//------------------------------// // The colour of worries and confetti // Story: Six-headed: Calcination // by SirEdgen //------------------------------// The human was quickly getting more and more tired. With each new minute came new reasons for worries. First, right after he generously aided his ancient magical fan with some precious hairs, the human was seized by the princesses and two royal mages. That robbed him of opportunity to thank Ardent for his help. Without a doubt, now the guardpony would consider him an ungrateful jerk. Then he proceeded to smiling awkwardly at two overenthusiastic mages who were bombarding him with unfamiliar terms and convoluted theories. For quite a long time. The princesses seemed to share his irritation, but at least they had substantial knowledge of magic, so the whole tirade wasn't lost on them. But even with his very limited understanding the human did understand. He was not coming back to his world. "You see, your highnesses..." continued his explanation one of the mages - only to be immediately interrupted by another. "... and your humanness, we tried to analyze residual arcane imprints..." The human silently sighed yet again. He was so tired that couldn't remember their names. How was it... Hoofsteady and Shell Keeper? "...but our dweomers just couldn't read them properly. And we used all of them - Wait, no... Hoofworth and Spellstrom? No, not that either... While the human was caught up in his thoughts, princess Luna decided that she had enough. "We understand the complexities. Please, explain, why did all your detection methods fail?" "Why yes, your highness, you see, the power that transported..." "... our dear human friend is simply immeasurable by our devices! It is too strong..." "... and too erratic! Half of our magic items simply melted, the other half will need recalibration!" "Also, we're not entirely sure, but there is a chance that there were two sources of power responsible for opening this portal!" "But we're not sure if we can ever properly categorize and identify them... But we certainly won't put our hooves down until we..." The human didn't bother to listen further. A new thought spawned in his head. I'm not going back. Not now, not ever. Should I... should I feel bad? The only real difference is that I'm among people once more. Sure, they are pony people, not humans. And if today everything goes smoothly, I won't have to worry about it... Why do I even ask myself such questions? Of course I should feel bad. So why? That world... That world was my... "...so there is no way to trace even the method that had been used." Now these two were talking directly to him, repeating everything. Somehow the managed to leave all the complicated stuff as it was and decided to make already simple words even more simple instead. Thankfully, Luna ended their tirade with her royal cough. The mages composed themselves. "If we find something, we'll immediately let you know. However..." The mage ponies looked at each other, checking whether they could add something else. Finally Celestia, just like the human, sighed softly and dismissed them with a short nod. Left alone, she, her sister and their alien guest fell in silence. "We're sorry." Celestia's words sounded way louder then they actually were. He turned to the princesses. The look of genuine regret on both of their faces hurt him more than anything else that happened that day. Once again, complete strangers wasted their time selflessly helping him. And now they felt bad because they failed. He started to feel such shame and guilt as if he himself hid his world between the stars and then smashed all the magic gadgets into pieces. The human inhaled and tried to not avert his eyes from the princesses. He managed to last just a few heartbeats before it got too unbearable. "...Thank you very much. I couldn't ask for more that you've already done." It was really all he could say - for now. Although it would mean returning to kind of life he despised, the human was adamant about repaying kindness of every single pony he had met. But before his thoughts would delve further, the human realized that they had company. The bearers of the Elements! The human was very close to growling in frustration. He spent half of the previous evening practicing and an appropriate greeting, and learning as much as he could about the bearers . He even prepared a few conversation starters for the emergency situating when he would be actually forced to start a conversation. But now he remembered nothing of it. Way to spend time on sighing and being anxious. Both princesses saw the arrived ponies and smiled, Celestia's expression was especially happy. The human felt relieved - their good mood somehow cheered him as well. But it wasn't time for feeling happy about others. He needed to brace himself and not look like a moron in front of such important ponies. Now that he was facing them, his eyes quickly darted from one to another. He went out of his way to memorize their names in advance to prevent embarrassing himself. Five years ago, when he had to deal with other humans, he used to search up names of his colleagues in advance and write them down – to offset his terrible memory. While he had no problems remembering all about his trade or obscure random facts that he got from hundreds of books he had read, names and faces were completely different story. With ponies these things were much more tolerable. Most Equestrian names consisted of noun and adjective and, unlike many human names actually meant something. What's more important, pony names most of the time were directly connected to their occupations and cutie marks. Take his favorite guardpony for example. Ardent March. Very guard. Much army. Many soldier. A shame that his cutie mark was covered by armor - the human suspected that it was a well-thought part