//------------------------------// // 2 — In which I am Discovered // Story: I'm not Insane, I'm Crazy! // by frayboy15 //------------------------------// Chapter 2 — In which I am Discovered I was shuddering in a tight, defensive curl on the ground, anticipating the attack promised by the loud shout I had just heard. Instead, I just heard more cries, though now they seemed to be coming from both pegasi. I risked a glance to see what was happening and the sight momentarily jostled me from my panic. The yellow pegasus with the long pink hair had moved into the blue one's path, keeping it from continuing its attack. The two seemed to be exchanging harsh words, if the expressions I saw had the same meaning as the human counterpoints, but I couldn't tell if the yellow one was reprimanding its fellow for the attack, or for not letting it get the privilege of the final blow. Look… I already forgave you two for scaring me so badly. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty; I'm just telling my side with all the stuff I remember. Madam Purples over there is taking notes and I want them to be good. So don't worry about it. Please? So the yellow one, definitely a female if what I sort-of halfway noticed from my fetal curl was correct, delivered a final, warbling cry and snorted at her still-flying companion. She then calmed her expression and turned towards me. I hunched back down, hoping she hadn't noticed I was watching them or that she wouldn't be angry about it. I couldn't see them anymore but I could hear the yellow one slowly making her way towards me. Preparing for the worst, I clenched my eyes shut and tensed all my muscles; I didn't want to know what was coming. She started making low, crooning sounds as she came closer, sounding very similar to a person singing or using "baby-talk." I still wasn't sure if I could make assumptions into her actions. For all I knew, she was reciting a traditional death chant used when dispatching a human. I do remember, from some of my idle research in mythology, that pegasuses were notorious for attacking humans, though I can't remember if it was provoked by us or not. Soon, she stopped speaking and I could feel the vibration of her hoofsteps, closely followed by a puff of air on my head. She was standing right next to me! I had started shivering at some point, no doubt caused by the cold sweat that was coating my skin. My muscles felt so tight, they were starting to cramp up. That's when she finally made contact; the yellow pegasus began to gently nuzzle the arm that I'd pulled over my head. Understandably confused by this, I relaxed my tense form and risked a glance at her. Her face was hidden from my view by her her mane, which had draped itself across my side as well. She resumed her song-like speech, which I guess was supposed to make me feel less nervous. She paused her nuzzling and turned her back towards her blue companion, who I had, by now, assumed was male because of the aggressive-slash-protective behavior. HEY! You, of all mares, shouldn't be laughing. If it weren't for your hairbands constantly reminding me, I would swear in a court of law that you're a stallion. And this is the second time in a row that you've interrupted me with your laughing: show some manners for Pete's sake. Yeesh. So… I turned my eyes in search of the blue one, and noticed, with some mounting anxiety, that he was flying back from around a bend in the butterflies' flight path. Clasped between his front hooves was a folded cloth patterned with alternating red and white squares. It took me a few seconds to recognize the object; it seemed to be a picnic blanket, freshly used too, if the haphazard folds were any indication. The blue pegasus set the blanket down next to the yellow one and moved back a few paces with what appeared to be an apologetic look on its face. The two exchanged a few words in their strange language and the yellow one turned her attention back to me. Taking the blanket with her mouth, she shook it open and draped it over me. Then, she made some more crooning noises while also rubbing my back with a foreleg. She went from the shoulders to the small, and it was only later that I realized she was sort-of petting me. She nudged the hand that was covering my cut forehead and spoke again. This time she sounded more like her companion; the volume was still soft, but there was a firmness to it that matched the declarations she made when she stopped her friend's attack. By now I was feeling more sure of myself and less afraid of receiving further injury, so I moved my hand, which was sticky with drying blood, away to give her access. She gasped softly and turned sharply to her blue friend, who I had since decided to call "Rainbow" because of the spectral mane. Canary, my decided name for the yellow one, turned sharply to Rainbow and issued another firm declaration in their foreign language, then bent her head to the blanket and tore an inch-wide strip off the top with her teeth. Then she used her forelegs to roll the strip into a more manageable form. I was impressed by the feat of dexterity, but I've since discovered it isn't too uncommon among you ponies, which is a bit disconcerting to me. She picked the roll of cloth up with her mouth and unfurled a wing, moving it gently under my head and lifting; the pressure was not hard enough to move me, but it was direct enough that I could assume she wanted me to sit up to give her better access. I did so and she smiled through the roll of cloth, letting me know that I guessed right and that I could correctly interpret most of her gestures and expressions. Canary applied the end of the cloth strip