Ocellus couldn’t help but feel cornered by the strange alien creatures. She’d been with many creatures before, and for a changeling such trips were often something to be enjoyed. A new creature was a new possibility, something with abilities she could learn.
But where she might learn to copy most animals in a few minutes and complex creatures like ponies in a few hours, these humans were proving difficult so far. She watched the way they moved, tried to judge how their limbs connected, but wasn’t quite brave enough to ask one of them to remove their clothes for a few minutes so she could learn to copy them better.
If she’d been worried her and her friends might be way over their heads, the little argument between the humans helped calm her nerves. They might have a strange way of speaking, and they might be adorably small, but other than that they acted exactly like a group of young students might’ve at Twilight’s friendship school. If she closed her eyes, forgot the shipwreck and the cave, she could almost imagine their voices were coming from down the hall.
“Excuse me, uh… Ocellus. I’ve got a thing for you to look at.” It was the only male, the one whose name was David. He didn’t even stand taller than both of the females, the way a buck might over doe, or as many earth pony stallions did over mares. There was still a clear distinction in his voice, however.
“Yes, yes. Of course.” She turned to him. “You remembered where Equestria was, I hope?”
“Not… quite,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “But something that might be able to help both of us!” He held something in his hands, a flat piece of metal and glass. It was a little like the slates young ponies sometimes used in school, except that it was much too small to write anything worth writing. But it was producing light, and as she looked at it for a few seconds, she could see it wasn’t the even illumination of a torch. There was a picture there, like the semi-mythical cutie map.
This was a map too, but much smaller, and flatter too. She could see a large island, with another one fairly close by and lots of ocean all around.
“This is where we are. Brighton is just down there, that’s where your ship landed. And we can zoom out like this.” His thin hands moved around the surface of the slate, and the image changed. It zoomed further and further, until it started to curve around the edges, like she was seeing the whole planet from above.
“Oh, I get it… bloody clever, that is.” Helen said. “Just have ‘er point to how she got ‘ere.”
“Right,” David said. “So, Ocellus… does any of this look familiar to you. I figure we can find ‘Equestria’ that way.”
“Can I try it?” she asked, reaching for the little slate. But it was almost smaller than her hoof, and the male pulled it back quickly.
“I wouldn’t mind letting you, but… it’s quite delicate. It’s made of very thin glass, and I don’t think your, uh… hooves… will work with it too well.”
“Oh, right.” She grinned sheepishly. “Well, maybe not this time. But that’s a good idea! Just… get that map moving, until I can look at your whole globe. Then I should be able to find it.”
The process didn’t take too long before Ocellus pointed. “There! That’s… almost right.” There was quite a large land formation there, one that vaguely matched what she expected from Equestria. Except… the scales must be wrong. Its bottom portion was much too thin, trailing and bending in ways she didn’t expect. And that land on the north seemed like it would go on forever.
“Can you show me where we are compared to ‘Brighton’ again?”
He did, and her frown only deepened. Doubly so as there were sounds from within the cave. Splashing, coming up towards the entrance. Somepony had woken up, and they’d be here in moments. Please don’t buck this up.
“Yeah, this is… I don’t understand. That place there, that looks like Equestria. But it shouldn’t be… it shouldn’t be so big.” She nodded confidently. “I think your map must be off. That country should be maybe one tenth the size. Also, the little names are misspelled. That’s supposed to say Manehattan.”
“Of course it is,” Helen said. “Bloody course it is.”
“She is from an American lab,” said the other female, the one who’d found her in the cave. Marie, she thought. “Maybe she saw a real map through the glass or something, got confused.”
“No,” Ocellus said. “I’m confused about where I am now, not where I was. Equestria is on your map, it just isn’t very accurate. That’s not a problem, I’m sure we can figure out how much its distorted. Then we…”
Then they what? Charter a ship home? They’d scavenged bits from the wreck, though they certainly hadn’t brought enough to buy a second boat. But maybe if the humans were so easy to befriend, it wouldn’t be so hard. They could just meet with these foals’ parents, and talk up the chain until they got to a princess who could send a message back.
“Actually, I had a better idea. How would my friends and I go about getting a meeting with the closest princess? Or… if you have a king like we do, that works too.”
“A meeting with the… k-king?” Marie said. “You mean… the queen? That’s, uh… easier said than done. I don’t know anyone who’s met her.”
Ocellus’s heart sank, as she remembered her own experience with a queen. She had never needed to ask the Equestrians why they had princesses, because she already knew. These foals don’t look like they’re hurting, or enslaved. Maybe their queen is more like Silverstream’s than ours.
But her thoughts were interrupted, because at that moment Smolder emerged from the cave behind them. Despite the cold and her reptilian blood, she was probably also the strongest member of their group, and the most able to resist things like tiredness.
