//------------------------------// // Chapter One: Cold // Story: Tear of a flower // by Zephyr //------------------------------// I've been in this new world for four days. The locals called it 'Equestria', the land of harmony and peace. And why is this so important? Because in my original world, there were wars all the time. My race wasn't able to stop itself from self destruction. But this place... it's wonderful. And distressing for me. As I said, I arrived here about four days ago or around that. How did I get here? I have not the slightest idea. My memories have broken, shattered around the time when I left my original world, like as a dream fades if you don't concentrate on remembering it. This new world's completely different lifestyle was... overwhelming. Of course, there was crime and other things like that, but except these little disturbances, the society lived in a utopia. It was... too perfect. And that made me think - what drove me into a lethargic state. And why did I tell you this all? Because I have to choose now, choose about being happy and live the rest of my life with my love, or go home, to the place where I came from and where I belong. I can't choose. Am I a monster? The only way you can tell me, if you listen my story. It all started with a breath... -Chapter One- .:Cold:. Cold. Not just the simple, friendly one what makes you shiver. It was the mean one what freezes you through to the bone. And I didn't feel anything else, just that cold. All of the little heat-sensors in my skin were screaming to my brain to do something. But my brain lost its interest and thought that it's very comfortable here, time to sleep. 'NO!' The instinct of survival cried up. Just like if I was shocked by a few thousand volts, I inhaled, a really big one - and regretted it right in the next second. The cold was real, my limbs were numb and the unbearable feeling of the freezing flooded my brain in a second. "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!" My painful shout was loud, but there was nobody to hear it. Slowly, I opened my eyes, what revealed nothing but whiteness. After a few seconds I realized that I lie on my back and it's the sky that is white, because it's snowing. The tiny flakes of snow slowly fell on me, making a thick layer. "I don't wanna die..." I groaned in pain as I tried to move my arms to put myself in a sitting position. After four futile tries, I turned over and managed to push myself up to my feet. The view was astonishing. The place I laid was in a little clearing of a forest. The snow covered everything like a white blanket, making me think about sleeping. It was very quiet. I heard the soft sound of the falling snowflakes. "Where the heck am I?" I said aloud. Old habit of me, it makes me a bit confident. As I checked my surroundings again and again I was more and more sure about one thing. "This can't be Earth. But how?" The lack of sounds made me think this, the place I call 'home' always had sounds of it's own: low rumbles, high pitched beeping, and everything else what the mark of the human machines can give. After standing still for a minute, my survival instinct signed to me again and I began to move in a random direction. 'Why should I go to a direct way if everything looks the same?' I thought and tried to answer my own question about this unknown land. Short time later I stopped and looked around again. Further examining followed, I got to know which climate zone I could possible be. "This is a deciduous forest, these trees are oaks and beeches... aaaahhh, my toes are frooozen! Just like my ears..." Didn't I tell you? I was in a sweater with matching pants and I wore sport shoes. Clearly, not enough for this temperature. "Alright, it must be winter then, somewhere in the mountains of Europe... Or North-America... Or I don't know, I'm not a cartographer!" I exhaled. My breath was clearly visible and was visible for 10-12 seconds. That means the temperature is around -4°C. "Oh, great, I'm going to be a snowman soon... no, I can find a shelter or something, there MUST be some kind of house somewhere!" I said and continued my aimless walk into the unknown. To my bad luck, my trusty cell-phone wasn't with me. But my inner clock told me that I've been wandering around for at least 40 minutes. That means my core-temperature will sink soon, and I will slow down until I stop - and die. Knowing this I doubled my speed. "You will not get me, I gave you a try earlier. You didn't want me, now you won't get me!" I said half-shouting. Death was close to me and that made me determined. "No, no, no, nonononoooo!" I began to run... and fell over in a hidden root of a tree. "Owww..." I moaned in pain, I fell on my knees, making them ache. But the pain was worth it. Lady Fortuna smiled on me, there was a building in the direction I looked. "Jackpot..." I pulled myself up again and began to wobble to that building. "Just get... there and I... will take a... hot bath..." Moving meter from meter, limping to my goal, my energy slowly drained. The distance was maximum 50 meters when my left leg gave in and collapsed. "You want me to crawl? Then I will!" With a new wave of determination I moved closer and closer. Only 10 meters remained when my last drop of energy was used up. Then I just laid down again. I knew a catchphrase for situations like this. "So near yet so far..." I said it, watching the weird little house. I was about to check it more closely when an insuperable feeling washed through my body. 