Strange New World

by Boopy Doopy

Snail

Tory wondered about Sapphire Glow. She really was a character.

Smart and confident and knowledgeable and reckless and impulsive were all good words used to describe the mare. She seemed like she knew what she was talking about, but Tory didn't exactly know how trustworthy she was. How could he? They'd only known her for a few days.

He was thinking that especially now as they finished dinner and sat back in the living room to talk everything over. She paced casually while Lake sat on the couch next to him and Roxanne laid on another. She had changed into the gray stallion she had turned back up to the house in while Sapphire Glow talked.

“My mom will come around, you’ll see,” she said while she walked and stared at the ceiling. “I’m pretty sure she already likes you guys since she changed her mind about you staying here.”

“I hope so,” Tory said. “But I wouldn’t want us to stay here forever, obviously. We have to get home.”

“I know that.” Sapphire Glow waved a hoof nonchalantly. “I wanna get to Earth, too. Someplace where we don’t have to live in this dumpy little house and Mom won’t have to work so hard for money. It’s gonna be great.”

“Uh, well, you’ll still have to work on Earth…” Tory started. Roxanne gave him a look from across the room, a small shake of her head, then he continued, “But you’ll figure it out, I bet.”

“I will, I’m sure,” she smiled confidently. “Anyway, I'm gonna go take a shower now,” she said as she stretched her limbs and yawned. “I don't know about you three, but waking up at six in the morning isn't my favorite thing to do.” She paused, then smiled slyly and said, “You can join me in the shower if you want, Tory.”

Tory smirked back at her. “Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to decline. Don't wanna waste water.” Sapphire gave a hint of a chuckle, then made her way up the stairs.

“You don't like her, do you?” Lake asked with a raised eyebrow. “She's a horse.”

“Not really,” he replied, “but it pays to have good relationships with people who are letting you stay in their house for free and are helping you.”

“That's a little more than a good relationship, I think,” Lake told him. It made Roxanne laugh for some reason. “It's not gonna be good if someone as eccentric as her thinks you're leading her on.”

“It’s a good thing I said no then, isn't it?” Tory smiled. “I’m not gonna do anything with a horse, no way. That would be gross.”

“Yeah, not yet,” Roxanne half laughed, half scoffed. “You're basically flirting with her, even if you don't think you are. We all know where that's gonna lead.”

“You better run while you still can, Tory. Before she sinks her hooves into you.” Even Lake was joking now. Tory just smirked again and shook his head before standing up.

“I'm going to bed,” he decided. “You guys can stay up if you want, obviously, but I'm hoping we get a lot done tomorrow. I'll see you guys in the morning.” His friends bid him a couple of quick goodnights, then he headed up the stairs. He was barely able to turn the corner at the top to get to the bedroom though when he ran into Sapphire Glow.

“Sorry,” he quickly apologized as he shook his head and rubbed his nose, muzzle now wet with water that coated her fur. “I was heading to bed. I didn't think you'd step out after only two minutes,” he said.

“I forgot to get towels before stepping in,” she replied as she shook her coat and mane, getting water on him. Tory scrunched his nose again, and then opened his eyes to see the flirtatious, sly smile she'd put on a few times before.

“But I can head back in without them if you want,” she told him, slightly seductive. “I've always wondered how humans use their hands to keep themselves clean.”

“I guess that means you'll have to get us back to Earth to find out the answer,” he shot back without missing a beat. “It gives you another reason to help us.”

Sapphire turned and walked off, letting out a huff of a breath as she made her way to a closet in the hallway. “Humph. You're no fun,” she said as she passed. He couldn't tell if she was actually annoyed or if she was still teasing. He leaned toward guessing the latter by the way she slightly swayed her hips.

Yeah right, like I'm gonna have sex with a horse… a pony, he thought. Maybe if he met her at a bar on Earth, as a human. Absolutely no way right now.

