//------------------------------// // Chapter IV: How to Speak Equish // Story: Frigid // by Yuri Petrovitch //------------------------------// The morning sun rose over the eastern mountains, shedding light onto the dark green valley bellow and banishing the shadows from the night before. The fiery orange glow from the sphere set the snow capped mountains ablaze into a pleasant peachy colour as it passed over head. The pines of the valley forest also started to become a lighter shade of emerald as more and more light filled the forest, turning the once frightful place into a more peaceful one. In the distance several song birds began to rise and sing to the rest of the woodland critters, their chirps weaving through the bark and snow. From the cliff's edge Celestia couldn't help but smile at the sight before her, and for a moment just let her worries be washed away with the receding darkness. She took a deep breath and let the fresh morning air fill her lungs. The young mare's morning routine always began this way, it woke her up and simultaneously re-energized her stores of energy inside her. This morning however was a lot more different than the every other since Celestia now had a "guest" to share her perch with. At first Celestia had been started nearly out of her fur when the creature emerged from the cave, but when it did nothing more than plop itself next to her on the cliff and stare off in to the distance Celestia eased up a notch. It was a mess; it had taken off it's hat and it's seemingly only patch of hair was ruffled, the short brown hairs jutting out at funny angles. Under each eye purple marks had formed, it's chestnut eyes were blood shot and the eyelids were an even darker shade of pink. It's other patch of hair around it's jaw had also grown out, though only marginally. It looked tired and exhausted, a feeling that Celestia could share in common with this odd being. It peered back at her from the corner of it's left eye and laughed when he saw her equally messy appearance, then it said something in it's strange language and laughed once again; though it seemed like the laugh was sort of forced it did seem as if it was trying to cheer her up a bit. It looked back out across the valley once more, a ghost of a smile had formed on it's mug this time. It was a weird creature, but Celestia had to admit that it wasn't as fearsome as she once though it was. The sound of several hooves clopping against a rock surface came from behind the duo. Celestia craned her neck around and the creature shuffled to get a better look at the visitor. The cobalt blue mane of Luna appeared from the cave's shadows, and when the ball of hair met the morning light it recoiled slightly, like a bat from light. The frizzled mane parted and Luna's bed ragged muzzle poked out. The filly looked just as worn out as the other two, yet she still had a sparkle in her eye that told of her pent up excitement. "Mornin' Sis, Mornin' Steve," Luna said as she joined them on the cliff. She sat in between the gap her big sister and the creature had made. She yawned and shook her head once, her mane fell back to it's normal state and all traces of it being the rats nest that it had once been vanished as if by magic. "So," Luna began switching her attention between her company on ether side, "has he said anything yet that you can understand?" "No, I'm afraid not," Celestia sighed, "Everything he says sounds like nothing more than gibberish, and I doubt that he can understand us as well." As if on cue the Creature let out a few rumbling notes that nether of the ponies could decipher, just proving Celestia's point further. "Well that sucks. If only he could speak pony, then we could try and understand him a bit more. I'd really like to know how he got his flying machine to work too. It was sooo coool to watch it soar across the night sky! It was as if it was enchanted, and it could use magic to do the impo-" Luna cut herself off mid sentence, and stared out across the valley. Celestia became a bit curious as to her little sister's odder than normal behavior, and sure enough her suspicions were confirmed when Luna had a wide grin that stretched across her muzzle. It was the look of a pony with an ingenious idea. "Hold on, I'll be right back!" With that Luna darted back into the cave in a cloud of dust. Both the creature and Celestia watched the filly go with mild amusement. The creature turned and raised an eyebrow at Celestia, who in turn simply shrugged back. Moment's later Luna came rushing back out with something in her mouth; it was Celestia's spell book. "Wa don we yush dis 'ook ta jicks 'em?" Luna said around a mouthful of parchment. She trotted over and laid the tome on ground next to Celestia. The creature was now wide awake and had his full attention directed at the old book. His eyes were lit of puzzlement and intrigue as he glanced over the green cover. Steadily he reached out one of his strange paws and was about to touch the spell book when Celestia swatted his appendage away. The creature recoiled and glared at the mare, and in return Celestia glared back as she levitated her precious treasure away from him. "Didn't you say before that there was a spell in there that could make a pony learn a new language in the blink of an eye, Tia? Why not use that on him?" Luna beamed at her bright idea. Celestia knew what Luna was getting at, but she doubted that it would work. There was even the chance that if she didn't preform the spell correctly it could possibly back fire and hurt somepony. Celestia knew that she had enough magic for that kind of spell, but she had never preformed anything this advanced, so she couldn't share her sister's optimism. The young