//------------------------------// // The First Fall // Story: Does Falling really bring you Down? // by goticBlake //------------------------------// Falling. There are poems about falling, movies, theories, songs, even books. But there is nothing that will show you how it feels like falling will. It is quick and slow at the same time. You can feel it go on forever, and finish before you realize it. You feel enraptured, scared, weightless- no, powerless. You feel like if you had suddenly got taken into a world in which everything is blurry, you can´t stay in the same place for more than a millisecond, and you can´t remember how you got there. I know that because I fell once. The last thing I saw were my friends talking with each other, not yet aware I had just fallen, and the school in which we were surrounded by green scenery I still wasn´t able to appreciate. Then I heard a striking sound, like gunshot, making me deaf. I had stopped, but I didn´t know. I could only close my eyes, which weren´t seeing anymore, and keep falling. When I opened my eyes, everything was still blurry. I could see only a blue sky so clear it almost looked gray. As my vision cleared, a few indefinite shapes started to appear, in colors that didn´t make sense. I closed my eyes again, trying to think of what I was supposed to be seeing. Then I opened my eyes again. The blurriness seemed to have returned, but slowly faded again. The shapes had disappeared, and a buzz gradually augmented in volume in my ears. When I blinked hard for a second, I realized that the rest of the blur in my eyes was just the lack of my glasses in front of them. Groping around for them, I stood slowly from the ground. It was harder than it should have been. When I looked around, I became so shocked that I just stood there, petrified. I rubbed my eyes, thinking it could only be a trick of the light and my missing glasses, but what I saw was still there. The impression was so big that I felt everything was spinning around, and fell again. My head felt light when it fell, as if it was made of cotton, and the buzz got higher in intensity. When I woke up again, I was in a different place. Though everything looked blurry without my glasses, I thought I could recognize the place. What I was doing there I didn´t know. I was inside a cage too little for my size, so I couldn´t stand up to my full height. Instead, I sat, looking around in wonderment. I was in the middle of a brightly colored hall, full of contours with a shape that I still couldn´t believe I would be seeing somewhere different than in TV. They seemed to be completely still as I looked at them, except for a few here or there, which shifted nervously on their spot. No one dared to break the silence that seemed to make everything even more unreal. Suddenly, one of them approached me with caution, becoming more defined the closer it was. A couple more started to follow the first silhouette towards me, but were pulled back by some others. I was so shocked that I didn´t realize I hadn´t heard a thing yet, even though the moves from the shapes should have produced even the littlest of sounds. I was too consumed on the face that stared at me through my cage, examining me in silence. It was Princess Luna. “I- Wh- Ah?!” I cried out, too confused to look for my actions. The sudden yell in her face made the obscure princess back down in surprise, and caused the entire hall to jump on their hooves, some cursing, while others seemed to get startled. Then they became still, quieting down to see what was going to happen. That´s when I realized I had yet to hear anything, even when I had already seen movement that betrayed sound. That made me become still too. Princess Luna had recovered her composure, and looked at me closely, aware now that I could react to her. She then mouthed something, but I wasn´t able to hear her. I just sat quietly, and shook my head in disbelief. The princess frowned and mouthed something else, noticing my actions didn’t have any relation with what she had said, whatever that was. I blinked, brought my hands to my eyes and rubbed them furiously, trying to dispel what I thought were hallucinations. She just stood there, not sure of how to proceed, and then turned to call someone. From where I sat I had to look up to her face, but I was sure that if I had the space to stand, her head would just be under my shoulders, her horn only barely reaching my height. Not that I was tall, but she was a pony after all. A weary looking Twilight Sparkle and a distressed Mayor Mare reached Luna while I tried to remember how I had gotten inside a cage in the Town Hall of Ponyville, a fantastic and, most importantly, NOT REAL place. Mayor Mare seemed to discuss something with Twilight, then fall silent as the purple unicorn turned to say something to Princess Luna. The look on both of their faces changed when Twilight proposed an idea, to which Luna frowned, thinking of protesting, and Mayor Mare seemed disconcerted, with a hint of mirth on her eyes. As Luna was about to say something, Twilight approached me with firmness and opened her mouth. She stopped herself and thought for a second. She did what no one there thought would work. Her horn lightened up, and with clean handwriting she wrote in the air, in glazy violet letters: Can you understand this? When I realized what it said I started to laugh, deciding I had gone crazy. My laugh extended itself more than I intended, frightening me a bit too. When I finally stopped laughing, the letters had faded, and Twilight looked expectantly at me. I looked around again, seeing Luna glare at me, while Mayor Mare seemed to have a heated discussion with- with a pony whose colors could only mean she was Rainbow Dash. Some of the other ponies looked as if they had gotten uninterested, as if they were ready to leave, but most of them were ignoring them, watching me, waiting for an answer to come, with the most bewildered expressions I had seen in those pastel ponies. I