Chapter 1
Eric should've been watching the road.
That task was not made easy on this particular evening, with pouring rain striking against the front of his vehicle with such ferocity that he could barely see the road through the deluge. Fortunately the roads in Livingston were wide, and the awful weather would keep others from driving out here.
Anyone with common sense was already at home right now, rather than subjecting themselves to the storm. Eric had neither kind of cents, which was why he was out in the first place.
There were no streetlights, just a vast expanse of nothing, broken occasionally by flashes of distant lightning, or the rumble that followed.
His truck was the nicest thing he owned—practically a requirement to get through Livingston’s roads in winter. Even the reliable pickup seemed to struggle in the downpour. Mud drifted across the road in places, and pools of water spread ahead of the vehicle in a wave.
"Are you even listening to me?" asked Kent, his voice coming in thin and distorted over the speakerphone in Eric's lap.
"I was listening. Come in first shift tomorrow, right boss? I'll be there."
There was no payoff from the plant manager. Not even a quiet grunt of approval. "Looking at your numbers here. Your line is already on thin ice with me. You haven't met your production quota this quarter. I expect you to start making up ground in the next few days. Annual review is next month, and—"
Eric was mostly listening. It was the same lecture he got whenever the manager called, the same one that most of the other workers probably got. At the same time, he also had both hands on the wheel, carefully steering his truck along the road into Livingston.
Even that attention wasn't enough, as something swerved into the road ahead of him. Eric pumped the brakes rather than flooring them, not trusting the ABS. Even so, his truck started to hydroplane, drifting into the empty oncoming lane.
He didn't scream—instead, both hands locked to the wheel, whole body going suddenly white, ignoring his phone as it smacked into the wheel, then vanished to the floor of the cab. Nothing mattered but keeping on the road, and avoiding—
Without the rain, he might've made it. With it, he smacked into a dark shape, a second before coming to a stop. He heard a strange reverberation of metal on metal, then felt the jerk.
His airbag exploded into his face a few milliseconds later.
The next thing Eric knew, he was stopped in the road, staring into a gradually deflating white pouch. He was dazed with pain at first, listening to the constant hammer of rain against his cab.
He pushed the deflating airbag away, groaning. It hurt to move, hurt to even think. That pain came from the bag far more than the crash. The front of his truck wasn't smoking, or crushed into a crater.
One headlight was out, but the other still shone steadily, outlining a short distance onto the road ahead of him.
There was something laying there, almost directly in his path. Eric's eyes strained to focus on it, resolving what unfortunate animal had met its end tonight. Of all the times to cross the road, you had to choose right now.
It was much too small to be a cow, or else he'd be meeting his maker along with the animal. Livingston had plenty of deer, but most would be bigger than that. His eyes rebelled at that assertion. He saw something silver around it, maybe a harness or a collar? God, I killed someone's pet.
He didn't have time for this. Hadn't he been talking to someone?
Eric's phone was sitting on the floor of the cab, screen now cracked into splinters. Miraculously, it was still on, still connected. "Hello?" he asked.
"What happened?" Kent demanded. "I heard something loud, then you went quiet. Thought maybe we'd been disconnected."
"Accident," he answered, groggily. "Deer, I think."
There was a brief silence on the other end. When Kent spoke again, his voice was much mellower. "On the road back into Livingston? Should I call the police?"
Police meant insurance would find out. It might mean a tow and an ambulance. Eric could afford none of those things, let alone what would happen if he didn't show up to work the next day. "I feel... fine," he said. "I got off better than the deer. Might need a new bumper is all."
"Oh. If you're sure." Kent hesitated. "Call me if you can't make it in to first shift. But if your car still drives, and you're still breathing, I'll expect you here." The line clicked, then fell silent.
Eric tossed his broken phone onto the seat beside him. He wasn't even sure he could call his boss back. I should get the corpse out of the road, he thought. Even that big, it could knock someone into a ditch.
He was going to hobble into work tomorrow exhausted and covered in bruises—but at least the next person to come along the road wouldn't end up dead. Eric zipped up his jacket, smacked his hazards with a fist, then stumbled out of the car.
He kept to the glow of his working headlight as he walked. The streetlights of Livingston shone an inviting amber in the distance, but there would probably not be anyone coming out along the road towards him. So long as no one smacked into the back of his pickup, he'd be fine.
He stopped over the unfortunate animal corpse, shielding his face from the downpour with one hand. Its shape and colors were mostly obscured by the darkness and rain. Even so, what he saw bewildered and confused him.