mare looked back up at the mysterious creature beside her on the cliff's edge. It was an oddity, and somehow deep inside her Celestia was dying to unravel the secrets about this peculiar being. Her curiosity wanted to ask it what it was, if it had a name, where did it come from and if there was more of him. She wanted to ask it about it's flying machine and about the odd clothing that it wore; that issue with the thing's foot wear still unnerved her. The only thing that was getting in the way was this vocal barrier that made each party oblivious to the other's words. Out of further prompting from Luna, Celestia opened the tome and flipped through the pages until she came to the one that held what they were looking for. On first glance it wasn't anything complex, only taking up about half the page. The book was for aspiring mages so it only held spells ans incantations that could match a beginner's caliber, yet when Celestia read it over she noted a warning label near the bottom that said the spell should be done with an instructor's supervision. A bead of sweat ran down Celestia's neck and it felt like a lump had formed in her throat. Should I really do this? What if I fail and end up injuring the creature, or worse? I'm not sure if I can fix magical injuries just yet, so this could really put him in danger. Besides, something like this needs the other pony's consent, and I'm not so sure that he could understand what I would be doing. And even if I do succeed, what then? Celestia let out a heavy sigh and put the book back down. She knew what she was going to do, and she prayed that the creature did not come to resent her for it. Damian was a wreck that morning, his back was stiff, his legs were cramped from staying still for so long, he hadn't had a shower so he knew that he had a serious case of BO emitting from his body, and even without a mirror he knew that he looked like a walking corpse. At this point in time he would literally beat to death a wild grizzly with nothing more than his fists just to get a cup of strong coffee and a doughnut. All in all it was far from the worst night he had ever had. His little fantasy friends seemed to have had a rough night as well judging from their state when he first greeted them. That white and pink one sure looked like it was suffering the morning after a hard night's party with a hang over. That blue one however I have no idea where it get's it's fuel from; it seems like it could be featured in a Duracell commercial, even if it didn't run on batteries. At the moment both were leading him down the cliff via a semi-hidden path. Even if it was daylight Damian wasn't so sure if he could have found it, so he was quite grateful to the two winged-unicorn-horse-thingies; especially since the only other way down was the express rout. I've already tried that, and I'm not one for sticking my head in a lion's mouth twice. Eventually the trio made it to the ground floor where they stopped in the small snowy field. The two mythical creatures did an about face and stared a bit unnervingly at Damian. "Ookay, um, thanks for saving my ass back there, twice in fact, but I really need to get back to my shit before the Search and Rescue teams thing I've been eaten by wolves," The unicorn's didn't respond. For awhile the two parties held a little stare off, slowly Damian started to back away from them; regretfully that meant heading back towards the cliff behind him. "So, ahem, you wouldn't mind leading me back to my plane, right? I honestly have no clue where I'm at, and I doubt there's a local gas station I can ask for directions. Or at the very least, could you just point me in the right direction?" No response. "Alright, this is getting a bit creepy. So, if you don't mind, I'll be off now...Later!" And with that Damian spun on his heels to his right and began running for the safety of the forest. One thing though, running in the snow isn't all that easy, even more so when the snow was a light fresh layer of powder that was being churned under Damian's boots. It took several strides for the young man to even make it half way to the cover of the fir trees, and the moment he began his sprint Damian knew deep inside that he was doomed to never reach his goal. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see the white one's horn charge up with pink magic and be unloaded in his direction. Oh god damn it! Were the man's last thought's before the ball of energy hit him in the back. "Oh my goodness, are you all right?" A young girl's voice asked. Damian tried to open his eyes and remove the darkness, but the splitting migraine had other plans. There are no real words to express the amount of pain Damian was in; but a suitable way to describe it is to imagine your head being pulverized by several mallets, smashed into a concrete wall, and then cracked open only to have an egg beater grind up his grey matter. His only solace was the cold snow under his head acting like an ice pack. "Oh gods, did anyone get the number of that truck?" Damian groaned no one in particular. "What's a truck?" Another more youthful voice piped up, the voice sent spikes directly into the man's forehead and he cringed. Right now, all Damian wanted to do was to crawl into a deep, dark hole, and wait for the ringing to stop. "Shhh, don't ask him any questions Luna, I think he's in pain," the first one spoke in a more hushed tone. Well, no shit Sherlock, I was just hit by an energy beam from some sort of mutant horse! Damian internally bellowed; but then when what he had just internally said finally clicked the pain was momentarily forgotten. In a flash Damian's eyes flung open and he sprung his torso upright from the snow's embrace. There