When I returned to Adams's house, I found Twilight in front of the two full bookshelves on the far side of the main room. Her eyes scanned the spines methodically, and when I got close, I saw, or thought I saw, a speck of drool on her lower lip. She raised a hoof at the Icelandic Sagas, stopped just short of touching the first of the two volumes, and pulled away.
"I think you could look at those books," I said. "Just avoid the ones with crosses on them."
She turned to me. "Why are they special?" Her tone was earnest, not flippant.
"Good question," I said. "I like reading it sometimes—I have a copy myself. Some people... well, they're touchy about it. It would take a long time to explain."
She turned back to the shelf. "Does it have something to do with him having more than one copy?"
"Sort of. It's a very old book, with different... translations..." As I said this, a quiet inkling entered the back of my head. But when I turned my mind's eye upon it, it vanished like a match-flame before a gust.
"What's up?" Twilight must have noticed my contemplative expression.
"Nothing. I was just wondering: You can read our language, can't you? As well as speak it."
"Actually," she said, "I was wondering how you were speaking my language." She tapped her head with one hoof, her face a picture of intense concentration. "It may have something to do with the spell I cast. That can happen with certain complicated magics that aren't properly documented. Your friend, um..."
"Adams," I said.
"Adams... He was nearby when the magic gate opened." She began pacing back and forth, again thinking out loud. "Could the spell have copied his linguistic knowledge into my brain? Was that one reason it took so much energy all of a sudden? It would make sense to include something like that; it wouldn't be good to drop into a completely unfamiliar place, not knowing the language. Starswirl, you really were a genius.
"But then, why didn't Adams notice when that happened? Because he was asleep, of course. He said he found me right after waking up. Yes, that makes sense."
"Listen," I said. "About him..."
"Yes?" She must have sensed the unease in my voice, for a little crease of worry appeared on her brow.
I stepped away from Twilight and lowered myself into Adams's easy chair to make my appearance less threatening. "Something you should know—he's afraid of you."
Twilight bit her lower lip. "That book says something about unicorns, doesn't it." It wasn't a question.
"And dragons," I said. "Among other things."
She looked at the bookshelf again. "What exactly does it say?"
"All I remember is... dragons are evil." I leaned forward. "And you've actually met them?" I couldn't stop an undertone of wonder from creeping into my voice.
She nodded. "Guess I should have kept quiet. I should leave as soon as I can. I've offended him, and, well..." She trailed off.
"You're as scared of him as he is of you."
"Does that help?"
"I don't think he'd believe you if you told him."
Twilight sat back on her haunches, and her ears drooped. "I guess I can't be angry with him," she said. "I've known a lot of pon—um, people—who get ideas in their heads, and won't be rational or reasonable about them. And someone with a book collection can't be all bad."
"You and him would get along, you know," I said, "if you love literature as much as you seem to." This was true, and I felt a little pang of sadness about it. Adams did not have many friends.
The creak and slam of a screen door came from outside the kitchen. Adams marched into the room.
Two pairs of eyes followed him. He ignored us.
He walked to the counter drawers, opened one, and withdrew a long knife.
The kitchen's fluorescent light glinted off its edge.
He turned to the refrigerator, opened it, and withdrew a bag of carrots. He then put a handful of these on a cutting board and began chopping them into large chunks.
I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.
Adams put the carrot sticks on a plate and placed it on the kitchen table, along with a bowl of water. He turned and stalked down to the basement, the entrance to which was between the kitchen and foyer.
There was a pregnant pause.
Twilight rose, and walked to the table.
"I guess this is a good sign," I said, following her.
She nodded, and picked up one of the sticks with the same weird telekinetic ability she had used before. Adams had not peeled the carrots, but if this bothered Twilight, she did not show it.
"Even so," she said between bites, "I still think I should leave as soon as I can. It's really too bad, but if I don't know anything about the people here, and they seem to already know some things about unicorns, and they've made their minds up..." She levitated the bowl and sipped at it, like a human would from a cup.
But we didn't already know, I thought. Nothing in the story Twilight had told, nor in the way she had spoken or acted, matched any mythology I had read about. In fact...
In a flash of insight, the inkling that had tickled the back of my mind burst into my consciousness. "Excuse me, Twilight." I rose, and hurried to the room where Adams kept the laptop he used for correspondence.
* * *
"She's not biblical."
"What?"
"Here—look."
I had found Adams sitting at the basement workbench, flipping back and forth between pages in the Bible and reading them by the glow of a trouble light. Now, I held up the laptop and pointed to one paragraph in particular.
