> A Complicated Person in a Complicated World > by Nocturnal Serpent > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > What a Crazy Day > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This was supposed to be a simple hike in the small forest behind my house, but it was turned into me somehow finding myself lost. And it scared me. I’m not someone that knows how to survive in the wild for extended periods of time. So, when I found myself seemingly lost on my own land; I had no idea what to do. The thing that honestly scared me the most; however, was the fact that I had gotten lost in the very forest that I had been exploring since I was just a little kid with my dad. It just didn’t make any sense whatsoever to me, but regardless of that, I still had to at least find a something to mark the area I was in. “I can’t believe this. Been coming out here for years and I end up getting lost. This is a real blow to my pride. Glad no one’s here to see it,” I let off a small laugh devoid of any actual mirth. It only seemed to further my depressed mood. I decided that maybe taking another look at the surrounding area would help slightly, so I lifted my head, my eyes following along. The seemingly endless mass of trees hadn’t thinned any at all. The scenery, although beautiful, couldn’t be enjoyed by me at the moment. The sun was still high in the sky; marking it as just past noon probably. I scanned the surrounding area with a critical eye, but once again could find nothing more than greenery all around me and the rustle of perhaps a squirrel or rabbit in the bushes. So I panned my gaze upwards slightly, and looked out above the trees. Big mistake for my already dwindling patience. Because in the distance, I saw something that confused me to no end, and actually started to make me slightly angry with the sheer impossibility of it. In the distance, peeking over the trees like a beacon that’s sole purpose was to further increase my impatience and rage, was a mountain range that had absolutely no business being there. The fact that I was in what I was absolutely sure was the western side of Tennessee, where the mountains certainly did not reach, only served to further my confusion. However, seeing as I had no other idea as to where I should be headed, I started on my way towards the tallest one in the hopes of finding a way up to the top and spotting some kind of civilization. It appeared that I should be able to make the distance and still have around an hour of daylight left for me to survey my surroundings, and find some semblance of normality in this already insane and rapidly deteriorating situation. So, with a small scowl on my face and a heavy sigh, I set off towards my destination. ~~~~~~~~~~ I was correct in my assumption of making it with around an hour of sunlight to spare, and in my hope for an easy way to scale the small mountain; which was found in a small, inclined pathway most likely cut into the rock by explorers years ago, or something like that, I have no idea. I was not correct in my assumption that it would lead towards an end to my already dwindling sanity. Because perched in an incredibly precarious fashion on the other side of the mountain, was a goddamned castle and city. I definitely wasn’t in any place in my database of knowledge, and it only added to how scared I was quickly becoming. Despite all of this, I still managed to admire the beauty of what I was currently seeing. The spires of some kind of white stone, something close to marble maybe, laced with a golden trim, the gardens placed perfectly throughout the city and castle, and the view, oh god the view, it was truly a scene that belonged on a postcard. And I also couldn’t help but notice the way everything seemed to be in such a harmonic state with nature; that the foliage, the clouds, and even the animals wanted it to belong here. Despite this once again, I couldn’t help but laugh a little and let a small smile grace my lips as a specific song came to mind. I eventually averted my eyes from the scene and started searching for a way down. No matter how much my gut screamed at me not to go down there, if only for the way it was sitting on the side of mountain, I needed to find a way back home. Perhaps someone down there could tell me the area that I was currently in, and give me directions back home, at least if people lived down there. It did look in remarkably good condition for people to not be keeping it maintained; regardless of the architectural marvel that it was. As I was searching for a way down, my foot slipped off of the edge of where I was standing, and to my horror and extreme dismay, I was sent sliding down the edge straight towards what seemed to be the castle’s main garden. The distance was definitely long enough to do some major damage to me, if not kill me, upon impact, and I tried my best to steer myself towards a thick patch of hedges in the hopes of them breaking my fall at least enough to keep me alive. As I was sliding down the surface of the mountain I began to gain alarming amounts of speed, and by this point I was almost certain I wouldn’t make it out of this alive. I didn’t have time to brood on these thoughts; however, because coming straight towards me was a small gazebo with three figures resting under it. I began to pray to whatever deity that would listen to me that I would somehow come out of this with nothing more than the deep scratches and burns that I had come to possess on my way down; which went unnoticed at the moment because of the adrenaline currently coursing through me. Once I got close enough for me to actually see the figures under the gazebo; I was thrown for a momentary loop. Because resting under the small roofed structure, with small cups being levitated in front of them, each with a different colored aura, were what seemed to be three horse-like beings with a pair of wings and a horn each. The one that was white took