Chapter 5: Decisions in the Making
Ten months, that is how long it has been. Some might think that is a rather short time, but when you have family, friends, and colleagues waiting back home for you after you voluntarily did what I did and now can’t go back; it truly seems like an eternity. But enough of my small glimmers of depression caused by the inability to socialize with other humans or the fact my new equine stomach can’t handle beef or pork; now let’s back to the long days that cause me to realize these things. In the past few weeks I had seen hordes of Pinkie Pies rushing through the forest, rather close to my house. Then there was the visit from Bab Seed, and it was I who had my popcorn knocked away by the Cutiemark Crusaders as they rushed to save her from the trap they had made… a pity really, I was enjoying that popcorn rather greatly. I also was one of the ponies that wanted to get into Ponyville when Trixie, and in fact I did and was set to work trying to help Applejack create a peel-less apple, although I knew unless it was going to be accomplish by a plant that doesn’t have a peel in the first place and cross pollinating the two, it would be impossible. Soon after the girls launched their plan to give Trixie the boot and have Twilight get back into Ponyville’s secluded state and beet of Trixie, which she did in a rather comical way, well at least it was comical to me. Well, anyway, these advents gave me a sense of where in the show I was, although I already knew when I came that season two’s first two episode at least were over, but now that I had an idea of where I was exactly, then I could veritably say what would happen next, not that I would take any steps to prevent it. But at this moment, future events were not my concern at all, in fact I could care less about it since I didn’t want to change them in any way unless I thus completely throw the show for a loop, or have I already done that with my very presence. Well enough about paradoxes I might have created or might created in the future; I am going to the library for a bit of educative excursion. I entered the library, once again hearing the bell I installed during last year’s winter ringing joyfully, bringing back memories of day past. Soon enough I saw Twilight placing some of the recently returned books back onto the shelves. She turned to see me entering with a smile,
“Well hello, Johann, what brings you to the library today?” She said rather joyfully. One good thing came from her tone, the fact that so far she was having a good day, which in all eventuality might make what I was about to do a bit easier.
“Well, I was passing by to see if you could perhaps help me with something.”
“Alright and how may I be of service?”
“Well, back home I have been studying a group of ancient creatures, that I have a theory, ruled Equestria before even Discord’s first reign. I was wandering if you have any books that have any information that might help me, my home town’s library has rather low amounts of valid scientific research books, much less any books that really have any information that I haven’t gathered already by my studies.”
“Really, a group of creatures that ruled before Discord… maybe the griffons but their empire back then was rather reserved. It wasn’t until after discord’s reign that they became... well… jerks. So what are these creatures you are talking about?” She said as she started removing books from shelves, probably books she esteemed to have the information I sought.
“Their scientific name is homo sapiens, otherwise known by their common name, human.” Twilight looked at me then back at some of the books, and after shelving a few of the books, and eventually all of them that she had taken out. She removed a book that was about strange creatures, probably hoping something might turn up, and really I think the human species should be in that book being as they are so weird. Twilight again shelved a book and looked to me again.
“I don’t get this; none of the books I thought would have answers had answers.”
“Well, I would suppose the study of humans is rare since they seemingly disappeared after Discord came into power and all that is left is ruins and a few relics of the past. Which reminds me, I think I might have brought one of the things I found while searching over an underground site of human civilization, would you like to see?” Twilight’s eyes dilated until the black part of her eyes was around six eighths of the area of her eye’s shape. I shuffled through my saddlebags and pulled out my tri-fold wallet that I had put in my lab coat before I left to Equestria. “Even though I speculate its age to be well over thousands of years old it still looks rather new.” I walked over to the table and set it down. Twilight sat down on the other side looking at the wallet. “It appears to be made of leather, or perhaps some cheep imitation thereof. I believe that this is what they used to carry some of their smaller, yet personal items.” I opened it up to reveal its contents. In the center section was a picture of me in human form with my wife and son. on the left side was a clear pouch that allowed you to see my comical rendition of safety which was just was a piece of old paper that said ‘Warning: this wallet is protected by ADT’. On the right side were a few pouches that contained a credit card and a few discount members’ card. Inside the pouch a few green corners of dollar bills poked out. I removed the contents, all except my fake ‘ADT’ security card, and carefully set them down on the table so Twilight could see.