She stopped at the edge of the cave, glancing between Ocellus and the humans. She stood taller than any of them, tall enough that they looked even more like foals than they already had. Compared to her, they seemed so scrawny and thin. Instead of sturdy scales and sharp claws, they had soft skin and spidery hands. Maybe that’s why they’ve been hiding all this time. They’re so vulnerable they think they’ll get invaded.
“I see you found some of the locals,” Smolder said, ignoring the slack jawed stares from the humans and walking over to Ocellus. “That’s great. I assume they’re helping? Since… you didn’t go into a panic or call for help. You’re not here to fight, right?”
“No, no!” Marie was the first to recover her wits. “We just wanted to meet you. You specifically d-dragon. We… saw you on the tele.”
“It was amazing!” the male added, his voice drifting a little. “You were actually flying! And that fire… it’s like it came from nowhere.”
“We don’t know that,” argued the other female. “We don’t know that it’s real.”
“I’m real,” Smolder said, with a little annoyance. She’d looked amused at first, maybe even impressed, but that emotion was quickly fading. “You were at the beach, huh? Well, I could do way bigger flames than that. But I was a little afraid I might cook those guys by mistake. Little creatures like you… didn’t want to take any chances.” She glanced over at Ocellus again. “Help is on the way?”
“No… quiet,” Ocellus said. “I think we’re really far from Equestria. The ocean on the map is… David, can you show her the map? This is David, by the way. Humans, this is Smolder the dragon. She’s kinda sorta our leader, since she’s the bravest? But don’t let Gallus hear I said that.”
As if she needed any more reminding that she was dealing with children. Even Helen beamed as she introduced a dragon.
“Sure, sure.” David stepped forward cautiously, as though he was afraid Smolder might accidentally light him on fire. As usual, her dragon friend was unflappable, and if anything only seemed slightly annoyed David was taking so long. “Here, this is… I think where you guys came from?”
Ocellus couldn’t watch the screen, but she had already seen most of what was on it. She didn’t need to guess.
“Yeah, I think,” Smolder said. “But I’m not good at reading maps. It doesn’t look right to me.”
“Me either,” Ocellus said. “You’re not alone. We can talk about it.” Hopefully that would be signal enough for a dragon. They weren’t really as good at picking up on subtle cues. These humans might be helpful so far, might even be friendly, but it would be rude to talk about their obvious mistakes with them around.
Smolder nodded, though Ocellus couldn’t tell if she had understood or if she was just bored with the map. “What does this change, Ocellus?”
But she didn’t get the chance. “Uh… can we take a picture with you?” Marie asked. “Both of you, even? I’ve never seen… a unicorn or a dragon before. I want to remember it…”
“I guess we have the time. Everyone else is still asleep. If we have to pose for a few minutes…”
But it wasn’t a few minutes. They got together by the cave, and the girl held out that thin little arm. Her little piece of glass flashed at them, then the humans all started moving again.
Smolder frowned. “Am I that ugly? I thought I was already hiding the scale…” She twisted self-consciously, so that side of her front would be towards Ocellus. The bandage on the scale there was unmistakable, even as it had soaked through with dragon blood.
“What? No!” Marie turned her thing around, holding it up. Ocellus could see its surface had changed—just like the map David had, but instead this one showed a perfect picture, far better than anything she’d seen in Equestria. It’s not just smaller, it’s faster too!
“I was wondering…” Ocellus began. She spoke slowly, tentatively—but the humans were so much smaller and shyer than she was that she got a little braver. They’re not so scary when they aren’t hiding in metal shells. “Our friends would probably all like to meet you. Together we might be able to come up with a way to get back to Equestria—or maybe we’ll just have to wait a little while for rescue. But it looks like they’re still trying to find us out there.”
“Get to the point,” Smolder said, making a little twirling motion with her claws. “The short one stopped listening.”
“I did not,” Helen said. “I just… thought I heard someone.”
Ocellus ignored that. “We can’t really go out looking for food,” she continued. “I wonder if… maybe… you might be able to bring some? We’ve got money to pay.”
She felt the humans’ reactions more than watching with her eyes. Marie immediately felt ashamed and guilty, while David started feeling helpful and Helen barely seemed to hear her.
“What do you eat?” David asked. “I mean… we could just bring out boxes of waffles or something, but…” He lowered his head to the dragon. “We can’t bring you any virgins, but I guess you probably like… steak?”
“We’re virgins, David,” Marie whispered.
Her short friend kicked her lightly on the back of the leg. “Shh. She might be hungry already.”
From her expression, Smolder was hungry. It had probably been quite a long time since she’d heard the word “steak.” “My nose wasn’t lying to me! Little weakling creatures like you, I thought for sure I was wrong… I did smell meat. Pig, I think.”
“Two of us eat meat,” Ocellus said, before their new friends walked away to slaughter a pig or something. Though how they’d win a fight with a pig at their size… “The other four of us prefer not to. More like… hay, oats, vegetables… normal food.” And if you go to all the trouble to get us food, I should be set for days.
Ocellus didn’t need love, not anymore. But ponies didn’t need sugar.