Many hours later, Raj sat up with a groan.
He clutched his head and shook it, fighting down a strong sense of vertigo. His skin was clammy and damp and his clothes clung tightly to his frame. He felt so dehydrated his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Across the sputtering fire he saw Twilight curled up on the ground, drooling onto the dirt and snoring lightly. Her tail twitched and lashed in her sleep and she murmured unintelligible words. He spotted a few of his water bottles stacked up next to her and lightly padded over to collect one.
As soon as the water hit his tongue he moaned in relief as he tiptoed away from Twilight. Once he was away, he took care of a pressing biological need and then sauntered back to the camp. He sat on a rock and assessed.
It was still very much night, so not much time could had passed. He didn't feel great, that much was certain. The hits he'd taken during the fight still ached, but no terribly so. He still felt sick, like he was coming off of a particularly bad flu, but was hungry and thirsty as well. Once he got some substantial food and more water, he knew he'd feel right as rain.
Naga venom was nothing special, he decided.
He went over to his haphazard pile of possessions Twilight had schlepped to his camp and rooted around for his cooler, extracting a hock of meat wrapped in leaves. He warmed it over the fire for a minute and tore into it with purpose.
His thuggish chewing and biting was enough to wake Twilight however. She cracked one of her enormous eyes thinly and groggily said “Nnnnh, Rajrishi?”
“Hey Twilight, sorry I woke you. Too hungry.” he tore another hunk from his pork.
She rose up slowly, sputtering “But, how are you, you were over there and, but... HOW?”
“Whoa, calm down Twilight. I was just unconscious for a night, no big deal.” He grinned “I guess Naga venom's not all it's cracked up to be.”
She stared at him for a moment, one eye twitching “Rajrishi, first of all, Naga venom is definitely all it's cracked up to be. A single drop of it can kill a full-grown earth pony in minutes. A single bite is said to have endangered the life of Princess Celestia's father for pony's sake!”
Twilight grit her teeth at him for a moment before adding “Oh, and you weren't unconscious for a few hours. You've been lying there for the last three days!”
Raj's eyebrows shot up his forehead “W-what?”
“Three days Rajrishi, well actually a little over seventy hours unless I'm off, that's how long you were out."
"What with the what now?"
“You passed out after vomiting a lot so I dragged you against that tree and made a little bed so that you'd be comfortable when you... when you...” She choked back a sob “But then you didn't! You just kept breathing! I didn't understand it, so I just, did. I noticed you were sweating a lot so I thought 'hey, he'll need some water' so I just started bringing you water. Then I thought 'he'll need food too', so I started gathering pine nuts and force-feeding them to you...”
It was halfway through her rambling explanation when Rajrishi took his first good look at Twilight Sparkle. She looked terrible. Twigs were poking out of her mane and tail at random points and her coat was either matted down from lack of grooming or completely obscured with mud or dirt. Heavy bags hung under he bloodshot eyes and he realized that he'd woken her up from the first rest she'd gotten since the Naga fight. “Twilight, how did you-”
She talked over him “...I didn't have a plan or anything. I tried to go for help but there were timberwolves and I couldn't leave you alone. I didn't think I could get back here even if I did so I just kept... stringing you along because there was nothing else I could do.”
“That's... wow.” Raj sat stunned, completely struck by the enormity of the task that Twilight had simply taken to without complaint or prompting. “I can't even imagine how difficult that was Twilight. Thank you.”
She gave him a tired smile “Your welcome Rajrishi. I'm glad you're okay, but I would like to know how you managed it?”
“Managed what?”
“To survive. I told you, Naga venom is incredibly deadly. Not even other Nagas are immune to it. So there must have been some trick or anti-toxin you took. What is it?”
“No trick Twilight. I got poisoned and then sweated it out over a couple days. I didn't do anything.”
“I don't believe that. Nothing has a natural resistance to Naga Venom, nothing natural anyway.”
Raj looked at her levelly “Well, I might have an explanation.”
