Twilight awoke in a very groggy state. She hadn't opened her eyes but she could feel a soft pillow beneath her head and a blanket draped over her body. She tried to open her eyes but they remained tightly shut. She let out a groan and rolled onto her side. Her hoof nudged against somepony else and she forced her eye's partially open to see who it was. When she opened her eyes she saw Applejack sleeping soundly close to her. Twilight also realized that she did not know where they were. They certainly weren't in her library and it didn't look like any room she had seen at Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight was puzzled by all of this and tried to recall how she had ended up in this unknown place. Her eyes widened as it all came rushing back. The experiment, the road, the accident, the mysterious creature, and the horrible discovery shortly after.
"Oh Celestia.. that all really happened didn't it? Fluttershy is.."
Twilight felt a deep sadness come over her as well as some anger.
'How could this have happened? Especially to a pony like Fluttershy, she didn't deserve what happened to her. Nopony does,' she thought.
The tears threatened to come again, but Twilight held them back. The time for crying was over, she had to be strong and try to find a way out of wherever they were. There would be time to mourn once they were away from danger. She turned and was about to wake Applejack but saw something that made her stop. Time seemed to freeze as she spotted somepony that she thought she would never see again. Sleeping on a pile of blankets a few feet away was Fluttershy.
"Fluttershy? Fluttershy! Applejack wake up, wake up! Fluttershy is okay!" Twilight said while trying to rouse the farmpony from her slumber.
"Huh-wha?" Applejack said still half-asleep.
"Fluttershy is safe, she's right over there!"
"What!" Applejack sprang up from her bed and looked around for her. When she saw Fluttesrhy she let out a gasp and began to slowly walk over to her. Twilight followed close behind. Fluttershy was alive and in much better shape than they had last seen her. Her numerous cuts had been cleaned and wrapped, the large gash in her shoulder had been stitched shut, and her foreleg was wrapped tightly in cloth.
"Fluttershy? Is it you? How are you feeling?" asked Twilight.
Fluttershy did not wake from Twilight's questioning. Applejack prodded her with a hoof hoping to wake her from her sleep. Fluttershy slowly opened her eyes.
"Girls? What happened, where are we?" she asked.
"Fluttershy! You're okay!" Twilight was ecstatic. They all embraced in an awkward hug considering Fluttershy was still lying down.
"Is there some reason I should not be?" she asked.
Twilight gave Applejack an unsure look. "Fluttershy, what is the last thing you remember?"
Fluttershy looked confused before she began to speak "Well I remeber coming over to Sweet Apple Acres to help with your spell, then we we're in the Everfree Forest, we found some sort of road, then there was a-a oh no!" Fluttershy was on the verge of tears. "Did we save him?"
"I'm sorry Fluttershy, there was nothing we could have done," Twilight said "do you remember anything else?"
Fluttershy sniffled "No that's it, wait. I also vaguely remember a bright light then I woke up here. Do you know anything about the light, and where exactly is here?"
"You we're in a terrible accident sugarcube, some terrible creature ran into you and then took you away," Applejack said "We thought you were dead."
"Oh my, I'm terribly sorry for making you worry so much."
"Don't worry about Fluttershy, you don't need to be sorry for getting hurt, we're just glad you're alright."
"Thank you Twilight, but um you still didn't say were we are. Are we back in Ponyville? This doesn't look like the hospital."
"Well, no this isn't Ponyville General, I'm not sure exactly where we are now, but I am pretty sure we are somewhere inside the creature's lair," Twilight said.
"Th-the creatures that attacked me?" Fluttershy asked nervously.
Twilight nodded "We followed it here after it abducted you, we looked for you and we found a um well..."
"We found a pot full of some sorta meat soup," Applejack said matter of factly, "We thought that they had killed you and were cooking you up."
Fluttershy eep'd and threw the blanket over herself.
"Applejack! There's no reason to talk like that, especially not about something as serious as.. eating meat," Twilight said.
"Why not? These creatures are dangerous and the sooner we get out of here the better," Applejack said
"Well they may be dangerous, but they don't really seem very aggressive," Twilight said.
"What? How can you say that after everything that's happened?" Applejack asked.
"That's exactly it Applejack, what exactly have they done? They hurt Fluttershy but I think that may have been an accident and they've only fought back in self-defense. I'll admit that the meat thing is rather revolting and seems evil, but maybe it's just apart of their culture, it is not unheard of for some gryphons to eat meat." Twilight said.
Applejack just gaped at Twilight "But what about the kitchen."
"Well you were the one who actually started the fight and I'm not sure how we woke up here, but I think the fact that we woke up at all is a good sign." Twilight said, "and it even looks like they tended to Fluttershy's wounds."
"She's right Applejack, I still feel a little pain, but from what you said I'm lucky to be feeling this good."
"Fine, I still think we should get out of here though," Applejack said with a slightly annoyed look.
"Well, that might be rather difficult," Twilight said "we still don't know where we are are how to get back to Ponyville, plus this could still be another dimension completly seperate from Equestria." she said.
"What? We're lost in another dimension? Why didn't you tell me," Fluttershy began to shake.
Twilight blushed and tryed to soothe the frightened pegasus "No no no don't worry Fluttershy, we're safe here and it's unlikely that we traveled to another dimension, and even if we did I could still get us home."
"O-okay Twilight," she said "Thank you."