The sleep was okay, even if it had to be on the ground now next to Lake, although he did have a strange dream about going back to Earth but being forced to remain a pony. It felt real enough that he almost thought they'd gotten back to Earth when he woke up until he realized he was still sleeping on the floor, listening to Roxanne snore. Lake didn't budge from beside him in the slightest, but the girl seemed to stir with just Tory raising his head.

“Go back to sleep,” she muttered tiredly. “It's too early to be awake.”

“You can hear me?” he whispered back curiously. “How?”

“I feel your emotions,” she said. “Now go back to sleep. Six in the morning is too early to be awake. One time was enough.”

Of course she could still read his mind, even when she was half awake. It'd be nice if Tory had a power like that.

“No it wouldn't,” Roxanne said groggily, replying to just the general thought he put out there. “Sleep.” Okay then.

He didn't follow her instructions, and instead yawned, rubbed his eyes, and stood up. Roxanne groaned from her spot on the bed and turned over, putting a pillow over her ears, but she didn't complain. Tory let her be and carefully stepped over Lake to quietly make his way downstairs.

He was surprised to see another pony awake at this hour; Shimmering Diamond had a drink held in both her hooves while she sat on the couch, reading a magazine. No beer this time though. Instead, it was hot coffee that she stirred using magic. She only glanced up at him for a second before turning her eyes back down to the magazine.

“Didn't think anypony else would be up at this time,” she said. “Even Sapphire doesn't like to be awake until at least nine in the morning. I guess you're an early bird.”

“Not really,” he said. “Just woke up early yesterday, so I didn't stay asleep this morning. Can I ask what you're doing awake at this hour though, Miss Diamond?”

“You can just call me Shim, guy,” she told him. Shimmering Diamond let out a breath and took a sip of her coffee, then continued, “I work the four-thirty shift at the factory downtown. So used to being awake in the morning that I can't help getting up early, even on my days off. Want any of this? It's in the kitchen.”

“I'll get some later, thanks.” He let a long, silent moment pass, then asked, “How many other people… ponies has Sapphire invited over about humans, uh, Shim?”

“Ha, dozens,” she chuckled. “Maybe hundreds. They all stay for a few days, eat my food, use our water, then leave without so much as a thank you cause they know they can take advantage of that filly. It honestly surprised me when your friend thanked me up front, even after I told you guys you could only be here the night.”

“Well, what can we say?” Tory smiled. “We’re grateful for your hospitality.”

She smiled back and nodded at that, taking another sip of her coffee. “Well, don’t mention it. I try to help ponies out where I can. Even if you are humoring her in this whole ‘humans’ business. What is it with you all and that, anyway? Sapphire Glow’s been on about it for years, even before she moved back to Manehattan.”

“We are humans,” he told her simply. “I don’t know how Sapphire can know about humans, but my friends and I just showed up here in Manhattan—err, Manehattan—less than a week ago from Earth. We actually are supposed to be humans. That’s the thing you saw Roxie looking like before.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s all that mare talks about, like I said.” She sighed and put her drink down, then laid back on the couch. “If you guys are really from that mythical world Sapphire always talks about, you should take me with you. Couldn’t be worse than Manehattan.” She was being mostly sarcastic, Tory could tell, but there was a smidge of sincerity there.

“With how generous you’ve been to us,” Tory told her, “it’d only be fair to let you stay in our house on Earth once we get back.” Shimmering Diamond smiled at that, then went back to her magazine. He wondered if she’d still be smiling once they were back on Earth again.

He grabbed some coffee while he stared out the window, watching the sun quickly rise and listening to birds chirp outside. Roxanne woke up next, followed by Sapphire Glow, who looked like she'd rather still be in bed despite it being eight in the morning already. Lake was the last one awake, shuffling downstairs by nine o’clock.

“I’d ask if having six limbs was weird for anyone else,” he said as he plopped down into one of the sofas next to Tory, “but I’m the only one who does. I feel kind of like an insect.”

Roxanne laughed at that. “It took you a week to realize you have six limbs?”

“No. This is just the first time I’m noticing how weird it is. It’s like I have four arms.” He wiggled his wings and forehooves for emphasis, finishing, “And I think the feathers are getting out of place because of how I slept last night. I want the bed tonight.”

