It’s difficult to accurately describe my thought process over those next few moments. I’m fairly certain I was swinging between elation and excitement at the imminent chance to meet the actual, real life, honest to God Mane Six, and also fear at just what the hell we were going to do. I’d been thinking about this moment for the last couple hours, planning and trying to anticipate every possible scenario, so that our first contact with the ponies would go smoothly. As I’ve said before, ponies can be remarkably xenophobic at times, and I had little to no idea how they’d react to humans.
The upshot of all that was, much to my discredit, that I froze up completely. My mind was whirring at such a rate of knots that it pretty much crashed. Full blue screen, program not responding, I just stopped stock still as the voices grew nearer.
Luckily, Dad wasn’t quite so overcome with excitement, only fear at the prospect of discovery. Instead, rather than freezing, the primeval section of his brain dedicated to self-preservation at all costs, chose a much more beneficial option; flight.
“Quick! Quick, hide!” he half whispered and half shouted.
He quickly shepherded Mum and Lizzie off the dirt path and concealed them behind a large thicket of shrubbery. They quickly did as he asked, however, he had to come back for me and all but drag me out of the way.
“Jesus, come on, lad!” he ordered.
Finally, I came back to myself and began to move under my own steam, hazily realising the fact that we were about to be spotted and any plan I might have had was about to go up in smoke. We all hid ourselves several feet away from the path we’d been on, well out of sight of anything that might come our way.Through the thick branches, I could see the path ahead of us, while still remaining concealed. Lizzie, Mum, and Dad all crouched down, while I could safely stand upright. The four of us kept as still as we could, and were quiet as church mice as the voices came closer. I peered through the gloom to see if I could spot them.
Soon the voices became so clear that it was possible to make out what was being said. The voices had been clear enough before, but only now could I make out any words. With my newly improved ears, I listened as best as I could, doing my best to tune out the sound of my own accelerating heartbeat.
The first voice I heard had the familiar cadence of a pleasant country twang; Applejack. Between you and me, I always pegged her as best pony, second to Princess Luna, of course.
“Ah just don’t get it, Twi,” she was saying, evidently talking to Twilight Sparkle, the only alicorn of the group. “Just what was that whole fancy light show exactly?” Fancy light show? I didn’t remember anything like that.
“I’m not sure, Applejack” I heard Twilight reply, sounding a little puzzled. “There was a lot of powerful magic involved, that’s for sure. But I’ve no idea what could cause it, or why those energy readings are still moving.” Energy readings? Could she possibly be talking about us? At that moment, a scratchier voice broke in.
“Who cares what it is,” Rainbow Dash said confidently. “Whatever it is, we’re more than equipped to take it on.” Straining my ears somewhat, I could hear the sound of wingbeats. These ears really had turned my hearing up to eleven.
It was then that I first saw them all as they came around a bend in the path. Twilight was leading the small group forward, her horn glowing with a soft magenta colour, and emitting that curious sound of tinkling bells that seems to be a feature of Equestrian magic. Walking alongside her was Applejack, her ever present Stetson hat pushed back slightly on her head. Slightly behind the pair was Rarity. The alabaster unicorn looked somewhat nervous but was much more confident than some of her other companions. Bringing up the rear was Fluttershy. The uneasy pegasus was starting at every odd sound and was doing her best to stay as close to her friends as possible. Finally, hovering above the group was the rainbow maned Rainbow Dash. Unlike the other ponies, she seemed to be spoiling for some action, shooting over to every nook and cranny in an effort to find whatever they were looking for, presumably us.
It felt sort of unreal to see them all, in the flesh as it were. There was no screen between our two groups, no barrier. In a minute or two, I would actually be talking to them all. Once again, my nerves started to pack in. My anxiety was so great that it took me a moment to notice that we were short one pony.
A brief glance up at the approaching ponies showed that we were surprisingly lacking in the pink department. The approaching group lacked a certain bouncing party pony. I was sure that, if the rest of them were here, Pinkie would be along, but for the life of me, I couldn’t see her. I turned around with the intent to quickly talk to Dad about what we were going to do. The best plan I had was for me to step out first, try and introduce us all, and then bring out the ‘aliens’ if you will.
Sadly, none of my well thought out plan came to pass.
Turning around where I was, I promptly froze up in shock. Well shock and amazement.
My parents and Lizzie were all still huddled together, crouched down to keep out of view. But behind them, staring through the few gaps in the bushes with just as much intensity, was Pinkie Pie. And again I emphasise, the Pinkie Pie, as in real life, not on TV; about five feet away.
