The escort around the perimeter of town was short and strangely quiet. The ponies made no attempts at small talk, but the pegasus kept circling the pair of humans on guard ready for anything. Candy used all her strength to hold Ben tightly, careful not to trip and make things worse for him. His leg was entirely swollen now, a deep blue tinge that appeared extremely painful. Maybe that's why Ben remained limp and unresponsive, the pain so bad his brain shut down. Ben never told her he was so fragile, she thought the helmet was just for show of fashion or residual childhood thing he hadn't outgrown yet.
She'll find out soon enough, for now she had to get him a doctor.
Candy followed the small ponies to a large building, which honestly looked like a sizable mansion or insane asylum from the outside, but the red cross symbol on the sign out front made it clear it was a hospital. Her arms hurt and Ben was starting to get heavy. She entered the front doors after the ponies.
“Hm.” The woman mused as it looked like any modern infirmary with minor modifications. The biggest surprised was how small everything appeared, made for something much shorter then an average person.
She found the orange blonde horse waving her over as a white pony came running down the hall.
“Oh my!” she said. “What's wrong with him?”
Candy shook off the brief interest of the interior design and coughed her throat clear. “He is bleeding internally. I- I think his leg is broken.”
She showed the white pony Ben's legs draped over her arms, most likely a nurse from the bun atop her head and markings on her fur. Come to think of it, the other ponies had markings as well.
“Come quick.” The white nurse turned tail and trotted into an emergency room. “In here.” She rolled out the bed and pointed at the pillow. “Set him down carefully. The rest of you stand clear, the doctor is on his way.”
Candy did as she was told, but there was only one problem. The bed was too short. Ben's shoes hovered over the edge of the bed. She did her best to keep them elevated.
“Um, excuse me nurse?” Candy spoke up. “Do you have a longer bed?”
“Oh!” Nurse realized the mistake and turned to one of the ponies. “Applejack dear, can you fetch the bed in the next room over? The one with the blue sheets.”
“Right away Nurse Redheart.” She was gone a second later. The nurse began hooking up the machines with tubes and wires next to the bed.
“And Miss Rainbow Dash, could you assist with holding his legs up please?”
Rainbow hesitated. In fact she retaliated a step back, still filled with mild distrust. She didn't comply right away, but when the female human gave her a look and the nurse repeated, she reluctantly offered her body as a temporary foot rest.
The nurse fed some of the tubes through Ben's arms, drawing blood and checking pressure. She also placed an irregular breathing apparatus shaped like a muzzle over his nose, barely holding itself in place.
Candy was torn between helping out or letting the nurse do her work. She didn't know what to do, give him CPR? Hold his hand? No, too awkward. But given the circumstances, it just might make her feel better. Better keep to hope than to not.
Another larger horse wearing a white labcoat and glasses walked in. The most surprising feature was the spike jutting from the forehead. It was the same kind of horn she discovered on the poor pony she saw earlier. Unicorn was the only work that seemed most appropriate to call it.
He walked up to the nurse, took one look at Candy and the unconscious man on the small bed, and started talking with the nurse. After their brief conversation, a stethoscope floated in mid air up to Ben's chest to listen for a pulse.
Candy took one big step back and watched with the most confused expression she's made all day as a faint glow radiated from both the doctor's horn and the object in levitation. It didn't surprised her too much, but still an unbelievable affair. The doctor seemed a little nervous by her response.
Did she and her friends actually drive into some weird fantasy town of sunshine and rainbows? That would explain the pegasus and her orange friend, and the unicorn doctor.
Speaking of, the blue pegasus was not glad to hold Ben's feet until the new bed arrived, but not two seconds later, the orange pony entered the room, pushing a larger hospital bed through the small doors with precision.
The doctor stepped away to make room for the bed as it rolled to a stop directly beside the short bed. Candy didn't need to be told what to do next as she lifted Ben off the old bed and onto the new. A perfect fit.
“Can you step away please,” the doctor echoed with a distinct deep voice. Candy had no choice but to do as commanded, but she would never leave the room. “Thank you. Nurse, please escort the ponies to the waiting room, the creature must rest and be given space as we work to stabilize his condition.”
The white pony nodded and escorted them out of the room, closing the door on the way out. The doctor noticed the other female creature still standing a few feet away.
“Wouldn't you like to wait outside until-”
“No.”
“But this will-”
“I don't care,” she cut him off. “I'm not leaving him here alone with you. Just fix him already.”
The nurse reentered the room and trotted over to the opposite side of the bed. The doctor was unhappy with the terms and attitude, but broke eye contact from the woman to do his job. Candy fixed her attention on the two medical horses while they worked to help Ben recover. The procedure went no different than what humans would do, but with the advantage of supernatural powers to make up for the lack of thumbs, or even hands.
