And That's How Equestria Was Made...

by neighsmith

First Impressions

For a certain pony, whose namesake matched the color of her coat, it wasn’t strange for her to often be unusual, such as talking to herself, defying physics, chatting idly to invisible audiences, and generally acting unconventionally. Most ponies had learned to play along, or just to altogether ignore her extraordinary ways. But today they were playing it safe by staying out of her way, if not for any other reason than to simply avoid the bundle that only Celestia above could guess the contents of.

She stopped in the middle of the road and continued her one-sided conversation, worriedly bandying back and forth.

“I can’t take him to Sugarcube Corner now, because I haven’t invited the other guests yet. Hm... I could leave him at a friend’s house, but now the question is who? Rarity? No, she’s busy today... Fluttershy? No, silly Pinkie, she’s helping Applejack on the farm, with those rascally rabbits.” Pinkie Pie hummed thoughtfully, brows creasing.

“So who then? Dashie is doing weather stuff, and I’m busy with the party preparations! Oh no! Rose is busy with her Roses, and Daisy with her daisies! Whatever shall I do? If I can’t get the party together, then this poor guy won’t have any friends, and he’ll be all alone! And that’s no good at all!” Pinkie sat down, frowning, while the blanketed mass slid off of her and onto the ground.

Suddenly, an idea hit her, “Twilight!” she sang out, “I’m sure she knows all about his kind and can even give me a few pointers on the party! It’ll sure to be the best One-Thousandth-Anniversary-Slash-Welcome-Mysterious-Thing- From-The-Everfree-Party ever!” Content with this line of reasoning, Pinkie picked up her bundle and hummed happily on her way, continuing her route through the town with the ambiguous and large lump of something draped in a tablecloth over her back.

Smith awoke in a bed. It was a soft bed, and the room that the bed was in was, for lack of a better word, cozy. Smith noted a door that was to his right, and a window that peaked out into the world of the outside just above him. But the fact that he was tied down made it hard to fully appreciate his surroundings.

After straining against his bonds, two cords binding his hands and feet to the frame of the bed, and finding that he was struggling for naught, he settled down.

“And of course I can’t use magic... That would make things too easy.” He muttered to himself, grumpy at how helpless he was.

Smith, after he regained his normal state of mind from the momentary panic of being trapped, continued to take in the room. It seemed... too colorful, with purples and blues, pastel colors that barely existed in the world he remembered, and certainly did not in the dark prison of his all too recent memories. From the wallpaper to floor boards, nausea inducing bright hues engulfed him.

“Something else is strange.” Smith noted. “The furniture is rather small, but then again, I have no notion of what kind of inhabitant this house was intended for.” Smith paused, searching for what was bothering him. “Maybe it is the plethora of books, I haven’t seen an actual book since the last library burned down. Such a sad day.” He frowned at the remembrance of that infamous day.

Smith pondered, brows furrowed and a scowl upon his face. He absent-mindedly looked up at the window and out into the bright summer day. Then it hit him.

He face-palmed. Or at least he tried to, failing because his hands were tied up. In reality, he just squirmed for a second before sighing.

“Back home, our sky was overcast with an industrious fog, a sickly plague of industry and pollution, but here it seems that they have yet the notion of usurpation... And I think I can even make out the sun.” Smith was enraptured, his attention caught by the bright sky, and a sun that he had never seen before.

With multiple flashes of light, and several figures running in through the door, six ponies, two princesses and one Draconequus burst in upon the marvelling prisoner.

Both of the alicorn’s magics were shining, with the respective tints of yellow and blue. The two unicorn’s as well had their magics at the ready, and three of the remaining five struck a quite aggressive stance. The two ponies who were an exception to this were a particular pink pony who had a silly grin on her face as she stood on her hind legs, hooves wavering in a spooky manner, and a demure cream-ish mare, who, it seemed, had barely enough courage to refrain from running from the room.

But most of these details were lost on Smith, who was too lost for words.

In a booming voice, seemingly magnified in the small room, Smith heard, “Why art thou here? And of what species are thou? Answer quick or our wrath shall not be contained.”

Smith started screaming, his fear of his captors renewed. His calm appreciation of the peaceful sky was forgotten as he strained against the bonds harder than before, managing to actually tear one of the rope’s holding his left hand and arm down.

At the bidding of the Draconequus, a hammer appeared out of nowhere and struck the man on the head, resonating a wince-inducing Crack!, before disappearing promptly.

