Eclipse Born

by Seeking Dusk

Stranger in a Strange Land

I suppose that I should be grateful she took my little squeak to be a request for her to repeat herself rather than the expression of shock and confusion it was. “I was asking if you could understand me, but it seems that you can, which is most fortunate.”

At this point, though my brain had restored itself to relatively functional levels, there were still a few important subroutines impaired, and some were running incorrectly. Of course, parts of my mind also saw it appropriate to point out that my cell phone was gone, probably to the same place where my pants were. Not sure why I thought that was important information to remark on.

I nodded at Celes, er, Princess Celestia. I have no idea how… ponies could have their own kingdom. I did geography. As far as I could recall, there weren’t any areas left unexplored and seen by either human or electronic eyes in the sky large enough to have a kingdom of ponies with a princess. It didn’t help that the accent they were speaking was unlike any I had heard before. I had experienced a few accents. But here they were; English speaking ponies.

I realized I was getting lost in my thoughts and my gaze was wandering, and snapped it back to the princess. The guards behind her, at least, I was assuming they were guards, were being quite generous with the stern looks they aimed in my direction, so I tried to school my expressions into something akin to rapt attention. I think it came out as wide-eyes terror instead, but hey, I tried.

Celestia was perceptive, and she seemed able to read my facial expressions and body language some. “Are you still injured? Perhaps an injury to your head? Can you speak?”

See? It seemed like she noticed the outward signs of my roaming thoughts. I shook my head, a bit gingerly, since it was still hurting. The issue of talking ponies was still bothering me, but I tried to swallow it. Talking ponies might not be the main issue at the moment. Which was actually a fairly terrifying thought; the more I dwelled on it. Oh God, what if the talking ponies was the least of my issues? A dozen other scenarios played through my mind; a stroke, six kinds of mental delusions, an elaborate ploy by kidnappers, the end of the world, that I was actually dead and this was some bizarre form of the afterlife.

I started hyperventilating and the pounding in my ears intensified as my heart rate skyrocketed. The edges of my vision starting getting blurry and I could feel moisture spilling from the corners of my eyes. The voices of the others, the ponies, in the room sounded as if they were coming from a great distance.

“Perhaps this was too soon for it.”

“Forgive me, Princess. But when we heard it’s cries, we assumed it was well enough.”

“Hmm… call for the healers.”

It was around there that I passed out again.

-----------------------

They were all around me, even though the room was empty. I could feel them watching me, goosebumps all over my skin. I curled up into a ball, cradling my head in my hands, eyes tightly pressed shut, hands clamped to my ears. But they were the ghost spots behind my eyelids and the whispers in my head.

They found me again. First when I was falling. I felt there interest. And there astonishment. To torment me, they came, lurking behind my eyes, beneath my skin. Watching; just watching. But I wasn’t sure if they would be content with watching. You could only watch so much before you were driven to act. And they were watching so intently. So intently.

I huddled, drawing into myself, tighter. She walked past me, I could tell, even with my eyes shut. Around me, then away, further and further. I wanted to reach for her, but they were watching, inching closer. Dad couldn’t stop them, though he would have tried. Richard would be helpless, even Julia would be useless. Only me, just me, no one else. My voice. Cracking, strained. “Help…”

And then, there was a comforting presence. It was neither a warm one nor an all that particularly inviting; but it was simply soothing and calming. The goosebumps and whispers eased away as it surrounded me. Even as I slipped once again into a restful state, there was a question it brought with it.

“What are you?”

And for some reason, I didn’t think I had an answer for it.

-----------------------

Luna emerged from her trance, the glow fading from her horn as she blinked; senses and awareness leaving the astral plane and settling on the material. As they did, she became aware of the room more acutely; the thick purple rug she rested on, the soft evening light drifting in through the window, the shelf of books on the far wall, and her sister reading scrolls only a few feet away from her. Celestia was waiting patiently, her magenta eyes calmly alternating between scanning the scrolls suspended in her gold magic and watching Luna, waiting for her response. Luna sighed.

“It’s dreams are muddled,” she reported to the Princess of the Day.

“His,” Celestia correctly gently.

“What?” Luna said blinking with surprise, her head pulling back slightly.

