The throbbing woke me this time around. It was a dull ache in my back and in my head. For the moment, I kept my eyes closed wondering what hit me. Then, I remembered.
Rainbow Dash. She tackled me from behind. I honestly expected to be paralyzed from how fast she usually tackles somebody. Of course, I may be right.
“Wiggle your left toe,” I whispered to myself.
I feel my toe wiggle under the sheets. That’s good. It means I’m not paralyzed, and she didn’t snap my spine when-
Wait a minute. I’m underneath sheets?
I opened my eyes. I’m not currently outside. I’m staring into a ceiling. And at a birdhouse? I think for a minute and then realized where I am.
I’m in Fluttershy’s house.
Either I made a pretty good first impression on her or she’s feeling bad about Rainbow Dash tackling me. I’d honestly bet on the latter, though I should hope that I still did make a good enough first impression. Just because I’m friendly doesn’t mean they won’t be cautious. I wasn’t kidding about the scaring the kids thing. I put on a flannel shirt and denim pants and had a fake machete for Halloween once and I did end up scaring a few younger kids away. Basically, I scared them away by dressing up as a lumberjack. How messed up is that?
Shaking that thought from my head I looked around the room. It is a pretty odd sight. Bird nests in the rafters, a vine growing along the wall into the ceiling, and holes in various places that would never be seen in actual architecture. There were normal things you would see from a house out in the woods, however. A couple of bookcases, a fireplace, a table with a lantern on it; the only oddity in there was a couple of hanging posters. The windows were a bit strange in that there were two different types. One was square and two others were rounded.
I took a moment from that weird design to look at the bed I was in. It was a wood frame, of course, with a butterfly design all over it. She really did like butterflies, didn’t she? I suppose I would too if they not only they saved my life, but shortly thereafter they became my cutie mark.
I looked around to see if there was anybody watching me. No one was there. That was a bit strange to me considering that I was sort of a patient.
“Enough!”
I heard the yell coming from down the stairs. It was loud enough for me to hear, but not loud enough for me to tell who it was. It did, however, let me know that there was at least three ponies downstairs since I doubt anybody would be getting into an argument with Fluttershy.
I pulled back the covers and was grateful that my pants were still on. That would be embarrassing. I did that once in front of my family when I was young and I still haven’t lived down the punishment. Rolling out of bed and standing up were not greeted with the silence I was hoping for. The bed creaked and the floor groaned when I put my weight down on it. It’s a wood house. What else should I have expected?
Steeling my resolve and silently wishing that I had gotten a shirt on before I left, I slowly made my way down the stairs. I was hoping that this wouldn’t go badly.
What greeted me when I got halfway down the stairs was almost what I expected.
Of course I spotted Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. They were the instigators of my predicament. They were currently standing in the middle of the room. There with them were Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and Spike. All eyes were on me as I finished descending the stairs.
I wasn’t kidding when I said that I’m pretty shy as well. The stares they were giving me were definitely not helping. It was bad enough that I actually started backing up the stairs slowly. I only made it three steps.
“Wait!”
Dash’s outburst actually made me jump a little. Not exactly a fun sensation when you’re sore and have a headache.
She followed up her shout by flying over and putting herself between me and the upstairs area.
“Don’t go! I, uh, I wanted to say that I’m sorry about tackling you. I was heading over to see Fluttershy and I saw you right behind her and I kinda didn’t think things through. I’m really sorry about it.”
She ended by hanging her head low. There was no way I could fault her for what she was doing. I crouched down on the stairs and put my hand on her shoulder.
“I understand. You were just looking out for your friend. I accept your apology.”
She looked up at me and gave me a nice, warm smile. I liked that. Frowns on ponies were just a bad thing.
“So, you can talk just like Fluttershy said,” interrupted Twilight.
“Yes, yes I can,” I answered turning my head to her.
“Good! That will make things easier. My name is Twilight Sparkle. You know Fluttershy.”
She pointed at the aforementioned pony.
“The one who crashed into you is Rainbow Dash.”
I internally chuckled at the fact that she said crashed. She crashed into me about the same way a kamikaze pilot crashes into things.
“On my right here is Applejack.”
Applejack bowed her head slightly.
“And finally, on my left here is Spike the dragon.”
Spike waved his hand at me. I waved back to be polite. Then, I stand back up and face them properly.
“Hello, everyone, my name is Seth. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“So, Seth, is it true that you are a human?”
I give myself a faux once over for laughs.
“It looks like I still am. It seems I haven’t turned into a pony.”
“Were you expecting to turn into a pony?”
“Not really, but you never know.”
She gives me a quizzical look before continuing.
“Where is it you came from?”
“I came from Earth. It’s a nice little place where all humans live.”
“Really? So you’re not the last of your kind?”
