Just Dropping In

by Gunsmith

Chapter 3

I am nearly paralyzed. Scratch that, I am paralyzed. With what, be it shock, fear, I do not know. What I do know is that I need to get some words out, now.

"I...I...y-you...uhh..."

Damn it. I suppose stuttering is a start, though. I momentarily realize that the voice that came from my throat was not alien, but my own voice. A deep one, maybe a voice on the deep side of average. Wasn't that called something like a "tenor" voice? I can't remember. Try again.

I clear my throat quickly. "A-are you...?"

The cyan blue pegasus cuts me off and puffs her chest out, stating:

"Yep, the one and only Rainbow Dash! Fastest flier in all of Equestria and coolest pony around!"

I feel the fanboy part of me become giddy with excitement. I'm about to yell out a few different things, mostly praise or meme-related comments, but luckily the logical part of me steps in. However, even the logical conscience has all too many questions; I have little idea as to where to start. I do know that my suspicions have been confirmed, and I am in the house of my favorite pegasus.

I hear Rainbow Dash speaking and realize she has been asking me something.

"Huh?" I reply in an intelligent manner.

She chuckles a little. "Your name, what's your name? Who are you?"

I feel my eyes widen (though I am unsure how they do so; I thought they were at maximum-wideness already) upon hearing the question. Who am I? I am about to say my name, my human name, when I realize it might sound somewhat odd to a pony. A name that bore no relation to anything pony names were based off of, like their purpose in life, a detail describing them, things like that; it was merely a name that had little relation to the kind of person I was, what I liked, or what I did.

I ponder this for what is probably an awkwardly long period of time. I couldn't really describe my new color scheme; it is somewhat plain, definitely no rainbow. Nor my personality, for I had never done that before and don't like describing myself anyways. All that leaves is something related to my purpose in life. I had known that well as a human; guns were my obsession, gunsmithing the job for me. But ponies don't have guns. Party cannons, yes, but not firearms.

What would I be meant to do in this place, then? Oh, wait. What would the equivalent of a gunsmith be in a less technologically advanced time period? A blacksmith. I had looked into blacksmithing before, but due to it being as useful in modern times as Latin, by which I mean not very much so other than as a hobby, I hadn't pursued it, instead focusing on a more modern career.

Anyways. Blacksmithing is my purpose (or at least I think so). Now, a blacksmithing-related name... Hmm. I rack my brain as fast as I can, knowing that each second of silence steadily increases the awkwardness of the situation. Many names pop into my head, most related to blacksmithing; I analyze each, determining if it is too simple or too human to be put to good use. I soon run out of names. Damn it!

Think harder. I recall my mental comment of blacksmith's usefulness in the modern world being close to that of...Latin. A single word pops into my head: Ferrum. "Ferrum", the Latin term for...iron; also known as the black metal for its color when heated, and where the term "blacksmith" came from.

How in the hell did I remember that?

I had taken my Chemistry courses a few years ago, and had learned the word there, I suppose. And it had always intrigued me as to why the chemical abbreviation for iron was not something like "Ir", or "In", but instead the Latin term, Ferrum, or "Fe". I recall that gold is abbreviated "Au", for "Aurum", and is one of the few materials, like iron, that also uses this odd system of naming. I repeat "Ferrum" in my head a few times. Ferrum, Ferrum, Fer-rum.

It sounds nice. Odd, nonetheless, but nice. And it makes sense, too. Blacksmithing is my game, iron is my right-hand man, and Ferrum means "iron". If anyone asks about it, I can say I'm from another country, and Ferrum means "iron" in its native language. Yeah, good enough for now. Good enough to stop questions for a while at least. I quickly thank my brain for not being a goddamn troll, as it usually is, and actually giving me something good to work with.

"M-my name is...Ferrum." Damn, my voice is still a bit shaky. At least the name sounds alright when I say it out loud...and how long did I pause for?

"Ferrum. That's a weird name," she replies.

Saw that coming. "Yeah, it uh...means "iron" in my native language. I'm not from here."

"That'd explain why I've never seen you around before."

Good, she bought it. That worked out nicely. My mind a bit less disoriented from seeing...well, a lot of things, all of which had induced surprise and shock, I form a question that seems pretty important.

"So...what happened? To me?" I glance back at my right wing for emphasis.

"Oh, man, it was crazy! So I was about to leave for my weather duty this afternoon, and I walk out the door and see you smash, headfirst, right onto my front yard-thing. Your wing took most of the first hit, and then you rolled for a while, then smacked your head outside my house, like, right beside me. Even I thought that was a pretty hard landing, and I've had a lot of those. I gotta say, though, it looked pretty awesome."