“His dreams,” Celestia said, explaining her comment. “The doctors that examined him are quite certain he is, well, a he, based on his anatomy.” Celestia didn’t even blush at the implied image, though her sister slightly did.

“Very well, his dreams,” Luna said, not letting herself get distracted by those thoughts. “They are… confused. Some parts are dreams, some parts are memories, others are night terrors. They mesh in his mind, and the resulting confusion made it impossible to find the answers to my questions.”

“Did you, really?” Celestia asked.

Luna narrowed her eyes at her sister. “What are you implying? Do you doubt me?”

Celestia rolled the scroll and set it aside before answering. “No, Luna, I do not. I have no reason to think you would have gotten an answer were you have stated you have not. However, there are answers to unasked questions you may have received. Is that not true?”

Luna stubbornly held out for a few more moments, before deflating. “Fear. Fear and confusion muddle his dreams.”

Celestia sighed, closing her eyes. This event was far more complicated than she would have liked, yet she knew that it was highly unlikely for it to be any other way. Complications were the only possible result of this situation. “Twilight Sparkle has sent me the preliminary assessments of the phenomena.” Luna chirped, though her interest was guarded. “As expected, both Solar and Lunar magics were prevalent, as to be expected from something that used our horns as focus.

“But the troubling points are connected. The type of magic is an integration of solar and lunar magic in a manner she admits to being unfamiliar with–”

“Magic your student does not know?” Luna said, her eyes widening with surprised. “That is troubling.”

Celestia nodded her agreement to the point. True, she still held back a few secrets from Twilight, magic she did not want her student to learn, whether yet if at all, but the fact was that Twilight was quite well read, and more times than not learned things on her own. “She, and the others studying it, believe it to be the traces of a spatial translocation spell, or something similar.”

“A teleportation spell? Using our magic?” Luna was suspicious.

“That is by far the most trouble part. It used Solar and Luna magic, and held traces of ours, but the core magic powering it was foreign. Solar and Lunar magic not our own,” Celestia said.

“Preposterous!” Luna snapped, surging to her hooves, nostrils flaring, a hint of the royal Canterlot in her tones. “The Sun and the Moon are ours! To rip such power from them for magics such as that… NAY! It is impossible to do such a thing without us being aware!”

“As I thought as well, sister,” Celestia said. “Yet the evidence is in our gardens, and laying in one of our chambers.”

A cryptic statement, no matter how true it was. It forestalled any chance of further discussion, instead inspiring introspection and reflection on the part of the sisters, each one getting drawn up into their own thoughts. After a few minutes of that silence, Luna wrapped the scroll Celestia set aside in her own aura, picking it up and starting to read.

-----------------------

I woke up in a more gradual fashion this time. I might have nodded off again if it were not for the tingling that gripped my chest and head lightly and delicately, ripples of it spreading and contracting in and out of my extremities in a relaxed pattern that reminded me of soft breathing. The bizarreness of the sensation, though it wasn’t an unpleasant one, it what roused me fully.

Grumbling, I squirmed a bit in the bed, trying to draw the covers tight over myself. I heard someone move to one side of my bed, making a contemplative sound. Opening one eye, I glared weakly at the person who what interrupting my rest. A turquoise pony, a yellow glow around a small horn on its forehead, sat beside my bed, watching me intently. Turquoise and white, actually. There was a word for that pattern.

“GAH!” I yelled (because screaming wasn’t quite manly), flinching away and rolling off the other side of the small bed. Also; ‘gah’ wasn’t the word I was looking for.

“WAH!” the pony screamed in reply (because it was a turquoise pony and quite obviously could not be manly) and skittered a few steps back.

Personally, I was somewhat stunned from my fall from the bed and groaned a bit before freeing a hand from the tangle of sheets and pulling myself high enough to look over the bed at the pony. It was muttering something to itself, tapping a hoof to its chest a few times as it did, look just like any other person recovering from a shock.

“Puh… Puh… Pinto!” I stuttered, pointing at him. I swear, that wasn’t what I wanted to say. I was more marveling at the normality of its reaction, but the word for that fur pattern surged unbidden to the tip of my tongue, and there was no way to stop it from coming out.

