//------------------------------// // Prologue - A bad start to a bad day // Story: Bad Mondays // by Handyman //------------------------------// “Hold him down!” the gruff voice of the staff sergeant commanded. Iron-shod hooves pressed down hard against flesh, bone, and armour, their gold paint long since scraped off in the fight before, leaving brilliant stripes of gold against the harsh glare of metal in the noon sun. The human grunted in pain. He’d had worse Monday mornings in his time, but for the life of him, he could not remember when. He was a mess. He had been clocked one in the eye, which was doubtlessly going to bruise. Blood was gushing from his nose where it had been broken. He had lost most of his armour on the way to Canterlot, and the fight had ruined what little of it remained. The excruciating pain in his chest alerted him to the worrying possibility that several of his ribs had been cracked. Credit where credit was due, he supposed. “I got to hand it ye, lads,” he said, purposefully giving up the accent-less English he had adopted since arriving in Equestria. “Yais sure showed me yais aren’t jus’ pretty dolls playing dress up for the princess’ amusement after all, heh.” That earned him an angered snort and an increased pressure on the back. Something cracked, and he let out a cry of pain. Now, before you feel sorry for the protagonist, you should know at this juncture that he not only started it, but knew full well what he was getting into. Counting on it, one might say. The few lingering civilians of Canterlot, from curious nobles to lowly window cleaners, had quieted down once the guards subdued the violent human who had the temerity to disturb their peaceful daily business with his doubtlessly pointless and chaotic shenanigans. Many even politely clopped their hooves on the ground and cheered for the guards for putting an end to the scene. The human was, at this point, pinned to the ground by not one, but two heavily-armoured earth pony guards. Probably the only thing keeping his chest from completely caving in was the ruined remains of the steel breastplate he wore. Earth ponies on their own weren’t too heavy for an average human—he could even bodily lift one of the bigger ones if he put his back into it—but factor in armour weight, deliberately placed pressure on the forehooves, and the human’s injured, prone position, and the second pony was just entirely unnecessary in holding him down. The staff sergeant, who himself was sporting a quickly developing black eye and a missing helmet courtesy of the naked ape, was holding his arms down with his magic. The unicorn scowled at the human as the remaining two guards, a pegasus and another unicorn, came back to their senses. The human smiled, feeling he had made a good accounting for himself, all things considered. “I’ll handle this!” a voice boomed from above them. The human tried to look up, but his position on the ground was not very conducive to the efforts of gazing into the heavens as the thundering voice of impending judgement swooped down to meet him. The pony the voice belonged to landed on the ground with an audible thud. Probably intentional. The human smirked at the thought of the ponies trying to intimidate him when they had already defeated him so thoroughly. Well, he smirked until he noticed the pony’s movements. His brow furrowed in confusion. Each hoof was placed before the other with extreme care, and he could see the faintest tremor as crystal-shod slipper was placed after crystal-shod slipper. Fear? No, that couldn’t be right; she had literally nothing to fear from him. Anger. She was clearly holding back a great deal of anger, not fear. He was raised up to his knees by the sergeant’s magic, his hands being restrained behind his back as the earth ponies quickly tied them. He got a good look at the pony before him. The cobalt, winged unicorn before him was none other than the Princess of the Night, the second in the royal diarchy that ruled over the pony nation, who possessed the ridiculous power to move the very moon itself. He had scoffed at many things when he came to Equestria, many of which he came to accept as established fact. Looking at the creature before him, her eyes ablaze, glowing white with magical energy, her voice as soft as a whisper but with enough power to cause the very air to vibrate that he could feel her speak as much as hear her, he could very well believe she could move the heaven and earth if she had to. “What have you done with my sister?” she asked in a voice that would have sounded calm if it didn’t come complete with its own echo and thinly disguised fury layered beneath every word. The human was spitting into the hurricane, and he knew it. For the briefest of moments, his resolve wavered. Still, nothing ventured… “Well, your majesty,” the human began as he coughed, a faltering smirk gracing his admittedly unflattering visage, “that would be telling, now wouldn’t it?” ---=--- Perhaps we should go back. That might help clarify matters. See, it was actually some months after his arrival in Equestria that our protagonist made his way to the delightful encounter in the Goldencourt promenade in Canterlot, which we just had the pleasure of viewing a snippet of. Well, closer to over a year if we were going to be precise. The human, not his real name of course but better than the one he unimaginatively chose, was a young man who fancied himself luck’s personal plaything. Whenever he found himself the recipient of fantastic good fortune or achieved a desirable goal, he almost immediately came crashing down from his high. This had been the story of his life thus far, and as a result, he was the happy owner of a world view one might charitably refer to as caustically cynical. So, dear readers, do not judge him too badly for his poor judgement in looking a gift horse in the mouth. For when he was transported to Equestria, he found himself looking at a colourful world, brimming with magic and adventure, overflowing with the promise of wonder, discovery, and mystery. A genuine, honest-to-God Narnia experience waited before him, inviting him to forget his worries and cares, to dive headlong into the great bright unknown, to grow and become a better, more fulfilled person in the course of many lessons learned in the wondrous mystery he had been presented with. So of course he scoffed, sneered, and turned his back on it. His first memories of