I was admitted to the hospital a week ago. True to what the doctors said, I was finally able to use my hands.

Boing!

I started reading the book I got from Lyra. Learning how to do magic, I never thought it would ever happen. It was just a childish dream back on Earth, and yet here...

I still couldn’t believe it was real, even though my injuries proved otherwise. You can’t blame me, this was a lot to take in. I guess it’s because I finally had time to think about this whole situation that it hit me how surreal this all was.

Here I was, reading a book about the laws of magic and their application in life while covered in a special healing paste, under my bandages. In a world where, as I learned, two princesses lift the sun and moon. A freaking sun and moon orbit around the planet instead of the other way around! Trying to check whether or not it was true was going to be my goal.

I smiled slightly as I realized that I still had one more device at my disposal, other than my phone. Something that may allow me to make sense of this strange world and give me an advantage later on. Whenever I was forced to do nothing, my mind started always creating plans, plots, anything. When reading a sci-fi book or playing such game, I always checked how much of the technology used there was already existing, to know what was actually stopping the human race from inventing such a thing.

“Could you please stop that? I have to start at the same line. Every. Single. Time.” I glared at Gilda, who was bouncing a rubber ball against the wall of the hospital room.

I forgot to mention that, while I could occupy myself with my book, my companions were bored out of their minds. Gilda was annoying me and Lyra was simply watching her.

When most of your money went to cover a hotel room, hospital fees and a book about runes, there’s not much you can do in Silvercrest. According to Gilda, at least.

Apparently, Lyra made Gilda interested in my world. I wanted her to wait until I decide to talk about it on my own. She isn’t a patient griffon, though.

‘While magic itself is a term that is used to describe the action of focusing and controlling thaumaturgical energies through the spell matrix, it is more commonly used when referring to the energy itself. Plants and minerals that may be described as magical, in fact accumulated high concentration of thaumaturgical energy. Said energy slowly influenced the matter in question and changed its structure. It is hard to tell what is the factor that determines the effect of said cha-’

I glared at the griffon. “No matter what, I am going to read this chapter, and there isn’t ennething you can do about it!”

“Saying what like what?” I feigned ignorance. I wanted her to ask that very question, and it worked. Trying to achieve such a thing was hard on Earth, and oddly, it worked perfectly in a place without internet.

I crossed my arms. “There isn’t ennething weird with the way I say ‘ennething’!”

She took a deep breath to steady herself. Lyra was simply watching the ensuing exchange and struggling not to giggle.

Bonds Beyond Species

A My Little Pony: FiM Fanfiction

As presented by Yasahiro

Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit, fan based story. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro, reinvented by Lauren Faust. Please support the official release.

And speaking of release, I think someone should unchain me from this keyboard, right?

Hello?

After a successful reference on my part, Gilda decided to wait for me to finish that chapter. She didn’t seem to like it, which was the point. Laughter is the best medicine, and boy, did I need some. I smiled and closed the book, placing it on the nightstand.

I smiled. “Then gather round, because I am going to tell you about the spectacular and frightening world that I lived in!”

They occupied the chairs that were in the room. My eyes were drawn immediately to the odd way that Lyra was sitting.

What should I tell them about my world? I guess I might start with the basics. Humans are warriors, we thought we were alone in the universe, yadda, yadda, yadda.

“Lyra, do you remember that moment when I yelled out that humans are the ‘true warrior race’?”

“Even though I was trying to intimidate those thugs, I guess that is true. Humans are warriors, survivors. On my planet, everything we accomplished was done thanks to what we managed to invent. Our world has no magic at all.”

“All that was Lyra’s doing, and for that, I’m grateful. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her.”

Lyra smiled before frowning slightly. “There would be no need for that if you didn’t keep getting us into situations like that!”

I laughed nervously and scratched the back of my head. “I guess that’s true.”

On Lyra’s face, I could see a thoughtful look. “When I talked to you before, I only asked about yourself and the devices you had with you. You’ve never told me how you raise the sun and the moon on your world.”

I blinked. With all that was happening, I never told her about it. “They raise themselves.”

They both looked me as if I was crazy. I guess I was, after all that happened. Either that, or it was my normal state.

“What.” Gilda said. Not asked, not yelled out. It was a simple, plain ‘what’.

“The mass of the sun is far greater than that of the earth and its gravity, along with the planet’s inertia, causes the planet to orbit around it. Same thing happens with the moon, but it is smaller than the planet, and therefore it is circling around Earth. Like I said, no magic.”

Gilda snorted. “I guess you are going to tell us next that the clouds move by themselves and animals take care of themselves?” She started chuckling.

She immediately stopped laughing. I noticed at that point that Lyra did not join her in the laughing. She just sat there and stared at me with wide eyes.

“Your whole planet is like a giant Everfree forest..." She looked down for a second. “That explains why you had such a hard time believing me when I was telling you about Equestria. You weren’t just talking about spells when you said...” She looked up. “No magic?”

I nodded. “No magic at all. We didn’t need it to survive. True, life was hard, yet we slowly adapted. We learned how to work with what we have and improve upon it. We didn’t have magic to control the weather, but we could still influence the world. And yet, said influence was usually negative. We were taking the resources we had for granted, and when they started running out, fights broke out, sometimes even wars. We did not need magic for that, rapid technological progress being more than enough. Yet, it made our wars... destructive.” I stopped smiling as I said that. “The reason another all-out war didn’t start in my world... is because the casualties would be too high. Our weapons are too powerful.”

Gilda waved her claws around, as if to dismiss that. “Come on, how ‘powerful’ could they be?”