to my temple, holding it in place with her wing while she began wrapping my head with the ad-hoc bandage held in her mouth. After two circulations, by which point I was decently impressed with her ability to hold things, she slipped her wing out from the fabric and finished wrapping the injury. Meanwhile, I reached over to my backpack, grabbed my water-bottle with my, relatively, clean hand, and poured about a third of my remaining two cups onto my bloodied one. I used the grass to wipe the remaining blood off and my pants to finish the job. Canary had since finished her bandaging and was watching my actions with apparent interest. I suppose now that my manipulation of objects was nearly as novel to her as hers was to me. I was confident that I wasn't going to be attacked again and my nervousness was diminished enough that my twitch had stopped. I pulled the blanket off my shoulders and folded it the best I could. "Thank you," I said, handing the sloppy rectangle of fabric to her. She placed it under a folded wing and turned to Rainbow and engaged in another dialogue that I couldn't understand. This time, I saw their faces clearly while they spoke, and their expressive faces allowed me to follow the talk to an extent. Canary seemed to be rebuffing Rainbow's attack as an unnecessary action, citing my lack of hostility as evidence. Rainbow seemed suspicious, but relented by the end of their minute-long exchange. I was riffling through my backpack, making sure that nothing, namely my tablet, was damaged when I dropped it during my coughing spree. Nothing, namely my tablet, was, so I re-zipped all the pouches and put the bag back on. I noticed that Canary and Rainbow had continued walking and flying, respectively, towards the bend in the butterflies' path, so I made to follow them. They had exhibited language, medical knowledge, and textiles, so they had to have some form of civilization. I was hoping that they could show me where I was, and from there, I could work on finding my way home. The kaleidoscope's path hid a picnic basket, which wasn't so surprising, considering the blanket that Canary used to patch my head. Canary returned the blanket to the basket and made to pick it up with her mouth. She made another short burst of incomprehensible noise, at me it seemed, so I responded with a shrug of my shoulders and a shake of my head. "I'm sorry, but I can't understand you. I only know English," I said slowly. I knew the be-winged equines were intelligent and I hadn't said much, so there was still a chance that either they, or someone they knew, could understand me. Rainbow flew into my line of sight and made energetic shooing motions with her forelegs while making a mix of whinnies and nickers. I raised a brow at that and she, I definitely knew that Rainbow was female now, landed next to Canary, who had picked up the basket. "Really? I'm not an animal. If you want me gone, I'm gone. I have a date with that mountain." I pointed at my target, hoping they would understand my goal and maybe point me towards the nearest town instead. The two whickered and glanced at each other, exchanging a few short… well, words really. Just because I couldn't understand, didn't mean that there wasn't syntax. Canary and Rainbow both seemed surprised at whatever message got through the language barrier. The pegasi had another short discussion. It ended with Rainbow throwing her forelegs into the air with an explosive sigh and Canary picking up the basket and trotting up to me. She flapped her wings and lifted off the ground, rising until she was at my head height. Passing the basket handle over a hoof, Canary made a short speech, glancing down often, and gestured off to the right of the mountain. When she was done speaking, she looked at me expectantly. I figured she was asking me to follow, so I nodded and pantomimed doing so. Her face brightened with a smile and she turned to Rainbow, saying something that made Rainbow roll her eyes before responding. After speaking to her polychromatic companion, Canary bit the basket handle again and began flying slowly in the direction she had indicated, turning back towards me long enough to indicate I should follow. I began trekking after her while Rainbow took off and led the way, looping around in an impressive aerobatic display before dropping back to accompany Canary. The pegasi glanced back at me every so often, likely checking if I was still following. I was of course, and despite the pangs of discomfort from the, now scabbed, cut on my brow, my spirits were high and I was practically skipping after them with my unicorn trailing merrily behind. Since I wasn't heading directly towards the mountain anymore, it was easier to use as a navigation point. The mass of migrating butterflies gave me a second one, and between the two, I discovered that I had moved a lot farther than I though during the morning hike and my current, faster speed would get me to the mountain before sunset. I had also grossly misjudged the mountain's shape when I first saw it, which was the main cause of my erroneous distance estimates. It was about half as high as I thought and a lot narrower too. I'm still having a hard time believing that it hasn't broke or fallen over. I guess you don't have earthquakes here, because that fantasy-style city and castle you ponies have hanging off the side wouldn't last ten years back home. Speaking of that city: what's its name? … Canterlot… well, that is moderately hilarious, yet oddly apropos. There's a story back home about a city called Camelot, and so many people make up city names that play off of it that it's almost cliche. So, Canterlot came