//------------------------------// // Chapter Two - A Meeting with Royalty. // Story: An Old Stallion's Story // by Icer //------------------------------// Chapter Two: A Meeting with Royalty “Wow Grandpa! That’s way cool, you worked in a lab as a scientist!” Bunsen said with a look of pure awe on his face. “That I did Bunsen, that I did. I wasn’t paid for it, as I was working on what was known as a ‘Master’s Degree,’ I was working in the lab to help the Doc out, and to get a bit of research to back up my own theories on the matter. I guess that being here though really proves those to me at least.” The stallion said with a smirk on his face. “At that time I truly believed that I could unlock the very secrets of the universe, that everything could be known just because of science and knowledge.” All of his grandchildren were looking upon the stallion like he was some sort of new person that they have never seen before, and to some extent that was true. They had never known this much of his past before, they only really knew him as the grandfather that he had been for the past 20 years, and before that they knew that he worked for several of the universities as a researcher for magic, always letting the knowledge that he gained to be used for good purposes and yet more research. “Grandpa, did you really do all of those things like work at the universities and all that research then? Or… Or was it all made up?” Said one shy little unicorn filly, hiding behind a larger colt who was obviously her older brother. “Of course I did. All of those happened after this story silly filly!” The stallion said with a smile at his granddaughter, “I can’t really blame you for asking though, this is a completely new story for you all.” “Grandpa, what happened next though? I mean, you vanished from that lab right? So, where did you go?” Cloud Chaser said with a large amount of excitement, clearly getting more into the story than her cousins were. “Well, there was a bright light, and I don’t remember much after that because the portal really took a lot out of me, and the next thing that I remember was…” The first thing that John was aware of upon waking up was the sheets that he was covered in, quickly followed by the fact that he had a lovely headache and was completely parched, the realization of which caused him to audibly groan from the pain. That groan then elicited a response from something else in the room, which made a noise not unlike two coconuts being banged together, and that very same thing saying, “Quickly, go fetch the princess, our guest is beginning to stir.” Which was quickly followed by the coconut style noise vanishing and the sound of a door closing with a very audible click. Princess? That’s weird. There’s no princess in the US, and I can’t think of how I could have gotten to anywhere that would speak English and have a princess this quickly. Could just be a local title or inside joke. John thought as he slowly opened his eyes, giving them time to adjust to the bright light in the room. Well, I’m not anywhere that I can imagine having seen before. The room that he was looking at was very plush looking, much more than the room that he was used to staying in back at his apartment anyways. It was quite large, more akin in size to a suite than a bedroom, with fittings fit for a princess. The furniture all looked hand carved, with elaborate designs depicting what looked to John to be small horses, more like ponies than horses, of various types, unicorns, pegasi, regular ponies, and even the occasional third type that he could not seem to name. John sat up in the bed, and noticed for the first time how large it was in proportion to his own, it was easily capable of holding three to four of him comfortably. There was a large carpet of clearly at least as high of a quality as the furniture, to say nothing of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. “Well that’s something different.” John muttered to himself after observing the various furnishings of the room, especially the decorations of the various types of pony on the room’s furniture. Well, ponies everywhere, expensive furnishings, big bed…”I must not be in Kansas anymore Toto.” John said with a smirk on his face, finally having a true reason to use that phrase for something other than a joke with his friends. Taking another look around the room revealed to John that whoever, Or possibly whatever, he thought with a smile, had brought him to the room had taken his lab coat and placed it on the bed end bench, and next to it was, Huh, my leather jacket. Wonder where they found that, I thought I hung that up on the wall in the lab... He then quickly checked his pockets, and found to his relief that his leatherman tool, phone, wallet, and keys were still all there, which told him that they had not thought him to be a threat, or a danger to himself, when he arrived there. He was about to get up and stretch when the door opened with a click, and he looked over to the opening door which revealed a… Big blue pony with a horn and wings, wearing a black crown and a, Is that mane literally flowing with stars in it? John stared, flabbergasted that such a creature could truly be in front of him, a look and feeling of incredulity washing over him. No, that’s impossible, a flowing mane doesn’t make any sense. Next thing that I know it’s going to start to… “Hello, my name is Princess