A loud pop echoed off a stone dome, suddenly, amazingly, thankfully to my right. I found myself in an orchard in warm bright sunlight, just steps from the shade of an orchard. Once again compressed and warmed by air, I momentarily no longer cared to scream. Instead I gasped and inhaled frantically. It felt like I'd had an epiphany; maybe my brain would catch up sometime soon and explain it all to me.
My sudden perspiration steamed off my arms, flash frozen. I shuddered and rubbed my arms together, trying to find my lost heat. I blinked furiously, my eyes feeling slightly burnt.
Daniel popped into existence a couple seconds later. He shouted, "Yah!" He waved his hands beside himself until he saw me standing near. Frost steamed off of him, as it did also off the midnight blue winged-unicorn.
I spotted two wingless unicorn stallions, both ash-grey both with ears pointed alertly toward me, each with normal eyes. Normal... but huge, and mostly white with relatively small irises that pulsed and grew. Manifestly not horse eyes. His were an amber color, and his companion's pale blue. That they were male was obvious. They were only slightly bigger than the bat-winged guards. They wore brass armor and Trojan helmets, though one had a reddish crest and the other a light blue black-streaked one. I realized the crest had to be their manes poking through the metal because their nervously swishing tails matched their crest. The quirky opening did make the helmet less protective, though.
One had a nutcracker tattoo on his flank, the other a chisel. I could tell this because the brass armor curved aside to make it visible.
Daniel fast-walked toward me.
High in the air, I spotted a couple more small armored horses, this time with feathered wings, each with a quiver of spears strapped to their side, each with a spear weirdly balanced on a flapping wing. The closest was white, the other blue. The blue one was a mare and much more petite. Neither had horns.
What had just happened, hit me. I thought about it, about the sparkles, about the stone dome that we'd obviously just been inside.
I said, "Star Trek," as Daniel took a place beside me, though I suspected he wanted to stand behind me despite my being a head shorter. "Star Trek, Star Trek... Star Trek!"
"No. Not possible," he said.
"Yes, possible. We've been transported." I think I said whoa like Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Then... No. But it was... "Magic. They're using magic!" I said.
"Unicorns, right. You think?"
"Do I? Any sufficiently advanced technology..." I'd read that somewhere. I shouldered him, then looked at our, what, host? Captor?
"What now?" I asked of her.
She replied in horse-speech, unfurled her wings, and jumped into the air. The downdraft pushed my hair from my face. Despite her wingspan being way too little to provide lift, she flew upward. An instant later, encapsulated in a blue nebulous glow full of sparkles, I was jerked into the air following her.
Daniel shot into the air, too. In moments, we soared horizontally through the air above an orchard that looked ripe with apples. It felt like I was laying on my stomach. Reflex, and my trying the minimize the air tugging at my body, made me put my arms out like I was a superhero or something. The horse stretched out her fore and rear legs similarly. It struck me as bizarre and I found myself giggling.
I was flying.
Daniel, on the opposite side of her, looked white as a sheet, something that the sunlight and harsh shadows accentuated. He hugged himself, not quite in a fetal position.
Some people didn't know how to have fun.
I looked at our host's face. Her blue eyes glittered as she looked at me faintly, unmistakably, smiling. I could see the silver filigree in her armor, composed of multipointed stars, and that the black enamel on her breastplate matched her painted-pony color, etched with a crescent moon that matched her tattoo. I'd noticed it was identical on both sides of her rump. Inset into her helmet was a black crystal tiara that also glittered outrageously in the sun.
I knew what I thought it meant, but I wasn't ready to think fairytale stuff. It was enough that I forcibly accompanied an animal as smart as a human that wasn't human.
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if she had a similar thought about me.
I asked, "Where are we going?"
She began speaking in intricate horse-speak, gesturing expansively with armored fore hooves, probably stating something of the order, "I really haven't the faintest idea what you're saying, but feel free to ask more."
When she finished, she actually answered my question by pointing her weirdly articulated foreleg. I realized we were flying up toward a hill upon which rested a red barn in the middle of two or three hectares of dense orchard.
In the outside chance that she understood me, I added, "I'm willing to bet stupid happened, and by that I mean something really bad, knowing the head of the family that owns that shed. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
My father sometimes brought work home with him, more often recently as he tried to influence my career choices. Talking people down from being angry or violent was a skill I'd at least found interesting. You had to find common beliefs and empathy, and you had to never make the other person wrong.
Her eyebrow raised as she regarded me. I realized that her eyelashes were mascaraed and lengthened to look feathery. Between her eyeshadow and perfume—and her obvious vanity—it made her more human and more alien at the same time, and made her power more frightening.
"Since I work for them, I'm partly to blame for— I hope they didn't hurt any one. I am going to feel really stupid if I'm guessing wrong." Now my nerves were making me blather. "But... I'm guessing under different circumstances we could have made friends."
Another glance and a few horse words followed as we circled the barn. I could see the work yard, animal pens, and a house down hill.
I added, "I'd like to make it better if I can..."
Then I saw gathered small horses—I decided to call them ponies—and a single much taller white Arabian mare. It looked like someone had painted the ponies in all the colors of the rainbow, making me shiver thinking of Daniel's now ironic rainbow unicorn quip. The equines surrounded what looked like Daniel's extended clan and some men I knew worked in the hotel. I saw the Chief Cherokee rolled down hill against a fence, a door and the hood ripped off, spears deeply embedded. I saw that more spears, looking like ham radio antennas, had pierced the roof of the farmhouse. I saw guns and rifles piled away from the people.
No bodies, human or otherwise. Thank goodness for small favors!
And now I was rushing into the ground from a height of ten stories. The leader braked, feathers splayed, beating back with what felt like inadequate wing area, but we quickly slowed and Daniel and I were brought down on our feet in what I decided was a professional recognition of human anatomy.
I went immediately to steady my friend who folded to his knee and looked ready to puke. I recognized that dozens of the ponies wore gleaming body armor, though only a few winged ones evidenced any drawn weapons. The horned ones had none, though thinking about the leader gouging out keys from a metal barrel, melting and warping the metal siding of the shed, and picking up heavy objects with ease, like us two humans, with magic... Maybe unicorns didn't need weapons.
I recognized the demeanor. The armored ones weren't police. They were military.
I thought Shit! I didn't say it, though. I instead patted Daniel's back. Eyes on the leader, her wings folding up as she trotted away, her crescent-moon tattoo molding with her flesh on every step, I said, "Dude? Are you okay?"
"If I ever fly again, it'll be too soon."
"I think you meant never fly, but..." I patted his back as I stood and added, "Deep breaths, Dude. Deep breaths."
I watched the leader rub necks with the taller white Arabian, then lift a foreleg to half embrace her in an eerily human gesture. This one, unarmored, nevertheless wore a golden breastplate with a faceted amethyst the side of a fist centered in it. She also wore a solid gold crown. The former had to weigh forty pounds, the latter two or three alone. It was real gold, judging from the way it moved, and from its unmistakable luster. I'd had a friend obsessed with jewelry who explained gold carets and alloys like a metallurgy nerd, and had shown me examples. The Arabian mare's mane and tail, while obviously hair, behaved like stage smoke, roiling and clumping, never still and almost alive. I knew which equine was the queen and which was the princess.
There.
I'd thought it.
Fairytales. Oh, Christ, I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Or California.
I stepped forward toward the painted pony with the black crown. A hand caught my shoulder as I attracted the attention of a dozen pair of unicorn guard eyes.
Antoinette said, "What are you doing, Judith?"