Chapter 02: First Voyage
James blinked several times in disbelief. He was still falling with the swirling lights around him, his stomach threatening to return his lunch. Several minutes passed since he crossed the mirror, maybe two, maybe ten, he was not sure, but there was no sign of anything he could do to escape this torture. He even tried extending his arms to grab the swirling lights, but they proved to be out of reach. Eventually, he saw a dim light below him, where he was falling to, and that light kept on getting bigger and closer. In a hurry he clenched his teeth and Bent over in a curl, hands and arms in front, legs flexed, bracing for impact.
When James arrived at the source of the light he could see briefly that it was a mirroring surface, with a golden horseshoe around, similar to the one he crossed before. He took a deep breath just a second before impact and crossed over it again. His vision darkened for a second when he was crossing and then his eyes got temporarily blinded with a bright light, and then he arrived at a hard surface. He was not sure exactly how did he roll, but he suffered the pain of several bumps.
Once James regained a sense of balance, he opened his eyes. He was on the floor, looking up, his rear against a wall, his legs hanging over his head. From his view he could see that the walls were decorated with some very tall skirting boards, made of polished wood with golden details. The upper part of the walls were made of marble, and towered for at least 30 feet until they meet several arches that made the ceiling. On three of the walls rose great arches that lead to hallways and on the fourth wall a set of elegant stairs decorated a path into a higher floor, with a red rug coming from it until it meets a golden eight pointed star and then diverges onto the directions of the arches, up to the hallways.
After a few minutes of just laying there appreciating the room, James started hearing a metallic sound, drawing closer each second. He turned his head and saw two small white horses coming his way. The horses were armored, with golden boots (The source of the clanking sound), the same golden metal covering their coats and a helmet that resembled a roman galea covering the back of the neck and part of their muzzles, with a blue brush extending to the back of the head.
James moved his feet to the side, and stood up. Looking at the pair of horses he noticed they were pretty small, no more than 4 feet tall. James kept looking them as these little horses as they kept walking steadily to him.
“These seems docile,” James thought, “but who leaves horses unattended inside a palace?”
James crouched to look at them closely when they were close enough. “Hey little thing” - he said looking at them”
“AAHHH! IT TALKS!” shouted one of them jumping back.
“AAAHHH! IT TALKS!” Replied James, shouting and jumping back too.
The horse that did not jump back looked back at his companion. “Go get the princess, I will stay with him,” he said promptly and the other pony went running the way they came. “Now please stay calm, we just –” said turning back to James, just to see that he was escaping through the stairs, into the upper floor.
James kept running, as fast as he could, breathing heavily, his feet reaching longer than any normal trot to gain as much speed as possible. “This is mad, horses doesn't talk, I must have hit my head when I went jogging and I’m in a coma, or something,” – James thought while running. Few minutes later, James stopped and put a hand on a wall to help him remain on his foot. Headache was tearing his head off, and the walls were spinning, his hands were trembling, and the clanking steps of the trotting horse pursuing him started sounding muffled.
Looking up, James realized that he was cornered. The hallway he was following ended in two giant golden doors, which he tried to pull open unsuccessfully. Turning around, he saw the horse getting closer, and two other figures coming on his direction. He couldn't focus properly, but he could hear clopping sounds echoing from back there.
“Get back, leave me alone!” shouted James once the armored horse stood a few feet near him
“It’s OK, we don’t want to hurt you,” replied the horse. “Look, I’ll just stand here–”
“Stop! Get away!” Interrupted James, shouting. He stood firm, trying to look intimidating, but he was feeling too dizzy and lost his balance. Before falling down James leaned back to the door, allowing him to remain on his feet.
He looked up, and saw what made the clopping sounds arriving behind the guard. Two other horses were present, but James had to blink to clear his vision several times. He cleared his eyes with his hands and stared at this situation, incredulous. Before him was the guard that was chasing him along with a bright purple pony with blue, pink and purple mane and tail and a horn matching the color of the coat and to his right a taller dark-blue horse with both wings and a horn.
“NO! THIS IS WRONG!” shouted at the newcomers. Panic was invading him and he felt dizzier than before, with his lower lip trembling, and his legs shaking. With a swift movement he pulled Pigslayer from it’s scabbard and pointed forward
The blue, larger horse stepped forward, and spoke with an elegant feminine voice, “Sir, you need medical attention. Lower your sword at once and let us help you.”
