//------------------------------//
// 30 - Differing Points of View 
// Story: The GATE 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

I put my hand on Antonette's to remove it, growling before I said.  "I'm going to try to fix this cluster f—" 

"—They're a lot more capable than they look, especially for their size."

I turned my head.  When my eyes found her face, I saw black makeup smeared from ear to ear.  She wore hunting camou?  What the—  I took a deep breath.  "What were you playing at?"

"Scouting—  More like being grandpa's fool—  Look, they ran us down with air calvary and Brother got himself knocked off his horse by a branch and hurt bad.  Broken ribs and a pierced lung.  They took him to a modern hospital, Judith.  Modern.  They saved his life!  They even completely healed the pierced lung."

"That's good to know."  I released her hand a finger at a time. 

"These... pony-oids are twitchy and spooky just like horses back home.  Marty said all it took was the truck sliding on the loose dirt around the barn when he drove in."

"Don't you mean, trespassed?"

"Your dad speaking?"

Uh.  Maybe?

"Ok. Yes.  It scared some animals.  When Pauli jumped out to corral them so they didn't run away from their owners, this golden one rushed up and kicked him!"

"And?"

"Broke his leg."  I was looking at the Shoal clan and had noticed Pauli had a makeshift split. 

"I could see that.  What I meant was—"

"Who made you an inquisitor?"

"Who made a mess of things that I'm now stuck in the middle of?"  We locked into a stare.  Her eyes were green.  My skin felt hot and I felt my lips compress.  I wondered if this was what my father felt on the job. 

Maybe. 

She looked away. 

"L-Let me guess—" I continued. 

"They thought they were animals, Judith!  Attacking—"

"And... they... shot at them?  Right.  Or am I wrong?"

I turned around completely.  No way to know if they killed any of the pony people, unless she admitted it.  I saw no conspicuously missing humans, either.  Everyone I'd ever seen working Silver Shoal's.  

Antonette said, sheepishly, "Didn't know they were people—

"Didn't think, either."

"—until much later.  The houses aren't that much smaller than people— humans—would build..."

I sighed loudly and looked toward the queen and princess.  Were they really twitchy and spooky like our horses?  Didn't matter since they had the upper hand— or hoof.  They now likely had a very bad opinion of monkey-creatures.

"We had no reason to think it was a completely different world, Judith.  I know Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings aren't real.  Grandpa thought it was some secret government project to encroach on landowners in the valley.  Or maybe it was another trick by DWP or SoCal Edison to screw people out of more water rights."  The two companies basically owned Inyo, and had turned the Owens Lake into a salt flat.  "Not sure what conspiracy he thinks it is now, but he wanted to check it out; refused to let it be covered up.  Think about it.  Feds or CIA or DARPA is a lot less crazy than an alien world!  Credit him that he wanted to find out.  Grandpa even brought Brother's DSLR, too, to document it all, not just his cellphone!"

I touched my jeans pocket.  I'd left mine in my parked car because, well, working. 

I nodded.  DARPA did make more sense than to straight up think Narnia.  His theories were all kinds of self-validating, I suppose, if you thought about it because none of it wanted to make sense in my head, anyway.  It added a new dimension, beyond the less credible equine dimension we found ourselves in.  

Which led to the question: Why was the... gateway... between dimensions there in the first place?  

Again, it all felt crazy.  What the Shoals thought.  What I'd thought.   

But it was definitely still a mess, hashtag CF, no matter how you diced it. 

As I stepped away from the Antoinette, she added, "The big white one bursts into flames and moves the sun through the sky anywhere she wants.  And the horned ones can travel instantly between places."

"They're unicorns, Anne."

A third winged unicorn popped into existence to prove Antoinette's point, excitedly greeting the painted pony and speaking rapidly as she magically drew out the camera from the princess' saddle bag in a ruby cloud of sparkles. 

Then they all noticed me approaching.  

First, the white Arabian mare set purple eyes on me.  

Next, the armored midnight blue mare's turquoise eyes hardened into a stare my direction.  

Last, even the purple new-comer looked with curious, also purple, eyes.  She, unlike the other two, was heavily armed.

I nevertheless continued approaching the winged unicorns.  Ten feet from the three, I knelt, pushing one jeans knee into the soft dirt with a faint crunch, audible in the new silence.  This put me at about eye-level for the ponies, and below the three.  The newcomer was the shortest of the winged unicorns and very purple, almost as if her coat had been stained with grape juice.  Her mane was even more purple, with a reddish stripe.  

As I said, different from the others, this unicorn carried weapons—and I recognized Daniel's grandfather's prize hunting rifle strapped to her side, minus the scope, despite it being nearly her length.  I saw a holstered .357, probably also Grandpa Silver Shoal's, and a sheathed hunting knife, too.  It looked Vietnam vintage.  His without a doubt.

All that was missing was his ridiculous long-barreled Colt .45.

Alarm bells went off in my head. Trophies?

Or a threat of violence?