Equestria consisted of waking and staring up at the sky through the foliage above him. He was covered in dead leaves and broken branches. The sun was at its zenith and mercilessly poured forth glorious golden light onto his poor, unprotected eyelids. He groaned and turned over to his side, cracking twigs under his weight. His burgundy hoodie was ragged and torn in places, there was something in his mess of a hair, and everything he knew was pain. “Ugghuuhhh…” the human groaned. He opened his bleary eyes, the world an incomprehensible blur in the unseasonable warmth of the forest floor. Trees… Huh… He didn’t remember anything about trees. Where was he? What did he do last night? He placed his hand on the ground to try to push himself up, but it slipped and he came crashing down face-first on the ground. The pain jolted him awake. “M’ssup, mm’up, ugh…” he said to nobody in particular. He lay there for a few minutes before eventually letting out a long, guttural sigh and pushed himself up from the floor with determination. He immediately regretted it. “Oh God, owwww…” His hands clasped the sides of his head as it rang like cathedral bells. He’d had hangovers before but never anything this bad. He didn’t really recall going out drinking in the last several months. His job didn’t really leave him with a lot of time that could be dedicated towards ‘having a life’ of any description. Just what in the hell did he get up to last night? He waited for his head to stop being his mother, as it reminded him about the foolishness of drinking more than one could handle through gratuitous dizziness and pain, before finally taking stock of his situation. His earlier guess had been right. He was in a forest of some sort, but he didn’t recognise the trees. They were… different. The small forest near his home had sparse trees, mostly oaks and sycamores. Old ones with wide trunks and proud branches reaching out as if to hug the very sky itself, with the odd upstart tree trying to make its way in life between them. These ones consisted of odd shapes and hues—purple, but a deep dark kind, hoary and old, yet too small to be truly ancient. Apart from the hole in the forest cover from which the sun proudly shone, the canopy was mostly unbroken, leaving the forest floor dark and foreboding as gnarled roots sprung from the ground at random places, giving a genuinely menacing air to the surrounding. He smacked his dry lips. His mouth tasted like ash and vinegar; he was covered in cold sweat; the pain in his head had yet to subside, and he was hallucinating because, for a moment, he swore he saw a blue arc of electricity dance across the skin of his hand. Yep, he had been out drinking last night, heavily so, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall why. He didn’t bother trying to remember last night, for that was a fool’s errand. Instead, he tried going further back and reviewed his recent life the past two weeks up until now, or at least what he most recently remembered. There wasn’t much to tell: get up, go to work, come home late, eat dinner, check Internet for anything interesting, fall asleep, rinse, and repeat. Sure, it was less than ideal, but he was never one to go out and get hammered. What could have driven him to get so smashed that he would go and get so incredibly lost that he was on his own, in the middle of a strange forest, and with no idea how he got there? He groaned in resignation and rose to his feet, brushing the branches and other detritus from his clothes as he inspected the damage. Yep, it was pretty bad. His jeans were torn at the knees, and his jacket looked like it had gotten into a fight with a lawnmower. He pulled an acorn out of his hair. Odd, he had it cut just last week, so it shouldn’t be long enough for anything to get caught in it. He reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. The screen was cracked. Fantastic, there went his warranty. It turned on, but it only showed a bright white screen. It was now a very expensive, very thin brick. Ah well, maybe he could use it as a light when he got home. Placing his phone in his right pocket, he discovered that his belt had been ripped. Wonderful. He had bought that thing in Spain years ago, and it was the only belt he ever had that had never ever broken on him no matter what. He grumbled. This was going to be a bad day. It was only when his left foot suddenly felt cold and damp did he notice he was also missing a shoe. He swore. A bad day. Definitely a bad day. Well, there was no sense sitting still. He couldn’t call for help even if he wanted to, and the sun wasn't being co-operative in telling him the direction he ought to be heading, what with it sitting literally directly above him, proud as you like. He decided he’d go to his right. Why? Because he was right-handed. It was as good as anything at this point as he had no idea where he’d find a river which could direct him to a town or something. Well, he could wait an hour or so until the sun moved across the sky, so he could tell which way was east, but he had no time and cared not for anything that required the patience that he simply did not possess. Trudging through the forest was a pain. He cut his hands on more than a few thorns and was quickly becoming infuriated. Where in the nine circles of hell was he? He eventually found a river like he thought and followed it downstream. The uncomfortable, almost claustrophobic darkness of the forest was not helping his mood. A few times, he forced himself to stand stock-still and peer into the shadows before shaking his head and moving on. He was hearing things. But it was all worth it in the end, or at least he thought so, as the trees gradually became thinner, and he could see light up ahead. He smiled in victory and threw his arms up in the air. At last! An exit! He could reach civilization and find out what in the hell happened to him last night. Triumphantly, he marched out of the forest and crested a hill to see a village in the distance. Odd, from this distance, it looked like they were old-school wood and stone buildings—thatched roofs and everything. Did he get so off-his-blinker drunk that he had travelled halfway across the country and ended up in rural Galway or something? No scratch that, Galway had no good forests to speak of. McConnaughy be damned, that was the most blighted landscape he had ever seen. This place looked fertile and green and sunny