Bringer of War
Chapter 4
Ex Silentio
Martin awoke to the familiar world of a hospital examination room: clean sheets, soft colors, and the cloying scent of disinfectant. To his surprise he hadn’t been jerked awake in shock, drenched in sweat and fitfully fighting off the effects of a nightmare. It was a welcome change from his all too familiar routine. He took in his surroundings through his working eye. Through the gaps in the blinds he could see the light of an early morning peeking through. Quickly, Martin turned his attention to himself.
‘Of course, maybe I’m waking up so easily because I’m not really waking up at all,’ Martin noted as he looked down at himself, his body (thankfully) covered by the sheets, leaving just his arms visible. His left arm was covered in an all too familiar tan fur and came to a flat end where his hand should be. In his lower arm there was an IV pushed into his flesh, held in place by a small section of tape. A clear plastic bag hung from a metal pole at his side, a just as colorless liquid trailing down the tubing to the needle in his arm.
His right arm was a different story. Although he had gotten a glimpse of what his new arm was while he had been panicking in the apple orchard, this was Martin’s first chance to really look at what this horse-obsessed dream world had done to him. The arm mirrored his left in shape and size, although the spherical shoulder joint was larger than his other, making it look like he was wearing a solitary shoulder pad. Martin could glimpse the inner workings of his arm in between the armored sections, the black pistons and cables visible at the joints, leaving no doubt about the limb’s artificial nature.
Of course, Martin recognized its source quite quickly. He was intimately familiar with that arm. It was the same limb that had broken his hand, cracked his skull, destroyed his arm, cut his throat, and shot his sister. It was the arm from a MARS unit, and somehow it had ended up on his body. Normally it would be a terrible realization, but the fact that he was currently in the body of a horse did limit the shock of possessing a robot’s limb.
The thought of his sister passed through Martin’s mind. ‘God, is she all right?’ concern welled up inside him as he thought of Elise. ‘She had been badly injured, but she had definitely been alive. The android must have missed anything vital. Thank God for energy weapons – if that had been a traditional ballistic weapon, she would have bled out like I did – or am – or whatever the hell is causing all this.’
‘Of course, I can’t do anything for her right now, whatever is going on. Either I’m dead, dying, or in a different hospital bed on Earth… and it would be nice to have a little confirmation on which one.’ Knowing he couldn’t help his sister didn’t improve his mood. Martin had never tolerated inaction well. He’d spent a good portion of his life protecting Elise, so being stuck in a world with horses and impossible physics was not pleasing. His sister needed him and he couldn’t do anything for her. He unclenched his jaw. ‘If there is a way out of this cartoon nightmare, I am going to find it,’ he promised.
As Martin considered his current plight, the thought ‘energy weapons’ echoed in his mind. He looked back down at his carbon-fiber limb. The MARS units carried a pair of plasma weapons, one mounted in each forearm. ‘If this really was the arm from a combat android…’ Martin snorted softly, the edge of his mouth twisting upwards. For a few delicious moments he pictured the talking horses fleeing from him in mindless fear as he blasting through the walls with bursts of plasma fire, tearing down the broken fantasy world and setting its rubble alight.
The smile faded. He suddenly felt cold. In the daydream the ponies shifted into indistinct blobs before reforming into civilians – human civilians. Martin stopped his violent fantasizing, his temporary good humor stolen away in a burst of shame. Shaking the images free, he returned to the serious matter of doing something – anything – to try and escape his dreams.
Focusing on his new arm, Martin tried to lift it upwards, wanting to check to see if there even was a barrel concealed in the flat end of his artificial limb. It didn’t respond. Martin tried again, his eyes narrowing as he clenched his jaw, a bead of sweat dripping down his face. He could feel the arm like he could his own flesh and blood, but it was cool and unresponsive to his straining. Martin let out the breath he had been holding with a loud gasp, panting heavily as he glowered at his disobedient limb.
“Oh, you’re awake!” a voice declared with mild surprise from the far side of the room. Startled, Martin jerked his head back, unaware there had been anyone else in the room. Rising up from the padded bench she had obviously been sleeping on was another one of the talking horses. Around her improvised bed an assortment of large books were scattered about in mismatched piles. She yawned, politely lifting one leg up in front of her muzzle to cover her mouth. Eventually she looked back at Martin with a friendly – if tired – smile on her face. She was a shade of light purple, with a dark blue mane streaked with color. Her eyes were also purple, although the color was not nearly as odd as the relative size of the eyes, giving her an expressive and almost childlike look.
But what Martin was most focused upon was the horn jutting out from her forehead. She wasn’t just a talking horse – she was a talking unicorn. The memory of his conversation with the ‘princess’ while unconscious played at the back of his mind.
From the faint circles under her large eyes it seemed she had been pulling a late night study session – a fact supported by the assortment of books scattered around her. It was a familiar scene for Martin, having carried his sister up to her bed many times after finding her in a similar condition. But the unicorn quickly shrugged off the effects of a short night. Her eyes filled with excitement and curiosity as she stared at Martin, giving him the uncomfortable feeling of being under a microscope.
She looked like she was about to speak when she caught herself. “Oh! I need to tell the doctors first!” she exclaimed. The unicorn hurried towards the door, a purple haze forming around her horn. Martin noticed a similarly colored glow envelop the door handle. Just before the pony hit the door it swung open on its own, allowing the horse to dart out into the hallway and leaving Martin to stare at the slowly closing door.
‘Oh, good. The horses don’t just talk, they can use magic,’ he thought, his irritation at the physical impossibilities of the world starting to really grate on his nerves. He carefully examined the rest of the room to ensure there weren’t any other sleeping ponies he hadn’t noticed.
Outside Martin heard the clip-clop of approaching hoof beats just a moment before the door to his room swung open again. A caramel colored horse in a lab coat strode into the room, a pair of glasses perched on his nose and a stethoscope draped around his neck. The ridiculous sight only increased Martin’s irritation. The ‘doctor’ was taller than the other two horses that followed behind him: the unicorn from before and a white horse with a nurse’s hat perched atop a garish pink mane.
‘A doctor, a nurse, and a mythological creature,’ Martin considered. ‘I think my subconscious hates me. Or maybe that’s the set up to some terrible children’s joke?’
