The pegasus looked nervously through the throng of soldiers. Why did they all have so tall? They were all at least two times her height, maybe even two-and-a-half times.
Her unicorn friend noticed her moving around, trying to see. She spoke up. “Fluttershy,” she spoke fatly.
Fluttershy, still moving her head every which way, responded, “Yes, Rarity?”
“You realize you do have wings, right?”
The yellow pony stopped moving around, and thought about it for a second. “Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
With that, she flapped her feathery wings twice, and floated gently in the air, now about five or ten feet above the heads of the soldiers in front of her.
There, a group of similarly-dressed soldiers, but not quite the same, were climbing up a rope ladder from a small little rowboat next to their warship. She could see more off to the distance, paddling slowly but surely to the Isabel.
“Well, what do you see up there?” called Rarity from the deck.
“Just a bunch of soldiers,” she called down. “I don’t know what Pinkie Pie was talking about when she said she saw the three of them…”
“That’s weird. Pinkie doesn’t really lie, does she?”
Fluttershy pondered that for a moment. “I don’t know. Does she?”
“Guys, I’m dead serious!” yelled a bouncy voice. From the throng of Confederates, Pinkie Pie weaved through the crowd and stood next to Rarity. “I saw all of them! They were on that fort!”
“Pinkie,” said Fluttershy from her vantage point, “I’m looking in all of these boats, and I still don’t see them. Wait, hold on a second….”
Rarity looked to Pinkie Pie in a mix of excitement and apprehension. “What do you see?”
“I think I – I think that may be Twilight in the boat! It’s a little far off but…oh, wait, there’s Applejack too!”
Before the pastel pegasus could continue, a flash of cyan tackled her right out of the air, knocking her on the deck of the wooden warship. The impact of the wood was enough to knock the wind out of her. She cringed at the immediate pain, and with her eyes squeezed shut, as not to see her attacker, she began waving her hooves wildly. “Ah! Who are y-y-ou…and w-w-what d-do y-you want with me?”
“A hug! I thought I completely lost you!”
Fluttershy recognized that voice. She opened her eyes to see another pegasus, just like her, only with rainbow-colored hair and a light-blue coat, standing over her.
“R-Rainbow Dash?” she asked warily.
“Of course it is!” replied her ecstatic friend.
“Oh thank goodness,” Fluttershy breathed out, relief in her voice. She raised herself up so that she was hugging her friend, just when two sets of hooves appeared from over to the left. Rarity spoke first.
“Fluttershy! What happen – “
“DASHIE!” Pinkie cut off Rarity’s questioning, and tackled Dash with a force equal to Dash’s initial tackle.
Fluttershy stood up, as Pinkie squeezed Dash even tighter.
“Dashie, Dashie, Dashie, Dashie!” Pinkie repeated loudly.
“Hey to you – too, urrgh, Pinkie!” Dash groaned cheerfully through Pinkie’s squeezes.
Pinkie finally got up, letting go of her friend. “I thought you were gone FOREVER! I’m so glad you’re here now! Where are the others? Are they here, too?”
Rainbow tried to get the air back into her lungs, and was finally able to speak again. “Yes, they are – they’re in one of the boats coming in.”
“I saw them already,” Fluttershy was able to say, “They should be up here any minute.”
Pinkie clapped her hooves together. “YAY!! We’re all together again! Or, we will be! Oh, it’s going to be time to throw a party!”
Rarity shushed her pink friend. “Shh! Can’t you see we’ve already drawn enough attention to ourselves? I don’t need us getting shot at – again.”
Rainbow went wide-eyed. “Whoa, what? Again?”
Fluttershy looked to the ground. “Well, yes, you see, when we first got here, we um – “
“See, I told ya, Twilight – you can spy Pinkie from a mile away.”
The four ponies turned to the sound of the Southern voice, to see an orange earth pony and a lavender unicorn walking towards them slowly, smiling at the sight of close friends and re-unification.
Until a flash of pink bounded across the deck and flattened them both to the deck, screaming their names all the while.
“So, you guys got here okay, then?”