and— wait. Sunny? It was January, and it had been nothing but rain and storms and snow for two months. He had taken off his ruined jacket a while ago, but he was sweltering under the heat of the sun now. At first he thought it was just the after-effects of the drink, and that was indeed part of it. However, he had shown no signs of stopping sweating since he got up. It was hot, summertime hot. A creeping thought gnawed at the back of his mind. It was warm, almost as if he missed a season, and his hair had grown out, when the last he recalled was that he had cut it down to the bare minimum of social acceptability. The thought was less of what did he do last night, but how long had he been out of it? Oh God, he had heard nightmare stories in university. Friends of friends getting drunk abroad and waking up missing weeks’ worth of memories because they weren’t careful. The thought caused an uncomfortable tightness in his gut, and his eyes went wide at the implications. One night, maybe two night’s memories missing because he fucked up? Unprecedented for him, but he could deal with it. Entire weeks? That was a bit beyond alcoholism. He took several deep breaths to calm himself. There had to be a rational explanation. One did not simply come home from work one night and then go off on a bender to end all benders without at least some people you know going out looking for you. He was okay, unhurt, and alive. He could deal. He could deal with having one epic mishap in his life that would probably go unaccounted for. He could deal with having to fork over a hundred pounds or so for a new phone. He could even deal with the flurry of colourful horse-shaped creatures flying above the village and playing with the clouds as if they were solid objects. He could— Hang on a tick. He wiped his eyes clean, just in case he still was sleepy. Nope, the colourful flying horses were still in the air. … Still there. Not going anywhere. Yep. He stood there for a full minute, gawking, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. It wasn’t until he started seeing similarly garish creatures on the ground, milling about the houses of the small town, that the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He quickly glanced about. Seeing a rather large rock sticking out of the ground, he dived behind it. He curled up defensively against it as his thoughts raced. What the hell? What the actual hell!? He looked over the boulder again. Nope, the offence against common sense and good reason still persisted in existing. He sat back down. Okay. Scenario time. He had potentially weeks of unexplained memory loss to account for, he had no idea where he was, and he was seeing things that defied explanation. It meant that he was hallucinating with incredible clarity, which was unusual in itself. One would think a hallucination this extensive would not last more than a couple of seconds before chaotically changing into something else. A dream perhaps? He rubbed his hands, and a small rivulet of blood emerged from a particularly bad cut. No, the pain was too real, too persistent, and he was, well, relatively speaking, thinking far too clearly. If this was a dream, it was not falling apart because of a petty little thing such as realizing it was a dream. He looked over the boulder one more time, trying to stay out of sight, and studied the village for a while. It was strange. The creatures walked about, carrying things in their mouths such as baskets full of flowers and saddle bags filled with groceries or tools. He even saw one with a horn on its head climb up a ladder and cleaned a window with a rag on his hoof. It seemed like a perfectly normal functioning society. Except, you know, they were horses. Well, actually they were far too small to be horses. Ponies probably? Their heads were disproportionate but not unpleasantly so, their large eyes coming off more cartoonish than revolting. And they were colourful, like really colourful. Whenever he saw a pony that had a fur and mane colour combination approximating something one would expect a horse to have, it was the exception and not the norm. Several of the flying ones—his mind still boggled at the sheer insult to physics—actually came near his position. “Look, I don’t mean to toot my own horn. Buuuuut I am pretty awesome if I do say so myself,” one of the voices said. The human curled up even more behind the boulder. They could speak English, why? Why could they talk? What the hell was going on here!? “Oh. If… If you say so...” said another voice, gentler than the first. He didn’t dare look around the boulder. “What time is it?” The other voice took a second before it responded. “Oh no! We’re late! Quick, everypony will already be at the castle!” “H-Hey, wait for me!” He heard the flap of wings, and the sound of the two flying ponies talking trailed off into the distance, leaving the human there with far more questions than he had answers. He took a number of deep breaths to try to calm himself down. Nope, not good enough; he was panicking. He placed his hands in front of his mouth and stifled a long, terrified scream. He stayed there for a full hour more, his mind reduced to a standstill, trying to work to give him the answers he so desperately needed and avoiding the one that was clearly impossible because there was no way God hated him that much. However, it was the only one that could put any context to what he was witnessing. No matter how many times he rubbed his eyes and peered over the boulder, the clearly incorrect existence of physics-defying, candy-coloured equines who spoke and operated a society refused to go away. He had been transported, somehow, to a place where such things could be. The other answer was he was a high functioning acid addict and that his whole life was a lie. Frankly, he wasn’t sure which was worse. He punched himself with one last hope that sudden, sharp pain might jolt him to his senses. No dice. The only option left to him was, well, to jump right in. Stand on his two legs, approach the impossible village with its impossible denizens, and embrace the madness with open arms in the vain hope something good might come out of it, because if this was not real, then he was far, far too far gone for him to get himself out of it. His other option was turning around and marching straight back into that damnable forest until he came out somewhere that made sense. It only took him a few minutes to make up his mind. He stood up, placed his jacket back around his shoulders, and gave one last, determined look at the village that was now behind him. 