Three pairs of eyes, wide-eyed with complete and utter surprise, all fixed themselves on the smoking, groaning creature in the middle of the room. He did not stand up, he simply twitched a bit for a while.
Twilight, Rarity, and Spike all had different thoughts speed through theirs minds, different emotions. Relief, regret, fear, surprise, fear, surprise, and more fear and more surprise.
Rarity wondered if this was the the creature of whom Twilight spoke - it had to have been - but it it wasn't was it a threat? Should they all be fleeing?
Spike didn't know what to think.
Twilight, however pressed her ears against her head and made herself look as small as possible. She did not know what was going to happen. She knew Booker, and he was not an angry of vengeful man by any means, but that didn't mean that something happened to him on the way to Equestria.
Eventually, however, the man, gray wisps still curling from his clothes and body and into the air, made the effort of standing up, Twilight leaning back and the other two leaning forward all the time. All three kept telling themselves that now was the time to act, to run, to fight, to do anything, but none of them could budge, their bodies frozen.
Soon, the creature stood at full height, and every single emotion of gear and awe increased. He began to stumble forward, his feet flopping about, toward the room's other occupants. The main room was large, but not extraordinarily massive, and soon he had almost reached them.
Finally, Rarity opened her mouth to say something. She doesn't remember what exactly, or to whom, but she never did as the creature tripped and fell forward, his hand outstretched to Twilight.
. . . . it passed right through her.
Again, no on moved for a good long while. Then Twilight whimpered, "Booker?"
She received naught but a grunt in response.
"Booker, are you alright?" Twilight asked, her ears standing tall, waiting for a response.
Silence.
Twilight cautiously held out her hoof and tried to remove Booker's baseball cap, but just as Booker's hand had done, Twilight's hoof passed through.
" . . . what? . . ."
"Twilight!" Rarity was finally able to blurt out, "Twilight, is that - is that him?"
Twilight's head swiveled to meet Rarity's eyes and then returned to the back of Booker's head. Then she sighed.
"Yes."
"But, well, I mean, how did he get here?
"I don't know."
"But what are we going to do?"
"I don't know!"
Throughout the midst of all of this, the only intelligible thought that had reached Spike's mind was: Wow, I'm sure glad I didn't burp him up! . . .
- - -
I can't describe what exactly it was that happened after that. Surprisingly, not that much pain. Yeah, there was the Dust's trademark zap! that had plagued me so many times, but it wasn't really increased.
The, uh, ride, we'll call it, wasn't particularly interesting either. I mean, there was quite a bit of flashing light and fleeting images, a lot of flopping about, a lot of heat, but it was all over in just seconds.
I suddenly found myself discarded onto something that looked like wood. Despite the briefness of the whole ordeal, it had somehow left me completely exhausted and I wasn't able to move for quite some time. It took me a good five minutes to force myself up, and even then I was having a hard time staying on my feet.
The world was a blur. I saw some wood, more wood, several dim colors, and three spots of much brighter colors, and that really was about it. Nothing was perceivable, nothing had a definite shape or place to stay.
One of the spots of brighter colors was an assortment of purples, the exact same colors as Twilight, the exact pony I was looking for.
And so, seeing as I couldn't really see or walk or feel anything for that matter, I began to, rather awkwardly, stumble my way over there, abandoning my bag in the process. Something might have gone wrong on my way to wherever I was now, and I really didn't want to be stuck in this state forever.
The bright colors didn't move.
I reached them rather quickly and I extended my hand outward. I wanted to say something, anything, but my sluggish brain had other ideas.
I heard a distant gasp and I knew that these spots were alive.
Unfortunately, my strength gave out, and I thudded to the floor, still unable to feel anything very strongly. It felt more like landing on a solid pillow than one a slab of wood.
Finally, they spoke. Well, two of the three.
The voices sort of dodged in and out of my sense, seemingly attempting to evade my perception, but they were clear enough.
One of them I did not recognized, but when I heard what it was saying, I was happy.
Twilight answered her back and then talked to me. She talked to me! It was Twilight! I'm going to be saved! I'm going to make everything right! And then I'm going to kick her ass for being so emotional! Hooray interdimensional travel!
But, again, my brain wasn't really working right then, so I wasn't able to form an intelligible response. I just sat there, laying about in a stupid position on the fluffy wooden floor, trying and failing to send "move!" command to any one of my limbs, to get up and hug Twilight, and then beg for her magical help before I imploded in on myself and took the entirety of Equestria with me in some sort of Booker-formed black hole in the middle of this place. Or perhaps I would be grabbed by the laws of reality and shoved elsewhere, lost among the dimensions forever never to be found. Needles to say, this and any other idea of the like scared me, more than my soldier balls of steel would like to admit. But I was still unable to say anything, or move at all.
So I asked myself: what now? . . .