Act IV: The Long Trek Home
The next morning, which I was surprised to find me actually waking up to, brought us ever closer to the end of our journey. That is, not before our very long conversation while walking back, at the very least. To save whoever may be reading this a great deal of time, I’ll only be writing down the things I found to be most important regarding this universe’s reality. Namely, a couple of things Twilight mentioned about their country’s governmental system and a couple of odd social quirks I noticed. Some might call what I’m about to do censorship, but I like to think of it as blissful convenience. Blissful referring to that old saying from my universe, at least.
After I woke up, I saw Twilight had already been up and about, gathering all that she could find of nuts, fruits, and plants for us to eat that morning. Personally, I had managed to get nutrients the same way, but some of the plants and fruits look differently in this universe than it does on mine. I had to do a bit of testing on some of them only to find out that most of them were close to the same thing. Some of them, on the other hand, were a total mystery to me. For example, I found a five-leaved, star-shaped plant that was colored like a rainbow. Very strange, that was; even stranger was the fact that it tasted a bit like a mixture between pop rocks and a jalapeño. No wonder I didn’t have a dream the night before.
Anyway, Twilight, taking a glance at me from scurrying about for supplies, stopped what she was doing, stared at me with a very serious expression, and told me one thing: “You’re a ghost.”
Seeing as I had just woken up, I was a bit drowsy, so it took me a couple seconds. When it clicked, however, I responded as sarcastically as I could, “Oh, very funny. Next you’ll be telling me the ground can flip upside down.”
“Actually, that did happen here at one point.”
I’m fairly certain my brain imploded in on itself at that point, somehow causing me to twitch my left eye repeatedly. “I’m sorry?”
“There’s this creature called the draconequus that’s named Discord. He literally caused as much chaos and havoc as he could in the time out of his stone prison, and one of the things he did was lift part of Ponyville off the ground and then flipped it upside down. So…” she trailed off. Well, it was either that, or I stopped listening to her so that my brain could comprehend what she just told me.
“Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to mash my head against that tree until what you just said actually makes sense,” I replied, pointing behind me in an unspecified direction.
Next part is a bit of a blur for me, as I turned around, walked in the direction I turned, and proceeded to pound my head into the tree about a dozen times. I think Twilight might have been talking, but me nearly giving myself a concussion kind of blurred out what she was saying.
“Well, good news is I’m not a ghost,” I said, stumbling back to where I was before, “Bad news is I can’t figure out how what you said works. That and brain damage. Possibly.”
“And how old are you?” she asked incredulously.
“42,” I replied, “Now, let’s see what I can help find around here.”
“Wait, hold on! You’re 42?”
I gave a questioning look and finally said, “Yeah… Why? Is that some taboo age I’m never supposed to reach?”
“Er… Not taboo, no, but I had not expected you to be so young. Average pony lifespan nowadays is about 150.”
“Huh,” was the only response I had for that. Theses ponies must have a fairly high quality of life to be living that long. The last time we humans even got close was before the war broke out, then we reached about 100 on average. Nowadays, because of all the casualties from the war and the destruction that it caused the average lifespan went down to about 65, maybe 70. I forget. But here, I might as well just be living in the 2100’s… With talking ponies… Still have to get used to that.
“Regardless, we should scavenge what we can for food and finish up quickly. The sooner we’re back to civilization the better, as far as I’m concerned,” I said. With that, I started helping Twilight with the hunt around the area for any edible plant possible; me relying on previous experience, Twilight relying on (from what she tells me, anyway) a survival help book she read once. Originally I figured that since she was a pony and only ate plant life due to teeth structure that she’d know it naturally, or at least would have memorized it through conditioning at a young age. I guess it just works differently here as opposed to my universe. Well, it’s either that or she’s lying, but I get the feeling that she wouldn’t lie about something like that. Then again, this could just be a human-pony cultural barrier that I just can’t seem to- am I really thinking this? You know, adjusting to things like these sounds a lot easier in your head than when you actually implement them.
My ramblings aside, (and skipping ahead a bit, for that matter. Most notably the search, which took a grand total of about 10 minutes) we gathered a respectable amount of fruits, nuts, berries, and the like. I got everything that I knew wouldn’t hurt me from my experimentation with edibles that I tested on my second day here. Things that wouldn’t hurt me immediately, anyway. At the time I had no idea whether or not the plants and things I ate would have some delayed effects on my digestive system. Fortunately enough for me, they didn’t. Except for maybe the rainbow-colored flower, but that was just like any other spicy food. Goes right through you, as they say.
