Into That Wild Blue Yonder

by CptBrony

A Matter of Perspective

In the earliest hours of the morning, one expected it to be peaceful. A time when pestering kids jumped on their parents to wake them, when coffee was needed just to move, and the sun slowly and pleasantly warmed the landscape. This was not that kind of morning.

A loud shriek pierced the air of the town, waking all in close vicinity, including the resident human. He jolted upright, his body forgetting about the excruciatingly painful injury in his side, and he quickly fell back down. It wasn’t as bad as the day before, but it still kept him restricted in movement.

Slowly, the human rose up again and tried to climb up the wall to a window above the bed. When he finally scaled the wall, he hung off the ledge and looked outside.

It was a scene of chaos and panic; ponies running everywhere, shouting at each other, hectic looks on their faces. The amount of emotion was overwhelming. Their massive eyes betrayed it all to the world, their large mouths showing every single inch of the terror coming from their throats.

The young man felt his heart start to race and had to look away. It was an entire village of these ponies, these talking, four-legged, hooved creatures of equal intelligence to humans. It couldn’t be real, yet it was. Nothing made sense.

After taking in a few deep breaths, the young man bravely rose his head again to look outside. By the time he was up, most of the ponies were gone, with only a few still outside. Those who remained wore aggressive expressions and carried various farm tools, from rakes to scythes to pitchforks.

“What the heck is going on?” the young man asked himself.

Suddenly, the door behind him burst open and Gibbs rushed in, shutting it behind him. Before the young man could turn around, Gibbs was on him, dragging him back down onto the bed.

“Stay down!” he whispered through his teeth.

“Why?” the young man groaned.

“We can’t let them see you,” Gibbs said.

“Who are they? Why can’t they see me?” the young man asked.

“They’re the Blooded Tong,” Gibbs uttered dreadfully.

“What?” the young man replied, his question unanswered.

“The Blooded Tong,” Gibbs went on. “They’re a bunch of thugs who terrorize the villages into giving them ‘protection money’.”

“Extortionists,” the young man summarized.

“Exactly,” Gibbs said. “They’re too strong for us to win against. We know they’ll fight if we don’t pay the money; they’ve done it to another village. They lost a couple of guys in the fight, but the entire village and everyone in it burned to the ground.”

“Sounds worse than local toughs, then,” the young man said. “Sounds like terrorists.”

“Terrorist?” Gibbs replied with intrigue.

“One who uses terror to control a populace,” the young man explained. “Various tactics, including, but not limited to, use of threats, targeted violence, random violence, and particularly targeting people who aren’t combatants.”

“Sounds like something out of a dictionary,” Gibbs commented.

“I do my best,” the young man said. “But why do I have to hide?”

“They want whatever will get them the most money,” Gibbs said.

“Aaaaand..?” the young man replied.

“Humans are valued for their rarity and abilities,” Gibbs said. “Pretty much every human who has come to this world has been exceptional at something. Some were great at fighting, others were brilliant inventors, others were great negotiators and writers. They’ll want to figure out what you’re good at and then sell you to the highest bidder. And there are a lot of beings out there who would do whatever they can to make a quick bit.”

“That’s not good for me,” the young man said dispiritedly.

“What can you do?” Gibbs inquired.

“I can fight,” the young man said plainly.

“Then they definitely can’t be allowed to find you,” Gibbs said. He got off of the young man.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Gibbs sighed. “I’m the one who gives them the money,” he said. “If someone else does it, they view it as resistance.” Without another word, Gibbs walked on out of the room to take care of business.

With Gibbs gone, the young man could once again climb up to the window and glance outside. He was much more careful about it this time, as he had to avoid being seen, and slowed his ascent to be quieter. When he was up at the window again, he could see Gibbs already outside, handing over a massive bag of coins.

Words were exchanged between he and the toughs, and only moments later, the one Gibbs was addressing ran up and slammed his hoof across Gibbs’s face, sending him tumbling to the ground. The young man clenched his jaw from anger at seeing the abuse of the pony who saved his life.

Now, the tough guy started to speak up.

“That is what we thought,” he shouted. “Now, we have an extra special announcement to make!” Gibbs tried to get up, but the tough put his hoof on his side and pinned Gibbs to the ground. “We know there’s been a major magical disturbance in the area. As in, the kind that means there’s a special something not too far from here. If anyone is found to be withholding information about this event, they will be dealt with.” He kicked Gibbs in the side, drawing a sickening crack from Gibbs’s rib cage. “Severely.”

The tough kept on talking, but the young man was more concerned with seeing how Gibbs was recovering. He was sputtering his breath on the ground, trying to drag himself away. The young man could just tell that his wife and child were watching this whole ordeal unfold.

Before long, the toughs packed up the money and left. Townsponies rushed out of their homes to assist Gibbs, from helping him stand and bringing him water to his wife kissing him and bawling about him getting hurt.

