“I told you it would work, dear sister.”
I was absolutely flabbergasted. Was I really hearing this right? Or was I simply going insane in this strange place? I just stared blankly like a moron while the two in front of me exchanged concerned glances.
“Tia? What did you do to him? He looks... in pain.” My eye twitched as the darker one questioned the one who did that, thing to me.
“He seemed alright, perhaps he is just in shock.” The white one, ‘Tia’ arched an eyebrow at me and took a slight step forward. “Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
I wanted to say something, anything to let them know I was okay... well, as okay as I could be, given the unusual situation.
“Whahappenmeblergh?” My words all slurred together into some horrible verbal mess.
“I think you broke him, Tia.” My darkly-colored friend teased while nudging the sides of its white counterpart. The white one of the two lightly rolled her eyes before addressing me once more.
“Could you say that a little slower please?” ‘Tia’ asked in a warm voice followed by a kind, patient smile that it did not share with the shorter creature next to it. I gulped before opening my mouth, taking care to speak slow enough to not sound like a raving lunatic.
“What is happening to me? Who are you? How did I get here? Where am I? What am I?” I finished by motioning to myself, a slightly desperate look on my face. The taller of the two opened its mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the darker one before it could speak.
“Perhaps I should tell him, Tia.” She regarded to the other, whom nodded in return. My dark-blue friend turned to me now, a slight smile on her muzzle.
“My name is Luna, and We found you while taking a stroll many nights ago.” She paused to let it sink in, her voice was almost accented in an ancient dialect from what I could pick up.
“‘We’?” I asked, turning to see ‘Tia’ simply watching us converse.
“My apologies, I tend to slip into old speech patterns sometimes. Now, as for your questions...” Luna paused, momentarily rubbing her chin with her hoof. She was about to speak before she herself was interrupted by the other.
“My name is Celestia, and what Luna means is we have similar questions for you.” She smiled while carefully studying me behind trained eyes. I had a feeling something was off about ‘Celestia’, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. I dismissed it and decided to get some clarification.
“What do you mean ‘questions for me’?”
“For one, your question of who we are is the same we have for you.” Celestia replied. “We know next to nothing about you, no name, no identification, family registry, simply nothing.”
“Umm, my name’s Edward.” I flashed an uneasy smile.
“That is a... most unusual name, I must say.” Luna slowly remarked. “Anyways, like I was saying... When I found you, you awoke in a panicked state before quickly falling unconscious. Fearing for your life, I gingerly brought you here.” I blinked and let it all settle-in for a moment. Luna really seemed to care about me, and she didn’t even know me.
“I appreciate that, but... where exactly is ‘here’?
“This is a hospital.”
“No, I mean this land, this region... where am I exactly?” I continued with my questions.
“This is Canterlot...”
“And where is that?”
“Equestria.” Luna answered, her voice slightly frustrated. I silently mouthed the word to myself. This ‘Equestria’ didn’t sound familiar in the slightest. I decided to pursue a different thread of questioning, my location could wait. There were more pressing matters on my mind.
“What happened to me? Why am I a... horse?” I asked Celestia, my voice heavily laden with curiosity.
“You’re a pony. More accurately, you are a unicorn.” She stated quite simply. “Are you not normally like this?”
“No, I’m a human, not some colorful, magic pony.” My voice deadpanned, this was getting a bit old.
Luna gave Celestia a curious glance, which was later returned before voicing a question.
“Edward, pray tell what is a ‘human’?” She slowly asked, making sure she got the word correct.
Are you serious...
“How do you not know what humans are? We stand on two legs, have two arms and fingers and toes.” I stated, once again earning dumbfounded looks that were almost enough to question one’s sanity whether what you were saying exists even.
“We... are unfamiliar with your species, I’m afraid.” Celestia slightly bit her lip in thought before voicing a rather hasty question at me. “What is the last thing you remember before coming to Equestria?”
“I was on a boat with my mother and sister in the middle of the ocean. I ended up going overboard, and when I came back up to the surface, everybody was gone and a storm quickly coming towards me.” I told the two in front of me, hesitant to reveal the foolish reason I even jumped into the doomed sea. “I don’t remember much else really, it’s all fuzzy and taking a while to come back.” I shifted on my hooves, trying to find a comfortable stance.
“So...” Luna began, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “It was a storm that brought you here then.”
“I suppose so, only thing that would make any sense right now.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t explain why I’m... one of you, and not my normal body.” I looked down to the floor with a slight frown. Celestia decided it was her turn to speak.
“Perhaps, your kind simply can’t exist in our world, and thus you were transformed into a normal unicorn, though you lack a cutie mark.”
