//------------------------------// // Down the Rabbit Hole // Story: Tinker, Tanner, Hunter, Spy // by Shamus_Aran //------------------------------// The early spring air was soaked with fog. A light chill tinged the atmosphere, just enough to set one’s teeth rattling. In a certain section of bush near the very outskirts of a certain forest, there was no sound. Nothing had moved or made a noise for the past eight hours. Until just now, that is. A single figure rose from the brush, making just as much noise as it had entering. That is to say, very little at all. The forest had been thinning steadily for miles. Whether it was a natural formation or simply a magical portal into an unknown realm was unknown. In fact, that was the very reason our current character of focus (who for now we will simply refer to as “the archer,” because that’s precisely what he was) had entered. His kingdom needed explorers to make sure nothing unpleasant lurked near their borders, magic or otherwise. The kingdom also needed, he noted hungrily, explorers who could keep themselves alive while they did it. That’s what the bow was for. The forest up ahead yielded to an unnaturally well-kept field, no doubt the workings of whatever lived in this territory. As he emerged from the foliage, the archer accidentally stepped on a fallen twig. And, believe it or not, this snapped twig would be his undoing very shortly. A small hillock overlooked the field, a perfect vantage point for one looking to murder and eat small furry creatures. As luck would have it, as the archer surmounted the hill, one such furry creature presented itself, although it was in no way small. Grazing in the field below was a massive red horse, with probably more meat on it than the archer would need to eat like a king for days. With good rationing, it would last him for weeks on end. All he had to do was shoot the thing. He unslung the bow from his back, adjusting the arrow’s path for the wind. The path in his mind bent with the air current, curving into what he had already mentally labeled “breakfast”. As he released the projectile, a sudden gust of wind bent it sharply to the right, causing it to land just off-target. The red giant stood ramrod stiff, bolting from the scene and soon disappearing behind another one of the tiny hills that dotted the landscape. The archer sighed, stood up, and began to clamber down from his now-useless firing point. It was at this moment something happened that would change the course of this man’s life forever. A bright blue winged thing landed in front of the archer, who thankfully had the presence of mind to have nocked and drawn another arrow beforehand. Before he could release it, however, he noticed that the creature had swiveled on its front legs, and its rear legs were now moving toward his face at an unpleasantly high speed. As he blacked out from the impact, he heard the arrow go high with a sharp whistle. The last thing he remembered was hoping offhandedly that he hadn’t fired it such that it would come back down and hit him, because that would be a really stupid way to die. *** He awoke to the vague sensation of warm, dry air. Judging from the lingering moisture soaking his clothing from the morning fog, he had been wherever he was now for no more than an hour. “Ahem... Attention, human.” Immediately, he was snapped out of his stupor. An unfamiliar female voice that referred to him as “human”? In this line of work, that never spelled anything good. Was it a siren? A harpy? Had he fallen into the realm of the Fair Folk? “Ugh... Human here, speaking. Yes.” “You are hereby charged with trespassing, attempted murder, and disturbing the peace with ill intent. Do you accept these charges?” “Murder? All I did was try to shoot a horse.” From somewhere behind the first voice, someone chuckled and muttered something in an odd, lilting language. “Well, that was the easiest confession I’ve ever gotten. Guilty as charged.” “What-” He was interrupted by clanking metal and a squealing hinge. He was in some sort of jail cell, by the sounds of things. He was roughly hoisted from his sitting position, and thrust into a staggering walk. As he moved, still trying to coax his eyelids open, the woman spoke again, this time closer to him. “We will inform the mayor of the verdict. Your imprisonment will then be officially announced, and your punishment decided pending your meeting with your accusers and their decision to press the charges.” “And who are my accusers?” “Well, among others, the pony you shot at.” He stopped for a minute. Did she just say...? No, his ears were playing tricks on him. They had to have been. As she walked him down an interminable sequence of hallways, his eyes gradually began to refocus. The hall was built of wood, painted minty green. He’d never been here before. As