he was, still in the snow covered field, with those two magical horses staring directly at him from only a meter away. At first Damian attempted to get up and run away; attempted being the key word here. When he brought his feet under him and stood up a wave of nausea swept over him, forcing him to double over and puke. From his hands and knees he kept on coughing until the pain went away. Angrily he wiped away the pile from his face and stared daggers at the magical creatures in front of him, "What the heck did you do to me?!" He demanded. Bother creatures flattened their ears and backed off a bit, the blue one hid behind the other's hind legs and stuck it's tongue out. "W-we're sorry, we j-just wanted to talk to y-you," it was one of the girl's voice's from before, though it sounded a lot more meek and it trembled with fear. Damian paused dusting himself to look for the source, though when he scanned the area surrounding him he found no trace of anyone else, just the two horses in front of him. What the heck, am I starting to hear things now...on second thought that might just be it since I already have a voice in my head. "Um, hello? Mister, I said I was sorry for casting the spell without your permission," again that girl was talking to him, but this time Damian got a good look at who was the source. That white unicorn thing was freaking talking! Out of instinct Damian instantly started peddling backwards in the snow until he had shuffled a good ten meters away from the fictional animals. His breath sped up, and he was sure that he was sweating more than a fat man in a sauna. Heart pounding Damian raised a finger and pointed it at the white one, "Y-you talked!" The white horse made an awkward smile and brought it's hoof up to rub the back of it's neck, "Yeah, I did just talk, but so are you really." Damian's brain was nearing it's processing limit with all this reality bending business; it was nearly too much for the grey matter to handle. One of Damian's eyes twitched as he tried to keep the shambles of his mind together, Alright, now not only is this horse a Magical Winged Unicorn, but apparently it can talk too! Dear lord, what am I? Alice in Wonderland? "Well I for one thing that this is pretty great! Now we can ask them where the plane is instead of probably dying while we run around the forest looking for it." The voice said cheerfully. Damian simply grunted back, true be told he hated taking sound advice from a hallucination. It just proved how far down the rabbit hole he had fallen. "Oh, and just so you know I can hear you, we are sharing the same head after all. And I also take offense to being called crazy by someone that's insane." Cradling his head in his hands Damian could feel his migraine coming back for another pass, and the bright day and snow didn't help on bit. The reason for his pain was probably from that thing that this creature in front of him shot at him when he was running away. "What did you shoot me with anyways?" The pink maned horse fidgeted, "Oh THAT, I just shot you with a Babel spell. It can imprint a language into its target, allowing them to instantly understand and speak in a tongue that they couldn't comprehend before. That's the reason why we can talk right now." As another spike was driven into his head Damian could literally hear his brain cells screaming out to him to end their misery. "That's highly unethical, you know that right?" "What does 'Uneth-hick-cal' mean?" The smaller horse piped up. "It means it was so wrong it was borderline evil. You brats should have asked me if I wanted my brain scrambled before you did this kind of shit," it felt like an ice pick was being jabbed into the young pilot's eye socket now. "W-we're sorry, but we really just wanted to talk to you. And what were we supposed to do if we wanted your permission? We could hardly understand each other before," The white one's magenta eyes looked remorseful, as she hung her head. "Well I guess that's true; but you could have tried. Heck, even a bad game of charades would have been better than shooting me like that." "Hey, do you have a name?" The blue one popped her head out from behind her furred cover; her large emerald eyes sparkling. Damian gave the young filly an icy stare and Luna ducked back behind her living shield, "Yeah, I have a name, but I thought that you were supposed to give your name before you ask for someone else's?" "Oh, um sorry about that," The white mythical horse said, and placed a hoof to her chest, "My name is Celestia, and this," She directed her hoof behind her to the head that was poking around her rear leg. A blue hoof popped out and waved back at the human, "Is my little sister Luna. Now can we have yours?" Damian softened up and let some of the tension out of his shoulders, "Well I guess it can't hurt to give you my name. My name is Damian Walker, but you can call me Mr. Walker." Celestia's ears flicked at the sound of the name and she began rolling the unfamiliar name around her mouth. "So Mr. Walker, that's an odd name. Is it because you like to travel a lot by walking?" Celestia innocently asked. "Well no, although I consider myself a seasoned traveler my name has nothing to do with that," Damian's headache was starting to pass and along with it the sensation that he was sitting on a life raft in a storm. Pushing himself once more to his feet resulted in success. As Damian stood at his full height he towered over Celestia and Luna, who each took a cautious step back. "Now then, now that we have that out of the way I have a question for you two." "Ooh, and what may that be?" Luna asked. Inhaling a deep breath the man filled his lungs for what he was about to say, "What in blue