"Right here. The King James translation was wrong. The Hebrew word was 're'um', which translates to 'auroch.' That was a subspecies of large cattle."
Adams said nothing, but stared at the screen, his eyes flitting across the paragraph once, twice, three times. The corners of his mouth turned down. Despite everything, I felt a little sorry for him.
"Well," he said at last, "She's something." There was no positive inflection in his words.
I decided to press the logical conclusion. "So, there's no reason for any unpleasant behavior."
"Never said there was." His voice had a grouchy undertone, as if he was annoyed at having to explain the obvious.
The book on the bench still lay open, and he turned back to it, and resumed leafing through.
"I think I'll let her stay in my house," I said, "until she can leave."
Adams looked out the basement's small ground-level window. "Weather's still rough."
* * *
Twilight and I stepped into the storm, and out of habit I made to lean into the wind. But there was another flash of magenta, and I found myself inside a transparent, luminous sphere that deflected the wind and rain. Bemused, I stared for a moment at the drops running down the field's outer edge, then looked at Twilight, whose horn again glowed.
She smiled a little at my perplexed expression, and gestured with a foreleg. "Shall we?"
"This station doesn't have a spare dwelling," I said as we walked. "But these houses were built for families, so there's plenty of room. I keep a cot and some sheets handy in case we need to put someone up for a while."
"Thank you very much," she said. "Hey, what's in there?" From an outbuilding close to my house, there came a constant low rumbling.
"The engine room," I said.
"What kind of engines?"
"Diesel."
"Never heard of it." She pointed her snout at the building. "May I see them?"
"You'd have to get the okay from Adams," I said.
Twilight did not press the issue.
As we entered my basement's door, Twilight lowered the weather shield bit by bit, like someone folding an umbrella while bringing it indoors. Inside, she looked to and fro at the gear and various junk arranged around the walls and under the stairs: tools, work benches, scrap timber, flotsam from beaches, and so on.
"That's interesting," she said. "You have a lot of the same tools we do." She put a hoof on a sledgehammer leaning against the near wall. "Yours are bigger, though."
"Are you cold?" It had only just occurred to me.
"Just a little," she said, turning to me. "Why?"
"The spare clothes won't fit you. But I'm guessing your people normally go naked."
Twilight cocked an eyebrow. "Is that unusual here?"
For a moment, I considered how to answer this. "We always wear clothes," I said, "except when bathing, or... doing things clothes get in the way of." I had never been comfortable talking about such matters. I started up the stairs and motioned for her to follow me.
My house's floor plan was much like Adams's, but since mine was built on a small hill, and was not quite as deep-set into the ground, my main floor afforded an excellent view of the land and sea around Cook Point. But at the moment, the only clear images were the rain pelting the windows, and the beams from the light tower as they circled around and around through the early morning darkness.
Twilight's eyes brightened when she saw the nearly full bookshelf next to the largest window, and the sea charts that covered much of the walls. She turned to me with an expression that implicitly said, "Can I, please?"
"Help yourself," I said.
She trotted to the shelf and eyed the selection like a starving man given a menu. "I guess it makes sense that lighthouse keepers would have personal libraries."
"Out here, the mind stagnates without them," I said.
A hardcover volume glowed magenta and floated down toward my guest.
"To Kill a Mockingbird," I said. "Good choice. Adams gave me that, when he was done with it."
Mockingbird still hovered next to Twilight's head as she turned to respond. "He's not really as mean as he acts, is he?"
"Not once you get to know him," I said. "He just has a few hangups." At that moment, exhaustion caught up to me without warning, and I put a hand on the doorway to steady myself. "Um, listen. I bet you're tired, and my shift doesn't start until noon. I'll set up the cot, we'll both get some sleep, and we'll sort everything out during the day."
"Great!" Twilight said. "What a relief. I was afraid you didn't even have daylight in this part of this world."
I chuckled a bit at this as I made my way to the spare room. In the back of my mind, I wondered if my visitor was a dream or hallucination that would vanish by dawn.
In a few minutes, the accommodations were in order, and I bade Twilight a good rest. She put a forehoof on the cot, then paused and turned to me.
"Hey," she said, "uh, there's no tactful way to ask this, but what do you call yourselves? Your species, I mean."
"Humans," I said.
"'Humans...'" She rolled the word around in her mouth. "Thanks. That was driving me crazy."
Despite my exhaustion, I found myself wide awake when I reached my own bed in the room across the hall. I switched on the reading lamp on the bedside table. There were six books on that table, and my hand happened to fall upon the large one with the cross on the cover. I cracked it at a random page, and read the first lines my eyes found.