James looked forward and tried to cope with all of this, but failed miserably. The disappearance of the people on his town, the mysterious mirror, the elegant palace, the talking, colorful, winged, horned, speaking horses were too much for him. Before realizing, his balance was totally lost and he was already falling to the floor, with his vision darkening.
----------------------------------------
“Shit, that one was rough,” though James when he woke up. “That one was a hell of a nightmare”.
James opened his eyes and looked around unsure where he was. He was in a comfy bed with rails to the side. The room was dimly lit, and was pretty featureless. The room presented white, simple walls with a few signs that he could not read. On the wall to his right was a white door without a doorknob and to his left was an open window showing a night sky with lots of stars and fresh air was breezing in.
He had an oxygen mask over his face with a tube going to a gas tank on the side. He tried to remove it, but found his arms tied to the bed. Checking further, he realized that only a white blanket was covering his naked body. His clothes were folded on a big couch nearby.
“Am I in a mental asylum?” James thought trying to calm down “So it seems that all that mess was actually a hallucination”
James tried to force the binds on his arms with no avail; he surrendered quickly. After several minutes the door opened and a blonde pony with wings entered the room. He seemed to be wearing a white coat, like a doctor, and in his flank was a painting of a stethoscope. He also seemed to be carrying a tray with fruits on his mouth. Following him was the purple unicorn that he saw earlier, and some kind of biped purple lizard with green scales.
“Oh, you are awake,” the purple unicorn spoke with a feminine voice while walking right next to the bed. “Sorry for the restraints, you were trembling when you collapsed, and the doctor was worried you might have a seizure”
What happened next, he was not expecting. The horn on the purple unicorn began to glow with white light, and the ropes untied themselves, then started levitating and finally rested over James’s feet.
“Alright,” James said while sitting up, “I will assume my mind broke some time ago, so I will play along with it. Where am I?”
“This is the palace infirmary, and I’m doctor Scope” said the winged horse. “You were lucky Miss Sparkle was the one who brought you here. She described your symptoms and helped us to discover that you had oxygen poisoning. She saved your life with that trough description you know.”
“Alright, I understand that,” responded, paused, and then spoke again. “Scope and Sparkle? Are those really your names? Wait, scratch that. What are you exactly? Never in my life i have seen a horse as colorful as any of you. What kind of horse are you?” The doctor raised a brow while the unicorn giggled.
“Ponies, not horses,” said the little lizard. “The doctor here is a Pegasus pony, and Twilight is a unicorn. There are also Ponies who don’t have wings or horns, but are mighty strong. Those are called Earth ponies. I’m Spike by the way”
"Right," James responded squinting his eyes. "And exactly what kind of pony are you?"
"I'm not a pony," responded Spike giggling "I'm a dragon"
"A dragon, right," responded James putting his thumb and finger between his eyes.
Several seconds passed where nobody said a thing until doctor Scope spoke up, “Well, it seems you are pretty confused. I will leave you with Miss sparkle here so you can catch up.” The doctor walked to the door, but stopped and turned around, “Oh, by the way, you have been out for 8 hours now. You might want to eat something,” Doctor Scope finally said and exited the room
Twilight looked at James and spoke up. “We don't have much time before visiting hours ends, so we cant chat for long, However, Princess Luna Left you on my care, so we can chat right now and we can round up any doubts tomorrow”
“Alright, so this Princess Luna you speak of…”James made silence for a second, scratching the back of his head. “Is she the other one that I saw earlier? The big dark one?”
“Yes.” Twilight responded.
“And you call her Princess as in the heir of the throne?” continued James.
“Not really, at least I wouldn't call her the heir. She is actually the ruler of Equestria ” responded Twilight.
“Equestria? That’s what this place is called?” James thought while frowning. “Is everything here pony themed?. Unicorns, Pegasus, weird hoofed mirrors, the land of equestria, and the princess is a horned winged…Oh god, I pointed a sword at the ruler of the land”
“So, Twilight, did I point a sword to the ruler of this nation?” James said, his hands starting to tremble.
“Well, I know it looks bad,” Twilight responded “but the princess doesn't hold any grudge… HEY WAIT!” Twilight had to cut short her response because James jumped from the bed and ran to the window.
