//------------------------------// // Chapter 12 // Story: Becoming one with the Moon // by ParaNomaly //------------------------------// You know, it sucked being the only one that gets the shitty references that I was making. The usual "Go fuck yourself" I got from people when I made those kinds of jokes had been replaced with a look of confusion and a single disappointing- "Huh?" I rolled my eyes and looked back at the set of large doors in front of us, waving the guard off. "It's just an inside joke; don't worry about understanding what it means." "If you say so... Ma'am." The guard shook his head slightly and trotted away, probably returning to his previous post. "Heh... I love confusing people." I quietly chuckled to myself as I walked towards the doors, pushing them open and slipping into the room without making too much noise. "The doors around here are awfully quiet... Any doors of this size back on Earth would squeak and groan like hell if anyone opened them." I thought to myself for a few more seconds as I faced the door and looked it up and down, briefly forgetting the reason I was there. I shook my head slightly and turned away from the massive set of doors, quickly surveying the area. The two princesses were sitting on a large-ass golden throne with Celestia in the middle and Luna off to the side on another mini-platform that extended from the main structure. Below the two smaller platforms were two water fountains with some flowers placed on the floor in front of them. All in all, it looked pretty damn cool, certainly better than most Thrones I've seen. Not that I’ve seen a lot of thrones, but still... I started to walk forward, looking at and admiring the stained glass windows as I moved. They all had tons of paintings of what I would assume to be artistic representations of various things. That, the marble floor polished to an almost a perfect mirror, and the red carpet leading to the throne made the whole thing very distracting. Not in a bad way, mind you. I finally managed to pry my eyes away from all the shiny stuff and pay attention to the princesses once I arrived at the front of the throne room. Celestia was the first to speak up with a reassuring nod. "Welcome to the throne room... David." I gave her a small bow, well, I tried to and looked up at her. "This place is certainly... colorful. I'm surprised my eyes don't hurt." "And not to sound rude, but... What's the reason I was 'summoned' here?" I asked nervously. Seeing them both looking down at me made me feel uncomfortable for some odd reason. I didn't know if I was intimidated or just plain nervous. Maybe the way they looked down on me from a higher position just made me feel small or something. 'Ha, being intimidated by two cute little horses. That'll be the day.' I jokingly thought to myself. "Straight to the point, I see. Well, my student, Twilight Sparkle, just sent us another letter. It has to do with another pony who came into her library. She didn't go into detail, but it was important enough for her to send us another letter. She also said the pony knew you when she asked them about you. I assume that this pony must be another human, like you." Celestia replied as she looked at Luna, letting her speak. "We would like you to head down to Ponyville again and talk to this pony. We would go ourselves, but we have an important meeting with diplomats from another nation in half an hour. Thus we are unable to visit Twilight's library for the time being. A chariot is already prepared to take you there. If this turns out to be another human, we suggest that you bring them with you to the castle." Luna finished as she gave me a friendly smile, too friendly if you ask me. "Er... Alright, which way to the chariot then?" "A guard will escort you there; he’s waiting for you outside the throne room, and you will see him there." I nodded and gave her another awkward bow before turning around and heading back towards the giant set of doors. All of this is so sudden... A few days ago I was doing my usual stuff and them ‘BAM! Transported to some other dimension or something…’ Whoever this pony, or person, or... whatever is, I hope they have some answers to how the fuck I ended up in this situation. I pushed the doors open again and slipped back out. I looked around for a bit and tried to find the guard that was supposed to escort me to the chariot. Sure enough, I found him waiting patiently for me to the side of the door. He seemed to have noticed me before I noticed him. He was already looking right at me. "You're my escort, right?" "Yes, Ma'am, follow me." The guard replied with a slight nod as he began walking down a small corridor to the left of us; I waited a few moments before following him down said corridor to our destination. We spent a few minutes walking down the long hallways and corridors. We passed by a few maids, both inside rooms and outside. Some briefly turned to look at me, but whenever I looked back, they turned their gaze away from me and back to whatever they were doing previously. It made me wonder if all the staff inside this castle had been informed of who I was or just the guards. I hoped it had been all since it would have avoided both confusion and awkward situations. But I could see the potential security risks and why the princesses didn't want the populace to know. We arrived at the same gardens that me and the princesses had landed in when I had first gotten here. I swore we had taken an entirely different route... I guess I had been too busy admiring all the shiny stuff and beautiful windows to notice where we were going. The guard didn't seem to notice that I had stopped walking and was already five meters ahead of me, so I shook my head and hastily closed the gap in-between us, hoping no one else in the gardens noticed. "I need to stop spacing out like that in random areas... Heh, I should start making a list of what I need to stop doing.' I smiled at my crazy inner thoughts as we passed by the same statues I saw when I first got here. Seeing them again didn't make them any less ugly though, which was unfortunate. I glanced around one last time as we neared the chariot that was going to take me back to Ponyville. Most of the ponies that were currently around were busy taking care of the garden itself with the occasional guards here and there. The only thing that looked out of place was a bunch of even smaller ponies following a purplish one. I brushed it off as some excursion from a local school. Before I could continue observing the garden, the guard suddenly stopped and stepped aside, using his hoof to motion towards the chariot in a sort of bowing manner. "Here we are, ma'am." I looked at him and nodded as I carefully stepped forward and climbed into the chariot, making sure I didn't make a fool of myself like I did the last time. The guard tapped the side of the chariot once I was inside and secure, allowing him to take a few steps back and causing it to jerk forward and take off. I looked back at the garden one last time as it began to get smaller and smaller behind me as we started heading back towards the town. "I wonder who got sucked into this mess this time..."