Fblthp’s second clue that he might not be on Ravnica any more was that after the pain stopped and he opened his eye, he wasn’t on Ravnica any more. In fact, he was draped over one of the highest branches of a large oak tree and the city was nowhere to be seen. It was the highest he’d ever been off the ground.
Fblthp could hear voices coming from the ground.
“Did you see that?”
“No, I didn’t see anything.”
“I’m telling you, there was a big flash of light coming from the branches of the library!”
“Maybe that dendrologist from Colton is taking pictures for his case study.”
“You totally made that word up. And it wasn’t a flash like a camera. It was big! I can’t believe you didn’t see it!”
The voices were close to the tree, and they both sounded female. Fblthp whimpered.
“There! You hear that? There was a noise coming from the branches!”
“Yeah, I did hear it. Maybe somepony’s stuck up there.”
“Hello? Is anypony there?”
“Rainbow! Why don’t you just fly up and look?”
“Oh, right, I guess I could do that. Heh.”
In a split second, Fblthp found himself eye to face with a pegasus. Fblthp had never seen a pegasus before, but he had seen pictures. The pictures didn’t tell him that pegasi could be cyan, or that they could have rainbow-colored manes, though.
The pegasus cocked its head to the side and asked, “what are you?” Fblthp didn’t know much about pegasi, but he did know that horses weren’t supposed to speak. He clung tight to his branch and closed his eye, hoping the strange thing would go away.
“Hey, uh Twi,” the pegasus called back to the ground, “there’s nopony up here, but I’m pretty sure I found what made the noise.”
“What is it?” The hidden voice replied.
“Um... I have no idea. It’s like Spike, but it’s got one big eye where its head should be, and it’s got soft pasty skin instead of scales, and it doesn’t have a tail, and it’s got little bat-like ears...”
“So it looks nothing like Spike at all,” the other voice sounded annoyed. “Can you get it out of the tree?”
“Sure thing!” Fblthp felt the pegsus’s legs wrap around his body. The coat was soft, almost like velvet. Fblthp felt the pegasus extricate him from the tree — he was nowhere near strong enough to stop the pegasus, so he didn’t bother to resist — and lower him to the ground.
When he finally felt earth under his feet, he opened his eye again. The cyan pegasus was standing near a lavender one, but something was wrong with the second one. It took Fblthp a moment to figure out what the problem was, before he realized: the second one didn’t have wings! It wasn’t a horse, either, Fblthp knew what horses were supposed to look like. Horses don’t have bony protrusions in the middle of their head. Without wings, it couldn’t be a pegasus, either. Maybe it was the result of one of Momir Vig’s old experiments?
Fblthp tried to make himself look as small and uninteresting as possible. His genius ploy didn’t work; both equines kept staring at him. Were they smiling? Fblthp didn’t know very much about animals. Could horses smile?
“Hello!” The purple one said. Fblthp whimpered. “Uh... my name is Twilight Sparkle,” she lifted a hoof to point at herself, “and the pegasus that saved you from the tree is Rainbow Dash,” she gestured to the pegasus. “Do you have a name?”
Fblthp murmured his name.
Twilight and Rainbow looked at each other. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” Twilight said, “could you repeat yourself?”
Fblthp said his name again, being careful to enunciate this time.
“Can it even talk?” Rainbow asked. Fblthp nodded vigorously. Of course he could talk. Just because he didn’t speak the same language as anyone else didn’t mean he couldn’t talk!
“Well then I don’t mean to be rude, but could you tell us your name one more time? It sounds like you have sialorrhea—”
“Twilight, stop making up words.”
“—or perhaps you’ve lost motor control of your tongue. I don’t mean to offend, but it’s very difficult to understand you.”
Fblthp repeated his name for a third time. This time he did his utmost to enunciate, and he spoke each syllable slowly to make sure the two ponies could digest them one at a time.
“I don’t think we’re mishearing it, Twilight, I think that is its name.”
“Grksbk? What kind of parent would name their child something like that?”
“I know, right? What do you think we should do?” Rainbow turned away from Twilight and faced Fblthp again. “We’ve gotta get this thing out of the open before anypony sees us. There’s no way this quivering ball of fear could survive meeting Pinkie without having a heart attack.”
“Ftlubg, can you come inside?” The purple pony’s bony protrusion began to glow and a door in the side of the oak tree swung open in response. “How about a nice cup of tea to calm your nerves?” That was definitely a smile, Fblthp was certain of it. He felt better about himself for discovering something new: horses can smile. The offer of hospitality didn’t hurt, either. Dirt paths and doors in trees and strange horses with bony protrusions was all scary and strange, but these two seemed very friendly, at least.
As Fblthp walked into the tree, he heard Twilight ask Rainbow to go fetch someone — or something — called “Fluttershy.” A cold sense of dread grasped Fblthp. Maybe these two weren’t as friendly as he thought.
This was definitely the most alien place he had ever been.