Explorers from Giraffia

by Elchar

Act 1 Chapter 2: Commotion

Night passed without much of an interruption. Several wild animals passed around, but most of them could smell them, and as they certainly didn’t smell giraffe before, avoided them. When the sun appeared on the sky again, there wasn’t much more to do than continue on.

Sea Sail chose direction pretty much at random. The road soon turned away from the forest and continued on into the open terrain, dodging the high mountain.

It wasn’t long at all before they found the first definite sign of this road not being just a strangely wide animal trail – a bridge over the stream.

“So we might have actually found Equestria,” Noted Acacia happily.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Muttered Bluewave. “It’s just a bridge.”

“Yeah, but it certainly didn’t built itself, did it?” Snapped Amber Spot.

“That’s not what I am saying. I am just saying the fact that something built a bridge here doesn’t mean we found a pony land or whatever,” Answered Bluewave.

“Come on now, we may stay here and keep on discussing over a simple wooden bridge or we may actually cross it and continue on,” Said Sea Sail and she was also first one to cross.

When the rest of them did as well, they continued. Not too long after, they could see that the route is turning around some bushes into hilly areas.

Amber Spot suddenly stopped and pricked up her ears, “Don’t you hear something?” She whispered.

The rest of them immediately stopped in their tracks and started to listen as well. They could definitely hear some strange clopping. It sounded almost like running of zebras or antelopes they knew from the lands close to a Giraffia.

It was enough for the Sea Sail to just nod in the right direction. All of them jumped into the bushes. Sadly, Sea Sail didn’t look at them too carefully and didn’t notice all the thorns.

As quickly as they got in, they were out again, with thorny branches tangled into their manes and tails.

Just a moment after, some sort of creature appeared in their line of sight on the road.

It was certainly looking very strange. It was small, even a bit smaller than okapis, and those were about third the height of giraffes. Actually, it was around the same size as zebras. It looked a lot like zebras, too, but zebras were all white with black stripes. This creature was pink and it had green mane. It also had talent symbol that looked similar to theirs, not those strange swirly things zebras possessed. Creature’s talent symbol featured two white flowers.

“Um…. Hi?” Said Sea Sail nervously. Was this a pony? She was a bit disappointed, to be honest. Old legends said some ponies have wings or horns on forehead, but this one didn’t have either.

Creature didn’t answer right back. Its eyes were so huge, looking up at them.

“What… in the name of Celestia… are you?”

Sea Sail had no idea what or who Celestia is, but she was glad that the universal translating spell worked. The best okapi magicians placed it on them before they left, but they didn’t really have chance to find if it actually worked yet. Sea Sail remembered the king saying something about Equestrian ponies talking in strange language, but now she could understand very well. She knew it works other way around, too, so the creature will hear everything they say in the language understandable for it.

“We’re giraffes, but that doesn’t really matter much,” Replied Sea Sail. “We were sent to find legendary land called Equestria, inhabited by ponies. Are we here or do we have to continue on sailing?”

“Legendary? I wouldn’t talk about legends, tally,” Frowned the creature. “I only heard about giraffes in one old pony tale my mother used to tell me before sleep.”

“So… this is Equestria?”

“As far as I know,” Replied pony. “But I have no idea why you would come here. I don’t think wherever you are from is exactly close, is it?”

“It most definitely isn’t,” Muttered Bluewave, seemingly still shocked about the actual existence of the land he was refusing to believe in for so long.

“Well, we are here because our king sent us to find this land and… establish contact. Where do your leaders live? Lege- we’ve heard you have two of them and that they were immortal. But that’s probably not true, is it?”

“No, it actually is. You’re thinking of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. But they live in Canterlot and that’s not exactly around the corner. And,” Pony once again looked at heads of four giraffes towering above her. “I don’t think you would exactly fit into the train. Well, you friend there probably would, but if you all want to go, that’s not a way. By the way, she or he’s not a giraffe, too, or is it?”

“He’s an okapi. They are giraffes, too. Just a different kind.”

“If you say so. Anyways, you fellas actually seem kind of nice, but still pretty scary. I guess. If you want to talk with royalty, you should come with me. I live in a small town behind that mountain over there. It’s called Ponyville and Princess Twilight has her castle in there, she’ll know how to contact Princesses Celestia and Luna. I need to collect some herbs from here first, though. That’s why I came here in the first place, they do not grow anywhere else except the Everfree forest… and I am not setting my hoof in there.”

“You… know a lot about herbs?” Asked Acacia Sprout. “I am really interested in plants as well. Oh my, there is so much plants over here I don’t know… what’s that tree over there called?
“That’s an oak tree… and if you don’t know what that is, you certainly are from far away. Do you have names? Mine’s Daisy.”

“Of course we don’t,” Replied Bluewave, voice full of irony. “When we need to talk to somegiraffe else, we just yell ‘Hey, you!’”

“Don’t mind him, Daisy, he’s just grumpy because you actually really exist, that’s all,” Explained Amber Spot. Right after that she proceeded to say everyone’s names. She also didn’t forget to mention Sea Sail being a captain.