'Not today,' he thought. 'I refuse to be swallowed up in your madness today.' And with that one, proud, decision, he marched right back into the dreadful embrace of that gloomy forest. Come hell or high water, he’d take the consequences rather than give in to lunacy. ---=--- So hell came first. The human exploded from a briar patch, the skin of his face awash with tiny cuts, eyes wide with fear and lungs burning with effort as he ran through the foliage, weaving beneath low-hanging branches and praying desperately to God for his feet to not catch on the gnarled roots that lay treacherously across the ground. He heard the low growl as the creature chased after him, crashing noisily through the trees as it rushed forward to catch its prey. Now the human, as it turned out, was not one for regular exercise back home, and as a result, had developed a rather large gut in his time. Indeed, had he been blessed with a slighter frame not built to handle heavy lifting, he would likely have been run down by the creature and eaten long before now. As it was, the fact his height and leg length was his only saving grace proved small comfort, as the only thoughts that occupied the small, terrified pocket dimension that his conscious thoughts had become revolved around such simple concepts as, ‘Oh God, it’s going to eat me!’ and ‘My P.E. teacher was right!’ The creature thundered after him and let out a hungry call that was not quite a roar but close. Its shrill bellow was hard to describe and succeeded in making the human’s skin crawl. He had only gotten one good look at it before he was forced to flee. It was a large round creature, its ball-like body almost entirely made up of a single mouth with rows of terrifying shark-like teeth forming concentric circles along its inside. The only thing that passed for eyes were two black dots immediately above its gaping maw of terror. The reddish-brown scaled creature propelled itself impossibly along two double jointed legs with two long taloned toes that looked like they were designed for tearing juicy little morsels such as himself apart. He didn’t even consider where he was going, too terrified to devote any precious time to the thought. He had tried to lose the creature by diving between several trees that grew together, leaving only tight spaces between to slip through. The creature had simply broken them down and continued its chase, almost as an afterthought. He was quickly running out of options. Twice he had come to nearly falling down off a sudden drop that would have either killed him outright or left him as easy pickings. He turned a sudden sharp left, and his world came to an end. His foot had been ensnared in a living briar that suddenly reached forward and grabbed a hold of his leg, causing him to suddenly come crashing down onto the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of him and make him briefly forget his terrifying predicament. When he came to his senses, he felt the briar tighten about his struggling feet, now encapsulating both of them. He struggled, placing both his hands on his head in a vain attempt to ward off the sudden yet inevitable pain of being torn asunder by that horrifying, living jaw. His body tensed. But it never came. One moment the creature was thundering behind him, the ground shaking with its ponderous foot falls. The next, silence. Deadly silence. The human dared to look behind him through his fingers. The living jaw, which was red when he had first seen, was now grey. Grey and unmoving. Almost without thinking, the human immediately began untangling himself from the animate briar, cursing as it cut into the flesh of his hands. But he was free, and he shuffled backwards on the forest floor, always facing the creature that had almost ended his life. It appeared to be made out of stone. It was just standing there, still, tranquil almost, its body posed to leap, its mouth open wide in anticipation of a meal. Its eyes, well, he couldn't really tell. When it was alive, the eyes were black spots; now they were grey. The living briar from before moved its roots over to the statue, twisting and grasping at its legs to no avail, struggling to try to trip the statue over and tear it apart. Eventually, it gave up and pulled its roots back and appeared, for all the world, to be just another ordinary briar bush. The human sat there, catching his breath, his chest heaving and lungs burning. It appeared that God was not quite done with him yet and decided to spare his life in this instance. That was when he heard it. A piercing noise, like that of the crow of a rooster but mixed with the hiss of a snake. He felt a presence behind him. He didn't move a muscle. He saw a small bird, couldn't have been any bigger than a robin, perch itself on a nearby branch. As soon as it turned around and faced the direction the human was sitting, he saw the bird turn to stone on the spot. The tiny statuette fell to the forest floor with a dull thunk. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end for the third time in as many hours. The creature hissed behind him again, and he could feel its breath on the back of his head. He had to think quickly. He glanced around him. There was a felled branch to his left. Without thinking twice, he reached over and grabbed it with his right hand, closed his eyes, and swung it around in a long arc, shouting something incomprehensible. He felt it connect with something. Opening his eyes, he saw what he could only describe as walking blasphemy. It was a chicken, or at least its body was shaped much like one, but only its head and feet had any resemblance to a fowl. It had a scaled body and thick tail that was as long as its body, tipped as it was with red ridges that emerged from its turquoise scales. The cockatrice stumbled and fell over from the sudden blow. It writhed and squirmed on the ground, cawing as it struggled to get back on its feet, leathery wings thrashing on the ground around it as another nearby living briar reached out to grasp at the struggling form of the abomination. It shrieked and cawed for release from the unrelenting grasp of the bush. The human broke and ran. He simply could not take it anymore. This place was madness incarnate: huge beasts, murderous plant life, and a creature