There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

by chasethebrony

Ch 6: Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones

Having the crap beaten out of you sucks. It especially sucks when they tie you up afterwards. And being dragged for what seems like miles across a dry riverbed sucks more. Then having them bring you into a war camp and having strange ponies poke you with pointy instruments to figure out what the hell you are is just about pinning the Suck-meter. Knowing that the likelihood of being able to go home and see my family again is the worst feeling. Ever.

I am not normally easy to catch by surprise, but when I was trying to understand the pony I held hostage I had let my guard down. Call it awe that I could learn to communicate with them, or just excitement over this new development, but whatever it was, they got me good.

When the screaming started, my first reaction was to stand up. Which was pretty impossible since the cave’s ceiling was only about a meter high. After bashing my head on the ceiling, I looked over to see my prisoner shouting something at the door.

Then, I decided to try and escape. Shambling over to my bag, I frantically started grabbing my gear when three more winged horses jumped me and beat the crap out of me.

So, here I am, tied up, fuming, and naked in the bottom of what looks like a former apple storage cellar.

Yes, they took all my clothes too. Don’t want me to be hiding any sort of “surprise” I guess.

Several times a purple rhinorse (what I call the horses with horns) and several armed guards came in and tried to talk to me. I didn’t understand any of it. They also tried to make me talk by pantomiming what they wanted me to do.

Still angry about my capture, I refused. I just sat there trying to shoot anger powered lasers out of my eyes in the hopes that I would actually manage to incinerate them with hate alone.

To nobody’s surprise, it didn’t work.

Eventually, they just pushed some food and water in the door and left me alone.

It would work, if it wasn’t for the fact that they provided no utensils and I couldn’t use my hands.

Eventually my hunger and thirst won out, and I ate and drank by sticking my face in the bowl and trying to eat from there.
After eating, I just sat in the semi-darkness and just wished I had my book. At least then I could lose myself in a story and get away from all the suck that was the past couple days.

Lost in Translation

“Grr, why won’t this stupid monster cooperate with my interrogations!” shouted a very sleep-deprived Twilight Sparkle. “All I need to do is to get him to talk, even a little, and I could use those words as the basis for my trans-language communication spell!”

At a loss for words, Spike just settled for cleaning up the Library and hoping that Twilight would get over her little manic-obsessive phase quickly. Just as he was about to reshelf a pile of books, a shouted epiphany caused him to drop them all and fall to the ground.

“Aha! Maybe if we get Fluttershy in the room with him, we can try to get it to talk. ‘Shy said that they actually managed to communicate, so maybe recreating the same situation will encourage it to talk!”

“Uh, Twilight? How exactly are we going to do that right now? Its 3am and most likely, everypony is asleep.”

Twilight looked a bit crestfallen that her plan couldn't be enacted immediately (because genius doesn’t wait for anything!), but decided that he was right in the end. After having had an extremely traumatic couple days, the timid pegasus would probably need the rest to be able to gather her courage to try and speak with the creature.

Putting up her books, Twilight brushed her teeth, tucked spike into his basket and went to bed.

Once Caught, Twice Shy

When I got thrown into here, they took all my stuff. Clothes, watch, everything. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, except that it’s cold in here. Not having a watch sucks as well. Not having any real way to determine the time really messes up my internal clock.

So far I have been fed and watered three times. Each time the guards come in and place the meal and water by the door and leave it there for me to “enjoy”.

Other than eating and any other necessary bodily functions, I have been sitting here thinking. Thinking about home mostly, but also about things like bacon, books, and counting my fingers to pass the time. For a while I tried to draw in the dirt, but it is hard to draw with your hands tied behind your back.

After lying down and drifting in and out of unconsciousness for a while, the door opened again. This time there were four horses that came in; two guards, the purple horned horse and Fluttershy. I brightened up at the sight of Fluttershy hoping that somehow she convinced the others that I wouldn’t kill them.

But she stayed almost hidden behind the guards while the purple one approached. Talking in their weird horsey language it rambled on and on and on. Even the guard’s eyes looked a little glazed over at the barrage of words.

Finally it turned to face me and it gestured for me to talk.

My throat dry an cracking due to long silence I managed to croak out one word.

“Fluttershy?”

At her name, she seemed torn between coming over to me and trying to curl up even more and hide. Eventually she settled for sticking out her head and waying my name.

“Jake?” ecstatic that we were actually communicating, I hoped that maybe she could help me get out of this predicament.

“Help me Fluttershy...”

When I started talking the purple one perked up and began to focus on my words. As I tried to make Fluttershy understand what was going on, I noticed that the purple horse’s horn began to glow.

Spellbound

As soon as the beast began making its guttural noises (which Fluttershy had assured her was its speech) Twilight began to prepare her translation spell. Focusing on the words it was speaking, she began to weave the magic necessary to turn those words into equestrian. As she was casting her spell she noticed that the creature was beginning to look at her. First with curiosity, then with apprehension and fear as the overglow on her horn continued growing.