'Oh, so that's the feeling when your body shuts down.' I thought, I wasn't able to move my mouth. I heard stepping like sounds before I blacked out. 'Why it is dark here?' My mind wandered. 'Is this death? Dark and... warm? Hm, it's pretty comfortable, I think I like it.' But something wasn't right, and this poked my thoughts. 'Hmm... but I was in the snow... white and cold, it can't be... Or what? I'm confused...' I felt something. 'What the heck... So I'm not dead! But then, where am I? I should open my eyes.' Blackness. 'Uhm, okaaay, there must be something with my eyes then, try the other four senses.' I tried to sniffle in the air but I smelled nothing. 'Okay, maybe my nose went offline too. Next one!' I cracked my mouth open (what made my lips hurt) and took a painful, deep breath. I tasted something in the air, some kind of food. 'Is this soup? Yes, definitely it is.' Thanks to my 'special talent' I was able to taste the smells and tell what was the source of it. Quite useful when you are hungry. 'Alright, there is dark and food. Next sense...' I listened my surroundings. I heard the ticking of a clock, the almost inaudible sound of the falling snow colliding with a window and (from an other room, I guessed) muffled speaking. Unfortunately I wasn't able to understand the speaking, it was too muffled. 'So, I'm in a room, with at least one window, I lay in a comfy bed, there is a bowl of soup, perhaps made from vegetables... hmm, something is missing...' I thought about the missing piece when I heard the sounds of footsteps getting close. 'So that was it. My savior comes to see me.' I heard a door opening with a quiet creak then somebody came in. Because the unknown person saved my life and put me in a bed, I thought that he or she can't be hostile at the least. "Uhm, hello?" I said weakly and quietly, my throat hurt too. "Oh, you are finally awake." It was a young woman's voice, I thought that she could be in her late twenties. "Erm.. Yeah, I did wake up, but I can't see, can you tell me why?" 'Time to know why my eyes are offline...' "Your head is bandaged, just like the rest of your body. You got a lot of frostbites." Her voice was calming, but the thing she said made me upset. And why I was bandaged? "What? Frostbites? Am I going to lose my fingers? Or nose? Nonono, I don't want to be defective!" "Don't worry, your wounds are healing well, you will be fine before you know it. Do you want to eat some soup? It's still hot." I thought about the situation. I remembered the last things before my blackout, the little house, the snow, the sound of somebody coming... "You saved me?" I asked her suddenly. There was a few seconds pause, probably a shocked blinking, then she answered. "Y-yes, I found you lying in the snow, and I brought you in my home." She was confused and I felt a bit guilty because of this. "Sorry for startling you, I didn't meant it. And thank you. I would be surely dead by now. By the way, where am I and how long I was out?" Finally I was able to ask these questions. "You were sleeping for..." She stopped for a second, to check the clock, I thought. "For more than nine hours. And as I mentioned before, you are in my home." "Nine hours? Oh, well.. But where is your home? What city?" "It's in Windystone. But I'm sure you don't know where it is, right?" She asked quietly, her voice was sad. "Yes, never heard of it... What's the problem? Is something wrong?" I felt that there was something that bothered her, something that she didn't want to tell me - but I must know it. "N-no..." She sighed. "Yes, there is. But this would probably shock you, so you should see it yourself." "Alright... I guess? Are you going to take my bandages down now?" "No. Not yet. You still need to heal. And you should eat too." After all, she sounded like a lonely girl, saddened by the world, happy because she got something to do (or somebody to take care of?) and sad because of something, something big. "Hmm, okay, give me that soup." I lifted my arms, just to find it unmanageable, I felt like they were made out of iron. "Aaalright, I can't move my arms, greeaat..." I said sarcastically. The still unknown girl giggled and that was enough to remember me about asking her name. "Can you help me, dear unkown lady? My name is Martin O'Donell by the way. "The name is Violet Dawn." She said and giggled again. "Interesting name... are you a native American?" I didn't know any other cultures what named theirs after the things in the nature. But her name could be that by coincidence. "American? What is an American?" Her voice said that she really didn't know anything about it. "Violet... is this planet Earth?" My logic worked fast and this was the only question what I had to say. "Earth? N-no.. This is planet Equis, and you are in the Kingdom of Equestria..." All of my thoughts were washed away and made place for one thing. 'I'm on an alien planet speaking with an actual alien.' I don't know why, but this flipped my consciousness switch to off. I woke up again, this time with a small gasp. The things before my fainting slowly sunk in - I don't remember how, but I've been sucked into an alien world. My biological knowledge told me that this world must be Earth, and not that ridiculous place what Violet said, but I know if somebody is lying and she wasn't. 