What Have I Done

by Aesculapius

II

The earth sizzled as a wormhole formed inside it and incinerated roughly 300 pounds of dirt. Ejecting a slew of electrically charged particles, it dissolved. For a few moments, the particles floated around aimlessly, but as they began to lose their charge, they began drawing near to each other, slowly binding together. Bone, muscle, flesh, and then clothes bound together silently, as Bernard's body was made whole once again. His heart and organs were stopped, but a final electrical discharge began them again.

Face forming a silent scream, it closed slowly, like an old door. He snapped his eyes open. A huge amount of adrenaline had flooded his system before the atomitization began, and he had difficulty keeping his heart rate down. Taking deep breaths and swearing profusely seemed to work, and he employed that method for some time.
Finally, he found his bearings and began to assess his current location. He was in a small, dimly lit earthen cavern, and one that was sparse in oxygen. He looked around for the source of light, and realized that it was coming through cracks in boards above his head.

"What the hell?" he wondered aloud. Perhaps the oxygen deprivation was making him calmer.

Bernard pounded on the board directly atop of him once, and heard a quiet, high voice ask; "W-who's there?" He pounded once more, and heard a body fall to the floorboards feet first. Pounding again, he heard what seemed to be feet thudding nearer to his location, when all of a sudden, he heard a feminine voice close to his head. "I-Is that you, Mr. Gopher, stuck under there, again?" Intensely confused, Bernard muttered to himself; "What the hell is a Mr. Gopher?" He waited for the voice to continue. "Oh, no. It is, isn't it?" Her voice grew in volume. "Don't worry, you, I'll get my friend Applejack, she'll be able to get you out of there in no time. You stay put." She rushed away, and Bernard knew he had little time to act. "Wait- lady." He called out. The hoof beats faltered. She asked in a terrified whisper; "Y-yes?" She trailed off to a barely audible whisper.

He sighed. In the calmest, most restrained manner he could manage, he said; "I... appreciate you trying to go get one of your friends, but since I am going to choke to death before you can come back, I am going to just punch through your floor, instead. Is that okay?"

She replied softly; "N-No.." He shook his head and said "Well, too bad." Gritting his teeth, he gathered what strength he had left, pulled back his arm, and punched the floorboard directly on top of him three feet into the air. Grimacing, he exclaimed quietly "Damn it," as he shook his bruised fist gingerly.

Hearing a terrified "Eep." from the woman whose house he was breaking into, he decided to continue. He punched the second floorboard out of the floor and pulled himself slowly out.
When he had gotten his breath back, he looked across the room while saying; "Well, thanks for letting me, uh, punch a hole through your flo..." His voice trailed off. Standing across the room from him, was a yellow horse about a quarter of the real size of a horse, with a pink mane, pink tail, and two of the most enormous eyes you could imagine, while he noticed a look of complete, abject horror on her face.
He said slowly, in a manner of someone reaching for a gun to shoot a rattlesnake; "What the .. fuck are y-"
"EIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" it replied, and it sprinted faster than it seemed was possible away from the house. "-ou?" He finished.

* * *
He realized, in a confused daze, that if she spoke like a human, then she would likely do the obvious thing that a human would do if an alien broke through her floor and gather as many people as she could to find him. He was right. Not 5 minutes later, he heard thundering hoof steps drawing nearer and nearer to his location. Thinking instinctively, he sprinted for the nearest window, wrenched it open, and prepared to squeeze through and escape. Then, he stopped. Heart racing and arthritis acting up, he realized that he was in no way able to out run a horse.
"I'm too old and fat for this shit." He sighed.
Sitting down on one of the tiny chairs in the house, near the hole he had created, he faced the door and waited for horses to burst in.

Slamming back the door, a cyan blur called out; "Get him, girls!" as 4 other ponies burst in. Judging by their faces, they were ready for a fight, too.

He wasn't. Never one to back down from a challenge, though, he stood and asked only a simple question:
"Why?"

The horse's faces changed to those of bewilderment. With the silence, he was able to look at all the horses individually. All of them absurdly colored; a cyan blue... Pegasus, with a mane and tail colored like a rainbow floated directly above his head. Then was a purple...Unicorn...? He looked at the other 3 and saw two slightly normal ponies, orange and pink, and another unicorn, white.
"What the hay are you?" they inquired.

Mouth dry, he replied; "I'm Bernard... Bernard Petrolli."