The sight was both astonishing and risky. Candy found a chair by the door to relieve her aching feet. She could not figure out what she was supposed to feel about all this. Her hand met her face in what could only be described as an intense conflict of thoughts that gravely gave her one of many frigid headaches. Telekinetic talking horses and flying rainbow ponies.
Please let this be some sick joke, or a sick dream.
Please.
- - -
“Give it another go!”
“I told you, it's not working.”
“Keep trying!”
VRVRHRVRHVRVHVR
“Ugh! I told you, the ignition is broken.” Max took the key out of the slot and got out of the car. “Must have blew a fuse or something.”
Felix slammed on the hood in frustration. “Dammit.”
“Can we help?” squeaked Pinkie.
“No!” Felix retorted. “Now hang on, I'm going to try and see what's wrong.” He opened up the hood and leaned over the engine. Nothing seemed too out of place besides the shattered headlight and some fresh dents.
As the man began his rudimentary examination, Max paced back and forth thoughtfully. It was bad enough that something was wrong with the car, but the pink ball of overwhelming joy didn't help one bit. He stopped walking, noticing Pinkie pacing with him while mimicking his expression.
“Are you trying to insult me?” he said.
“No silly willy, I'm trying to be you.”
Max sighed. “I can see that,” he grumbled. PING. He focused his gaze at his partner. “Uugh, what did you do now?”
“Dropped my screwdriver,” Felix answered.
Max stepped opposite of his friend and leaned on the fender. “Do you even know what you're doing?”
Felix returned from the back seat with a flash light in hand. “No. But we have no choice, we have to do this ourselves.” He reached in to find the tool he dropped under the engine.
Max leaned in and lowered his voice. “I mean, the talking horse does want to help.”
“Hell no. We shouldn't trust them with anything. I'm only worried about getting out of here.”
“What about Ben?”
“Yes, Ben too.”
Max sighed. The way things were, Felix was beginning to give in to paranoia and hatred of where they are. That much was clear. But should he blame him? The extraordinary reality of miniature horse like animals that speak English living in some backwards parody of a real life medieval village except with more bright colors and happiness, it's no mystery why he's be upset. Max also wonder why he hadn't lost his mind yet. He took it rather well.
Well if Felix wants it that way, the least he could do is give him something to work with. He was no mechanic, nor an engineer. Might as well learn it from scratch. Only one way to do that. Max dug under the driver's seat where the owners manual was kept. Once he found it, he threw it over to Felix.
“Here, that should help. Start reading.”
The only response he receive was a huff followed by silence. Hopefully that will shut him up and keep him busy. Felix was smarter and did in fact take some tech classes in community college before dropping out and moving to Portland. At least he wasn't completely useless.
Max was left to his own devices, and speaking of, every attempt to use his phone to connect to the GPS or even the internet had failed. It was running low on power anyways, so he left it connected to the car charger with the key turned halfway to drain it from the car battery. That may not sound like a good idea, but car batteries were incredibly robust and everlasting. The radio didn't work either, as expected. It was the first anomaly before finding this strange town with strange pony people.
Even if Felix managed to get the ignition working again, they still had a flat tire. Fortunately there was a spare in the back under the floor beneath all their boxes and luggage. Max groaned. It would take forever to take all the stuff out, take the tire out of the compartment, unhinge to old tire, put the new one one, trash the old one in the back again, and then put all stuff back in.
There's no way he would do that himself. He'd wait for Candy to get back. Hopefully Ben is doing alright.
It was a quiet few moments. Max was aware of the ponies still watching over them a short distance away, their voices barely audible. He wanted to ignore them as long as possible.
That proved to be difficult when the flapping of wings sounded off. Max propped himself up from his short rest in the driver's seat and stared through the rear view mirror. Another one of those horses landed next to the others, talking with the pink one with a concrete tone and a cautious stance. Its violet fur coat and straight dark hair was not was interested him the most, but that it had a spiral horn on its forehead. No doubt a unicorn, but a flying unicorn?
How creative.
Their words ceased, bringing focus on the new arrival as Max hoped it would leave. It did the opposite.
The purple unicorn began slowly walk towards the car. Max silently complained to himself. Please no more fantasy horses. Enough bullshit for one day, and it's not even lunch yet.
With a final sigh, Max opened the door and got out of the car, adjusting his shirt and jeans. She froze briefly when she saw him, but continued forward with due confidence.