I keep getting sidetracked while writing this, don’t I? I’ve got to stop doing that. Straight to the point, after we had consumed what food we found, we continued our travels home. Unfortunately, it took a lot longer to get back from Tartarus than it took to get there in the first place. Now I see why people were so reluctant to give up fossil fuels before 2020; the most efficient methods of travel revolved entirely around that stuff, and if you figure that’s the only source of fuel you can find, then I can see why people were rioting. It’s just so convenient to travel quickly. Of course, once the people were assured that scientists had found a suitable replacement energy source, they calmed down and adjusted to using it. It ended up being cow milk. Go figure.
Since the only thing we could really do was talk, we abused the hell out of utilizing that. First we started talking a bit about Equestria’s governmental system (something that I’d been dying to hear about since day three) and comparing it with my native country’s: The United States of America. Apparently, our governments had a decent bit in common with one another. From what I could gather from Twilight’s explanation, the country was structured into provinces, and the major cities of Equestria were more or less province capitols. The mayors from each of the major towns would all get together in Canterlot, (it being the Royal City) decide on what all they would need, and then issue a request of the Princess to get it for them. While still being a monarchy, it still had very Republic-like qualities. I wanted to ask about federalism and see if that at least existed here in one of the governments in the world, but the name came up a couple of times in my sharing of America’s government and she looked at me strangely every time it did. I took it as a "no" and didn’t bother asking whether it was.
The next topic that came up was about dating system structure. In other words, their calendar; I was curious to see whether or not our universes had a parallel there, as well. Surprisingly enough, they did.
“Our calendar is structured into twelve months with various amounts of days per month. Four weeks make up a month and seven days a week. A day is about 24 hours on approximation, but-”
“-The miniscule time difference from rounding the day to 24 hours makes an extra day in the year every four years, right?”
She looked at me like I was some sort of mind reader. “Yeah, how did you know that?”
“Because we do the same thing on my universe. You know, with the amount of parallels our universes have, I’d say that they’re fairly close together in our section of the multiverse…” That’s when it dawned on me. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that possibility sooner? “I think I just found the reason as to how I got here.”
“You did?” I didn’t think she’d believe me at first. Not without some explanation, at least.
“Considering that our universes should be close together due to all the parallels between our worlds, and considering the possibility that the universes are expanding in every direction, it’s possible that our universes collided and flung me here. Sort of like a chemical reaction.”
“So that would essentially just make you an electron by that comparison.”
“Exactly. Well, there’s no particular way to prove any of the possible scenarios, this one just seems the most possible based on chance.”
“On chance? So, what, luck brought you here?”
“That’s one way to put it, I suppose. Technically, ‘luck’ in the sense most refer to doesn’t exist in that way, but more rather just an incredibly unlikely event that occurs at a specific time and place. As plausible as the wormhole scenario sounds, it’s not exactly high on the… chance meter, for lack of a better term.”
I think I might have lost Twilight in that explanation. Can’t say I blame her, these theories are incredibly far-fetched unless, well, you’re a part of them.
“Oh, by the way, I don’t think I got the current year. Mind telling me?”
“Sure, it’s June the 19th, 1003 A.L.B.”
“‘A.L.B.’? What’s that an abbreviation of?”
She giggled slightly, remembering my current state of knowledge about her planet: virtually nothing. “Oh, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting you’re new here. It stands for ‘After Luna’s Banishment.’ Luna being our Princess in charge of royal duties during the night, that is.”
“And she got banished? What the hell did she do to get herself banished?” Honestly, I had no idea as to what to expect, but I’m fairly certain that what Twilight said in response caught me a bit off-guard.
“She tried to cause nighttime eternal because she was jealous of ponies enjoying Princess Celestia’s day over her night. Princess Celestia managed to banish her to the moon for one thousand years, and that sentence ended three years ago now. By that time, Princess Celestia sent me to Ponyville where I met my best friends and we found the Elements of Harmony, basically incredibly powerful magical artifacts, and used them to remove the corruption from Princess Luna and Princess Celestia took her back in to help rule the throne like a thousand years before.”
“I… Wow… That’s pretty damn impressive, to say the least.” Understatement of the century.
“What about you? Since you have the same calendar as us, what year is your culture on?”
“2036 A.D. A.D. standing for ‘Anno Domini,’ which translates out to ‘In the Year of Our Lord,’ if I remember right.”
“‘Lord’? Is that referring to a human ruler or a deity?”
"It's referring to a deity, but," Here’s where it gets complicated. I shook my head, “I'm not quite convinced that he exists. The majority of my species thinks they do, though.”
"Hmm, I see." She nodded her head in contemplation, "No one doubts the existence of our two deities in Equestria... Is there a reason why you doubt yours?"
"There are many, in fact. I'd rather not go through all of them now, though, that will take far too long. But, uh, you mentioned two deities?"
