The First Five

by Epimetheus

Chapter 4: Cutie Marks and Hands Explained

Sitting in front of the five humans were creatures they would have sworn an hour ago were impossible, even the orange pony that looked like a regular horse. The fact that it was orange and wore a Stetson threw everyone for a loop, but what caught their eyes were the strange brands on the flanks of the equines. Each one was different; while the orange one had three apples, they yellow pegasus; three pink butterflies, the massive alicorn in the center, directly across from Marcus, had a sun, the purple unicorn next to her had a six pointed star surrounded by smaller five pointed ones, and the multicolored pegasus at the end had a cloud with rainbow lightning.

“What are those marks? They look like tattoos or birthmarks.” Thomas inquired, drawing looks from everyone. He was sitting across from Twilight, who could feel his eyes on her cutie mark, making her feel a little uncomfortable at his unabashed gaze.

“It’s a cutie mark. It emerges when a pony finds their special talent.” She spoke with all the confidence she could muster.

“So you aren’t born with it?” Thomas was speaking with his monotone, scientific voice, which actually helped Twilight calm down for some reason.

“Nope. A cutie mark only reveals itself when a pony discovers their special talent. Mine’s magic for example, which is why mine is what it is, but I also love astronomy, so I’ve got stars as well. Don’t you have anything like it?” Twilight had recovered from the shock of the gunshot and was now pressing right back at Thomas.

“No, we humans have to discover what we are talented at without any confirmation. We may not even love our talents.” This visibly shocked the equines, Celestia mumbling “How archaic…”

“That may be,” Thomas responded, taking no offense “but we’ve grown accustomed to it. We usually do like our talents, but we call them hobbies if we can’t get a job with them.” Twilight mulled that over, trying to imagine if the situation were the same in Equestria, and frankly, she couldn’t. The idea was simply to alien for her to imagine. At this point, one of the females, the one with auburn hair spoke up.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I don’t know any of your names.” Her voice reminded everypony of Fluttershy, sweet and quiet.

“Well, I’m Twilight, this is Celestia.” she pointed to the alicorn,

“This is Rainbow Dash.” indicating to the cyan pegasus, sitting stiffly and glaring at all the humans.

“The yellow pegasus is Futtershy.” She tried to shrink at the mention of her name

“And that is Applejack.” Applejack tilted hat in recognition of the humans. “

“Who are you?” Twilight asked in return.

“Well” Marcus responded with a kind tone. “I’m Marcus, the one who asked you about your ‘Cutie Marks’ is Thomas,” Thomas was too busy examining the ponies to acknowledge.

“This is Rachael,” indicating to the human with the auburn mane, who smiled tentatively.

“This is Taylor,” The human with the red mane nodded her head

“And there’s Megan.” Pointing to the human with the brown mane, who waved.

“What are those things at the ends of your arms?” Celestia spoke for the first time, looking Marcus in the eye. Her voice sounded regal and commanding and when combined with her gaze, she had an air of importance.

“These are called hands and fingers.” Marcus explained holding up one of his own as an example. There were five long, spindly extensions on his ‘hand’ that were the same, pinkish color. They reminded Twilight of Spikes claws, but they were soft and flexible, with only a small hard part at the top of each finger. What struck her about the hand was that it had hair on it, but not as thick as what was on the humans’ head. Marcus put his hand down before she could examine it further.

“What do they do?” Rainbow Dash asked. The look on her face remained serious. The humans showed a mixture of confusion and shock at the question.

“What do you mean ‘What do they do?’” Taylor asked, being the one across from her. “We use them to live basically. All of our technology depends and revolves around our fingers. We’re as good as useless with out them.” Her voice was antagonizing to Rainbow, who flared her wings in being talked down to. Taylor’s friends were slightly taken aback by the action, except for Thomas who was cataloging all their behavior in his mind, and the other ponies began to get worried. But not Taylor, who leaned in closer to the pegasus.