“Hello,” she said. “My name is Twilight Sparkle.” A pause. The man rolled his eyes. “It has come to my attention that unknown visitors have come to Ponyville terrorizing citizens and my dear friend Pinkie Pie.” Max did not like where this was going. “However from what she has told me, it was all a mistake. You did not mean to hurt her and in return one of our friends was not so kind to you. This is unacceptable. I will have a word with her later.”
“Uhh... okay?” Max managed to croak while he let his tensions fade. He wasn't quite expecting a quick understanding already. “What do you want?”
She looked at the car and back at the man. “Your large metal carriage appears to be crippled, and while you are trespassing on private property, you are not at fault. Again, I will have a word with Rainbow Dash soon. On behalf of my friends, we would like to offer our help with repairing your vehicle as a show of goodwill and friendship.”
“The answer is no!” yelled Felix from afar, still tending to the engine under the hood.
“Ignore him.” Max grinned anxiously. “He's just afraid of you guys and wants to do everything himself. I'll admit, I am too, but I'm learning to get over it.”
Twilight smiled. “I have a friend who used to share similar stubborn traits which led to-”
“Stubborn!?” Felix retorted, having overhead the entire exchange. The irked human strolled around the car and made it known that we wasn't happy. “Who are you to-”
“Hey!” Max shouted, keeping the rage at bay. “Will you knock it off! Just shut the fuck up and work. I'll handle this.” He shot the man a menacing glare. It worked to scare him into retreat, but not until Felix expressed his disapproval through a deep frown and an eye twitch.
“Sorry, he's still angry.” Max coughed. “Just don't piss him off any further or he might start throwing things at you.”
Right then, Max was hit with something in the back of the head. “OW!” An apple bounced on the ground and landed in Ben's helmet. He took the blame for suggesting it and rubbed his neck, smiling nervously.
Twilight gulped and said in the most diplomatic way possible. “I understand.”
“I'm waiting for my friends to get back before I consider trusting you to help us.”
“Friends? There's more of you?”
“Yeah Twilight!” chimed the pink pony known as Pinkie Pie. “Applejack and Rainbow Dash brought them to the hospital because one of them was hurt bad and one of them was crying and they really needed help. So sad.” She stopped bouncing beside Twilight and smiled wide.
Max thought it was funny for her to say Candy was actually crying, as if Candy ever cried. It was more of an immediate reaction of deep concern rather than the actual emotion of sadness dripping through. Certainly not crying.
“The hospital you say? How badly was your friend injured?”
Max shrugged. “I have no idea. I think he broke his leg or disjointed a knee or something. He's a very fragile guy.” He walked over to the blue helmet resting on the grass and picked it up, dumping out the apple. “No sure how serious it is, but he was in a lot of pain.”
“Oh my.” Twilight said. “I'm so sorry.”
“If it's anyone's fault, it's that lion in the woods that almost killed him this morning.” Max loosely pointed at Pinkie. “It's probably a little bit your fault too for frightening him so much that he jumped out of the window. That was- uhh- kinda how he got hurt.”
Twilight glanced at Pinkie who returned a sheepish grin. The longer she looked at her friend, the lower her ears flopped in guilt.
“Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to pay a visit to the hospital and assure your friends are safe. I promise we have no intent to harm you or your friends. It is not like us ponies to solve problems with force, usually. I hope to resolve this issue while gaining your trust in the process. Pinkie, stay put with Big Mac and Applebloom. I'll be right back.”
Just like that, Twilight nodded and took off into the air and flew away, gliding over the town and out of sight.
“So can we help?”
“No.”
- - -
Twilight arrived at the hospital a few minutes later, landing neatly at the foot of the entrance. She pushed the doors open with her magic and brushed off excess dust harmful to sterile conditions inside. Beyond the doors, the two faces she wanted to see were sitting next to each other in the waiting room.
“Applejack. Rainbow Dash.” She called out to them.
The friendly rivals perked their ears when they heard Twilight's voice and trotted to meet the princess.
“What are ya doing here Twilight?” Applejack asked.
“Yeah, how did you know we were here?” Rainbow Dash added, hovering a couple feet off the floor.
“I found out what happened in Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Did those monsters do anything bad while we were gone?” Dash said.
“Listen, Rainbow, I want to talk to you about that,” Twilight began. “I am disappointed with how you handled the situation to defend Pinkie Pie and you should take responsibility for mistreatment they accuse you of. Please do not let it happen again.”
The pegasus folded her wings midair and landed firmly on the tile floor at the weight of her voice. Very rarely did Twilight ever lecture anypony in such a tone. She knew Twilight would never stay mad at her forever, but her behavior was shameful. Rainbow was frightened of her purple friend for a brief moment, hoping never to hear the ultimate judgment again. When Twilight was angry, that's when she knew she screwed up.