It must have been a joke by the universe giving Lake wings instead of making him a regular horse like Tory. His friend not only didn't enjoy adventure, he wasn't much for excitement, either, and got motion sick easily. It would've made a lot more sense if Tory had wings like that. He'd already be trying to figure out how to fly, whereas Lake probably hadn't given it more than a passing thought. Not that Tory was jealous.

“I wonder if I could shapeshift into a bed,” Roxanne said thoughtfully, “and have myself lying on top of myself. It'd mean I wouldn't have to share a bed.”

“That seems like it would go a step above breaking the laws of physics to actively making your own new physics,” Lake commented.

“I can’t imagine what the difference between the two would be.” Then, suddenly, Roxanne turned to Tory and asked, “Are we making you jealous?”

Maybe he was a little bit envious. But who wouldn’t be? One of his friends could shapeshift, and the other one could probably fly. Tory, apparently, was intended to be good at growing plants and being strong. Not really all he was hoping for from a mythical, magical world. Not that he necessarily hoped for anything.

He smiled and laughed it off. “Nah, I’m fine,” he said with a shrug, waving a dismissive hoof. “I don’t care.” Then he turned to Sapphire, and asked, “Do you have a plan for what we’re doing today?”

“Sure,” she said with a stretch and a yawn. She scratched her back with a hoof, then stood up. “The community service they assigned me. Didn’t they give you guys a hundred hours of it, too?”

“Uh, yeah, but I kind of assumed we’d just skip out on doing it, to be honest,” Roxanne said. “I mean, we’re not even from here, so why would we care? And I thought you were trying to go to Earth with us before you say you don’t wanna be arrested.”

“I am, but I also don’t wanna be arrested if it takes a while to help you guys,” she said. “Just because I get caught in places I shouldn’t be sometimes doesn’t mean I’m a criminal.”

“Yeah, of course not,” Tory smiled jokingly. “We would never think that of you, Sapphire.” He expected the joke, like before, to blow straight past the mare without her understanding, but this time, she actually smiled slyly and chuckled.

“Keep messing around with me, human, and see what happens,” she told him with a little look on her face. Roxanne let out a breath, and Lake rolled his eyes for some reason. Tory didn’t really see why. He was obviously just being friendly and teasing, like Roxanne did to Lake.

“Anyway,” she continued, “after that… I don’t really know. We’ll probably go to the public library and do some more research on humans. I’m still waiting on Twilight Sparkle to send me back a letter, but when she does, we’ll have a whole host of better options. In the meantime, we can see how to use Roxie’s magic and Lake’s wings, if he knows how to fly, to help us. We also need to talk to my friend Record Keeper, but I don’t know when we’re gonna be able to see him. I’m sure it won’t be long though. Don’t worry.”

Long, of course, was a relative term. ‘It won’t be long’ could’ve meant anything. Nothing Tory could do but find out how long it would be.

After showers and a breakfast of fruits and veggies and cereal—interesting that they had something similar to Frosted Mini Wheats on Equus—they followed Sapphire Glow back to the courthouse they were in yesterday, shaking off the tense air they passed through in her neighborhood. It turned out community service in Manehattan meant the same thing as it did in Pennsylvania; it consisted of wearing a high visibility vest and picking up trash in the road and under bridges that people threw on the ground. It was easier for his three companions to do than it was for Tory. Roxanne shapeshifted to look exactly like Lake, and both held their debris pickers and their bags in their wings, while Sapphire Glow used magic to help her. Tory himself was left to hold the bag in his teeth while he worked. Yeah, he was jealous of them.

Sapphire Glow paid for lunch for them—Tory wondered about how she had money when it didn’t seem like she had a job—at a place that served whatever Equestria’s version of Mexican food was. It made him also wonder about whether or not Equus had the same sort of history as Earth. Similar food styles existed, and games, and city names, too. Except the country was unlike any on Earth as it was ruled as a benevolent dictatorship. Why didn’t the universe just copy America fully and have a president?