“It’d be like asking what your wings are for.” Rainbow glared at the human, her wings still flared as she responded.

“My wings are everything. I’m not me without them.” She began to lean in towards Taylor, neither of them backing down from the challenge.

“Well, try and imagine this. You go about your everyday business, find yourself in a place where creatures you swear only exist in a dead religion’s mythology, and one of them asks you what your wings are for. Oh, and lets throw in a low tolerance for bullshit and a slight intolerance of being asked stupid questions.” The two were only inches away from their noses touching, neither blinking.

“Rainbow Dash, you’ve made your point. Sit down.” Celestia’s tone told everyone present that it was an order, not a request. Rainbow returned to her spot next to Twilight, having moved forward in her staring contest, as did Taylor. Eyeing the pegasus, Taylor smiled.

“I like you. You’ve got spunk.” Rainbow looked at Taylor suspiciously before saying “You too.”

“Now that you two are friends,” Marcus slowly started. “Could you tell us where we are exactly?” Nodding, Celestia answered.

“You’re in Equestria. Namely outside of a town called Ponyville.”

“Whatestria and whoville?” Marcus was thoroughly confused. “Where on Earth is that?”

“Equestria and Ponyville.” Celestia corrected. “And where is this Earth you keep talking about?” The humans were in utter shock when they heard this; all of them having their jaws hang down.

“Oh shit.” Thomas said, quite loudly. This was not what he had expected, he had been hoping that they’d accidently ingested hallucinogenic spores, but he was beginning to doubt this.

“Pardon?” Celestia asked politely.

“Um, slight expletive on my part, sorry. Um, Earth is the planet where we live.”

“Planet? You mean you’re not from here, here?” Twilight interjected

“Yeah, the country we come from is called the United States of America, or the U.S. for short, and the planet is Earth.” Thomas remained the only one of his companions not still suffering from shock.

“Well, you’re certainly not there anymore.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head in a truly universal sign of an awkward situation. “None of us have ever heard of either of those places. And we’ve never seen any humans before either. How’d you get here if you are from another planet?”

“Well, we were hiking in a forest in the middle of a rather chilly fall, and the next thing we know is that we are in the middle of this field, in what seems to be summer.”

“Anything odd you noticed, other than the scenery?” This time Celestia was the one who interjected, and her tone told Twilight to refrain from asking until she’d finished.

“Well, no. Just one second there, the next here.” Thomas yawned as he finished, realizing just how tired he was. “Sorry, I was up since two with Marcus, keeping watch.” Marcus him self was beginning to nod off.

“Well, why don’t you two get some sleep. We can handle this.” Megan finally spoke up. A slightly nervous look crossed Marcus’s face when she said that. He looked at the ponies and back at the girls unsure if that was a good idea.

“We’ll be fine Marcus. You two need some sleep.” Her tone told Marcus that there was no negotiating.

“Ok, call if there’s anything you need help with, don’t be afraid to wake us.” Marcus said to no one in particular as he and Thomas got up and headed towards the tents. The group watched them leave before resuming.

“So, you three are female?” Celestia asked.

“Yes, we are. We prefer the term women though. It’s less formal. And I take it you all are girls as well?” Megan responded.

“Very well, and yes, we are.” Celestia nodded.

“Interesting. You obviously are the one in charge amongst your group, showing from the respect the others give you.”

“That’s because she’s the princeumpf.” Twilight shoved her hoof in Rainbow’s mouth before she could finish, but the humans still understood.

“You’re royalty?” Megan asked courteously.

“Yeph phe iph.” Rainbow still had Twilight’s hoof in her mouth as she spoke, causing Twilight to hit herself in the face with her other hoof at her friends obliviousness. Raising an eyebrow at her two subjects behavior before answering for herself.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well then, your majesty.” The humans proceeded to bow, causing a slight blush on Celestia’s face.

“Thank you, but please rise. I’d rather speak to you face to face and please call me Celestia, it’s less formal.”

“Yes, of course Celestia.” She smiled at the princesses slight joke.