straight out of ancient myth, turning creatures to stone with its very gaze. Yep, he was done here. He got back to his feet. His muscles screamed in protest as fear and raw willpower forced his body to move. He didn’t care where he was going now; anywhere was better than here. He rushed through the forest at pace. He heard distant sounds, cracking twigs, the tell-tale call of birdsong along with the ever present sensation of being watched from the shadows. It was an instinctive fear of shadow-skulking predators so ingrained in the human psyche that it was a sheer force of nature all its own that defined humanity for what it was. It was what drove them to hide from the unknown, to brave the dark in search of discovery, to be challenged and overcome their fear, or in this particular human’s case, it was the one thing that kept him going when his body kept politely informing his brain that it was spent via a throbbing headache and burning muscles. Another rough landing later, he tumbled and struggled to regain his footing as he swept under another branch and jumped over another crag to a lower section of the forest. So it was around this time our protagonist came face to face with high water. Not taking heed to look before he leapt, the first clue the human received that he had made a terrible mistake was when his body realised it was catching far more airtime than its brain thought was entirely healthy. Time seemed to slow down. He looked down, and his heart stopped as he saw the rapidly approaching waves of a swiftly flowing river, its white spray crashing over jagged rocks rose up to kiss his flesh as he slowly realised his own doom. His mind raced to form the thoughts that would create the substance of his final words to greet his fate with dignity and grace. “OHHHHHHHH BOOOOLLLLLOOOCCCCCKKKSSSSS!” Well, they couldn’t all be winners. He made contact with the water, and the human’s world became a swirling cacophony of noise and blurred shapes of fish, forest, and rocks as he struggled desperately to reach above the water for air. Alas, his flailing movements were fruitless, for the current was too strong. He managed to grab hold of a floating log long enough to quickly take in breath before he desperately threw his head about to find someway of getting out of the water. Nothing presented itself: the river cut deep into the ground of the forest; its banks were easily four feet above him, and… the river was apparently coming to a dead end. His eyes opened wide as his brain struggled to think of an escape route. The river appeared to be flowing straight into a solid wall, and the current was only picking up speed. He pushed off from the log in desperation and latched onto the nearest wall of rock, catching hold, barely. He watched the log as it was carried by the river before it was smashed against the unmoving wall and shattered to splinters. He swallowed. “Balls to all of this,” he said. The majority of his body was still in the full flow of the river, and he felt his grip slacken on the jutting rock. He quickly reached up with his free hand and grabbed another handhold. A desperate, hopeful grin split across his face, and he reached up, one hand after another, and pulled himself up the side of the bank to safety. That was when he felt the clawed foot clamp down on his left hand. He had just reached the top. He looked up desperately and saw the cockatrice staring down at him. There were scales missing from its body, and one of its eyes was closed. The creature stared at him, and he felt he could not move. 'Oh no,' he thought. 'It’s going to turn me to stone too.' His heart tightened, and his blood flow slowed. He held its gaze for a few seconds before the cockatrice shook its head. He felt the tightness leave his chest, and he released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The cockatrice’s gaze changed. It didn’t soften; it changed. The cockatrice looked at the river below, then at the human’s hand beneath its foot, and then at the wall the river impossibly flowed into. The human thought he could see something of a grin on the creature’s beaked face. “Don’t you dare,” he warned. The cockatrice looked down at him, and quick as lightning, pecked one of his fingers. “Ah! Don’t! Ye sunova—“ The cockatrice came down again, plucking at another finger. He felt his grip slacken, and he reached up his right hand to grab another fistful of grass before the cockatrice crowed and pecked it to hell and back. The human yelped and lost his footing, his right hand tearing away from the ground with a tuft of grass uselessly clasped between his fingers. He was now dangling bodily from his left hand and panicking all the more for it. Cockatrice or no cockatrice, he knew he couldn't hold his weight with his left arm on its own for too long. He cast one desperate look up at the cockatrice, which regarded him coolly. “You—“ He didn’t get to finish the sentence, for the cockatrice stepped off his left hand and gave it one last peck in-between the knuckles. That was the end of it. The human tumbled and fell back into the river and rose only in time to see the rapidly approaching wall. He held his arms helplessly before his face as the speed picked up even further. Then all was black. The human was sucked beneath the waters and found himself tumbling in darkness. The river went through an underground pass, taking him with it. He hit his head off of solid rock several times, and his head swam as his lungs burned desperately for air. The last thing he saw before blacking out was a faint light in the distance. ---=--- “HYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRKKK!” The human gasped for air greedily as he awoke. The river he had been traveling on had now turned into a gently flowing stream, and he found himself washed up on a bank beside a fallen oak tree. He looked around. No cockatrices, no living jaws ready to snap him up, no nearby living briars ready to tear him apart. Just the dark forest and the last fading rays of sunlight piercing the canopy where it could, casting the forest in a peaceful, almost mystical light. He grabbed a large stick and used it to help him stand. He had to get out of this forest, for he was tired, starving, out of shape, and clearly unprepared. He put his hood up to keep out the chill. It didn’t help much since his clothes were as soaked as the rest of him. He limped gingerly as he had hurt his leg and his everything