Without thinking twice James jumped, stretching his arms and legs to pass through the opening, but as soon as he could look down, he noticed he was not on ground level, but rather on a fifth story or so. Realizing he did something very stupid he covered his face with his arms and braced for impact.
Several seconds later, James noticed that he did not feel any pain, just a tingling sensation in his chest. “So, it seems that death is painless,” concluded James, and when he opened his eyes, he noticed his body was floating inside the room, surrounded by a purple halo.
“Next time you try that I will let you fall” muttered twilight. Her horn was glowing the same light that haloed around James. She was gritting her teeth and squinting her eyes due to the strain of levitating him. Suddenly, the light around her horned flickered and disappeared, letting James fall on his feet, on the middle of the room. Twilight panted heavily for a few seconds while spike closed the window.
“Are you OK Twi?” the little dragon said walking quickly to her.
“Yes, it’s just that…huff… moving him was pretty hard like pushing an adult dragon” Twilight said, regaining composure. “James, really, you need to relax. I just came to see if you were alright.”
James looked at Twilight thoroughly, took two steps towards twilight and crouched in front of her, laying his feet under him in, similar to how Japanese people sit
“So, how did you do that exactly and why am I not dead?” James said, putting his Trembling hands on Twilight’s shoulders.
“By levitation of course…” started saying twilight, but was interrupted when the door opened again when Princess Luna entered the room.
“Good evening, my subjects, I hope I’m not interrupting anything” said the darker regal pony while entering the room.
Twilight separated from James to make a reverence, and he stood to imitate the reference, lowering to one Knee. “I’m not stupid enough to insult a royal twice in a day” he thought, but when his hand touched his knee he realized something embarrassing: He was still naked.
Jumping back, he grabbed the bed sheet and covered his groin. “This is not what it seems, I was like this when I awakened” said. James had to swipe sweat from his brow, and he noticed getting dizzier. Both Luna and Twilight Looked at each other and then stared at James crooking their heads.
“Dude, you look bad” Said Spike pushing the couch next to James. The naked human looked at all of them, trying to perceive any kind of hostility. Finding none, he sat on the couch, over his clothes.
The regal Princess took a few steps forward and stood next to James who raised his brow to look at her, his hands were trembling and his face contorted in fear. James took a few seconds to breathe slowly, then gulped and opened his mouth to speak, but found no words to express. Luna stood patiently during this time.
“My liege…” Said finally James and did a pause to think.
“Please, just call me Princess Luna” The dark winged unicorn replied.
“Right, Princess Luna.” Said James. Then he stood up, still grabbing the bed sheet to cover himself, and bowed properly over his left knee. “I want to apologize for what I did. I Panicked when I drew the sword. I did not want to hurt anybody.”
The princess nuzzled James face with her own, which surprised him. He kept staring at her with his mouth partially open, as if he was to say something he could not find the words for.
“Tell me, What is your name?” Inquired Luna.
“I’m James, Princess Luna. James Smith” replied the surprised man.
“James, you are not a bad pony, but it is obvious you are pretty scared and there are some things that you must know. I will be very direct, so tell me if you need me to stop.” Said Luna with a more regal and commanding tone.
James looked at the eyes of this princess, but could not figure what was her expression. He did not know how body language worked with this equine race, and was a bit scared, but he had wronged her once, so he decided to cooperate. “Alright. I’m ready” He said.
“You don’t look like anything I have seen before, and I understand you must feel pretty lost here. We checked the place where the guards found you, and found some traces of what used to be a portal. I've got a team of unicorns checking that, but we are still lacking information, so we are still unsure how you arrived here.” Luna made check if James understood, he nodded and then she continued.
“If anything else comes up we will be sure to inform you, meanwhile, you will be staying with Twilight Sparkle. We spoke earlier and she accepted to take care of you, and to make you feel at home while you are residing here. She has a room at the palace, and while you were asleep a carpenter worked on a bed for your size, but the doctors recommend that you stay this night here so they can check up on you.”
James nodded once more time.
“Please rest. It will do you good” Said Luna finally. “And I hope you have a peaceful night” As soon as that was said, she turned around and crossed the door.