“Yes, they're Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.”
“You mean the one that got banished?”
“The very same. They’re alicorns, meaning they have both wings and a horn.”
Oh, so they’re not deities, they’re just unique. Might as well not argue with the definition they applied to deity, I have a feeling it won’t go anywhere.
As we continued our journey back to Ponyville, Twilight and I started little small-talk conversations. Things like our favorite pieces of literature (which, for the life of me, I can’t seem to remember any bit of pony literature Twilight was talking about) and family talk. In that regard, it was mostly a one-sided conversation with me on the listening end. Twilight, from the sound of it, had a really great life. Nice parents, a loving brother, and accomplishing what most common folk would consider to be “impossible feats.” Me, on the other hand? I think I’ll just leave it at “I only had one of those things.”
Unfortunately, chance just never seemed to be on my side. Ever.
“What do you mean?”
Apparently I had muttered those words under my breath and Twilight had heard them. Either that or Twilight’s a nosy telepath and she never bothered to mention that until that point. “Don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, it can’t be that bad. Besides, I’ve been telling you all about my family; it’s only fair you tell me about yours.” Trust me, you really don’t want to know.
“Let’s just say that my family didn’t work well together.”
“You can do better than that! Seriously, how bad can it be?”
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. “You want to know? My parents divorced before I could even walk properly, and my father managed to drain all the financial resources my mother had at the time. Since my mother had custody over me that meant that I had to live in poverty with her for a long time; had it not been for my uncle, I would have died on the streets in a gang war. By the time I turned 18, my mother stopped trusting me completely because I didn’t approve of her moronic, abuse boyfriend which never worked out in the long run, and because I went to live with my father due to financial reasons for educational purposes. The second I got out of college, the highest form of education in my society, I lived alone, occasionally visiting what little friends I had every now and again. There. Happy now?”
I hadn’t been looking at her the whole time I was having a tangent about my problems, so when I looked back at her I had no idea what to expect. Seeing her expression was heart-wrenching, to say the least. I had driven a colorful, talking pony to the verge of tears just by telling her about myself. Well, the last comment certainly didn’t help.
When I noticed a small stream of water flow down her face I felt it was time to intervene.
My voice had a calming tone, “Hey, come on now, don’t cry. It’s my life, I’ve gotten over it.” Liar. “The last thing we need to worry about is my problems in the middle of a forest. Let’s just forget that line of conversation and start another. That sounds better, doesn’t it?”
She shook her head, the tears still flowing from her face. "That's just so depressing. How do you live with it?"
I don't. “Here,” I said, wiping her tears with a handkerchief that I had remembered was stored in one of my inner cloak pockets. I have no idea what my past self was thinking when he was gearing up the day I got flung here, but I don’t think I could have been more grateful to myself at that point. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah,” she said, the tears finally starting to subside, “Sorry, I didn’t think I usually got that emotional, but you…” She paused a bit before continuing, as if she were trying to collect her thoughts, “You’ve been through that much hardship and yet you still manage to keep an upbeat attitude. How do you do it?”
I’ve never been good with taking compliments (even more so now that they were coming from a magical talking pony… literally…) so I shrugged in response. “If I can’t manage to deal with my problems, I don’t see how I could help others with theirs.” My nonexistent God, do I always sound this corny?
She looked at me for a while, almost like she was deciding on what to do. To be honest, I was afraid the tears were going to come back, but instead she did something that completely took me by surprise. She hugged me. She pulled me down on my knees and wrapped her hooves around my neck. If being flustered could be measured on a scale, I’m fairly certain that I would have broken it at that point. I was so completely lost, in fact, that I just patted her on the back until she was done.
Twilight pulled away from… That… and shifted her hooves towards the top of my head. She started to lift my hood to remove it, which nearly got an immediate, knee-jerk reaction from my arm to get her to stop, but I hesitated. For some reason I just didn’t seem to mind her knowing what my face looked like. I suppose I didn’t have a reason for it anymore, anyway. After all, the whole reason I kept my cloak hood up was to hide my face from the public on my planet, and seeing as I wasn’t on my Earth anymore, I didn’t feel the need to stop her.
Doing said previously named action revealed what features my face had to offer: a fairly short, unshaven beard which hadn’t been tended to in months; fairly long, brown hair that covered my forehead and went down a bit past my eyebrows; and old, brown eyes that at that point in time had a bit of bags under them from not sleeping very well.
“So this is what a human looks like…”
I nodded, “More or less.”
“Hey, Hurricane?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t ever change.”
Twilight was just full of surprises that day. That was the first legitimate compliment I had gotten in well over two years. Remember what I said about that fluster meter earlier? It most definitely would have been broken twice by then.
“Th-Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.”