“A what?”
“Nevermind that, Edward, it is not important now.”
“Okay then. Have any other strange people like me been found?” I asked, worried about the well-being of my family. “I’m wondering if my mother and sister followed me into—whatever it was that brought me here.”
“Celestia and I shall look into it. For now, we should depart and discuss, an ‘alien’ such as yourself in our world is cause for concern.” Luna stated very matter of factually, before realizing her mistake and raising a hoof at me. “No offense intended, we must be sure Equestria is safe.”
“I understand, I guess.” Makes some sense, they’re just protecting their land after all. I respect that.
“While Luna and I do some investigating, I shall look into a suitable residence for you during your, unintended visit.” Celestia’s wings seemed to slightly ruffle.
What does that mean? Is she angry at me? Nervous?
“I appreciate that, thank you.” The two turned to leave, but not before I stopped them. “Wait! What are you? I get that I’m a unicorn cause the horn and all, and the flying ones are pegasus... but you have both, what are you?”
“We are alicorns, an exceptionally rare breed that command great power.” Luna smiled slightly at me. “We have informed the staff to keep disturbances to you down to a minimum. We thought you would need time to... think things over.”
I nodded to her, silently thanking them once again as Luna turned to leave.
“You are welcome, one of us shall return once we discover something, or find you a temporary home.” Celestia flashed a smile. “I feel you do not appreciate the aesthetic of hospitals?” And with that, she too turned and departed my room, shutting the door behind her in a golden aura that seemed to sparkle.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding as the solitude of the room sunk back in. I didn’t mind social situations, as long as they were among familiar people, or I wasn’t overwhelmed by foreign knowledge.
Lucky for me, I got both... I frowned as I went back over to the window and reclined on my rear legs once more, letting everything sink in from earlier.
Equestria? What kind of name is that? Also, Canterlot? Sounds off to me.
Why wouldn’t humans be allowed to stay human here? What kind of force could be at play to do something as drastic as that?
Why have I never heard of an ‘alicorn’ before? Were those two really royalty? Are they princesses, or queens even? What did they mean by ‘commanding great power’?
My thoughts continued to bounce back and forth for some time, not really getting me anywhere other than a slight migraine. After a while a doctor came into my room and asked if I needed anything, it was the same dark-green, tan maned unicorn from before. I asked for some headache medicine, which he quickly brought to me along with a tall glass of water, and a fresh plate of assorted fruits and vegetables.
I pushed the food around on the plate for a while before consuming a few apples and slowly nibbling away at some asparagus.
Why must this stuff taste so vile?
It wasn’t much longer before I began to feel tired, as was reflected by the shadows on the streets growing longer as the day came to a close. I lied down in bed and tried to get some sleep, but not before trying to move something with my magic again. I turned over and tried to ‘push’ the food cart next to the window with my thoughts. After many strained minutes of mental work, I came away victorious!
Well, not exactly... all I managed to do was just barely jiggle the glass of water before a pain lanced up through my skull. I huffed and quickly turned to face the blank wall, quickly falling asleep as my mental exhaustion took hold of me.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Large drops of rain pelted the sea all around me, creating a beautiful symphony much unlike the terror I was feeling. The waves created by the wind were beginning to toss me around, every now and then I’d be forced under the surface of the salty water. This was fear unlike anything I’d ever felt before. This was something that could only be manifested by one’s worst nightmares.
I couldn’t keep this up much longer, each wave sapped my energy and the cold slowed my muscles. It wouldn’t be much longer before I succumbed to exhaustion, or became a victim of one of the many denizens in the dark waters below me. Flashes of lightning were my only source of light in the impending darkness, each one growing more and more dim as I slowly drifted into the arms of unconsciousness, helplessly adrift in this hellish place.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
I awoke in a sweat and with a violent jolt as a short scream escaped my lips. It was all coming back, albeit slowly. Why couldn’t I remember what happened to me in that ocean?
I got out of bed and slowly went over to the cart, before taking a sip of water and peeking outside. It was still quite dark, only street lamps and other buildings to light the darkness. I took one more swig of my water, before climbing in bed and promptly falling back asleep, hoping that this bout of sleep would not be interrupted by more dark visions.
<><><><><><><>
Something tugged at my ear in my sleep and I reflexively rolled over and pulled the blanket further over my head.
“..werd...”
There it was again, that noise that kept invading my peaceful sleep. I tried to mentally block it out in my half-awake state, vaguely aware of anything at all and simply wishing to fall back asleep.
“...ward..?...ake up...”
That voice... It sounded warm and kind as it fell upon my ears.
