//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Magyck // by legionbrony //------------------------------// Two pairs of yellow hooves touched down outside Twilight's brightly lit library home. A soft, almost inaudible tap at the door. A pause. A defeated sigh. Then Spike opened the door. "...Fluttershy?" he mumbled. He looked like he'd been to the moon and back, with scaly bags under his eyes that he could barely keep open. "Oh...I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to wake you..." "Wake anypony with that kind of knock? I wouldn't worry too much about that, Fluttershy," said Spike. "Anyways, there's no way you could have woken anyone in this house up, because apparently we never sleep." He directed the last two words at an exceptionally large mound of books with a purple tail sticking out from behind. Twilight's head poked around the mountain of reading material. "Oh Spike, you're such a drama dragon. But...I guess you've worked long enough tonight...you can go to sleep if you want." "Finally!" Spike yawned. Halfway up the stairs, he almost fell asleep where he was standing, but he managed to drag himself the rest of the way to bed. "So," began Twilight, putting down her book, "What brings you here at this hour, Fluttershy?" "Oh, it's nothing...I mean, well, it's not, but your work is much more important..." "Don't be silly!" exclaimed Twilight. "Anything that brought you here in the middle of the night had to have been important. Just tell me what you need. Is it a book? 'Cause we got plenty of those, being a library and all." "Well, um...actually, I forgot how to mix up that new cure-all potion you found, and I was just wondering..." "Sure thing! I know just where I put that book. Come on, I'll get it for you!" Twilight got up off her haunches and trotted up the stairs, with Fluttershy following close behind. "It's right over here..." They were just about there when the door to the room Twilight had hastily stashed the odd creature in opened, and they found themselves staring right into his blue eyes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brandon opened the door, but where he expected to find more musty library shelves, he found a horse! He was slightly taken aback by the fact that a horse--wait, there were two, and they were...a unicorn and a pegasus? The pegasus scrambled over the edge of the balcony with a terrified whinny and thudded into a stack of books below, while the unicorn took several steps back, looking slightly nervous but confident. He was still busy wondering 'are these supposed to exist, and if they are, how did they get in a library?' when he was hit with another zinger. "Um...nice...creature?" said the unicorn. Brandon stared. He was sure horses didn't talk. He couldn't remember much, but he knew for sure that only humans were supposed to talk. He plopped down on the floor, suddenly overwhelmed by dizziness. Here he was, in a place he was pretty sure he didn't recognize, with creatures that he was pretty sure didn't exist, and he was pretty sure -- no, very certain that one of them had just talked, which he was pretty sure wasn't supposed to happen. All in all, he was thinking he was in big trouble. All he could remember was his name, and lots of facts, like the fact that horses don't talk. He sure hoped this memory loss was temporary, because it wasn't exactly a confidence booster when you had no past experiences to go off. "I'm not going to hurt you, so don't be afraid..." said the purple unicorn, approaching him carefully. Come to think of it, he didn't think horses were supposed to be purple, either. Suddenly its horn started to glow and he found himself floating back into the "dusty book" room. He flailed and tried to shout, but nothing came out. Huh? He was placed back on the bed and the door was shut and, this time, locked. He sighed. Well, he supposed he'd just have to wait until they felt like letting him out now. But why couldn't he talk? He tried again, but the only thing that came out was a raspy whisper. Huh. He could tack this to his ever-growing board of mysteries that needed solving. He meandered over to the slightly-less-dusty-than-the-rest-of-the-room bed and lay down on it. Oh, well; he was really, really tired anyways. Maybe it would all come back to him when he woke up. He closed his eyes and fell asleep, not realizing that this was only the beginning of his adventure.