Harry stood in the center of the domed room. The time recall was secured to a chain that hung from his neck. Fluttershy wouldn't stop hugging Harry. Twilight looked repeatedly from Harry to Lyra with a rock in her hoof. Lyra kept mumbling incomprehensible words in her sleep and drooling. Celestia beckoned Harry to stand.
"Remember—you have one chance Harry. If you return to the present without the answer no amount of magic can lift this curse."
"I understand," Harry said.
He broke out of Fluttershy's embrace, gave her a smile, and she backed away. Celestia's horn glowed brighter than it had ever done so before. She aimed her horn at Harry. Swirling magical auras shot from all parts of the room and caused the glow to grow. Before long a huge orb of scattering magical energy was swarming around Celestia's horn, casting the room in blindingly radiant light.
Fluttershy and Twilight backed up, covering their eyes with their hooves, yet still desperate to see what was going on. The orb of light shot from Celestia's horn and enveloped Harry. Sparks and hissing sounds began flying from it. Harry's silhouette rose above the ground and began rotating. An explosion shot from the orb as it disappeared, knocking Fluttershy, Twilight, and Lyra into the wall.
Harry felt a strange sensation all through his body as he noticed his fingers beginning to disappear. His breaths grew heavy as a tightness grasped his chest. He closed his eyes and upon opening them again he found himself in a swirling vortex. Ribbons of light spiraled around his view, and a horribly powerful wind struck Harry's body.
Almost as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Harry hung on all fours. He felt like a unicorn had just shot a fireball at his stomach. Staring the ground, the first thing Harry noticed was the near darkness, only battled by dim torchlight. Torchlight? Harry looked up to the ceiling to find nary a crack. In fact, it was the host of beautiful murals.
Harry wiped his eyes to adjust to the near-darkness. The statues that surrounded the room had also been repaired, or replaced. They were not statues of humans though, they were statues of unicorns. Harry shook his head in order to shake away the illusion, but no matter what the statues stayed unicorns. Did Celestia send him back too far, or perhaps not far enough?
Harry's eyes shot open with realization. He reached for his neck, and felt calm. The time recall was still there. He shook his head. That was an uncomfortable few moments. He didn't know which would be worse—living in a world that hated him, or being in a time period he knew nothing about. Even so, he still liked having the choice. He tucked the trinket back under his shirt. Then he grabbed one of the torches and began walking down the halls of the building.
Shelves of dusty books lined the walls, and every so often there was another outlet with a unicorn statue. They were each kept in perfect condition. Gemstones socketed their eyes. In fact, come to think of it, that was a common theme—panelings in the walls, bejeweled. That's right, this was back before the first Hearth's Warming Eve and the three pony tribes lived in separation.
Harry stepped out of the domed building and into the cold night air. The bite of a late autumn chilled his skin quickly. Real nice Celestia, Harry thought to himself, couldn't have sent me back to a summer, or at least day time? No, an autumn night. Harry heard hoof-steps, doused the torch, and hide behind a marble pillar. Two unicorns fitted with some intimidating armor strolled by, casting beams of light, searching for something—threats most likely.
"M'hunimish debrula ver induda," one of the unicorns said to the other, and he responded with similar gibberish.
Great. Just great. Not only was Harry in a familiar time period, he couldn't speak anypony's language. If anypony called him a—wait. Celestia sent Harry back to a time before this supposed curse was cast, at least that's what she said. There was only one way to prove whether or not Harry was in the right time period. He jumped in front of the two unicorns. Blinding lights shot on his face.
Gibberish. More gibberish. Harry started to speak, and the two broke into laughter, causing the lights to shine away from Harry's face. He looked at them quizzically. Well, they weren't cringing, so he'd like to say that this was before the curse was cast. Unfortunately he had no idea what they were really doing. Harry did the only thing he could do, and he put his hands up.
