Friendship is Revolution

by ultiville

June 14 - Lost

I've never been one to keep a journal just for me, but these are hardly normal circumstances. Friendship reports, and then the journal I kept with my friends, gave me a chance to organize my thoughts, not just present them to other ponies, and Celestia, they could use it now. I'm not sure how much organization I'll get out of this, but I think it'll make me feel better to write it down. I can show it to my friends when I see them again, or make it another letter to Celestia. I can hope, anyway.

When I woke up today, it was still dark out. I later found out it was technically morning - 3:36am, to be precise - but I had no idea at the time. All I knew was it was dark, I was lying on a lightly grassy slope, and there was a strange sound coming from the top of the slope, and a brief flash of light, which is likely what woke me. I realized later the sound was cars on a highway and the lights their headlights, but I was still confused since I'd just woken up. I've only ever encountered cars in the world through the mirror, and I didn't spend enough time there to recognize them easily.

I'm still confused, honestly. I don't have any idea how I came to be here - not just this city, but this world. There's a hole in my memory, I think, and it terrifies me. What's the last thing I remember? I think it's Tirek, and my new castle, and my new title, but it doesn't feel like yesterday. I don't remember going to sleep some night and then waking up. I don't remember going to sleep last night at all. It's all nebulous, like a memory from months or years ago, but with nothing in between then and now. Or maybe like getting black-out drunk? I wouldn't know about that one. But I do know I've never had anything like this happen to me before. Of course, I've also never been to another world and stayed myself before.

I remember our new table with the stone chairs, one for each of us, our new mission to spread the magic of friendship throughout Equestria and beyond, but it feels old, rushed. Like it happened a long time ago, or like it was something somepony else told me about, or described in a book. But I know I was there, I remember the battle all too well, the heat of Tirek's magic on me, my fury at his crimes. My poor library. [The original page and ink here are smudged with tears -Ed.]

Was this one of our missions? This would certainly count as "beyond Equestria". I wonder if I meant to come here, if whatever magic brought me so far from home had some side effect on my short-term memory. But I wouldn't have come on a friendship mission alone, so if that's true, where are the others? This is the fifty-seventh time I've wondered this today, by my count, but writing it down does feel different. For now I can't answer it, so I'll move on.

As I was saying, it was still dark. The headlights washed over my head, and woke me, but I was still groggy, and once it passed, I could make out little of my surroundings. It was a strange kind of darkness, not like Ponyville's nights. There was ambient light, both from streetlights and from a sort of general background light that obscured the night sky. The moon and stars were invisible. I suppose it was a cloudy night. Unlike night in Equestria, I could see quite some distance away. Near me, though I could make out little; the steep slope was covered with small trees and shrubs that cast deep shadows, so I couldn't see the ground, or the bottom of the hill, clearly. I lit my horn to get a better view. It was harder than I remember. All my magic is, here; not sure why yet. But that's such a simple one, I got it to work, even if it felt harder than it did even in my school days.

The first thing I noticed about the hillside was all the trash. Celestia, these people are slobs! Or maybe there's no good system of waste disposal here? (*Note to self: inquire with Rachel tomorrow.) I know what I've written sounds like I'm upset, and I'll be the first to admit I don't deal well with confusion, but this is so exciting, too! So much to learn about this place! [Notes to self are marked with hand-drawn stars in the original text. -Ed.]

Anyway, the trash. I've seen a few cases of littering around Ponyville, of course, everypony makes mistakes from time to time, or just gets careless, but this hillside was covered with it, and a lot of it made of materials I'd only ever seen through the mirror, like plastic. Either this world makes a lot more trash, or nobody's cleaned up in days, maybe even weeks! I shudder to think.

This pen is also plastic; it is an interesting substance. Since I'm not a human this time and can use magic, if poorly, I'd love to take this one apart to see exactly what it is, but I'm not sure I could put it back together, and I've only got the one. (*Note to self: ask Rachel for more pens.)

Ok Twilight, stay on track here. You're supposed to be organizing your thoughts, not going off on some tangent every other paragraph. Stick with what happened. Besides, this is the exciting part, where I meet a new friend! At least I think she's a friend.

Anyway, I was pretty unsteady on my hooves when I got up. I don't know how I was sleeping on such a steep hill in the first place, or for how long, but I almost tumbled all the way down when I started moving, about six lengths. [Our belief is a length is a body length - about four feet if Twilight is typical - Ed.] At the bottom the hill flattened out into a sort of clearing, next to a small pond. The overall area was urban, though; I could glimpse small buildings and more streetlights through the trees, and saw some quite large ones nearby, lit up and as tall as in Manehattan. Though humans are taller than ponies, so I'm not sure if those buildings have more floors, or the floors are just bigger. (*Note to self, investigate sizes of buildings here vs. Manehattan.)