I had been hoping she had seen exactly where I had come from, fallen from. Maybe a portal, a rip in time and space itself, something. Well, even though I couldn't fly, at least I could fall with style. I smile to myself at this thought and at the reference to a movie that seemed distant in my past now.

Dash's mention of my crash reminds me of another question. "So, did you patch me up?" I ask her.

She raises her foreleg and glances downward, rubbing the back of her neck and giving an embarrassed laugh. "Hah, yeah, I did. I kinda freaked out, y'know, pony crashing in front of my house and all. I had some medical tape that I usually use for when I sprain stuff, so I figured it couldn't hurt. I brought you inside and put you on the bed, but I had to leave for work."

"Well...thanks. I appreciate it." I give a small smile to show that I am grateful for her efforts.

"Yeah, it's no big deal. Kinda like wrapping a Hearth's Warming Eve present, haha."

Though my mind automatically translates that to "Christmas", I understand the joke, and laugh a bit.

Rainbow Dash continues the conversation, asking, "So what happened? Why'd you fall and crash like that?"

Oh, shit. My head throbs a bit, conveniently giving me an answer (and some pain to go with it). "I don't really remember...I think I might have a concussion or something from that hit I took on the head."

"Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, and you'll be fine in a few days, trust me. I've had plenty of injuries, haha."

"That fast?" I say it before I can catch myself. I remember that ponies heal in an amazingly short period of time in My Little Pony. Did they heal faster than humans on Earth, too? Maybe, I wasn't for sure. "Oh, yeah, me too," I continue in an attempt to salvage my slip-up.

Her smile fades a bit, showing some concentration, and she suddenly scans me up and down with a critical eye. After a few seconds, she notices something that appears to be behind me, judging by her eyes.

"Your cutie mark, what is it of? What's it mean?"

My cutie mark? I turn my head to the left, glancing under my still-outstretched left wing. I see a small picture on the upper part of my rear leg. How did I not notice that before? I recall looking in the mirror. I was still half in the doorway, I suppose, and the darkness of my coat's color combined with the darkness of the actual mark itself must have made me miss it. I squint at it a bit in an attempt to focus the picture more.

I see a very simple picture, one of what is clearly an anvil, a dark steel color, with a hammer above it, with has a stone-gray head and a brown handle. It is fully obvious to me as to what it is for: blacksmithing. I revel momentarily in my correct guess of my profession. As a admire the small picture on my left flank, I nearly unconsciously say, "Blacksmithing."

"What?"

"You know, blacksmithing; I am a blacksmith. I make..." I can't say weapons, swords, knives, that sort of thing, because I am unsure if they exist in Equestria. It is a peaceful place, but there do exist some nasty beings. Running isn't everypony's only option, right? I decide to not mention them anyways. What would a pony blacksmith make, though? "...horseshoes! And metal parts for saddles. And other metal things, like signs, or carriage parts, or train parts, things like that."

"Ahh, alright. I think Ponyville has one of those, a few blocks over from Sugarcube Corner."

"Oh, where Pinkie Pie works, right?"

Dash's look of recognition turns into a slight frown. Her brow creases ever so slightly. "How do you know Pinkie Pie if you aren't from here?"

Shit...that was a bad slip-up. Clever girl... "Uhh, word gets around that her parties are the best in all of Equestria." I slightly smile, hoping I'm not as bad a liar as Applejack.

She continues to stare at me for a second, as if determining whether I can be trusted or not. It's a good thing I can't sweat because of my newly acquired layer of fur. I stare back at her as confidently as I can. Her magenta eyes are extremely intimidating, and it's hard not to break away. Finally, her gaze lightens. "Yeah, her parties are definitely the coolest!"

I internally heave a sigh of relief. Too close.

Her face lights up again. "Speaking of pie, you hungry?"

As if on cue, my stomach makes a gurgling noise. I glance down in its direction and frown.

"No, I should probably get going...I don't want to mooch off of you, y'know?"

Rainbow Dash stares at me with a blank look. She glances to my right side, then looks back at my eyes. She smiles.

"Did you forget that you have a broken wing and are on a cloud, a few hundred feet from the ground and from another cloud?"

I bring my right foreleg up and smack myself between my eyes. God, I feel stupid. However, my question as to what the material composing the rooms is has been answered.