“By the sun, it speaks!” the pony snapped back in an irritated and sarcastic tone. I realized that was I was calling an accent wasn’t so much of an accent as it was the inevitable result of speaking with the equine anatomy. This epiphany was mostly due to the fact that this pony had what was undeniably a British accent, or at least one from that general section of the globe. I couldn’t pinpoint it any better than that, since my experience was mostly television. Still, I realized my reaction was a bit on the rude side.

“S-sorry,” I managed, swallowing the nervous spit that had pooled in my mouth. “I’m.. I’m not used to this…”

“I would hope not,” the horse creature said. I decided it was a guy, going by his voice. It, er, he walked closer to the bed, rambling on in his accent that reminded me of one of the actors from a Doctor Who or Torchwood episode. “The residual mana from that bit of magic you did was reakingall kinds of havoc on your body. At least, as much as the healers could tell of you. The Princess had me come down and purge as much of it as I could. You woke while I was finishing up.”

He ended his little report looking down at me with those large blue eyes, still looking slightly irritated. “I can’t exactly do my task if you cower behind the cot. It is difficult working on something I have never seen before! Up, up!”

“M-magic?” I said. I had a talking unnaturally coloured pony telling me about magic. For some reason I didn’t find reason to doubt him. I slowly got up for him anyway, holding on to the sheet as an impromptu covering. “You’re… I… what are you?”

He made an exasperated sound, rolling his eyes. “Pinto ponies, even unicorns, aren’t that uncommon.” He pointed his horn at me and a soft rose glow covered it, making me flinch. “You act like you have never sense one before.”

“I… I mean… ponies don’t talk… and… I haven’t,” I admitted lamely.

“Never… seen a pony?” The pinto unicorn stuttered and floundered for words for a while, making me shift uncomfortably. He finally settled on a mixed expression I wasn’t sure how to read. Mingled suspicion, confusion with a bit of… fear? I was guessing. “I see… well, the magic contamination is gone, so you should be better off. I’ll tell the Princess you’re ready to meet with her.”

“Hey, wait!” I tried, but the pinto was already leaving at a pace somewhat faster than would be expected, muttering to himself as he did. The door to the room opened as he approached, and shut just as easily behind him. I watched him leave with mingled confusion of my own.

No time for that. It was painfully clear I was in some serious trouble. Talking ponies? Magic? Unicorns and pegasi? Winged unicorns? None of this was making sense. Standing around wasn’t going to do me any good, so I started pacing, rigging the sheet into something like a toga. I had done it for a party once, but it was harder without pins to hold everything in place, and without underwear to alleviate some of the fears of slippage.

-----------------------

A knock on the door interrupted the ruminations of the two alicorns, forcing them out of their introspections. This being Celestia’s study, she went to see who desired her time, waving a hoof at Luna and motioning for her to keep her seat.

Luna watched her sister head to the door, her typical regality in her every movement. How her sister could appear to be at such ease was beyond her. Personally, she was still conflicted with the situation.

The phenomena, as Celestia had taken to calling it, was a major magic effect. The impact, the amount of raw magic, crudely focused and released when it occurred was shocking. Even more so because she could tell it was the remnants of the real power behind the spell, yet it had been enough to carve a crater in the gardens, hurl members of the guard off their hooves and even stagger two alicorns. Luna was fully expecting that day’s session of court to be filled with people demanding to know what caused a magic burst on that scale. How did anything take, steal, that much power from them without them noticing?

Luna’s thoughts moved back to the image she saw in the sky, the sun, with the moon obscuring it. A familiar shudder rippled through her form, her ears flipping back with distaste. She didn’t let her emotions get away with her though, closing her eyes and slowing her breathing. That wasn’t her moon in the sky. Though she still felt the moon when she saw it, the link was muted. That knowledge, combined with the carefully written words from her sister’s student led her conclusions.

The magic required to move the moon and sun was beyond a unicorn, and the spell needed to do it was one the general population lost ages ago, a complex and intricate structure that thought second nature to her, would baffle most average scholars. It was silly of her to think that the creature they found did it.

Part of her couldn’t let go of it, though.

“It seems as if our guest has awoken once more,” Celestia’s voice said, cutting into Luna’s thoughts.

Luna jolted. “What was that?”

“Spell Patch’s summary. They sent a report,” Celestia responded, a hoofful of sheets floating before her.

Luna’s mind supplied the image of a pinto unicorn and his common demeanor of being slightly affronted. “The field spellsupport?”