into view around the mountain after about ninety minutes of brisk walking. Nothing of note happened during that time and, by the look of things, Rainbow was getting very bored from the monotony. She had started talking to Canary every five to ten minutes, likely complaining about how slow I was moving, right? Thought so. Anyway, when I saw Canterlot, I started getting suspicious. The foundation hanging off the mountain was rather large, but there was no mention of such an engineering feat on the entire planet in anything I had ever read. And us humans have explored nearly every square mile of land so I began thinking that I hadn't just translated across the planet before waking that morning. For all I know, I possibly traveled through time, or even jumped to another galaxy or universe! And this happened in my sleep! I could have even been abducted by aliens to see how a random human would act during a first contact with another cognizant species. I knew that if I started panicking I wouldn't stop, so I forced myself, with some difficulty I must admit, to ignore the ramifications and pretend that there wasn't some terrifyingly mysterious things going on. The fact that the pegasi had seemed equally surprised to see me calmed me a bit, mostly because their reaction meant that they likely knew as much as I did concerning my arrival. It took me nearly a half-hour after seeing Canterlot to come to these realizations, and a further ten minutes to dampen the mounting paranoia. By this time, the city was fully in view and the three of us began to pass what looked like sparsely distributed farms. A small part of me had assumed that Canary and Rainbow were children or adolescent because of their size and this same part started wondering if the farms were staffed by some other manner of creature, or if there were larger, adult pegasi taking care of them. Since the path we were taking didn't come close to any of the farms, I couldn't quell my curiosity without striking out and abandoning my guides, which I didn't want to do. Partially because Rainbow would probably catch me in short order, but mostly because Canary had bandaged the cut Rainbow caused and I felt like I owed her for it. By now, the sun was making its way down from its zenith and we had made our way onto a dirt road. This was good because a road eventually meant a town; it was bad because the occasional rock was causing my unicorn to bounce, and sometimes tip over. I stopped to untie it after it flipped for the fifth time, deciding that my wrist would have an easier time leveling it. I wasn't worried about tiring my arm anymore because there wasn't any grass to hold it up, just stones to avoid. Soon, the three of us began passing other equines on the road. None of them had wings and most either had carts or saddlebags, so my new theory was that the wingless… well, ponies is really the only word for it. The wingless ponies handled general labor and the pegasi were some sort of military. Rainbow's attack and Canary's medical aptitude certainly backed it up. It was either that, or Rainbow was Canary's bodyguard. Soon, we approached a fork in the road. There was a sign between the right-hand fork and the road we were on, but the only symbols on it that I recognized were the arrows pointing down the three paths. We took the right path and we soon passed into a copse of unfamiliar trees. They superficially resembled species that I know, but they were different enough that I couldn't be certain. After a few minutes, we came back into the open, and that's when first I saw this town. Despite the distance, I could make out many ponies walking around the buildings and a fair number of pegasi flying above it. The buildings I could see looked to be made of wood and most had thatched roofs. As we neared the town, I began to get nervous again. I was mostly nervous about how the town would react to me. The strange looks I had been getting on the road made me pretty sure that there were no humans in the area. Most of the ponies we passed reacted confusion or curiosity, but none of that told me anything other than that I was somewhat of a novelty. In my apprehension, I moved closer to my escorts, which Canary noticed. She dropped back to hover next to me and stroked the back of my head with her foreleg. I was a little annoyed by it because, as a reassurance among most humans, that action is kind of condescending. However, I was able to appreciate the intentions behind the action, and accept it at face value. We finally began to navigate our way through the town, and both my guides appeared to be mutually familiar with the residents. The cheerful sounding speech from all sides led me to assume that they, my guides I mean, lived nearby, either in the town or close enough to visit regularly. A group of really small ponies, children was my assumption, ran up to us from several directions, chattering over each other and crowding around me and my two pegasi guides. Both of them began speaking back to the, 'foals' is it? Ok, they started talking to the foals; Canary spoke in a reserved manner and seemed to be keeping the youngsters from crowding my legs as we walked while Rainbow had started gesturing wildly and doing what I can only call "shadow boxing." She was flying with a stance that mirrored mine and repeatedly struck at the air with her forelegs. A small orange pegasus with a tousled, purple mane seemed especially excited, jumping about with buzzing wings and mimicking the actions of Rainbow as best it could. Oh, sorry, as best she could. I was trying to keep track of my baggage and making sure not to kick anyone by accident, so I didn't immediately