“Wha-huh?” Gale mumbled, waking to an alarm he forgot he set. Aw shit, time to go already? He sat up, groaning as he stretched. With a glance around the rather dingy motel room he grabbed a fresh set of clothes from one of his bags and proceeded to change.
While packing his belongings and muttering obscenities under his breath, he wondered aloud, “Would someone please remind me why I thought driving across the country was a good idea?”
Sighing, he stepped up to the room’s window and pulled open the blinds to reveal a rising half moon “And I have to cannonball it too . . . “ He turned around, huffing as he remembered just how much luggage he had with him.
A few minutes later, once he’d finished packing, Gale walked out of his motel room for the last time. Man, it feels wonderful tonight. Gale thought, strolling to his car and taking in the warm Missouri air.
As he opened the squeaky door with a grunt, he wondered aloud, “Shouldn’t take but a week and a half or so more. . . ” Sitting down he stole a glance at a photo of his fiance that he’d tossed into the passenger seat the night before.
Sighing, he started the car and took a minute to appreciate his personal slice of ‘70’s Americana.
Okay. Gale thought to himself. Just a few more days and a few more miles. Turning on the radio and driving out of the motel parking lot. A few more days ‘till the rest of our lives Jessy, I’m comin’ home.
After several minutes of fiddling with the cassette player, Gale switched to the radio with a huff. “I really need to get this darned thing fixed . . . “ He muttered.
He tuned into a radio station just in time to catch the last bars of a song, and hear a DJ come on the air. “And that ladies and gents was The Who’s, Won’t Get Fooled Again from their album Who’s Next, wrapping up our six o’clock roadblock. Remember to tune in tomorrow around noon so you can be caller number five and win a set of tickets to see AC/DC’s last tour.” the DJ commented.
That’s too bad, I’ll probably be out of signal range by morning. Gale thought, turning onto the interstate headed out of town. Maybe the show’s syndicated, his thoughts continued, making a mental note to try that station the next day as he turned off the radio. A good twenty minutes and several more miles passed, bleeding together as Gale drove on.
With only the loud, droning rumble of an old V8 as a backing track, his mind started to wonder, as it usually did this time of night, back to the cause of his journey.
'I don’t care what my wife said,’ The old man fumed, taking a threatening step forward. ‘you’re not marrying my daughter as long as I’m alive you little piece of shit! Now get out of my sight before I call the police!’ Even in memory, the words stung Gale as though he had been punched in the face which, in hindsight he realized, he very nearly had been.
Doing his best to drown out certain memories, his mind turned to the weather. “Huh, I didn’t think it was supposed to get overcast tonight.” He weakly mumbled, failing to repress his distress.
After a few minutes of musing about the weather, his mind wandered to a conversation he’d had a few months before.
‘If he doesn’t want us to be together, then fuck him. I don’t care if he’s my dad, he can’t tell me who I can and can’t marry!’ Slamming the door to his dorm room, Jessica sat on the couch fuming.
‘Look, I know you’re mad, Jess,’ Gale said while walking out of the kitchen, a can of soda in each hand. ‘but you can’t let your emotions get the better of you. Not now.’
‘How can you be so calm about this Gale? He’s trying to tell us we can’t be together!’ Jessica shouted, throwing her hands into the air.
‘I’m staying calm because getting mad is exactly the wrong thing to do.’ A hint of aggression seeping into his voice as he opened a can.
Eyes tearing, he tried his cassette player again. “Come on you piece of garbage! Why do you never work when I want you to?” He sobbed. When that didn’t work he eventually tried to distract himself with thoughts about his dad and the car he was driving.
‘Gale, can you come outside please? There’s something out here for you.’ His dad had called from outside an open window.
‘Dad, it’s seven-thirty A.M. on a Saturday. What could possibly be so important that you’re calling your twenty-one year old son out of bed? He’d yawned, stretching and sitting up.
‘For one, you’re twenty-one, you should be glad we still let you live here, and two you’ll find out when you get your lazy ass out of bed and come down here, now come on.’ His old man had quipped.
Thankfully for Gale, he was able to bury his sorrow under the memory of another, better argument he’d had.
Switching on the radio back on, an old song came on and Gale cracked a smile, for the first time in maybe three weeks, as he started singing along and remembered the second best day of his life: the day he started restoring Charlene.