They all quickly saw my surprised stare and turned around. There was a brief moment of silence as for the first time we all ‘met’ a pony in Equestria. We all stared at Pinkie, and she stared back, albeit with a very large, friendly, and genuine smile on her face. A sort of unreality set in, and the voices of Twilight and the others faded out as the four of us sat staring in bewilderment at the Element of Laughter. Finally, Pinkie Pie broke the silence.
“Hi!” she said excitedly. The effect was instantaneous.
With a sharp cry of surprise from my dad, and a scream from Mum and Lizzie, we all bolted out into the open, half running and half falling over each other, and promptly found ourselves face to face with the rest of the ponies. Pinkie Pie promptly followed us, bouncing on her hooves excitedly, almost jumping to my dad’s eye level, and still grinning at the prospect of making new friends.
“I found ‘em, I found ‘em, I found ‘em!” she crowed gleefully. Everyone else though, pony and human, was quite silent.
Talk about East meets West.
It was like being at a high school dance, that first meeting. Each side stood apart from each other, neither willing to make the first move. We stared at them, and they stared back. The only exception was Pinkie Pie, who continued to bounce up and down excitedly. I did my best to try and read the expressions of the ponies across from us. Mostly, there was confusion. But I saw that when Twilight looked at me, there was some recognition, presumably at my species being familiar.
Finally, after several tense moments, I decided to try and break the ice. Stepping forward a few paces got everypony tense for a moment. I stopped where I was, not getting too close. Hopefully, I wouldn’t make an absolute fool of myself. Still, at least Equestrian and English seemed to be effectively one and the same language. Things would have been much trickier otherwise.
“Er…hello there,” I began, lamely waving a hoof in greeting. It wasn’t exactly the best introduction, but I’m not a social person, particularly when I’m under pressure. I saw Fluttershy in the back of the group relax a little, while Twilight’s confusion seemed to grow.
“My…er,” I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to refer to my family as my family, given the difference in species. But on the other hand, it was bound to come out before long. “My family and I have been lost in this forest for hours. I don’t suppose you know the way out?”
I decided to plead ignorance for the moment. Yes, I knew these ponies would almost certainly help us, but I didn’t fancy explaining just yet how I came to know each of them by name.
My question hung in the air for a few moments, the ponies all still trying to work out what to do next. Eventually though, Twilight Sparkle spoke up.
“Who…who are you?” she asked. “And who are these…people with you?” She’d paused as she’d realised that she had no idea what their species was. I guess we didn't look much like the 'humans' she'd previously met. “More to the point how did you wind up in the Everfree Forest in the first place?”
The inquisitive alicorn was piling on the questions thick and fast, and none of us had sufficiently diplomatic answers to them. A moment later though, Twilight began to use her magic again, her horn being surrounded by a pinkish glow and the sound of tinkling bells permeating the air.
“Wait a minute…” she said a she tilted her head down, pointing her horn towards us; a gesture that somewhat unsettled Dad. As I had done, she took a few careful steps closer to us before suddenly looking up in surprise.
“It’s you!” she exclaimed. The lavender alicorn then turned back to her friends.
“Girls, this is where that strange energy reading is coming from. It’s them! They must have something to do with that magical energy blast!” That kicked Rainbow Dash and Applejack into high gear and they both took defensive stances, while Fluttershy and Rarity backed away uneasily, only Pinkie Pie seemed unphased. I was about to attempt damage control when Mum, much to everyone’s surprise, beat me to the punch.
“Wait, wait, wait, please!” she exclaimed, holding up her hands in a human gesture of surrender. “We don’t know anything about that! We just woke up here in this forest and want to get out and go home!” That got them all to pause for a few moments, either from having listened to her, or merely shock at the realisation that she could speak. A moment later, Twilight spoke again.
“So where did you come from then?” she asked, still a little sceptical, but overall seeming to accept what was being said. This question, I did need to get in front of.
“We aren’t from Equestria,” I said, doing my best to explain. Twilight cocked her head curiously.
“What do you mean?” she replied. “Those three creatures behind you may not be familiar to me, but you look like an ordinary pony.” My dad now jumped into the conversation.
“He may look like that now,” he explained, sounding as if he only half believed his own words. “But until a couple of hours ago, he was the same species as the rest of us. He’s my son, you see.” Twilight looked confused.
“You mean he looked like you before you woke up here?” she asked. Dad nodded.
“Right. Until we all wound up here, he was just like us. Now, he seems to have gone and turned into one of you ponies and we’ve no idea why.”
The alicorn placed a hoof to her chin in thought before coming over to me, her horn glowing again. Perhaps she was examining me with her magic somehow? A few moments later, she relented and looked up to my dad again.