She gives me an amused look and begins laughing. Her laugh is as scratchy as her voice, but is cute all the same. I admire her laugh for a bit, and can't help but join in. It feels nice to laugh after the way my day has went.

Eventually we recover. "Come on, let's get something to eat," she says, and begins trotting towards the doorway that leads downstairs. I follow her down in a spiral, nearly tripping a few times from being angled downwards on stairs instead of standing up and stepping down them. We pass what I believe to be the second floor, being that there were no stairs leading upward on the floor I was just on, making it the top floor. I can see furniture inside the second floor, but my hunger for food is greater than my hunger for exploration.

We reach the ground floor (ground floor? On a cloud?). I scan the room. It is obvious that this room is a kitchen. Its dimensions are nearly identical to those of the third floor, leading me to assume that the cloud house is shaped like a tower. Cloud cabinets and counters line the walls to my left and front. On my right is a wall with a door centered on it. It obviously leads outside. There are multiple windows in the room, letting in a good amount of natural light. From the orange-yellow glow in the white room, it is probably going to be dusk soon. It's probably about 6 P.M., dinner time for most.

A low-sitting cloud table, only rising a foot, maybe two ,off the ground, is centered in the kitchen/dining room. There are no chairs; it registers with me a second after making this observation that ponies do not sit like humans, so chairs would be either nonexistent or of an odd design. Silly me.

I decide to take a seat...or rather just sit down at the table. I remembered how ponies had sat on the show. Was that comfortable? I fall back on to my rump, splay my back legs a bit, then place my forelegs in between them, propping myself up. Not bad. Easier than sitting cross-legged.Again, I see that I appear to be slightly taller than the average pony, for the table is a bit far out of my head's reach. I frown slightly.

"What do you like on your sandwich? I have some hay, roses, tulips, dandelions, and daisies...looks like I'm out of apples, I'll have to grab some later..."

My frown deepens. None of those really sound appetizing. I suppose ponies are herbivores, though, so I'll have to get used to this...I look up at Rainbow Dash. "Uhhm...surprise me?"

I half expect Pinkie Pie to come out of nowhere and yell, "SURPRISE!" I tighten my jaw in anticipation, but it doesn't come. Whew. As I exit this train of thought, I find that I have zoned out. I blink to refocus my eyes. I have been staring at the flank of a certain cyan blue pegasus who is making sandwiches filled with flowers. Now that I look at it, I see that it shows signs of toning. I can see traces of lean muscle. It looks so powerful, yet so elega--

Christ, man, what the fuck?!

I quickly tear my eyes away and stare back down at the table. It seems much more interesting now. I feel heat rising in my cheeks. What the hell is wrong with me? I'm not like that, damn it! My mind's contradictory half decides to pop in, as usual. Well, I am a pony, shouldn't I be interested in ponies now? It wouldn't make sense to be interested in humans. A retort from the opposing party. But my mind still feels human, even if I am a pony... I feel confusion. I push the thoughts away and just hope she did not notice.

I look up as I hear a clatter of plates. Dash turns towards the table, two plates with sandwiches on them stacked on top one another. My eyes follow them as she sets them down on the table. I look back up and see her sit down.

"Thanks," I say.

"Yep!" she cheerfully replies. "Hope you like it. I threw a bit of everything on there."

I look down at my plate. I see the top of what appears to be homemade bread; wait, do ponies have packaged bread? Probably not; I assume that it is mass-produced, but it still created using medieval processes. I can see that Rainbow was true to her word; I can see that the sandwich is mainly composed of hay, but rose petals, tulip buds, daisies, and yellow dandelions peek out around the edges of the bread pieces. It's a colorful sandwich, I'll give it that. I raise my forelegs off the soft cloud floor and place my hooves on either side of the sandwich.

I attempt to grip the sandwich. Oh, wait... I frown. Maybe if I...? I move my hooves in towards the sandwich. All it does is make the sandwich bunch up. I try lifting the sandwich, but it caves downward and flops back onto the plate that sits in front of me. My brow creases and I draw up my lips. Last resort. I lean downward towards the plate, craning down to reach the sandwich. I open my mouth, about to bite into the sandwich, when it occurs to me that I am in the presence of company.

I glance up, mouth still poised to bite. Rainbow Dash is sitting opposite me, staring at me, a grin on her face, her sandwich untouched. I close my mouth, feeling like an idiot for the second time today. I pull my head back up, re-entering a proper pony sitting position. She has followed my eyes the whole way.