'Alright, alright, maybe it's just a bad prank or something. Noooo, it can't be, I feel the slight pain of those frostbites. But can it be true? Oh my gosh, what will I do here...' I groaned quietly. As an answer I heard Violet again. "Are you alright?" She was worried and I felt her weight on the bed. "I thought something bad happened!" "I'm fine... you weren't joking, right?" "Joking? You mean Equis and Equestria?" "Yeah..." "No, I would never. You really are in this place." This hit me again, but this time I was able to accept it without blacking out. "So, you aren't a human. How can you speak my language?" Two important questions - again. "No, I'm not 'hu-man' and you speak my language!" 'What.' "Alright. Violet, please take these bandages off of my head, I want to see you." She didn't answer. "Violet?" I grew suspicious. "I... I shouldn't, you will surely freak out and-" I stopped her, I can't stand if somebody think things about me doing things I wouldn't do lest they saw me doing it beforehand. "No, Violet, I won't, I swear! Please be kind and free me from the bandages." I heard her breathing, then a weird sound what was like the sound of a high-tech gadget from a sci-fi. Then I felt the bandages getting loose. Few seconds later the last line of the cloth has left my head, leaving an unpleasant brightness, I had to shut my eyes. Half minute later I was able to open them and was instantly shocked by the thing I saw. "What the-" The thing I saw was a gray pony with big emotional blue eyes and violet mane. But the most intriguing part was a single horn on the top of her forehead. 'This is a pony. A speaking pony. Wait, no, it's a unicorn. Am I in a world full of ponies? Some little girls could kill for this. Awesome, a speaking unicorn... gah, what am I thinking, not 'it', her! She is a speaking unicorn pony. Okay, I have gone mad or somebody is in his funny mood.' She just looked in my eyes while I thought these. When I realized that I was staring at her, she frowned. "Are you... scared?" She was definitely real and definitely worried. "N-no, I'm just surprised to see a... a... unicorn... you know, you are a myth where I come from?" She raised her eyebrows and gave me a questioning look. "I.. I will tell you later, Violet..." I said and began to examine her more. She was indeed gray, a bit metallic, plain gray. Not too special coat color for a pony. But her mane was different. As I said before, it was violet, a darker shade of it to be specific, and it was shoulder long, cut in a straight style so it was of the same length everywhere. Her eyes were almond-shaped with a very beautiful dark blue color. If I think about it, I handled this new situation better than I should, maybe that was becasue she saved my life. I don't know. "Can I touch you?..." I asked her finally. "Y-yes if you want to..." She answered sheepishly. Somehow I managed to lift my left arm, managing to run my fingers down on her mane, stopping my hand on her cheek. I held her head for a few seconds. As response, she pushed back my hand a bit, just like a pet dog would if she wanted you to pet her. After this, I began to speak, calmly. "You are the softest thing I ever touched, Violet. First I thought things about you, but you..." She smiled at me. "Yes? Me?" She questioned quietly. "You are beautiful..." She blushed, very hard - I don't know how could she blush through her coat but I don't care. "I know that I'm an alien, and stuff, and you are not even my species, but you are beautiful." "T-thanks..." She said and blushed even more, her cheeks were practically glowing with the reddish hue. Back on Earth I was able to see the beauty of everything. Some people think that I have a too vivid imagination, but I never listened to them. 'She have a lot of anthropomorphic lines, maybe that's why I think that she is beautiful.' I thought and looked in Violet's eyes again. A minute of silent staring later I realized that I made a very intimate contact with her by touching her face. That led me to pull my hand back and ask her the most obvious questions I could ask. "Humans aren't exist here, right? Heh, how could they, there are no noises everywhere like back on Earth... " I sunk in my thoughts for a moment. "I wonder why you aren't freaked out by now..." She said in a sad, gloomy tone, looking down at her forehooves. "What? Oh, well, I freaked out for first, but I have seen so many things, you can't really surprise me. True, my confidence was on its deepest point when I saw you, but heck, you are the most pleasant view since a long time!..." I said, making her blushing again. 'If I keep complimenting to her, she will kiss me sooner or later. Hm, she really looks lonely, I can't even imagine how long she wasn't in contact with anyone, if an alien monster like me makes her blush that easy...' I thought and my eyes wandered off again, just to make contact with her's. "You are a really weird.. thing, Martin." She said and gave me a happy smile. 'What should I say to this?... Wait a second. I just wake up in this world, almost died due to the winter, then she found me, brought me to her home, and I can totally say that she likes me. An alien. A monster. An outsider. Something is off here...' Finally, I returned her smile, still thinking about the situation.