“Well, that part of your story seems to check out,” she declared. “Your son is coated in high level magic; certainly enough to allow for a transformation spell. But I can’t find the actual spell that’s keeping him this way. If it wasn’t for the magic on him, I’d say that he’d always been a pony rather than a…” she trailed off, realising again that she wasn't entirely sure what we were.
“What are you folks anyway?” Applejack broke in, posing the question with a little less tact than Twilight might have liked, judging by the look she gave her orange friend. Dad, luckily, didn’t seem to mind.
“We’re called humans,” he replied. “My name is Roger.” Carefully, he extended a hand out to Twilight. After a moment’s hesitation, and some confusion as to the gesture’s meaning, she walked over and placed her hoof in his hand.
“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said, before gesturing to her friends. “These ponies are my friends; Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and the one bouncing around is Pinkie Pie.” We all exchanged brief hellos at this. First contact was actually going better than expected.
“So, if you’re not from Equestria, where do you come from, and how come you’re here?” Rainbow Dash asked, her voice carrying some hint of suspicion. I’d figured that she’d be the hardest to convince. Well, the question was going to come up eventually, so I waded in.
“I don’t think that we even come from the same planet actually, Rainbow Dash,” I replied, now able to use her name without causing suspicion. “I take it this isn’t a planet called Earth?”
“Earth?” Rarity parroted, speaking for the first time. “Wasn’t that one of the names the earth ponies were going to give to Equestria?” She looked to Twilight, the resident egghead, for confirmation.
“I’m not sure really if there is any connection,” I replied. “But our world is a lot different to yours. Humans are the only sentient species; there aren’t any ponies like you, no magic either. We all come from a country called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There’s no country there called Equestria, as far as I know.”
Still hovering, Rainbow eased over towards me. Leaning down a little from her airborne perch, she looked me in the eye, which was more than a little unsettling.
“So what are you guys?” she asked, sounding a little more curious. “Some kind of weird aliens or something?” I shrugged my shoulders.
“I suppose you could call us that,” I replied. At this, the pegasus snorted and folded her forelegs across her chest. She then floated back over to her friends.
“Oh come on, that’s a load of horseapples!” she exclaimed. Dad seemed about to offer a counter argument to that, when Pinkie Pie, who’d previously been bouncing away on the side lines, suddenly jumped back into our little dialogue.
“Oh, come on, Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed, clearly bored. “We’ve been stuck in this opening arc for ages. Can we at least skip to the part where we all go to Ponyville?”
Everyone, pony and human alike turned to look at her in bewilderment. While I had no idea what she was on about, it still made me smile a little. It actually made me chuckle, even if I had no idea what she meant.
“Heh, Dash is right, Pinkie Pie,” I said, laughing to myself. “You are so random.” And with that, I really put my hoof in it. Rainbow Dash started as she realised what I had said.
“Hey, how do you know I said that?” Dash asked, now sounding deeply suspicious. She thought for a moment, before her tone became more aggressive.
“Seriously, how could you know that?!” she demanded, poking me in the chest with a hoof. “You told us that you just got here, from some alien planet, or whatever the hay you said. So how could you know what I said about Pinkie Pie?”
I wanted to slam my hoof onto my face in frustration. Things had been going so smoothly…me and my big mouth. This wasn’t something that could be swept away easily, and the explanation wasn’t going to go down to well either. I looked over to my dad; he jerked his head toward the still waiting group, signalling for me to tell them. I took a breath.
“Okay,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “This is going to sound pretty weird to all of you, but I promise that it’s the truth.” Rainbow backed off again and, along with her five friends, listened.
“You six ponies, on my world, are the main characters in a…in a fictional story. We have these things called televisions; they’re…kind of like film reels. And there’s a show about you six…about your adventures, and how you used the Elements of Harmony to defeat threats to Equestria. It started with Nightmare Moon, and the last major episode I saw was when you put the Elements back into the Tree of Harmony to drive off Discord’s Plunderweeds and rescue the princesses.” By this point I was feeling pretty awkward. “That’s…that’s how I know about you.”
You could have heard a pin drop after that. I could tell from the looks of the faces of the ponies though, that they didn’t buy it. Dash certainly didn’t.
“So, what you’re saying is, is that you ‘humans’.” She made quotation gestures with her hooves. “Have basically been spying on us for the past few years?” Oh God, I don’t need a four year old meme right now, Dash!
“No,” I replied. “No, no, no. Until a few hours ago, I didn’t even know that any of this was real, none of us did.” It was then that Twilight spoke up again.
