Twilight flew for hours after leaving the base. West, always west. She was physically exhausted, but she had no choice, she had to keep going. Looking down, she looked for road signs to help her decide the direction she needed to go. She was heading to northern California, but a good portion of the southwest part of this huge nation was heavily populated, unlike up in the north-western parts where there were less people. Knowing this, she continued on the northerly route. And below her was nothing but prairies and rolling hills. She knew that the mountains would come up, and offer her an opportunity to head south to get closer, but all this rolling farmland, nothing. She despaired as she didn't see trees for miles, her wings were burning, she had to land soon. She didn't have Rainbow Dash's endurance. The afternoon sun was heaving its way towards the horizon, but there were some hours to go.
Oh no! she thought as her right wing decided to cramp. She was able to recover, but no more flapping for a while. She was able to glide to the ground, landing on the road, she looked back and forth, not a vehicle to be seen. She checked both sides, not a single tree, just harvested land, nothing above knee level. She lay down on the road for a bit, just a little bit to rest her tired body. Of course, inevitably, her ears picked up the sound of tires on pavement. Frantically looking around she noticed a car coming down the road. After a moment of indecision she dived into the ditch, crouching down she was able to hide most of her body in the low grass. She tried not to pant to hard with the amount of pain she was in. She cowered down, silently praying to Celestia that they wouldn't stop. She clenched her wings to the sides as hard as she could, ignoring the protesting pain from the abused appendages.
Her prayers to Celestia again went unanswered. As the car approached, she heard the sounds change as it slowed down, then a sharp squeal as the brakes brought the vehicle to a stop. Both doors opened.
"Dude, I'm telling you, it was a deer in the middle of the road. But it looked weird," One of the voices said.
Oh, great, thought Twilight, first I get mistaken for a dog, now a deer, can this get any more humiliating? First a dog, and now a deer?
She shifted her eyes, the sun was bright on her back, it wouldn’t be long until they…
"It's over here, it looks like it's hurt," the voice said. She was able to see him. He was male, about as young as most of the soldiers that she had already met. Both of them had long hair. She didn't know why she noticed that. All she could do was freeze in terror. The human kept coming closer. He was almost able to touch her.
"Please don't hurt me," she wailed as she flared her wings and jumped back. The human, who was in the process of bending down jumped back. He landed hard on his rear and looked at the alicorn.
Tired, she was just so tired. Almost no sleep the night before, and flying most of the day, exhaustion was the only thing she felt. She felt her consciousness slipping. And she collapsed to the ground, the world going dark around her.
***
Movement, the sound of the wind, the dull roar of an engine. The sounds assaulted her ears. Then the smells pushed themselves upon her, a faint acrid tinge, the smell of dusty cloth, and the undeniable smell of the humans. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around. She was in the back seat of the car. She could see the backs of the heads of the two humans.
"Oh man, wait till we get to town. We've got to find a university, they will flip out," the driver said. He was the one whom she had startled.
"Are you sure we should take it there, what if they want to dissect it or something like that? Remember, it talked to you."
"That had to be our imaginations, animals can't talk."
"Dude, I know I heard it, and it sounded like a girl."
"Whatever, you've smoked too much weed today."
"You smoked as much as I did."
They both laughed a bit.
"Well, I did talk. And I really don't want to be dissected," Twilight piped up.
"Wha?" the driver said as he looked over at Twilight. Seeing her conscious and looking at him, he did the only thing he could think of. He slammed on the brakes, throwing Twilight into the seat in front of her as the car screeched to a stop. He turned to look at her, then squawked as the car started rolling again, he shoved the transmission into park then again turned towards Twilight.
"Seriously? You just talked?"
"Yes, I did."
He looked at his passenger then back at Twilight. "I haven't smoked anything in hours. This can't be a hallucination."
His passenger finally got over whatever was tying his tongue in knots, "What the hell are you?"
She looked over at him, "I'm a pony."
They looked at each other. "Dude," they said in unison.
She remembered Cadence's calming exercise, she brought a hoof to her chest as she inhaled, then exhaled as she pushed her hoof out. She did it a second time, then a third, her wildly beating heart finally decided to slow down. These weren't the same humans as the soldiers that had captured her earlier. Maybe she could reason with them.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle. I came here to retrieve a friend who is lost."
Both humans looked at each other then at her. The driver spoke up. "I'm Michael, that is James."
Alright, first step accomplished, they had names. On to step two. "Can you let me go?"
James opened his door and got out, turning around he crouched down and pulled his seat forward and allowed her to hop out. She trotted a few steps before turning around. She was free and clear, she spread her wings, and then fell down as they cramped up, the pain from them shooting around all of her extremities.
"Hey, hey, you're hurt." Michael said as he wrapped his arms around her and picked her up. "Some coyote will get you, or something worse. Where are you going?"