Luna, and welcome to Canterlot Castle, are you… are you feeling alright?” Luna said as she moved closer to him, lowering her head and raising her left foreleg with a look of worry on her face. Talk. Well that’s fantastic. And is it worrying? How can a pony show worry on its face? How can it speak English? How… How is it even talking to me? John’s mind started to go a little haywire, though it was still connecting the dots between what had gone on all the while. It was clear that something had gone strange with the experiment, and he was either in a dream, coma, an insane hallucination, or the possibility was there, something whispered in the back of his head, that the experiment had worked perfectly, just with some unintended consequences, and that this was reality. To test that theory, John took the time to pinch himself, and was not surprised by the fact that he felt pain, having already ruled out the other options. I guess this is reality, but… how is that pony speaking to me? Luna watched him carefully, she saw the emotions flying over his face as the changed from incredulity, to fear, to thought, and then finally settling on resignation. She decided to try to speak to him again, to see if he could understand her and maybe if he wasn’t in shock and just couldn’t answer, “Um, can you understand me? Are you okay? Do you need any help, I can send for some doctors if you need them!” She concluded with more worry than before, and took another step towards him. That action brought John out of his reverie and back to the matters in front of his own eyes. He couldn’t deny that the being in front of him was speaking to him, and in English for that matter. Well, I might as well be courteous to her, how do I know she’s a her anyways? Must be her voice. Anyways, might as well reply to her. His mind snapped back, again, to the matter at hand and he stood up and took a couple steps towards the speaker and extended his right hand for a handshake, “Yes…. Yes I can understand you Princess. And my name is John, John Blake.” John finished with what he hoped was a disarming smile. Luna extended her right foreleg to meet his handshake, a little confused by this greeting from a creature who just a moment ago was unmoving and pensive, though at the same time her ears perked up and a smile crept onto her face, “So you can understand us! We…. I. I am very pleased by this! Do you know how? Do you study Equestrian where you’re from? Do you know of us? How did you get here?” Luna immediately launched into the questions that had been bubbling in her mind in the hours since her new guest had arrived. Startled by the sudden change in behavior being exhibited by the princess, John took a step back, almost falling down onto the bed end bench that was holding his coat and jacket. “Um, what? Equestrian? I’m speaking English. Uh… what? What? What what? What?” Luna blushed at his reaction, with a little bit of a laugh, “Sorry about that. It’s just that we’ve… I’ve never met a being from another world before, and you were unconscious for so long, the questions just started bubbling up and then they just burst!” Smiling at her reaction John just nodded, before returning to his previous thoughtful expression, “A couple of hours? What… what happened exactly?” “Yes, well, you see it was all quite strange I was presiding over the Night Court when…” “You see Princess, if we were just to take the middle bracket for the tax income, and separate it further into 5 more brackets…” How did such a pony as ignorant as this one of the tax code, or even taxes in general, ever get an accountancy related cutie mark? The Night Princess wondered to herself, listening to the paper-brown stallion’s pointless dribble relating to some barely imperceptible increase that he thought, through his brilliant, in his mind at least, would cause the princess who wrote the tax codes and understands them better than anypony else in Equestria to change them. “This will of course bring the tax receipts to the treasury up by a further .01%.” The accountancy earth pony finished with an almost audible period. Luna almost let out a sigh of relief, the extremely long winded and very pointless rant by this fool who would dare question the intricacies and perfection of her tax code had finally finished! “Mr. Sea, while we do appreciate that you took so much time to go through our tax code and create a new and incredibly complex system that would increase the income to the treasury by .01%, we must say that we are perfectly happy with the way that our tax code is set up, and that we do not wish to change it. We must say before you leave that we may ponder the changes that you have proposed, but there are more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. We wish you to have a good night, and if you manage to get the increase up to 5%, we would like to hear from you again. Good Night Mr. Account Sea.” Luna completed with a barely perceptible amount of annoyance, nothing showing in either her tone or face, apart from the royal ‘we’ that Twilight Sparkle had managed to get her out of the habit of using back on Nightmare Night. Account Sea gave a very flustered looking bow, and spun around on his rear legs and left the court room in a bit of a huff, much to the pleasure of Princess Luna, who loved nothing more than to see some self-important pony get what she believes they deserve, a bit of annoyance