The young man didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch this all unfold; that wasn’t how he lived his life before, it wasn’t how he would live it here. With pained grunting, some blood and sweat, but no tears, he got up off the bed and walked out of his room and the house.

When he went outside, none of the ponies noticed him on his approach until he was right there. When they all realized he was there, the chattering and discussion came to a screeching halt and everyone just stared. The young man looked over the group, but rather than let himself lose it like before, he focused on getting to Gibbs in the middle of the group.

“Gibbs!” the young man said through the crowd.

“What are you *cough* doing outside?” Gibbs asked as the young man approached. “I told you it was *cough* too dangerous. And I thought you couldn’t walk?”

“Nothing I can’t grit my teeth through,” the young man said casually.

“I had heard that humans had a faster healing ability than most other species,” Gibbs recalled like it was some fascinating fact.

“Probably,” the young man said. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I just gotta get inside and rest a bit,” Gibbs said with a wave of his hoof.

“Sounded like a busted rib,” the young man said with a cautionary tone. “Don’t want it to become something worse by mishandling it.”

Gibbs sighed. “Probably right,” he admitted.

“That’s worse than what I have,” the young man said. “Let’s get you inside.”

The young man helped Gibbs stand up and along with a couple of other ponies and they all helped get Gibbs back into his house. Once there, the young man made sure to get Gibbs to the bed he had been sleeping in before, as he suspected he wouldn’t need it now. When they lay Gibbs down, he released a sigh of sweet relief as he could simply relax and reduce the pressure on his cracked bone.

The other ponies all left the house, leaving the young man alone with Gibbs and his family. Gibby looked like he was on the verge of tears, held back only by his mother’s urging that Gibbs was alright. She wasn’t looking too good either, with whatever eye makeup she had been wearing already running. She composed herself very quickly, though.

“Sorry you had to come here right before they came for their weekly payment,” Gibbs said. He sounded sincerely apologetic, which bothered the young man. “It’s more trouble than you need right now.”

“It’s more trouble than you guys need,” the young man said. “How long has this been happening?”

“It’s been this way for over a century,” Gibbs explained. “Different gangs take over, one after another, and terrorize the region. It’s always been this way.

“Why don’t you leave?” the young man asked incredulously.

“This is our home,” Gibbs replied with some offense. “We won’t be pushed out. And we can’t even go anywhere. We’d be caught before we got to the last village before any bordering kingdoms, and the journey is too long to make. We just have to push through.”

“That just isn’t right,” the young man said.

“What can we do? They’re too strong for us, a simple farming town, to handle,” Gibbs said hopelessly.

“I don’t know what to do,” the young man said. “But I know that this isn’t something you deserve to go through.”

“Doesn’t matter what we deserve,” Gibbs said. His wife pulled the child out of the room, sensing that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere the child needed to hear. “This is what we’ve got.”

The young man stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said. With nothing left to say, he walked out of the room and back to the table he had eaten at the previous night.

He sat down at the table on his cushion and waited for Gibbs’s wife to return. She was presumably setting things straight with Gibby, making sure he understood what was happening and that it was simply a necessity. It shouldn’t have been, but it was. When she returned from wherever she left Gibby, the young man looked at her with a cocked eyebrow.

She sighed. “I can’t believe this had to happen this way,” she said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the young man said. “I wish humans weren’t such a source of trouble.”

“It isn’t your fault,” she replied. “And my name is Sherry, by the way.”

“Right,” the young man said. “Well, Sherry, I wish I hadn’t caused so much trouble.”

“It’s fine,” Sherry said. “As long as they don’t know you’re here in the town, they won’t bother us for anything more than the usual payment. We just have to keep your existence a secret, for your safety and ours.”

“They shouldn’t even be able to extort you like that,” the young man said, growing frustrated with the willingness with which these ponies went along with the situation. “Can’t you reach out to someone who can help?”

“We’ve tried,” Sherry began with a sad tone. “We reached out to Celestia, but she can’t get her guards out here this far to do something. They aren’t able to get through the griffin lands or other regions necessary to help us, and any way they could go isn’t worth the risk. The griffins won’t help because they’re greedy, selfish chickens.” Sherry added a spiteful spit with that last comment. “And the villages and towns are too scared to face them.”

“How many are there, total?” the young man asked. “There must be a lot to-“

“There are about thirty of them,” Sherry said.

“Thirty,” the young man deadpanned. “I thought I saw what, fifty ponies here? Other villages are similar, I imagine? If you have that many ponies, you could definitely overpower these terrorist thugs.”

“Maybe,” Sherry said. “But they have actual weapons and armor and some are even trained extensively to fight. We can’t handle that; each of them could take ten of us, easily.”

The young man sighed. “Everything is a weapon, and it’s all about how you use it. Every person can take a dozen people if they think about it right. That’s all it takes.”

