Consciousness took its sweet time getting back to me. Touch and hearing were first to arrive, informing me that I was flat on my back and unrestrained while someone presumably took notes with a pencil. Thinking I was in a hospital - one on Earth, that is - I opened my eyes… Only to discover that particular assumption was wrong.
No, rather than a hospital, I was lying on the floor of what could only have been a library. Fortunately, I was still clothed. Whoever had brought me there was thoughtful enough to have put a thin mattress down, but it was still the floor, and that certainly puts an upper limit on how comfortable one can conceivably be on even the best mattress. I started the laborious process of getting up - when your back doesn't work like everyone else’s, trust me, you put more work into things like this - and was greeted by a cornucopia of muscle aches. As soon as I started moving, the scratching I thought was writing broke off.
“Oh good, you’re awake.” Twilight’s voice only served to remind me that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. “I’m sorry about earlier. Obsidian Chip is one of the first changelings in the Royal Guard, and she sometimes takes her duties a little too seriously. You’re not hurt, are you?”
That was a good question. I sat on my heels and, after a few seconds of prodding at my various bruises, shrugged. “I’ll be sore for a while, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“Good, good. I’d hate to waste time finding out if a vet is more qualified to mend your wounds than a doctor.” There was a shuffling of something - paper, perhaps? - before Twilight continued. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
I stood up, wincing slightly at the bruises I’d gathered, and took a moment to look around the library. It was clearly well-maintained, but that comfortable order had been disrupted. My bike was on its kickstand by the door, stripped of the bits of gear I usually keep on it, and Twilight appeared to have taken it upon herself to sort through and categorize my belongings. “That depends on the questions…”
“Most important first, then.” One of my textbooks was engulfed in a vaguely pink-purple aura, and hovered its way over to Twilight. Of all the times to be studying math… “I recognized a lot of the diagrams in this book, and I think I've puzzled out your numerals, but I want to be entirely sure. You use a base-ten system, right? Zero through nine?”
“Yeah. Do you have something I can write with?” In response, a mobile chalkboard rolled out of a nearby closet, engulfed in the same sort of aura my book was floating inside, then it came to a stop. I waited for the aura to dissipate, then picked up a bit of chalk from the tray and scribbled at the chalkboard. “Zero through nine.”
“That’s what I figured.” Twilight’s voice seemed distracted, but I didn’t bother to turn and see what’d gotten her attention. “What about addition, subtraction, and so on?”
“Alright.” I shrugged and jotted down a few basic formulas as an example. “Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Anything else?”
I turned around to discover the cheap pocket calculator I’d left in my bag hovering a few inches away from my face. I peered around it at Twilight, who looked rather frazzled. “I've been feeding this device of yours math problems for the past twenty minutes, and now that I know for sure what your mathematical language looks like, I just figured out it’s been giving me correct answers every. Single. Time.” She barely stopped for breath, and glared at me. “And as far as I can tell, there’s no magic involved. How does this nightmarish device work without using magic‽”
And that’s how I spent the next two hours. Twilight held up something of mine, asked a question or ten about it, and I answered to the best of my ability. When Twilight was satisfied, or at least convinced I didn’t know everything there was to know about something, she let me pack it away again. The electronic devices took more time than things like my tools and food, really, and left me with the distinct impression that Equestria’s technological development was somewhat lacking. This might be a result of their reliance on magic, but I couldn't be sure. Fortunately, Twilight calmed down somewhat as her curiosity was sated, and stuffed the papers she’d filled with her findings into an over-sized envelope.
Once everything was packed up, I assumed the questions would stop. Twilight quickly disabused me of that notion. “I do have some questions about your conveyance, but they’re not as urgent. You can answer while you show me back to where you appeared in Equestria.” She took a moment to seal the envelope with a bit of stamped wax, then lit a candle that burned with an intense green flame. One corner of the sealed envelope came in contact with the fire, and the whole thing went up like the Hindenburg. Conveniently, the rush of air filling a void was enough to extinguish the candle. Then Twilight turned her head toward the stairs and, well, yelled. “Spike! I’m going out, but I’m expecting an important letter from Celestia! Leave it on my desk if it comes while I’m not here!”
“Alright!” The sounds I heard behind the comprehension spell were terrifying, and left no doubt as to Spike’s existence as an actual honest-to-god dragon. I consider myself quite fortunate to have not soiled myself upon hearing his voice. “Say hi to Rarity for me if you see her!”
Twilight caught my look of horror and nickered, which I decided to interpret as a laugh. “First time hearing Draconic? I tried teaching him Equestrian, but he didn’t speak it as much as he gargled it. He’s a big softie, I promise.”