notice of me as I was nearing the bottom and my inevitable demise, and quickly pushed the other two behind it as it stood up with a glowing horn. Whatever it was doing, its stance seemed aggressive, and as I came within the last few feet of my descent and my fate, I figured out what the stance and glowing horn were for. A brilliant explosion sounded out along with an increasingly bright light; until I suddenly found myself skidding across the ground at an even faster pace than when I was sliding down the peak, and then suddenly coming to a stop, along with a midnight blue aura wrapping around my entire form. I felt myself being pulled, rather unceremoniously, in front of the dark blue equine creature, who immediately began casting a scrutinizing gaze my way. Whatever these things were, I would assume they have some form of intelligence, and I was proven correct in my assumption when the one that seemed to be holding me began to speak in some kind of language. Whatever she, I determined because of the long eyelashes and feminine pitch in her voice, was saying. I certainly couldn’t understand it, but the way that each of the words were articulated and brought forth made for an exceedingly elegant sound. The pink one off to her right apparently took notice of the fact that I couldn’t understand, and began to point that out towards her, I guessed because of her pitch as well, companions. The tallest and most regal looking of the three accepted her observation with a nod and a few words in their language and turned towards me with a glowing horn again. As she, again guessed because of her voice, began walking towards me, the blue one dropped me, once again rather unceremoniously I might add, onto the ground. When I looked up and noticed that the white equine was nearly upon me, I quickly tried to cover my face with my hands, but it was at this time that my body seemed to realize just how much it hurt because of the fading adrenaline. With an incredibly large sting of pain from my right hand, calf, and my whole back, along with a scream of pure anguish, I started to writhe on the ground in pain clutching to my right arm with my left. The three strange equines had been all but forgotten by me until I suddenly felt an amazing warmth enter me along with a strange tingling around my vocal chords. Just as I noticed it, my whole body began to feel increasingly better, and I slowly got onto my hands and knees, panting hard all the while. Once that was done I slowly stood back up on my feet and shuffled to a tree only about five feet from my current position; paying no attention to my company. After I made my way there, I turned around and placed my back against its trunk while sliding down into a sitting position. When I touched the ground again I leaned my head back, looked off into nothing, and began to take in everything that had just happened. I wanted to scream and run in both terror and frustration at the sheer impossibility of the three creatures standing mere feet away from me, but the near death experience I just had seemed to outrank meeting intelligent life other than humans. I’m sure the shock would come later, although I’m not sure how it would come. I was suddenly drawn from my musings by a rather frustrated sounding clearing of a throat. Looking back down I saw it coming from the blue equine as she started to speak once again, and just like before I couldn’t understand a word of the beautiful language. So I decided to voice my observations. “Yeah, I still can’t understand you Blue.” I saw a sudden confused look placing itself on the pink one along with two shocked expressions on the white and blue equines, and I quickly learned why. “How do you know the language of the ancients, strange one?” came the soothing voice from the white one. It sounded completely devoid of imperfections and held an aura of regal authority, but still maintained a sense of serene calm to it. “I have absolutely no idea what… you’re talking… about?” in the middle of while I was speaking, I noticed that I definitely was not speaking english, and it confused me to no end. I’m sure it showed on my face too because the white equine suddenly had a look of realization cross her features before she started speaking to me once again. “I think I know what happened here. I’m sure that you have noticed your healed wounds along with a large amount of fatigue, yes?” she didn’t give me time to answer, “Well that would be because of me. I casted a powerful healing spell on you, and the fatigue comes from it breaking down any food you have recently ate at an increased rate in order to give your body more energy to heal. From there I forced your body to pretty much speed up the process multiple times. It seems that you didn’t have enough energy to do it yourself though because I am feeling slightly fatigued myself. When I casted that spell; however, I also used a spell that allows you to speak the language most well known by the caster of the spell. It seems that instead of allowing you to speak in Equish, it allowed you to speak in the old language, for what reason though, I do not know, considering I haven’t spoken this in many, many years, and I had almost completely forgotten about it until you started speaking it.” At this point I think a small amount of shock was leaking its way onto the surface because I could feel my heart rate increase; as well as my breathing become more erratic as time went on. I was immensely confused, tired, and to top it all off, there were three strange equine-like beings directly in front of me along with me speaking in a foreign language suddenly and unexpectedly. I started to freak out, but before I could get far there was a tremendous pain that suddenly erupted from somewhere inside of me. I’m sure the blood curdling scream that escaped my throat was just as terrifying for anybody hearing it that it was for me to be releasing such a sound, and all because of