and a laugh for her. “Ordered Quill, you may send in the next petitioner now if they are ready.” Luna said after she got a drink from the glass on the small table next to her. Ordered Quill, a small dark green unicorn with a checklist and a quill for a cutie mark, nodded his head, pushed his glasses back onto his nose with his magic, and then turned to the door to call in the next petitioner when there was an unexpected bright flash of light behind him, followed by the falling of large pieces of metal, machinery, and the distinctive sound of broken glass and plaster. Ordered Quill spun around on the spot to the source of the noise, “Princess! Are you oka….” And he trailed off as his eyes beheld a sight seen by only one other pony in all of Equestria, the sight of a mass of… something sitting in an ordered fashion in the middle of the throne room, bits of plaster fallen around and on top of it. The Princess stood behind it, at the foot of her throne, staring at the mass of machinery that had appeared in her throne room out of nowhere, with not even a buildup of magical energy to explain a possible teleport. Their eyes wandered to something even stranger than the equipment suddenly in the throne room, a being that had never before been seen on that world, slumped over a piece of machinery that was on a desk. “ORDERED QUILL! QUICKLY, GO GET THE GUARDS AND SOMEPONIES TO HELP CLEAN THIS UP!” Luna shouted as she flew down the stairs with a speed befitting that of an immortal princess, “We shall see to this creature and see that it is not terribly injured! Move, quickly!” Pausing as she got closer to the creature that was sitting in front of her, another thought crossed her mind, “Ordered Quill! Before you get too far, tell the ponies waiting outside that the rest of tonight’s court shall be canceled! DO NOT TELL THEM WHY!” A rather frazzled looking green unicorn nodded once more at his princess’s orders, before running out of the room to do what she had ordered as five guards came running into the room. “You three, I want all of this… Equipment stored away in the secure vault number 15, no pony but myself or Celestia, unless given permission by either of us, is to enter the vault.” Luna said, pointing with her left hoof at the three closest to her. “You two, for now I want you to clear the way for them so that no pony, not even the regular castle staff, see what happened in here and what is being moved.” As the pegasi guards nodded their heads and went about their business with the equipment that had appeared in the throne room without notice, Luna took a step closer to her charge and examined it. Well, it’s certainly not a pony, that’s for sure. Furless but for a short patch on its head, it doesn’t look to be too damaged. And it’s wearing clothes! This is certainly a strange thing, it’s not too unlike the Diamond Dogs, but it is certainly much cleaner looking and not as… gangly, that’s the word. A quick spell revealed to her that it was not in any danger from any injuries; the only thing wrong with it was that it was unconscious. “Ma’am,” One of the guards attempting to move the equipment said as he approached with a salute, “We cannot lift this equipment; it is far too heavy for any pegasus to lift alone, or in a group. We require unicorn help.” “Very well, get 3 or 4 from the night barracks and have them help you, but impress upon them my wish for secrecy in this matter, if they break it they’ll have to deal with my wrath.” The Night Princess finished with an exasperated sigh. Three more pegasi guards filtered in as the leader of the first group left, “Good. You three, come with me. We’re going to move this creature to one of the more secluded guest rooms. One of the ones overlooking the inner garden will be perfect, I want you two to clear the passage ways ahead of me, and you are going to come with me to help in case this creature wakes up.” Luna concluded before turning around and using her magic to levitate the creature and started moving at a slow trot while the two guards she had pointed out earlier moved at a more brisk pace to clear the passages ahead. The trip to the guest room was entirely uneventful, while several guards came to her on the way to report that the equipment had been moved without any problems to the specified vault. Luna carefully laid the creature out on the bed, after first removing what was obviously a coat from the way it was draped, and putting it on the bed end bench, folded neatly. At that, Ordered Quill entered the room and nodded to the guards before approaching the Princess, “Princess Luna, everything has been completed as you requested, and the mess in the throne room has been cleaned. Is there anything else I can do for you?” “Yes Quill, I need you to get me a piece of parchment and a quill. I need to take some notes on this creature.” Luna said without once looking away from her examination of the creature on the bed, and Ordered Quill nodded without saying a word, and produced the required items and floated them over to the Princess, who took them and immediately set to work writing her observations. Let’s just see what it is going on with this thing. Luna thought as she immediately jumped into her little-used researcher mode. Appears to be about 6 hooves tall, give or take a couple of inches. Brown mane, eyes undetermined. Subject is clearly bipedal, and utilizes hands that are smaller and much