//------------------------------// // Chapter I - Through the Mirror // Story: The Monster and the Crystal Prince // by Revenant Wings //------------------------------// It was a shock when the first human in centuries stepped through the mirror. It was long thought that such worlds dominated by them had faded away, either through time or devastation by war or famine. One world was only available for three days before closing for thirty moons. Another showed them a starving people, but there were so many they could not help them all and stopped going there after a while, bringing back only some relics to study. The last one they tried had but one man sitting on a stone. He answered a few of their questions, then lay down and closed his eyes as though they fell asleep. But he told them his world had been devastated by nuclear poisoning and he was going to die no matter what they did, and to get out before they did, too. It took months for the guard to overcome their slight poisoning once they returned. Since then, it had been hundreds of years. The last to step through the portal and return was Twilight Sparkle, but Princess Celestia had given up hope in bringing humans to Equestria. They were left with nothing but relics of previous worlds, attempting to piece together the remnants of a fractured history that no longer applied to the multiple worlds through the mirror. While thoughts of such always remained in the back of her mind, Celestia never acted on them. She went about her work governing Equestria as usual, helped by Princess Luna in administering the ponies, examining legislature, reviewing the budget, and examining court cases that ascended to their judgment. After so long a time, she nearly forgot the mirror and its properties, despite the fact that it stood mere feet away from her throne and offices. But one day, very early in the morning, Celestia got up and brought up the sun as was her usual fashion. She had just settled down in the throne room and was getting ready to hear another long case for travel to the griffon kingdom when Princess Luna walked swiftly into the throne room. ‘Ah, sister, thou art awake,’ Princess Luna said. She bowed out of respect. Princess Celestia bowed in return. ‘My sister. How has the night passed?’ ‘Well, I’ve just come from the hospital wing,’ Princess Luna replied, rising from her bow. There was a note of urgency and her voice was hushed as though she didn’t want anyone else to hear. ‘I waited until we were clear to tell you, but we have a visitor from the mirror.’ Princess Celestia gasped. She looked to the guards on either side. ‘Do not let anyone enter the throne room,’ she said firmly. ‘I will be gone on urgent business. If anyone comes asking for me, tell them it was a matter of security.’ The guards nodded and went to the door. Princess Celestia followed Princess Luna out the door and into the secluded hospital wing and saw the human lying on one of their beds, its eyes closed and an automatic breathing machine hooked up to its face and an IV hooked to its arm. The human was a fair-skinned male with dark brown hair and what appeared to be a light tan. His clothes sat off to the side and were tattered and blackened around the edges; they had been placed off to the side and replaced with one of the larger hospital gowns to cover him in. He appeared badly damaged, bandages over small red circles in multiple places and breathing slowly as though he was badly injured or comatose. Princess Luna walked over to a small tray. ‘He was brought in at two o’clock this morning,’ she said. ‘He had multiple small circular wounds and would not respond. We brought him and took him to surgery, where the doctors extracted numerous metal shards and closed his wounds.’ She picked up one of them with her magic and levitated it over to Princess Celestia. ‘A bullet,’ Celestia said upon inspection. ‘It is fired from something called a “gun” by a controlled explosion. Rockets out of the gun’s barrel at over 350 meters-per-second; one well-aimed shot would kill a pony.’ ‘How did this human survive?’ Princess Luna asked. ‘Unless he is hardier or stronger, but that does not seem likely.’ ‘Luck. They did not shoot him at any of the vital organs – the heart, brain, lungs, or spine. One or two well-placed shots and he would have died. But we won’t know what happened until he wakes up. Hopefully he will be able to speak our language.’ Princess Celestia returned to her normal duties, but urged afterwards that the hospital staff send her updates personally on the human’s progress. Slowly, the human recovered. Over the course of the next few days, Princess Celestia received numerous updates from the hospital about an increase in his manual breathing, heart rate, and a return to his normal skin color, a more caramel-brown color than they had first expected. The doctors’ attended to him well and made sure that he was well-taken care of; Celestia added to their knowledge by sending them some of her own “books” she had written on human anatomy and biology, and the two head doctors and some of the nurses reviewed the books in their spare time for treatment of him as he woke up and for after-care. She also sent a few models of a human body to designer Hoity Toity to make clothes – shirts, pants, boxers, socks, shoes and jackets – for the human to wear, made of cotton and linen and polyester. Princess Celestia herself came to see him in the hospital when a nurse reported he had woken up nearly four days later. She cancelled her appointments and immediately headed down to the large, open-air wing and saw the human shuffling around in his bed. Two nurses removed the automatic breathing machine and they all waited with bated breath for him to finally stir. The first thing they saw when his deep blue eyes opened was fear. It took four nurses to restrain him, each pinning his arms and legs so that he could not flail about and hurt himself or others. Celestia walked calmly over to the edge of the bed. ‘Get off of me!’ he shouted. ‘What is this place!? Where am I!? Let me go!’ ‘Calm down,’ Princess Celestia said gently though the human still struggled against his bonds. ‘Your questions will be answered shortly. But first, where did you come from?’ The human looked at Princess Celestia with a look of shock on his face. ‘What the hell… a talking horse!? I must be going mad!’ ‘You are not mad,’ Celestia replied, relieved she understood him. ‘There’s a mirror through which you came. You appeared here with burn marks and wounds that we extracted pieces of metal from.’ The human calmed down. ‘Did you say ‘burn marks’? I certainly remember those. And metal… gunshot wounds, probably.’ He looked himself over but only found clean skin, though some of it was whiter than the rest. ‘Well, that’s a better sight than I’m used to seeing.’ ‘What happened?’ Celestia asked him. ‘Please. I will answer your questions about this place shortly, but I need information.’ The human examined Celestia with intent, and she him. All he had on was a pair of black boxers and a hospital gown, and maybe stood a foot higher than she did though was just under her while sitting on the bed. ‘It’s all a bit strange,’ the human replied, ‘but you haven’t hurt me yet. Matter of fact, I’m in better shape than I’ve been for a while. I suppose you can’t be all that bad.’ ‘Where I come from,’ the human began, ‘there are many large cities. All of them are surrounded by stone walls so large that if you stood on top of the tallest buildings you still wouldn’t be able to see outside of them. There are many large buildings, then farmlands, then the walls themselves. We could never leave the walls because everywhere else has been bombed and is mostly uninhabitable.’ ‘What about the gunshot wounds and the burn marks?’ Princess Celestia interjected calmly. ‘And what happened to you, that you came here?’ ‘Well, there’s been a war going on for I don’t know how many years with another city, hence all the bombing. Well, that’s what they told us. I don’t believe them and protested against the war constantly. So, as punishment, they burned down my house to flush me out, shot me with their guns, then I guess they might have thrown me here supposing whatever was here would finish me off. That is the price I pay for being a learned man, I suppose.’ ‘Have they done it before?’ ‘Oh, yes. Everyone wants to protest, but few have the guts to. No one quite knew where they were sending us.’ The human looked around him. Everywhere he looked were beings that stood on four legs instead of two, all with coats of different colors and signs on their flanks. Not another looked like he did. ‘…has anyone else come through here?’ ‘I’m afraid you’re the first one.’ ‘Can I see where you found me?’ ‘In a short while, once you’ve recovered. You’ve come a long way, but you still have a while to go; your wounds must be healed and you need to recover your strength. You’ve been out cold for five days.’ The human nodded. ‘Fair enough. You’ve been kind to me thus far. I trust you to take care of me.’ Over the next few more days, Princess Celestia made frequent trips to the hospital wing herself to interview the human. His name was Douglas – he couldn’t remember his last name – and he was twenty-five years old. He had completed his education and had undergone special training as a technician that worked on a sort of inter-dimensional gate that was similar to the mirror but powered by electricity. But he did not like the idea of being cooped up in the one city against his will. He might not have travelled anywhere if he knew what was outside, but suspected his government did not want the people to know what actually lay outside, and read books that assumed that things did exist outside of the city walls. And so they punished him for insubordination and conspiracy to overthrow the government. They burned his house with him inside it; when he ran out to save himself, they shot at him and threw him through the gate with all intention to leave him to die. It had