” I asked again irritably, and they jumped, before scrambling to back up, their faces turning red. And I thought their appearance couldn’t get any stranger…
“Sorry, sir. Ummmm, what’s your name?” The one called Richard asked, stepping forward from the rest of the group. Man, how do they do that without falling over? They’ve got no counter-balance at all! I mean, not even the Diamond Dogs, who only sometimes had a tail, weren’t always bipedal. But these humans didn’t even have the arm length to support themselves from the front!
“I’m Sky High.” I told him.
“Nice to meet you, Sky High. Ummm, wow! I can’t believe it! I mean, a real pegasus, right out of Equestria! What brings you here?”
I considered what to say for awhile, then decided to just say, “Only sightseeing. I always wanted to explore new places.”
Richard nodded. “Ah, like Daring Do. I see.”
Geez, their knowledge of Equestria is kinda… scary.
“What’s your cutie mark for? I think it’s a cloud, but you’ll have to forgive me, I can’t really see it that well.”
“It is a cloud. It symbolizes, well, that I just love to fly, is all.” I said self-consciously. I briefly wondered just why I was self-conscious, surrounded by such odd-looking creatures. I guess it’s just the strangeness of all this.
The humans and I chatted for awhile, discussing Equestria. They surprised me even further by asking about the Elements of Harmony. That wouldn’t have been such a shocker if they hadn’t asked about them in name. I mean, geez! They know freaking too much about Equestria for my comfort zone, but I was careful not to reveal my discomfort to them.
One thing that they did not know, and that they were genuinely curious about, was the ditzy gray Ponyville mailmare that the bullies from my nightmares had made life hell for before my time. I was actually a little amused at the intensity of their curiosity about her, given the fact that they didn’t even know her name.
“Silly humans, how can you not know her name? You really scare me with the amount of knowledge you have about nearly everything else, so why the obsession?” I laughed.
“Well, see, she’s not really covered that well in the show, it mainly focuses on Twilight and the other Mane Six, she’s more of a background pony, “ a female human with hair almost as long as Richard’s said.
“Show? Mane Six?” I wonder aloud.
They kind of shut up again, and looked at each other. “What?” I started to get very nervous.
Richard recovered first. “That’s right… you don’t have T.V., so you wouldn’t know what a show is. It’s moving pictures that project a story with sounds like music and voices. It’s like a glass window with a play behind it, kind of. It’s hard to explain. And the Mane Six are what the fanbase–that’s what we call the entirety of those who are fans of something, in this case, Equestria–calls the Elements of Harmony. There are six of them, and they all have manes, cuz they’re ponies, so they’re the Mane Six.”
I started to get very suspicious. “Where do the stories for this ‘show’ come from?”
Another pause. It might have been my imagination, or I might have just seen Richard quickly wipe at his forehead, as if brushing off sweat.
“Well, uhhh… umm… you see…”
“Hey girly men! Hows that prissy pony show going for ya?” I heard a mocking voice call from behind me. I turned to see a different human, one I didn’t recognize from the group, standing there, a few feet away. He had strange markings on the skin of his forearms, which his sleeveless shirt revealed quite well. I didn’t think humans had such markings, I thought they just had uniformly-colored skin.
“What?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Just ignore him. He’s just a parasprite.”
“Wait, how is a human a–“
“You dweebs sank so low that you’re worshipping your girl show by gluing wings to a real horse? Man you guys suck.” The human with the markings taunted.
“What do you mean, horse? I’m not an animal!” I screeched at him. He proceeded to widen his eyes to the size of dinner-plates, as he shook his head violently, before fleeing.
“So why do you call him a parasprite?” I asked.
“Well, we got people who like to make people angry just for the sake of making them angry. We call them ‘trolls’, and they usually delight in putting people down, just to make themselves feel better. ‘Kay, so you should know that, in human society, we bronies are, well, a little misunderstood. This makes us a general target for these trolls, and, as one of the rules states, do not, ever, feed the trolls. Meaning, if you argue with a troll, it’ll just set you up for some more verbal abuse.
“So, seeing as the same is true with parasprites; if you feed them, they’ll cause you a whole hell of a lot of trouble, we call trolls who bag on bronies parasprites.”
I got suddenly intrigued. “Tell me about human society.”
I listened to the humans explain about themselves. I learned about their society, and the roles in their society. I was a little surprised to learn that, despite their differences, human and pony society was not all that different. They grow up with their parents, go to school, work, then retire, just like ponies. They have families of their own and care for each other, like ponies.
The main difference is that in roles here emphasis is placed more on males than on females, unlike in Equestria, but I supposed that was because of the obvious differences in physique of the females. There isn’t really that much difference in the physical strength of males and females of ponies, so it all came down to numbers, of which the females had more of in Equestria.
It just goes to show. No matter where you are, at the very basest of the condition, in the most bestial of the conscience, might always makes right. It was the same as in Flight School, with the bullies.
But as the humans went on to explain, I realized that there were, indeed, stark differences besides this. I was extremely shocked at the ways their super-communicator, the Internet, changed the nature of humans. I didn’t exactly understand how it worked, but I did know that it was the equivalent of sending lightning-fast messages, like teleporting letters, from one human to another, and somehow they were visible to everypony. I would have thought that such an invention would perfect the human race by allowing for perfect communication.
Boy, was I wrong.
As Richard explained, the majority of the jerks called ‘trolls’ were to be found using the Internet. I was confused at this, until he explained. Humans will act completely civil to each other in person, but when a barrier of space and anonymity is present, they will see that as an excuse to tear each other apart. They use the fact that the others won’t know them in real life as a shield in their conquest to beat others down.
I shied in shock and exclaimed, “You humans are cowards! All of you! You’re conniving cowards who can’t stand the thought of each other!”
“Now, wait wait! That’s the bad side of the human race! Humans can be good too! Just listen to me!” Richard cried, and I calmed down a bit.
He went on to explain how some humans could be completely selfless, like those who helped their fellow humans escape from some detention area across the sea that they got thrown into because of their beliefs. They called it something… like ‘holocaust’, or something. These people would help each other escape while risking death or worse at the hooves of the officers in charge of the facilities. I could see how they were plenty noble.
But humans also were at the root of the atrocity in the first place. I wasn’t sure about this.
In many of the other scenarios Richard brought up, I saw that the same thing was taking place; the human or humans who nobly made sacrifices for other’s sake, and went down in history as heroes, were always compensating for the cruelty and corruption of other humans.
There were some exceptions, like heroes who save innocents from natural disasters like hurricanes and so on, but I still wasn’t convinced. I only knew one thing.
Humans are as confusing and inconsistent as the ever-changing wind on Earth.