The Severed Dimension

by StarPrism

Chapter 1 - Imprisoned

Chapter 1: Imprisoned
Lorane

What in the world? Did that horse just talk?! I need to get out of here and find the guys!

The strange horse next to me was looking the other way. I slowly raised myself up making sure the animal didn’t attack. I realized it was just a horse and I shouldn’t feel so threatened by a creature that’s so docile by nature. Then I lost my balance and fell backwards.

“Lorane? Are you okay?” Edel’s voice questioned.

I looked up, and saw the green horse was looking at me with bright teal eyes that looked very familiar. After a short panic attack, I noticed I couldn’t feel my hands or feet; as if they were completely numb… I looked down and saw I no longer had hands or feet, but hooves!

I must be dreaming!

“Lorane! It is you. Isn’t it?” The green horse’s mouth moved in unison with Edel’s voice.

I then thought, Well if this is a dream I should just wake up right? So I got up, carefully on all fours as it felt natural, strangely enough, and decided to run into the nearest tree.

BAM!

I felt dizzy and fell on the ground, instinctively moving what were once my hands to my face, feeling a long snout instead of my flat nose.

“I have a muzzle?! You have got to be kidding me!” I yelled out of impulse. I then turned to see two other horses looking at me, both of their eyes seemed familiar… Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. “…Edel? …Regal?” I asked.

“Yes it’s us I’m afraid.” The green horse in Edel’s voice.

“It can’t be that bad!” The blue horse in Regal’s voice.

“Guys?” I asked, giving in to the apparent change in appearance. The green horse nodded, who was actually Edel, still wore a steel plated armor piece on his back and lower body. His long sword was nowhere to be found, assuming this was indeed Edel; but he did have the weighted wristbands on his forelegs.

“Lorane I’m not sure what happened but I think we are all horses now.” Edel said.

“Ponies…” Regal corrected.

Edel looked at him with a puzzled expression. Seeing this, Regal continued; “We’re ponies. Both of you are too small to be fully grown horses. Unless I am bigger than both of you, we are all ponies.”

“Does it matter?! We are not humans anymore, that much is certain!” Edel exclaimed.

I was thinking about the whole situation, trying to make sense of all of this.

Since they are sort of arguing WHAT we are, maybe there is some logic behind all of this...

I looked around. The surroundings were quite gorgeous. The sun was high in the sky, probably right after noon, the birds were chirping, we were in a clearing in the middle of a meadow surrounded by an ominous forest.

“Lorane what do you think of all of this?” Regal asked.

I looked at him, noticing he had an outline of some sort surrounding his body… We definitely weren’t in Durandel anymore. “Regal, I think we were transported to another dimension by Gladius.” I said, trying to think quickly as I spoke. “I think we should be safe here, I mean based on our surroundings it looks peaceful, but if this is our prison…”

Regal and Edel were still looking at me as I trailed off, trying to think of what to say next. Edel always played leader of our little “pack”, but whenever he gave me that look I knew he was looking for my honest input, that look like he was waiting for something, and I should always give it my all.

“Why would Gladius turn us into horses- I mean ponies?” Edel asked as he received a glare from Regal.

“Don’t know. I think we should honestly make a plan, Edel. You always get us out of situations like this. What do you think?” I asked. Knowing Edel, he would lead us in the right direction.

As he finally got up on all fours as I was, and Regal following suit more clumsily, Edel spoke “I think since we might be stuck here, might as well make the best of it.” He said, turning to Regal before gaping at him.

“Are those wings?” I asked.

Regal looked to his side, he did indeed have wings, as if he were one of the steeds of the gods; a legendary Pegasus. But the broken piece of horn on his head was a strange addition. After staring at the wings for a second he shrugged and lifted himself to all fours like us. “I don’t know, I can’t really move them.”

After shaking his head and turning to face the sun, Edel spoke up. “Okay, since there's a forest nearby, let’s head North since the sun is setting in that direction,” he pointed with his hoof in my direction “North should be that way.” He finished pointing towards his right, about 90 degrees from me. I only nodded to support his decision. So we all began to slowly trot to the north, trying to get used to our four feet, and seemingly unlimited stamina. I found it amusing how Edel was now slightly shorter than me now, but Regal was still much taller than both of us.

Remembering, I was out of breath before running into Gladius in the castle. But now I was completely relaxed while trotting at a speed I would normally have to struggle to maintain. Getting used to walking with four legs was easy, but the other two were having trouble adjusting. “I’m going to run ahead, you guys try to keep up!” I said before speeding up.

It was exhilarating. I was galloping at a high speed that I think even our nemesis, Xion would have a hard time keeping up with. That’s right! Xion! I remembered; Xion was the reason why we were out of breath and why the castle was crumbling apart in the first place. He was extremely dangerous and his two cronies who backed him up were also dangerous. Solem, the big brute, was always looking for any fight, and Glacious, the smarter little crony or henchman was the one who was responsible for Regal’s broken leg. Hopefully we don’t run into any trouble like that here in this… strange yet beautiful place.