They went to the library next, where Sapphire Glow wandered around on her own to do research while Tory sat with Lake and Roxanne to read about the history of Equestria. If the country seemed similar to America, it was only in the present. The history they read about was straight up mythological. The book they picked out talked about things like an ice age that would've lasted forever if the Earth ponies, unicorns, and winged ponies, which they called pegasi, didn't get together and put aside their differences, and how the previous dictator of this world raised the sun in the sky herself every morning and the current one defeated mythological monsters and saved the planet time and again. Tory would've passed it off as just nonsense had this world not proven itself to be filled with magic. It seemed this Twilight Sparkle character, as well as her predecessor, Princess Celestia, had built up quite the cult of personality for themselves.

There were also other cult-like figures, like the Tree of Harmony and an all powerful chaos deity named Discord, and the general sentiment of ‘friendship’ being the most powerful force on Equus. Not just as some sort of school of philosophy, but as actual power, something that could be harvested and contained and used for good and evil and as a weapon against others. It was, truthfully, a little bit jarring to see it described in a factual way as just part of the nature of this world.

“Friendship is apparently respected enough that you can avoid long prison sentences for breaking and entering,” Lake smiled. “Lucky for us, and for Sapphire, too, because she’s definitely gonna do it again.”

“Oh, that judge wasn’t messing around,” Roxanne said. “I could tell. If she gets caught again, he’s definitely gonna make her go to prison. We’re gonna wanna be careful.”

“Wow, Roxie, you’re being careful? That must be the first time ever,” Tory smiled. “I can’t believe it.”

“Not like you didn’t follow in through that portal right behind me,” she said with a light punch on the arm. “Even cautious Lake went through… speaking of which, do you have your phone with you, Lake? Get video of all of this, too. Oh, and me shape shifting, get that.”

“I wanna provide some commentary, too,” Tory said. “Tell me when you’ve got the video recording.” Lake fiddled with his phone for a second, then gave a thumbs up with the tip of his wing. Interesting that his wing could even bend like that.

“You’re going? Great. Uh, here we are, as horses in Equestria,” he said, waving a hoof to indicate to the scene behind him. “Technically, they call themselves ponies here, but they’re basically horses. Equines,” he explained to the camera. “I’m supposed to be an earth pony—a horse who is good at planting, not that they’re from Earth—Roxie is meant to be a changeling pony, and Lake is supposed to be a winged pegasus pony.” He watched his friend quickly turn the phone to wave at the camera with a wing before putting it back on Tory and Roxanne.

“We’re pretty sure Lake can fly, if he ever tries to–”

“You know I get motion sick just being on airplanes.”

“—but we definitely know Roxanne can shapeshift. Show them?”

Roxanne didn’t waste any time using her changeling power, this time changing to look like Tory. She grinned widely, then said, “I’m pretty sure I can only change to look like things I’ve already seen.” She even sounded like Tory as she continued, “But it’s a pretty cool power, even if it does go against the laws of nature. Also, like Tory is about to say, I can read minds and people’s emotions like a sixth sense. I can basically tell what they’re thinking. Generally, anyway.”

“Yeah. That,” Tory said. “Basically none of the horses here wear any clothes, except as fashion and for uniforms, like shirts and dresses, but no underwear or pants. There’s electric lighting and stuff–” Lake panned the camera up at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the library and to the clock on the wall. Tory continued, “—but no TVs or radios or computers or things of that nature. There are trains though, and record players and such.

“And right now, we’re working with a unicorn named Sapphire Glow to get back to Earth,” he finished. “We hope she knows what she’s doing, but there’s obviously a lot of uncertainty. If all goes well though, hopefully we’ll be back on Earth in a few days.”

They weren’t back home in a few days.

They didn’t get news from Sapphire about the dictator of this country, Twilight Sparkle—no surprise there—nor did they ever hear anything about this mysterious pony named Record Keeper, who apparently had gone to Earth, too. The mare talked to them about the progress she was making; she was taking all the measurements of humans that Roxanne transformed into and reading everything she could about distant lands and other worlds or universes and a whole lot of other semi-scientific stuff that went over Tory’s head. But it seemed to get them no closer to getting home as far as he could see.

