A Kindred Spirit

"Twilight, you can stop now."

Twilight Sparkle, dripping with sweat, heaved a sigh of relief, she had been holding the exerting memory spell for a period long enough for me to recollect what had happened, and promptly forget it immediately after she stopped the spell.

"Holding that spell is like holding a mountain. All your memories are so locked away, the magic used to seal that off feels like some sort of magical law. I'm not sure you can ever access that part of your memory freely again."

"Well, that's disheartening." I remarked. "It's really odd to forget everything you were talking about a few seconds ago...but I guess I do that anyway." I laughed a little to myself, trying to lighten my own mood. Twilight wiped her brow.

"I can't say I understand how that feels. But if you don't mind," she began, dropping the towel and grasping a quill and piece of parchment instead, "please continue."

I woke to feel a soft, warm, dry breeze tickling my skin that was not in contact with the cold, mossy stone beneath me.

I groaned, stretched, and stood up.

What the hell?

Where am I-- where did I come from? What is my name? A serially escalating barrage of questions began cascading into my head. A voice that wasn't of my process of thought cut through these.

"Equestria, Earth, and you do not have a name; your former name belonged to you at your old home."

Wait--what?**

My mind began to run at approximately 1,936,482,586,138,419 tpm (thoughts per minute), now that the thought engine had picked up steam.

I get that that it probably isn't a simple teleportation spell, but I don't know of any spells that are sapient and read minds! What kind of spell *is** this? Hold on, why am I thinking about spells? How is this happening? Equestria isn't even real...* My brain continued its assault my consciousness with another salvo of questions.

"You are correct in the assumption that I am no petty spell. I am an ancient incantation of the oldest sort of power; I was provided a sapience of my own. I was summoned to perform what I was written to do, and will do what is necessary to have that completed. I will give you a moment to examine your surroundings, and yourself. Then I will bestow upon you your own mission and anything extra you require. I enjoy watching the thought processes of young beings like yourself."

"Okay then," I replied, unnecessarily. The... entity was in my head, anyway.

I briefly examined my surroundings to find that I was on some sort of tower. Examining the ground close to me, I saw my phone and my laptop, which I had some vague recollection of their existence and why these things were here. I walked to the edge and was greeted by an awesome panorama of a deep, dark forest, and of shorter stone turrets beneath me in various states of disrepair. I ran this information through my mental database, which was disturbingly riddled with way too many holes, and I figured out where I was.

The highest point of some sort of roofless spire in the very tallest tower of the ancient castle of Celestia & Luna, smack in the middle of the Everfree Forest.

A frustrated mental sigh ran through my head.

"Of all the places to drop me into Equestria, why did you pick here?"

"This is the point I am forced to rematerialize entities from after extreme distance transport. I didn't have a choice, you appeared here."

A brief pause lapsed before the entity asked me again about the subject at hand.

"Is there anything else that you might require for your journey?"

Hm.

I looked at myself for the first time, and found that I was still in some loose fitting and soft clothing that I slept in. I realized I had a pair of glasses on my face, which should have been obvious, but my memory was in sad shape and fog shrouded a few...many... most memories of my own personal life. My heart sank.

I... really don't know anything about... me. A cold sadness swept over me briefly, before I chased it away. I needed to focus and... even though I wasn't easily moved, the total loss of self pierced my mental armor like a tungsten dart.

I shook my head. Focus.

Right. I need better clothes.

"Clothes? I'm sorry, what's the occasion? I'm not sure who will care about your state of dress when you have a forest to traverse. They will only be damaged."

What? Oh, yes. This...yes, entity, was designed to think like a pony. He--it--doesn't understand

"Yes, well, my kind always wears clothing. As you can probably see, we don't really have fur to protect us. Our flesh is exposed and vulnerable. Also... it's a modesty thing. Our... hardware isn't exactly shrouded from view, and that's sort of a no-no zone." It was slightly embarrassing having to explain this, but it was necessary.

"Oh... well, I... see." Much to my surprise, the entity seemed bashful. "Utilitarian clothing, then?"

"Yeah, just... don't pick anything... odd." My memory may be Swiss cheese, but my sense in clothing remained. My preferences in general seemed to remain...

A flash of gold ruptured the air into a distorted tear, and I found myself in possession of a set of khakis and a thick cotton tee seemingly reconstructed before my eyes.

"How does that work?" I asked, wondering what the hell just happened.

"It's the same way I got you here. By stretching two points in space towards each other and atomizing the material to be transported, I can move things quickly across distances that would require days, weeks, years to travel otherwise."