he walked, he mentally checked the list of Fae races that could have seized him. The Fairies, of course, were the most likely culprit. They just loved to imitate human architecture, and the décor was as faux-English as you could get. The Mer-People were also a possibility, but he hadn’t been near any bodies of water in the last week. It got increasingly unlikely from there. The centaurs, of course, would need halls this high to get around. Gnomes? Dwarves? No, this building was much too big for them. Sirens weren’t even capable of constructing buildings of this complexity. Nor were harpies, wyverns, the list went on. Dragons, ogres, and trolls were right out. Their buildings were much bigger, and their tastes leaned more toward the gore-splattered. It’s surprising how much you can rule out from a single hallway. “Here’s our exit.” A door opened itself at random, letting in an absurd amount of sunlight. Whoever they were, they had magic. He entered, light blinding him for a few seconds. As his eyes adjusted, he saw he was standing on a wooden porch, in front of a crowd of... Horses. A herd of multicolored horses, all staring at him intently. “Uhh, wait. Where are the people?” “These are the people.” A dark blue equid walked from behind him. On its side was a picture of a fountain pen, crossed with a quill. It talked. “The mayor will be here shortly, to inform the town populace of the verdict. I shall translate for you, if you wish.” “Um... okay?” After a few uncomfortably silent minutes, a tan brown mare emerged from the crowd. Oh, wait. “Mare.” “Mayor.” This entire place was beginning to feel like a bad joke. The mare/mayor stepped in front of him, giving him a good once-over before huffing and turning to the blue horse beside him. They spoke for a spell in that oddly cadent tongue. Satisfied, the Mayor turned and spoke to the crowd. “’Citizens of Eqshana-’ Sorry, that’s this town’s name in Equestrian.” “Equestrian?” The Mayor spoke again. “’We have found this human guilty of his charges. However, as-‘ Oh.” “What?” “Err... Well, you’re not headed for the noose, seeing as you didn’t know what you were doing.” “And how do you know that?” “Because no human knows what they’re doing on their first visit to Equestria.” “There’s that name again.” “Shh!” The Mayor concluded her speech. The crowd began stomping on the ground as some strange equine form of applause. “So what happens now?” “Now I get to conduct the sentence for innocence by ignorance.” “Which is?” *** “Wait, wait, wait. I nearly kill what you tell me is a living, thinking person, and you’re giving me linguistics lessons?” “Well, I have to. We can’t teach you anything about Equestria if you don’t know the language.” “And I suppose this counts as the first three months of my sentence. It took me nearly that long to learn just the basics of mertongue.” “Actually, it shouldn’t take much longer than five minutes.” “What.” The only two English-speaking individuals in the town of “Eqshana” had left the pavilion and reentered the building, which apparently served as the town hall. As they walked, the archer took stock of what little equipment had been left with him. His knife was untouched, as was his tinker’s kit. His bow and quiver, however, were gone, as was his satchel and his meager supplies of food. At the thought of food came the grumblings of an empty stomach, and some very unpleasant thoughts. What if Equestrians were that weird breed of Fae that didn’t eat? Worse still, what if they did, but ate things indigestible to humans, like flowers or rocks? What if they ate normal food, and regular Equestrian spices would poison him? Was he going to die from Equestrian hospitality? “Here we are.” He was snapped out of his grim musings by a sudden stop from his “tour guide.” She had halted him in front of another totally unremarkable door, one of scores that lined the hallway. “What’s this?” “The language room.” The language room. No indication of what that entailed. Typical Fae naming scheme, and maddeningly unhelpful besides. He was led inside, and the door was closed behind him, shrouding him in darkness. “Let me guess, this is the part where you eat me.” “What? No!” His guide lit a small oil lamp, revealing the rather cramped room in its entirety. The lamp was in the center of the room, sharing the space on a small table with a single writing quill. The three walls not occupied by a door were lined with bookshelves, which were absolutely festooned with tomes written in all manner of languages. His guide took to searching the shelves, muttering to herself. “Let’s see... La Lengua Ecuestre... no. Wie Die Pferde Sprechen... no. Langue de Pégase... no, no, no.