...And I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, "Come and see." And I saw, and behold, a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given to him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
I closed it. I switched off the lamp. I lay awake in the dark, and turned the last few hours' events over in my head.
It was almost too much to comprehend. In a short span of time, everything I knew had been turned inside-out, and I could not decide whether to mourn the simpler past, or look forward to whatever the future would hold. For better or worse, it would be interesting. In the meantime, I had to wait, and that was the worst part of it all. I doubted things could truly go back to the way they had been, but I did not know enough to be certain.
My visitor had given me no logical reason to fear her, but in the dark, alone with my thoughts, I found myself wishing there was a lock on my bedroom door.
... and you even pull in the mistranslations of that word.
Yes. Yes I LIKE this.
Well written and ver yinteresting, keep it up!
Superbly written and wonderfully described to the finer details without becoming technical. Fantastic :)
Oh my goodness, a new story from Horse Voice! Another with humans. And ponies on Earth. And pulling in the awkwardness of alternate magical universe and religion, and mistranslations of religious texts! And your characters seem so realized! And I love your even, slightly foreboding tone and economic use of word choice and descriptions. And I'm already invested and excited to see where this goes!
Agh, I wish I had something constructive to say, but all I can do is roll around and gush like a moron
I know how this story ends.
Yokels, Rednecks, Hicks, Zealots... Biblical? Gah, ain't you guys ever read any fantasy? Unicorns are pretty widely spread throughout many different mythologies. Pegasi too, but really... rather common knowledge I thought.
This is so awesome! Hope there's more soon!
2200741 Who spoils stories before they've even been written? Gary bleeding Oak, That's who.
I'll read this as long as it doesn't get overly religious or discriminatory. I've never been a fan of human stories, but you pulled this one off, Horse Voice.
YES, thank you for someone who mentions the Re'em of lore. Well done sir *shakes hands*
I have no idea what this is... But you have my curiosity.
My knee-jerk reaction to the idea of a story combining ponies, humans, and religion was to grimace and move along. But the image pulled me in to read the comments, and the comments have convinced me to give this a shot. *dives in*
An interesting premise, but I'm pretty put off by the combination of heavy religious overtones and the dark tag, along with the xenophobic, fundamentalist-looking human near by. I'm not sensing a happy ending at the moment.
Let me be frank:
I'm not here for the story, I'm here for the Coast Guard
Alright, second chapter consumed, and I'm hoping you stick with -... Huh. I don't remember Protagonist's name. I remember Adams'... was this guy's name never given? Anyways, I hope you stick with Protagonist's perspective. I'm liking the guy.
I'm wondering if this is some MLP'less Alternate Earth, or if they're just so isolated as to be entirely unaware of the show.
Okay, finally got to read through it... And I'm really impressed. This is very well done.
What if the Elements were here on earth?
No matter how things go at least it will not end with horrible horrible clop ...
...
...
i hope ...
Yes, more Horse Voice! *favorites*
I don't like reading about humans when reading about ponies, yet I like this fic. Not bad. Your humans and Twilight are portrayed equally well.
This is actually very nice. I'm reminded of The Great Gatsby and other classic books I read in high school, where characters were introduced through a narration that was equal parts description and dialogue. There really is no way to describe how I feel about this. The best way I can put it to words is that you use a balanced amount of purple prose...no! Wait! You narrate in third person limited! God, it's been a long time since I've read something like this! I feel like I should be writing a book report or something!
Keep it up. I look forward to the adventures of Adams and...OH MY GOD!
I just realized why this story reminds me of the classics!
WE DON'T KNOW THE NARRATOR'S NAME!
And that's a good thing! This is third person limited, and as such the narrator is not speaking directly to the audience! His thoughts, therefore, would not include a detailed introduction of himself, or even the people he interacts with!
Adams' character is not built in a wall-of-text paragraph dump, but shown to the reader over the course of the chapter!
God, I want to write that book report now...
I feel like i should...
Yeah, I will.
*Takes a deep breath*
YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!
Interesting, very interesting....
Okay, you've got me interested... I usually skip stories with a religious angle, but this one has drawn me in. It's well-written and shows a strong knowledge of scriptures; I also appreciate that the characters aren't cardboard cutouts like they could have been. I'm not sure this is going to end well, but I definitely want to see what you're going to do with this. Excellent and unique story so far!
Luckily Revelations makes no mention of purple horses.
I'm loving this. I like how you create a distinction between Christians that think differently. They may believe in the same God and book, but interpretations of it vary.