It wasn't a deer. Instead he was looking at a horse. Its specific shade of gray was definitely unusual, but nowhere near as strange as everything else about it.
The metal glint he'd seen was a harness around his body, though constructed far more like armor than something used to ride him. At that size, the animal would've been useless for riding except for all but the smallest children anyway.
The armor was silver and purple, far too showy to be practical, with an open eye cast in metal to fasten across the breast.
The shadow of the animal confused his eyes, bending around more body than should be there. He thought he saw another pair of limbs sprawled away from it, huge and feathery. Whose petting zoo animal had wandered out into a storm, wearing a show harness and fake wings?
The one thing he didn’t see much of was blood, or some gruesome viscera spread across the highway. The animal even had a helmet, which had insulated its head from the crash. "Shit. You're not a deer. Where the hell did you come from?"
The animal reacted. It turned its head up towards Eric, fixing him with huge, intelligent eyes. "H-help... me."
It took Eric's brain several seconds to process what he had just heard. The voice wasn't human exactly, but his words were so clear! "I must be imagining things," he muttered to himself. "You can't be talking to me." Eric dropped to one knee beside the animal, just over his head. "If you're alive, say something."
The animal groaned, shifting his legs under him. He managed to extend one leg further than the others, pointing off into the gloom. "Book. Can't... help..." He slumped to the ground seconds later. Whether dead or just unconscious, the darkness and pouring rain did not make it easy to say.
What the hell do I do now? Eric could move the horse-thing off the road, but that might not be enough. He couldn't see the extent of his injuries in the pouring rain. Even if the animal was totally healthy right now, he might drown or freeze if left out overnight.
He had to be seeing things. Eric had just been in an accident. He'd been hit by an airbag, with who knew what side-effects as a result.
It spoke to me. He turned away from the animal, shielding his face against the rain. If this was all his delirious imagination, then he was really looking at an ordinary animal, probably a dead one. It wouldn't be talking to him, and it certainly wouldn't be saying anything true.
There was an oversized lump on the road, tucked inside something glittering and metallic. It was halfway into the opposite lane, just close enough for him to see clearly. Eric made his slow way over, then scooped it up with one hand.
It was a bag of some kind, covered with little silvery studs like the ones on the animal's armor. It was still sturdily closed, protecting its contents from the downpour. Inside was the unmistakable lump of a book. It was thicker than a textbook and quite heavy for its size, though it was too dark to see clearly. As he lifted it, his boot struck something metallic, which rolled away from him. Not a piece of scrap metal on the road—a spear? Only it was too small to be practically wielded. Not by a human being, anyway.
I didn't imagine it. He really spoke.
That was everything he needed to be spurred into action. Eric tossed the book into the open passenger-side door, then removed a towel from the back of the cab, the one he used to cover the windshield when he knew it was about to snow. It was torn and dusty by now, but that part didn't matter.
All he needed was a way to get this creature into his car without hurting it.
"Listen to me," he said, dropping down beside it again. "If you can understand me, I'm trying to help. Please don't... bite me or whatever." Horses could bite, but he was far more worried about those hooves. They weren't just sturdy, but he was wearing purple metallic boots over each hoof.
The accident hadn't killed Eric, but one of those to the head certainly could.
But if the animal was awake, it made no sign. He dropped down beside it, feeling at its coat. He was still breathing, though each breath came labored and unsteady.
It took a few minutes to get the animal positioned between the instantly soaking-wet towel. He was heavy, but Eric was strong.
The hardest part was just how awkwardly-shaped the animal was. Its wings didn't slide off the harness when he moved it—they felt warm to the touch, the feathers soft and yielding. Real and alive, somehow.
Eventually he got the passenger door open, and heaved the animal inside. The bed might be Eric's safer choice, but it was also full of metal scrap and coils of copper he hadn't got around to taking in for sale quite yet. He lifted the spear from the road and tossed it in back. It might be small, but that tip looked sharp. Better get it off the road before some kid found it and hurt themselves.
Finally he clambered into the cab, and eased onto the accelerator. Miraculously, his pickup started moving again, albeit with a rattling sound that he didn't remember. It was barely audible over the clattering rain anyway, so hopefully something that he could forget about for the time being.
The storm only grew more intense outside, forcing his already slow drive to go even slower. Having only a single headlight certainly didn't help.
"Where the hell did you come from?" he asked. Mostly to himself, given the animal seemed totally unconscious. "You're lucky the weather was so bad. I normally take this road at 80—we'd probably both be dead if I had."
The animal didn't reply, of course. Maybe it never had.