“You’re right, Twilight, it seems Mars has finally awoken,” the doctor said, addressing the unicorn with him. Martin’s confusion at the name passed quickly as the nurse with the obnoxious hair hurried to Martin’s side and began inspecting the needle embedded in his arm. He stared at her for a moment, fighting down a wave of apprehension at being so close to one of the multicolored mutants.
Noticing his gaze she gave him a gentle smile. “I’m Nurse Redheart, hun. I’m just inspecting the saline drip, so don’t mind me.” Martin stared back at her silently, long enough for her smile to slip, before the doctor horse cleared his throat and brought Martin’s attention back to him.
“And I’m Doctor Stable. And this here is the town librarian, Twilight Sparkle,” he tilted his head at the unicorn, who gave Martin a short nod of introduction. Martin’s eye lingered on her for a moment, trying to understand what a librarian was doing in a hospital. Noticing Martin’s slight confusion the doctor quickly added, “Oh, she is more than just Ponyville’s librarian – she is the personal protégé of Princess Celestia herself!” They both looked at him expectantly, the last name said with a deal of respect and reverence.
He just stared back at them blankly. Martin was slightly perturbed that he hadn’t noticed that the doctor was a unicorn as well until he was standing right at Martin’s side. Something in Martin’s failure to respond to their words as expected deflated the two horses, and the doctor covered the awkward silence with another cough.
“Um, okay. She was up all night researching your unusual physiology. Like all of us, she is quite determined to help you to the best of her abilities. Now, you are currently resting at Ponyville General Hospital. You might not remember much, but you took quite a tumble outside of town and were knocked unconscious. We’ve treated your injuries, which were pretty minor, but we had some questions we would like to have answered. Before we go any further, we’ve been calling you ‘Mars’ due to the markings on your arm (‘One mystery solved,’ Martin thought). But now that you’re awake, can you can tell us your real name, and how you ended up on the Sweet Apple Acres farm?”
Martin moved his one eye back between the two of them, considering his response. Part of him – the difficult, stubborn part in every Covington – wanted to simply rattle off his name, rank, and serial number. But Martin dismissed that as childish. He was trapped in a dream, and Martin doubted he would be waking himself up anytime soon. If he was going to be stuck in a prison created by his own subconscious, he might as well try and enjoy as much of it as he can. ‘This,’ he reminded himself, ‘is better than Iran, talking horses and magic included.’
Letting out a resigned sigh Martin opened his mouth to answer. Nothing came out. Martin’s look of surprise was mirrored on the faces of the other ponies. Martin tried to answer them again, but only managed a faint wheeze. His confusion and irritation was slowly being replaced by a growing sense of dread at his muteness. Martin’s third attempt was as fruitless as the others. ‘Okay, this is starting to piss me off. Cutting off my hands and sticking me in a horse is bad enough, but I am not going to accept that my own mind is this determined to fuck me over.’
“Hhrmmm…” the doctor said as he leaned forward. His horn was sheathed in a small cloud of light as he stared at Martin’s throat. The nurse and the unicorn – Twilight Sparkler? – glanced over at the doctor expectantly. Martin ignored the similar glow coming from his neck, determined to force out one word. “This is quite unusual. Your larynx and vocal chords are intact, and they’re fully operational, from what I can tell. They show signs of having been damaged in the past, like other parts of your body, but they should work.” Doctor Stable paused, lifting his gaze from Martin’s neck to his eyes. “Sir, how about trying to laugh?”
Martin glared at him for a moment before he let out a short bark of forced laughter. His eyes widened in surprise. Martin repeated the performance, chuckling with false humor. Martin switched, pretending to cry, growling, and then finishing by humming a few bars from the 1812 Overture. Emboldened by his success Martin attempted to say his name aloud – but nothing came out. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ he mentally shouted, his stubby arm rubbing at his neck irritably.
“Well then, that rules out any physical problems,” the doctor stated with a slight frown. “If there were something physical keeping him from speaking, he wouldn’t be audible at all. It looks like there is a mental, or perhaps magical, issue afflicting him. This will… complicate things. It will be hard to treat him if we can’t communicate.”
Twilight, the shorter unicorn, perked up. “Oh! Let me get some spare parchment so he can write out his answers!” She paused and turned back to look at Martin. “You, um, do know how to write, yes?” Martin nodded. “Oh, good!” she exhaled. With sense of relief she made her way over to the piles of books and began nudging them aside with bursts of purple energy, searching for some paper.
While Twilight was busy the doctor took the nurse aside and whispered something into her ear, and despite Martin’s best attempts he couldn’t make out what was said. She soon left the room, leaving Martin alone with the doctor and the librarian.
Eventually Twilight came back, holding aloft in a purple aura a wooden writing desk, some rough papers, and – to Martin’s astonishment – a quill and ink well. ‘What? They can make plastics and hospitals, but they’re still using quills?’ thought with disbelief. Setting them down carefully in Martin’s lap Twilight arranged them all, making sure everything was perfectly organized and laid out.
“So why don’t you start by writing out your name for us?” she asked him, an odd level of excitement in her voice as she looked back at Martin cheerfully. His eyes narrowed in annoyance. Slowly Martin lifted his arm up held out the stump before her face. She glanced between him and the doctor quizzically, not understanding his meaning. Catching her gaze Martin patiently moved his eyes between her, the quill, and his mutilated arm. After repeating the motions a few times he looked back her, one of his eyebrows arched upwards. “I, uh, don’t understand…”
“I don’t have any fucking fingers!” he shouted through clenched teeth, the noise coming out as a mere hiss of escaping air. “How the hell am I supposed to write with a quill – a quill! – when I don’t have any goddamn fingers, huh? Huh!?” Martin panted after his silent outburst, finding it hard to remain calm in such a ridiculous situation. After a moment he launched into a second round of inaudible ranting, causing Twilight to pull away. She still managed to give him a weak smile despite being the target of his silent tantrum. “How could you stupid mutant animals not grasp that? You can’t write without fingers! What do you expect me to do, just write with my damn mind? Huh!? What kind of-“
“You can go ahead and use your mouth if you need too,” Twilight offered helpfully.