else in the journey so far. If something else came at him now, there really wasn’t much he could do about it. He struggled along as the last rays of day gave way to night. He saw light in the distance behind a copse of trees to his right. Moving towards it and pushing past several bushes that most certainly weren’t alive and murderous, for he had checked, you see, he found the source of the light. It was a tree, rather, a treehouse, with a door and windows and what could only be described as some kind of welcome mat. The tree looked ancient, gnarled and wild and foreboding, with large masks hanging about its front like garden charms. Bottles hung from ropes in the branches above it. The human had a friend from Louisiana who told him about the hoodoo practices that occurred in some places. He winced. This was not promising. He sucked it up however. He was not in any mood to put up with further nonsense. He was just going to knock on the door and politely ask for directions, namely, the direction for getting the hell out of there. He limped up to the door and knocked. After the first knock, the door was opened, and the human was greeted by the most bizarre sight he had laid eyes on all day. It was a pony, well… no, no it wasn’t. It was a zebra. A zebra the size of a pony, grey and light grey-coloured fur, with a large mohawk and accentuated by golden neck circlets and earrings. The zebra looked up at the human in surprise, apparently as astonished to see him as he was to see her. Honestly, he didn’t know what he was expecting. He opened his mouth, then closed it, thinking very carefully about how he was going to approach this particular brand of lunacy. He looked up over the zebra and into the house. There was an actual bubbling cauldron in the centre of the room, with something green and glowing inside of it as fumes wafted up from its surface. The walls were lined with charms, and there were African tribal masks and bottles filled with mysterious liquids that the human’s mind imagined were for all sorts of nefarious purposes. 'Oh great,' he thought, 'it’s actually a witch.' His eyes were drawn back to the blue eyes of the zebra before him. It spoke. “Hello there. Is there something I can share?” Oh man, it had an accent and spoke in rhyme and everything. The human rubbed his face with the palm of his hand. He was going to go call up the lads when he got back and enquire about going through a detox, because clearly whatever drugs he was on needed to get out of his system as soon as possible and never ever come back ever. The zebra was about to speak again before the human put his other hand up. “Shh, jus… just don’t spoil the moment,” he said, and the zebra closed her mouth again. “Just… Can ye point me to the quickest way out?” he asked, his voice little more than a crack above whispering. The zebra lifted her right forehoof and pointed down a path that led roughly back to where the human reasoned the rapids were. Gears in his head turned before he reasoned that the zebra was probably pointing him in the direction of the village of insanity. He coughed. He came this far; he wasn’t about to go back. Nope, no matter how much easier it probably was than the suffering he had already gone through, he wasn’t going to let the madness win. “Actually uh, I mean a way out that doesn’t lead to the nearby town.” The zebra cocked her head and gave the human a curious expression. She—it sounded like a she, anyway—lifted her left forehoof up and pointed in another direction, to a path that led around the back of her house tree. The human followed her direction for a moment as he thought to himself. He clicked his mouth as he came to a decision. “Alright then, thanks ma’am,” he said. “I shan’t be troubling ye longer. Farewell,” he said, more jauntily than he honestly felt. He limped down the trail. “Are you sure you are fit for the trail? I would not like to see you fail. Perhaps you should sit and rest, so you’ll be sure your feet are up to the test.” Honestly, rhyming? “I’ll be grand so,” he said by way of response, not caring if she understood his turn of phrase as he disappeared down the trail and into the darkness of the forest. The zebra looked down the trail at him for a while still after he had left. She flicked her tail and looked around the forest surrounding her tree before turning back to look down the trail the human had went down. “Well that was interesting to see,” the zebra said as she finally turned back to re-enter her house. “A stubborn one lost in the Everfree,” she said as the door closed behind her. ---=--- It took him hours to get out of that damnable forest. Or at least, he thinks it did. It felt like hours but he was pretty sure the sun set way faster than it should have done, and more than once he found himself making several right turns and never once have the trail cross over itself, his head felt fuzzy at times. However, the zebra was as good as her word, and the path did take him to the edge of the forest that didn’t end in the pony village. He had a few close calls here and there; it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. He had to briefly dive behind a crag as a pack of wolves, well, more like obscene, living collections of loose timber, branches, and wood in the form of wolves passed by. They had stopped perilously close to where he was hidden, their noses that were not noses sniffing the air. He had feared he was going to be found if the pack hadn’t been distracted by a distant howl as their pack fellows found other prey. Trouble aside, he had made it. The trees thinned out and gave way to rolling green hills bathed blue in the pale moonlight of the celestial body that was busy waxing gibbous as it hung mysteriously, draped in cumulus that hugged it like a cloak. The stars were out in all their glory, and it would have been stunningly beautiful if the human bothered to look up. He didn’t and he wouldn’t. He trudged on until he was nearly a half mile from the forest, his legs moving on autopilot, his mind far away, drifting and lost in exhaustion. Eventually he collapsed onto his knees and rolled down a hill until he was looking up at the sky above him. Well, it appeared the stars would be appreciated whether the human cared to look up or not. He regarded them with a cold indifference ordinarily reserved for crushing ants beneath one’s feet. Their beauty did nothing to assuage him. He closed his eyes. This would be a good enough place to sleep, he reckoned. ---=--- He awoke with a start. He was still looking up at the stars above. Something was wrong, for he no longer felt soaked, and there was an uncomfortable warmth coming from his left. He sat straight up with a yelp as he realised he was actually inches away from a roaring campfire. “Easy, stranger,” a voice called out. The human did a double take and shuffled away from the fire with a yelp. “I said easy!” the voice insisted. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you… Not that you’d be in any condition to stop me anyway.” The voice belonged to a strange creature that lay across from him on the far side of the fire. It was smaller than he was but not by too much. It looked like someone had performed mad science on a white-coated lion and gave it large wings and the head of an eagle. The griffon regarded him curiously with sharp, red eyes. Four large feathers swept back from its light, grey head and flopped behind, swaying gently in the wind. It crossed its forelegs over one another as it opened its beak to let out a yawn. It lifted one claw and pointed over to shoddily-made wooden rack. “Your coat’s over there if you’re wondering. You were soaking. You’d have caught a fever or something if I left you here. You’re welcome, by the way.” The human looked down at himself. He was in quite a state. His jacket had been, indeed, taken from his very back. His shirt was in tatters and his jeans thoroughly ruined in mud and filth from traveling through the forest. He was, however, dry for the most part. “I uh… Aye… Aye thanks,” he managed, regarding the bizarre mishmash of animals before him quizzically. “What are you?” the griffon asked rather bluntly. “Lost,” the human replied, giving a rueful smile. It seemed that the dream theory was now thoroughly put to bed. He was in far too much pain and far too tired for this to be all dream logic. The griffon chuckled, its voice rough. “Obviously, but what are you? Don’t think I’ve seen a creature like you before. Your paws look like something a gorilla might have, but they’re different.” Oh goody, he decided to help himself to have a gander at my hands, did he? He grumbled to himself. “Human,” he said at last. “And no, I’m not from around here.” He looked over at his rescuer. “You’re a… griffon, aren’t you?” the human asked. He listened to how the griffon spoke and decided to try to keep his colloquialisms to a minimum. If there was one thing his job nailed into him, it was completely removing any shred of personality from your voice so that you didn’t accidentally offend somebody by being the slightest bit incomprehensible. Or so the logic went. “That I am,” the griffon responded. “The name’s Joachim by the way.” He lifted his left wing as the human raised his arm to introduce himself. He winced, and the human noticed. “Something wrong?” he asked. “It’s nothing really,” Joachim said as he rose up and walked to stretch his legs. As he turned, the human noticed his right wing was wrapped up in a splinter and bandage. He winced sympathetically. “Before you ask, no, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say I ticked off the wrong person,” Joachim said as he noticed the human’s stare. “Anyway, it’ll be healed up soon enough.” He opened up a nearby pack bag and lifted out a small orange bottle. “Salamander salve,” he explained as he shook the bottle and replaced it back into his pack. “Not as good as genuine rest and hospital care, but put it on the damaged limb, and it’ll help knit bones. In time anyway, so long as you don’t foul up and start dancing on the hurt limb or anything. I gave you some for those nasty cuts you had all over your paws,” he said, pointing at the human, who began looking at his hands. He nodded, an impressed look on his face. “Anyway, I don’t believe I got your name?” The human, distracted, didn’t immediately answer him. He was looking his hands over. The cuts were still there, but they were fading, and some of the nastier ones were closing up nicely. “Salamander salve,” he said softly to himself, clicking his teeth. “That’s handy.” “Handy? That’s an odd name,” Joachim mused. The human snapped back to attention. “Huh? What?” “Your name. You said your name was Handy,” Joachim said, pointing at ‘Handy’. The human blinked incredulously. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did. Hi, I’m Handy,” he said, smiling and offering his hand for a shake. Joachim looked down at it. “Uhh, yeah… hi,” the griffon said as he reached out and clasped the hand in a shake. It was a strange sensation, shaking the claw of a bird of prey. It felt like you were shaking hands with a scythe. “Anyway,” Joachim said as he let go and walked back over to lie down again, “what brings you to Equestria?” “What-ria?” Handy asked. Joachim gave him an amused look. “Equestria? Land of the ponies? Ruled by two princesses who raise the sun and the moon? Kind of an important country? Ringing any bells?” Joachim asked. Handy burst out into uproarious laughter. “What’s so funny?” “Raising the sun and moon?” Handy asked between laughs. “I’ve heard of backwards nations, but I don’t care how primitive a people are. No one believes their leaders literally raise the sun in the morning. It’s simply infeasible. Gravity doesn’t work like that!” Joachim’s expression changed to that of concern. “You… think they don’t raise and lower the sun and moon?” “Of course not!” he exclaimed. “Why would you?” “Because that’s the way of the world. Before they came, the unicorns raised and lowered the sun and moon with their magic,” Joachim said, which just elicited more laughs from his company. “Ahahaha! And next I suppose ye’ll be telling me they’re immortal and live thousands of years! Hahaha!” “Well…. They do, and have already.” Handy was reduced to falling on his side in laughter. “It’s not funny. Raising the sun and moon is serious business.” Joachim was now thoroughly unamused by Handy’s hysterical laughter. “Okay… Okay, I think I’m done, ow…” Handy said as he realised he was still hurt and aching. “I didn’t mean to laugh at you like that. It’s just, well, in human nations, it’s not unheard of for rulers to be associated with celestial bodies, but none of them really claimed to literally raise and lower them. Even when they were worshipped as gods.” “Well I don’t think the ponies worship their rulers… Or maybe they do; it’s hard to tell with them sometimes. Look, the