“... mom?” My throat croaked as I turned over and slowly opened my eyes, which were soon met in a somewhat familiar blinding light.
“I’m afraid not, little one.” A figure of light calmly stated as it gradually faded into the shape of my newly-found ‘friend’, Celestia. “It is time for you to get up, I have some news for you, Edward.”
That woke me up. My eyes opened up the rest of the way and any remnants of sleep quickly fell away.
“What’s going on? Did you find my family? Did you—” I was interrupted by a raised hoof, halting my deluge of questions.
“I am afraid I do not have much news, but what knowledge I do have for you is something I’m sure you would like to hear.” Celestia smiled and waited for my response.
“What is it?”
“I have made arrangements for you to stay somewhere whilst Luna and I sort this matter out.
“That’s great! I’m kinda sick of this room anyways.” I beamed, practically falling out of my bed. I stood up on my hooves and thoughtfully smirked as a thought entered my mind. “Celestia? Where exactly am I staying, if you don’t mind?”
“It’s a peaceful, quiet town I thought would be nice for you. I did not think a large city would be to your forte, considering your peculiar conditions here.” Celestia smiled and looked to me, seemingly waiting for another question, which I didn’t give. “The name of the town is Ponyville.”
Ponyville...?
“Ponyville?” I half asked, half-said to sound out the word. Of all the places I could be staying, it was someplace called ‘Ponyville’? It sounded like something out of some childrens book, but I decided not to complain, I was sure Celestia knew what was best for me. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.” I flashed a smile and a slight bow to her, still unsure of the specifics of her title but deciding to be safe either way.
“So, am I staying at my own house? Or is it an apartment, or a hotel?”
“I am afraid not, you will be staying with somepony I know, somepony I fully trust with your well-being.”
“Oh.” I guess that’s alright... “Umm, who is it?”
“It is my pri—” Celestia paused as she turned her head towards the closed door, distracted by something. She grinned widely before turning back to me. “Ah, here she is now. Edward, I would like you to meet one of my closest friends...” She looked back to the door just as a slight purple aura enveloped it and clicked open. “... Twilight Sparkle.”
Ohhhh now it's gonna get interesting.
As you may or may have not guessed, this story is going to be quite lengthy, at least 80K words is what I have planned.
The next chapter will actually be in 3rd person... it will show what all the other ponies besides Edward are doing. They will be 'interludes' per say that shed a little more light on the background happenings in the story. Of course, this will lead to some interesting situations for you (the reader), you'll know what some of the characters are upto while Edward is in the dark. I plan on doing these 3rd person-view chapters every 3rd or 4th chapter. They'll be relatively short, but interesting.
Again, a massive thanks to Azu, and Darastrix. Without whom, this story would have been complete and utter rubbish.
Please, please comment your thoughts! Otherwise, how will I know what people do or don't like? Hmm?
1443293 Just kidding? Aw...
Heh, something tells me that Edward is going to break out laughing, as he is reminded of those damn bitchy teeny vampy movies. *grumble* Give me Bram Stoker anyday......
1786971
Gosh darn it!!!! I can't for the life of me come up with a suitable word that fits what you've given me.
This is gonna drive me bat crazy Could you tell me what Celestia would have said, if it doesn't reveal anything to important?
(Joke) Alt. Title: Where Am I? Not In Anything Interesting
This is an interesting take on the HiE story. This is the only one I've read that uses the Bermuda Triangle as the point of entry so to speak, and I've always liked HiE stories that don't have the main character starting out speaking the same language as the ponies (though there have been some very good ones that still did). I'm looking forward to seeing how Edwards personality develops throughout the course of the story.
Only two critiques I can offer at the moment:
change one of those "feel"s. Using the same word multiple times that close together is a no-no. The other is that some of the dialogue feels slightly "off" in this chapter. Occasionally the word choices are a bit jarring; some of the more uncommon words they use don't really feel "right" being there. It's not so much of an issue for Edward, since you've already established him as an intelligent, if not always particularly sharp (what's a hospital?), person, but it happens enough that it's a bit distracting.
i.e.
. Almost no one uses that word, in that context, outside of a narrative. That word alone immediately changes the tone into one of him trying to tell an epic story, instead of just having a casual conversation. It's not technically wrong, but since Edward hasn't been shown to have a penchant for somewhat awkward word choices it's slightly distracting. There's one or two others, but I just got home from work and I'm too lazy to go find them.....
1803629
"prized"
1803832
Now that you mention it, those sentences do seem a bit, off.
Other than those, what did you think?
1803975
Thank you thank you thank you, that makes complete sense.
1803982
I was wondering if I'd ever get anypony with that one.