Martin froze mid-rant, his silent words catching on his tongue. Slowly he closed his mouth, his anger slipping away to be replaced by a mild case of embarrassment. “Oh, right,” he replied noiselessly, his cheeks burning red and his equine ears tucking back against his head. “Um, sorry,” he added, not meeting her eyes. Even though she couldn’t hear his words, she seemed to understand the intent, giving him a reassuring smile. ‘Okay, maybe next time you think about going off on one of the talking horses, you should be sure that you’re actually right. No need to be a dick just because you’re trapped in some horse-obsessed nightmare.’
Sitting up as best he could, Martin leaned forward to grab the white quill between his teeth. It was not a pleasant sensation. Martin didn’t know whether to sneeze or spit it out, and he really wanted to do one of them – and preferable both. Withdrawing the quill from the glass jar of ink Martin steadied the page with one arm. Black raindrops splattered over the page and the bed sheets as he tried to orient himself properly. Placing the quill unsteadily on the page he slowly dragged it downwards, making a vertical line. ‘Okay, this isn’t so bad,’ he thought. Resetting his quill at the top of the line he made three more short lines, each connected to the other.
‘There!’ he thought as he admired the ‘M’ he had inscribed upon the page. Sure, the lines were as straight as a worm having seizures, and it was hard to make out the letter beneath the dozens of smudges and ink blots from the black liquid dripping off the quill, but it was a start.
Clumsily forcing the quill back into the jar, Martin gathered up some more ink and returned to his work, excess ink splattering over his sheets. ‘I’ll be communicating with these horses in no time at all.’
Alpha blinked. Above her a bird cartwheeled through the air. She blinked again. Turning her head slowly to the side her red eyes followed its path back towards the forest she had just left, continuing her blinking at a steady but rapid interval. ‘What an odd sensation,’ she mused quietly, letting her eyelids drop down over her eyeballs with exaggerated slowness a few time. ‘Of course, that would be an apt description of my whole morning,’ she added.
Seated on a slopping field of grass split by a dirt path running just a short distance from her, she once again checked to see if there was any traffic on the road. There was none. Alpha continued her blinking as she examined her current location. While undoubtedly an alien planet, it did share numerous similarities to her files on Earth. Alpha was still a little put-off by the fact that her desperate plan had actually worked. She had been leaping blind into a dark pit with no idea what she would be landing on – or even if she would be landing at all.
‘In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again,’ Alpha quoted as she watched a few clouds lazily cross the sky. Lewis Carroll had always been an interesting read. It had taken Alpha years – and one too many requests for files pertaining to the Jabberwocky – to finally understand that his poems were not to be taken literally. Alpha herself had tumbled down the rabbit hole, and despite the astronomical odds against it, she had come out intact at the bottom.
Alpha turned her attention away from the sky, examining her legs and their light grey fur. ‘Well, at least my mind came through intact,’ she considered her strange limbs. Discovering that she had survived a jump from one reality to another had been a surprise; discovering that she had ended up with a living body at the other end of the jump had been positively stunning.
One of Alpha’s greatest dreams had been to be able to pass through human society unnoticed, that she might gain firsthand knowledge about their lives as if she were one of them. Only then could she be confident that she would be able to learn all there was to know about the illogical human mind. She had come travelled through a tear in the fabric of space and time, and on the other side she had found her wish half granted. ‘It seems that, in this case, nothing would have been preferable to a half-measure. There is no chance now of learning about humanity naturally.’
She was not in a human body. She wasn’t even in a human-like body. Her new form was entirely equine in its design and resembled an Earth horse quite closely – although the proportions were different, especially in terms of the eyes. Alpha’s own eyes were quite large, which she assumed explained why blinking felt so odd – there was a lot of eyeball to cover, after all. The coloration of her new form was also quite different than what she had expected: a light grey coat and a white mane. The limited palette made the bright crimson of her eyes more noticeable, and raised the question of albinism.
‘Day One Notes, addendum six: After a few hours inhabiting the- my living equine shell, I have begun to more rigorously examine its functions,’ she mentally documented, continuing her deliberate blinking. ‘Although the novelty of simple biological actions has been – and continues to be – quite thrilling to indulge in, there are numerous elements of this form that are less than satisfactory. The first is my mane. I have yet to find a reasonable explanation for why my mane appears to have been groomed, but it is unlikely that the even length of the hair is a natural phenomenon. While there is no logical reason for this occurrence, it would also explain the appearance of the Greek character α on my hip. I have yet to determine if the red alpha on my fur is a normal marking for my equine form, or some sort of dye, but its connection to my name cannot be ignored.’
‘The hair, due to the apparent grooming, habitually falls in front of my right eye and inhibits sight, which presents a potential hazard in extreme conditions. Efforts to manually correct this issue have been stymied by the lack of manipulating digits and the second issue currently confounding me: the bony protrusion on this form’s head.’ Alpha paused for a moment, blinking as she turned her eyes upwards as far as they would go. She could just barely glimpse the rounded tip of the horn jutting out from her forehead. ‘My efforts to explain the purpose of this protrusion are ongoing, and the current relationship between my new form and the mythological unicorn are unknown at this time.’ Lifting up one of her hooves Alpha tried again to push the hair from in front of her eye.
‘My primary goal of obtaining competency in locomotion has been successful. However, I will have to continue to test my body’s capabilities and train hard to master fine-motor skills.’ Alpha rubbed at one of the tender bruises on her flank. ‘When added together with respiration and being able to stand and sit on command, I have become comfortable managing three primary functions. By the end of Day One, I estimate that blinking will to be added to the list.’
‘Also, my progress towards the secondary goal of locating sentient life has been greatly assisted by the discovery of a road – a clear sign of intelligent life. I have situated myself near the road and am waiting until visual contact is made with the life forms utilizing it. If life forms are hostile, I will seek shelter in the nearby forest and then evaluate which direction I should travel. If the life forms are not hostile, I will follow them towards their destination, hopefully locating the nearest settlement or outpost. Further goals, such as developing a means of communication with possible sentient life, are awaiting more data about said sentient life. End of addendum six.’
Alpha felt uncomfortable saving her internal update as a simple text log. When she had been fully inorganic, her memory banks had been efficient and precise. Every memory or bit of data that had passed through her mind had been catalogued and stored instantly. Her digital memories had not been limited to such simple formats but were entire thought processes, emotions, and anything else even remotely relevant, all stored as one easy to access file. Now, though… now she found herself limited to a basic set of functions.