“I’ll take your word for it, if it’s all the same to you.” I shook off my surprise as I checked my bike over for damage, as well as lingering bits of changeling goop. There wasn't any trace of the latter, thankfully, but I frowned mightily when I noticed an important part of the right-side bottle cage had snapped when I’d tipped over earlier. My own damn fault for getting the cheap aluminum ones, I suppose. Without thinking twice, I dug into my tools for the hex wrench set and pulled the broken cage off, then swapped the left one into its place. On reflex, I looked around for a recycling bin to chuck the broken bit of gear into, only to notice Twilight’s attention was focused on me. Or rather, the broken bottle cage I was holding. “...Is there something I can do for you, Princess?”
“Is that aluminum..? It doesn't shine quite the same way steel does, and for it to snap like that it must be either aluminum or an aluminum alloy that’s been subjected to stress over time...” The way she said it, it was like she was talking to herself. “I examined the coins myself, and those were primarily copper, nickel, and zinc. But if that’s aluminum, and it’s not used in the local currency, then it must be either incredibly valuable - which is contraindicated by using it for structural purposes - or so common as to be nearly worthless aside from its material properties…”
“So you’re not impressed by interchangeable parts and what that implies from a societal standpoint, but you are impressed by the metal itself?”
Finally, Twilight remembered I was there. “How could you not know how…!” Then she looked at me again and calmed down. “Right. You’re an alien from another dimension. I’d be surprised if you did know how rare aluminum is in Equestria.”
“Tell you what. There’s a bit of a walk ahead of us. You can tell me all about it as we go.” I shrugged and offered up the broken bit of gear. “If it helps, you can have this to study at your leisure. I certainly don’t need it anymore.”
Almost immediately, the broken bottle cage was snatched up in what I’d figured out was Twilight’s magical field. The field shimmered, presumably as she cast some variety of identification spell, and her jaw went slack. “...I can’t melt it down and sell it, it’s too valuable from a research standpoint, but still. This much pure aluminum is worth hundreds of bits…”
“Consider it a gift.” I shrugged and folded my bike’s kickstand up, making ready to go. “If I brought it home with me, I’d just toss it in the recycling bin and it’d get melted down as scrap metal in a few weeks. This way, someone gets more use out of it. Maybe you’ll learn something about human metallurgy from it.”
“That’s exactly what I hope to do, but that can wait.” Twilight smiled and floated the busted-up piece of hardware into a desk drawer. After that, she extracted a set of saddlebags from the closet near the door, settling them across her back as she opened the library’s front door. “You have a portal to show me.”
Say what you will about how adorable Equestrian architecture is, it’s not designed for anyone much more than five feet tall. Since I’m six-one, I’m glad the library had high ceilings. Unfortunately, the front door was more appropriately sized for a hobbit or dwarf than someone my size. I’ll spare you a description of how difficult it was to get myself and my bike out of the library without damaging the moldings. I’ll just say it was awkward enough for Twilight to stifle a bit of laughter, and let your imagination fill in the blanks.
Once I was sure I was clear of the door, I plopped down on my bike. “Think you could lead me back to where I passed out?” I dimly registered the click from my left foot clipping into its pedal. Reflexes are awesome that way. “I don’t exactly know the town the way you do.”
“Sure.” Twilight started walking, then raised an eyebrow at me when I pushed off and easily kept pace with her. Low gears are awesome. “What was that click I heard? It sounded like it came from your foot.”
“Clipless pedals.” I caught her look of incomprehension, and elaborated. “You noticed the metal cleats on my shoes while I was out, right?” She nodded, and I continued. “Those match up with a locking mechanism built into the pedals, and allows me to secure my feet to them while in motion. It’s primarily an efficiency thing.”
“Sounds like an interesting bit of mechanical engineering. I’d love to learn more about their development, but I’m guessing you don’t know as much as I’d like to learn?”
“Got it in one.” I shrugged. “Any other questions?”
Let it be known that asking Twilight Sparkle if she has ‘any other questions’ is a bad idea. Fortunately for me, being engaged in an active conversation with a Princess - I still wasn't clear on if that was a job or an honorific reserved for alicorns - seemed to keep the town’s population from screaming and running in terror, and gave me plenty of time to get my bearings unmolested. Unfortunately, the crowds were so thick I had to resort to pushing myself along with my feet instead of pedaling like I really wanted to, and that gave Twilight ample time to continue grilling me for information. Don’t get me wrong, she was quite kind about it, and she probably didn’t realize that she was doing it, but I was still being grilled for information. I wound up giving her short explanations of the industrial revolution, the jump from vacuum tubes to transistors, and even touched upon the various space programs and their accomplishments.