Mind once again free from darker memories, Gale wheeled his car onto a westward road with a new vigor in his actions.
Two hours passed before Gale turned off the highway onto a what was supposed to be a shortcut to the next town.
A low rumble filled the sky, as he drove off the main road and onto a two laner that was in near desperate need of repair.
Ugh, it’s roads like this that are the reason leaf springs went out of use . . . He internally whined, feeling bad about the punishment he was putting Charlene’s, admittedly under-cared for, suspension under.
An hour or so later saw Gale navigating the back roads along a lakeside. At least it’s starting to clear up. Looking out the window, he noted the clouds dissipating. Turning back forward, he mused. Seems like it could be a go-
“Ah, crap!” He suddenly jerked the wheel to the left, attempting to save his suspension and avoid a bad pothole. Unfortunately for Gale, by missing one pothole he’d proceed to hit two that were worse, which violently jolted his car to the right with a bang.
Dammit, this is bad. Panicking, he desperately tried to regain control.
Yanking the wheel hard, Gale realized that he’d accidentally overcorrected and sent the car veering off the road toward the river on the left.
Not good. He thought, as his steering seemed to go out and the car went careening down the embankment, “Shit!” He yelled, eyes widening as he went skidding toward one of the dirt mounds that lined the lakefront. This is gonna hurt. he thought, feverishly hoping that his brakes would slow him down.
As his car ran up onto one of the dirt mounds, Gale’s life flashed before his eyes; but instead of crashing like he’d expected, the car ramped off the mound and flew out over the lake at about fifty miles an hour.
With a loud roar, the car soared up over the lake, reaching its zenith in a matter of seconds.
“Oh, fu-” he started as the car flew through the air, but before he could finished his expletive, a loud, but simultaneously, dull thud resounded from the roof along with a brilliant white flash.
“-ck!” he finished, cringing as he felt the car land hard onto a grassy field. It started sliding sideways for about 35 feet before rolling from momentum.
The car rolled five times, each more violent than the last. When it came to a stop it was on its side with the passenger’s door against the ground.
Oh dammit. What the-, what the hell just happened? Was Gale’s predominant thought until the adrenaline started to wear off, “Aagh, shit!” he hissed, now realizing the full extent of pain from his injuries.
In the minutes after the crash the world became eerily silent, but as Gale sat hanging from the driver’s seat someone, or rather somepony, sat about twenty five feet above the wreckage on a cloud: Rainbow Dash.
From her spot upon said cloud, Rainbow sat frozen. Her mind unable to think about anything other that what lay before her, a large metal object of orange and grey, with something black covering it’s upper section, that was now laying in a pile of steaming wreckage in the middle of one of Applejack’s fields.
Rainbow sat for another five minutes as her thoughts began to settle. As she stared at the wreckage it slowly dawned on her how much trouble she may have just caused. “Oh, buck.”
Without a second thought, she launched into the air and raced toward the library, hoping that her friend was still awake at such a late hour.
Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville’s resident librarian, was just climbing the stairs to bed when the door to her abode was flung open.
“Twilight, oh thank Luna you’re still awake!” The Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “You gotta help me. This-this thing just crashed out in one of Applejack’s fields. It’s completely wrecked and smoking badly!” She continued between gasps of breath.
Taken aback by both her friends sudden appearance and shouting, Twilight took a minute before responding. “Sweet Celestia Dash, where’ve you been all day?”
Turning back toward the pegasus, Twilight’s face fell when she saw her friends expression. “Dash, are you okay?”
After catching her breath for a minute, Rainbow launched into telling Twilight what happened, occasionally pausing for breath.
“And I don’t know why or how they crashed, but I know what happened can’t have been intentional.”
“Okay Dash, slow down would you? Now, you said this thing was moving how fast, again?” Twilight asked, attempting to ascertain any details she could from her friend.
“Look Twilight, I don’t know okay? All I know.is. . . is . . . Oh horseapples!” Rainbow swore, quickly standing back up. “I can’t believe I left them!” She said, smacking her forehead with a hoof.
“Left who, Dash?” Twilight said, having not heard the end of Dash’s tale.
“Who or, or whatever was using that thing! I left them in the field by Applejack’s where we came back!”
“. . .You, you brought them back?” Twilight asked, in a state of shock from what she’d just heard.