Oh yes, minor nitpick, but I really hate when stories don't double-space their lines between paragraphs. Not a real "Flaw," but to me it's kind of annoying.
2201873
And... why did this get downvoted?
Military ftw. -brofist-
2202164
I hate to be "that guy", but technically, this is first-person, not third-.
Well at least you haven't portrayed Adams as a fundamentalist lunatic yet. Just grouchy. It seems the only time people mention Christians in their stories anymore is when they want a "Religious villain." I hope you steer clear of that course. Being a Christian myself, the question "What would happen if Equestrians appeared" is one I sometimes ask myself when I'm bored. Anyway, the story itself is rather nice. Good grammar and knowledge of technical issues. Keep it up!
Having edited this, I must say the latter chapters are better than the first two, so it's worth the time to favourite.
2201500
Nah, I just helped edit it. Actually, my comments a few weeks ago actually caused him to rewrite a good chunk of the story, and just about double its length.
2202042
Well... let's just say there's a reason why the main character is unnamed for a good reason. That, and he did just meet his pony angel. In time, he will realize his true feelings for her, and she will reciprocate.
one question what time period is this cuz i am getting mixed signals
2202458 I was kidding. Ever heard of the Gary Oak meme? ya know, the one about yourself?
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2202763
Yep. The "you can't ignore my girth" chat troll is why I chose this name a few years ago, actually.
I actually like Adams. He is cautious. And he actually read the Bible not being leming who only listen to church(blah). He simply don't want to assume the worst, trying to fit what is happening to knowlege he find in Bible, at least what and how HE understand this. I'm glad that both guys are just christians, you are not throwing any church in our face(yes definetly I'm christian but I really disgrace organised religions and theyr dogma's, everyone have free will and mind of his/her own, there is no need for clerics and other priests to try and actually understand holy books.).
Good job. Fav to have this story tracked.
2202643 Present. They are having laptops, and everything.
Edited:Cause characters are not laptops xD
Very intriguing. I'm always interested to see things like MLP (and so much else) infused with Christianity, and I echo others' hopes that Adams isn't made out to be a villainous zealot here.
2202796 must have missed that
2200741
I've got three ideas on how it ends. Only one of which is pleasant in the least.
2202805 Always white horse with a bow can show up bringing doom upon our world.... a.k.a pissed Celestia, because why not.
2200741 of course you do. you were mentionded
As a fundamentalist, I commend you! (Don't worry, I'm a fun fundamentalist!)
I didn't think the word meant a type of cattle, I thought it meant the one-horned rhino, Rhinocerous unicornis
On this topic, I've been considering writing a fanfic which involves Leviathan (An actual biblical monster) and possibly Behemoth. Mabye Ziz too, but that's not canon. To quote tvtropes...
2201187 That is the best one you could have found
The Legend - Pallbearer
2202378 That's...totally what I meant.
Oh, I remember you. You wrote "The Writing on the Wall".
That alone makes this story worth checking out.
Great characterization so far in Adams. Can't wait to see how his religious views affect Twilight (if they do).
2202550
Oh coarse it cannot directly limit someone's worldview unless they allow it, but I do not like how it spreads through generations. People who believe loosely in the Bible I do not have an issue with since they are not the ones pushing their religious doctrine into a secular states policies.
Not quiet seeing where we disagree here. My biggest issue with religions is that strong believers will gain facts and try and fit them into an already held belief instead of taking facts and following them to some conclusion. In this story, Adams has a presupposed idea which makes him far less likely to listen to Twilight and just assume off the bat that she is a liar. The narrator however is far more loose and cannot come to a conclusion with the facts he has at his disposal.
2202602
Religious people who are able to listen to another's argument and see their reasoning I do not have an issue with. Some to the largest clashes that have come up in recent times are Intelligent Design and gay rights. I do not like seeing a concept disregarded by 90% of the scientific community get a foothold in science classes nor do I like seeing one Bible passage taken from the Old Testament used to oppress a voting minority.
Now I end my possibly angry rant about stuff not even related to the story. And soon begins my feelings of being an ass.
2203095
The interesting thing is that the description may very likely have actually been the description of a rhinoceros. The word that got translated in the amazingly inaccurate King James version as 'unicorn' was actually 'monoceros', which means 'one horn'. Pretty much the description of a rhino.
2202550
2203480
Folks, I'm all for intelligent debate, but remember to keep it civil. Actually, you may want to hold off until the whole thing's published. Read my other work, and you'll see that my stories never end up quite like you expect. And if you're going to pass judgement on anyone, pass it on me. After all, I wrote it.
Congrats on the top-slot feature
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