“That is the one. He is not the best thaumatic researcher, but his instincts on spell patterns are uncanny,” Celestia said. Spell Patch had introduced new ways for joint spellwork, rather; rediscovered old ways that fell out of favour, thanks to his talent.

“He sent the thaumatic readings down to the research group, but he writes that what he sensed during the general treatment was like the mana intrusion and toxicity caused by poorly channeled spells.” Celestia sighed. “It seems more answers we get, the more questions we find.”

“Sister, it has only been a day. We both know this will not be easily or quickly solved.” Luna looked away; out through the windows, past the balcony and at the horizon. “Even I have my reservations on this matter, but concede to your point that my initial reaction was rash. But perhaps you need to calm yourself as well, sister. Your altruism makes you conflicted between wanting to protect our subjects as well as help this strange one that appeared.”

Celestia looked at her sister, not expecting that response from her, before following Luna’s gaze out to the horizon, her expression contemplative. “You may be right, little sister. Very well, I will have to speak with this one. Our first encounter was… premature, I can see that now. Looking at the reports from the healers and researchers, it was rash of me to act when I did, but perhaps now I can have a proper conversation with him. Spell Patch has proven the creature understands and can communicate with us. Only then can my decisions be fair.”

“In the meanwhile, I will be preparing for my night court,” Luna said. “I still have my doubts, but I will support your decision.”

“Thank you, Luna,” Celestia smiled, before musing out loud on her next course of action. “Perhaps it would be best to eschew the guards this time.”

-----------------------

I started taking better stock of the room than I did before as my thoughts tried to arrive at a conclusion. Since I was lacking my glasses, I had missed some of the details in the room. The paint on the wall was actually an intricate mosaic of subtle shading, almost dabbled, rather than a plain colour. There was a doorway hidden in the blind spot my previous look around held, and it revealed itself to lead into a washroom when I peeked in. It held a sink and curious trough in the rear. Judging by the tank mounted above it on the wall and the pull chain, it would have to be a toilet.

You could tell a lot about a person (or people) by their washroom. The sink was lower than I expected, as was where the tank was mounted and the dangle of the chain. I recalled the cot, and backed out of the washroom to confirm my suspicions. It was pretty low too. More suited for the height of, say, the pony that came in?

“I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore,” I murmured to myself, distress and confusion increasing in my bemused and distracted state.

“Kansas?” someone asked from behind him.

“Line from a mo- GAH!” my response started automatically to the question, and quickly turned into a yelp when something large and white loomed in the edges of my field of vision. I clutched at my chest; much like the pinto pony unicorn did earlier. It was the same big on from earlier; with both wings and a horn. And a full set of golden shoes. Something, er, someone that big with metal things on their hooves should not be that quiet.

“Ah, I did not intend to startle you,” the large white horse, Princess Celestia, I recalled, said. Or was she also a pony? “But after our last meeting, I decided it would be wiser to do without the herald this time.” She looked at me in silence for a moment. “Spell Patch reported that the residual magic that was working havoc on your body is cleared away and you should be feeling much better.”

“Spell Patch?” I asked before I realized who she was talking about. “You mean the… unicorn that was here earlier?” The word tasted a bit odd in my mouth. But I realized she was right. The headache that was present the last time I woke was eased and most of the aches were gone as well. I stretched my arms and rolled my shoulders a few times. Noticing the princess watching me, I stopped and lowered my arm nervously. “Uh, thank you, um, Princess.”

“Oh that’s quite alright,” she said with a warm smile, though the way she ended the sentence sounded as if she wanted to say more. The slightly embarrassed look on her face confirmed it. “Forgive me, but I don’t know what to call you. Or what you are, on that subject,” she admitted. “It has been quite the conundrum for my sister in particular.”

I was stunned and, in a way, terrified as well. I swallowed before slowly asking another question. “You… you’ve never seen a human before? Heard of one?”

“A human?” Princess Celestia asked curiously, playing with the sound of the word like a novel new toy. “Is that what you are? No, I am afraid I have not.”

I am afraid I have not. For a moment, I couldn’t muster a reaction, just stood there, stoic, holding a crucial corner of my makeshift toga. It hadn’t been one of the scenarios my mind presented. Rather; it was; but it had been discarded as being impossible. Three episodes of Stargate and two stories of Doctor Who came to mind, and no, the implications behind them were far from pleasant. What hardly more volume than a whisper, words came from my lips. “Never heard… of a human?”