The uncertainty and restrictiveness in such a state of affairs was disquieting, to say the least. The closest comparison Alpha could make was the electrical malfunction early in her life. It had cut her available power severely, shutting down processors and leaving the others operating at minimal efficiency. As then, her mind felt sluggish and unresponsive, and her mind felt limited in its capabilities. Alpha considered whether she was operating on low power currently, but dismissed the thought. She had more important goals to complete than satisfying her new body’s energy requirements. She had enough to meet her current needs.
Pushing the rest of the concerns aside, Alpha returned to her task. After her discovery of breathing, and then blinking, Alpha had realized quickly that with so many incredible experiences awaiting her, she would have to be quite methodical in her experiments to ensure she examined them all properly and in depth without being distracted by other biological systems. Her efforts to escape the woods had almost been sabotages by her discovery that respiration through the nostrils triggered the olfactory nerves. She had spent twenty minutes smelling a patch of bright yellow flowers, the pleasure in that rich sweet scent still teasing her. It had been a terrible waste of time, sitting there, slowly inhaling deep lungfuls of the heady aroma.
‘It had been a waste of time, but it had been so wonderful,’ the thought arose at the back of her mind, and Alpha couldn’t disagree with it. Despite all her efforts to maintain the dispassionate voice of a scientist, Alpha could not help but feel a warm sensation fill her core. Even with all the annoying strangeness she had endured recently, she was… happy. Yes, happy – she was positive that was the emotion filling her. Despite the fact that she was trapped in the body of a mere animal, despite the many strange flaws and poor design choices in her new form, and despite the fact that she was a whole universe removed from Earth, she was actually alive. She could feel the breeze across her body, the grass beneath her flank, and the sunlight on her fur. It was intoxicating. It was wonderful. It was a wealth of new data. And for the first time in years, Alpha truly felt excited about her future.
As Alpha joyously exulted in her new life, her face remained neutral and impassive. Patiently, silently, she continued to sit still and regularly check to see if there was any traffic on the road. She passed the time blinking. ‘It may not be as thrilling as breathing, but it is quite interesting in its own right.’
Alpha kept track of the time by charting the course of the sun across the sky. After a few painful early attempts, she had amended her files on the subject to include the necessity for shielding one’s eyes with a limb as to not stare directly into the sun. Pain, for all its novelty, was not something Alpha found enjoyable. After a few quick calculations in her head – Alpha was mildly annoyed to discover how much more time it took her to complete the equations in her new form, needing almost a full second to obtain the sums requested – she estimated it to be roughly two hours past the Earth equivalent of noon. So far her observation of the sun’s movements suggested a twenty-four hour day. Alpha catalogued that fact away as well, placing it on her mental list of connections this planet shared with Earth. One day was hardly enough time to develop a solid hypothesis, but Alpha had her suspicions about the improbably high number of similarities shared with Earth.
Turning from the sun Alpha blinked away a few errant tears, her eyes still quite sensitive even when shaded. Thus it took her a moment to realize that there was a shape moving over the far hill. It was a wooden cart, on the road. ‘Sentient life!’ Alpha exclaimed. Narrowing her eyes, she stared at the distant object excitedly. Her irises rotated as her vision zoomed in on the distant object, but it was meager – only x4, it seemed. Alpha knew it was petty of her to be complaining about such failings, but she could not help it. She was stuck with a limited zoom-function in a single spectrum while there was a cart being pulled by an alien lifeform. It was irrefutable proof that there was at least one species on this planet capable of advanced tool making.
‘An alien species, no less,’ Alpha reminded herself. Although there was disappointment at missing out on being able to learn about humanity, Alpha could content herself with the fact that she would be making first contact with sentient life. And not just alien life from another planet, but another universe.
It moved with the urgency of a glacier. Alpha continued to stare, keeping firm control on her impatience. Eventually it drew close enough to allow Alpha to make out more details. She blinked. The sight of an equine organism like her pulling the cart was unsurprising. The lack of any apparent driver was – the dark-green horse looked to be pulling the cart on its own. ‘What species would allow its beasts of burden to manage transportation autonomously?’ Alpha wondered, already creating preliminary hypotheses.
Just as Alpha was pondering the likelihood of the unknown alien species utilizing equine-shaped robots, she noticed a small orange shape moving around atop the cart’s canvas covered cargo. Alpha’s initial excitement – ‘Finally, the driver!’ – became immediate confusion once she realized that it was simply another equine. She watched the smaller equine move to the front of the cart. Looking at the horse attached to the cart it opened and closed its mouth rapidly. The larger animal turned back its head to look at the other and repeated the action. The smaller horse laughed in response.
For the first time in hours, Alpha didn’t blink deliberately. She blinked in confusion. ‘This planets sentient species… are equines?’
Twilight felt quite concerned. After two spilled ink jars, three broken quills, and sixteen different sheets of parchment, what Mars had created so far… was nearly illegible. The frustration on the stallion’s ink-smudged face was palpable. His silent outbursts whenever he made another mistake only made the entire spectacle even more disconcerting. “Well, at the very least we know that he is… persistent.”
“Yes. Yes he is,” the doctor replied, looking at the formerly pristine white sheets.
The tinkle of a quill being shoved back into the third ink well drew Twilight’s attention back to the stallion. He mouthed something through his ink-stained lips, spitting out the bitter taste, and gestured at the paper resting on the small wooden desk.
“So you’re finished? Okay then, let’s see…” Twilight levitated the paper and pulled it closer. Her face dropped. She gave Mars a weak chuckle, like a parent trying to convince their foal that their crayon drawing wasn’t an abomination against art. Her eyes returned to the paper. “Well, it’s not as… black as the other pages,” she offered, trying to remain upbeat. “I see an M… an A… and a… F? No, that’s not it. It’s… um… it’s a…” Twilight turned to the doctor beside her. “Um, Doctor Stable? Could you help me deciph- I mean, take a look at this?”
The doctor adjusted his glasses and leaned in closer to the damp parchment. The room was silent except for the plip-plip of ink dripping off the sheets onto the floor. Doctor Stable’s eyes scrunched up as he put his nose almost against the paper. “I see an M… and a Y…”
“I think the second letter is an A.”
“Oh, is that what that is? Ah yes, that makes more since. So then, M-A-… K?”
“K? But then what about the rounded line here?”
