Chapter 3: Godly Cheeki Breeki
It took about 20 minutes after my great slav speech for us to actually land, but I had gotten a good view of the palace long before then. These crazy fucking horse-people built a castle on the side of a mountain! Even I’m not drunk enough to try that!
Anyway, it was pretty standard fantasy fare if I do say. Marble walls, towering spires, lots of physics-defying architecture, lots of banners with the sun on it and stuff. Honestly, it looked pretty picturesque, and I may or may not have taken a few pictures with my phone to use as postcards. I mean, think of that, ‘Greetings from the magical land of Equestria! From Ivan.’ It’d be hilarious!.
Anyway, like I said, we did land eventually. I assumed it wasn’t the normal landing area, because there wasn’t all that much room. We ended up on a fairly large balcony overlooking a courtyard, with a pair of glass doors that looked to lead into some kind of study.
“Alright, Princess Twilight, mister.. Uh… slav? If you two could wait here we’ll go notify the Princesses of our arrival.” The guard I had spoken to, Dmitri, stammered as he unhooked himself and his comrade, before quickly moving into the room and out of our sight, hopefully they wouldn’t take long.
“So, this is royal palace, da? Is seem nice, but maybe too many sun banners. You were of saying there is Princess of Night too, yes? Seems little unfair to her.” I decided to pass some time talking to Twilight, mostly because the alternative was sitting in silence for however long it took.
“Well, yes, Princess Luna does rule over the night, and she is completely recognized. It’s just that most of the renovations following her return focused on the interior, and we’ve just not gotten around to adding her banners and flags to the outside. Redecorating an entire castle takes a long time.” Eh, fair enough. I guess if she had only come back, what did Twilight say, a year ago or something? Anyway, I guess I’d see for myself if there was more representation once we got inside.
Right as I was about to continue the conversation, I saw our lovely friend Dmitri walking into the room, followed by his comrade, who was himself tailed by two rather amazon-like ponies. Presumably, those were the Princesses Celestia and Luna.
The Princesses were large, both in height and general weight. Not to say they looked unhealthy, quite the opposite, if they weren’t fucking horse-people, I would call them both rather attractive. I suppose it is to be expected of literal goddesses to be a step above the mortals of their realm.
Celestia was apparently the older of the two, physically, and this was proven by the fact she was about a head and a half taller than me. That half was from her horn, by the way. Her fur was alabaster white, and her eyes were a bright magenta. Her hair was pretty fucking weird, actually. It seemed sorta like a pastel-rainbow, and constantly flowed behind her in some non-existent wind. As far as what she was wearing, it was mostly royal-looking white robes. Lots of sun motifs, lots of gold, that sort of thing. Her ‘crown’ was more of a tiara, which had a diamond in the center that was, oddly enough, the same colour as her eyes. I must admit, I can see why ponies loved her so much. She just seemed to radiate this feeling of motherly love.
Luna was pretty much the opposite of her ‘older’ sister. She was pretty sure by goddess standards, only about half a head taller than me, which was mostly horn. Her fur was a dark blue in colour, and her eyes were a lighter blue. Her hair did the same thing as her sister’s, but was instead coloured like the night’s sky. There were even sparkling stars in the thing, so that was cool. Her clothes were more or less the same as her sister’s, royal robes and the like, except in dark shades of blue along with some black. Lots of moons and silver stuff for her, as opposed to the gold of Celestia, makes sense. Her tiara thing was pretty underwhelming, honestly, it was just this small little thing made out of black metal or… something. What did strike me as ‘special’ was this weird, sorta bib-like thing she wore around her neck. Looked like it was made out of the same stuff as her tiara, but there was this shining silver moon on the front. As opposed to her sister, Luna seemed to radiate this stoic sort of nature, which I guess fits for a watcher of the night.
As they stepped through the door of the study and out onto the balcony Twilight’s eyes lit up, and she dashed over to Celestia to give her a hug. Well, she did say that she used to be Celestia’s personal student, so I guess it makes sense. Meanwhile, Luna looked at me with a stoic face, perhaps examining me? Not that she’d get much, due to the gas mask and ushanka covering my head.
Eventually, Twilight and Celestia broke off from their hug, and the large Princess of the Sun turned to speak to me. “So, you are the creature my dear friend has written to me of, I must admit, you almost fooled me for a pony. Anyway, let us not hold our meeting out here, please, come inside.” With that, she turned around, tailed by her sister and Twilight, and eventually myself, as we entered into the study.
I must admit, it was a cozy place. Lots of dark wood furniture, comforting wallpaper, large rugs in deep colors. Reminds me of the office my superior officer used to have in Serbia! But anyway, Celestia and Luna took their seats upon a small couch, and Twilight and I took ours on an identical couch opposite them. Meanwhile, I saw Dmitri and… eh, we’ll call him Vladimir, hook up to the chariot and fly off.
“Well, let us start with proper introductions,” Celestia spoke, standing from the couch,” I am Princess Celestia, Goddess of the Day, and this is my sister Princess Luna, Goddess of the Night,” she motioned to the still silently stoic sister sitting besides her, “and we both would like to welcome you to our country of Equestria.” Her piece said, Celestia returned to her seat. Twilight gave me a look, and so I decided to return in kind.
Rising from my seat, I did my best to give a bow even in all the gear I was wearing. “I give very many thanks for such nice welcome, and so introduce myself in kind. My name is Ivan, Superior Slav Extraordinaire, but you may simply call me Ivan. As is obvious, I am not of coming from here.” Well, I gave it my best shot, hopefully it was good enough of an introduction for royalty.