Princess Celestia blinked, as if uncertain at this response from the strange one that turned up unexpectedly and wound up under her wing. She carefully considered her response. “No, Little one,” she said softly, graceful steps taking her closer to me, a hoof tilting my head to look into her eyes. Magenta, not a colour I thought eyes outside of Japanese animation came in. “I have lived for a long time, and learn many things, but never of a human. But that same time had taught me many things, and not even I can say I recall all of those lessons.”

A part of me wondered just what she meant by a long time, but for now, that part of me was buried somewhere under my shell shocked conscious thoughts. When she saw that a response wasn’t all that forth coming from me, she prompted me for one. “Come, Little One. What happened to you? Do you remember?”

I snapped out of my fugue state somewhat, blinking a few times and staggering back, my left hand slowly rising to run over my forehead and hair. “Books… The library, I mean. I was… working in the library. Setting up the Easchermann display.” My thoughts were like molasses, both in trying to remember and in trying to stay focused, but was quickly clearing as I forced myself to put sense to them.

“I see,” the Princess said, encouraging me. I took a breath, flinching again when she spoke.

'Focus on what happened, remember it, not on the talking pony,’ I told myself. I exhaled slowly, and ran the thoughts through my head again. “The eclipse,” I said finally. Princess Celestia took a sharp intake of breath at that. I didn’t notice. I focused on one patch of the ground before me and used it as a blank slate to visualize the past. “I heard music… and the eclipse… fire or something came down from it. Light… It hit the display I set up… then I remember falling…”

Falling, seeing things flashing by, feeling pressure alongside intense heat and cold. I clenched the sheet tighter at just the memory of it, shooting Princess Celestia a look of mingled confusion and accusation. “Where the hell am I?”

She chose not to take offense to me swearing at her. “You are in Canterlot.” Confusion became the dominant flavour of my expression, and she obligingly answered the unspoken question it conveyed. “Canterlot Castle, the home of my sister and I, the Princesses of Day and Night; the capital of Equestria.”

There was little hesitation in her tone and her eyes looked honest. But I didn’t know what she was talking about. None of it sounded familiar.

“No… no, no, no….” I murmured, shaking my head, backing away from her. “This is Kent. Ontario. Canada.”

“Oh, Little One,” Celestia said softly. “I had my suspicions, from when I first felt the fluctuations in the magic, and the reports from my little ponies, and your own words seem to confirm it.” She closed her eyes, and I looked sharply at her, her pause not inspiring confidence. There was no way I going to like what she would say next.

“It would seem as if you are a visitor to us. Somehow you managed to travel from this Canada you spoke of, to our world. The traces are all over you. Twilight Sparkle suspected it, and Spell Patch verified it with his scans. You are foreign to his world. Whatever happened to you, it took you from your Canada and brought you here to Equis.”

Travel… between worlds? Foreign? Equis? From my place, home, to this one? With unicorns and ponies and pegasi and magic. I collapsed, the weight of it all becoming too much for me, slumping, defeated to the chill stone floor, staring at the patch of floor between my legs.

Eventually, it started getting blurry, and I thought something was going wrong with my vision. It was only when the first drop splashed on the stone I realized it was tears pooling, obscuring my vision. When I realized that, they started flowing freely; silent tears coursing down my cheeks, occasionally dripping to splash on the ground or soak into the sheets.

“We will work on this together,” Princess Celestia said from outside my wet and limited field of vision. “We have reasons to be involved in this as well, and will help you as best we can, Strange One.”

I sniffed hard, snorting the mucus tears generate, rubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand. "Caleb.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Celestia asked.

“My name,” I said, this time at a more average level. “Caleb Blakely.”

“Caleb,” Celestia said softly. “Very well. Though the circumstances are less than favourable; welcome to Equis and to Equestria, Caleb Blakely.”

Comments

[GMD]

...Caleb? Is that a Canadian name?

[Dark Shade 75]

Okay, this story is honestly in dire need of an editor. The constant errors are making it extremely difficult to stay with the story. I'll read on a bit further, but if it doesn't get better I might have to drop this one out of sheer frustration.