Finally, the spell was ready.

“Look away everypony, this may damage your vision for a while!” she cried out.

Once the guards and Fluttershy had averted their eyes, Twilight released the spell onto the beast.

Then something strange happened.

Instead of the spell carefully laying itself over the creature and binding itself to it, it seemed to suddenly destabilize and then it disappeared altogether. Looking frantically, she couldn’t even sense any lingering traces of magic that would accompany a spell failure or even a successful cast.

It was as if the spell had never existed at all.

Becoming frantic, she began to try to recast it with what she could remember of the sounds the beast made. Just as she was building her power again, a new voice was heard in the room.

“Well, that was unexpected”

Translation is Magic

When the purple horse’s glow covered me, I expected it to hurt. A lot.

But, instead of it hurting, tingling or otherwise being uncomfortable I just felt something funny.

It was like when you change altitudes and you “pop” your ears to equalize the pressure in your inner ear. Similar to that, but it just felt different.

Either way, I did what anyone would do when they need to pop their ears (or whatever it was).

I popped it.

As soon as I did several things happened:

First: the glow surrounding me disappeared.

Second: I felt as if some part of me I never knew I had was being filled

Lastly: I really had to pee.

This took me completely by surprise.

“Well that was unexpected” I mused aloud.

It was then that I noticed that the ponies in the room were staring at me.

“What? Did I grow another head or something?”

Then I heard some muttering to the left of me. The purple one was mumbling under its breath

“How is that possible? There wasn’t even any residual magic left over from the spell. It wasn’t spell failure, power loss, or spontaneous interdimensional magic leakage. mumblemumblemubmle”

“Uh, Excuse me, but can you please untie me? I am losing circulation in some of my extremities.” I asked as nice as I possibly could.

That caused the shocked pony to look at me like I had grown a second head.

“Seriously, I am getting some really bad cramps in my biceps and hammies right now. I promise to be good.” This time I tried adding a reassuring smile to it.

Everyone was still staring at me. This was getting weird. Time to change tactics.

“Fluttershy?”

A muffled meep was heard from a yellow and pink ball hiding under one of the guards
“I just wanted to let you know that I am sorry for capturing you. Nothing personal, I just didn’t want to be found out and caught” Looking around at where I was I added “Not that it helped in the end.”

She then peeked out from under her bangs and kept staring at me. I was getting nothing from Fluttershy. Time to change again.

“You, Purple horse thing with the glowing horn. Can you please untie me? I really have to pee.”

That seemed to knock it out of its shock.

“Well, for one, I am Twilight Sparkle and a she. Not ‘purple horse thing with a horn’ or ‘it’. And we are ponies. Not ‘horse things’. I am more interested in what exactly you are.”

“Well the short version is this: My name is Jake. I am a human (Homo sapiens) who got sucked away from my nice relaxing hiking trip and got dumped into an unfamiliar place with strange talking horses who seem to want to capture me and I miss my family. Now can you please untie me, I REALLY have to pee.”

“Ok ‘Jake’, but if you so much as make a wrong move, I am going to restrain you with my magic again.”

Then her horn glowed again and my ropes began to loosen. That is, until I felt the magic brush my bare hands. Suddenly I felt that pressure again. So I ‘popped’, and the magic disappeared again. But at least the ropes were loose enough that I could shake them off.

Twilight got that puzzled/shocked look again and the mumbling started anew. Shrugging off the rest of the ropes I stooped over and hobbled over to a corner of the cellar and relieved myself.

Just a note: having people watch you pee is never fun. Especially if they have never seen a two legged beast do it.

By the time I had finished, Twilight had shaken herself out of her mumblefest and apparently decided what to do about all this.

“Excuse me... Jake. If you don’t mind, I will need to leave you in here for a bit while I go get in contact with my superiors. We will return with food in a little while.”

With that she turned to go away, but I quickly shouted out and stopped her before she left the area.

“Wait! Can you do me a huge favor please?”

“What is it?”

“Can you bring my some of my clothes, a light and my e-reader?”

“What is an e-reader?”

“It’s a small grey slate looking device in my backpack. It is in a black case and it should be in the side pocket”

“Uh, I will ask if that is ok. What exactly does it do?”

“It electronically stores thousands of books for me to peruse while I travel”

At the mention of books her eyes widened a little and a small smile appeared on her face.

“Did you say thousands of books?”

“Uh, yes. It stores them electronically as data and displays them on the screen. My model is a bit on the old side, but I should have somewhere on the order of one or two thousand books on it.”

Suddenly awed at the prospect of so much concentrated knowledge, Twilight almost sped out the door and paused at the entrance.

“I will be able to get you your clothes back Jake. Just hold on a bit”

And with that they all left and once again I was left to the darkness and my thoughts.

A/N: Please comment and let me know what you think of the story so far. Your feedback helps me improve my writing and the plot. Thanks!

Comments

[Bomarck]

Huh, I like the negating(absorbing?) magic aspect.