I would like to ask, what is the motive that is moving Edward?
For what I've seen I don't know. Most OC's seem to forget their reasons at a given moment, and yours doesn't seem to really worry about obvious facts that have happened around him, like the fact that he doesn't remember what 'went down' in the storm with his mother and sister or the captain of the boat, and doesn't really seem to feel worried or anxious about their safety. It makes me feel out of tone with him. Your thoughts after a horrible experience, like changing SPECIES, would make you try to help in the search of those that were with you at the time of the horrible experience, even if they were strangers, and that he didn't even thought or asked to help, felt off.
You appear transformed into a different species and the apparent royalty of the place gives you a welcome and a place to stay believing everything you say with no real apparent argument on the matter about being different SPECIES and they send you with one of the royalties faithful students for whatever reason. One of the next is happening in this situation:
1. THEY. THINK. YOU'RE. CRAZY, and it's the perfect opportunity to test the most faithful student of the princess on a crazy-ponies mind.
2.They believe you because this has happened before, but for some reason they won't tell you.
3. They believe you because they had to do with it and will use you as one of their pawns on a chess game that appears to need someone like you and will make you gain their trust and feeling of giving back their kindness by placing you with a pony who's a researcher of friendship and is good at making important friends.
4. The story isn't this realistic or serious so these obvious factors don't affect it at all.
1804142
I'll let you in on a secret... 1-3 are very good points, and one of them is mostly correct.
Don't worry, it may not quite seem it yet, but there is a massive underling plot.
Like I said in my first story comment, everything will be explained sooner or later
You remind me of my pre-reader, he can pick out the tiniest little details with ease.
1804155
Thanks, glad to serve.
3.bp.blogspot.com/_KdSrlw3tO-A/S5iMxJjwa9I/AAAAAAAAASY/tdbAwdENwTk/s320/Roger-Federer-tennis-star.jpg
I love it! I'm a big fan of this kind of story - it may be cliché, but it's hard to do well, and you've done it very well. Can't wait for the next chapter!
1804351
Thanks
1803981 Overall I thought it was pretty good. It's certainly interesting, and you've managed to avoid a lot of the early traps that catch so many HiE fics, but there is one that you did kind of walk right into: as Drawdex said, the early characterization of Edward is fairly weak.
I saw the post about things being answered in future chapters, so I've been holding off on the purely plot-related points I was going to make, but for the characters, at least some concrete aspect of personality should be cemented early. We can somewhat see from his interactions with his sister and his thoughts that he is intelligent and logical, but doesn't always see the things that are right there in front of him. The only problem is that most of that is inferred, with very little concrete confirmation within the story.
Granted, it's still very early in the story, so it's not a huge deal, but it does come across as a weakness in the story. particularly when you take into account that solidifying those aspects of his personality early on would alleviate most of the problems that Drawdex raised about Edward's muted reactions to a lot of what he's seeing and what he's lost. After all, why freak out about things that you have no ability to change at the moment? Things are the way they are, and it's far more constructive to simply wait and gather information than to freak out about every little thing that's different.
I'm a sucker for this kind of stories, and yours is well written so far. I'm going to keep an eye on it.
Don't let us wait too long for the next chap!
Nice start so far in the story, I'll be looking forward to see how this separates from other humans in the genre. Keep up he good work man
To whomever just downvoted this for no reason....
MOLESTIA
WILL
FIND
YOU
Okay to be honest, how many HiE fics am I going to have to read until the protagonist actually lives somewhere other than Ponyville?
When she mentioned that she was going to get him a house I knew right off the bat it would be there out of all of the towns in Equestria.
1811233
Other than that, did you like it?
Sounds promising so far. Please continue.
when is next update?
1816090
Should be pretty soon.
I've actually got a new story that's coming out in a day or two, so keep an eye out for that
Glad you liked the story fo far
1804155 1804142
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I think this is the part where I'm suppose to say "I told you so."
You seem to forget what my special talent is.
Also, your story just passed mine, I hope your happy! Anywhom, this raises my confidence that my HiE story will soar. Not becoause that your is bad and doing well (or is it? trolololol) But because a good HiE does well, better then an good OC centered story.
imageshack.us/a/img33/5764/likethischapter.jpg
1879821
Thanks
The next chapter will be up in like 12 hours, if I can get a hold of my editing team lol
1885908
It just seemed like the lazy man's way to just automatically have humans and ponies speak the same language. They're horses/ponies/whatever, of course they won't speak a language we understand lol.
But it makes you wonder, can he read their language now? Or simply speak it?
Great, he's staying with Twilight!! Time to get your flank talked off!!!
Wuz with the empty space on the bottom of the page?