more fine-tuned for fine manipulation of small objects it would seem. Opposable thumbs, that’s something you don’t see every day. It is wearing clothes; multiple layers show that it was cooler there as the lack of fur would necessitate clothing. Luna glanced over at the white coat that she had taken off of the creature, noting that it looked a bit like a lab coat that they would have in Equestria. “Ordered Quill, was there perhaps another thing that looked like a coat or a jacket with the objects taken down to Vault 15? If there was, I want it brought up here, folded, and left next to his coat. The creature may wish to have what is clearly its personal affects.” Luna finished as she went back to her observations of the creature for several hours, not noticing as Ordered Quill returned the item that she had asked for. “Princess, it is getting near dawn. Do you not think that it is time for you to take some rest? You have been at this since nearly midnight; I would think that you would need to take a break. If you wish, I can have one of the guards remain in the room and come and wake you if the creature stirs. As well as you need to lower the moon so that your sister can raise the sun, we can’t have both celestial bodies in the sky at once you know!” Ordered Quill said to his ruler, hoping to break her out of her obsession, and glanced over at the stack of notes that she had already taken on the creature, before looking back to his princess. “I suppose that you’re right, it is getting about that time… Make sure that the guard comes to me first! We can’t have him disturbing my sister now can we? I’ll leave a message for her that she need not be worried about this creature, and that I’ll be taking care of him.” Barely stifling a yawn, Luna left the room with her notes on the creature following her, and lowered the moon before turning in for the day, until the creature woke up that is. “And that’s how you happened to get to where you are now, 12 hours later, satisfied?” A slightly breathless and exasperated Luna finished as she looked at John once again. John nodded, thinking that information through before responding, “Well, if what you say is true, then… then the experiment worked! Just, not how it should…” Luna’s eye’s brightened up at this revelation, “So it was an experiment! You do know what caused you to get here! What were you trying to do?” He smiled at her enthusiasm and walked over to one of the windows, and drew a breath while glancing out at the garden, and turned back around to lean against the wall. “Well, in short we were trying to make a small portal to another universe in order to prove that it could be done. It was only supposed to be big enough for us to get a reading on the particles being emitted, but that obviously didn’t happen. It must have become large enough to drag me and a bunch of the equipment through to this world, only logical explanation for the action.” John looked back at Luna, and turned a little red as his stomach growled, “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have anything to eat would you? It’s been quite a while since I’ve had anything to eat, yesterday morning in fact.” He trailed off with a bit of a hopeful expression on his face. “Of course! Let me have someone bring it in, I had something prepared for you, but I didn’t have any idea what you would eat so we just had the cooks throw together a little bit of everything. I hope you don’t mind…” Luna quickly moved over to the closed door, opened it and said something to somepony outside of the room, and the door opened wider to reveal a white earth pony with a black bow tie pushing in a cart covered in plates with different types of food. John couldn’t help but snicker at the bow tie, A pony with a bow-tie? Who would have thunk it. On the cart itself there were various different types of fruits and veggies, ranging from the more commonplace apples and bananas, to more exotic types like dragon fruit. The veggies were even more varied than what he could have expected to see in any human spread, Hay. They eat hay. Of course they eat hay, they’re equines aren’t they? It’s only natural for them to eat hay. “Well, I can eat just about anything that’s edible, as I’m an omnivore, so long as it’s not too starchy, things like hay’s and grasses don’t really digest well. Or at all really.” John said as his eyes lit up at the food before him, and he walked over and grabbed the first thing that really caught his eye, the biggest strawberry he had ever seen, taking a bite out of it, his eyes lit up with joy, “Is all the food here this great? Or is it just the food here in the castle that is this good?” “Well, for the most part the food is pretty good here I’d imagine… though it’s been quite some time since I’ve not eaten here. As for being an omnivore, it would make sense that you could be able to eat a large variety of things, but other things you wouldn’t be able to eat due to the nature of their calories. I guess that since we’ve got time on our hooves, would you mind telling me more about yourself John?” Luna asked as she watched him eat with his hands, taking as many mental notes on how he stood, walked, used his hands, and many others, as she could remember. “Well, you already know my name, it’s John. I’m 25, and I have a bachelor’s degree in physics, and I’m working on my master’s in a similar field. I have 2 brothers and a sister, and