"No." The purple unicorn spoke. "Not who are you, what are you?"

"I'm human." he said lamely.

She looked even more confused at this; "What's a human?"

"This has to be a hallucination." He thought. No sane mind could possibly come up with this. Still, he had no idea how to continue, so he blindly answered her question. "It-it's what I am."

The cyan pegasus laughed above his head: "He got you there, Twi."

At this, the purple unicorn lost her attention a little, and all of a sudden, he felt less nervous.

"He has not, I-I knew he was a Huh-man..."
The orange pony, the one with a blonde mane, asked the others in a southern accent; "Say, girls, why don't we bring in Fluttershy- see if this is the thing she was so scared by. Ah thought she was talking about a monster."
The purple one said; "Good idea, Applejack. Fluttershy!"
There was silence. She called again.

"Fluttershy!"

When no noise was heard after ten seconds, the purple one said; "Oh, for goodness' sake." in an exasperated voice and closed her eyes. Immediately, her horn began glowing and he jumped back in fear. The group all looked surprised as he took cover behind the chair.
The cyan Pegasus burst into laughter. "He's scared of your horn, Twilight!"
While the Pegasus kept laughing, the purple Unicorn looked concerned, and spoke to Bernard.
"Um, are you alright?"
Bernard looked at her strangely before he responded.
"I'm sorry, but the way I see it, things don't glow unless they're going to explode."
She smiled and replied: "Well, I can assure you that that isn't going to happen. Okay?"
He frowned. Alright, enough with the mollycoddling. Standing, he nodded curtly. As he did so, she closed her eyes again, and her horn began to glow again. Through the open doorway, came the yellow pony that he saw earlier, enveloped in a glow much like the unicorn's horn. He realized she was a pegasus also, as he looked at her wings. Once she was released from the magic, it took an instant for her to stare again at Bernard, yelp, and hide behind the orange pony and the white unicorn. The purple unicorn spoke.

"Well, now that the gang's all here. Where were we?"

He frowned once again.

"We were in the process of finding out what this...this lunacy is?"

She looked around confused.

"This isn't lunacy. This is Equestria." The others gave noises of consent.
He was getting more annoyed as this conversation continued, but he decided to keep calm and play what he considered the trump card.
"Look- lady. Since I have no flipping idea what is happening here, how about you just take me to your...governing body."
The purple unicorn looked relieved. It seemed to be a winning idea.
"Alright. We'll take you to Canterlot. Fluttershy, are you alright?"
The orange pony spoke again. "Now wait a moment, here, sugarcube. He should at least apologize after he broke through her floor."
His anger flared.
"Why, no, I won't apologize, because I would have died if I hadn't."

She looked insulted. "Why, no? Ah don't think-"

The yellow pegasus interrupted.
"Um... I don't really care, and he was choking." She again trailed off to silence.

The orange pony looked miffed, but said no more. The purple unicorn spoke:
"So it's settled. Uh, Barn-ard? Could you come with me?"
He cleared his throat and replied "Yes." Although slightly daunted about traveling through a land of sentient ponies, he wouldn't have personally admitted it to anyone.
They set off from Fluttershy's house in silence, him in the meantime noting that it was more of a tree than a house, until the unicorn started a new conversation.

"So, your name is... Barn-ard?"

He was a little irritated just hearing his name mangled like that, so he responded.

"Bernard. Yes."
She smiled politely, which he thought was strange, and replied:
"It's very nice to meet you, Bernard. I'm Twilight Sparkle."
He frowned at her. "Why are you emphasizing our names?"
She looked confused. "Well, you did it and I-"
"No." He interrupted. "It's Bernard. Just Bernard."
"Oh." She replied with a look of comprehension on her face. "Well, then, nice to meet you, Just Bernard."

He stopped. "Look, are you stupid or something? My name is Bernard! It has been for 62 damned years! You understand?"

She looked hurt. "I'm sorry, Bernard. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

He looked over her and sighed. "It-it's... not your fault," he muttered, irritated that he just said that.

She cheered up quickly. "Oh, good. Now, the balloon's right up ahead."