She rolled her eyes “Of course, now tell me. If we can duplicate it then we could save a lot of ponies.”
“Well, not really. I think I managed it because I'm... not from here.” He said lamely.
“I know that Rajrishi. You came from outside Equestria.”
He scratched the back of his head “Well... that's, um, true. But not really accurate.”
She raised an eyebrow “So you're from... where? Yakyakistan, or maybe Zebrica?”
“Further.”
“The Scorched Lands, or did you come all the way from The Echo?”
“Further still.”
“Rajrishi, there is nowhere further than that. At that point you start looping back around the globe.”
He looked her in the eye “Further.”
Twilight huffed and said flatly “Rajrishi, you can't get any further than that. Well, unless you come from-.” She stopped abruptly.
Rajrishi stared back at her levelly, saying nothing.
Twilight faltered a bit “R-right? That's impossible, right?”
Raj sighed “The first thing I noticed when I got here, the very first thing, was a sky full of unknown stars. A few hours later a foreign sun rose on the horizon. Even the air feels different than what I'm used to. It's... thicker. Charged with something, I'm not sure what, but it's unfamiliar to me all the same. I guess whatever it is that makes Naga Venom so lethal doesn't translate.”
Twilight stared at him for a long moment, her eyes stretched wide. After almost a minute of silence she murmured “Rajrishi, are you-” She paused and took a breath, re-composing herself. “Alright, just to make absolute certain. You are claiming to be a previously unknown extraequestrial creature, hailing from a foreign world?”
He huffed and braced himself “I am.”
She stood in silence for a few moments before shouting “That is AMAZING!” A massive grin split her muzzle and she danced in place before rearing up and clapping her hooves in excitement, her previous tiredness gone in an instant. “You're an alien, you're an alien! Do you have any idea what this means?”
“I, um-” The rest of his sentence was lost when Twilight darted forward and grabbed his head, pulling him down to her eye level
“I'm not just going to get published again, I'm going to be able to write a whole book on this. There will be theses, and interns, and scientists. I might even get a wing in the Canterlot archive with my name on it. Me, a whole wing!”
Raj grabbed her hoof and pulled himself free “Twilight, I think-”
“Right! You're right, I need to handle this carefully. There's a procedure for this, a way to do things. I can't risk someone sniping my find.” She focused her horn and her quill started madly scratching across her notebook. “I need to maintain a detailed record, this is history in the making. First contact! Future generations will read about this forever.”
“Twilight, this isn't first contact. I met Zecora on my thirty-third day here.” he pointed out.
The lavender pony was not listening. “I'll need to contact the Princess, notify her of your existence. Then I'll need to write Professor Borealis, inform the Equestrian Bureau of Zoology of this development. I'll need to get a team of doctors to assemble a biological study, no, I can use the machines in the basement for that. Spike can build a documentation set for photography, but I'll need to send for a aetherscope to get an internal scan. I wonder if my old chemistry set can do a specto-analysis of the materials the ship is made of. No, no, that I will definitely need to have done professionally. Maybe I should dig out that book on Hekatonkheire, figure out what the Naga was talking about. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, such a great find!” she hummed, her voice going thin.
“Twilight.”
“Yes?”
“Breathe.”
She sucked in an exaggerated pull of air and slumped down. “Heh, heh, sorry. I got, kind of carried away there.”
“It's fine. Your handling this way better than I did.”
Her ears perked up. “Oh, right. You must have gone through the same thing I am right now. Tell me, are we Ponies what you were expecting?”
“Hell no.” He said, arms crossed “Never in a million years did I think that the first aliens mankind would make contact with would be tiny horses.”
“Subject... replied... hell no.” She scribbled in her notes and looked up. “So, if we aren't what you were expecting, then why did you come here? Are you an ambassador, an explorer? Or, ooooh, are you an invader? Are you here to conquer us?” She asked with an unsettling amount of enthusiasm.
He leered back “What? No, I'm not, none of that. None of that is true. I came here on accident.”
She raised and eyebrow “Did your ship crash?”
