2 - Scouring
The first two blocks went by easily enough, Sandbar thought. It had already been pretty late in the evening, after all, when he and Yona had arrived in Canterlot, and judging by the lack of creatures on the street—though 'people' was the word here, Princess Twilight had said—he felt that it must be close to midnight.
A few of the cars she'd mentioned went by, though, and Sandbar felt the need to rest a hand on Yona's big shoulder after the first one. But then a few of Ocellus's bees crawled over to sit on his fingers, so he wasn't sure if the whole experience was a net positive or not.
Still, they got to the corner where the map indicated they should cross the street, and Sandbar was glad to see that the humans had what seemed to be a similar system of stoplights and push button signals as he'd seen in Canterlot and Manehattan and places like that. He was less glad, though, to see another person on the other side of the street: a big, red, human male with yellow hair who looked a lot like—
"Wait a minute!" one of the bees whispered—or maybe it was a couple of them: Sandbar couldn't really tell how the whole Ocellus thing was working right now. "That's Big McIntosh, isn't it?"
And yes, it definitely was. The signal for the cross traffic was changing from green to yellow to red as Sandbar stood gaping, and the human version of Big Mac, a pony Sandbar had gotten to know pretty well since moving with Yona into the Carousel Boutique, was starting across the street.
But did that mean that this human Big Mac knew Sandbar's human version? Did Sandbar even have a human version? Every other pony seemed to have one, so why wouldn't he? What was he supposed to do if he met himself? Hadn't Princess Twilight mentioned something in passing about her human version being off on a trip with this Sunset Shimmer who was the princess's contact in this universe? Did this mean that the princess had met her other self?
Frozen by the sudden internal onslaught of questions, Sandbar could only watch as Big Mac got closer and closer, his weird flat face bunching up in a way that made Sandbar think he was every bit as confused by what he was seeing as Sandbar was. Because what he was seeing, Sandbar realized, was a human standing on a street corner with a dog and a giant, bee-covered yak.
Probably not the sort of thing people usually saw around here...
By now, Big Mac's steps had brought him to within a couple yards of Sandbar, and even with all the words flashing around in Sandbar's head, not a one was bringing him any closer to knowing what to say.
Until Ocellus's voice buzzed directly in his ear: "Smolder's a herding dog!"
"Yes!" Sandbar tried not to shout it, but it still came out pretty loud. "Smolder's a herding dog!" Grabbing the idea, he kept going. "We're practicing for the big, uhh, rodeo that's coming up!" He patted Yona's shoulder, hoping Ocellus would get her various pieces out of the way. "You never know what those judges'll throw at you, right? Sheep or goats or cattle or...yaks..."
Big Mac's eyes didn't narrow; he didn't fold his arms; neither of his eyebrows arched. He just stood there a long, long, long couple of seconds, then said, "Eeyup," and turned to head down the sidewalk in the direction they'd all just come.
Sandbar blinked after him. Did yaks actually take part in rodeos here? He knew there'd been some talk back home about bringing yaks into the herding and roping competitions, but the yaks kept complaining that Equestrian rodeos didn't have enough opportunities to smash things.
"Come on!" Ocellus's whisper was shivering his ear again. "We need to get off the street!"
The traffic signal still showed a greenish-white walking human figure, but it was blinking. So Sandbar shook himself, did a quick look up and down the street—deserted except for Big Mac heading away—and stepped off the curb.
The others followed so naturally that Sandbar wondered if maybe Ocellus had bees buzzing in their ears, too, and after three pretty dark blocks, they came to what the map said was their destination: a low, sprawling house set back from the street by a wide front lawn, tall wooden fences on both sides and large trees spreading out behind. "Okay," Smolder said in a low voice. "Looks like the gate's in the fence to the left of the house, and the princess said that the Fluttershy here left it unlocked. And a good thing, too, 'cause I honestly don't think Yona's gonna fit through the house's regular door."
With a nod, Sandbar started across the lawn toward the gate.
Beside him, Yona gave a huff of breath. "Everything here strange," she muttered. "Bigger but smaller at same time. Colors different, too, all washed out and peculiar. Or maybe that just orange streetlights..."
At the gate, Sandbar waited for Smolder to pull the string that he assumed would operate the latch inside, but when she made a throat-clearing noise, he remembered that he was the one with the digits right here and now. Shaking himself, he grabbed and pulled, pushed the gate open, and held it while the others trooped through.