“So you’re telling me,” Twilight was giving me her best skeptical look as we finally reached the edge of town, “that your species visited your moon by sending specially-trained volunteers into orbit inside pressurized metal cans sitting on top of fireworks the size of buildings? And the only reason the nation-state you’re from did it was to demoralize another nation-state?”
“When you put it like that, it does sound insane.” I shrugged. “Then again, so does falling through an inter-dimensional portal to find a race of intelligent multicolored horses.”
“Ponies.” Twilight corrected me, on reflex, before continuing. “I suppose you have a point, though. Your race doesn't have magic, so you would have to find alternate means to achieve your goals. And since you said you’re genetically related to some of the great apes, there would be some instinctual remnants of their behavior in your culture…”
“Take it from me, humans are weird.” My gaze flicked across the scenery in front of me, and something clicked in my head. “Where’s this path lead? I think it’s the one I showed up on.”
“It’s a big loop that goes through the Whitetail Woods. The other end comes out on the other side of town.” Twilight peered at me, and I felt for all the world like a bug under a microscope. “We use it for The Running of the Leaves every year, but there haven’t been any reports of ponies going missing yesterday...”
“Hey, don’t look at me. ” I shrugged. “Maybe it’s a recent thing, maybe it only opens once certain conditions are met, maybe it’s a one-way portal. All I know about this sort of thing is that inter-dimensional portals clearly exist, or else I wouldn't be here.”
“You've... Got a point. Sorry.” Twilight shook her head, and transitioned to a light trot. “We've got a fair bit of ground to cover if you came in on this path.”
“In that case, Princess?” I relaxed into my seat and found a sedate cadence to my strokes, easily keeping up with Twilight. “You set the pace, and keep a magical eye open. I don’t want either of us to blunder into the portal by accident.”
“Sure thing.” I caught a glimmer of light as Twilight lit her horn. Freakin’ magic, there’s no explaining it. “What’s the other side like?”
“A lot like this, actually. Dirt path, trees on either side, roughly the same time of year too. Maybe the similarity contributed to the portal’s formation?”
“For someone who doesn't know much about magic, you’re certainly catching on quick.” Twilight grinned over her shoulder at me. “You sure you don’t have a horn?”
“I dunno, don’t most males have something that could resemble a horn in the right lighting?” I grinned as she shot me a look of confusion. “I mean, sure, it’s not on my head, but it does exist…”
Comprehension dawned, and Twilight cringed. “Augh, you’re worse than Spike!” But, she started laughing a moment later. “Are all stallions like this, and I just never noticed?”
“Can’t speak for the stallions, ma’am, but most males of my species and age do tend toward such crudeness.” I kept on grinning. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll try and keep it under control. No promises, though.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, and we struck up a friendly banter as we went down the trail. She’d ask me a question about Earth, I’d answer, then I’d get to ask something about Equestria. We kept this up for a while, then Twilight came to an uncertain stop. “Is it just me, or is it warmer than it was a few seconds ago?”
“Come to think of it, yeah, a little bit.” I rolled to a stop next to her, planting my feet. “It couldn't be thermal leakage from the portal, could it?”
“I doubt it, given what you've said.” Twilight looked around, confused. “Couldn't be a forest fire either, I would've smelled one the moment we left the library. It almost feels like summer, but that’s-”
“Twilight Sparkle. Step away from the intruder.” The sudden, booming voice resonated in my chest, stunning me with its intensity. I barely registered Twilight bolting away from me as if I’d caught fire. A moment later, the voice’s owner stepped out of the undergrowth. Dimly, some part of me registered that I was looking at Princess Celestia. She was…
To call her ‘awe-inspiring’ doesn't quite convey the sheer force behind her presence. She shone in the late afternoon sunlight, enough to make my eyes water just looking at her. The air itself rippled and flowed around her, mirages forming and dissipating along her coat and plumage. Instead of a mane and tail, she had a nebulous haze of colors stretching away from her neck and rump, twisting and snapping in a maelstrom I could neither see nor hear. Her horn was ablaze with power, whorls of barely-contained plasma spiraling away from the golden corona. The torc and shoes she wore seemed to be formed of molten gold, and the gemstone set into her torc blazed as if it were a nugget of the sun itself.
She waited for Twilight to stop moving, and then her attention shifted to me.
“I am The Unconquered Sun. I rule this land. You will answer my questions. If you attempt deception of any sort, you will die. If I deem you to be a threat to this world or its inhabitants, you will die. If you attempt to flee, you will die tired. Do you understand?”