"Balloon?" he asked in his head. Outwardly he grunted "Fine," and continued walking.
She continued to lead him down the road into a relatively large town, where she went into a alleyway. He followed, wondering where she might be headed, and suddenly she made a left turn right to a large hot air balloon where a large purple, green, and tan lizard stood on its hind legs nearby.
He stopped, unsure of what to be wary of, the lizard or the balloon. He look over at the uni- Twilight Sparkle- as she trotted over to where the lizard was standing. She called;

"Hi, Spike!"

Bernard chuckled and began walking closer to where they were standing. "Some damn queer idea of a pet animal, but, what the hell?" He thought. The lizard looked directly at him as he approached, and he opened his mouth to ask Twilight Sparkle if she would be bring her pet, but then the lizard opened its mouth and asked;

"What is it?"

He stopped, dumbfounded. "Did that lizard just say something?" he thought.
Twilight Sparkle spoke to the lizard again in a tone of scolding it, saying;

"Spike, he is a "Human" and his name is Bernard."

The lizard looked embarrassed, as much as it was possible for a lizard to look embarrassed, and quickly extended a pudgy clawed hand.
"Uh... Sorry. I'm Spike; Twilight Sparkle's assistant."
Bernard shook Spike's hand weakly.

"Uh, and you are... a-a sentient lizard?" He muttered, partially to himself.

Spike looked highly insulted.

"I am not a lizard. I'm a dragon."

"O-of course." Bernard said shakily, trying to maintain his grip on reality. Inwardly, his reeling mind could only compose the calm, well-mannered thought of "What the fucking fuck?" and he realized that that would not be the appropriate statement for the situation.

The...dragon- Spike, seemed to forget insults quickly, and turned to Twilight Sparkle.

"The balloon is all ready to go, Twilight." he saluted.

She giggled, and replied; "Thank you, Captain Spike." as they climbed into the basket. They then turned to Bernard.
"Coming, Bernard?" Spike asked shortly.

Bernard looked imperiously at the balloon, then back at Twilight Sparkle.
"Uh... I'm 6'1'' and weigh 220 pounds... is it even safe?"

She giggled again and replied: "Well, of course. It's powered by magic."

"Oh, well, as long as it's a fictional power source of fairy tales powering it. Hell, I'll just jump right on with that guarantee," he thought. But again, he responded civilly:

"I-I'd rather not," he grunted.

She stared at him with absolutely no emotion. Then she asked sweetly:
"Well, it's what you wanted to do, right? Go see our leader?"

After a pause, he responded lamely; "Yes."

She continued: "Oh, that's just fine then, well how about you just take the train? It'll only take you, oh, I don't know, two weeks. But, hey, it's your choice." She smiled kindly at him.

He frowned sourly.

"Fine." He said. "Fine." He clambered into the basket. She smiled again, and immediately, the balloon began rising. "I... should have mentioned my fear of heights." he thought. To keep himself distracted, and only in his moment of desperation, he asked her something he had noticed on the ponies on the way here, and on her as well; their tattoos.
"W...why do you all have those tattoos on your- asses?" He said, pointing.

She looked confused at first, but a look of comprehension dawned on her face.
"Oh, you mean our Cutie Marks? On our flanks?"

He stared at her blankly.

"S-sure."

"Well, they're what show each other what our special talents are. Don't you have one?"

"...No." He said slowly.

"Oh." She replied. "Well, um, since my special talent is magic, my cutie mark is three magic crystals. And since Applejack is a apple orchard owner, her cutie mark is apples."

"Applejack?"

"The orange mare?"

He scowled. "Ah."

She looked sad at his reaction.

"Oh, no, she's a nice person, she-she just doesn't really like outsiders, and she especially doesn't like strangers."

He stared at her yet again. "Well, I'd probably qualify as both."

She pursed her lips and looked sad again.
"I know, it-it's not your fault. She just- just-"

"Just wha-"

He was silenced as the balloon burst through the cloud cover and a huge castle, seemingly hanging off the side of the massive mountain, loomed into view.

She smiled at his agape mouth, which he quickly closed, and announced: "Welcome to Canterlot, home of the Princesses Celestia and Luna, rulers over all of Equestria."

Bernard was incredibly depressed to note that the fact that the government was a dictatorial monarchy was the least surprising thing he had heard all day.

* * *

Comments

[Major Tom]

Well, it is the first Human in Equestria story that I read that features an old man. Finally found an original idea for a HiE story.

[mercva]

Agreed, this should be good. He should have more life experience and knowledge of how the world works (not to mention history) to draw on while comparing Equestria to Earth.