I got to the edge of the forest; I could hear crickets and a couple of water sources flowing. Plenty of wood to burn, and I can let the guys deal with water. Then I realized: I am a pony. How do I use magic without my hands?! Focusing as I would normally on a spot on the ground I said in my mind Fire. Nothing happened, and my heart sank. Can I no longer use magic? No! I don’t believe this… Fire! Fire! FIRE! Nothing happened.

“Lorane! Caught up to you! Hah hah… What’s going on?” Regal had caught up with me and saw I had my eyes closed and head down.

“Shut it Regal. I’m trying to cast a spell… Any spell…”

After being quiet, he looked around and began to trot arbitrarily around glancing at flowers and random plants as if searching for something to do. After a few minutes of this, Edel finally showed up, getting the hang of trotting and looking around as well. I, however, couldn’t get a simple fire spell going and laid down on the patch of grass I was on.

“Regal, keep looking for something to eat. Fruit, nuts... well, anything.” Edel said before looking at me. Regal nodded and walked off, but then stopped. “Lorane what’s going on?”

“I can’t use my magic. It’s just not working…” I replied.

“What? Well you’re a unicorn. And in our world, unicorns were very magical creatures in the past.”

“A unicorn?” I searched my forehead to my surprise, feeling a small lump protruding in my hair. “But what does that mean?” I thought for a moment. Unicorns do have more of a magical history in the Durandel Library compared to most creatures… I wonder if the horn has a special property…? I concentrated on my horn now. Suddenly I felt a sensation that felt like mana rush through me as I focused. This has got to be the source, I thought. Well here goes… Fire!

A rush of heat rushed to my forehead and I felt my head recoil as my horn apparently shot a small ball of fire in a straight line, however the horn was pointing at a nearby tree branch which exploded in flames.

“Oh shoot!” I exclaimed as Edel looked up at the branch.

Water.

A stream of water burst out of my horn, dousing the flames. I sighed as I let my focus go. So I can cast spells but I need to concentrate on my horn. I thought. This would be very complicated, since I don’t have a good idea how my horn was jutting out of my head. There was a sudden thumping noise, me and Edel looked to see the source; Regal was bouncing out of a nearby thicket with a mouthful of berries. It looked strange to see a pony bouncing around like a kangaroo but then again we all had outlines, and the world was very bright and colorful. I concluded it is the nature of this land to be springy and full of life.

“Well, since it looks like you’ve got magic figured out, I’m going to get some firewood okay?” Edel said. Not waiting for me to nod yes, he added to Regal “And wash those berries, I am going to find water too. Not sure what to fill, but I’ll think of something!” he said before trotting off into the wilderness.

“Did you really gather those with your mouth?” I asked Regal.

After spitting most of them out and swallowing the rest he replied “Of course! Hello? No hands! And besides we're washing them anyway…”

---

After about four hours, we found ourselves getting settled by a stream of water. It was getting very dark, and laying by the fire I started we found ourselves oddly relaxed. We were looking out for any creatures like wargs, basilisks, hellhounds, even some ware rabbits, but nothing really bothered us at all.

“This place is very peaceful isn’t it?” I said

“Yeah. So far nothing has tried to kill us… Is that odd?” Regal questioned.

“I’m not sure. This is supposed to be a prison for us right? What if… What if Gladius is trying to get our guard down?” Edel said.

It was a ridiculous thing to say, and Edel knew it; if Gladius wanted us dead we would be dead. Why send us here instead of some blank dimension where we couldn’t get hungry? I heard Edel fidget suddenly.

“I should’ve known…” He said as he sat up on all fours, then crouched slightly.

“Monster?” Regal whispered, also getting up on all fours.

I tried to listen… I heard nothing for a good 10 seconds until hearing a rustling behind me. I turned around and saw another figure come into the light of our campfire. It was a pony about the size of Edel.

“Hello? Anypony here?” a soft, female voice came from the pony’s figure.

As she came into the light, we could see she was a pony with wings like a legendary Pegasus, like Regal. She was butter-yellow, had a long flowing pink mane that was set on either side of her head, with a long pink tail behind her. She paused as she saw me, and looked at me first with her teal eyes, then to Edel and Regal.

“Oh… Hello. I hope I wasn’t interrupting... but I saw smoke and thought there might be trouble here in the forest.” She said in a very delicate voice.

I looked at her for a second, not sure to trust her or not, and spoke “Err... hello. Are you a local resident of this dimensi- I mean of this area?” I asked.

“Oh yes, I’m from Ponyville, the town to the west of here. Do you need a place to sleep?” She asked.

I looked to Edel who was still in a crouching position. “Umm, yeah, sure. It is getting late and we were planning to sleep here, but if Ponyville isn’t too far…” I started, trying to cue in Edel who remained still and silent.

“Oh, it’s no problem at all. You can follow me to my cottage.” The pegasus said and turned around.