blazes are you freaks?!" He bellowed; the pent up frustrations from the last day or so being unleashed right then in that single question. Both creatures flattened their ears and cringed at the sudden yell. After the outburst an uneasy silence filled the gap in conversation, both parties were as confused as the other, but for different reasons. "U-um, both me and my sister are ponies Mr. Walker...or at least we think we are..." Celestia trailed off quietly. "Huh, What does that mean?" The man demanded, feeling much relieved after finding an outlet for his pent up emotions. Celestia shrunk back further, the distance between them was well beyond 15 meters "W-well, me and my sister aren't like the other ponies." "I can see that," Damian deadpanned, "I'm actually kind of happy that you know that you're different than the average horse." "Well aren't you a big meany pants! I liked you better Steve when you couldn't talk, because now you're just bullying my sister!" Luna shouted as she gained the courage to step out from behind her big sister. "What? Who's Steve?" Damian said, once again confused. "Never mind her, she's just upset that the other Ponies treat us like monsters. It's hard being a mix between a Unicorn and a Pegasus. That's why we live out here." A gloved hand was held up and Damian shook his head from side to side, "Wait just a moment! You mean to tell me that there are other cartoon character's running around the place?" "Um, I don't know what a 'Kar-Toon' is, but yes there are other ponies with wings and the ability to use magic, just not a combination of the two like us," Celestia had no clue as to what this thing was saying, but she had a few more questions of her own. "Now it's my turn, what are you exactly? And where did you come from?" Damian lowered himself to the snow and crossed his legs, he felt tired and out of energy, like he had aged a decade in the last ten hours, "Fine, I'm what's called a Human, and judging by your question I'd say that you don't have that many out here in the northern wastes, so I'll give you an abridged version. A human is an evolved monkey that uses his head and tools to accomplish what he wants. If on the off chance that I'm not in Kansas any more then I'd say that this place doesn't have any, well, except for me of course. So lets just say that I'm from a far away land and leave it at that." Celestia took several steps closer to the Human, her interest perked, "Interesting; and what of your flying machine?" Damian waved a hand in the air nonchalantly, "Oh that, it's called an airplane. It could fly very long distances and I used it to cart stuff around as a job; but now it's just a pile of useless scrap, it won't ever fly again," Celestia picked up a dejected tone in the Human's voice. "It's still very fascinating. How does it fly? Do you use magic to make it soar?" The distance was now close to five meters. "No, nothing like that. Where I come from Magic doesn't exist, and things such as yourself are reserved to fairy tales," Damian noticed Celestia getting reeled in by the topic, catching on to the pony's interest. He had a little light bulb moment, and started his plan. "It's really hard to explain just by myself, perhaps we can head on over there and I can show you exactly what you want to know?" Perfect, now I gave them a solid reason for bringing me back to the ruins of the Aurora. The white pony stopped her slow advance and put a hoof to her chin, contemplating what the Human had just said. She looked back down at her sister, who was vigorously nodding her head up and down in approval. Celestia then glanced back up at Damian from his spot on the frozen ground and sighed. "Fine, we'll take you to your machine Mr.Walker, but you have to promise me that you're going to show me how it works." "Then it's a deal." It had been at least over an hour since the trio had left the clearing below the cliff. Celestia was moved to the front of the group in order to fulfill her role as a guild, recalling the paths that Luna and her had taken the night before. It wasn't all that hard since most of their tracks in the snow hadn't been covered up by the snow just yet; though at some parts were a snow drift had formed, or another set of tracks had intersected theirs. If it wasn't for her familiarity with the forest Celestia knew that she might have lost the trail by now. It was also because of these reasons that she knew that the creature known as Mr.Walker had stuck with them. Speaking of which, he's been awfully quiet back there. Celestia turned her head just enough to peek behind her shoulder, and sure enough the bi-pedal creature was still keeping pace several meters behind her. At first Celestia had thought that it was because he walked on two legs that forced him to stick back, but it soon became apparent that that wasn't the case. Once or twice Celestia had seen him sprint in the snow, leaving a cloud of snow in his wake. When the Human got into a run he could probably match Celestia if he used his full strength. So Celestia came to the conclusion that he just wanted to keep some distance between them instead. Well that's fine I guess, I'm sure he just wants his space. So far Mr.Walker hadn't spoken anything more than the occasional comment about the forest or the snow, leaving Celestia slightly disappointed that he didn't make full use of his new ability to communicate with them. The spell wasn't easy to preform ether, as it nearly took out all of her magic. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it caused him a severe headache, and he's still mad that we didn't try and warn him we we're going to do that to him. Regardless, there was an awkward silence that prevailed in the air as they made their way along the forest. "Geez, I can't believe the Human doesn't like the name I gave him! He's totally the Steve type too," Luna pouted as she trotted next to Celestia. Celestia gave a chuckle, "Well, I guess it would be like as if he started calling you by some weird name like Snowball. I know that you wouldn't like that, so maybe he just feels that his own name is best for him." Luna huffed, but conceded none the less. Behind them Damian muttered something, and shook his head. His red scarf swaying back and forth. We was wearing his dark eye glasses once again and had tucked the rest of his head under his woolen hat; all together there wasn't much of his face that was uncovered. Celestia was still in awe at the sheer amount of clothing that he wore on his body. Sure, she had seen several other ponies wearing things like capes and boots, but the amount that covered the Human's body seemed ridiculous to her. It must be sweltering under there. Even so, Celestia had to admit that several of the clothing came in handy, especially the jacket and pants that had all those pockets and pouches; it was as if he could fit all of his belongings in them and still move easily around. When the group past a familiar gnarled tree trunk Celestia knew that they were coming up to their destination. As the moved closer to their goal evidence of the crash began to surface; several trees were knocked over, along with a few that had scorch marks covering their bark. Then once they past a large bubblegum berry bush the wreck came into view. Celestia couldn't help but gasp at what she saw. There in the field of snow was the Aurora, or what was left of it; the main hull had several large gashes that raked along its side, one of the wings was nearly buried under a snow drift while its counter part was leaning against a crop of fir. The red paint was chirped and blistered near where a fire had been. Even the snow was effected, as little black parts of metal littered the clearing and the snow closest to the wreckage had been turned a hideous black. The night's darkness had covered up most of the devastation, but now the mid day sun hadn't been so kind to the poor thing, and instead it revealed the ugly mess to the world. "Ah, just where I parked it. If I hadn't come sooner she might have been towed away," Damian laughed light heartedly as he walked up beside the two. He stood there looked at the blemish in the forest and placed his hands on his hips. His voice was cheerful as he said that, but Celestia saw that there was sadness in his eyes as he looked upon his machine. "Its nice to see you again, Aurora," and with that he started making his was across the debris field to the place where the sister's had found him before. Looking at the wreck and how it had effected the Human made Celestia almost think twice about asking how it once flew, almost. Only after a moments hesitation Celestia followed the Human. Luna was left standing in the snow by the edge of the forest all alone, "Wait up Tia! You can't just leave me back there!" She yelled as she galloped ahead. Damian by this time was already at the metal construct, eying it within a melancholic trance. He remembered all the flights that he'd made with the old girl, flying her from Calgary to Anchorage Alaska. He recalled his many adventures with his friend Riel as they made their deliveries. They had gotten into several fights with each other, many of them at a bar; but they always had forgiven each other the next day when they both shared the hangover. Looking at the remains of his plane only made it quite clear that he wasn't going back, and that he'd never see his friends or family ever again. Celestia and her sister had followed him and were staring at him, worry on their faces. Heh, well I guess these little fellas are too innocent and naive to really understand what's going on. I'm also not sure if I should be worried or happy with the fact that these things are so caring. It's almost like they're a distilled product of a childhood fantasy. "Um Mr.Walker, are you going to be alright? We could take a break from 'this' if you want," The pony named Celestia asked. Damian was moderately surprised that she was acting so mature, given that she was probably the same age as a Human thirteen year old girl. "Nah, I just got a bad case of nostalgia running though my veins, nothing to worry about really." "Oh...Okay," Celestia said, nodding her head. Yep, what I just said flew right over her head. Damian walked along the metal carcass until he reached the open hatch, and to no surprise the busted door was nowhere in sight. As the young man poked his head in the opening he saw that the snow had indeed made its claim to the interior since everything was covered in the stuff. "Just fucking peachy." Something hard pressed up against Damian's back suddenly, startled he flipped around only to find that the two ponies had been responsible for the unwanted breach in personal space. "What the heck?" Damian snapped, it really was like he was carting around a pair of kids, even though he never signed up to be their babysitter. "Um, weren't you going to tell us how your flying machine works?" Luna spoke up, her eyes were all over the place; it was like watching tacky bobble head that had just been shaken around on its spring. "Yeah yeah, later. Right now uncle Walker needs to find a few things in here," Damian said in a tired voice, the headache he had from when one of the puff balls had shot him was still lingering around in the back of his head, "And remember to stay close to the Aurora, I don't want to fish you out of a bear's stomach or anything." With that the man stepped inside the belly of the Aurora.