James looked at Twilight and then looked at spike. “Twilight, Spike,” he called out. Both, the unicorn and dragon looked back at James, expecting him to continue. “I… I’m not sure how to feel. If all of this is real, I intruded unexpectedly on a palace, pointed a sword to a ruler of a nation and fainted. In return I get medical attention and a personal visit from said ruler. I hope you understand that I still have my doubts on my mental sanity”
James lowered his face, looking at the floor, and a few seconds later, he looked up to the unicorn and dragon with a little smile. “I’m still grateful though.”
“Don’t worry James; we’ll be taking care of you,” said twilight returning the smile. “Tomorrow morning well help you settle on the room, so rest tonight.”
Twilight turned around and slowly walked to the door. “Come on spike, you will see him tomorrow.”
“Ok, see ya James.” Said Spike waving his claws at James.
James stayed on the couch for a few minutes, considering the fact that Spike’s claws are most similar thing to a hand he has seen around. Sighing, he stood over and looked at the couch. James had sat on his clothes and were a bit wrinkled, but he didn’t care and wore them anyways. Once fully clothed, he checked his pockets looking for his cell phone, which he did not found.
James sighed again, walked slowly to the entrance of the room and moved a light switch that was positioned far too low for his preference. Now the lights were off, but James had little problem to see, as the window was shining with a dim, white light. The window itself was very tall, but it started pretty low, in account for the normal height of the usual pony residents. James approached the window, knelt next to it and opened it. Now that he was on his knees, he could rest his arms in the window frame.
The moon was beaming calm light, illuminating a whole city under. It was brighter than any night he could remember, despite being just a crescent moon, and it flowed into the buildings below creating narrow passages of light and shadow. He remembered that a few hours ago, he was looking through the window of his room, in a similar fashion to this moment, watching a strange mirror on his garden. James remembered the night where he was jogging, he remembered the empty streets, the missing family, and the full moon.
“It was full moon,” said James in a whisper. He double checked the surface of the half glowing orb, and examined it. The craters were different, the starts around were unknown and plenty, the constellations were bizarre and unrecognizable. James sat in the bed as he realized, in a bit of sadness, that wherever he was, it was far, far away from home.
James was running without looking where. He was scared, escaping from an unknown impending demise. He also didn't want to open his eyes, afraid of what he would see, terrified of looking where he was standing. There were no sounds to guide him, as his steps echoed, breaking an ominous silence, not even interrupting the sound of shuffling leaves.
James tripped and fell to the ground, forcing him to open his eyes. He turned around to the sight he did not want to witness. The empty streets loomed desolation, while the houses towered over him. The only light, a white-blue gleam coming from a full moon projecting the most intimidating shadows out of every corner
Placing a hand to his side he stood up, and turned again to the direction he was running, only to see there, in front of him, his house, bigger than he ever remembered. Fragments of darkness where the moon didn't reach moved around, covering every wall and window, except one place, the front door. Gulping he took a few steps forward, turned the handle and walked forward. Instead of meeting the living room, as he expected, the door got him right into the backyard where that cursed mirror was expecting him, glowing with it's unnatural pink light. James tried to run away, but the door was closed. The gravity shifted gradually pulling him backwards, towards the mirror, which was growing in size, threatening to engulf him as he fell into it.
With a loud Thump James fell into the cold floor. He put a hand on the floor as he tried to get up and had to put the other one on his forehead when he realized he had banged it on the floor and he was in pain. Groaning, he sat down on the floor and looked around. He didn't recognize the place at first, but then his memories started to kick in. "Right, magical pony land," said James aloud, frowning, while standing up and checking the infirmary room.
James approached the window and opened it, letting a fresh breeze come in. The soothing wind covered him, helping him to relax allowed James to pass the time while looking at the city. During the day, the architecture gave a totally different scenery, white towers with golden and purple rooftops, banners flapping on the wind showing symbols resembling the sun and the moon. Despite James incredulity, he could see, down below, a multitude of ponies, doing their daily lives walking down the streets; a few of them doing chores, or taking their foals to school. He searched all the place to find some other human, or at least a dragon like Spike, or a monkey or anything that might have a hand.
"So, this is not madness," James said aloud to himself while looking down, "I really am on a strange land". He was aware that nobody was listening to him; he was just trying to convince himself of that fact. James also looked down, to his clothes, the only memento that remained from his home. He was sure that his swords and his cell phone had been confiscated, and probably destroyed. Looking at that multitude of ponies living their days made him realize how alone he felt.