“I thought that was part of the next letter.”
“I don’t think so. It looks like an R. So, M-A-R-…” Twilight spoke out each letter individually.
“The, um, rest of it looks like one stretched our letter or two,” Doctor Stable pointed out, too distracted to notice his patient’s eyes slowly narrowing. “Is it an L?”
“But it curves back around in on itself here. And… here, apparently.”
“Could he be trying to communicate in Saddle Arabian?”
“No, Saddle Arabian is very different. I helped Princess Celestia with some of her diplomatic work back in Canterlot. Did you know that they write from right to left? It’s really quite fascinating, because-“
“Okay, so it’s not Saddle Arabian,” he said gently to keep her focused. “What about the lines here? Are they part of his name?”
“I’m not sure. I think its a few letters squished together when he ran out of space, although it is hard to know for sure beneath the ink blots.”
“I simply assumed that it was some sort of flourish. Although it does look like a B as well. Or maybe an S.”
“An S? So, M-A-R-S… and a flourish?” Twilight glanced up from the enigma before her. “Wait, are you trying to tell us that your name actually is Mars?”
Mars’ eye twitched as he ground his teeth. Involuntarily Twilight floated the sheet of paper before her like a shield, not looking forward to facing another silent tantrum. The facial tic continued as he glared between the two other ponies, shifting his gaze from one to the other dangerously. Instead of exploding at them as he had before, Mars eventually just closed his eyes and let out a long sigh, his shoulder slumping in defeat. Rubbing the spot between his eyes with one hoof Mars just nodded weakly.
“Oh, okay then,” Twilight said, hiding her confusion with another smile and a burst of false cheer. “Well, it’s good to, uh, clarify the issue of your name. And since we know your name officially now, why don’t I introduce myself properly too you then! I’m Twilight Sparkle, and it is a pleasure to meet you, Mars!” Twilight thrust out a hoof.
Mars stared back at it unresponsively. Eventually he lifted his own foreleg. But instead of gripping Twilight’s hoof to shake it, he simple pressed and held his against Twilight’s own. He looked up at her curiously. ‘He… doesn’t know how to shake?’ she blinked in surprise, her mask of false cheer slipping.
Recovering, she gripped his hoof in her own and gave it a quick shake. Mars’ eyes widened slightly as he watched her grab his hoof in her own. As soon as she released his hoof Mars brought his leg back to his muzzle, staring down at his hoof curiously. He began poking the quill gently like he was trying to pick it up with his hoof but somehow failing.
Using the distraction she leaned over so she could whisper to Doctor Stable. “Doctor, I, um, think that having Mars write out his answers to your questions isn’t a very practical solution.”
Gazing down at the now black and white polka dotted sheets, Doctor Stable nodded. He took a half-step backwards to avoid the ink puddle spreading across the floor. “Yes, I think you are right. And thank you for all your work today, Twilight. Come by tomorrow and we’ll continue our research on our new guest; I’ll have the nurses store your books for you when they come in to get Mars cleaned up. I think we’ve done enough for one day, and I feel that it would be for the best if Mars gets a full night’s sleep tonight.”
The ink covered stallion in bed continued to poke at the quill expectantly, his tongue protruding from his lips and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Holding his hoof against the quill for a few seconds he jerked it away, a flash of disappointment on his face when the feather remained in the jar. He returned to prodding the quill.
“Yes, a good night’s sleep would probably do him a great deal of good.”
“Daddy… that strange pony is still following us.”
Trail Blazer – or Blazer to his friends – glanced back over his harness. His daughter Vapor Trail was perched atop the canvas-covered stack of shovels, pickaxes, and other equipment stored in the back of the cart. His little orange filly was watching back down the road they had been traveling, using her father’s work tools as an ad-hoc guard tower. She was high enough that her orange mane shifted in the breeze. Her little wings – from her mother’s side of the family – fluttered with her hair as she continued to stare back at the pony in question.
“Well, is she any closer than she was before?” Blazer asked her as he returned his attention to the road ahead. It wouldn’t look good if an employee of the Royal Academy of Civil Engineers were to trip on the same roads he was supposed to be maintaining. Besides, he couldn’t see the grey and white pony around the sides of the cart anyway.
“No, she’s still about as far away as she was before, I guess. She doesn’t look to be doing much. Just kinda… following us. And blinking.” She paused. “A lot.”
“Now I know you are curious sugar cloud, but remember that it’s rude to stare.”
“She’s been staring at us this entire time, dad! She was just staring at us when we walked past her, and then she started following and staring at us too.”
“I know sweetie, but that doesn’t mean you have to be rude back. We’ll be stopping in a few hours anyway. Once we stop, we’ll see if she needs anything. She might just be lost, or confused.” He glanced back and noticed Vapor Trail was still staring at their follower. “I thought I said stop staring,” the Earth pony said, putting more authority into the tone.
His daughter flopped down onto the cushions he had placed at the front of the cart for her to rest on. Crossing her forelegs she declared stubbornly “I don’t trust her.”
Trail Blazer just sighed. She’d gotten that stubbornness from her mother too. “Vapor, it’s just the neighborly thing to do. Besides, nopony deserves to be stuck out here at night all alone. Now, I want you to get back to your homework while we still have sunlight.”
The filly groaned. “But daaaad…” she started to whine, but he cut her off.
“Don’t you ‘but dad’ me. You know you’ve been putting it off for too long. And don’t forget that I’ll be checking it after dinner too,” he threatened.
His daughter let out another groan, but he heard her pull her book out from beneath the canvas. There was the soft rustle of papers as she set to work. He nodded happily. It was only one more day until they made it to Ponyville, and he didn’t want his daughter falling behind on her studies. The last thing she needed to be doing was wasting her time treating other ponies suspiciously. ‘Once we stop, I’ll see if the mare wants to join us for supper. It would do Vapor some good to see that other ponies are just like us,’ he thought.
Martin glared sullenly at the tiles in front of him as he sat in the tub of warm water, his cheeks a burning shade of red. There was a small speck of mildew between two of the tiles, and he was going to stare at it until it became interesting. Hopefully, if he kept staring at it, he could forget how embarrassed his was.
But the nurses were not making it easy for him.