breathed in, exhaled, and then opened my mouth. I could not stop some giggles, but I closed my mouth to control them. Then I answered, calm as ever. “Yes. I do.” The ponies all gasped, Rainbow stopping what she was saying to let her jaw fall to the floor, while Luna stood dumbfounded on the spot, forgetting to glare at me with distaste, or royal grace, or whatever her expression was supposed to mean. When I looked at Twilight, I wasn´t sure what I was seeing. She seemed to have a combination of surprise and victory in her face, swiftly alternating to make her features a little more blurry. She said something, forgetting to write it for me, to which I just looked as though nothing had happened. She waited for an answer for a few seconds, before facehooving and lightening her horn again. I assume you can´t hear us. For some reason I considered if it was wise to answer her, but I disregarded it as my troll instinct trying to get a share in the situation. Why wouldn´t I want to answer her? “No, it seems my hearing has been damaged. I can barely hear myself talking. Sorry if my tone or volume of voice is not fitting,” I said, formal for some reason. This elicited more reactions from the crowd, some trying to get closer to me, while the rest pulled them back to make sure they didn´t interfere. What are you? What did you do with Ditzy Doo? I opened my mouth to answer, and then thought better of it. I had to pause to consider what she had just asked, to make sure I didn´t create any misunderstandings. I didn´t know why I cared so much to do that, considering I had already decided I was just delusional, but it was MLP I was having delusions of, I guess. I didn´t know what had happened to Derpy, or why they thought I had anything to do with what happened, and decided to be honest about it too. “I´m human, something like a monkey without so much hair, with opposite thumbs, and the ability to reason beyond how many bananas to share with my family. Though now that I think of it, I´m not sure you know monkeys either. That´s all I can tell you to describe my species,” I said, trying to sound as honest as I was being, even though I couldn´t really check my voice to see if I was achieving that. “About Derpy, I don´t know what is her situation. I´m just confused as to why I´m in this place.” My words brought up a reaction different than I had expected, with everypony frowning and trying to get closer, leaning their ears towards me. For a second I thought that maybe I had become mute too, but then Twilight wrote to me: You are speaking too low, I am not able to hear you even from here. Don´t worry about yelling, we will understand as you can´t measure the volume of your voice, just try to make sure we can understand you. I found that funny too, realizing my habit of talking lower when I had loud music on earphones had kicked up now. Funny how a brain works sometimes. I then repeated myself, speaking louder, but still trying not to yell in Twilight´s face. While the ponies were trying to discern what I was exactly, a few seconds after I had said my last words some of them looked suddenly distrustful and angered. Then everything started to spin, and I was hurled through the room, hurting myself with the metal cage I was in, and every bounce on the ground made me thump my head hard. When I finally stopped rolling, I was upside down, looking opposite of where the ponies were, towards high twin doors that looked like the exit of the Town Hall. I could feel from the ground, in which the cage had left me sprawled, a large group of ponies approaching in heavy steps, in a pace that felt ominous and agile at the same time. Before they reached me though, I felt myself be lifted from the ground and put inside the cage again, which then floated up the hall towards the place it was before. I am not afraid of heights, to be honest, but looking down the floating cage at the enraged ponies made me remember something that I couldn´t really see, making me sick to the core. I don´t remember blacking out, but after that I don´t really remember anything else. When I woke up again, I felt every part of my body ache, and thought I had only closed my eyes from my imprisonment and opened them to find myself there, in a mere blink. I was somewhere else now, somewhere I could recognize way more easily than the Town Hall. Everywhere I looked, books seemed to be there: on tables, in piles, open in the floor, but none in the bookcases, ironic as that may be. I found myself tied to a seat close to a wall, facing a door and stairs, with my vision still blurry for the absence of my glasses. My ears felt funny, though I wasn´t sure if it was just an itch, or if my hearing had returned. I decided it was the latter when I was able to predict a group of ponies going down the stairs to where I was, just by the sound of their steps and distant voices. With sudden inspiration, I quickly closed my eyes and relaxed as much as I could, trying to look asleep, thinking I could maybe find out what all the rustling was about. “…all I´m saying is, this Hugh-man guy, if he even is a guy, has to have something to do with Derpy disappearing!” I could hear the tomboy—tomcolt?