“ As she continued to pore through the overstocked shelves, the archer took it upon himself to do a little searching of his own. No two books seemed to be written in the same tongue. He recognized titles in Gnomelish, Dwarrow, Draconic, and even Trolltongue. One of them was in Mertongue, and its title roughly translated to “How to fool talking ponies into swimming where you can eat them”. Wonderful lot, the Merfolk. Great at parties. One rather large tome stood out, after a few minutes of scanning the shelves. It was entitled “Inkwell’s English-Equestrian Concordance,” and if the archer had any experience with Fae races at all (which he did), this was the book his now-rather-frazzled companion was looking for. “Is this it?” “What- oh, my! Yes!” An invisible force plucked the sizeable monograph from his hands, floating to the table where it set itself down with a soft thud. Two chairs scooted themselves to the table, apparently under the same magic. The archer’s guide, in defiance of known equine anatomy and common sense, took a seat in one. She motioned wordlessly at the other. The archer sat. The guide brushed at the mane over her forehead, revealing a single horn. “You’re a unicorn,” the archer said, in a tone of voice one normally uses for informing a friend they just seasoned their eggs with pepper instead of salt. “Indeed I am. Now, hold still. This will take a few minutes.” The book opened, again on its own. The English in it was overlaid with strange symbolic characters, to the point of illegibility. Some concordance. The guide touched her horn to the book, and both began to glow a light teal. The light spread across the table and around the room, eventually engulfing the archer. In that moment, several things happened. Firstly, something in the human’s mind shifted. He now understood fragments of the Mayor’s announcement, which referred to something about “royal policy” and an agreement between a king and the princess. It was probably just Fae politics, which was famously never clear. Secondly, he became keenly aware of the symbols in the book. They began to appear roughly synonymous with the English words they overlaid, as if someone had planted an interlinguistic thesaurus in his brain. In retrospect, he would later decide that this was exactly what happened. Thirdly, he remembered his botched outing that morning. What he had dismissed as birdsong now revealed itself as a warning, shouted at his large, red, meaty quarry from very high up. It also explained that gust of wind. The Equestrians probably had an air spirit or two in their thrall, which explained how he had ended up here. And finally, his “teacher” told him to stop thinking so much, or else he’d cause the spell to fizzle, which would probably wipe all knowledge of every language from them both. He remained silent for a long time after that. Finally, the book stopped glowing. The illumination faded to the single oil lamp, and all was still again. “Now that that’s over... Hello. My name is Inkwell. What’s yours?” The archer shook himself awake, and blinked. “Inkwell?” “No, that’s my name. What’s yours?” “No, I mean... Your name is on the book.” “Of course. I wrote it. Well, ‘wrote’ is the wrong word, what with magic and all...” “Ok, stop. You just taught me how to speak Equestrian?” “Yes.” “Alright, how do I speak it?” “You already are!” At this, the archer paused. His voiced had shifted a few octaves higher, and he did seem to be making completely the wrong mouth movements. But this felt so natural. Was Equestrian magic so potent it could give someone a new first language in seconds? My, my. How insidious. “Well, I suppose that makes a bit of sense...” “Glad to hear it. Now, your name?” The archer told her, seamlessly transitioning to the comparatively deep, raspy, and amelodic human tongue. “Hmm, that’ll never do. Nopony will be able to pronounce that.” “Well, what do you suggest?” “Well, until we can officially name you, you’ll just have to be named by what you do. And on that subject, what do you do?” “Well, I’m an explorer.” “Hmm, no.” “I could be ‘Scout’.” “No.” “’Tinker’?” “Close, but no.” “‘Leatherworker’.” Inkwell gagged. “Definitely not.” “‘Archer’?” She thought on that for a minute. She stomped once. “Perfect!” And so, in a miracle of literary serendipity, the archer came to be known as the very thing we’ve been calling him this entire time. Amazing, isn’t it, how this sort of thing works itself out. Now sporting a rather unearned sense of accomplishment in the field of Equestrian diplomacy, Archer immediately asked the next obvious question. “What happens now?” “Now? We have to go find you a home for the rest of your sentence.” That last word deflated his spirits a bit. Technically, he was a prisoner. Diplomacy wasn’t exactly on the itinerary. His only recourse was to find out as much as he could as fast as he could, and get out. The crown had to know about this new kingdom, and what’s more, he had to keep any