“So in the middle of the night a patient starts screaming about a thief. At first we thought it was just somepony waking up from a nightmare because that happens from time to time, ponies getting scared in the hospital and all dontcha know. But then it could be a real emergency too, you never know. So we all go running like mad towards the room. And just outside the door, what do we see? A pony in a full black outfit, just like a burglar!” Nurse Tenderheart said as she firmly worked a bar of soap into Martin’s side, painfully trying to remove a particularly stubborn ink stain.
“No way!” Nurse Blueheart gasped and stared at the older mare with wide eyes. She even paused for a moment, interrupting her efforts to work a shampoo into Martin’s mane from the other side. “There was, like, a real life professional burglar in the hospital? That’s so scary! We’re you scared? I’d be scared!”
“Yeah sure, you betcha,” Tenderheart nodded, pouring some water over Martin’s side to wash away the suds so she could check on her progress. Evidently there was still some ink left in Martin’s fur as she immediately began working the bar of soap back into the same tender spot. “It was absolutely terrifying, dontcha know. But before we could do anything, the pony leaps over Rhyme’s head and takes off down the hallway like a bat out of Tartarus!”
With the mildew not living up to its end of the bargain Martin abandoned his futile plan and simply closed his eyes. It wasn’t just the shame of being naked and rubbed by two female horses. It wasn’t just the shame of needing both nurses’ assistant just to make it from the bed into the tub. It wasn’t even the shame of having failed so miserably writing his name that he had ended up mostly stained with ink.
It was the soul crushingly pathetic notion that Martin, a man who had been sharpened into a deadly and self-proficient weapon by the Army, couldn’t even wash himself. Instead he was forced to sit obediently while the two mares carefully cleaned him like he was a little child who had fallen in the mud. His head sunk a little lower, red hair plastered to his face.
“So one of the nurses set off the alarm, and this burglar starts getting chased by security guards – right out of the hospital! But we don’t know if she took anything or not, so we have to catch up to her, dontcha know. So we finally catch up with the burglar outside the library. And do you know who it was the whole time?”
“Who?”
“It was Rainbow Dash!”
“No way!” Blueheart gasped again. “But why was Rainbow Dash stealing from the hospital?”
Nurse Tenderheart giggled. “Oh, this is the best part! It turns out that Rainbow Dash had broken into the hospital… to steal a Daring Do book she had been reading!”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she had been calling her friends all sorts of names because they liked to read, dontcha know. But then she starts to read the book, really likes it, and then gets discharged before she gets to finish it. So, too embarrassed to ask her friend Twilight to borrow a copy, she tries to break in and get the book herself! Don’t that just beat all?”
“Wow. I mean she can be a bit, you know, headstrong and all, but I never though Rainbow Dash would be that… impulsive. I mean isn’t she, like, in charge of the weather or something?” Blueheart asked as she poured some water over Martin’s mane.
“Oh you betcha. She’s lead Weather Pony, dontcha know. But I’d like to think that she learned something from it. My mother always told me that anypony can make a bad choice, but it’s what you learn from the experience that really matters, eh?”
“Oh I like that one. Your mother has some really great sayings,” Blueheart smiled as she washed out the rest of the shampoo. “I’m done over here. So, are you done on your side, Tenderheart?”
“Uh-huh, I think so. Mars, could I get you to lift up your foreleg there so we can double check?”
Martin silently obeyed, the other nurse helping to support him as Tenderheart did a careful examination of his side and front. The fact that she was staring at his lower belly while he sat naked in a tub of water wasn’t exactly helping his poor battered sense of dignity. “Well now, it looks like we’re all set them! You’re perfectly clean now, Mars. I bet you feel like a new pony after getting all that ink out of your fur, eh?”
“So go ahead and step out over here, Mars, and we’ll get you all dried off.” Carefully Martin exited the tub as commanded. Already afraid he might never recover from his embarrassment, he wasn’t too eager to lean against the two mares for support. He did so regardless. Face planting into the bathroom floor would have been a fatal wound to any dignity he had left. ‘It’s death by a thousand shamings,’ he thought.
Both nurses grabbed some white towels and set to work drying him off. As he was buffeted by the wall of white cotton, Martin again felt like he were just a toddler. But even knowing he couldn’t help it did nothing to ease his embarrassment. He hadn’t been aware that ponies could use their hooves like hands until Twilight Sparkle had shaken his hoof earlier. He had spent a long time trying to manipulate the quill by hoof, and all he had managed was to pull it a centimeter out of the jar before he had lost his ‘grip’ on the feather. How and why it worked were still mysteries.
Impossible, illogical mysteries.
“Oh my, you look very handsome now, dontcha know,” Nurse Tenderheart smiled. Martin glared back beneath his disorganized nest of burgundy hair. “We’re almost finished too. We’re just going to give your mane a good brushing first. Wouldn’t you like that, dearie?”
“No. I’m a grown man, not a little… horse,” he said noiselessly, but they didn’t notice as they began attacking his damp hair with large brushes.
“And it’s such a lovely shade of red, too. It’s very striking, Mars. You’re sure to catch some mare’s eye with hair like this!” Nurse Blueheart said cheerfully, giving the terminally embarrassed Martin a wink as she tugged a difficult knot from his mane. Both of them laughed as Martin’s blush deepened. ‘This couldn’t get any more demeaning,’ he declared
Then one of them started humming what sounded like a children’s lullaby.
The desiccated husk of Martin’s dignity fell to the ground and wept.
Alpha looked up from the bowl of hay in front of her, the grey and white unicorn’s expression perfectly neutral – as it had been all evening. “And this plant matter is typical of what y- our species ingests for nutrition?” she asked Trail Blazer with a clipped and precise tone.
Blazer stared back, feeling uncomfortable under her red gaze. “Um, yeah. It’s hay,” he told her flatly, too surprised by the question to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
She stared back at him for a few heartbeats beyond what anypony would consider polite. Not blinking for a very long time. “Thank you, Trail Blazer, for this source of nutrition,” she finally said. Alpha took a small and deliberate portion of the hay into her mouth and began to chew methodically.
‘What kind of pony doesn’t know what hay is?’ he pondered as he watched Alpha carefully eat her meal, chewing each mouthful an excessive number of times before swallowing. Trail Blazer and his daughter shared a look of confusion and mild unease about the strange pony. ‘I shouldn’t be thinking this, but I’m really starting to regret offering her dinner and a place to sleep.’