“Well, I guess we should help you learn and adjust to Equestria. A fluke of magic on the measure of what you five experienced happens once in a million years.”

“I guess you’re right. Um, could you tell us where we could stay and what to expect here.” Rachael asked. “I mean, this field is a lovely place to stay, but eventually we’ll run out of food and we aren’t prepared for months of winter.”

“If y’all could excuse us for a sec.” Applejack interjected. She motioned for the other ponies to follow her, walking a little ways away, and began to converse.

“Are y’all sure we can trust them?” Applejack asked. These ‘humans’ made her nervous, but she didn’t know why, other than the earlier incident with Rainbow and Marcus. They'd proven themselves polite and understanding afterwards, but she had a weird feeling around them.

“They seem honest enough.” Rainbow Dash answered, although apprehensively. Celestia nodded before adding

“Yes, they do seem to be trustworthy to me. What to you two think?” She nodded towards Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

“Well,” Twilight said with concern “I’m not so sure that we should take them to Ponyville immediately. It would cause too much panic, the changelings are still fresh in everypony's mind, even after a year, and they wouldn’t be tolerant of something they didn’t recognize, no matter what you say to them.” She was right, the others realized. The changelings had caused panic everywhere, even though they had only attacked Canterlot and many towns and cities were still on high alert. Discord’s reformation in Ponyville had also caused some frayed nerves, with Mayor Mare making numerous attempts to get the Royal Guard to send more troops down in case the god went nuts again.

“What do you think Fluttershy? You’re the animal expert.” Rainbow Dash nudged her friend, who had looked back at the humans.

“Well, I wouldn’t call them animals.” She said tentatively. “They are obviously as smart as we are, if not smarter. I don’t think I’m the one to consult.” When she finished, she tried to shrink away from sight, but Rainbow Dash prevented her from leaving.

“Fluttershy is right,” Twilight said matter-of-factly. “they are intelligent meaning we can’t leave them out here like animals, but we can’t bring them into town either.” Celestia smiled knowingly.

“I’ve got an idea.” She leaned in towards the group and whispered her plan, getting a few tentative nods from the group, Rainbow and Applejack took some convincing, but eventually agreeing it was the best they could do. After that, they returned to the humans.

“Before we tell you where you can stay, we’d like to see your camp.” Celestia looked at the humans, who readily agreed, Taylor being slightly suspicious. Twilight began to bounce a little in anticipation of seeing human technology and materials. Megan laughed at her excitement, lightening the mood a little for Taylor, who smiled. At the camp, Rachael put her forefinger to her lips and pointed towards a larger tent, mouthing that the other two were sleeping in there. Quietly, the ponies followed her to the ashy remains of a fire while Megan and Taylor, who also grabbed pants, went to different tents and pulled out their packs. Once they were sitting with the rest of the group, they removed some items and passed them around. Rainbow had a little trouble with something that looked like coverings for the humans’ hands, accidently getting one stuck around her muzzle, and with the other one on her hoof, she couldn’t pull either off. Struggling, she fell over backwards before Twilight removed them for her. She sat back up huffing at the damage to her dignity.

“I see you found the gloves Rainbow.” Taylor snickered. Her response was a particularly dark look and a strong snort.

“What is this?” Fluttershy spoke her first words to the humans, barely above a whisper, but Rachael was sitting close enough to catch it.

“That is called an IPod, and we use it to store music. Here, let me show you.” With that, she put two buds connected to wires in Fluttershy’s ears and took the small rectangular item and used her fingers to twist the circle and pushed a button. Fluttershy uttered a minor squeal of terror as music started to play. But she listened and heard that it was soft, slow music, like the first tune from the night before. It was soothing. Fluttershy was a little disappointed when it stopped, but once Rachael removed the ear buds, she said “I’ll let you borrow it sometime ok?” her voice was sincere and kind.

“Thank you, I’d like that.” The IPod was passed around, each pony taking a turn at the device, enjoying the melody. When they finished, Taylor pulled out another item, this one bulkier.