2378482 it makes you THINK there's more when really, there isn't tricky writers...
TLAL, chapter four, the previous one was MUCH better-written and had significant development, so this shows plenty of promise!
… ““I told you it would work, dear sister.”” – You reeeeally don’t need to put in the same text that ended the previous chapter, at the start of this one.
… “who did that, thing” – The comma doesn’t work here, since ‘that’ becomes a noun as a result of the comma. Consider an ellipsis, or no punctuation mark at all.
… “while nudging the sides” – ‘sides’ should be singular: ‘side’.
… “a little slower please” – Place a comma between ‘slower’ and ‘please’.
… “and a storm quickly coming” – ‘coming’ should be ‘came’.
… “depart and discuss,” – Replace the comma with a semicolon.
… “very matter of factually” – Place hyphens between ‘matter’, ‘of’, and ‘factually’.
… “during your,” – Replace the comma with an ellipsis.
… “not really getting me anywhere” – ‘anywhere’ should be ‘anything’.
… “needed anything, it” – Replace the comma with a semicolon.
… “tan maned unicorn” – Place a hyphen between ‘tan’ and ‘maned’.
… “up much longer, each” – Replace the comma with a semicolon.
… “climbing in bed” – ‘in’ should be ‘into’.
… “sort this matter out.” – Add an end-quotation mark after the period.
… “either way.
“So, am I staying” – This should be part of the same paragraph as the line, above, as Edward is speaking in both paragraphs.
… “it and clicked open.” – Place ‘it’ between ‘clicked’ and ‘open’: The aura didn’t click, just the door.
Okay. What you gave us during this chapter was impressive. Some sections of the plot were covered, while other sections got revealed. You gave several mysteries, and left us with… erm… I’ll get to that.
So, Celestia and Luna don’t know what humans are, and they came to a conclusion that he was transformed… as their first conclusion? I don’t entirely buy how convenient that suggestion was… Unless it happened before, or they knew about it somehow, or were somewhat responsible for the events that occurred; something put him where Luna found him, after all…
Celestia’s playing a little “good cop/bad cop” with Luna, there, trying to push for answers while maybe answering half the questions Edward had, not that he had much of a chance of getting all the answers he wanted in the first place: What could they know?... Probably a lot, but we’ll let it slide for the sake of argument.
Luna helped him, that much seems logical, and I’ll buy it… for now. Both Princesses visit a hospital and somehow Canterlot is none the wiser? I dunno, something more is going on here, without a doubt, but the big question becomes ‘what’, and ‘why’.
I personally hope Ed doesn’t learn magic by himself, since that could provide some relationship-development for our scarcely-social stallion! I was intrigued with Celestia randomly ruffling her feathers when she said that she would be trying to look into things regarding Ed’s situation, considering it was an action that not only seemed out of place, but even EDWARD noticed it happen! That can’t be a coincidence: The sun commander’s planning something…
This leads us to her Royal Pawn being the one in charge of Ed: Twilight Sparkle. It’s only been a NIGHT, and she’s somehow already in Canterlot? How? Was she there already? Did they contact her later? It should take much longer than a mere “night”, and even then, what was she doing awake at THAT hour, to enable her to come to Canterlot that swiftly? Yes, I could argue about the ‘creative decision’ (or lack thereof ), but there’s a massive slew of questions with getting Twilight as fast as she did, before anything else. It’s Celestia: She calls Twilight for everything, but THIS FAST?
There’s a storm a-brewin’, and Brony’s playing the role of Zeus, ready to hurl bolts of lightning-fast plot at us and electrify the story whenever he so chooses… I could wear rubber, but I’d rather remain getting shocked by these new developments. I hope to see more!
Ah'm confused. How did ya get so many likes on this fic?
Ah guess ah have ta read... moar? Ah'm compelled. @_@
And here I hoped he would address Celestia with Tia! But damn you Celestia! Why did you have to introduce yourself!
Also would have been interesting if he would have just ignored her raised hoof. Would have loved to see her reaction to him ignoring this! But I guess that would be out of character for him, since he already bowed to them and sees them as royalty. Well, they are royalty, but truth be told I never understood the bowing thing.
I have never really like the overly "SCIENCE" guys because of their almost zealotry answer of "SCIENCE" is the God and saying that magic isn't real and everything must be logical like a freaking Vulcan from Star Trek. I'd like to believe in miracles and magic and stuff like that because otherwise, the world is boring and nothing more than machine and no true free will...Also, my personal believe is that Magic is just another school of science that people keep denying in stories with the setting of magic and science.
Sorry about the rambling...It's just something I need to get off.