He spent a long time looking at the window, watching the ponies below. A part of him was still refusing to believe this was real, but he had to accept that even if this was a dream, it was still a very lucid dream he could not escape. There was no point in trying to resist living in this world.
About an hour later the door opens as doctor Scope enters the room. "God morning sir," he said.
James jumped in place and turned quickly. "Oh, it's you," responded James, "Hi doctor."
"Ready for the last checkup?" asked doctor Scope.
"Ready as ever," responded James while sitting on the bed.
The doctor proceeded to silently check James blood pressure, listen to his lungs and check his throat with a lantern that the doctor held on his mouth.
"So, doctor," James asked after a few checkups, "Is Scope your full name? No wait, is it rude around here to ask someone's full name?"
"No, It's alright son," The doctor responded with a smile, "My names is Caduceus Scope, but some people have trouble pronouncing my first name, so everyone calls me Scope."
"So," James said scratching the back of his head "How much experience you have treating humans?"
The doctor made a pause, looked at his eyes, trying to find an answer to a really uncomfortable question. With a sigh, the doctor sat down on the floor. "Actually, none. When you arrived, Twilight rushed in to provide us the symptoms she could observe. Those symptoms matched with oxygen poisoning on a pony, but we had no reference on your biology. On the end we had to take a blind choice."
James remained in silence, looking down and breathing slowly for a few minutes. Then he looked at the doctor again and opened the mouth to say something, but the door opened and Spike entered the room. "Hello James, Hello doctor," he said.
"Hey buddy," Responded James. Scope just acknowledged his presence with a nod and went to the desk to take notes. "Is Twilight with you?"
"Twi is outside filling the discharge papers. Are you ready to go?" asked Spike.
"Am I?" inquired James looking at Scope.
"Almost," Responded Scope. "James, we did a few checks while you were out, but we don't actually have any data regarding your species. We need to complement our data with any health history you may remember."
"My last checkup back at home was about two months ago, and the doctor said that my cholesterol was a bit up. I'm also overweight, so she recommended to do some exercise," recounted James while tapping his chin with his finger. "I think that's it"
"Well, you are ready to go," said Scope. "Just come back in a few weeks to double check that everything is fine"
James stepped outside and followed spike down the corridor until the got to the door of the infirmary where Twilight was waiting. There was a saddlebag over her torso, with several scrolls sticking out from the pockets. Outside of that door were visible the marble and golden walls of the palace.
"Good morning James," Twilight said cheerfully. "Are you ready or the big tour?"
"The big what?" James asked while he stopped on mid walk.
"The tour on the castle and the city," said Twilight. "Until we find a way to send you back home, we need to get you acclimatized here"
"Sound good, alright," exclaimed James unsure, raising his left brow.
"Perfect," exclaimed Twilight while levitating several scrolls from her saddlebag. "I have made a schedule of the places we are going to meet today and I already made a map for you." A scroll hovers in front of James's face, and he grabs it to get it out of the way. "The tour is divided in three sections in order to optimize the time needed to get you to know the most important commodities. Here is your copy of the schedule" James grabbed the other scroll that floated next to his face.
Some sweat was already forming on James brow when he had to interrupt "Wait a minute, Twilight," exclaimed James extending his arm with the scrolls. "Do we actually need all of this?"
"Of course!" Twilight retorted with a grin in her face. "Tomorrow I will have to resume my research, so let’s make sure that you are settled in.”
There was a brief contortion on his face that Twilight did not perceive even though James made no attempt to dissimulate it. James was confused, at best, and had no idea what this was about. If his possessions were confiscated, then it made no sense that he was allowed to just wander like that. Then again, he was being escorted by this mare that was able to levitate him out of a window. For the moment he decided to play along, even if he wasn’t sure what did it mean to play along.
“Alright,” James finally conceded, “Let’s go on then. What’s the first stop?”
“It’s on the schedule,” Twilight said, “Let’s get you settled in your bedroom first.”
James unrolled the scroll and read it, or actually tried unsuccessful to read it. It looked like a checklist with checkboxes on the side and strange symbols next to them, the same symbols that he saw before from bed.
He checked the scroll again, and as he concluded that he could not read, he realized something, even though part of him wanted to reject the idea. Right there, on his hands, was the proof he needed to accept the fact that with his family lost, with the strange equine creatures, in this unknown land; it was meaningless if he was in a different world or insane altogether. Whatever his situation was, he was totally lost.