“We can decimate entire cities and make that area uninhabitable for years. It happened during the last all-out war. The research on those weapons has only progressed further since then.” I sighed. “And it happened about seventy years ago.”

They sat there, stunned. I think there was one quote that said, ‘Humanity, history’s greatest monsters.” I guessed that was what they were thinking. I expected Lyra to be angry, furious, scared. That was why I didn’t want to tell her about this.

“What sort of creatures would force your race to develop weapons of mass destruction like that?”

“On my world, us humans are the only known sentient species. All our wars were fought against ourselves.” I closed my eyes to avoid looking at their faces. “There was always a ‘reason’ to fight. It was either religion, appearance based differences, different culture. Anything was enough of a reason.” I chuckled dryly. There was no humor in it. “I guess developing such powerful weapons was a good thing. It made us aware of a thing called Mutually Assured Destruction. If we continued fighting, we would only destroy each other, so we stopped. People say that the greatest monster is man...”

Once more, I expected to see fear on their faces. Yet, before I opened my eyes, I felt something wrap itself around my chest. I felt something wet on my chest. I opened my eyes. Lyra was hugging me, crying.

“You are anything but a monster! Kaisei, you traveled with me, you were nice to me, you tried to protect me. A monster wouldn’t have done that! Even if your world is bad, you are an example that it does have good people in it.” Lyra cried out, her snout buried in my chest.

My wounds had not healed yet, but I didn’t notice the pain. A smile started appearing on my face as I realized that Lyra didn’t care what humanity had done. I looked towards Gilda, she also had a smile on her face, as if to show that she agreed with Lyra. My fears faded away. I didn’t think I was a monster, yet some could, but now, even if others judged me on the actions of humanity, I had friends that would back me up. True trust can’t be shaken like that. Back on Earth, I thought that such trust didn’t exist. I have never been happier to have been proven wrong.

I hugged Lyra back and allowed myself to relax. I was among friends. We sat like that for a minute before Lyra raised her head.

“I think... if the mass freezing in the Hearth's Warming Eve story wasn’t caused by windigoes, ponies would turn to war like humans...”

She smiled. “Remind me to bring you to the play about it, once we get to Equestria.”

I tried to nod, but stopped in the middle of said action. “Wait... I thought Equestria was the name of this world.”

Gilda spoke this time. “No. Equestria is the name of the nation. Therefore, you are outside of Equestria at the moment.”

“Huh, the more you know I guess...” It seemed like I still had a lot to learn about.

She tapped her chin with her talon, as if in thought. “Still, it’s impossible that, with all of your advanced technology, all you invented were weapons.”

I shook my head. “Oh no, we created much, much more. If I were to name every beneficial invention made by the human race, I think I would keep talking until I’m released from the hospital.”

“Such as?” Our griffon companion asked me, as if challenging me. Well, challenge accepted.

“How about I show you...” I grinned. “Lyra, would you kindly bring me the saddlebags with my stuff?”

A green aura enveloped the bags in question, lifting them into the air before they floated towards me. I grabbed them and the aura disappeared.

I opened the flap on the saddlebags and reached into them, before taking out a rectangular device. Something I thanked all deities that I still had with me. I opened it by separating it into two halves and turned it on.

It was a laptop. I didn’t have time earlier to use it, neither have I checked if it was being charged constantly just like my phone. My smile got wider as I realized that it indeed was.

“Amazing...” Lyra said. “It’s just like your phone, but bigger and, let me guess, better?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Not only it can process information faster, but by using a keyboard, it allows one to reach one hundred words per minute when writing. It is really useful.” I created a new document in Word and typed something to demonstrate.

Gilda crossed her arms. “So you made an oversized, fancy notepad? Big deal...”

I turned towards her with a grin that might’ve split my face. “Oversized notepad? Oh no, it is capable of doing much more. Something most of humanity spends their life on.”

Seeing as this was the laptop I had bought to work on, only about seventy percent of its memory was filled with stuff from internet and things that belonged to me. That included one important category. I moved the cursor on the screen to one of the shortcut icons. I watched as the program started turning on.

Being able to play video games again brought back my inner child. It could have also been the reactions of my friends as they were amazed by the wonders of said games. Their comments just deserved their own series on Youtube.

Still, all good things must come to an end. One of the nurses came by our room to tell us that visiting hours were over. Lyra embraced me once more before saying goodbye. After which, she walked out of the room. I could hear the sound of her hoofsteps growing fainter. I moved my eyes to my right, Gilda was still in my room, staring at me.

I narrowed my eyes. I did make the right decision, at least in my opinion. I voiced my objection. “But this way, she slowly got used to me and got to know me better. This way, she accepted this fact more easily.”

She closed her eyes. “Maybe, but I talked to her recently. From the way she described you, I realized you talk about accomplishment, skills. You didn’t talk to her about what sort of person you are, neither did you really talk about yourself. She said that she couldn’t recognize you any time you fought, like you were a different person from the one she travelled with. Especially when you faced off against Captain Stump. You made her worry, Kaisei.”

I looked down. I thought I could easily read her feelings, that I was doing what was best. I made a mistake. As I have always done back on Earth. I didn’t realize my actions had different effect than I planned.

“I did my best to show her that I’m not evil. I thought actions speak louder than words.”

“They do. Kaisei, Lyra cares about you. She isn’t going to suddenly start hating you for something like that, but there is time for actions and there is time for words.” I could see the sadness in her face now. “If I talked with Rainbow Dash instead of acting like we were back at the Junior Speedsters, it would have ended up differently.”

You dun goofed Kaisei. You dun goofed... I will have to fix this issue as soon as possible. I will need to talk to Lyra, but for now...

Bonds Beyond Species

by Yasahiro

Episode Five: Drama Center