The young man returned to the reservoir to reclaim his curtain clothing, then went back to the village. His side was smarting from landing on it and then exerting himself like he did, but it was more of a heavy soreness than real pain. It had hurt more when he got road rash from crashing his bicycle.
As he walked back to the main area of the village from behind the houses by the trees, he found quite a few of the townsponies awaiting him. They all just stared at him, some in horror, others in curiosity, and some in shock that he came back. The young man shifted his feet nervously, uncertain of what to do. His fight-or-flight instincts were still clicked on, and he felt ready to run.
“What did you do?” a stallion finally asked.
“I dealt with it,” the young man said. He didn’t elaborate further, but the townsponies were unsatisfied with the answer.
“Why did you bring them to the reservoir?!” an angry mother called, stepping forward. “They aren’t allowed out there-“
“How the heck was I supposed to know that?!” the young man asked through his teeth, prompting the mother to step back. “Don’t blame me for YOUR kid telling a lie.”
“Jamie would never lie!” the mother shouted back.
The young man scoffed. “Please, they didn’t even tell me they weren’t allowed outside the village until we were already at the water’s edge.” He looked at her. “Maybe you should encourage a little more honesty in your kids…”
The mother looked positively furious, and her anger only fueled that of the young man. It almost looked like the mother was going to come to blows over the issue, which the young man would be more than happy to return. Before anything else could happen, though, none other than Gibbs came limping out of his home.
“Enough of this!” he shouted.
Everyone looked his way, and the ponies seemed to shrink back at seeing him unhappy. The young man stood plainly as if nothing happened, still steaming over the mother’s anger at him. Gibbs slowly made his way to the young man and pushed his shoulder.
“Don’t be yelling at my village,” he warned.
“Or what?” the young man retorted aggressively. “I was misled by your damn kids. Don’t be getting mad at me, and don’t you DARE insist I don’t get to be mad when you try to blame me.”
“I don’t care what’s going on,” Gibbs said with clear frustration. “You don’t get to abuse my ponies.” The young man rolled his eyes and Gibbs turned to the village. “And don’t be attacking our guest! Before you go jumping to conclusions, get every side of the story. And even if you don’t like the human, he shouldn’t be here too much longer.”
“Oh?” the young man asked, not angrily, but curiously.
“Your stuff is here,” Gibbs said. “Showed up while you were off running around with your tube flopping about.”
“Good for me,” the young man said. He visibly calmed down at the sound of the good news. “I can get out of here and make my way home.”
“Yes, and life will go back to normal,” Gibbs said with relief. “Tomorrow, you can go and get your things, and we’ll help you to be on your way.”
“Good,” the young man said. He didn’t notice, but Colm Winds was approaching the crowd.
“Before we do anything else, I need to know what happened out there,” Gibbs said. “Linny wasn’t able to tell us anything, he was so terrified after you sent him back.”
“Alright,” the young man said. He just noticed Colm Winds as he walked up to him. “What’s up, Colm?”
“Just came ta find out what the commotion was,” Colm said. “Should’ve guessed it’d be you.”
“Well, if you’d like to hear my tale, come along,” the young man said. Gibbs led the way to his house, followed by the young man and Colm.
When they entered Gibbs’s house, the trio sat around the table. Gibby tried to come in and find out what happened, but his mother grabbed him and carried him out by the fluff of his neck. It made the young man chuckle to see him out as he was carried off.
“So, what happened out there?” Gibbs asked straight. “Give me the details.”
“Well, I decided to help somebody out earlier today since I messed up the routine here,” the young man explained. “I saw a tired little lady sitting down and asked her what I could do. She asked me to watch after the kids, which I did, but the kids told me to go to the reservoir, where they eventually informed me that they aren’t allowed out there.”
“That’s why Ah don’t babysit them kids,” Colm commented. Gibbs shot him a glare, to which Colm just shrugged.
“I sent them back, but the one, I guess he was Linny, wasn’t moving. He saw some kind of bounty hunter on the other side of the water.”
“I’m not too surprised,” Gibbs said with a sigh. “I was wondering how long it would take for them to start coming here.”
“After I sent the kid back,” the young man continued. “I had to stay to fight the guy. He told me how information sells, and I didn’t want your village to be singled out by those Tong thugs for harboring me.”
“How did that go?” Colm asked.
“No issues,” the young man replied. “After I disarmed him and knocked him good a few times, he ran off. I chased him down.”
“And what did you do?” Gibbs asked darkly.
“He was on a ledge, somewhere in the distance in the trees,” the young man said. “He tried to talk to me, get me to let him go.” Gibbs looked displeased with where it was going. “I told him I had to at least bust his jaw to make sure he wouldn’t talk. He said he wasn’t going to let me do that. I didn’t give him a choice.”
Gibbs blinked, his dark expression gone. Colm, too, was somewhat surprised by the conclusion to the story. He had expected the young man to have gone and killed the bounty hunter.
“Oh,” Gibbs replied.
“Unfortunately, when I went for the kick, he dodged right INTO it,” the young man said. “Rather than just bust his jaw as planned, I knocked him out and he fell.”
“Off the ledge,” Colm finished for the young man. The young man nodded. “Oh, geeze…”
“So he’s dead,” Gibbs said.
“I have no idea,” the young man replied. “But most likely.”
“I see,” Gibbs replied. “I mean… I guess you didn’t mean to, nor even really had a choice.”
“No choice,” the young man agreed. “That information would have gotten everyone here killed.”
Colm swallowed. “That’s… true,” he admitted.