“What’s that? It looks like a thin book, but metal.” Twilight commented, giving the device a curious look.

“Well, we call it a laptop. It allows us to search the internet, a moot point here, but we can still write with it, download pictures, and play games.” Twilight moved next to Taylor, who turned the laptop so she could get a better look. She pulled up some pictures of her friends and Twilight became completely engrossed in the concept. The others followed suit and soon Taylor had the ponies looking over her shoulder, with Applejack putting her hooves on Taylor’s shoulders and her head over Taylor’s so she could see. Suddenly an image came onto the screen, causing Twilight to look closer. She gasped and pulled back, and the image did too.

“It’s a webcam. It’s used to take pictures or send videos of those using the laptop.” Taylor explained as the ponies began to realize it was harmless. Rainbow Dash began to make faces, laughing at her doppelganger on the screen. The others started to laugh as well, causing a groaning from the tent. Thomas emerged, looking disheveled and annoyed at the noise. Seeing the frivolity around the camp, he couldn’t help but smile and walk towards the group. When he was finally noticed, Taylor teased him over his appearance.

“Have a little fun in there?”

“No, I collapsed on my own arm and the other seems to have mussed up my hair.” Thomas seemed to be having trouble moving his right arm, while his bangs stood up on end, causing the already gleeful ponies to laugh harder, even Celestia and Fluttershy smirked. Thomas continued to smile, flattening his hair as he did. The morning continued with the humans displaying their technology and other items to the curious ponies, Twilight asking the vast majority of the questions, and Thomas answering them as fast as she could ask them. Celestia noticed that the two seemed to go well together, both answering the other questions and seeming to drift from topic to topic, ignoring what the others were looking at or discussing. Marcus soon joined them, his nap leaving him more rested than Thomas. He eagerly joined in on the fun, joking and teasing as he answered questions. Fluttershy seemed to take to Rachael, whose demeanor resembled her own, calm and quiet, but not to such a powerful degree. Marcus’ and Taylors’ strong attitudes and personalities matching Applejack and Rainbow to a tee, with those four, if you’ll pardon the pun, horsing around while Celestia watched the group. Megan stood next to the alicorn, watching them begin to bond.

“You haven’t told us where we’ll be staying or what to expect.” Her voice was calm and nonchalant. Looking to the human next to her, Celestia nodded.

“You’re absolutely correct. I wanted to see how you got along with each other first.” With that, she turned back towards the group and spoke in a regal voice “If you could please give me your attention.” The humans and ponies looked at the princess, stopping their questions and antics to hear what she had to say.

“Thank you. Now, as it was pointed out to me, I have failed to inform you, the humans, where you’ll be staying and what to expect. I feel that it is best if I address these in reverse order.” The others nodded, and began to sit by the fires remains, facing her.

“Recent events have made it relatively impossible for us to give you your own homes in town, as the populace might act irrationally. The country on a whole is on high alert, jumping at anything that’s different, and it is possible that no matter what I try to do, it could end badly if you were allowed to be seen in public at the moment.” The humans looked disappointed at the prospect of remaining hidden, but Celestia paid no mind.

“But it was decided amongst those ponies present that we, namely they, shall provide room and board for you.” The looks of disappointment quickly evaporated from the faces of the humans.

“Applejack, would you be willing to provide room and board for Marcus and Taylor on your farm?” The earth pony readily agreed, the humans referenced smiling. Turning towards Fluttershy, Celestia proposed “And would you allow Megan and Rachael to stay with you in your cottage?” Fluttershy timidly considered the idea, looking up at the two humans. She slowly nodded.

“I think my animals would love two new playmates.” Rachael, already smiling, became ecstatic at the mention of animals. Ignoring the behavior, Celestia then turned to Twilight.