“Okay, let’s test this,” she said, with an air of authority. “What do you know about me? Something that almost nopony knows. If you and your species really have been observing us through this ‘television’, you should be able to come up with something.”
In an instant I had an idea. It was fortunate that it was Twilight who asked, since she had her own, very secret method of establishing her bona fides, between herself and her old foalsitter. And I knew that almost nopony knew about it, certainly not some random unicorn/human. After all, not even changeling spies had picked up on it. Still, it would be a little embarrassing.
Swallowing my pride in favour of building bridges and proving that our story was true, I walked a few paces forward. Walking up to Twilight, I crouched down slightly and began. Already I could feel my face turning red under my fur.
“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake,” I began. “Clap your hooves and do a little shake.” Twilight, unsurprisingly, didn’t mirror my actions, and stood there with her mouth hanging open. Behind me, I could hear both my parents trying to hold back their giggling and sniggering at my poor attempt at copying the actions.
“Okay,” Dash said quietly, after a few moments. “This is now officially weird.” Twilight backed off still looking deeply troubled. Rainbow then turned to Applejack.
“Honesty is your thing, AJ,” she said. “What do you make of these weird apes?”
Pushing her hat back on her head, Applejack looked us all over in turn, her eyes narrowed. Even though I knew that I was telling the truth, I still found myself breaking out into a sweat under her gaze. Luckily, it didn’t last long, and the earth pony farmer soon had her verdict.
“As crazy as this sounds,” Applejack said, sounding bewildered. “Ah reckon that they’re tellin’ the truth; least as much as they all understand it.” Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief.
“So these creatures have been ‘spying’ on us, as Rainbow Dash put it?” Rarity asked. Twilight shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “At least not intentionally. In fact, this might explain what the blast from earlier was.” She paused for a moment; far too long for Pinkie.
“Well come on then, don’t keep us in suspense!” she exclaimed impatiently. Twilight smiled a little.
“I think this may be further proof of the multiverse theory,” she said, with an air of confidence.
“Er, multi-what, Twilight?” Applejack asked, with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s the idea that there are multiple universes; different worlds,” she explained. “But more importantly, a lot of ponies believe that there might be some overlap between them all. What’s fictional in one universe may be reality in another.”
That would explain how these guys know about us, then?” Rainbow asked. Twilight nodded.
“If I’m right,” she went on, turning to us. “You four were somehow pulled into a rift between our two realities, stepping from one to the other. It would be sort of like the mirror portal. And if that’s the case, we may be able to get you back to where you came from.”
“But there was no rift, as far as I could see,” I replied. “And I don’t remember any light show or explosion when I woke up.” Twilight frowned.
“It could be that the rift was unstable and collapsed behind you,” she said, with an air of concern. “If that’s the case, you may well be stuck here.”
At that suggestion, Lizzie, who had been completely quiet and shaking like a leaf from the start, began to get upset. Even being with her family, the prospect of being stuck on a whole other world, never seeing anything that had been so familiar mere hours before was a lot to bear. I know I was feeling the same way. Equestria was a nice place to visit, sure, but I wasn’t sure about being stuck here.
She clung to my mum’s arm tight, while my mum did her best to comfort her. Seeing the poor girl’s distress brought the silent member of the other group out. Carefully making her way forward, Fluttershy timidly walked over to Lizzie. Initially, my dad moved to stop her, but a quick signal from me told him to let Fluttershy come closer.
The kindly butter yellow pegasus, who was just as adorable as she was on the show, walked over to my sister and gently hugged her. After a moment, Lizzie let go of my mum and hugged Fluttershy back, her crying coming to a stop.
“There, there,” she said, in a gentle, maternal tone. “Don’t be scared. We’ll do all we can to help you get home.” She then turned back to Twilight and the others.
“They can’t stay out here in the forest. We need to get them back to Ponyville,” she said, taking the initiative. The alicorn nodded in agreement.
“I think you’re right, Fluttershy,” she said. The others also voiced their agreement. “It’s probably best if we take you to see Princess Celestia as soon as possible. If anypony can help you get back home, she can.”
Turning around, she beckoned for us to follow, and the whole of us, as a single group headed on out. Before long we found the canopy of trees getting even thinner, and the world around us growing brighter. Finally, after what felt like days, but was really probably no more than a couple of hours, we finally emerged out of the Everfree Forest.
Before us lay the wide open grasslands and the small town of Ponyville. Up the sky sat the floating city of Cloudsdale, far off in the distance, only just visible. And sitting on its mountaintop perch, was the gleaming city of Canterlot. As we stepped out into the light, I smiled and turned to my equally relieved family.
“Welcome to Equestria, everyone.”