“No time for that now, Twilight!” Dash huffed, looking her friend in the eye. “If my hunch is right, they’re gonna need help badly, especially after how they landed.” Dash said, biting her lip and turning away.
Hanging from his seat belt, Gale fought hard to control his breathing. Calm down dammit! It was just an accident, you’ve been through worse. Even as he thought this, his mind came to another conclusion. That - that can’t have been an ordinary accident, I’d’ve been fish food by now if it was; unless I’m already dead? At that thought he tried moving his arm, only to groan in pain. Okay, definitely not dead. So where the hell am I?
It was another ten minutes or so later before he heard another noise; the sound of approaching hooves of a few horses. “Rainbow what are you-” He’d heard someone start before the clip-clopping of hooves came to a sliding halt. “Dash what in Tartarus is that?”
Despite his confusion at their choice of wording, Gale tried to call out to them. Unfortunately, he was still feeling the shock from the accident and it came out more as a gasped. “Help me.”
To his relief, they seemed to hear his call for help, and with the shock finally overwhelming him, the last thing Gale heard before blacking out was. “Stand back, Dash! I’m gonna see if I can get them out of there.”
“Stand back, Dash! I’m gonna see if I can get them out of there.” Horn glowing, Twilight concentrated on the task at hand, while Rainbow stood stock still in fear.
“Rainbow, I need you to go to the hospital and get somepony who specializes in non-equine patients.” Twilight said in as calm a voice as she could muster. “Even if I can get them out there’s no telling what kind of shape they’ll be in.”
Twilight’s words snapped Rainbow from her stupor. “What?” She asked.
“I need you to fly to the hospital and have them prepare a room for a non-equine, Dash. And can you hurry?”
Anxious as she was, Rainbow agreed. “Okay. Got it, but be careful Twilight,” With a glance into the car she continued. “He might be dangerous.”
Several doctors stood around the door to a room in the I.C.U. of Ponyville medical. “Whatever it is, it isn’t equine.” one of them said.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything right now, Dr. Stable.” another pony, presumably one of the nurses, replied. “What matters is that we do what we can for them.”
“I didn’t mean it like that and you know it.” Stable countered. “What I meant was it’s been difficult to help something that we don’t know about.”
“Well. It looks like he’s waking up. I’ll go check on him, you three go inform those two mares that he’s awake, I think they wanted to see him.” Steady Hoof commented, stepping away from the door’s window.
“But Steady Hoof, isn’t that against policy?” the nurse from before asked.
“Mare, with how long I’ve been working here, I might as well have written the policy.”
When Gale woke up his first thoughts were the infamous, What happened last night? “Where am I?” Opening his eyes and wincing at the bright lights. “If this’s the end of the tunnel, then I’ve been screwed.” He muttered, groaning as he took in the sight of his cast and bandages.
Slowly, he started to get up. He’d managed to get into a sitting position about the time a knock rang against the door. “Are you awake?” an older sounding voice asked as the knob visibly turned. “Oh good, you are.” Dr. Steady Hoof finished, stepping into the room and closing the door with a soft kick. “I was hoping you’d be up by now.”
What . . . the hell? Gale wondered. I- is that a miniature horse? Okay, what kind of painkillers do they have me on?
“- and I assure you sir that we’ve done our best to ensure a speedy recovery, for here at Ponyville Medical it’s our job to be there for everypony.” The doctor said, snapping Gale out of his thoughts.
“Huh, what?” he asked, completely confused as to just what was going on. “Can you repeat that Mr.-” he continued, just managing to sit up, and rub his temple. “-I’m having a hard time trying to comprehend just how I ended up in a hospital room with a mini- horse, who’s apparently my doctor.” he finished with a second glance to confirm that the doctor was still, in fact, a mini-horse with a white coat, sized to fit, covering his front half, and for some bizarre reason a perfect image of a stethoscope on his backside.
Steady Hoof took a step back, pausing for a moment before introducing himself. “Well my name is Dr. Steady Hoof, and my team and I have been working for the past two days or so to make sure you didn’t end up either paralyzed or dead from some sort of magical incident that occurred.” he continued slowly, “You were brought in by one Twilight Sparkle and her friend Rainbow Dash, both of them said that you were involved in a crash landing of some large carriage as they described it.” At this point he stopped, looked at Gale and asked, “Would they be able to come in and check on you?”