“Well, it is wonderful to make your acquaintance Mister Ivan, now let us get on to the real reason we’ve called you here. Twilight has informed us that you are from another world, and from what I see so far, I do indeed believe her. Which of course means, we must find some way to get you back home.” She took the words right out of my mouth! Even if this place was pretty cool, I couldn’t just leave my family and my tovarisches wondering and worrying where I was.
“Da, exactly what I am of thinking. Of course, I am new to whole magic thing, what is plan for me to be of going home?” Always good to get the important questions out of the way first.
“Yes, about that. Due to the rather odd circumstances regarding your arrival here, Twilight, my sister, and myself will be conducting many magical tests to find where you arrived in this world. From there we can see what kind of magic sent you here, and find a way to send you back. Sadly, as this is all new to us, we don’t really have any idea of a timeline for sending you back.” Well, that was all I could ask really. The fact they already had a plan to at least figure out how I got here was better than I expected, and like I said, this place wasn’t so bad I couldn’t deal with living her for a while.
“Hm, da, I understand. Honestly, is better than I had hoped. Have no worries, country is pleasant, I have no problems with living here until you are finding of way to send me back.” I replied, trying to add a touch of thankfulness to my voice. After all, royalty taking personal interest in matters such as mine were surely rare.
It was then, after the plans were laid, that Twilight spoke up. “So, since we all know what to expect for the foreseeable future, why don’t we take some time to get to know each other? I’m sure you must have some questions about all of us, Ivan, and to be honest I have my own about you. I’m sure the Princess are curious as well.” So what… she wanted to play 20 questions? Well, I suppose I wasn’t doing anything else today, and since I was living with her I might as well go along.
“Eh, why not. Finding out about people is always good way to spend time in Ivan’s book.” I told her, adjusting my position in my seat, considering this might take a while.
*****
Three hours later, everyone decided it was time to get back to life. The Princess had royal duties to attend to, Twilight had just remembered who she had left in charge of her library, and I had a mandate to get to know some more people in Twilight’s town, for the sake of making my staying here less boring.
The game was pretty interesting though, although it didn’t really delve too deep. I learned that Celestia is a fan of classical music, as is to be expected, Luna is a fan of hard rock, surprisingly enough, and Twilight partakes in pop every now and then. Personally I prefer myself some good metal.
Celestia’s favourite colour is, surprisingly, green. Meanwhile Luna quite likes blue, which I suppose is good since she is blue, meanwhile Twilight thinks purple is quite a classy colour. Personally I’m with Luna, blue is a great colour. Doesn’t have anything to do with the fact my eyes are blue, I swear.
Apparently the whole hair thing Celestia and Luna have going on is a manifestation of their godly power from being alicorns. Twilight hadn’t been an alicorn long enough for her power to bleed out like that, which explained her normal hair, so I guess that was interesting.
I wasn’t really shocked to find out Equestria is mostly a vegetarian/vegan culture. I was surprised to find that this was mostly due to animals like cows happening to be able to talk. Honestly, I wouldn’t eat meat either if it could speak to me. Thankfully, there were still plenty of things that didn’t talk for a meat lover like myself.
The only other thing of note happened as I we were all about to part ways, what with it being the only question Luna herself had asked.
“Mister Ivan, I find myself curious, why do you insist on wearing that odd mask? Forgive me, but I find it hard to trust a stallion who hides his face.” Don’t you just love that ‘ol Luna bluntness? I guess 1,000 years on the moon didn’t help her social skills… or maybe they were always like that.
“Oh, the mask? Eh, is just habit you understand. Is like when always wearing same clothing, you just fall into putting it on, even when you are not of needing it. For sake of friendship, I guess I will take it off.” With that I went through the fairly simple process of taking off my ushanka and undoing the buckles on the mask.
When I pulled it off my face I did, of course, have to shake my hair out a little. I didn’t keep it very long, but it still got all weird under a hat. I guess my rugged good looks must have intrigued the ponies, because they looked at me for a good few seconds.
Personally I don’t think my looks are all that special. Pale skin, sharp features, manly jaw with a growing beard, and piercing grey-blue eyes. At least, that’s how I considered myself to look. My black hair I usually kept in a ponytail, which seems oddly humorous now, but on this occasion it was simply slicked back and straight.
Anyway, that was the point where I guess the ponies really realized I wasn’t a pony at all, because they started asking a lot more questions which kept us there for another hour. Mostly about my species, our evolution, why I didn’t have any fur. That sort of fun stuff. Apparently, were I a stallion, I would be quite a handsome one.
Needless to say, I quickly returned my mask and ushanka to where they belonged once we left.
*****
Well, the visit was interesting, informative, and I suppose rather fun. The ride back was also entertaining, since we had new flyers. These ones I named Sergei and Sidorovich. Sidorovich didn’t believe in the power of cheeki breeki, and so was suitably stunned when I managed the entire flight standing on the railing of the chariot.
Other than that, the day passed quickly. Twilight treated me to lunch, which I would have to find a way to pay her back for, and I got a quick tour of the town. It was a rather quaint and lovely place, all things considered. Lots of farming, small personal tables and shops, everything you'd expect of a medieval village.
When the day and ended and I went once more into the land of sleep, I found just how far Luna’s rule of the night went.
Does a slav dream of drunken sheep?