my parents are both still alive, though they live out in the country far away from any cities. Um…” He paused as he took a bite from an apple this time and leaned back onto the desk in the room, “I have a cat and I live in an apartment about a mile or two from my university’s campus, where I work part time in a lab, the lab that sent me here, and I have been known to devour books and video games alike…. Wait, who’s going to take care of Boris?!” “Boris? What is a… Boris?” Luna asked, suddenly confused by his change in tone. “Oh… he’s my cat, a Russian blue. He looks just like a Boris, so that’s what I named him. Um… Boris is a joking name for a big Russian guy? Russians are a nation where I’m from? Oh, whatever. I’ll explain it some other time.” John finished as he saw the look Luna had on her face go from confused, to even more confused, and ending with flabbergasted. “Cultural references, got it. Stepping away from those would probably be a good idea for now at least. See, I’m new to this dimensional traveler thing! I wasn’t really expecting the experiment to work that well.” Their afternoon continued in such a matter, with most if not all of the focus being on John’s history, family, and questions about Earth and Humanity in general. Every once in a while something would come up that would make Luna take them on a completely different tangent than the one they were currently on, but they would eventually return to the topic. Luna, it appeared to John anyways, had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, at least knowledge about his world, and she never game him a single chance to counter her questions with questions of his own about Equestria. Celestia’s sun was beginning to lower itself beyond the horizon, coupled with the tired look that John had on his face, when Luna finally realized what time it was and decided to end their session for the day. “John, I apologize for taking up so much of your time with these questions! Though, I must say your world is really interesting, I’m just sorry that I’ve been focusing so much on what I wanted to learn that I didn’t really think much about your feelings on the matter.” She said with a blush again, “It’s just that it’s not that often that I get to learn about something so completely new that I just lost myself in it, without being a proper host or helping you along!” John inwardly smiled at the blushing alicorn and her seeming insecurities, “Think nothing of it Luna, you’ve really helped me a lot more than you think you have, and I have to say that I was not expecting this when I woke up yesterday, or even today for that matter. You’ve really been very gracious to me, when you could have easily gotten rid of me without anyone knowing any better. And, if our situations had been reversed, I imagine that I would have spent much of my time in your shoes!” He finished with a laugh that quickly turned into a yawn. “Well, I shall leave you to your night John, if you need anything I’ll leave a guard outside of your room, he will be more than willing to help you out. Ordered Quill!” She shouted at the green unicorn who was dozing off in a corner out of the way, “We need to get going, we have our duties to attend to for the night! And to leave our guest to his rest.” Walking out of the room, Luna paused as if thinking about something, then turned back to John, “I think that tomorrow I will introduce you to my older sister, she was busy all day today with matters of state and was unable to meet with you.” John went white as a sheet at the mention of meeting another princess, having all but forgotten that Luna was one throughout their conversation in the afternoon. Luna, seeing her guest’s face turn white as a sheet, decided to ease his fears, “Have no worry John! I’m sure that she’ll like you well enough, and I’ll make sure that she knows that it will be informal, and you know that I’ll try to keep it from turning into one of those disgusting affairs.” She concluded as she wrinkled her nose at the thought, before leaving the room and wishing John a good night. John, for his part, was more or less looking forward to meeting more ponies than he had on that day, he only really met a couple of the guards, who’s stoic expressions and attitudes left much to be desired as they hardly spoke at all, even when spoken to, and one or two of the servants, who really didn’t say anything at all and bowed out of the room as fast as they entered. This certainly has been an interesting day, meeting royalty, essentially boiling down humanity into a concentrate… I wonder what else this world holds for me. John continued to ponder his day as he went about utilizing the room’s attached bathroom, having acquired something to clean his teeth with from a servant who was passing by, and cleaned up as best he could, before he settled down into the bed’s sheets for what looked to be a night full of interesting and restful dreams. Author's Note: Sorry for taking so long on this chapter everyone! About two and a half days longer than I had originally expected it to take me, but considering it's length I'm sure you can forgive me, right? Well, John is now in Equestria, Luna is obsessed with humanity, and Ordered Quill is clearly overworked by his lovely Princess. I hope that you are all enjoying this story, I know that I'm thoroughly enjoying writing it, not to mention putting it out there for all to read!