It was extremely interesting, but undoubtedly required insane amounts of energy.

"Shouldn't that, I don't know, require the energy of seven million suns?"

I was given a telepathic shrug in response. "Congratulations on actually caring about the mechanics of this. It makes it much more enjoyable to actually have somepony who thinks about things."

I was somewhat flattered, but that's irrelevant. "Just how far away are we from Earth?" I had to know.

"In the league of about 250 parsecs."

250 parsecs! Why haven't we discovered this planet yet?! It's so close!... astronomically. Not really close at all.

"I'll leave that for you to learn. It's no fun having somepony tell you."

The indefinite pronoun was still foreign and stuck out like a sore thumb used to using other ones. Also, this thing was both a troll and sounded suspiciously similar to... someone.

"Is that all you need?"

I picked up my laptop and phone from the ground, putting the latter into my pocket. A backpack.

"For this... device you have, I presume?

Yes.

The yellow tear split the air again and a black backpack fell onto the ground.

"Anything else?"

I thought again for a moment, trying to find if I could need anything else. Well, chargers... but there's no power outlets anywhere,  and I can't exactly build a generator from pieces lying around if I expect it to work. What good would that be? I wondered why I brought the electronics in the first place.

I can't think of anything else.

"Alright then. Brace yourself."

A short twinge of head pain passed, and left me momentarily disoriented. I found some introduced information at the forefront of my mind.

Ponyville is south of here. There are some landmarks to watch for.

Don't get caught in the Everfree after dark. Not even the most learned know what lurks here.

Ponies are an accommodating race and are prone to empathy. Make a good impression, I am an ambassador for my species as well as a needy individual.

The ponies will in all likelihood take ne to the palace. Again, good impressions. This is my destination.

I shook my head, the oddity of the situation striking me.

"Fare thee well, young human."

A surreal glittery gold smoke seemed to float out on my breath, and dissipated into nothingness. As it departed, I felt the notable tingling sensation and some heat that was inhabiting me leave with it. Immediately after it, something rebounded where it had, um, "sat", I guess, before, and it felt strange, like a vibrating piece of metal, except liquid. It seemed to diffuse throughout my limbs, and then I couldn't notice it any longer.

That... was bizarre. Back to business.

I decided to check the amount of daylight I had left. If it was too late, I would end up camping in the middle of the Everfree. I was no stranger to camping, but I was a stranger to the creatures that dwelled here and their diets.

Now, the million...um...bit! Million bit question, how do I get down from here?

After a quick once-over I located a steep, tight, crumbly spiral staircase leading down from this topless turret, and made the obvious decision of traveling down it, taking strong care so as to prevent the stair from disintegrating beneath my bipedal frame.

During this tedious process, I decided to survey the questionable state of my mental archives.

I found my memories of Earth's society were still in place, but nothing of my personal life. I knew how that planet, of a monumental distance from this place, worked. But, I knew not who I was. It's really strange, that.

I found my skills untouched as well; I was still good at the same things I supposed I was good at before.

I also found my knowledge of Equestria unabridged. Nice place...

My delayed reaction of excitement made its debut.

I was in Equestria. This place was only supposed to exist in fiction, a child's story. But here it was. Somehow, this place is so wholesome, despite having its own problems. Like... like it was all minor issues, things you could see fixing.

I didn't express feelings well, but I was truly looking forward to dwelling in this place.

Luna was sitting on her throne, an impenetrable darkness engulfing her.

It was worse to use the spell and have it fail me than to have ever used it at all.

She had hit an all-time low. In her state of depression, her dark mood manifested itself literally. The space around her was not inhabited by some strange smoke, but by a literal absence of light.

All she did now was lay upon her throne, all the windows in the hall covered by thick, deep purple curtains of the finest velvet letting little light leak through.

"Hark!" Luna boomed, startling her guards (though they were not inclined to show it).

"What is it you require, princess?" asked the commanding throne room guard.

"Thou art dismissed. Taketh thy leave."

"If I may speak out of turn, Princess," began the guard tenatively, "Do you mean all of us, or only I?"

"All. Now, do as I hath commanded thee."

"Yes, Princess," said the obviously pleased but slightly troubled guardsponies. Though they loved time off, they were concerned about what Luna would be doing...

Now she was totally alone. She let the composure she was barely maintaining crack, and she began to weep.