the pain that I felt. Eventually, I looked up at the only three beings that could help me at the moment, and with being reduced to a whimpering mess, asked for some way to end this torment. “P-p-please,” I stopped to cough, and was even more terrified by the blood that came with it, “help me, th-th-this is too much,” I coughed once more, albeit more violently, “If you can do a-anything, j-just do it.” And with this final statement I was left within an abyss of blackness. ~~~~~~~~~~ I was slowly awoken by the sound of hushed talking, although it sounded incredibly distant to begin with. Slowly but surely, I was gifted my full sense of hearing back, and boy was I glad. It meant I was still alive and kicking, which is always a good thing. As whoever was watching over me noticed I was stirring underneath the blanket I felt placed over my body; my sense of sight returned to me as well. The blackness slowly receded, and I was gifted with the oh so wonderful sight of an incredibly bright light shining directly into my dark green irises and pupils. So it was with no small amount of disdain towards said light; that I oh so politely asked the person nearing me to turn it off. “Hey, could someone please turn this damn thing off! How would you like it if you woke up with something this bright just shining directly in your face!?” I finished with an annoyed huff. It was also at this point that I heard two feminine voices giggling off to my left; along with a slightly amused one to my right beginning to speak. “While I understand your annoyance, I ask that you refrain from using vulgar language around anypony, expect for me, my sister, and my niece. Although if you happen to meet any of the other races, most probably wouldn’t care one bit about how you chose to speak. As for why I would like to keep you from speaking that way in front of any of my ponies; most of them are rather innocent, and I would like to keep it that way,” she paused and seemed to sigh sadly, for what reason, I do not know, “They haven’t seen what us three have, and nothing would mean more to me than for it to stay that way. Now, enough of that. I’m sure you are wondering what happened?” It was only after she was done speaking did I decide to reopen my eyes and look towards the direction her melodic voice was coming from. As I did so, all of the memories of my recent escapade came flooding back to me, and leaving me with plenty of shock too. Now that my body finally wasn’t being bombarded by pain; I was allowed to freak out, despite this fact, for some unknown reason, my mind would not allow me to break down into incoherent mumbling just yet. “This is too much for me right now; if you need me I’ll be on this balcony, thinking… about… things?” and once again I was left speechless in front of these strange beings, “Uhh… was I always this tall?” I asked more to myself than anyone else. Once I had gotten out of the bed I was in, and in front of the glass doors leading to the rather peaceful looking balcony and turned back around; I noticed that I was actually about a head taller than White, and a head and half taller than Blue. When what I remember is White being about half a head taller than me when I briefly met them. “No, you were not, actually. When you asked us for help, we did. Although when we tried our healing magic, it would not work for some strange reason, so the only way we could come up with at that point was to use an extremely rare and powerful potion that requires ingredients that are just as rare. When we gave it to you the intended effect did occur, but there were some strange side effects as well. We have come to the conclusion that your body reacts differently to the properties of these ingredients than all other inhabitants on this world,” I promptly, and pretty rudely, interrupted blue at this. “Sorry blue, but did you say world? You know, that would make sense, but still…” I paused to take a short breath in an attempt to steady my rapidly deteriorating mood, “Fuck, pardon my French, but that’s a lot to take in. I’ll never see my home again, and I never even got to say goodbye to my… family” and that did it. My voice cracked, and with it, so did my composure. I cried, I’m not afraid to admit it, I cried because I would never see anything or one from my home ever again, even if some of my still living family and mostly all of my friends were a bit dickish, and I’m sure anyone else finding themselves in this situation would’ve too. I leaned my back onto the glass doors behind me and slowly slid down them. I looked up towards the ceiling and noticed the sound of hoofsteps coming my way. When I eventually looked back down after what felt like hours; I saw all three of them sitting down offering me sympathetic looks, before they tried to lean in for a hug… I stopped them. “Sorry,” I had regained enough of my composure to speak in coherent sentences, “but this is something I need to get through on my own, or else I’ll never get over it. Plus, I’m not too keen on getting hugged by aliens just yet; even if they are cute and cuddly looking equines, no offense, of course,” I finished with a strained smile and an even more strained chuckle. Once I said that, all three of them looked at me with small, but slightly embarrassed smiles of their own, and a small tinge of red adorning their faces. “I suppose we could take that as a complement; I haven’t been called cute in many years, not since I was a little filly I suppose, and I have not once been called cuddly before,” White finished with a dainty giggle. “Okay, I think I can handle the rest of that story now Blue, but first how about I figure out your names. I don’t think calling you White, Blue, and Pink for the rest of the time I know you is a great idea, and I’m sure you all agree,” I started to stand up once I was done speaking, and opened the doors to the balcony while motioning for the other three in the room to follow me onto it.