Chapter 2
“...Another Begins”
I woke up, I think.
I can’t really explain it any better, even though that really doesn’t get the point across. I didn’t feel like I’d gone from unconsciousness to consciousness; there wasn’t a fade into waking or anything. All I know is that there was an instant where I was suddenly somewhere, and before that I wasn’t.
My senses seemed to lag, catching up to me as I found myself sprawled on what felt like grass. Without the ability to make a coherent thought yet, I grasped at the sensation of being able to feel anything again, clutching the grass like a shipwreck victim washed up on shore.
Even without opening my eyes, I could take a certain stock of my situation. My body felt intact, even though I still had the vivid, all-encompassing memory of the pain of being torn beyond even the atomic level. The only actual things I could feel were a fresh bruise on my shoulder from where I had been thrown against the glass, and my throat.
Sweet mercy, my throat. I couldn’t decide between the metaphor of gargling with steel wool or swallowing flaming glass, but neither really seemed to be adequate to the task. It was definitely my reminder and remnant of my trip into the black hole, and all that screaming had done me no favors. It was very, very tender, and by touch alone I could tell that my throat was visibly swollen. I could barely breathe, and the best sound I could produce was a rough, raspy breath that produced far more pain than communication.
I whimpered internally, content to just lay still and enjoy being merely in pain for the time being—but it wasn’t to last.
“What the...”
The voice wasn’t familiar, and I couldn’t really place it at first between male and female, but I definitely wasn’t alone.
Wait, the thought suddenly hit me, I understood that...
I slowly pulled my head to a vaguely upright position, trying to will my inner ear to stop making me feel like the world was tilting. The first hit of light on my eyes was intense—too intense. Everything was blurred, and I wondered if I was concussed or something, because the blobby shapes of color I could make out were saturated beyond anything I’d seen before.
“Woah, are you—you’re alive?”
A hazy image of a vibrantly blue-colored smudge began to resolve itself into an outline, but it didn’t look like anything familiar...
“So, did you make that bang?” The blue with the hesitant voice came slightly closer, and I could make out what appeared to be leg shapes. “What are you?”
What do you mean, ‘what am I’? I blinked several times, trying to let my eyes acclimate to the brightness around me, and the world resolved itself. The scenery around me was incredibly bright, almost overly saturated with color. Beyond the ring of blackened grass immediately surrounding my body, the green of the foliage was otherworldly, like this place had never heard of a drought. The sky was vibrantly blue, with clouds straight out of a Bob Ross painting floating lazily through it. This was all a bit tangential for me, though, because in front of me, leaning cautiously down to stare intently at my face, was a bright. Blue. Pony.
With wings.
It pulled back slightly as my eyes focused on it. “Woah...” it muttered, and I flipped out. I had no idea what this... thing I was seeing was, but I attempted (unsuccessfully) to shriek like a little girl as I jumped backwards, curling into a defensive ball. The sudden movement startled the small horse, which shied back, its wings flaring in something like a fight-or-flight response.
The pony’s eyes were huge as it stared at me, growing frantic as I tried to retreat. “Oh, woah, jeez. Uhhh, calm down there... guy? Oh, harmony, what is happening right now?” It glanced around anxiously, as though searching for help.
I strained to make any sort of noise I could, but my throat wouldn’t allow it, only letting me express myself in breathy gasps rather than the severely unsettled ranting I’d have preferred to have been doing.
“Okay, this is freaky... I need Twilight...” The sky-blue—pegasus? Yeah, pegasus, that’s it—crouched slightly on its rear legs. “Umm... Don’t go anywhere, okay? I’ll be right back, I promise,” it said in its rough, sorta-feminine voice before jumping into the air and taking off in a rush of wind.
What the unholy hell did I just see? I sat, huddled, wringing my hands anxiously as the short while passed. Where the hell am I, and why can’t I say anything, and why is everything so bright and what the HELL IS A FLYING HORSE DOING ANYWHERE—
I let out another silent yelp, my thoughts neatly cut off in mid freakout as a different, equally colorful small horse suddenly appeared out nowhere with a freakishly loud POP of displaced air. I scrambled backwards, eyes wide, until I felt my back slam up against a tree trunk.