The six of them sat in a small little cabin the Confederate commander had reserved for them. He didn’t want to give them trouble from the other soldiers, nor did he want them to give trouble to the other soldiers. He figured that it was a matter that only the higher-up officials should deal with, honestly.
As the moon rose on the first night in the new place called America, the purple mare finally asked the question she intended to ask hours ago. Twilight had meant to ask about what had gotten them there way earlier, but Pinkie insisted on throwing the smallest of parties in their little cabin. Before anypony could object, or tell Pinkie about the impossibility of such a thing, their bouncy friend promptly fell asleep, tired from the day’s events.
So, naturally, the rest of them decided it may be time for a nap. Even Twilight, who realized that there had been a time difference and that it would only cause more problems, succumbed to sleep, eventually.
When they all came to, sometime during that night, unaware of the actual time, Twilight asked her question, before anypony could say anything else.
Rarity was the first to respond, nodding slowly. “Y…yes, er, we’ve gotten here alright, I guess.”
“Well, where in tarnation did y’all end up?” questioned Applejack, “’Cause it sure as hay wasn’t with us.”
“Well, um – we landed in the water…” Rarity began.
Fluttershy closed her eyes, reminiscing the event while Rarity retold it. They had teleported a foot or two below the surface of the water, and almost immediately broke the surface. At this point, they had no idea what was going on, so it only made it worse when really fast shards of metal were being thrown at them – and, as the pegasus would eventually find out, the term was actually called “being shot at.”
They were eventually told to cease fire, and a soldier waded out and retrieved them, to a shocked military group, who had no idea what the things were. Eventually, they resumed firing positions, and the soldier became their guide to the world, where they honestly didn’t learn a whole lot. Fluttershy remembered that they were part of something called the “Confederacy”, they were in a war with the northern part of America, and…no, that was about it.
Later, they were told to join some other Confederates aboard the Isabel, for the time being at least. So they did, and that’s where they spotted the other three.
Fluttershy’s thoughts moved in synch with Rarity’s explanation, which ended around the same time.
“…And then, the soldier told us to go aboard the Isabel, as we may be moving to another part of the country later. I don’t know, something like that,” her unicorn friend finished up.
“He was really nice!” added Pinkie Pie, “The soldier, I mean. But, he seemed really nervous, too! I don’t know why – they’re the aliens here, not us!”
Rainbow cocked her head to the side. “Uh, Pinkie…actually, we are the aliens.”
Pinkie shook her head disapprovingly and waved her hoof in the air. “Pish-posh. They’re the ones who aren’t colorfully-furred, and we’re the aliens. Rainbow Dash, you need to – “
“So!” Rarity interrupted, sensing the danger to Rainbow Dash, “So, um, what about you guys? How’d you end up here?”
Twilight relayed the entire story to them – from how they ended up in the middle of the fort, and were picked up by a friendly Union soldier, all the way until gunpowder accidentally went off and killed somebody.
“Wh-what?” Fluttershy asked upon hearing this, “S-s-somepony – oh, I mean somebody – somebody d-died?”
AJ nodded slowly. “Well, yeah, sugarcube – the poor boy died almost as soon as the explosion occurred.”
“That’s terrible!” Rarity cried, “What a freak accident!”
Twilight motioned her hoof as if to say so-so. “Well, it was and it wasn’t. The whole gunpowder – whatever that is – the whole gunpowder thing was a mishap, but apparently people are dying all the time. Mister Ephrams and the commander, um – Major something – kept telling us that he was only the ‘first’. I’m afraid to find out what that truly means.”
“Well, duh!” Pinkie yelled, “It means more people are going to die!”
The five others just stared at her, mouths agape, in shocked silence. Pinkie’s ear flopped back. “Sorry...”
Fluttershy looked to the ground, concentrating. Sure, Pinkie could be loud and obnoxious, but she had an unhealthy feeling she might be right this time. They had almost been riddled with…”bullets”, as they were called, which probably would’ve killed the three of them. The pegasus would never admit this revelation out loud, of course – she didn’t want the six of them to freak even more than usual. But she did feel the need to say something here.