realize that there was a third type of pony present among the foals. About five of the young ponies had slightly glossy protrusions set near the center of their foreheads. They were the same colors as their coats, which also contributed to my inability to notice. When I did finally realize that there were young unicorns about, my immediate mental response was, "Oh, wow! Unicorns! First pegasi, now unicorns." Then the part of my mind that has apparently been burned out, surprise-wise, snarked back: "Really? Why are you still being shocked by this stuff? I was expecting something like this." The two sections started a rather distracting dialogue, consisting mostly of insults and the like. It made for an excellent diversion from my surroundings. I was jarred from my internal debate when I was rather exuberantly assaulted by the color pink. Yes Pinkie, you're the pink I speak of. At that moment, all I noticed was loud pony-speech and a strobe-like flash of color in my face. When I composed myself… yes, after I shouted like a "foal" and tripped over my suitcase. Your pantomime this morning of my reaction conveyed your mirth of it very clearly Rainbow Dash. I got back on my feet, dusted my pants off and faced the object that had nearly caused me to wet them. It was a pony, with no remarkable appendages or traits aside from being the first one I had seen with a near homogenous color scheme. Both coat and mane were vibrantly pink, though the mane was noticeably darker and infinitely more curly. Canary was talking to the new arrival, who had the largest smile I've ever seen in real life. The pink pony, who will henceforth be called "Pinkie" for obvious reasons, made a ridiculously loud gasp, hugged Canary, saluted me, and ran down the street before disappearing around a corner. I was, and still am, greatly confused by how the dust cloud appeared and why it held Pinkie's shape for so long before collapsing. Canary was giving me an apologetic smile, Rainbow was rolling on the ground laughing fit to burst, and the foals were all looking excited and most ran off in groups and various directions shortly after Pinkie did. The orange pegasus stuck around though, as did an off-white unicorn sporting a violet and lilac mane. After Rainbow regained her breath, we continued walking. After negotiating a few corners, we came out into the center of town. On the far side, there was what appeared to be a closing open-air marketplace. To my right, was a tall, round building with a red, cone-shaped roof. It was about four stories tall and it even had a short stage poking out towards the market. Rainbow shot off to the left with Canary and the two foals following, so I turned to do the same; my jaw promptly dove for the ground when I saw the other structure that inhabited the square. Despite how impossible it seemed, I was apparently looking at a living tree that was also a building. There were windows embedded in the trunk and there were several balconies of differing sizes and heights off the ground. Rainbow had disappeared through a red door built into its base, so I assumed that the tree was our destination. A shout came from the direction of the market and a… what do you call a pony without wings or a horn anyway? Ok, that works for me. An earth pony with a butter-yellow coat and a red mane tied by a pink bow ran up to the other two foals. The three began to speak animatedly with each other, the earth foal gesturing towards the market and then me while the other two were pointing at Canary, the tree, and the mountain Canterlot hangs from. The pegasus filly was the most energetic. She was hopping around and making fighting moves by the time I passed them. I guessed she was giving her own version of how I had met Canary and Rainbow. As Canary and I got closer to the tree, I noticed a sign hanging above the door. It showed an open book containing more of that flowing, foreign text. Since I couldn't read it, I made a few guesses about what the building might be. Could it be a records hall? Maybe a schoolhouse? Perhaps it was a travel office? I continued entertaining myself with my guessing game and just as we arrived, the upper half of the door opened. Rainbow poked her head out and said something to Canary. The grin had vanished from her face and her speech was tonally different. Canary replied and Rainbow's eyes narrowed before she spoke. Rainbow maneuvered herself through the opening, unfurling her wings once they cleared the gap, and flew to land in front of Canary. The two traded lines for a few seconds, during which Rainbow's expression grew less tense. She finally lost the frown and broke into laughter, the full-body, knock-you-to-the-ground kind. From inside the tree, a new voice piped up. Rainbow stifled her mirth and turned to respond to the unseen speaker. As the voice drew closer, Rainbow jumped and set herself by the door, pointing in my direction and emphasizing the gesture with a short declaration. I looked down at Canary to see if she was concerned by the goings on, but she was smiling gently and giggling softly to herself so I decided that I wouldn't get worried either. A grumpy face appeared in the space that, moments before, had been occupied by Rainbow. It belonged to a unicorn. Its fur was violet and its royal blue mane was neatly styled and accented by a purple stripe seated adjacent to a deep pink stripe. Next to Rainbow's septa-chromic stripes, it was the most interesting hair I had seen on the equines yet. The unicorn's gaze was locked on Rainbow for a second, but flicked towards the outstretched hoof and then onwards towards me. The eyes locked on. The reaction was priceless.