Then he remembered that this was human Fluttershy's house. "Umm, you guys think there might be actual animals around here? Like, is there a version of Angel Bunny we hafta worry about?"
Smolder raised her head and sniffed. "There's a lotta scents, but nothing seems recent."
"That makes sense." Ocellus rose in a humming mass from Yona's back, little bundles of her streaking along the side of the house toward the deeper darkness that Sandbar guessed was the back yard. "Fluttershy's away at a conference, Princess Twilight said, and she wouldn't leave animals here unattended. So any pets she has are likely being boarded, and I'm not picking up any trace of movement or sound or— Wow, I can really spread out and cover a lot of space here, can't I?"
It was good to hear Ocellus sounding more like herself, and Sandbar found his mind moving more steadily, too. "Princess Twilight said there was a back door, too." He started in that direction himself. "Though if it's the same size as the front door, maybe there's a shed or something we can all fit inside. Ocellus?"
Ocellus's voice came from the bees that were drifting in circles around him. "Yeah, the back door's the same size as the front door. There is something like a little stable, though, but it's pretty dark back here. I don't think any creature's inside, though—or any animals or whatever they have in this world that would live in a stable."
"Okay." Sandbar looked down at Smolder, trotting along beside him, Yona a step or two behind as they rounded the corner of the house. "I'll use the key to get inside and see if I can find a lantern or something to bring out. You guys check this stable and see if it'll be big enough for us all to fit in so we can get a little sleep."
"Right." Smolder pointed her nose at Sandbar's hands, and he realized that he was clutching the book to his chest. "Maybe ask the princess what sort of lanterns they have here. 'Cause I'm betting they don't have the regular firefly kind." She shrugged, something Sandbar didn't think he'd ever seen a dog do before.
They came around the corner of the house then, and Sandbar squinted through the darkness at a space of maybe not quite an acre—he'd never been that good at judging area, and the orange lights from the street were getting blocked by the big trees that lined the outside edges of the yard. As near as he could tell, the tall wooden fence ran along just on the other side of the trees to surround the whole place, which was another worry off his mind: the neighbors probably couldn't peer in and start wondering what was going on.
"Hold it," Ocellus said. "I think I found a light switch just inside the stable door. I'll see if I can—"
Something snapped quietly, and lights began to glow through a couple windows, marking out a wall a dozen paces away, a sloped roof above it and a small enclosed area of dirt in front of it.
"Not stable," Yona said behind him. "Chicken coop."
"Oh!" The bees that made up Ocellus were buzzing around the windows and the door that Sandbar could now see as he moved across a brick patio toward the gate in the wire fence around the front of the coop. "I guess it is!" Ocellus was going on. "There aren't any chickens in here, though, and I couldn't quite tell what I was seeing in the dark and with all these eyes."
Smolder was looking back and forth between the coop and Yona. "I don't think we're gonna fit in there, either."
"Is fine." Yona waved a forehoof at the grass between the coop and the trees along the far side of the yard. "Is nice night, and Yona not mind sleeping under stars." Her voice started to slow, getting lower in tone and volume with each word. "All alone. In strange...alien...universe..."
Sandbar shook his head. "I'll head inside and grab whatever pillows and blankets I can find. Then we'll all set up out here. You guys find a good spot, and I'll be right back."
"Got it," Smolder said, and Sandbar squinted at the flower beds around the back of the house, looking for a ceramic hedgehog.
Waking up the next morning surprised Sandbar a little. He hadn't expected to get any sleep at all.
But here he was, blinking at a slightly cloudy sky instead of the starry one that had just been there. His face felt damp from dew, but his back was warm where Yona lay behind him, his front warm where Smolder lay curled in front of him. Poking around Fluttershy's house—familiar in some ways from the times he'd been in her cottage back in Ponyville but completely different in others—he'd found a couple big blankets for ground covers and some sturdy-looking pillows. He'd set them all out, then snuggled against Yona and dropped right off the way he always did.
His human body, though, didn't seem to be built for sleeping like this, and he couldn't help a little grunt as muscles all up and down his back twinged when he shifted. That got Smolder shifting along his stomach, her eyes when he looked down fluttering open.