“Um, guys?” she cautiously started, “I think Pinkie may be right. They – they are in a war, after all.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash replied, “But you don’t kill each other in a war….do you?”
Twilight shrugged. “I have no idea. The last great war in Equestria was over a hundred years ago, and there were no actual deaths, so to speak. Killing’s not really in our nature.”
“But is it in theirs?” Fluttershy questioned.
Another shocked silence fell upon the group. It did seem like they were trying to kill each other earlier – were any animate beings really capable of such a thing? Purposely killing their own race – because they can?
Rarity shook her head. “No, I don’t – it doesn’t seem possible. We’ve been in some bad conflicts, and not a thought of killing the other was around. Remember, when we were in Appleloosa half a year ago? All they had were pies – “
“Sweet Apple Acres!” Applejack exclaimed, with a look of worry on her face.
“What about it?” asked Twilight.
“No, not the Acres – Appleloosa! The festival is today! And I have no idea what time it is! Maybe we can still make it!”
Rarity looked a bit taken aback by AJ’s comment. “Applejack, dear…do you hear yourself? We’re in an entire different world!”
“Oh, I know, I know…” It was clear to Fluttershy that AJ really didn’t know at all. The orange pony stood up and trotted in place, nervously. “Oh, but – I need to give that speech! It’s probably too late now!”
“Forget that!” Rainbow said, “We need to get back home, period! Twilight?”
Twilight sighed. “Yeah, you guys are probably right. Hopefully I can teleport home, though. I’ve never teleported to other planets, or dimensions, or wherever this is.”
She thought about it for a minute, concentrating. “Alright – alright, I think – I think I may know the spell. Let me try it first, so I can check to see if it works – it’ll be better if only one of us gets lost, rather than all six of us. Stand back everypony.”
The other five got up from their sitting positions and moved a foot or two away from Twilight. She looked to the ground, thinking for just a moment more. She furrowed her brow, and her body went rigid. “Here goes,” she muttered.
Sweat dripped down her brow as she squeezed her eyes shut, and leaned forward, lost in deep concentration. Her horn began to glow with that magical aura she always seemed to have. Fluttershy watched in awe as her horn’s glow grew brighter and brighter, turning a fluorescent reddish-violet.
Then, in a massive flash of the same color, Twilight’s silhouette disappeared from view, leaving the cloud of pure magic lingering for only a moment longer.
The magic dissipated, leaving the five other ponies in the room, hoping that their unicorn friend wouldn’t forget about them when she returned.
Almost as soon as that thought entered all of their minds, the weird, high-pitched buzzing associated with teleportation shattered their silence, the cloud appeared again, and a confused and physically drained Twilight stood there, wide-eyed.
The five friends gasped. Her friend looked like she had been through a war, which Fluttershy figured was an appropriate simile, considering their situation. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair frayed and tossed everywhere, she was sweating in some places, and her entire coat was tossed every which way – what had just gone on?
Rarity spoke first. “Twilight, what happened?”
“I don’t know,” the unicorn replied, still frazzled, and out of breath, “I pictured Equestria, and teleported, but I only remained in this…this magic void. Couldn’t… couldn’t figure out how to get out. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve left.” She swallowed, her Adam’s Apple moving visibly against her tired body. “H…how long has it been, since I’ve left?”
Pinkie Pie said, shocked but still jubilantly, “Um, about two seconds.”
“WHAT?!?” she asked. “I’ve been gone for…for days! Weeks, even….oh, Celestia, I’m so tired….”
She walked forward groggily, and fell on top of a mattress provided for the six friends. The five ponies looked over their tired, confused, and drained friend, with a look of concern.
Applejack put a hoof to Twilight’s shoulder. “There, there, sugarcube…yer home safe now. Or…wherever this place here is. No more weird magical void.”
Twilight, slowly regaining her usual breath pace, and nodding off, mumbled back, “I know…I know…but, girls, I’m sorry – I don’t think getting back to Equestria is even possible.”
With that, she closed her eyes, and fell asleep, unaware of her open-mouth friends looking at her in disbelief.