—Rainbow Dash say, in her usual, semi-yelled tone of voice. “How did he know about her nickname, if he isn´t a SPY?” “Oh, please, Rainbow. I doubt he could be a changeling trying to find a weakness in Equestria´s defenses,” Twilight said, closer to where I was seated. “Why would it target Ponyville if so? Changelings were defeated by Princess Cadence and my brother. If that was the case they would be the target, don´t you think?” “Ah don’ know, Twilight. He soun’ed terribly suspicious—and a human is only a made up thing, we couldn’ find anything ‘bout them in any of your books,” a voice that sounded Texan said, in a gentle tone, which I could only relate to Applejack. “Even if he was sayin’ the truth, it doesn’ explain why he called Ditzy ‘Derpy’.” “And his clothes! They looked like a uniform! No one uses something so impersonal in the middle of summer,” a posh accent that could only belong to Rarity pushed in the conversation. “It does make me think of those changeling drones, that look one exactly the same as the other. So unoriginal and ugly.” They were silent for a couple of seconds, making me imagine them staring at her for a conclusion they felt shouldn´t have been taken from something so little, and then continued moving about the room. “W-Well, I don´t know about if he´s a spy or not, but he still hasn´t waked up. I´m starting to worry…” a sweet voice declared, eerily close to me. “What if he is sick? I don´t think he was too injured from the cage, but it´s not normal to be passed out for so long.” Oh, Fluttershy, if only you knew how right you were, I thought, finding it hard not to laugh. She probably wouldn´t be as close as she was if she knew I was awake, either. “Well, we don´t know anything about the anatomy or metabolism of humans, or how their central nervous system reacts to injuries like he had, so we can´t know for sure if he´s in trouble…” Twilight pondered. They suddenly went quiet, uncomfortably quiet. I knew that something was missing, and it was the cause for the sudden silence, but I couldn´t quite put my finger on it. Then it hit me. “Aren´t you going to share your opinion with all of us, Pink?” I inquired, looking back towards Pinkie Pie up the wall, who was watching me intently. That caused everyone but Pinkie to jump on their hooves from the startle. Fluttershy dashed away from me before I could have said “Run”, eeping in an adorable manner. I was also pushed against the wall by a rainbow hue, coloring everything in front of my eyes. “You see? He IS a spy!” Rainbow yelled at the side of my head. “HEY! Careful, I just got my hearing back!” I growled at her, furious by the ringing she left in my ears. “How did you know Pinkie was watching you from there?” Rarity asked, amazed. “…I didn´t, it was a lucky guess,” I admitted, being as honest as can be. “Why were you pretendin’ ta be asleep, human?” Applejack roared, angry at me. “That be mighty nasty of you.” “Since when have you been awake? How much did you hear?” Twilight asked, trying to regain control of the situation. “Are you willing to answer our questions?” “You are making it hard to cooperate, my little ponies, with all that pushing me around. Whoever threw the cage I was in before could have sent me to a hospital. That is, if you were willing to cure my injuries in the first place,” I retorted, trying to calm down. “As for what you are asking, I might as well answer. It doesn´t matter anymore.” “What d-do you mean?” Fluttershy whispered from behind a pile of books, still seemingly worried about me. “It´s as simple as madness,” I said, matter of factly, knowing full well they wouldn´t understand me. “Hmm, is that so?” Pinkie talked for the first time since they arrived. I looked at where her voice was coming from and realized she was besides Fluttershy, trying to reassure her. “How mad exactly? If you don´t mind me asking, that is.” I smiled at that, realizing I had forgotten about Pinkie´s thought processes being advantageous. “As mad as a nightmare about a lucid dream flowing in a stream,” I told, looking to confuse her, something some say is impossible. Everyone else was looking at us funny, trying to decipher what we were saying. They didn’t accomplish it. Pinkie waited for me to answer the questions I had left unresolved. “I pretended to be asleep just to see what I had gotten into. And also because I suddenly felt like doing so, I guess.” I sighed. “I´ve been awake since just a few minutes before you came here, and I think I heard everything you said. I might be wrong though, there were some odd silences,” I said, reasoning my answer beyond necessary, as always. “As for me being willing to answer, I´ve already answered that, didn´t I?” “Ah´m not sure Ah like this one, girls. He got a mouth an’ he isn’ afraid to use it,” Applejack said, like if it was no big deal. I cracked up instead. “Don´t worry AJ, my mouth is all I can use freely right now, and I use it only for my own entertainment. Just try not to get in its way, I guess. I can´t always control myself.” Rarity harrumphed at that. “Nice manners you got there, mister. I´m pretty sure you are earning our trust that way.” I was about to make a snide comment when Twilight interrupted us all. “STOP! We are doing nothing this way. We should calm down first, before we start to fight and drag this on.” Everyone fell silent, while Pinkie measured me with various measuring tapes at the same time, to which no one took notice… though I did feel a little self-conscious by that. “Now, I would like to be left alone with the human. I think we are not going to learn anything from him if we all ask different questions and distract him,” considered Twilight. As the others silently started to leave, she changed her mind and said: “Pinkie, stay here please”. The others just gave her a look of curiosity and left. “Well, I guess it is nicer with only you here. Less snapping at each other.” “How did you know Ditzy´s and Applejack´s nicknames?” Twilight went right to the point. “Huh?” the question got me by surprise, as I didn´t expect the kind Twilight Sparkle to ask me so directly. Pinkie stayed quiet. “What you heard. Thought I wouldn´t have noticed? No one mentioned any of our names since the moment you claim to be awake. I don´t doubt your words, but you are not trying to clear anything up either,” Twilight said, too serious for my liking. I was feeling a little afraid by now. “It is a little hard to explain. And I´m not sure how you would react to what I´d say either, in the case you believed me,” I refused, trying to find a way to get out of that situation without damaging my reputation with her anymore… or her own psyche. “Maybe you should try me. I may be a little more insightful and able than I look. Only because I barely reach your waist doesn´t mean—” I cut her off. “You are not real.”