“What are all these things?” She said as she looked over them.
“Well I have a few theories on what things are what and what purpose they served.” I lifted up my driver’s license. “This is some sort of card that allows you to use a special type of transport. It gives information about the pony that has it so that somepony who is not allowed to use the special transport can be caught fairly easily.” I lifted up a few of the discount membership cards and spun the around in a circle so Twilight could see each. “I’m guessing these allow the creatures to enter a market and pay less than somepony that doesn’t have it.” I lifted up my credit card and allowed Twilight to hold it. “This probably is something of money, allowing the pony that has it to use it as money when they don’t have the money at their disposal at the moment, sort of an advanced IOU promising that the pony that uses it will pay back the pony who they used it with.” I lifted up a sample of each bill I had, being a one five ten and twenty, and showed them all in the same circle I had done with my discount cards. “These are probably the proper tender, although I see no way it really has any value except the fact it has a number, a face, and an official seal on it, thus founding my theory that these types of money only represent value while having no real value of their own.” Twilight looked rather intrigued at all this. “That information literally took me month to gather, being as there were no records of their civilization and how they functioned as a whole.” She gazed at the items on the table and picked up one item with her magic.
“What is this though?” She had lifted my family photo.
“That is most defiantly the picture of the creature that owned this pouch along with his family.” She turned it around to see if something was on the back, and I knew that there was.
“What is this strange writing mean?” She pointed at my wife’s rather neat handwriting on the back. I knew that she probably, and most definitely, did not know what it meant being as it was written in English and not in Equish. I in fact had to deal with the problem of not knowing Equish rather early on when I wanted to buy donuts but had no idea what their price was. Because of that I stood outside the school house some day and caught some lectures from Mrs. Cherilee and picked up some grammar, not to mention I made a spell to make all Equish writing into corresponding English translation of what it is intended to mean.
“Well, after the long process of translating with the aid of some old human records I deciphered the meaning to be this. ‘With all our love to a husband and a father no matter how far away you maybe.’ By what I can tell the message was written by the creature’s wife or son for the reason of the message making that sort of clear.” Twilight smiled slightly. I might guess it was because the sight of a happy family sharing their love.
“How did you get these things?” She asked.
“As I said…”
“Not where, I know you said in a ruin of what once a city of theirs, but how did you get your hooves on it?”
“Well, being as I was one of the few to work on the site, it wasn’t hard to gain possession of something from the site that originally was deemed unnecessary for further discovery of an ancient race of believed extinct creatures.”
“You say ‘believed’ as if you think they still live.”
“Well, I do have a theory of why they were here and why they disappeared so abruptly. You see, they were a very advanced culture for their time. They had a grasp on science that even we Equines haven’t even started to scratch at. They had technologies that still boggle the minds of our most innovative scientists and inventors. They were much more complex than what we would expect possible for their time, and to make it a bit clearer at what I am getting at. They were literally centuries if not millenniums farther into the future yet millennium in the past, yet while we were rather primitive in technologies and survived Discord, it seems that they being so advanced still died out all over our world, for at that time they probably inhabited the world in greater numbers and areas than us ponies, at the same moment, they just collapsed completely and since that time they have not been seen in Equestria. Now tell me, Twilight, how is it possible a greater, more expansive, more advanced, and more intelligent race disappear so quickly while a race of less advanced beings live on?”
“Johann, I think you know the answer to this and are proof to your very theory.” She said with a smirk.
“Well you would be surprised.” I said with a small blush at how she veritably had joshed me about for coming up with so many answers. “I think human as a populous did not originate in Equestria but simply came here from somewhere else. And I don’t mean another place in Equestria or on another continent, I mean another world, but to be precise, another universe.”
“What do you mean by that, Johann?”
“I mean that humans were so advanced that they actually were able to travel between the multiple universes and so came to Equestria, settled, and when Discord came, they knew he was bad news and so left to go back to their own world.”
“That is a lot to swallow, almost too much to believe. How can you be so sure?”