Eric eventually reached Livingston, passing onto smoother concrete roads and into the steady amber glow of streetlights. There were a handful of other cars on the road, but thankfully none of them were highway patrol, ready to give him a ticket he couldn't pay for to add to his already disastrous evening.
He crossed to almost the opposite side of town, where a complex of old duplexes sat past an abandoned gas station and a few busted streetlights. Gus’s van wasn't parked in front of the house—that meant no roommate, and no awkward questions about why he was bringing an animal into the house.
"I don't have the money for a vet," he said, as he put the truck into park. There was a slight groan as the vehicle settled—hopefully not a sign of things to come. "But I've got a first-aid kit inside. If I can help you, I will."
The animal did not reply, or even react. I hope I'm not still hallucinating from a concussion or something. Eric should go to the hospital for himself, and get checked out.
But that would take insurance or cash, and he had neither.
He stumbled out the door, then hobbled to the passenger side. He would do what he could for the strange animal. The rest could wait.
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Hmm. Interesting start, smacking into a Royal Guard on Earth. Let's see where this whole book thing goes.
500 words in and we’ve already had our pony-human contact. Some of the quickest beginnings I’ve ever seen in a Starscribe story.
I’m not sorry for the pun.
Annnd here we go, super excited to see where this story goes
11496598
*searches* $50 she shows up.
Curious why the pony visitor is so heavily armored. Is it really a Royal Guard or some other reason for the protection?
The presence of this magic tome makes me think they're not there entirely by accident.
Well, this should certainly prove interesting. Looking forward to seeing where this is going... though the short and long descriptions do help there. All the same, should be fun.
Promising start! Looking forward to seeing where you take this!
Hmm, a Lunar Guard pegasus on Earth with a dangerous magical tome. This was Star Swirl's idea, wasn't it?
Let me guess. This is a Starscribe story, so the kirin is female.
Hmm...interesting story description and start. I shall be watching this with great interest. It's been a while since I've seen a PoE fic that caught my eye...
Couple of hours tops before this hits the featured page
11496773
already there
11496688
Aren't all kirin female?
11496808
Wait, how do they procreate then
11496822
Hmm maybe they don't age? After all we've only seen kirin at about the same age in appearance, save for the leader. And in one of the bloopers, when they were doing the singing voices of the background kirin, it was brought up something like
"Alright now let's get some guys in there"
"Oh no they're all female"
"Wait really?"
"Yeah we have the designs here if you wanna look"
No doubt Eric's about to trip into the rabbit hole.
11496808
There are. It's just difficult to tell by the kirin episode because DHX/Hasbro were either under a time crunch or a bit lazy and didnt make a custom stallion model, so used the pony mare model for both genders. The only real visual indicator for kirin stallions in the episode is that they dont have eye lashes.
derpicdn.net/img/2018/11/8/1877567/large.jpg
✌︎⧫︎ ●︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎✏︎ ✌︎■︎□︎⧫︎♒︎♏︎❒︎ ⬥︎□︎■︎♎︎♏︎❒︎♐︎◆︎●︎ ♐︎♓︎♍︎⧫︎♓︎□︎■︎ ⬥︎♓︎⧫︎♒︎ ♋︎❒︎⧫︎ ♐︎□︎❒︎ ❍︎♏︎ ⧫︎□︎ ♑︎●︎♋︎■︎♍︎♏︎ ◆︎◻︎□︎■︎✏︎
11496822
Maybe they're hermaphrodites?
Dude's in bad straights with his reality being "broke AF and just broke the car". To be fair if his pickup was in that bad of a shape that something's rattling after alln impact slow enough that he was almost stopping then there were other problems there too. But hey, adversity builds up main character suffering, and that drives stories, so let's see how this one goes!
11496829
I like 11497241 's explanation better.
Sure, you're objectively correct, but fanfiction allows us to make it cooler than "the studio was too cheap".
That or their dimorphism is actually restricted to just genitals and eyelashes, different fantasy races having different rules is cool too.
An interesting start! love the idea of this fic, i'll definitely be following THIS ONE closely...
Silver and purple with an open eye? Huh, my immediate instinct was Nightmare Moon, but doublechecking the guards pulling Luna's carriage, they have silver, while NMM's guards do not. Interesting. Meanwhile, some 'common' night guards have just simple black armour. This guard must be high ranking. Intriguing...
Hopefully he can help her(?). Shame he can't get medical assistance, though i'm sure that would raise quite a few eyebrows... Question is what a high-ranking night guard was doing on earth?
FUS RO DA
Awesome picture great start ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Woah, what’s a lunar guard doing in human world…?