“I understand that you live in the center Ponyville and as such allowing a human to reside with you could cause trouble, but I have faith that you’ll be able to handle anything that comes your way. Would you be willing to let Thomas live in the library with you?” It was hard to tell who was happier; Twilight at her mentors praise and the idea of Thomas staying with her, or Thomas when he heard about the library, which was also a home. Twilight nodded furiously.

“It’s settled then.” The princess turned to look at the group as a whole, Rainbow slightly disappointed that no one would stay with her, but such is problem with a cloud house. “Unfortunately, my absence will have been noticed by now, so I must return to the castle. I will inform Luna and Captain Armor of what has transpired and I am sure my sister will visit you three tonight. But I will say this.” She then turned and looked directly at the humans, her tone hardening.

“Those weapons you exhibited earlier are not to be used in Ponyville or in Equestria.” She commanded. “Unless the lives of my ponies are threatened, you will keep those under lock and key.” The five humans nodded in understanding. Celestia smiled kindly, pulling an emotional 180, and turned to leave.

“Wait,” Twilight said rather loudly. Celestia looked at her student with a raied eyebrow. “What do we tell Rarity and Pinkie Pie?” The rest of the ponies’ eye widened, forgetting about the other two in all the excitement of the past day.

“As they are your friends, I will leave that up to you four, and the humans should they wish to remain hidden or not to your friends.” With that, Celestia disappeared in a flash of white light.

“Did she just… teleport?” Thomas was dazed by the idea. He had some much to learn about magic.

“Yup!” Twilight was oblivious to his confusion, too excited about having a roommate whose brain she could pick.

“Ah guess we should help y’all pack up.” Applejack moved towards a tent before she realized she had absolutely no idea how collapse it. Seeing her hesitation, Marcus began to do it himself.

“We’ve got it, thanks though.” With that, the ponies watched as the humans broke camp, quickly and efficiently collapsing the tents, rolling and folding them to a tenth their previous size, stowing them in their packs, putting away the items they’d shown the ponies and in less than half an hour, standing with their packs on the backs and ready to go. If anything, Rainbow thought, these guys were efficient.

“Oh, before I forget.” Twilight’s horn glowed for a second, but seemed to have no effect. “I put an invisbility spell on you guys,” motioning to the humans “only we’ll be able to see, hear, and know you’re even there.” The group nodded in approval and began their hike, following Applejack through the orchard. The group began to diverge into three smaller ones, namely boarders and their tenets. Twilight and Thomas got into a deep discussion on the range and effects of magic, Fluttershy talked with Rachael and Megan about her animals and Applejack told Marcus and Taylor about her family and the farm.

“Which one of y’all played that fiddle last night?” Applejack asked loudly enough for everyone to hear. Her question was surprising to the humans, who had had no idea they’d been monitored through the night.

“That was me.” Megan lifted her hand in acknowledgement.

“Well sugar cube, you can play a mean fiddle if I say so myself.” Her compliment caused Megan to smile. Fluttershy began a quiet oration on how her animals would love her music, causing Megan to blush profusely.

“Excuse me Twilight, but will the spell wear off?” Thomas had been mulling over the idea of the spell and what it would mean for him if he would be living in the middle of town.

“Yes, but only when you walk through the front door of the place where you’ll be staying, so Marcus will be invisible until he steps inside Applejack’s house.” Thomas nodded, his hand rubbing his chin in thought. The rest of the conversation was again divided amongst the group until the path diverged, one way going to the gate that marked the way to town, the other going towards the Apple family home.

“Well, I guess this is where we split.” The humans gave each other hugs and waved at the ponies who they weren’t rooming with, Applejack taking Marcus and Taylor towards three unsuspecting ponies.

Author's Note:

This chapter is a little slow, but things pick up soon enough
Thanks for all the favorites.

Comments

[RainbowDragon]

Question:
How long will this story be?
Also will there be more than 1 story related to this story?

[Fugly Duckling]

this story needs more views

[Epimetheus]

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I have a total of 50 or so chapters set up for this story and at least two sequels lined up, maybe four but I haven't decided. All depends on how this story is received.