“Okay,” Gibbs said. “Just… just don’t mention it to anyone else here. Just say he jumped off the ledge and flew away.”
“Flew?” the young man asked.
“Say he was a Pegasus,” Gibbs explained. The young man blinked, then nodded.
“This is getting out of hoof already,” Colm said.
“Well, it’s out of your hooves and into my hand, so it’s not all bad,” the young man said.
“I don’t know if I’d say that’s a good thing,” Gibbs thought.
The young man stood to leave. “Well, if that’s all, I think I should go and retrieve my dive gear now.”
“Wait,” Gibbs said before the young man left. He stopped. “If you could have saved him, would you?”
“Probably,” the young man said casually. “I mean, he was going to make life hard for me to make an extra buck, so I don’t see much reason to care for his either way. I just would have preferred not to.” With that final comment, the young man made his way out.
Colm Winds stood. “Well, I suppose Ah shouldn’t overstay mah welcome,” he said, excusing himself. Gibbs was left alone in his house a moment later.
Gibbs sighed and rested his head on the table. It wasn’t every day a pony met a human, generally. It wasn’t every day that human brought massive trouble to town. And it certainly wasn’t every day that a human killed a pony within days of arriving.
“I just want life to make sense,” Gibbs whined to himself.
The young man walked through the small town in his curtain, eager to get his dive equipment so he could be ready ASAP the next day to retrieve his gi and obi. He would also try to grab his sparring gear, if for no reason other than the soft helmet. It would never protect him against great force or cutting objects, but it was something he could sleep on the ground with.
It took only moment after leaving the house for Colm Winds to catch up to him. When he did, the young man initially didn’t say anything, waiting for Colm to greet him. Colm just walked next to him, though, forcing the young man to initiate social contact.
“Word,” he greeted.
“Uhh, what?” Colm replied.
“Hello? Evening? Aloha?” the young man said repeated differently.
“Oh, hey,” Colm said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to find out who has my gear,” the young man said. “I hope to get myself out of here first thing tomorrow, or at least in the evening after my clothes dry off.”
“Very nice,” Colm said. “Ah’ve finally raised enough money to get mahself out of here, too.”
“Really?” the young man asked. “How long did that take you?”
“Years,” Com said with dreadful memory. “But it finally worked. Got mah last pay earlier. Ah just need to say some goodbyes.”
“When do you plan to leave?” the young man asked.
“Morning two days from now,” Colm said. “Some friends want to have me for dinner, and Ah’m olbigin’ both.”
“Very nice,” the young man said. They had stopped walking so they could chat. “Any plans on where you’re going?”
“Not sure,” Colm said. “Ah’ve heard that Fillydelphia is right nice. Course, Ah might want to make mah way to Vanhoover. It’s more like the climate Ah grew up with.”
“Nice,” the young man said. “I’m going to make my way to the nearest travel station after I figure out where that is. I’ll ask around for it. When I get there, I’ll make my way to that Princess Celestia character Gibbs told me about to find out if she can help me.”
“Good plan,” Colm said. “If anyone can help you, it would be her.”
“Yeah,” the young man said. “But for now, I need to get to her country first. Preferably without finding myself in yet another world.”
“Ha!” Colm laughed. “Too right.”
“So, any idea who might have my stuff?” the young man asked.
“Probably Alicia,” Colm responded immediately. “She handles that kinda stuff most of the time.”
“And where might we find her?” the young man asked.
“Right in that house, over yonder,” Colm said with a point of his hoof.
“Yonder?” the young man deadpanned.
“Yes, yonder,” Colm said with a frown. “Ya got a problem with how Ah talk?”
“Only in that I can barely understand you,” the young man joked. Colm chuckled.
“Silly human,” Colm said. “Anyway, Ah got to go take care of some thing before Ah make mah way out of here. Good luck if Ah don’t run into you again.”
“Same,” the young man said. He put his hand out to shake, but Colm used his hoof to make the young man’s hand curl into a fist and bump it.
“Brohoof,” Colm explained.
“I guess handshakes wouldn’t be very big here,” the young man realized.
Colm laughed. “No, Ah’d say not.”
With that, the young man and stallion parted ways, one heading to who knew where and the other going to the nearby house of Alicia. When the young man walked up and knocked on the door, he heard some scrambling from the other side. A few moments later, a disheveled mare opened the door.
“Can I help y-“ She looked up at the young man, ran inside, and grabbed a bag that she tossed at him. “Here. Have fun.” She then slammed the door in his face.
“Uhh, thanks?” the young man said, more than a little late. He put his ear to the door and heard the mare saying something to what ha assumed to be a stallion, then quickly moved away and tried not to imagine what he overheard.
When the young man opened the bag, he saw everything he needed in there, plus some extra goodies. There were his fins, though they were made of some kind of wood instead of polyester. The mask, made of glass, wood, and a small amount of plastic. Besides that, there was what almost looked like a boy scout knife, a fire starter consisting of a magnesium rod and metal flint, and a small sum of coins. It was awfully decent of them to hand him any amount of cash.
Now that he had what he immediately needed and a few things he would later need, he felt confident in his ability to get home. As far as money, he was sure he could do favors in exchange for it, some odd jobs here and there. Being a rather unique human, he expected that he could support himself quite well off his exotic stature.
Now that he had the tools he would require, it was about time for him to rest up and get ready for the journey. A journey that would really begin underwater in the wreckage of his old car, and hopefully end with him talking to royalty. It was bizarre and hadn’t really hit him yet that this was happening. Maybe, if he was lucky, it wouldn’t, and he would get home and convince himself it was all just a crazy dream.
Of course, that was if he got there.