~Chapter One: Discovery~
Life is a diverse thing. It is complex, a variety of different tones melding together to create a single, incomprehensible thing. Could life even be a thing? Maybe it’s fate that’s so damn convoluted that drives men and women to the drink every day because it plays so many cruel, immature jokes on their lives; which causes them to cry ‘Why me, WHY ME? WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?’ What follows is even darker–it can be darker, if one chooses. You see, fate, life, it’s insignificant, in my opinion. Choices. That’s the word that really matters. Every decision after decision after decision a person makes, consequences and rewards follow, like a shadow; it mimics your moves, copies you, it’s always there, waiting. And why are they linked? I dunno; maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s destiny, maybe...I dunno. All that matters is that I did something ‘bad’ and was punished for it.
And so here I sat, waiting and wondering. Murky place, my cell was. Not very cleanly, either; damn water seeped through cracks–it pissed me off to no end. My feet stunk, that I’d noticed after a good long whiff of it–pretty sure it was infested with ugly ass bacteria, too. And hell, my everything stunk. All I wanted to do was live a normal, sane life, where birds went ‘chirp! chirp!’ and sunshine and rainbows expanded in wide arcs across the plain...Sound sane to you?
The prison I sat in was empty and, to what I supposed after some sneaking around–my bonds were long broken, you see, long pushed away from out of the deepest, most memorable recesses of the human mind. I could go outside, though, nothing was there to my–or, relatively anyone’s– liking, to be honest. Food was not really a problem to me, since the joint’s freezer and fridge was still packed with food; and the stove worked too, hell, everything electrical worked. Guess I was one of the lucky ones. Not really a surprise to me because, as I’d put it, luck’s the best dog I’ve ever had; loyal to the end, never leaving me. How I got here? Well, that’s a big one. But I’ve got all the time in the world to tell it.
It was about three years ago, you see. I was part of the specialized forces dedicated to following our government’s orders to the point, with no questions asked. It was a...dynamic time, so to speak. The discovery of a certain exotic continent sparked an interest in my society that would soon be the spark to ignite a fire of primal fear and paranoia. The discovery was made by an explorer named Timon Pontius; who was, at the time, taking a trip around the circumference of the globe, when he spotted an unknown, uncharted mass of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The land was incredibly huge; everyone, as soon as word reached their ears, inquired as to why they’d never noticed it before. My oh-so-smart hypothesis was that people were too damn lazy to try and travel the world on anything besides a plane to see it, or were oblivious to the fact that a huge, erect collection of earth was posing right in front of them, like a Greek sculpture.
Anyways, Pontius was astounded by his discovery and touched upon it’s earth soon after his eyes had set themselves on it. Based on his reports, he described the land as ‘a grand spectacle! Where nature thrives at its finest, and is as cultured and sophisticated as our own homeland.’ He continues to relate the geography as to that of a diverse biome, and then details his shocking first encounter with the land’s natives.
‘I was trekking through the dense forest flora, when all of a sudden, I spotted a small herd of oddly shaped ponies–which I’d guessed, due to their similar appearance to our own equine species–whom were, pardon my fantastic imagery, talking to one another! Candy coated, abnormally colored, and some quite normal, the ponies talked amongst one another! I couldn’t contain my excitement, so I decided to approach them. Here was our exact exchange:
“ Hello!” said I, in a jovial fashion.
The ponies immediately turned to the location of my voice, and each of the three herd members gave an equally stunned gaze to me. Then, after momentarily looking the three down, I noticed some peculiar decorations on two of the three’s anatomy. A rather long, slightly spiraled horn was set upon one of the ponies’ head, and a pair of bird-like wings rested on the sides of another. A unicorn! A pegasus, I say! They’re real!
Realizing that no response was given yet and they hadn’t ran away, I took the reins of conversation and gave it a pull. “ Good,” started I, looking at my watch, my happiness ignoring the factorization of the local time zone of the area; “ morning, ponies!”
Their animated faces still held the stunned expression of one who’d seen something of the unbelievable, which was understandable since I’d held the same expression moments ago.
“ Do you understand what I’m saying?” I inquired.
One of them took the initiative and shook its head.
I gave them the brightest, most heartwarming smile I could muster before continuing with, “ What beautiful land do I stand upon currently?”
“ E-Equestria,” shakily answered the one pony–a standard one, and feminine, by the sounds of it–who’d exchanged words with me a second before.
‘Equestria!’ Now I knew the name of the mystical land in which I was in. What a blissful feeling I felt fill my being when I heard the land’s name escape the lips of the eloquent mare, Ah yes, they spoke English, too!
“ Pardon me, mister?” started the mare, addressing me with the appropriate title based on my vocal tone.
I listened intently, nodding like a giddy schoolboy.
“ What are you?”
“ Why, I’m what’s called a ‘human,’ little pony.”
“ A ‘human?’” questioned the mare.
“ The buck’s a ‘hee-yoo-man?’” asked the pegasus, male, by the sounds of it.
The unicorn of the three-pony-herd ran up to me and began to encircle my character, examining me as if I were a living specimen. “ Could it be?” inquired the mint green unicorn, whose gender I presumed was female, again, by voice. She rounded my imaginary circumference and then stopped at my front. “ Short haired coat, anatomically similar looking to a monkey, tall, hands and feet...Could you be an actual human? Like those I’ve seen in my dreams?”
I locked eyes with her, my downcast gaze meeting her upcast stare. From hoof to horn, she stood to about the beginning of my chest; without it, probably near the top of my stomach–and I stood at a height of 5’10-and-a-half.