“Pfft. Not even close. There are more than six billion people living on Earth.”
Her jaw dropped at that number.
“S-six billion?”
“Yeah, I’m told that it’ll be seven billion by the end of the summer.”
“That…is a lot of humans.”
“I’ll agree with that.”
“Are they all as big as you are?” asked Applejack.
“Not really, no. The average height for men is about five foot ten inches. The average height for a woman is about five feet six inches.”
I grab my stomach.
“I’m also a bit overweight.”
Spike chuckled at that. He looked like he was about to say something as well, but a few looks from the others made the retort die a premature death. As he did, I moved back down to the base of the stairs.
“I’m curious as to why we don’t know anything about humans. All I could find was obscure references in some mythology texts in the library.”
“Yeah, I have no idea about that. Then again, back on Earth, ponies are usually just one of a few colors. In fact, I think they only come in three colors; black, white, and brown with varying shades of each. I’ve never seen a purple pony, or a yellow pony, or especially a pony with every color of the rainbow.”
“You have ponies back on Earth?”
“Yes, we do, but like I said there isn’t much variety between them. Also, they can’t talk like you seem to be able to. In fact, the only species capable of speech on Earth is humans. Well, parrots as well, but they just mimic speech and can’t actually talk.”
“Horses that can’t talk? That there sounds like a load of hay.”
I switch my gaze over to AJ.
“Hey, it’s not like we can’t science up a way to do it someday. We just have different priorities. After all, we can’t do everything we want like magic.”
“Magic can’t do everything, but there are a lot of different things magic can do.”
I look back to Twilight.
“Not on Earth. Magic doesn’t exist on Earth.”
Again, I watched her jaw drop. It was beginning to get a little funny watching that happen.
“No magic?” Spike interrupted. “It must take forever to get things done.”
“Not really. Scientific advances have helped us grow as a civilization from the ground up.”
The word science instantly broke Twilight out of her shock.
“Science? You study science?”
Her voice was that of barely contained glee.
“I don’t personally I’m afraid,” I said as I shook my head. “I was never really that good at that sort of thing. Others like Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking were really the best at that kind of thing. I just know more basic scientific facts. Although, my trip here is making me think more about multiverse theory than I did before.”
“Multiwhat now?” I heard Applejack ask.
I decide to answer without looking at AJ.
“Multiverse theory is a scientific theory that was hypothesized a hundred years ago by some scientist whose name I can’t remember. Basically, the whole thing is about the fact that reality contains more than just the universe that we all live in. In theory, there are many different universes that exist all at the same time. There’s a lot more to it than just that, but I’ve always been in favor of it because life would just be boring without more variety to it.
“Take Earth for example. On Earth, we go about our daily lives without the use of magic. In fact, we haven’t even found proof of intelligent life anywhere else in the universe that we know of. How about now, though? I’m talking with ponies. Ponies that can not only fly, but say that they can use magic. Frankly, this is way more exciting than anything I did on Earth.”
I drew a few chuckles from the group.
“Alright, then is there anything else you needed to ask me Twilight?”
“How is it you ended up here?”
There was the question I was waiting for. Time to get this moving to the necessities.
“Well, I got woken up in the middle of the night by this weird creature. It never gave me its name. All it did was toss me this really shiny coin and then pushed me down a glowing tunnel. When I fell out the other side, I was in the middle of a forest. It gave off a really creepy vibe.”
“The Everfree Forest?” chimed in Fluttershy; her voice barely above a whisper.
“Maybe. It sounds familiar somehow. Anyway, I walked my way out of the forest and collapsed right after I got past the edge. I didn't wake up until after it had already turned dark. Then, that creepy vibe the forest was giving off got even worse, so I left it in a hurry. I walked for a while and found Fluttershy’s house here. Even though I found this place, I didn’t want to intrude because that just seemed wrong. Instead, I just waited outside for someone to notice me. It took a lot longer than I thought it would and I got pretty hungry. Luckily, Fluttershy came along with some food. She told me she was going to take me to see her friends and I was following her when Rainbow Dash tackled me from behind. I woke up later and here we are.”
“Wow, that there sounds like one heckuva journey there partner.”
That got me thinking about what that thing said. He told me that I was going on a big journey. Is this what he meant?
“You said he tossed you a coin. What kind of coin?”
“Oh right. Here, let me show you.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the coin. I then held it out for Twilight to see.
“Wow!” Spike blurted out. “That is shiny!”
“Spike! Anyway, let me take a look at it.”
Twilight’s horn began to glow a faint purple. That looked cool. It meant that I was going to see real magic up close. If you’ve never seen magic in real life, then of course it’s going to be interesting. The coin became wrapped up in Twilight’s magic.
And then the room exploded into a brilliant golden light.