Oh God no, not another one!
The new pony shook its head, apparently trying to refocus after teleporting or whatever it had just done. Its eyes very quickly found me and widened in response.
“Oh my...” it muttered, in a much more distinctly feminine-sounding tone than the first one had. She frowned, looking over her shoulder into the air. “Rainbow Dash!” she called out, “I found it!” Mere seconds later, the blue pegasus appeared, landing smoothly next to the new arrival.
I was absolutely losing my shit. I would probably have crawled backwards for a mile or more by this point had the tree not been so sturdy behind me. I’m pretty sure my eyes were about the size of—well, the size of the ones these ponies had, really. I’m definitely sure that I was hyperventilating to the point of being slightly lightheaded, which probably wasn’t doing any favors to my ability to be rational.
“Twilight, what is it?” the pegasus asked its friend.
The purple-coated pony shook her head slowly, still examining me closely as I shook in fear, the motion suddenly revealing to me the horn affixed to her forehead. First a pegasus, and now a unicorn? Sure, mind; why not? As long as I’m going insane, I might as well go all the way, right?
“I don’t know, Rainbow, I’ve never heard of anything like it before,” the unicorn replied, frowning slightly.
“Do I need to get the rest of the girls?”
The unicorn’s composure broke, and I stopped suddenly as I was struck with just how human the look of complete exasperation on her face was. “Rainbow Dash, we are not going to just start blasting every new thing we find with the Elements of Harmony just in case!”
The pout the pegasus put on was equally expressive. “Sure, just wait until half the town is eaten by parasprites, see if I care...”
“To be honest, though, I’m not even totally sure this thing is Equestrian...” the unicorn said, her voice low as she expanded her study to the darkened patch of grass my arrival had evidently created.
“Twilight, are we gonna do something or not? I—” the pegasus hesitated, giving me a weirdly intent look. “I feel like he’s gonna hurt himself or something...”
“He?” the unicorn countered.
“I dunno, it’s just a gut feeling, but I think it’s a ‘he’.”
The unicorn bit her lip. “Has it—or he—tried to communicate?”
“Um, not really...” her friend admitted. “It looked like a scream, but he didn’t really make any sound.”
“Okay, well, maybe we can bring it back to Ponyville and talk things over.” The unicorn took another step closer to me and gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry about this,” she said quietly as her horn began to glow with an amethyst light that mirrored her coloring, “but I need to put you to sleep for a little while.”
I felt the sensation of something wrapping gently around my head and saw a slight haze the same color as the one around her horn just before the feeling changed into one like a vise being tightened on my brain. I pushed back even harder against that tree, with no way to express the intense pain I was feeling, all the way up to the point where I dropped into unconsciousness.
Again.
What a day...
Thankfully, life gave me a break and let me wake up slowly this time. I think regaining consciousness in a rush again would have completely broken me. As it was, I woke up very slowly and groggily. It was kind of like when you take a nap that’s too long to be light, but not quite long enough to be considered sleep and you just wake up sort of sleepy and disappointed. I was all sorts of disoriented, but at least the bed I was in was soft.
Wait, I thought again, hoping this opening line of thought wasn’t going to be a running theme in my life now, I’m in a bed...
For what it was worth, though, it was a very comfortable bed. The sheets were warm without being stifling, the room seemed cool and comfortable, and it was quiet enough that I felt alone. I didn’t feel like I needed to wake up in a hurry.
I just sorta lay there, enjoying the restfulness and lack of discomfort until my eyes eventually opened. I was definitely in some sort of bedroom, one that felt almost organic in its shape. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of wood, and the room looked not so much built as carved. The furniture scattered around the room seemed to be formed from a darker, polished wood, and a majority of the accents—including the bedspread I was currently beneath—were done in a variety of purple and magenta hues. I had no idea which direction the room was facing, but the low, slanted light streaming through the window made me think it was either late afternoon or early morning. Having just experienced the day I had, I really couldn’t tell either way.
And, really, that’s only assuming wherever I am is still on Earth...