“Now, Daisy, why don’t you show us how that herb of yours look like so we may help you and get to that Ponyville place you mentioned?” Asked Sea Sail.

With their help, it took only a short while to find as much as Daisy wanted and with their new guide, proceeded towards Ponyville.

•••

Travel was quite long. It was already dark and, according to Daisy, they were still hours of walking away from Ponyville.

“Well, I knew I won’t get back before dark, but I certainly didn’t expect I’d have to sleep with strangers. Erm… no offence.”

“None taken,” Answered Sea Sail quickly. “What do you think we should do? Keep walking?”

“Well, I was originally planning to sleep through the night, but I think that’ll wait until I get home. It seems like the best option,” Daisy wouldn’t admit it, but she was still a little scared. They were so giant… And the only smaller one, the okapi, remained silent throughout whole trip, not saying a word.

In the end, it took them whole night. Sun was already shining, when giraffes finally saw Ponyville for the first time. It was small town filled with many houses. Most of them looked the same, but they could easily see some that looked much different. But the thing that caught their eyes first was standing on an outskirts of town. There was huge tree made out of what seemed to be crystal. There were spires with windows in between its branches, suggesting that it’s actually a very strange building.

Daisy noticed where they are looking, “Yes, that’s Princess Twilight’s castle. But I am honestly not very sure what to do with you now. You can’t just walk into the town, ponies would probably panic. You know what? Just stay in her for a while and I’ll run for the Princess Twilight, she’ll know what to do.”

And then she was away.

“Well, that was interesting,” Noted Vermishine. It was first thing she said since they met Daisy. “I guess I should let others know how we are doing so far again.”

“Yes,” Agreed Sea Sail. “I sure hope it won’t take Daisy long… “

•••

But it did. They waited for hours. Bluewave was, of course, first to complain.

“She ditched us,” He was saying. “If she won’t come in five minutes, I am just going down there.”, but he never did, even after ten or twenty minutes.

After several hours, they could see some sort of big commotion in town. What seemed to be hundreds of ponies were running around in chaos. They noticed some of them flew, which prove some of them indeed had wings. It took several minutes, but then the whole crowd started to move out of the town, heading straight to them.

That wasn’t exactly expected. Acacia looked like he’s going to panic. Daisy was fine, but hundreds of those strange creatures at once? He didn’t like the idea at all. No surprise, Bluewave wasn’t too keen about it either.

Daisy was one of the first to get to them. Purple pony was running with her. Blue Sail quickly noticed it had both wings and horn. Strange purple lizard was sitting on purple pony’s back.

Daisy started to explain immediately as what had to be whole town was getting close.

“I wanted to say it only to Princess Twilight here, but she wasn’t home so I was searching for her and it turned out she was on one of Pinkie Pie’s parties. I had to say it in front of everypony at that party and well… Pinkie Pie managed to tell it to everypony else in town in like two minutes. We just couldn’t stop her. And everypony wanted to see you guys so well…”

In that moment, bright pink pony without wings or horn was next to get to them, still far before main crowd. It wasn’t hard to guess that it’s Pinkie Pie.

“Oh my gosh, it’s really giraffes. When I first heard Daisy say it I was like ‘gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasp’ because I mean giraffes; I tought they existed only in legends and it was just so amazing news I went to everypony and everypony was so excited too, even Rainbow Dash; Applejack didn’t believe me but I convinced her Daisy wouldn’t lie; Fluttershy didn’t want to come because she hates commotions so she stayed home but she’s like only one; But I mean really- mmmf mmf mmmmmf.” Princess Twilight Sparkle did something completely un-princessy – she shove her hoof into Pinkie’s mouth to make her shut up.

But the rest of town was already coming close. Many and many voices gasped and yelled and talked and talked and talked as they saw new hosts for the first time.

“Oh, they are so big!”

“Huge!”

“Why do they have such a long necks, mommy?”

“Oh, those spots, so garish.”

“That’s so amazing!”

“Eeyup.”

“…they sure are excitable bunch,” noted Amber Spot.

Finally, Princess Twilight in collaboration with important looking pony with grey mane managed to calm everypony down.

“Um… so, as I can see, you’re all pretty excited about our new giraffe visitors. But, as it all went so fast, I don’t really know much about them. So, if I may ask, would you say something to us about you yourself?”

“Do we have any other choice?” Answered Sea Sail. “I didn’t expect we would cause such a huge commotion but… it won’t hurt if you know why we sailed into this strange land…”

Author's Note:

Second chapter... yeah, I wasn't expecting to write it so soon, but I've got some free time today and the nice reception from yesterday just made me to write more. I really hope you liked it!

I have to give big thanks to Aldar. He helps me with my English grammar.

Comments

[Dapper Guy]

Yes, I've been thinking about giraffes for a story. Nice to see world building with them.

[Nebula Swirl]

oh my god this is fantastic. Seriously I cannot wait for the next chapter :D