It took Gale a couple of seconds to process the information he’d just been given. “Give me a minute.” He groaned, still getting over the fact that he was talking to a miniature horse who: One, could talk. Two, claimed to be a doctor and Three, was telling him that there were other miniature horses that wanted to see him. What the hell’s going on? he thought as he looked at Dr. Steady Hoof. I’m in some sort of dream . . . I have to be. “Before you let them in, do you have my stuff? I mean the gown’s good for my chest and all, but I’d like my jeans back if I could.” he said, startling the doctor with his response.
“Oh yes, there right over here.” Steady Hoof chuckled as he reached down and grabbed them. “In all honesty I have no idea how they survived that ordeal, based upon the shape you were in when we got you, I’m not sure much else would’ve”
Okay, definitely asking those two who brought me here what happened . . . Gale thought, standing up getting dressed with a grunt.
“Alright, give me a minute or two.” He huffed, struggling to put on his jeans. “Okay, let ‘em in.” He continued once he’d gotten them on.
The doctor walked over to the door, paused and turned back to Gale “Oh Celestia, where are my manners? What is your name, sir?” he asked.
“My name’s Gale, Gale Howard.” He replied, zipping his jeans and wondering just what in the world he’d gotten himself into. Of course he didn’t get to think about it for long as the doctor opened the door, said something about not needing guards to somebody on the other side, and stepped aside to let two more mini-horses into the room.
“Well Gale, I’d like to introduce you to Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle.” Steady Hoof said, turning back to face him and shutting the door, “These two brought you into the hospital about two and a half days ago and practically haven’t left the lobby since.” He said with a small chuckle.
A pegasus? Okaay, definitely dreaming. Gale thought as the two walked into to room. And a god-damned unicorn? What the actual fuck? Mind reeling, Gale found himself unable to focus on the rest of the conversation.
Steady Hoof cleared his throat before turning to the unicorn, Gale figured this was Twilight. “Now Miss Sparkle there is the problem of medical bills, you see I can’t necessarily charge Gale here as he has no means of payment, but I can’t just offer my services for free; no that would cause a scandal.”
Despite his best efforts, Gale’s thoughts were interrupted by the light blue pegasus that was standing in front of, and staring at him.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t quite sure what to make of the creature in front of her. She’d seen a glimpse of him two days prior when she’d stopped his vehicle from going into a lake, and possibly drowning him. She’d seen him laying in bed almost all of the day prior, and she still couldn’t shake a feeling of unease when she looked at him. I don’t see why the mayor’s scared of him, He doesn’t seem real tough, hay I could take him on single hoofedly. she thought, not realizing she’d begun to stare at him.
Slowly, Gale looked up, glared at her and said as politely as possible, “Miss, if you could kindly stop staring at me? I’ve had one hell of a rough week and you're not helping.” His sudden statement caused Rainbow to backpedal a bit away from him and stare in fear. “Thank you, miss.” he said standing up to his, somewhat average, height of 5’10”. Okay mini-horses are definitely mini. he thought as he looked down at the now more demure pegasus. “Look, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Gale said, noticing that Twilight had ended her conversation and was about to step in. “but I just woke up from what I’ve been told has been a near three day stay in a hospital that I don’t recognize and is populated by what appear to be mini-horses.” He said trying to keep the fear and anger out of his voice, “So forgive me if I seem a little upset.”
Twilight, seemingly annoyed by his comment, decided right then that she’d have to educate him on Equestrian culture. “Mini-horses?” she asked, rather indignant, “We prefer the term ponies.” she said, walking over to the window. “As to where you are?” She continued, opening the blinds to reveal a nearly pastel colored landscape. “You’re in the land of Equestria, home to all ponies and ruled by the princesses Celestia and Luna.” She finished, frowning when she saw the expression on Gale’s face. “Is there something wrong?” she asked, before her brain started putting pieces back together.
Gale’s mind beat hers though, “The thing I remember, I was driving along the northern edge of a lake on the Western end of Missouri.” He stated, voice wavering as he continued, “It definitely wasn’t as pastel as wherever I am now, though.” He sat back down as he finished speaking, shrugging in defeat. After a few minutes he sighed and said, “Guess I’ll never win those concert tickets now . . . Dammit.”