I had successfully navigated my way down through the castle layers, due to the layout being relatively straightforward. I stumbled into the main hall of the castle to see the giant golden platform upon which used to sit the Elements of Harmony. I looked at it for a short time, and just decided to carry on. However interesting that artifact may be, it holds absolutely no purpose anymore. It was simple to find my way out from there; I reentered the warm breezes of the clean Equestrian air from the dank stuffyness of the old castle. These breezes, however, were far less than comforting as the wind swayed the ancient rope bridge I carefully navigated.

Due to the information dump that had apparently occurred before the spell left me alone, I knew exactly where to go to make it to Ponyville. Entering the dark forest, my predator instincts kicked in; as a seasoned (but by no means expert) hunter, my eyes and ears scanned for any possible threats. This forest was entirely foreboding, and I had no intentions of getting waylaid by some sinister creature.

After many hours on high alert, I had crossed a river, managed the deepest part of the forest, stalked through a canyon, and climbed an extremely steep cliff, and consequently I was exhausted. I had nothing to eat, and the gnawing hunger was eating away at my strength. I was fading fast-- and so was the sun. Even though I was deeply tired, I knew one thing- I would NOT be sleeping in this forest. No way, and no how.

I had to keep going, and I did.

I ended up staggering to some place where the trees began to thin. I was feeling quite accomplished, having passed through the depths of a forest of strange beings on my own without being slain. I'm out... I'm out.

And then it was there. The growling of a wolf. I saw one pair of glowing green eyes advance from the shadows, and my spirits sank. I waited for the other sets to appear, spelling out my fate.

None came. I mentally sighed in relief, and I was determined; if it was a lone wolf, maybe I could fight it off. I looked around quickly for some sort of weapon, and came up with a natural and quite hefty wooden club from some piece of a tree lying next to my foot. I, exhausted, raised my newfound weapon to my shoulder. It boasted a quite satisfying weight around its far end.

The literal timber wolf, made of wood and only wood, advanced some more. It was about 5 yards away now.

I positioned my club in my hands in the familiar way a baseball player would his bat. I knew I could blow it apart with one swing if I hit it across the head. The adrenaline began to flow.

It charged. I swung.

I felt the recoil of a massive blow course up my arms as the gnarled piece of wood connected with the wooden hide of the timber wolf's chest. It recoiled and yelped.

"Damn it!" I mentally scolded myself. I could at least see it was badly hurt; this gave me an advantage.

However, I was not suited to this heavy club, and I would have preferred a knife or sword of some sort, and found it difficult to land another blow as the timber wolf's claws sliced ribbons from my skin on each pass; I hissed at each new wound, but did not flinch; the adrenaline in my veins would not allow it. I had avoided lunges to my blood vessels and vital organs and escaped with minor injuries from the attacks of the creature.

As it was about to lunge for the umpteenth time, I saw its move coming. As it leapt, I sidestepped it, and brought my club careening down into the wooden skull. It shattered under the massive blow; the sinister magic holding the fell creature together dissipated, and it fell to the forest floor in pieces.

I wanted to catch my breath, stop, regather my strength. I looked at my legs and arms, and I knew it would be a bad idea.

I wasted no time in moving as fast as I could to the edge of the forest; my wounds more substantial than I had expected now that I looked at them. The cuts were many, and some an inch deep. I was bleeding profusely, and I knew I likely would not live without treatment. As I shambled towards my best chance at survival, the world began to tunnel; I fought off unconsciousness as long as I could. A few faltering last steps brought me to the edge of a clearing, and onto the top of a hill.

Applejack had just finished planting the day's crops behind Big Mac, who had drug the massive plow about as if it were a simple cart filled with hay. Tired, but satisfied with her day's work, she began to make her way back to the farmhouse.

That was when she heard an enormous crack of wood striking wood, and the subsequent yelp of an injured timber wolf resound across the field at the forest's edge. She knew a timber wolf attack was no laughing matter, and she also knew that crack was obviously caused by a desperate pony in the dire situation. She began to gallop as fast as she could towards the source of the noise.

About a minute later, she heard another yelp from the timber wolf, this one cut off by some sickening blow it had just been dealt.

"Whoever it is just took 'im down," she thought, "but I doubt they got away without gettin' hurt."

By this time she was about a stone's throw away from the edge of the woods, when some sort of strange two-legged creature stumbled out!

"The hell is that thing? A minotaur with a hair disorder? Oh... it's bleeding..."

Just then this creature passed out and fell to the ground in a crumpling heap. The goodwill of the pony drove her to attempt to save this odd being, and she called out to her brother.

"Mac! Get over here. And bring a cart!"