Anyway, I found myself in a clearing, in a little glade in a city. I assume it was a park or something, but like the slope above, I was surrounded by trash here as well. Not only the paper and plastic containers, but other, larger artifacts, including several wire-frame carts of some kind, which I didn't see on my trip through the mirror. In the middle of the clearing, I saw the remains of a fire, though it was completely dark and cold.

I had no idea where I was - still don't, really. Rachel is an officer of the "Cambridge Police Department" but at the time I didn't even know the city's name. Certainly I was nowhere I recognized. It looked like the human world from the mirror, but not anywhere near where I'd been last time. (Now I think it isn't even the same world - how many are there? And how strange that the mirror world seemed so much more similar to my own.) I had no idea where to go or what to do.

What I didn't realize was that my light attracted some attention. A car arrived at the top of the hill, with flashing blue lights on the top. I hadn't seen a police car in the mirror world either, which is pretty strange given all the havoc we got up to on our last night. But then, a lot about that world didn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, a mare woman got out of the car. She was wearing what I now know was a police officer's uniform, though I'd never seen one before. She was clearly a human, but not quite like the ones I'd seen in the mirror world. The humans there were colorful, like ponies. I've only met Rachel so far here, and seen a few others as we passed, but they're all very muted in coloration, and she says that's how they all are here, unless they dye their hair or skin.

When she got out of the car, she called out. Her words would have sounded upset but her tone wasn't really, it was like the Princess telling me off for something minor, or Cherliee scolding somepony in her class for a minor error.

"Come on, I told you guys not to make such big fires, I could get written up if I overlook one like this," she said.

Of course, she was following the light, so she saw me right after she said that, and got a nasty shock. She dropped down a little and pulled out her gun, and asked "what the hell" I was, though not really in a tone like she was expecting an answer. I had no idea what a gun was at that point, so it didn't intimidate me like it was supposed to, but I knew enough from my time through the mirror to tell she was nervous, so I didn't make any threatening moves, and just introduced myself.

We worked it all out, eventually. Her name is Rachel Diaz and she's what she calls a "beat cop" which I guess is like a guard pony. Her title is "officer" but it doesn't actually seem to be an officer rank. I actually asked her if her name was Rainbow Dash at first. In my defense, her voice sounds spookily similar, and last time I was in a world with humans, all my friends had human versions there, so it seemed like a reasonable guess. The whole thing is strange overall, honestly - the more I've talked to her, the more I've realized she's a very loyal friend, just like Rainbow, and she's in peak physical shape, which is very important to her. She's got rainbow-colored socks for when she's off duty, and her t-shirts have lightning bolts all over them. Her friends even call her RD, for short! I have no idea what to make of it, but it's almost like there's some spectrum of similarity to Equestria, and this world is a little further away than the one through the mirror. Or maybe there's something about the Elements of Harmony that make them manifest everywhere? I need to investigate further, though I have no idea how.

Anyway, after we figured out that neither of us was going to attack the other, RD took me back to her place, for safety. There aren't ponies here, so she's worried I'd scare humans if they saw me. Well, they do have ponies, but not our kind of ponies, they're domestic animals, not sapient creatures. And they're bigger, and all earth toned, like the humans.

I'm at her place now, in any case. I've been here all day, while she's been at work, but she should be back soon. She showed me the refrigerator and this paper and pen, and suggested I write things down.

Human food is mostly strange. They're omnivores, and seem convinced that everything should be coated in strange sauces, or come pre-packaged assembled elsewhere. I don't recognize most of the ingredients in those things, so I'm not sure what's safe for me to eat, but I found some apples and carrots. They're nowhere near as good as Sweet Apple Acres stuff, or Golden Harvest's carrots, but without earth pony magic I'm not surprised, and you can never go too far wrong with an apple in any case.

I don't know how much writing helped, to be honest. RD seems very nice, but I knew that. And I'm still not sure what to make of myself. Nothing's been jogged loose here, I still can't remember how I got here or why. And more concerning, my memories still seem distant. What have I forgotten?

I just heard the door open. I guess RD's back. More later.

Comments

[Akeion98]

This is a good story and few mistakes you got a fav from me.

[Viper5012]

As interesting as the concept is, it doesn't get me into it because of the way it's written. It feels like it's not really a story and more like you're just telling us what happened without any emotion. I feel like the journal-esque way it's written takes away from the overall story.