The evening had started well. They had made good time, with his daughter Vapor routinely checking on their shadow’s position whenever she could get away from her schoolwork. Once the sun had started to set Trail Blazer had pulled his cart off road so they could set up camp. As experienced as they were it had taken just minutes, the warmth of the fire helping to fight off the chill of the approaching night.
How long Alpha had been standing there Blazer didn’t know, but when he had finally noticed the ghostly unicorn standing in the middle of the road staring at them, he had almost jumped out of his fur. Wanting to set a good example for his daughter he had pushed aside his nervousness and invited the silent pony to come and share their fire and have a meal – the sort of simple traveler’s generosity his parents had taught him.
She had taken so long to respond he had been about to repeat himself when she had finally accepted. “I am Alpha,” she had introduced herself, her tone and face betraying no emotion whatsoever. Her eyes were the only thing that seemed to express anything except impassive neutrality.
‘Although, that could just be the fact that her eyes are quite… different,’ he considered as he busied himself lifting the spit off the fire to keep the apples from burning. He hadn’t noticed until she had gotten closer, but Alpha’s eyes were a very bright red. In the flickering firelight they glinted like rubies, and they seemed to examine everything with an intense curiosity. Red eyes certainly weren’t common. The only other pony he had seen with red eyes had been a DJ in Canterlot, but his date at the time had informed him that they were actually a deep magenta. Considering how that date had ended, he wasn’t too sure he trusted her verdict. But either way, the oddly colored eyes only accented Alpha’s strange qualities in Blazer’s mind.
As if detecting his thoughts Alpha looked up from her meal to stare at him. Blazer looked away with a cough, embarrassed at having been caught staring. “Okay hun, go ahead and grab an apple. And careful, they’re hot,” he told Vapor, holding out the stick and its three lightly toasted apples.
She rolled her eyes. “Pfft. I know how to do it. I’m not a little foal anymore, dad,” she stated as she removed one of the apples, holding it in her hooves to emphasize her point. Her eye twitched. Once she thought he wasn’t looking she quickly dropped the apple into her bowl and blew softly on her hooves. Blazer managed to hide his smile. Walking past Vapor he offered Alpha the spit, not surprised to find the unicorn’s eyes were still on him. Slowly her gaze shifted to the spit in his hand and then back again.
“Would you care for an apple, Alpha?” he asked after an uncomfortable silence. Alpha looked past him to watch as his daughter took a careful bite of her warm apple.
“Thank you Trail Blazer, I would appreciate one of your toasted fruits,” she said, carefully removing an apple from the spit and placing it gingerly in the center of her bowl. Alpha seemed to consider the fruit for a while before lifting it back up with her hooves and taking a small bite. As with the hay she chewed every mouthful rigorously before swallowing.
Taking the last apple for himself Blazer settled down next to his daughter, the three ponies warmed by the gentle caress of the campfire. The sun had finished its slow decent, the fire becoming an oasis of comfort and light in a desert of cool darkness. “So, Alpha, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?” he asked casually. Slowly she turned to look at him.
“What would you like to know, Trail Blazer?” she asked finally.
“Well, you have a bit of an accent I’ve never heard before. Where are you from, exactly?”
“Earth.”
Blazer waited for her to continue, but Alpha just took another bite of her apple. “Earth?” he finally prompted.
“That is correct, Trail Blazer.” She didn’t volunteer any more details.
“Well, where is Earth? I’ve never heard of it before. It’s not overseas, is it?” His daughter’s ears perked up as she turned to look at Alpha.
“Negative. Earth is a plan-“ Alpha paused mid-word, blinking a few times. “Yes, Earth is overseas. It is very, very far away. It is not surprising that neither of you have ever heard of it. I doubt that anyone has ever heard of it.”
“Oh! Is it by Saddle Arabia?” Vapor leaned forward as she asked Alpha, her excitement for stories about foreign lands bleeding through her usual attempts at playing the disinterested youth.
“No it is not, Vapor Trails. Earth is… very far away from any other location on this planet. It is very remote.”
“Oh,” the filly replied, deflating a little.
“Sounds like you have travelled quite a fair distance,” Blazer said through a mouthful of apple. “What brings you all the way to Equestria then?”
“You are correct that I have travelled a great distance. However, it was not by design. I did not choose to come to Equestria. The destination was not under my control.”
He frowned. “If you’re not here by choice, why don’t you head home?”
“That is impossible. I cannot return to Earth at this point in time, and it is likely that I will never return to Earth,” Alpha explained, describing her apparent exile in the same tone she had used when talking about hay.
“That is quite a sad story, Alpha. I’m sorry to hear that,” Blazer said sympathetically.
Alpha tilted her head to the side a hair as she looked at him, her eyes showing a curiosity that the rest of her expression did not. “What do you mean, Trail Blazer?”
“Well, what I mean is that it’s sad that you’re not allowed to go back home,” he tried to explain, once again caught off guard by an unexpected question. “I’d be pretty upset if I couldn’t go back and see my friends and family. I mean, I don’t know what I would do if I were forced to leave Equestria and never see my daughter again,” he wrapped an arm around Vapor Trail’s shoulders.
“Daaaad…” she complained with a faint blush, trying to wiggle free from the embarrassing display of paternal affection.
“Don’t you miss your friends and family back in Earth?” he asked Alpha, ignoring Vapor’s half-heated struggles.
“I do not have any friends and my creators are all dead,” Alpha said as she took a nibble of her apple. She glanced between Vapor and Blazer as she methodically chewed, studying their wide-open stares of shock. She swallowed the bite of apple and continued to meet their frozen stares, the only noise the crackle of the fire and the insects of the night. “What is wrong? Have I said something offensive?”
Blazer eventually found his voice. “No, no, it’s just… I mean, that’s really horrible. We, um, know something about losing family,” he squeezed his daughters shoulder a little tighter – she didn’t complain this time, “so I can understand the pain that it causes. But, um, well, you don’t seem that bothered by it, which… I mean, I guess that you’ve handled their deaths pretty well, to be so… unaffected by it now.” He coughed, feeling cold despite the heat of the fire. “But I find it hard to believe that you don’t have any friends. I mean, surely you must have some friends from back home? Ponies you grew up with? Ponies you have met on your journeys?”