The human in the bed collapsed, his previously flailing arm dropped down to hang awkwardly over the side of mattress.

All eyes turned to Discord, who was laughing at the situation. “What? He obviously was getting out of hand!” As funny as Discord had thought his previous statement might have been, the only positive response he got was a slight giggle from the party’s party pony. “And to think I gave up chaos for the likes of you.” He huffed, crossing his arms.

“Puns aside Discord, I fear you may have actually harmed him.” Celestia’s firm voice carried the reprimand. She gestured to Fluttershy to go tend to the unconscious... thing.

“I don’t mean to be rude, yer highness, but ah don’t think that busting in on the poor critter was the best way to say ‘Howdy’.”

“Hm, yes. In hindsight, this might not have been one of my most thought out decisions, but from Twilight’s letter, I was a bit worried.”

Twilight blushed, and nervously stated, “Well, sorry for freaking out, but it’s not like there is a book on how to react to your friend bringing an unknown species out the Everfree to your house.”

Pinkie giggled, “Silly Twilight, I told you he was harmless.”

“But you don’t know that!”

“Yes I do! And I did!”

“How?”

“My Pinkie Senses told me!”

“But Pinkie! That’s nowhere near enough evidence to trust your safety with this thing! What if your senses were wrong this time? What if you got hurt? What if-”

“Enough!” Fluttershy yelled out, quieting everypony. She blushed a little at the sound of her voice, but continued, “He seems to be still alive, pulse and breathing aren’t sporadic, but that’s is about all I can tell. I’ve never seen a mammalian biped before.”

Celestia thought for a moment, and then decided, pointing a hoof at Fluttershy, “Can you stay here until he wakes up and then gently greet him?”

“M-me?!” Fluttershy squeaked, backing away from the unconscious body. “Why m-me?”

“Yes, why Fluttershy? No offense to her, but I think that we will both agree that she normally isn’t the confrontationalist. And what about researching the subject? Equestria hasn’t had an extra-equestrian visit or appearance of an unknown species since the time of Starswirl the Bearded. Only we could possibly be experienced enough to handle and document this, with perhaps the exception of Twilight, or Tartarus dammit, even Discord for the matter.” Luna asked.

“Fluttershy often deals with new species from the Everfree forest, and I’m sure that our first encounter proves that the subject doesn’t deal well with abrupt loudness and threats.” Celestia shot a glare at Luna, who shrugged.

“We thought it would be best to make sure the subject knows his place.” Luna spoke with an air of indifference at some minor misdeed, but the words did not carry to her eyes, which glinted dangerously for a moment, before all emotion became locked behind the usual mask of royalty.

Hoping to diffuse the situation, or simply failing to sense the tension in the room, Rainbow re-voiced Luna’s concern. “But what if it turns out that the prisoner is dangerous, princess? We all know Fluttershy isn’t the fighting kind.” Rainbow said, wings shuffling worriedly. “I should stay with her, just in case.”

Celestia shook her head, “No, I think that it would be better if Discord stayed in here with Fluttershy. He proved himself apt at restraining him.”

Discord bowed, and in doing so donned a guard’s outfit. He stood straight at attention, his lion paw forming a mock salute.

“Quick! Everypony out! I think he’s waking up!” Fluttershy stated nervously.

There was a mad dash for the door by everypony except the princesses, who simple teleported out, with many a, “Oof!” and, “You’re stepping on my tail!” in the process.

Eventually, only Discord and Fluttershy remained. They waited apprehensively for the mysterious creature to awaken.

Smith woke from what he hoped was either an ended bout of madness or a strange dream. He realized that he was still bound, except for his left hand, the one which he had freed, and had a massive headache.

Praying that he still wasn’t in the brightly colored room of books surrounded by, “By ponies, of all creatures”, he opened his eyes.

To his relief, he was alone in a room, no creature of any kind in his view. “Thank the powers above, I thought that there still were going to be ponies here.” Smith relaxed into the bed, happy that at least he wasn’t actually in a land of talking ponies.

“Uhm, well, I’m sorry, but there are...” came a timid voice from an unknown speaker.

Smith strained to get a look of who was talking. “Excuse me? I’m sorry but-” he stopped short. Standing beside his prison of a bed, stood a cream yellow pony. With wings. He put his head back on the pillow and sighed.

“And I thought I wasn’t crazy.”