ambient magic here from screwing with his brain. And there was ambient magic. There was always ambient magic in a Fae Realm, and that was definitely a label that applied to Equestria. If he had learned anything from three years on the frontier, it was that places like this were unpredictable, dangerous, and evil. So, he had to learn. And with that knowledge, he had to escape from Eqshana. Simple. “You wouldn’t happen to have a library, would you?” Inkwell’s expression brightened. “As a matter of fact, we do!” *** The town was not overtly magical. If there hadn’t been technicolor equines wandering the streets, one could have been forgiven for thinking that this was simply a human town that hosted a populace with slightly more fabulous sensibilities than the rest of the kingdom. It was, in fact, given away by the tiniest details. Details like the sun, which hung motionless in the utterly cloudless sky, never changing its angle. Not a single rat could be seen in the alleyways, and that was the biggest hint. Rats were like annoying neighbors. You never got used to them being around, and you hated them, but once they vanished, you couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Oh, and the library was a giant tree with windows sticking out of the branches. So there was that. As Inkwell approached the door, Archer found himself slightly taken in at how off-kilter everything truly was. The buildings were candy-pastel white and pink, apples seemed to be one of the only human-palatable foods in the marketplace, and unicorns and pegasi roamed the streets, with not a single bipedal creature in sight. Right now, a Fairy would be a nice change of pace. Inkwell tapped on the door. “Twilight? Are you in?” The door opened, again by magic. Honestly, he hadn’t seen an Equestrian yet that moved anything without magic. “Yes, Inkwell, in here,” said a younger voice from inside. “If this is about Treatises on Mystical Translation, I’ve almost finished it. I’ll have it back by-” “No, no. It’s not about the book. I have someone for you to meet.” “Oh?” Archer stepped forward, trying to peer inside. Before he had the chance, another Equestrian stepped out of the doorway. This one was, like Inkwell, a unicorn. However, she was bright purple in hue, and instead of crossed pens had some unidentifiable mark vaguely resembling a star. Or perhaps one of those fancy French candies Jean sold at the corner booth back in – suddenly, he was very hungry. “This is Archer, the one who shot at Big Mac this morning.” “Oh.” The unicorn with the candy mark suddenly looked very uncomfortable. “Don’t worry, he’s learned his lesson. And also how to speak properly. Say hello, Archer.” Archer was rudely yanked from his reverie on fancy French candy. “Oh, h-hello,” he muttered. “Archer wanted to learn more about Equestria while his sentence is carried out, so I took him here. Is that alright?” “Oh no, no, it’s fine! He does seem... interesting.” The unspoken addendum to that, Archer knew, was “...and really weird.” But that was alright. He thought Equestria was just as strange. “So you’ll take him?” “Sure! It’ll make for some good research for my next letter to the princess!” Inkwell and the other one continued to exchange pleasantries as Archer made his way inside. On some level, he heard what they were saying, but his mind was now arrested with the offhanded mention of a princess. Fae with royalty was not a new concept. But royalty that kept such a close tie to their subjects was. This young Equestrian kept regular correspondence with the heir to the throne, by the sounds of things. In the brief moment before the sheer untenableness of such a plot sunk in, Archer had a wild vision of meeting with her, turning her against the ruling King and Queen of Equestria, and coming home the first scout in a hundred years to go out exploring and come back with a new alliance. Then the sheer audacity of what he was thinking crashed into him. He wasn’t Tinker Chanhassen, and these weren’t the griffons. He was going to have a time of it just getting out of this blasted town alive and undetected. How he could have fantasies of persuading a royal heir to revolt was beyond him. He wandered inside, heedless of the continued jabbering at the front door. He glanced around, and came face to face with a particular lizard. This lizard was of a breed he had never wanted to meet at such a close distance, without at least twelve times the armament he had at the moment. “Hey there. Who are you?” It was a dragon. A speaking, gem-eating, fire-breathing, honest-to-the-crown dragon. Archer summoned all of the courage he could muster, and released one of the manliest girly screams ever heard in Equestria. He then fainted. Spike jumped off the library ladder and nudged the unconscious human with his foot. "What's his problem?"