I stretched out in the bed, trying to loosen my stiffening muscles, and bumped up against both ends of the bedframe. In all honesty, most of the room felt like it was just slightly undersized. The dresser and such were just about right, but the ceiling was just a bit too low to feel normal, and even just glancing at the door I could tell that even average, five-foot-ten me would be close to hitting my head on the top of the frame. It wasn’t quite claustrophobic, but it was close. Clearly, this dwelling was constructed with beings in mind that walked lower to the ground than I did.
Well, I guess that makes sense if I really saw what I think I saw...
I could feel a moderate attempt at freaking out working up steam, but I quickly clamped down on that before I lost control. Given how comfortable I was, I thought this was probably the best possible place to think over everything I’d been through and to attempt to sort out just where I was and what I should do next.
Okay, I told myself, trying to order my thoughts, what do I know? First off, I definitely fell into a black hole. That happened. I had a quick shudder as I recalled the experience. There was no way I could deny everything I’d felt, no matter how farfetched it seemed. Modern science be damned.
Second: I’m definitely not dead. I didn’t consider myself an overly religious person, but pretty much every theology on Earth agreed that the afterlife was either a great place devoid of pain or one of utter torment, depending on how you lived your life. This wasn’t really either—and if this counted as Purgatory, then some cosmic deity was really getting their money’s worth out of my confusion right now. I chose to believe that I wasn’t dead. It was easier to wrap my head around.
Third: I don’t appear to be in danger. Heck, if anything, I appeared to be rather well cared for. Whoever my hosts were, they actually cared enough to put me in the bed. There was that whole matter of what my hosts were, though. Talking, flying, magic-wielding equines was a stretch no matter how I looked at it, so I was either insane—not unreasonable, considering the day I’d had—, I was dead and this was all a joke, or I was well and truly off the map with no idea where my towel was.
The fact that I could understand the speech of these ponies just hurt my brain, though. How was that even possible? Granted, I was extremely grateful for that little detail, especially as it appeared that my own communication was cut off for the foreseeable future...
I tried to say something out loud, and as before, my throat protested vehemently. All I could force out was a raspy, choked breath, and even that much made my eyes water with pain. I clutched a hand gently to my swollen throat, hoping beyond hope that my affliction was only temporary.
I glanced over at the door as I heard the barest hint of voices through the wood. Someone was out there. I couldn’t really think of a reason to stay put anymore, so I threw back the covers, saying a silent prayer to whatever cared to listen that my clothes had survived the trip with me. Wish I’d have kept my phone in my pocket, though... I stepped out onto the—of course—purple-toned rug and made my way towards the exit on legs that were only slightly unsteady.
I put an ear to the door and could still barely make out that a conversation was happening somewhere else in the house. Someone out there must have been yelling or something if I’d heard it from inside this room. I cracked the heavy, solid door and peeked out. There wasn’t anything to see from where I was except a short hallway with a few other doors along the wall, and a stairway down and out of sight.
I crept out into the hallway, trying to move silently, even though I really didn’t have a reason to do so. I stopped at the end of the wall, just before the stairs. I could hear the conversation much more clearly now. There were at least three people—well, I guess the even money was on them being ponies, actually—and I thought two of them sounded familiar enough that I could place them as the two who discovered me. I slid slowly down the wall until I was sitting on the floor and listened in, hoping to figure out where I stood.
“I don’t like this idea,” the first voice said. It was that purple unicorn, I was pretty sure.
“I understand,” a second voice replied, one that was sounded much older, calmer, and motherly, but definitely authoritative. “Unfortunately, I can not afford to take chances where other ponies may.” There was something about this conversation that I really didn’t like...
“Princess, I unders—”
OH SHIT, I thought immediately. It was the fuzz! Freaking royalty was here to investigate me!
I’d missed a few sentences during my realization, but I picked things up just as the third voice chimed in, easily identifiable as the blue pegasus who first found me in the forest. “I know you have to be careful, but Twilight’s right. You haven’t seen him yet.”
“Are you telling me that you’re sure this creature is intelligent, Rainbow Dash? You have proof of this?”