“ Oh c’mon, Lyra,” said the normal pony, scoffing at her marveling; “ not this again. Sure he’s...weird, but there’s no solid proof that he’s one of your made up species.”
“ But all the characteristics are spot on!” defended the unicorn, called ‘Lyra.’
“ Alright, alright, alright,” started the pegasus, in an exasperated tone. The other’s looked to him. “ There’s only one thing we gotta do and that’s take this...human,” he said this with a tone of uneasiness, “ to the princesses.” He looked towards me. “ Come on, human. We’ve got a while to go.” The herd began to move, and I followed.
As we walked across the flat grasslands, I decided to inquire more about the land I was in. So I turned to Lyra, who seemed to fancy me the best out of the others.
“ Lyra–” I started, “ may I call you Lyra?”
“ Sure, Mr. Human!” she answered, with enthusiasm; as if she’d been waiting for the time of talking with me.
“ Please,” I said, shooing away formalities with flattered gestures; “ call me Timon.”
“ Okay, Timon,” she answered, using my desired first name.
I smiled at her politeness.
“ So what’s up?” she asked me, readdressing my inquisitive tone.
“ Oh, yes. Earlier your friend, mentioned something about ‘princesses.’ Might I ask how your government is set up?”
“ Of course! Well, our central government, currently, is comprised of two regal princesses–sister’s, in fact!–who reside in the city of Canterlot, where we’re going right now. Then, that’s basically it; I mean, we have city mayors and generals of our army, but as for the sovereign power that rules us, the princesses are what we got.”
I nodded. So the government of Equestria is a diarchy, and they have officials of cities and appointed military individuals of their army. I say! Their system’s similar to our own! My mind remembered Lyra’s horn. Magic! Magic must play a large role in their society. I inquired more.
“ You know, where I come from, we have ponies similar to you, but without the horns and wings like you and your friend have.”
“ You don’t?!” shouted Lyra, in an amazed tone. “ Don’t you have manticores, minotaurs, dragons, anything?”
Manticores? Minotaurs? Dragons? By God, the land I’m in is inhabited by creatures of our mythology! That means they must’ve existed in our lands long ago. But why are they gone now? Could the theory that all of the separated land masses formed one single super continent that was split apart by something long ago be true? From what the mare beside myself was saying, it had the greatest possibility. Lyra continued.
“ Judging from your silence, I guess not. Well, you must guess that horns are a focal point for magic energy and wings allow one to fly, right?”
“ Yes; but magic is foreign to my people and me. Could you explain?”
“ Wow, I wonder how humans can live without magic–but I digress. Magic is,” Lyra paused, searching for a definition. “ Well, I don’t really know how to describe it. But it’s in everypony.”
I couldn’t help but snigger at her conjugation of our ‘everybody.’ She didn’t notice.
“ Pegasi have magic that allow them to stand on clouds and make their body light as snow; and sometimes, they might have so much magic coursing through them, their bodies become so aerodynamic that they can make a sonic boom that has a visible spectrum of color! Earth ponies–Bon Bon over there’s one–” she gestured over to the cream coated pony with her head, “ have magic that encompasses their entire body, making them the hardiest of ponies and attuned to nature. Unicorns have the most raw magic, and must utilize the horns on their head to channel it forth, otherwise, it does absolutely nothing. Me being a unicorn, I can tell you that it requires a good deal of focus and practice to control your magic, that’s for sure.”
“ Fascinating,” I breathed out, astonished by the relaying of information. “ And these princesses, surely they’re much more advanced in their anatomy?”
“ Yes,” Lyra nodded. “ The princesses are what we call ‘alicorns,’ winged unicorns, if you will. They’re endowed with the greatest and purest of natural magic; which is so great, in fact, that they’re the ones who control the sun and the moon!”
Helio-kinesis and sele-kinesis? “ By god...”
“ Huh? What’s wrong, Timon?”
“ Where I come from, we always thought that the sun was stationary in its position in the center of our galaxy, and that the moon revolved around the earth.”
Lyra gave me a puzzled look, digesting everything I’d told her. Then she simply smiled and responded with, “ Defending my knowledge of the moon is simple: who do you think makes the moon go around?”
“ We say gravitational pull and inertia.”
Again, Lyra questioned my knowledge silently. Suddenly, her eyes widened in realization. “ I remember now! A couple centuries ago Luna and Celestia gave the moon and the sun free will. Luna controlled the moon so it both spun around the earth and on its axes. Celestia pumped the sun full of magic which gave it the pull your talking about. Thanks for reminding me, that’s a question on my exam later this month.”
“ And how old are you?” I inquired.
“ Nineteen,” she answered, succinctly. “ I’m in college, but my semester’s ended so I’m on break.”
“ Nineteen,” I muttered. “ Lyra, how old can ponies be?”
“ Well the average, based on my personal studies, are usually between seventy and eighty years old; which, I suppose, is normal to your kind’s lifespan, right?”
“ Indeed.”
“ Then again, who knows how many millennia the princesses have been around.”
“ Millenniums?!” I shouted, surprised.
“ Yup. They’re REAL old.”
“ I trust your words,” I said, containing my disbelief.
We soon hit a mountain trail. After a period of hiking upwards, I came across the most splendid view: a kingdom on the side of a mountain, like Minas Tirith from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels. It was breathtaking. I knew that this was a place fit for royalty, and I was on my way to have a conference with them.
Author's Note
I'm pretty sure there are many spelling and grammatical errors, which I'll probably not deal with; since I'm lazy and find editing to be a tedious process. Currently, I have Writer's Block. So it may take months, maybe even up to a year before I think of anything substantial.