of the uniform design. This, as well as some sort of enchantment, that made guards look very similar aside from the general coat colour, was an excellent way to hide their identities. Luckily, the six bearers didn't wear any magical armor. The human quickly put on a generic polite smile and began studying the newcomers. They were staring at him. And some of them were staring much, much stranger then he expected. A purple unicorn, who seemed to be Twilight Sparkle, was staring at him with unsettling intensity. They said that while she was a student of magic, Twilight also dabbled in science. The human silently sighed yet again. There was a slight possibility that she could offer a second opinion on his matter, he suspected that she more likely would just bombard him with questions. That added another reason to worry. Just how much he could reveal to ponies about his species and its history? Would they be appalled by numerous atrocities that humankind committed to their own kin and surrounding world? And, most importantly, how would they react to the frightening metamorphosis that forever changed his world? He looked at her once more. Their eyes met and locked for a few unpleasant seconds. Oh no. I know this sparkle. That's a researcher's excitement. Here we go again with more strange tests. Heh, sparkle. Good thing noone heard it. Or nopony. Another sigh. The second one staring at him was a background-ish looking earth pony. With orange coat, ridiculous outdated hat and apples for her cutie mark, it clearly was Applejack. While she looked pretty unphased, her eyes studied him carefully and methodically. The human questioned why this pony bothered him so much. Aside from her being the head of the giant successful farm and apple orchard, he failed to find anything extraordinary about Applejack. The only explanation had to be her Element. That pony was trying to read him. Of course. I mean, you're one of the champions and heroes of this country, and I can turn out to be a spy or something worse. Well, I don't think I've told a lie here even once. Not that I was asked anything worthy to be lied about, anyway. Than why do I feel like a liar? The others didn't worry him that much. While also were looking at him, they clearly weren't as suspicious or excited - which was a good thing. The elegant looking one, Rarity, was more interested in his clothes. He heard that she was praised as a "fashionista extraordinaire". Back in the past it usually meant some ridiculous impractical mishmash of colours and fabric. The one thought about that made the human dizzy. Nevertheless, his costume was the only one he would ever need, so Rarity hopefully wouldn't waste her time with him. He had no money to pay for a new one, anyway. Fluttershy... The Element of kindness. Maybe in some other universe, where he wasn't... like that, they could've been friends. The main problem, however, wasn't his character. It was the inevitable topic, related to his prolonged staying, which he had to bring up sometime after lunch. She was visibly very nervous around him now. After the lunch, she most likely will be disgusted. Also there was Rainbow Dash. Zero common interests, zero common personality traits. They would never see each other ever again after that day. The human suddenly remembered the right words. As soon as he was sure they were close enough, he started to open his mouth. Wait... Something is wrong... There should be six of them, right? Two from each pony tribe. Let's see... There goes orange, purple, white, light blue, yellow... Is she late? And her names was... The human stopped. His right shoulder and back suddenly became heavy. But it couldn't be - just a mere second ago they felt normal. The human swallowed, his mouth feeling dry. An unexplained tingle of fear sent goosebumps all over his body. He cautiously, slowly turned his head to check. The sensation came before sight - something warm and slightly wet was touching his nose. And instead of hallway and his arm, all he could see were two enormous baby-blue eyes - and a huge pink muzzle that opened the next moment, after its owner placed something between his - no, her - lips. A party horn. Big one. Very big. The loud and frighteningly jolly blast knocked him back. The pink smiling pony used his loss of balance to jump off his shoulder. Before he could do something, she turned from him, as if searching for something behind her back - and she found it. The startled human now was staring at hole of a massive multicoloured cylinder. From where could she possibly get it? But the human lost interest in his question right after he realized what that cylinder was. Too late. Pinkie Pie pulled the string on her side of the tube, and her weapon, that could be described only as a confetti bazooka, did its job. This time the human didn't even feel the sound. The force of joy and glitter threw him against the wall, leaving the human nearly deaf and covered in the confetti of the highest quality. "WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA, MISTER HUMAN! LET'S BE FRIENDS! WE'RE GONNA THROW YOU THE BEST PARTY EVEEEEEEER!!!" "PINKIE!" came a somewhat muffled response from elsewhere. Ringing in his ears was a little overwhelming at first, but now was quickly fading. The human cringed his face, trying to understand what he could do to provoke the assault. Then, he remembered who Pinkie Pie was and what her Element was. The human couldn't help but chuckle to himself - this fate was set in stone as soon as he showed in this world. Twilight Sparkle ran towards him and now was trying to help him to get up, at the same time reprimanding Pinkie. The last one was standing with her weapon still smoking, looking at others with the expression of innocent confusion on her face. The human was about to sigh again, but changed his mind. That would be a long lunch indeed.