She bursts into laughter. I smile at the thought of how ridiculous I must have looked. She nearly falls over backwards, and her face goes serious as she struggles a bit before regaining balance. We stare at each other, grinning like idiots. We both begin laughing. I don't even know why we're laughing so hard. I do know that it feels good to do so. By the time we are done laughing, the side of my stomach and my head hurt.

She leans down and chomps at her sandwich, as I was about to. I do the same. The sandwich is quite tasty, actually. Flowers do not taste at all like they smell, but are delicious nonetheless, at least for a pony. The bread also tastes fresh, confirming my earlier speculations on pony bread production. I am about halfway done with my sandwich when Rainbow pipes up in her scratchy voice.

"Y'know, Ferrum," she says before swallowing a bite of sandwich. "You're a pretty weird pony."

Not really knowing how to respond, I reply, "As to you, Miss Dash," in my best British accent (which I suppose would be a Canterlot accent in this world).

"You're really tall, too," she states, as if just noticing how far I actually have to reach down to bite my sandwich.

"Or maybe you're just really short," I say, grinning playfully.

She feigns offense, bringing a forehoof to her chest and raising her chin, scoffing. She grins back a second later, and we resume finishing the sandwiches. When I finish, I grab my empty plate between my teeth and stand up. I trot over to the counter tops, searching for a sink. It's hard to spot because everything is white and made of clouds. I drop my plate into what looks like a sink, expecting a loud clang, but instead receiving a small whump. I look up from the sink and see out of the window above it that the sun is setting.

I turn around and spot Rainbow Dash. "Hey, Rainbow Dash, thanks again. For the meal, this..." I gesture at my bandaged wing. "...everything," I continue.

She blushes and looks down. "Heh, don't mention it. Town hero 'n all, y'know?"

"Haha, yeah. Well, I think I'm going to get some rest. It's been a long day for me."

She looks up. "You want the bed? I can grab the couch, if you want."

"No, take the bed," I reply. "This entire house feels like a bed, to be honest." As if to reinforce this statement, I hop up and down a bit on the cloud floor of the kitchen. It's like jumping on one of foam beds.

"Alright, if you say so. See you tomorrow!" She smiles.

I return the smile, trotting towards the stairs. "G' night," I reply, and I make my way up the stairs.

I enter the second floor, what I presumed to be a living room. I look around as I come out of the spiraling stairwell.

My hunch is correct, as I spot a few couches at the back of the room. There is one sitting against the wall opposite me, a full size couch made of clouds. It appears large enough to fit about three or four sitting ponies. At ninety degree angles and closer to me are smaller cloud couches, sometimes called "love seats"; they appear to hold two ponies a piece. In the center of this trio of couches sits a cloud table similar to the one in the kitchen/dining room. Windows positioned in the exact same places as in the other rooms are present in this one, also. The only other thing that fills the room is some...weight equipment? How is that even...with the metal and...clouds...and...I push the thought away, worried I might be delving too far into this world's physics.

The weight equipment is fairly simple, just some dumbbells lying about and a bench press. There's also what looks like a simple treadmill, just a long rectangle of metal with a tread around it; it seems the user generates their own desired speed instead of having electronics do it for them. I turn away from the weight equipment, looking back towards the group of cloud couches. They look ridiculously comfortable; I decide to see if they truly are. I trot over to the largest couch, the one at the far back of the living room. I clamber up it and think about how to best lay down without laying on my still-painful wing. I circle around on the couch a bit, like a dog would, then lie down on my left side, resting my head on the arm of the couch and stretching my legs outwards.

I think my mind is too worn out from the day's events to be overactive at this point. I close my eyes and await the void of sleep.

Comments

[Gunsmith]

Chapter Three released. Dialogue and sandwiches are fun, right?

Tell me what you think, everyone.

[Rarelygood]

Well you have 2 options.. Keep writing. or don't and i come look for you and make you write. See all good.

[Gunsmith]

Glad you like it, Rarely. I don't plan on stopping now, the OCD in me is preventing me from doing that.

Also, I'm noting a few more dislikes have been added. What's up, readers? Tell me what is wrong with my story; I want to improve it, truly, but I need feedback from you all to do so. Leave comments saying what you like and don't like, alright? I'll attempt to shape the story to make it better and a more enjoyable read.

Thanks again, everyone.

Edit: I noticed the end of Ch. 3 was a bit on the Shegorath side; I had been working on 3 for about 4 hours straight, I must have been pretty worn out by 3 A.M. last night (err, morning?). Redid the ending a bit more seriously. Ch 4. will be coming soon.

[silentsand9]

this is awsome,i love it