“Well…” I sighed. Should I tell her or wait for another time? Should I risk everything that I had made in this world to tell her the truth, or should I conceal it a little bit longer. “Can you keep a secret for me, Twilight?”
“A… secret, sure, I can keep one.”
“Good, although you might find it hard to believe once you hear it. After I tell you this the only pony who can know besides you is me and the Princesses, alright? You can’t tell Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie; although she might already know, Fluttershy, Spike, or anypony except Celestia and Luna if you deem in necessary and wise. Do you understand me, Twilight Sparkle personal pupil of Celestia?” The only reason I can come up with why I said ‘personal pupil of Celestia’ was I wanted to be bit extra formal and at that moment I was being as serious as any pony or converted human being can be.
“Yes, I understand, now tell me before I burst.”
“Alright…” I exhaled the whole way and inhaled deeply, with absolutely no intention to ramble off my secret but just to calm down and prepare for the truth to be revealed. “You want to know the truth?”
“Of course I do!”
“As far as I know, there was no human civilization in Equestria even though most everything else I said of them is absolutely the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that humans as far as I know only set foot…”
“Don’t you mean hoof?”
“No, I mean foot. Well as I was saying, as far as I know humans only set foot in Equestria around ten months ago.”
“Is that why the ‘wallet’ looks so new?”
“Partially, yes, it is why the wallet is new. Do you want to know what happened to the human who came into this world ten months ago?”
“Well yes, I might be able to talk to him and see what his culture is like and what his home world is like.”
“Why talk to the human when I have the answers?”
“Because a first hoof witness would be more reliable than a second hoof one.”
“Should I show you to him then?”
“If you know where he is, then lead the way.”
“You have already met him.” I stated flatly.
“No I haven’t. I don’t really know what a human looks like so I couldn’t have met him. If this is just a trick and humans don’t exists than tell me now.”
“They don’t exist in this universe, but they do live in another and they have come.”
“Johann, just tell me where this human is then and stop stalling.” She said slightly aggravated at me.
“I am that human, Twilight.” Twilight looked at me suspiciously.
“If you are a human than are you using some technology to make you blend in with pony kind?”
“No, in fact at the moment I have none of the machines I have talked of.”
“Then how can I trust that you are telling the truth? You look like any other pony.”
“I’m sure you can think of something to test me with.” I said with a smile. I would have to say at this point if anypony could think of a test for me, it was Twilight.
“Well at the moment I can’t really think of anything so how about you just tell me how you got here if you really are a human.” And so I started from the announcement of the government challenge and told her the whole tale.
“…That is when I woke up and found myself in the outskirts of Ponyville changed into a unicorn by the proximity of distance between me and the beating heart of this planet. See, if I had been farther away I have a theory that says that I would have retained my form. To tell the truth, the only reason I have this theory is because of what happened to me. So then I met…”
“Hey, Twilight, somepony is wandering around town looking for… oh hey! Johann, somepony is looking for you out here; I would guess it is one of your friends from back home.” Spike rushed in as I was about to explain how I met Fluttershy and get to Ponyville.
“Did you ask the pony what his name was?”
“Sorry, I tried but he just kept on talking about what I looked like and stuff about me being a dragon. Hey, haven’t any of the ponies back where you come from seen a dragon? He was acting kind of weird.”
“Actually, Spike, dragons are one of the rarest sights where I come from, the only reason I didn’t flip out when I met you was because I, like Twilight, am well read. So, where is this fellow at?”
“Last I saw he was near the Quill and Sofa talking to most every pony that walked in and out. I think he might need some help though.”
“Why, what’s wrong, Spike?”
“Well, he kept on freaking out about things.”
“Such as…” I said in a motion to say what he meant.
“Well, Cutiemarks that someponies had, the color of their coats and manes, and other stuff. I think you might want to hurry before somepony calls the authorities or the asylum on him.”
“Lead the way, Spike, and please, speed is in dead of the essence.” Spike darted off with Twilight and I following close behind.
“Johann, do you know who it might be?” Twilight said as we ran after Spike.
“Unless I miss my guess, it’s my old friend, William Carter Baedeker.” A smile broke across my face as I said the words. Spike led us past the town square and straight to the Quill and Sofa where I hoped to be promptly reunited with my friend.