Sherry frowned at the young man. “Well, most of us don’t have what it takes, I guess.”

The young man sighed. “I guess not.”

“Well, it’s fine. We’ve dealt with this all our lives. Once you’re off to find your way home, everything will return to normal.” Sherry turned to walk away when she finished.

“Is that really what you want, though?” the young man asked. Sherry paused for a moment, then continued and left the room. The young man sighed. “These poor ponies…”

With nothing else to do, the young man went off to find Gibby and check on how the little guy was coping. He just watched his father being beaten, though there was a pretty solid chance it wasn’t the first time. It would still affect the kid a lot, though, so the young man thought it would be good for Gibby to get some positive human perspective.

He checked throughout the house, but neither Gibby nor his mother was still home. They had both gone out, it seemed. With nothing to do in the house, since talking was, without a doubt, bad for Gibbs, he decided to go outside again and see the goings-ons of the village.

He walked outside into the bright sunlight and moderately chilly air to see most of the townsponies just going about their daily lives and chores. It was as if nothing had happened. Rolling barrels, stacking hay, assorting tools, everything was the perfect picture of normalcy. If not for the events of that morning, that is.

When the young man walked out into the town, most of the ponies slowed what they were doing to watch him. He only wore Gibbs’s curtains, though he did still have his underwear on underneath, so he wasn’t going freebird. It looked more like a Roman toga than anything.

After the initial shock of seeing the human again, the ponies all went back to work. They seemed to be rushing it a bit, like the assault that morning had disrupted them and they had to get back on schedule. It was weird to see a people, or ponies, oppressed to the point it was normal.

He looked around at the town. Most of the buildings were visible, and almost all were homes. Behind them were little farms, where the probably mostly just grew their own food. If they were supposed to make money off crops, they must have been valuable, and likely questionable, crops. He wasn’t in a position to judge, though, especially not when that was what kept all these ponies alive.

These ponies went about everything so normally that it looked like there was really no helping them. The situation was so hopeless; they had come to accept these thugs lording over them. They couldn’t and wouldn’t fight back, and were evidently more than willing to take a beating just to survive. If they even did survive.

The young man sighed and decided not to think about it for now, instead choosing to continue going through the town and see what it had. It was all the same as what he had just seen as he walked out of the house, though, so he opted to talk to a resident instead. There was a pony just minding her own business off to the side, rolling barrels, who seemed like a perfectly good conversational partner.

“Hey there,” he said as he approached. The mare didn’t look up. “I’m the human who just-“

“Please, I really need to catch up to my work,” the mare said. So she was on a schedule.

“Alright,” the young man replied. “Mind if I ask you something while you work?”

“I guess,” the mare replied.

“I was told that I was pulled out of the water,” he asked. “Do you have any idea where that water might be?”

“It’s right on the other side of those trees,” the mare replied, briefly pointing to a tree line behind the house she was nearby. The area was a moderately thick forest. “It’s a little reservoir that was dug here a long time ago. Your metal thing is still down there, leaking stuff into our water.” The mare added a quick look of annoyance at the young man as she said.

“Not my fault,” the young man replied angrily. “I didn’t choose to come to this freakish world.” The mare shrunk back. “Sorry.”

“No, I get it,” she said. “We’re just all on edge right now. It happens every time the Blooded Tong come after us.”

“I can imagine, miss..?” the young man asked.

“Kimmy,” the mare replied.

“Kimmy,” the young man said. “How far is it to the water?”

“About twenty feet past the trees and you’re there,” Kimmy said. “You can go check it out any time you want. It’s just a reservoir, no river or anything leading into it, so there isn’t any flow, and the temperature is pretty constant right now.”

“I might have to check on it later,” the young man said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kimmy replied. She refocused on her work, and the young man left her where she was.

Well, now he at least knew where all of his stuff was. He couldn’t go get it now, not in his current condition, but soon, he would at least try to get down to the car. He knew he would need fins, but those would come soon enough. Normal goggles also wouldn’t work; he would need a diving mask. He would mention it to Gibbs later to make sure he could get to everything and wear actual clothes.

He had always liked that gi and how comfortable it was. Though, he certainly never expected he would end up wearing it as his only outfit. But when life throws you a curve ball, you gotta adjust your swing, or you’ll end up striking out real fast.

Comments

[Amethyst Blade]

Well, there is the target to take out his Anger on.
Terrorism is a death sentence.

[Prismmirror]

I don’t think you can swim twenty-five feet down like that, ...

He knew he would need fins, but those would come soon enough. Normal goggles also wouldn’t work; he would need a diving mask.

Did you mean 25 meters? 25 feet, while not a minor depth, is not so deep that you need assistive devices. The free-diving record is over 800 feet, after all, so if this human is 'exceptional' and scuba dives recreationally, I would think he could handle 25ft in fresh water without huge troubles.