“My ship? What are you talking about? I don't have a ship.”
“What about that metal thing back at your old camp?”
“That's a car Twilight. It's a ground vehicle. It can't fly, much less go into space.” He explained, suddenly annoyed.
“Then how did you get here?”
“I told you already, that.” he pointed a thumb at the glowing arch a short distance away. “The Arch back at my camp brought me here without my knowledge or consent.”
“Really? How?” she asked again.
He gave her a sharp glare for a moment and then softened.“I don't know Twilight. That's half the reason I've kept this to myself. I have no explanation for how I came to Equestria. One moment I was driving back home late at night in the middle of winter, I saw a column of green light, and then I was bouncing my way across a forest floor. I crashed into a tree and when I came to I was... here.” He gestured around at the dark forest.
“And you think a glowing tree did it?” she asked, eyebrow raised.
“Stop saying it like that, I'm not crazy. The one back at my camp was glowing bright and hot to the touch for days afterward, so it did something. Do you have any better ideas?”
“Maybe.” She slowly rose up, the day's fatigue seeping back in as she came down from her bout of academic exuberance. “I've heard of natural magical phenomena that can generate some potent effects. Let me take a look.” She started trotting over to the Arch.
“Be careful. It took me weeks to find that thing. I don't know if there are any others in the whole Everfree.”
“I'll be gentle, I promise.” She placed a hoof against the bark and focused a spell into her horn. She pulled back and said “I'm picking up a low level magical aura, but nothing that would suggest what you described.”
“Great.” he replied “That's excellent news.”
She shot him a scathing look “Rajrishi, don't be snide. All that means is that it isn't doing... whatever the other one did right now.” she huffed “Were you really going to just wait by this thing until it activated again?”
“Yeah, that was the plan.”
“That's... not a great plan.” She said, biting her lip.
“You can say it Twilight. It was a dumb idea.”
She looked away for a moment before laughing helplessly and saying “Yeah, yeah it is. I mean, what if it didn't activate again, what would you do?”
“Probably die.” He replied flatly.
Twilight blinked “Okay, why didn't you ask for help before now? You've been in these woods for months now why didn't you think to ask anypony to help you?”
“I didn't...” he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose “Okay, you're going to think this is really stupid but I... I didn't think anyone would believe me, and even if they did, they wouldn't want to help me.”
"What? That's ridiculous. Ponies help each other."
"Maybe, but I'm not a pony. I'm very much not a pony. At first I didn't know how anyone would react to me, and then later I didn't think anyone would take me seriously if I claimed to be an alien. At best, I thought I would be ignored. The only reason I told you is because you saved my life after I attacked that Naga like a moron." He shrugged “I, look, it was a dumb mistake. I should have gotten help long ago. I know that now, I didn't then. Can we leave it at that?”
She shrugged “Sure, if you don't want to talk about it we can come back around to it. For now though, I think I can help you with these magic trees.”
“Wait, what? You can? You can send me home?” He asked, hope giving a tremor to his voice
Twilight held up a hoof “Maybe. What you described would have to be an immensely powerful spell to affect travel over interstellar distances. I don't have access to even a fraction of the energy needed to pull that off, but if it was a naturally occurring spell-effect then I should be able to figure out how it happened and if it will happen again. If it will, then I should be able to figure out exactly when, maybe even speed it up.”
“Okay, what do I need to do? Whatever it is I will do it, just tell me.” He said intensely.
“First thing's first, we need to get back to my library. I have notes I need to catalog, then I can get started on this new problem.” A yawn forced its way through her mouth. “Actually, scratch that. First thing's first, I need to get some sleep. Magic can only keep a pony going so long.”
Raj let out a calming breath. “Okay fine, go ahead. I'll take care of things. We can get going at sunup.”
Twilight looped in a circled and laid down under the glow of the Arch “Hee hee, this is so exciting, I don't know if I'll even...” She was snoring before she even got the sentence out.
He made his way back to the fire and finished his pork with a happy grin on his face.