“Well... not really proof...” this Rainbow Dash admitted, “but I saw his eyes. There was something there.”
The Princess hmmmmed quietly. “What do you think, my student?”
Student? Now things are getting interesting...
“I—it’s hard to say,” Twilight said, obviously hedging. “I agree that we shouldn’t take chances, but I think Rainbow is right; there was something in the creature’s eyes beyond just animal fear. We need to know for sure if he’s intelligent or not before we try to decide anything. It’s just—nothing like this has ever happened in Equestria before. How we decide to approach this situation could have enormous consequences...”
I nodded along, pleased that these pony-creatures would go to bat for me, even knowing nothing about me.
There was silence from below for a long time, and I could almost feel the nervous energy in the room.
“I agree,” the Princess finally said, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized that I had been holding. “Are you sure that the creature is still resting?”
“He was when I checked about an hour ago.”
Is that my cue? Downstairs were three clearly nervous ponies, at least one of which had magical powers of some sort, one of whom was an authority figure wherever I was, and the other was... um... blue. If things went sour, I would be in a very bad way. At any rate, I decided that it was probably rude to keep them waiting longer than necessary, and I couldn’t really do anything to improve my stock anyway. I stood back up as quietly as possible and started to make my way down the stairs one tentative step at a time.
The stairs led down along the curved wall of a large, open main room. Bookshelves lined every exposed wall, and they were crammed full of books. Too many books, in fact, as small piles of books were also scattered around the room, centering on a desk under a window near what I assume was the front door. The carved wood motif was continued throughout, it seemed, as if the entire home was inside of a gigantic tree. I couldn’t really put more thought into it, though, as I caught sight of the occupants.
The pony facing the stairs was the pegasus, Rainbow Dash. I blinked as I finally took notice of her mane and tail, which were multi-hued like a rainbow. I’m not really sure how I missed that earlier, to be honest. I guess it made a certain amount of sense on her, though, at least as far as her name. She looked extremely uncomfortable, and was fidgeting nervously. Next to her was the unicorn I had “met” earlier, Twilight. Now that I was able to get a better look at her as well, the decor above suddenly made sense, too. Her mane and tail were striped with the same purple and magenta hues as the soft furnishings, though it was a nice complement to her coat’s... color. Lavender? No... Puce? Purple-ish? I swear there’s a name for that color...
Both of these two ponies were pretty close to the same size. The pegasus seemed a bit leaner, but both looked as though their shoulders would be right around my stomach’s level. If they stood up on their rear hooves, we’d probably be almost the same size. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t a whole lot of things I could compare to what I knew of as a pony on Earth. Their eyes were larger, and obviously intelligent. If they had hooves, they weren’t as obvious as the horses I was familiar with, and why did they all have pictures on their flanks...?
The room’s final occupant was in another league altogether, though. Where Rainbow Dash and Twilight were obviously ponies, this was a PONY. The Princess was at least half again as large as the others, and probably stood a solid head taller than me at least. Her mane and tail were utterly unlike the others’, and seemed to be made of something ethereal that moved in a silent and unfelt breeze, and to top it all off she had wings and a horn! Her very bearing made it clear that she was in control, and even from behind I felt quite small indeed in a way that had nothing to do with height. This was a creature to take very seriously.
I made it about five quiet steps down the stairs when Rainbow noticed my approach. Her line of sight flicked up to meet mine, and I saw her eyes widen considerably as she tensed.
Twilight noticed her reaction, too. “Rainbow?”
Rainbow just nodded slightly at me, not looking away, or even really blinking. The other two ponies swiveled around to look. Twilight seemed caught between joy at seeing me up and apprehension at the situation, but it was the Princess’ expression that I paid the most attention to. Her gaze was piercing beyond the level of anything I’d ever experienced before, and I stopped in my tracks immediately. She had an excellent poker face—assuming pony expressions were even that close to human ones—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just one bad move away from being a pile of ash.
I willed myself back into movement until I reached the bottom of the stairs, where I faced the trio with a nervous, forced smile. Okay, now what?
How does one greet a ruler when you can’t talk?