She could only moan in pain. He looked at his friend. "There's something wrong with her, we need to get her to the hospital." He put her in the back seat of the car once again and they climbed in. All Twilight could do was lie there. She heard everything they were saying. The car accelerated again.
"Ugh." The tightness of every muscle in her body was finally relaxing.
"It's okay Twilight Sparkle, we are about an hour from Williston, North Dakota, we can find a vet, or a hospital for you."
"No, no hospital, I've had as much as I can handle of humans already today."
"Huh?"
They listened attentively as she gave an abbreviated recounting of her train adventure of the night before.
"Heavy." Michael said with James nodding his head in agreement. After a moment of thought, he reached into a cooler that was sharing the back seat with Twilight, after rooting around in the ice for a moment, he pulled out a plastic bottle and handed it to her, he was paying attention to the road and didn't notice her use her magic to twist off the top.
"What is this?" she asked after a big gulp of the sweet and salty drink.
"It's Gatorade, it's a sports drink. I think you are suffering from a combination of heat exhaustion and dehydration. If this makes you feel better in about ten minutes, then we won't need to go to the hospital." She eagerly gulped down more of it, relishing the citrus flavor of the unusual drink.
"It's pretty good." She smacked her lips. Then she sat back and thought for a minute. The first humans she met were Rainbow Dash's friends, then she had that horrible experience with the military people, and now these men. Boy, humans were certainly an odd species. As she continued drinking from the plastic bottle, her muscles slowly loosened. She couldn't fully spread her wings inside the car, but she was able to ruffle them a bit and let them hang a bit, it felt wonderful.
"Thank you," she murmured to the two humans. They started talking as he turned on the headlights as the sun was heading to the horizon. She learned that they were both college students. They were on their way back to school after summer break. Michael was pre-med, and James was pre-law. They were on their way to Seattle. Which she learned was on the west coast, that much closer to Rainbow Dash. She told them some about Rainbow. It boggled both their minds that there was a pegasus there.
They also didn't seem very surprised about her encounter with the military.
"For the last couple of decades we've been in what's been called the cold war with the Soviet Union. We are afraid they will use nuclear weapons on us, they are afraid we will use them on them. So we've been talking peace while preparing for war," James was saying.
"Why don't you're leaders just talk about your differences?" Twilight asked.
"Well, I think the main reason is we are afraid that they will lie." He then spent several minutes talking about the history of the Soviet Union.
"Wow, they don't sound very trustworthy do they?"
"No, Twilight, they don't. But the problem with setting all of them in that stereotype is the vast majority of the Russian people have no interest in harming anyone in the US, and the reverse is true. It's only a very small number of people who not only think war will actually happen, but think the other side will strike first. The trouble is, those that think that way, tend to be the ones in power."
Twilight leaned back and then looked at the lights of the small town they were passing through. She finally looked back at the two humans. "You have had a lot of wars haven't you?"
James sighed, "Too many."
Twilight sighed in sympathy, "We have had some wars in our own times, the three tribes have fought off and on for centuries, that was until the founding of Equestria, and then the Royal Sisters established their rule. We have finally had peace among all ponies for a long time because of them."
"Well, I'm glad that ponies have been able to enjoy that peace, I wish humanity could have something to pull us all together like that."
"It's not perfect in our world though, James. There are threats to our world from outside our borders. The changelings have made life difficult for ponies, the Griffon Kingdom is mostly at peace with us, but that had to be rather strongly enforced by Princess Celestia. There are a few other places that would do us harm, but we have the princesses, and they ensure the peace."
"I would love to see your world, Twilight."
She had to smile at that. "I wish I could show it to you. But the spell I used to get here took a lot out of me, and my priority has to be finding Rainbow Dash so we can get her home."
Michael finally spoke up after quite a long time of being quiet. "We are just about to pull into the hotel. We need to get some sleep."
Twilight stifled a yawn. She sat patiently as Michael went into the office to get a hotel room. After parking on the other side of the hotel near their room, she followed them into the room. She looked around.
"There are only two beds, and three of us."
"I could order a trundle bed from the office," John piped up.
She smiled at her new friends. "It's alright, I noticed there were clouds outside. I'll sleep on a cloud tonight, I'll meet you back here just after sunrise, sound good?"
Both of the humans' jaws dropped.
"Sleep? On a cloud? You are aware a cloud is just water vapor right?" Michael said.
"Of course, all pegasi can walk on clouds…" She was in her element now, she was teaching them about cloud walking, to both of their stunned expressions. She rather felt proud of herself, though it baffled her how this world could exist without magic.
Both of the humans looked at each other after she was done. "Wow," James said for both of them.
Twilight smiled at them as she spread her, now rested, wings and took off for the cloud. She settled into the cloud and closed her eyes. This was a long day, and she was glad for a good night's sleep.