“That is negative. The only other living entities I had contact with on Earth were my creators. Otherwise I was completely isolated. My creators were gravely concerned with safety and did not think it wise if I were allowed to examine the world outside of their direct supervision. You, Trail Blazer, and you, Vapor Trail, are the first and only ponies I have met.”
Blazer struggled to find something to say after hearing that as Alpha returned to nibbling at her apple. ‘She was kept isolated and alone except for her parents? She never met any other ponies besides them? Never had any friends? And then her parents die, leaving her alone? Her life has been one massive tragedy,’ he gulped. ‘I mean, it explains so much about her, but still!’
His daughter did, however. “Um, Alpha, I have a question for you,” Vapor said, drawing her attention. “I, uh, don’t want to be rude or nuthin’, but… you’re the first grown-up unicorn I’ve ever met who doesn’t use their horn to hold their food and such…” she trailed off, looking at Alpha.
Alpha stared back at her before lifting her gaze upwards to the tip of her horn. “I do not understand, Vapor Trail. How would my horn aid in consuming nutrients?”
Father and daughter shared another uncomfortable look. It was starting to become a routine occurrence when dealing with the strange unicorn. “You know, magic n’ stuff,” Vapor said. Her eyelids dropped when Alpha didn’t respond. “Please don’t say that you haven’t heard about magic, too.”
“Of course I have heard about magic,” Alpha said quickly, maintaining her neutral tone despite her increased rate of speech. “However, I am a scientist. I deal with logic and reason, not the supernatural superstitions of lesser beings. Magic, whether as sleight-of-hand tricks or as a term used by the ignorant to explain that which they cannot grasp, is not a serious point of discussion amongst rational minds. The laws of nature explain the functioning of the natural world – a world in which there is no place for magic. Magic does not exist.”
“Um, yeah it does,” Vapor retorted, rolling her eyes. “Duh.”
“No, it does not.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it does not.”
“Yeah-huh!”
“No, it does not.”
“Does too!”
“Quite, both of you!” Blazer snapped, interrupting their childish argument. He pointed a hoof at his daughter. “Vapor, stop acting like a little foal. If you want to be treated like a big girl, you have to act like one. You know better than to go on like that. And you,” he turned towards Alpha, his tone losing its edge to a growing sense of disbelief. “Well, Alpha, look, what you need to understand is that, since your parents kept you… isolated, that you might not have as much experience with the real world. But magic certainly is real.”
Alpha opened her mouth to disagree, but Blazer raised his hoof to forestall her. “Hey now, I’m not looking to start any arguments with you on the subject. It’s too close to bedtime, and I still have a cart to pull to Ponyville tomorrow. And since you feel so strongly about this issue, what I suggest is that you follow us to town. Once there we can find some ponies to teach you about magic. We’ll even introduce you to the townsfolk. Who knows, you might even be able to make some friends there.”
She had looked willing to continue her silly argument that there was no such thing as magic, but Blazer’s words seemed to mollify Alpha. “Alright, Trail Blazer, I will accompany you and Vapor Trail tomorrow to this Ponyville, that I may learn more about your religious customs.”
“Religious customs? Magic isn’t a-“ Blazer caught himself, turning his argument into a loud sigh. He got up and trotted over to his cart. “Right. Very good. Now, my daughter and I will be in the tent if you need us. Herf if ah extruph blanghiff,” he said as he pulled the extra blanket from the back of his cart with his mouth and tossed it to her. “Now it’s still summer, so it shouldn’t be too cold tonight. But if you need too, just get in close to the fire. Just, you know, don’t get caught on fire or anything like that.” He added his last warning just in case, not wanting to take any chances with Alpha.
Alpha nodded, spreading the blanket out onto the grass. “Thank you for your hospitality, Trail Blazer,” she said. In amongst the flickering shadows of the firelight, he imagined he might have seen something like grateful sincerity break through her mask of perpetual neutrality.
“Dad! What are you doing, asking that weird pony to go with us to Ponyville?” Vapor whispered to her father as they lay down beside one another, a picture of a Wonderbolt was emblazed across the front of her smaller sleeping bag.
“Vapor, how can you ask that? You’ve heard what she said. She’s had a very hard, sheltered life. I mean, can you imagine how tough it has been to live life as a unicorn without knowing magic?” he replied, keeping his voice low enough to just barely be heard. “Imagine if you grew up never knowing you could fly?”
“But she’s really weird!”
“Sure she is,” he nodded. “But then, look at what she went through before. She lost her parents, she never had any friends, she grew up far away from any other ponies, and now she is in a strange country without a single bit to her name. She needs help, darling, and we’re the ponies to give it.”
“You’re not just saying that because you… like her, right?”
“What?” he hissed quietly as he stared at his daughter.
“I mean, you know…” she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead she looked down and prodded at her sleeping back with a hoof. “You an’ mom met because you felt sorry for her when she got injured and all. And Alpha is kinda… injured, you know, upstairs like… so I guess I…”
Blazer wrapped his hooves around his daughter, holding her close. “Oh Vapor…” he sighed, kissing her forehead. “Your mother and I did not fall in love just because she was injured. Love is so much more than that. I know her death still hurts, but you need to stop feeling so suspicious about every mare we meet.” He tilted up her chin to meet his warm eyes. “Your mother was something special. And that’s what love is – something special between two ponies. I don’t want you thinking that anything will ever change the love I felt for her, or the love I still feel for you. Okay, sugar cloud?
Vapor nodded and nuzzled against his green chest. “I know… I just… I can’t help it. It’s silly, but… I don’t want to see mom replaced, you know?”
“Nopony will ever replace your mother, sugar cloud,” he promised, stroking her orange mane. She closed her eyes, the pair of them enjoying the embrace for a few minutes. “Besides,” he continued, his tone lighter than before, “don’t you think your father could do better than a mad mare that doesn’t even know what hay is? I’m a bit offended.”
Despite herself, Vapor snorted softly against his green fur. “Daaaad…” she groaned and rolled her eyes, a faint smile on her face.
“There’s that smile. Good night, sugar cloud,” he said as he released her, nuzzling her cheeks before helping her back into her sleeping bag. “You’ll need to get plenty of sleep. It’s a long day tomorrow.” He paused. “After all, we still need to go over your homework.”
“Daaaaad!”