"No, problem Fluttershy, what are friends for?" Twilight smiled at her and she gave a small smile back.
"Alright so if we're not going to try to find are way home what are we going to do?" asked Applejack.
"The creatures that live here are obviously intelligent to some degree, so I think the best thing to do is to try to communicate with them," Twilight said.
"But Twilight we already tried that and it didn't work," Applejack said.
"No we didn't really try, we mostly just yelled at them a lot and attacked them," she said causing Applejack to blush and look away sheepishly.
"I'm certain that if we can establish contact with them they may be able to help us find out where we are and how to get home," Twilight said, "Plus think of all the things we could learn!"
Suddenly the door on the far wall opened. The three ponies turned to look at it as the creature from before stepped into the room with a large bowl. It watched them intently and placed it's hand on a holster of some kind attached to it's hip.
"Well Twilight, looks like you've got you're chance," said Applejack.
* * *
Daniel grumbled as he sat at the breakfast table, staring at his waffles. Stephanie sat across from watching him with a look of concern.
"You know you really should eat something," Stephanie said.
"I know, I just feel like crap and I just can't bring myself to eat," he said.
"I looked at your injuries and there were no broken bones, only minor bruising," she said.
"It's not just that, it's the whole situation involving our 'guests'," he said "It just feels odd."
"Well, you did discover, quite dramatically I might add, a new species that resmbles something from Greek mythology crossed with a Skittles commercial," she said "Which reminds me, I need to call Marcus and let him know about this, I know he would just love to examine them."
"I know, I know, but I can't shake the feeling that they are more intelligent then they seem," he said.
"Hmm they did seem pretty intelligent, but then again we know almost nothing about them, so they're is no telling what they are really like," she said "we really need to call Marcus and have him come take a look."
"Alright, we'll call him later today," he said.
"Cheer up, at least it's a Saturday," she said smiling at him.
He smiled back at her. "I guess you're right."
"Speaking of our 'guests' I put together a bowl of vegetables that will hopeful be to their liking, would you mind taking it to the garage?" She asked.
"Sure thing sweetie, but I'm taking the tranq gun with me," he said.
She smiled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. Daniel picked up the holster containing the tranquilizer gun and slipped it onto his belt loop before picking up the bowl of vegetables and carrying them to the garage. He opened the door and looked around inside. The creatures were all huddled around the yellow one. When they looked at him he placed his hand on the holster ready to draw out the tranquilizer at a moments notice. He approached them cautiously and once he was about to set the bowl down the purple one stepped forward and... bowed?
~"Greetings, my name is Twilight Sparkle and these are my friends Applejack and Fluttershy. We apologize if we frightened you in some way."~
Okay that was odd. That didn't sound like random animal noises, it almost sounded like a language, albeit not like any language he had ever heard before.
~"I don't think it can understand us Twi, what do we do now?"~
~"I don't know it's not responding, this would be so much easier if I had some quills and parchment."~
They continued to 'speak' and Daniel just stood there and listened. Daniel wondered if he was over analyzing their behaviour or if perhaps they were as smart as he had guessed, maybe even a lot smarter. He decided that it couldn't hurt to try something so he cleared his throat and said.
"Umm hello, my name is Daniel. I don't know if you can understand me at all, but I'm sorry for hitting your friend," they had all began to watch him so he continued "I brought you some vegetables to eat in case you were hungry, soooo yeah enjoy."
He placed the bowl down and the purple one walked up and examined the contents.
~"It's food. They look like normal Equestrian vegetables,"~ she 'said'
To Daniel's complete surprise the Purple one's horn began to glow magenta. One of the carrots in the bowl was covered in the same colored glow before it gently rose into the air.
Daniel took a few steps back and pulled out his tranquilizer gun and pointed it at the purple creature. It looked at him with fearful eyes before the glow disappeared and the carrot fell back into the bowl. Daniel stepped backwards slowly, keeping the gun trained on the purple one. He reached behind him and opened the door without looking and rushed inside.
* * *
"Well that could have gone better," said Applejack.
"I don't know what went wrong, it seemed to be scared of my magic, but surely it must have seen magic before? How else could it have built this house so perfectly or put us to sleep?" asked Twilight.
"Maybe it's magic is more inherent than unicorn magic, maybe it's more like a pegasus or earth pony's magic" said Fluttershy.
Twilight thought about this. It was true that she hadn't seen the creature use magic and it may be possible that it couldn't use magic like a unicorn could, but she could not imagine why it would be afraid of magic. Perhaps it had been attacked by magic before? It seemed more likely than the possibility that it had just never seen magic before now.
"Well," said Applejack interrupting her thoughts "whatever the reason for it's reaction maybe you should just go a little easy on the magic when it's around. After all, the last thing we want is for it to feel threatened by us. I don't want a repeat of last night."
Twilight nodded in understanding. "Alright, I won't use my magic when it's here, but we still need to find a way to communicate," Twilight said.
Before Twilight could continue, her stomach growled. "Hehe oh, maybe we should eat first," she said blushing slightly.
"That sounds like a wonderful idea Twilight," said Fluttershy.
"I'm hungry myself, so I figure there ain't nothing wrong with taking a little break to enjoy a meal," said Applejack.
With that the three friends began to eat the meal prepared for them by the strange and possibly dangerous creatures, each of them worrying in the back of their minds about what the day might hold in store for them.