One day turned into two, and then three. A week passed, and then two, with no apparent change in the situation. Sapphire Glow still wasn’t able to get them back to Earth. She was working hard, obviously. He didn’t need Roxanne to tell him she was doing all she could to see that. She had bags under her eyes from how late she stayed up some nights. But it wasn’t getting anywhere.

He was honestly beginning to consider the possibility that they might have to stay here long term. No surprise when Lake became stressed out by that idea.

“I really, really don't wanna stay here forever guys,” he said anxiously, as though either he or Roxanne had any control over whether or not they could go home. They picked up trash again, something they were coming to expect to do every Wednesday. A hundred hours of community service was gonna take a long time to do. Tory sighed as he stabbed a piece of trash while holding the bag with his mouth. This sucked.

“Like, for starters,” he continued, “I don't know if you noticed, but I haven't taken any anti anxiety meds in weeks now, and I hate going without them.”

“Oh, we noticed,” Roxanne replied cheekily. Tory couldn't tell if she was teasing or genuinely annoyed.

“And this is starting to get past the point of just being away from family,” he said. “I'm gonna start missing rent and car payments if we keep staying here without a way out.”

“Just take a breath, okay, Lake?” Tory told him. He seemed to be telling him that a lot lately. It was actually news to him that he took medicine for anxiety, but it made sense. He couldn't blame him for needing it, especially not now.

Tory didn't even bother giving an assurance that they'd be home soon. He didn't know if he believed it.

“I'm fine right now,” Lake told him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, then opened them again to help pick up more trash. “I'm probably gonna have to learn to fly at some point if we're here for long enough.” Then he flexed his wings and said, “And figure out how to get these feathers organized. They're all messed up.”

“I'm pretty sure you're describing preening,” Tory smiled. “You know, like a bird?”

“I guess that makes Lake a parrot,” Roxanne teased. It got him to smile and relax a little more at least.

“If we're gonna stay here for a long time,” Lake said, “we should probably find jobs… and houses of our own? Or at least one to rent with three bedrooms. Sleeping on the ground five days a week is killing my back, as nice as having free housing is.”

“Awww, how could you want that for Tory?” Roxanne grinned. “Then he'd have to stop flirting with Sapphire Glow. He'd be so lonely. Oh wait, she doesn't have a job either. He could see her everyday anyway.”

“Yeah, right, I'm not even flirting with her,” he said. “She's flirting with me. It's not mutual.”

“Suuuurrrrreee it's not,” Roxanne teased. “Riiiiiight.”

It didn't embarrass him like she probably thought it would. He wasn't Lake. Besides, what he said was true. Sapphire flirted with him, and he nicely and politely continued to reject her advances. Besides, he'd probably have to be here for a lot longer than three weeks before he saw ponies in a way that would mean something.

He ignored the fact that it was looking like they might be here for a while. The plan was still to get home as quickly as possible.

“Why don't you just be direct with her then?” Lake asked, a smidge of playfulness in his voice. “That's what I did. She hasn't tried to talk to me like that since.”

“Because he doesn't want us to know that he likes it,” Roxanne teased. “But I can read your emotions, remember? You can't hide your feelings from me.”

“I don't like it. But I also don't hate it. I just think that—”

“Guys! Everypony! I have news!” the familiar voice called from across the field as she galloped toward the three of them at full speed. Tory and Lake looked on with interest as Roxanne snickered.

“Speaking of which, here comes your girlfriend,” she said. “Her ears must have been burning.” Tory ignored her and focused on Sapphire. He caught her with a hoof and stopped her forward momentum before she crashed into him.

He didn't need to ask what was going on because she explained automatically. Roxanne's sly smile changing to a hopeful expression told him what he needed to know anyway.

“It happened again!” Sapphire Glow exclaimed, excitement in her eyes. “A magical signature showed up at Lilac Beauty's house! The portal is back!”