I began to trot forward towards her as Regal put out the camp fire and Edel stayed close to me. “If that creature tries anything we’ll kill her and run. She might have the rest of her brood nearby.” Edel whispered. I raised an eyebrow at him. The pegasus seemed very nice to me, but Edel does have a distrustful nature with strangers.

“So where are you three from? Are you new to Ponyville?” the pegasus asked.

“Oh yes, we traveled very far. We stumbled across this forest on our travel from the south.” I replied

“The south? Oh my, does that mean you’re from Apple loosa? Or did you come from Dodge City?” She paused for a second before adding “I’m sorry it’s none of my business.”

“It’s okay, I’m Lorane by the way. These are my friends, the short one is Edel, and that is Regal.” I said.

She smiled and said “Nice to meet you all! I’m Fluttershy.”

As we walked she began to tell us about the nearby gorge called Ghastly Gorge, and a nearby ruin of a place called the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters in another section of this forest which is called the Everfree Forest. She then turned her attention to Regal.

“Umm... Mister Regal, if you don’t mind me asking, I noticed you have wings and a horn, does that mean you’re related to princess Celestia?” She asked.

Regal merely flinched at hearing his name before answering a second later “I don’t believe I’ve met this princess of yours. But it is possible we’re related…”

“Oh it would be wonderful if you are. She’s sweet, caring and understanding of everypony, and tries to rule Equestria with love and tolerance.” Fluttershy said.

A monarch ruling with love and tolerance? And this place is called Equestria huh? So we really have been teleported to another dimension…

“We’re here!” Fluttershy said as she began to fly but stayed with our trotting speed.

We arrived at a small cottage . She flew towards the front door, I noticed the lights in the distance of the town called “Ponyville” and it was indeed a lot later than I thought it was. I let out a small yawn.

“Reminds me of home.” Edel said as we drew closer to the cottage. There was fencing on the side of the path leading to the open front door. Fluttershy emerged flying in midair holding out her right hoof toward the door. “Make yourself at home! I just started brewing some ginseng tea. It always helps me sleep, so maybe it'll have the same effects for you.” She said, almost in a singing manner.

Well if this was a prison, so far this is the most peaceful prison I’ve ever seen. Why would Gladius send us here? We need to get back and warn the King back in Durandel of Gladius coming for them. I wonder if teleportation is a possibility for escape...?

“Thank you for your kindness, Miss Fluttershy, but we cannot impose. We need to find a way back home…” Regal said “…and fast…” he mumbled.

“Oh it’s really no trouble. I can’t let two foals and an injured stallion just sleep in the woods!” Fluttershy responded as she went into the kitchen. The cottage was very small, few pieces of furniture littered the ground along with bags of animal feed, bird houses, and many more tiny critter homes. The flight of stairs was very small and seemed to only lead to the only bedroom in the cottage.

Injured? She must be talking about Regal’s horn

“Does it seem like we’re taking advantage of her kindness?” Regal asked Edel and I.

“No way. Besides she said it was no problem.” Edel said. “I do hope she’s sincere but part of me is staying on edge. There is a reason why we were sent here. I will not let you or Lorane get hurt because we were tricked by false kindness… again…” Edel looked down. I remembered the first time Deception took someone away from us… it was his brother that was taken away from us forever less than a year ago…

“Edel, if anything does happen I will protect us all. And you are strong enough to get us through any situation. We need to stay on our track okay? I trust this pony who took us in, there is an air of kindness surrounding her, and I think we can trust her.” I said, digging my nuzzle under his neck. It felt natural; I guess nuzzling others is how ponies show comfort and affection.

Fluttershy returned with a kettle of ginseng tea. As we sat around the small table, we saw as she lifted a tea cup and poured tea with her fore-hooves. How the-?! “Umm excuse me, Fluttershy?” I started as she took a sip.

After swallowing she replied “Yes?”

“How did you just do that? With your hooves?”

She looked down at the cup she was holding and started to giggle. She explained about the magic of Equestria and how all ponies have an ability to grasp objects with an extremely limited telekinetic-type grip if something is close enough to their hoof, and this ability was made possible by their ruler named Princess Celestia. After finishing she added “You three aren’t from Equestria are you?”

“We’re from… very far away. A land called Durandel and we don’t usually have such abilities.” Edel answered, trying out his newfound ability on his cup.

“Durandel? I’ve never heard of it. I have a friend you can all meet tomorrow who can help you out, and maybe she’s heard of this ‘Durandel’ place.” She said. After a yawn she added “It’s getting late. Why don’t we get some rest?”

After some arguing, Fluttershy convinced Edel and Regal to share the one bed upstairs, while she and I slept on the two couch-like chairs. I didn’t mind, I was really tired from the events that passed. Hopefully I can fall asleep… Trying not to think of my brother, trying to think he is safe right now, and Gladius has been foiled... Durandel is safe... Kevin is safe... Everyone is safe…

End of Chapter 1

Comments

[Kazigami]

interesting set up so we no near nothing about them so you can easily build charecter not bad