Then the last thing Harry expected happened. They arrested him. One of the unicorns shot a bolt of magic at him and all of a sudden there were florescent shackles around his wrists. A chain of purple lighting shot from one shackle to one of the unicorn's, and a chain of blue lightning shot from the other shackle to the other unicorn.
They started walking, practically dragging Harry along with them. Harry barely tried to resist, more out of curiosity and shock than anything. Did he do anything illegal? Was there a citywide curfew? There were no ponies wandering about the street, but Celestia knows how late it was. Were these unicorns just massive plotholes?
The unicorns eventually stopped in front of a seemingly random house of the whole street. One of them knocked on the door, releasing his magical grip on Harry's shackle. The other unicorn made sure that the brief semi-freedom wouldn't last for long. The house lit up after a few more knocks, and to Harry's surprise a human answered the door. Layers of confusion stacked on top of layers of confusion.
The unicorn and the human shared a few lines of gibberish before returning inside. While they were speaking, Harry got a glimpse of his magical aura shackles. This time period was not painting itself as friendly. Soon an orange unicorn mare with a yellow mane stepped out, rubbing her eyes. More gibberish. Harry couldn't believe that he could have ever felt more alien than he was in his time, but this new time period was trying to prove that thought wrong. Desperately.
Their conversation ended with the unicorn dropping a bag into one of the guard's hooves. The sound of coins clanked as it landed. The other guard pushed Harry into the orange mare's house. She talked to the human, and bid him upstairs. Then she looked at Harry intently, and her horn started to glow. Harry backed up, only to hit the door. The unicorn started speaking in gibberish. It looked like she was asking him a question, beyond looking like she wanted to blow him to smithereens.
"Please don't hurt me," was all Harry could muster. The mare didn't listen, or couldn't listen. She blasted Harry with a bolt of magic... that didn't seem to do anything beyond making his tongue and his ears tingle.
"Grudda melos understand me? Can you understand me?" said the mare, her language travelling from gibberish to recognizable dialog.
"Y-yes," Harry said in words that sounded foreign to him. Then he added, "Can you please tell me what's going on?"
"Huh, 'please'—rather unusual for a human," the mare said, before she started looking around shelves. "I got a pretty good deal. I lost a human a few days ago, guards have been looking for him, thought you were it."
"So... can I leave?"
"No. Knows etiquette, but doesn't have a grasp of common sense—humanity for you," the mare gave Harry a snide glance. "You live here now."
"Wait, what?" Harry asked, out of surprise more than curiosity. He knew the answer, though he wished that that wasn't the case. The mare kept looking at him smugly. She said nothing, expecting Harry to come to the conclusion himself.
"B-because you o-own me?"
The unicorn gave a sigh. "'Own' is such a cruel word, and if there's anything unicorns should be called, it's far from cruel. We do this out of charity. You do our bidding and we don't let the creatures of the wilderness gore you. Seems like a fair trade to me. Not so much owners, but defenders. You... you're not around here, are you?"
"T-technically no."
"'Technically'? Perhaps undeniably. No wild human wears such professionally made clothes. And no domestic human doesn't speak our language. Where are you from?"
The mare's horn began to glow, and something told Harry that she wasn't planning on casting another language spell at him. Harry stayed silent and the mare walked closer, her expression unchanging from an air of superiority. The Hearth's Warming Play was right, unicorns were stuck up snobs. She was expecting an answer; and silence wasn't even a possibility to her. The only question was whether to tell the truth or make up some kind of lie. Were time travel spells invented yet?
"I—I'm—I'm from the future. Really far into the future where ponies... and um... humans don't speak this language."
The mare's horn stopped glowing, but her expression did not falter. "So when does the spell wear off?"
"Y-you believe me?"
"Were you lying?" the mare asked, quirking her brow. "No, no you weren't. Now please answer the question. I need to know so I can cast a counter-spell. Hey, don't look at me like that. Whoever decided to use you as an experiment knew the risks involved."