point of the matter is that this is the country we’re in, it’s ruled by these two princesses, and you still have yet to explain why you’re here.” “I said I was lost.” “Obviously! But you had to come from somewhere and for a reason.” Handy turned his gaze downwards sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head. “Uh well, the thing is, Joachim...” he gave a sheepish grin, “I uh… don’t remember how I got here. I just woke up in that forest back there." Joachim’s eyes opened wider. “The Everfree Forest? No wonder you look like Tartarus.” “That’s what it’s called? Never heard of it. Anyway, last thing I remember? I was coming home from work. It was the middle of winter, and it was storming. Next thing I know, I wake up in a forest, my hair has grown, and I am suffering God’s own hangover as punishment for my sins. I never had one so bad. Nearest I can figure? I went on an apocalyptic bender and got drunk beyond all drunkenness.” Handy shrugged in defeat. “The alternative is that I stepped through some kind of portal and ended up in a world so utterly alien to what I know that I might as well be in another universe.” It was Joachim’s turn to laugh. Handy glared at him, unimpressed. “Not funny, man, I am lost and have nowhere to go, and if you’re any indication, no one here has any idea what I am either. Hell, I am not entirely sure I haven’t just gone off the deep end entirely and am lost in a mist of insanity” “No no, I’m sorry, Handy, it’s just, well, stranger things have happened,” Joachim responded, wiping a tear from his eye. “Look, how’s about this. I’m grounded for the foreseeable future, you need a guide, and we’re both far from home. Got anywhere to be?” he asked. Handy shrugged. “Not particularly. My life wasn’t really going anywhere anyway.” “Good, because I may need an extra wing— Err, paw in your case.” “They are called hands,” Handy said, wiggling his fingers and smiling. “Rrrright, hands.” Joachim clicked his beak as his brow furrowed, obviously not understanding Handy’s joke. Handy frowned. “Listen, I’m heading to a town near the ocean, and it’s on the west coast. Heard a story that miners nearby have found a glowing gem that supposedly grants wishes, but some diamond dogs have taken over the mine. They’re paying if anyone is willing to go down and evict the squatters.” Handy scoffed. “A magical gem that grants wishes?” Handy asked. “Look, I’m not saying I believe the story, okay? I just need the bits. I don’t know how things are done in your world, but drifting doesn’t exactly pay the bills.” “Pretty much the exact reason why I am not a drifter.” “So I see,” Joachim said, pointing at Handy’s gut. “Bit too used to the good life, I take it?” “Get bent,” Handy said, scowling. “Easy, I kid. I kind of need you anyway. Those hands of yours seem similar enough to the paws the dogs have. You could probably use their machinery better than I could.” “And what do I get out of this deal? “Action? Adventure? My eternal gratitude?” Handy had an unamused expression. “Okay, fine. I’ll split the bits with you. Hard flank.” “Better.” “Anyway, you should get some sleep. You look wrecked,” Joachim noted. Handy yawned in agreement before eyeing Joachim suspiciously. “And how do I know you won’t claw me in my sleep?” Handy asked. It was Joachim’s turn to scoff and regard the human in derision. “Well that’s just insulting. If I was going to do that, I would’ve while you were still passed out. ‘Sides, what would I do that for? You have nothing I’d want to take.” “Call me cynical I guess. Look, I didn’t mean to offend, really. I’m grateful.” Joachim snorted. “Mmhmm, we’ll see in the morning,” he said as he pulled his pack bag closer and lay on top of it. Handy regretted his words, for now his companion had doubts about whether he could trust him. He sighed and reached over to pull his ruined jacket from the rack and draped it over him. It was a humid night, but the jacket would be needed to stave off the worst of the wind chill. He turned over and lay on his side. It took him another hour before he could drift off to sleep, Joachim long since reduced to relaxed snoring behind him as the fire continued to crackle contentedly between them. Idly, he fiddled with the cross about his neck. He really hoped this was all a dream. A part of him still would not accept this as reality, no matter how many bangs and bruises he got. That part hoped he would go to sleep and wake up in his bed or a hospital bed; honestly, anything other than the field he was now lying down in. He glanced up at the stars so far above him. He never much cared for stars back home. Most nights were too cloudy to properly appreciate them, and when it was clear, it was far too cold to stay out to look up at them. He was always preoccupied anyway, always something to do to prepare for another day at the grindstone which had come to encapsulate his life. “Whatever.” He gave one last shrug, “I’ve had worse Mondays,” he said, smiling at his own blatant lie as he drifted off to sleep. --=-- Meanwhile, far away, an entirely different pair of creatures was discussing matters of great import. “Really? Nothing?” the shadowed figure asked. “I did everything as you said. I told you there were too many variables,” the hooded figure replied, levitating a weather-beaten book before its cowl. A faint blue light shone from the stone ritual circle behind it. “It obviously did something. The veil was crossed, and something came through,” the shadows insisted. “Yes, but I do not know what. I could not see what it was. It felt larger than a pony though.” “There are a lot of things bigger than a pony! For all we know, you pulled the weapon through, but it arrived somewhere else!” “I don’t think I got the weapon,” the hooded pony said. “It was moving, and it felt… alive.” “It doesn't matter; we've wasted too much time and resources here. We need to move on.” “But—” “The council has spoken. We’ll find another way to make them bend their knees before us. Now come.” The figure in the shadows left the room, and the hooded figure heard the wooden door shut as it left. It turned and regarded the ritual circle, its intricate carvings alive with magical essence. The figure stood there for some time before turning to leave. “I’ll look into it later. I refuse to let this beat me,” the figure said before following its fellow into the shadows, leaving the pulsating stonework behind to fade into the darkness.