been a stroke of luck he landed in Equestria. But Douglas, normally talkative, asked for privacy when Princess Celestia told him he was the only human that had appeared there in a long time. She gave it to him, and only came back when a nurse requested that he wanted to see her again. By the time Douglas requested to see Princess Celestia again, he had been awake for nearly four days and had spent a little over a week in Equestria. They had fed him a modified diet and included small portions of meat when they could get it – old chickens that had no more use, pigs who were old and blind and essentially invalid – and he recovered slowly and became accustomed to the more vegetarian diet. On his fourth day he was ready to walk again, and Hoity Toity’s clothing had come in. When Princess Celestia returned to see Douglas, she brought the clothes with her and had him try them all on in a private room. When Douglas was satisfied and confirmed that all the clothes fit, he traded out his hospital gown and put on a full set of clothes before returning to Princess Celestia. ‘Are they all to your liking?’ Princess Celestia said. ‘I hope they are neither too tight, too long, nor too hot.’ ‘They are clean and fit well,’ Douglas said, pleased. ‘They are a bit loose at the moment, but I expect to fill them out as I recover a little more.’ ‘Very well. Now, when you first woke up, you asked to see the mirror. If the hospital declares you fit to be released and you have mostly recovered, I will take you to see it.’ ‘If you do not mind,’ Douglas said politely. ‘Now, I do have the question of what happens next? I do not think I should head back home, but I do not belong here.’ ‘You will be given a home to live in under guard,’ Princess Celestia said. ‘Meanwhile, we shall look at a few tests of your cognitive skills and physical abilities. You shall be sent to classes that teach you about Equestrian history and government and you shall become nationalized and free to choose the job you desire.’ ‘Thank you,’ Douglas said. ‘Then, if you don’t mind, may I see the mirror?’ Escorted by a pair of guards on either side, both in gold armor and holding spears, and Princess Celestia in front of him, Douglas was led to the mirror. He walked around it and nodded in interest, stroking the patch of hair on his chin and occasionally scratching his thin moustache. He rapped against the side of it with his fists and put an ear to the metal surface. ‘Yeah, this is the one they talk about. Fascinating… is it magic or technology? I remember working on attempts like this that ran with electricity. That was a long time ago, before the war really started.’ ‘Perhaps where you come from it is different. Here it is magic, as electricity of any sort is not connected.’ ‘Well, perhaps there could be some way to adjust the frequency to return home.’ Princess Celestia stared at him in disbelief. ‘You want to go back? They burned you and shot you and you want to go back?’ ‘Why not? My work was not done. I do believe there was no actual war and no pretense for it.’ ‘If it goes to your world, you are free to go.’ Douglas touched the mirror and watched as the surface rippled at his touch. ‘However, if it goes anywhere else, I should recommend returning. There are other worlds in worse condition than yours.’ Douglas shrugged and walked through. For a few moments, Princess Celestia and the two guards stayed put. The hall with the mirror was quiet and still for a long time. A few guards passed wordlessly by the hall as though Celestia and the guards were not occupying it. Princess Celestia bid the guards leave, saying she would call for them when needed. The two bowed and left, turning opposite the other pair of guards that had passed. The sun passed through and created long shadows on the mirror and the sky turned to a bright orange. The mirror suddenly rippled and Douglas returned. His face was pale and his eyes were wide and bloodshot. His hands shook at his side and his legs looked weak, and his mouth looked like there were tinges of vomit on it. ‘Was that your home?’ Princess Celestia asked, concerned. ‘Or somewhere else?’ ‘Completely different,’ he said, voice hollow. ‘But I think I know where I was supposed to go.’ ‘What was it like?’ ‘Desolate. Barren. As torn apart as our own, only without the walls and the city. And a giant pit not far out of the mirror, filled with… with…’ His voice trailed off. ‘You don’t have to continue,’ Princess Celestia said warmly. ‘You may stay here. You’ll be safe.’ Douglas nodded. ‘Very well,’ he responded, his voice gaining back some of his initial vitality. ‘I thought about trying again, but I don’t think I should like to. Not if that’s where I very well could have ended up.’ Princess Celestia nodded. ‘Well, then... welcome to your new home, Douglas. May life treat you more favorably here than it did wherever you came from.’ Douglas adapted well to life in Equestria. He lived in the shadows of Canterlot Castle and was allowed to roam the streets as he pleased though noted he was almost always followed by a guard. He was given a small apartment with his own bedroom, a functioning bathroom, a sitting room, and a kitchen, and soon filled it with books. He went to school and took classes on Equestrian history, government, biology, and pony anatomy. By the time of his first winter, Douglas had scored a 3.75 GPA at his university classes and successfully passed the test to become an Equestrian citizen. All of this was at first done very quietly. Princess Celestia did not make a big deal about the human roaming around the streets, thinking that it was better if she didn’t call attention to it. Douglas was polite and civil and his teachers provided good reports about his schooling, and she thought that the ponies would respond favorably to him. They did not. By the time a month rolled around, Douglas had actually been hit once because a pony did not quite know how to respond about him. He’d tried to make a good first impression, but got bucked when he tried to explain himself. Thankfully the buck was imprecise and he wasn’t damaged more than a couple of hoofprints on his stomach and a few bruises along with them. But Princess Celestia did not take the event lightly, and quickly released a statement on Equestrian radio detailing Douglas’ arrival and her acceptance of him. At three months, Douglas was the victim of an assault. He’d been walking home from university in the evening and was attacked by a pony in the street. Someone called the guard and the guard helped Douglas out and eventually arrested the perpetrator. Princess Celestia started having guards follow around Douglas more closely to make sure no one tried to attack him again, which unnerved Douglas but he felt safer knowing it was more for his protection; he was at least still free to go wherever he wanted. But things went worse from there; while it was accepted by eyewitnesses that Douglas was the victim, Douglas had given the pony quite a beating in return. Stories began to emerge that had long been laid to rest, stories of humans as monsters with strange paws and long claws and red eyes and dark skin and gnashing teeth. By the end of the semester at University, Douglas went from being attacked to being avoided, and the guards were sometimes called on reports of a monster that were mostly just Douglas trying to buy something at the local market or picking up a sheaf of paper for his classes. When Douglas went to take his citizenship test, Princess Celestia almost didn’t look at his test and considered just giving it to him outright. But according to the proctors he passed with flying colors. When this occurred, Princess Luna invited Douglas in to go into a career discussion meeting to see what Douglas wanted to do and where he wanted to live. ‘Why is Princess Celestia not doing this?’ Douglas asked. ‘My sister is currently preoccupied with an important international meeting with Saddle Arabia,’ Princess Luna said. ‘While I have not taken as direct an approach, I have been helping to watch and monitor your studies and living conditions.’ ‘Very well, then,’ Douglas responded. ‘So why have I been called in here, exactly?’ ‘I presume you have gotten the notification you passed your citizenship test?’ ‘Yes. Official citizen of Equestria, and now allowed to open a bank account, get an ID, and a passport if I wanted to for travel across Equestria and to friendly nations.’ ‘That is correct. But now that you are a citizen, we must decide what you are to do here to become a productive member of society. Therefore, this is a meeting where we shall look at your vocational interests and see what you want to do. I suppose I ought to ask if you have any ideas about what you would want to do?’ ‘Well, I was a technician, but I would not like to return to that just yet. I would like to distance myself from my former circumstances and, if possible, return something to you for helping me as much as you have.’ ‘Well, there are a few routes you could take.’ Princess Luna pulled out a list from a stack of papers she had with her. ‘Based on your cognitive and physical ability tests, we have found a small assortment of jobs that would fit your particular set of skills. We can start from here, but if you have any other interests, we can see what you would need to do to get to that point.’ Princess Luna handed Douglas the list and went through and answered questions about any of the jobs he had. Some of them were simpler technical jobs that needed a bit more specific training and he’d be ready to go, like electrician or radio software engineer. Some were a bit more advanced and required schooling, like psychologist or a computer engineer or even a nurse. Some were jobs he could almost jump into right away, like secretary or general office worker or paymaster. ‘I want to join the Guard,’ Douglas said after a moment of deliberation. Princess Luna was mildly flabbergasted. “Royal Guard” was not one of the options on the list. ‘Whatever for?’ she asked. ‘I can’t stand an office, I don’t want to do something similar to what I’d been doing before I went through the gate, and I want to give my services to those that helped me when I needed it most. If possible, a position in the Guard would satisfy all of those.’ Having an insight into Douglas’ dreams, Princess Luna admitted inwardly there was some logic in what he said. Things that could have been defined as “nightmares” looked like things out of a dystopian novel, and Princess Luna had to remind herself that those things for Douglas were not fiction. “Royal Guard” was about the farthest away from everything he once went through and hated. Except... ‘...you would become what hurt you?’ Princess Luna asked. ‘I assume it was some equivalent of our Royal Guard that attacked you and threw you here.’ ‘Very true. But your Guards are honorable, kind, steadfast, loyal, and compassionate, and you as leaders are fair, just, and just as compassionate and welcoming. In other words, the exact opposite of everything the military back home was.’ Princess Luna was somewhat flattered by this. But reason must be seen. ‘It won’t be easy,’ she advised him. ‘You will have to go through extensive physical training and weapons training. You’ll have to learn about laws, about various orders and commands, and you will be pushed to your limit.’ ‘I am willing,’ Douglas said. ‘I admittedly think I need the order and discipline, if not merely used to it due to where I come from. But again, I rather think your Guard will be a much more positive influence.’ Princess Luna shrugged her shoulders. ‘Very well. I shall see if I can’t get you into Iron Shield’s boot camp. You’ll undergo a month or two of training. If you pass, we’ll see where you go from there. If you fail, we shall have this meeting again and you will have to pick a new career.’ ‘Fair enough,’ Douglas said. ‘I will do as you say.’ Once the winter holidays were over and the new year had begun, Douglas went to a boot camp on the grounds of Canterlot Castle’s barracks. Douglas was part of a new group of twenty recruits who slept together, ate together, and exercised together, and were all led by Iron Shield, a stout grey pegasus with sharp green eyes. Douglas was made a set of bronze armor and began his grueling training under the watchful eye of Iron Shield and the occasional check-up by Princess Luna and Princess Celestia. At first Douglas struggled trying to keep up with the endurance and speed of the ponies. But soon his stamina grew to equal his companions, and through his exercises he gained power and agility far beyond what the ponies could hope to master. By the end of a month, Douglas passed with high marks on everything but speed, but even Iron Shield admitted in his final reports that Douglas was a force to be reckoned with and the morals to match. So Douglas was allowed to join the Royal Guard. He was given a set of gold armor befitting his service to Princess Celestia, and a spear was made to fit his height and weight. A ceremony was made to welcome the four new guards that joined the special Royal Guard, and Douglas was among them, as he swore to protect the Princesses from any threat and to serve Equestria faithfully and with integrity. By the time the spring came around, a new schedule had started; Douglas spent his days in the Royal Guard working a morning and early afternoon shift, and attended classes at the University in the evenings, studying law for the Guard, advanced world history, and mathematics. He excelled at both and soon began to earn a steady pay, and after two months he found himself out of the care of Princess Celestia and Luna, able to take care of himself and purchase everything he needed. Actually getting what he needed became harder. While Princess Celestia initially viewed adding Douglas to the guard as something that would show her good faith in him and that Douglas was to be trusted, the citizens of Canterlot did not take it that way. Douglas was taunted even further and some ponies wondered aloud why their Princesses tried to tame and arm the monster that was now in their midst. He became barred from the store and had to order everything by mail. He could not get into study groups at the University or hardly get tutors because word about his origins became twisted and distorted. He even had to move to a small house closer to the Castle because the other tenants in his apartment became scared at having him live among them, despite the fact that Douglas kept to his own business and never bothered anyone. Douglas knew the others viewed him as a monster; it had been so long since Equestria had seen a human they had fallen into the realms of myth and legend. Douglas heard the stories of thieves who came in and kidnapped foals to be used as slaves, stories of those who were hunched over and filled with sharp teeth and ate others, stories of men and women who desired nothing more than power. Funnily enough, he agreed with more than one of them. He just never applied them towards himself.