Harry didn't answer for quite some time, causing the mare's expression of superiority to falter. It had now had an air of annoyance. She was getting impatient, and Harry was running out of answers. What was he supposed to tell her this time? That it was a different kind of time travel spell, a much more powerful one than what she was assuming? She obviously didn't take humans seriously, and something like that sounded like he was claiming that he knew more about magic than her.
He stepped backwards, causing the time recall to slip out. The mare levitated it off of Harry's neck and held it front of her. She dangled in front of her eyes and watched it gleam in dim candlelight. Harry got to his feet and swiped it from her telekinetic grip. The mare flinched at the action. A few seconds later, she changed from shocked to pure seething anger.
"HOW DARE YOU!?" she shouted.
Winds of magical energy shot from her horn causing knickknacks to fall off of shelves and books to fly everywhere. Harry held onto the time recall for dear life. Harry got to his feet and jumped out of the way as a small bolt of lightning hit the door. Harry tucked the time recall under his shirt and dodged another lightning bolt.
A spell was cast and whips from the mare's horn extended to Harry's magical shackles. She thrusted down, forcing Harry back to the ground. Harry turned onto his shoulder to prevent the time recall from getting crushed under his own weight. It clanked upon the stone floor, and it's same familiar shape didn't change. Not broken, not yet at least. Harry had to make sure to keep it that way.
A third lightning bolt singed the floor, just as Harry rolled onto his back. This wasn't working. If this unicorn was anything like Twilight she could keep casting these spells all night. She knew about time travel spells, so she clearly had some interest in magic. Another grab with the magical whip tossed Harry into the wall.
From his advantaged position, he looked around for some kind of weapon. There was nothing but books and other debris littering the floor. There were no blunt objects that Harry could defend himself with, not even a broomstick. Harry slipped down from the wall and did the only thing he could think of: he charged at the unicorn. Once again she flinched. Then she shuttered when Harry grabbed her horn.
A fireball shot from the mare's horn and hit the ceiling. The heat burned Harry's hand, but he steadfastly held on. She was shaking wildly and looked like she was on the verge of throwing up. So that's why Fluttershy said never to touch a unicorn's horn. Harry grabbed it with his other hand and began forcing her to ground.
She started casting all kinds of spells in sheer desperation as she flailed to escape from Harry's grasp. When she was on the ground, Harry grabbed the near book and began to bash. Blood splattered to the corner of the book. Harry stopped and let go of the unicorn's horn once he noticed her closed eyes. She was still breathing. Harry dropped the book in pure relief. Thank Celestia she was alive. Harry couldn't think of what he would have done with himself if he had gone too far. For a second he saw Twilight in her place.
"Wha-what have you done!?" asked the human. He panicked, and bolted from the house.
Harry couldn't move. He was too busy dealing with the parasite of guilt, eating away at him. His eyes were still drawn to the trickle of blood coming off of her forehead. Harry needed to do something to make sure she was okay. He looked around the room. There was a basin full of water in the corner, perhaps used to wash clothes. On a table there were many alchemy supplies—mortars and pestles, empty books and quills, and most notably a knife.
Harry took the knife and cut off his right sleeve. He dipped it in the water and made a makeshift bandage out of it. Being raised by Fluttershy certainly had its advantages. He tied it around the unicorn's head, making sure to place plenty of pressure on the wound. It wasn't much, but it should suffice until somepony else found her.
The handiwork helped Harry notice his magical shackles. Out of curiosity, he pressed the knife to it. It only ended up giving him a small electrical shock. The knife clattered to the ground. He nervously touched one with his finger but it just went through them. It was clear that anypony could just use that same magical spell to keep him in submission if he couldn't figure out how to break them. Maybe Twilight...
That's right, Harry was alone on this one. He grasped the time recall. It's chilling surface felt soothing in his near-charred hands. The future was right there in his hands. No. He placed the time recall back under his shirt. He wasn't going to give up. One chance. That was much too valuable to give up just because things were... tricky.
There was a knock at the door. Speaking of things getting tricky, Harry needed to get out of this place fast.