“I'm sorry.”
Twilight nodded approvingly and looked at the earth pony standing next to her. “Applejack, I was told you led two more bipeds here to the hospital, correct?”
“Sure did, Twilight. Ah can show ya the room they're in.”
“Lead the way.”
Twilight trailed Applejack as the pair walked halfway down the hall to an emergency room.
“Now ah have ta warn ya 'bout these fellas, one of them is hurt and the other seems distraught.”
“Noted.”
Applejack pushed the unlocked door open for Twilight to sneak through. The alicorn made an effort to stay professional and princess-like for the sake of the new arrivals to Equestria. She'd have to remind herself to get to the bottom of how the “humans” ever managed to end up in her world. As far as she knew, they only existed beyond the mirror portal and had no concept of Equestria. There's no way they could have traversed the portal without her knowing, nor did they look anything like those she'd seen during her brief experiences in Canterlot High.
Twilight waited for the the door to close on it's own behind her. She examined the occupants of the room, finding exactly what had been described by her friends. A nurse and a doctor pony tended to a human laying on an extended stretcher and, finally, a woman sitting alone on a chair with her hands pressed against her temples. She was the only one who didn't seem to acknowledge Twilight.
“Princess?” said Nurse Redheart, moving to meet the alicorn. “I assume you're here for...”
“Yes,” Twilight confirmed with a smile. “Please, don't let me keep you from your work.” The nurse nodded and returned to help the doctor monitor the heart rate and blood pressure of the unconscious man.
Twilight looked over at the woman, noticing that she was only occasionally stealing glances at her, afraid to make direct eye contact. The purple pony offered a warm smile as she walked over to her.
“Hello.”
The woman licked her lower lip and sat up straight, lacking any positive expression. She was interested in Twilight now that she was made aware of her royal title.
“I'm Twilight Sparkle. Don't be alarmed, I am not here to take you away to be studied or experimented on.”
Candy scratched the back of her neck. “Why would you think that?”
“I learned the concept from human culture second-hoof, I don't want you to worry if we ponies are like that. Our principles are much different from that of your world.”
“Uh, okay?” Candy's confusion only thickened, letting an awkward chuckle escape her mouth. What a weird thing to say right off the bat. But her last few words interested her greatly. She sat up straight and rose a finger. “Wait, what do you mean 'our world?'”
“The mirror world. I'm puzzled to know how you slipped through the portal to Equestria with you and your friends. That's why I'm here.”
Candy huffed delicately. “Mirror world? Equestria? Portal? Slipped? What are you talking about? You're not making any sense.” Twilight intended to respond during the short pause, but the woman continued. “In fact, you don't make any sense.” She threw her hand up. “None of this makes any sense!”
Twilight was overwhelmed by the volume of her panicked voice and was suddenly filled with intense sympathy. She reminded her of herself, troubled and confused at desperate times. She'd take it upon herself to solve this problem.
“Why do I not make sense?” she began.
The woman tugged on her hair from the roots. A heavy sigh fell burst out of her lips. “You're not supposed to exist. Just ancient myth and fairytales fantasy. I mean seriously, there's so many colors around here that makes think I'm high on acid or something.”
Twilight was lost near the end there. Her manner of speak was not unlike her counterparts, but the way she presented her logic seemed to correspond with relentless skepticism. And maybe a little bit crazy, but she wasn't going to go around insulting them for questioning her reality.
Thinking for a moment, the alicorn stuck out a hoof and extended it out to the woman. The human looked up from her slouched position and leaned away from Twilight.
“Go on,” the princess said.
Candy hesitated as she watched the calm complexion of the pony revealed no ill intent. She raised an arm and reached out to touch her hoof.
“Tell me,” Twilight explained. “Am I not real?”
The woman cleared her throat. “No no I get it, you're definitely real. I guess I'm not losing my mind after all.” Candy stared down at the checkered floor. “So weird.”
“Excellent. Then you must know everything around you exists as well. The air you're breathing, the chair you're sitting on, and the ground you're looking at, all part of physical reality.” At least it was some progress, even if Twilight berated herself for choosing the most boring way to demonstrate it.
“I know. I'm just having a hard time understanding it. How could this happen to us?”
“Well, I would love to discuss your situation with you at a later time.” Twilight pointed at the hospital bed. “First we must make sure your friend fully recovers from his injuries, then I'll see what I can do to help you and your friends.” Twilight smiled at the woman. “What is your name?”
“Candy.”
Once again, the princess held out a forearm. The human reluctantly accepted the gesture and shook her hoof. A soft grin cut across Twilight's face as blush surfaced on her cheeks.
“Welcome to Ponyville.”