Her unfocused gaze met his, then everything about her sharpened, and she gave a yip, leaping away and onto her paws on the grass.
"What?" Ocellus cried, and bees rose buzzing from all over Yona. "What happened?"
"Nothing!" Smolder barked—and while Sandbar didn't like thinking of her making that noise, well, she was a dog right now, and the way she pushed the word out really made it sound like a bark. "I mean, we're fine, Ocellus! All of us! Waking up after a good night's sleep, right?" She shook herself so hard that her narrow yellow ears flapped. "Right?"
Yona grunted and stirred behind him. "Bed make better bed than ground," she mumbled. "Must be why different word."
Feeling her muscles tense in a way he recognized, Sandbar sat forward just as Yona stood, stretched, and yawned, a sight he always enjoyed. "Did I mention," he asked, "how glad I am that yak always yak?"
"Husband did." She swung her big head around, and while the mouth on this body didn't seem like it was built for smiling, Sandbar could tell that she was. "Right now, though, we eat, we wash, we get out onto streets and find friends."
"Umm..." Ocellus's bees again spun into more or less her regular shape. "I can probably do that part the easiest, and since bees eat nectar and pollen and stuff, I can just grab some from around the neighborhood."
"First," Smolder said, padding back onto the blanket to pat a paw against the book, "let's get a map of the area from Princess Twilight. Then Sandbar and I can take, like, a quarter of it, and Ocellus can take the rest." Her ears fell, and she glanced up and over at Yona. "Gonna be honest here, Yona. I don't know if you oughtta go out until maybe after dark. If we knew where Silverstream or Gallus were and wanted to get their attention, you'd be perfect, the way you stand out so much. But till we find them..."
"Yona agree." She sighed. "Yak may always be yak, but yak never inconspicuous." Settling back onto the blanket, she nodded toward Ocellus. "Maybe Ocellus can leave some bees here to keep Yona in loop?"
"Hey, yeah." Sandbar tapped his weird new fingers on his weird new knees. "If you send some bees with us, too, we can all know if any of us finds anything! That's totally awesome!"
"Umm..." Ocellus said again, a sort of a shudder passing through the bees. "I'll give it a try, but, I mean, being a bunch of bees is just really, really weird."
Smolder gave a panting laugh. "Weird's our speciality, though, right?" She patted the book again. "So let's get this whole weird thing started."
Sandbar wrote to Princess Twilight asking for a map, then he went back into Fluttershy's house to see what kinds of food she had. Dog food was easy, the bags clearly marked among the cat food, fish food, bird feed and everything else in the floor-to-ceiling cupboard right inside the back door. Human food was easy, too—whatever was in the refrigerator, he assumed. Yona found some bales of hay stacked up behind the empty chicken coop, and Ocellus said the stuff in the flowers around the garden was surprisingly tasty and filling.
The first note in the book from the princess said that a map would take her some time: she would have to get in touch with Sunset first and then redraw whatever Sunset sent her it to get it over to them. But just as they were finishing breakfast, the book hummed and glowed, and when Sandbar opened it, there was a neatly labeled gridwork of streets with Fluttershy's house marked with a circle and the portal marked with an 'x'.
Thanks, Princess, he wrote, then he looked at the others. "I should prob'bly hang onto the book in case we need to send any notes, but you'll be able to see the map, right, Ocellus? If you leave some bees with me and Smolder?"
"I guess." She still sounded really unsure.
Suddenly really unsure himself, Sandbar glanced at Smolder.
Smolder sighed. "I know this is hard, guys, but Silverstream and Gallus are out there somewhere, and we're the only ones who can help. We don't even know what kinda things they might be right now, sure, but—"
"Gallus a tomcat." Yona snorted. "And Silverstream a big pink bird: not flamingo but more like cockatoo or parrot. What else could griffon and hippogriff be in place like this?"
Again, Sandbar really wished his ears could move. As it was, all he could do was blink first at Smolder, then turn and blink at Yona.
She was blinking back. "Well?" she asked. "Species obvious when think about character of both specific individuals and stereotypes of each original species. It like looking at pony and knowing they look better in tail coat than in morning coat."
And the more he thought about it... "When Silverstream came through," he said slowly, "she was all upset, Princess Twilight said. She would've been confused by the portal and her transformation, flapping and probably screeching up a storm more than talking. And if some human around here saw a big pink parrot doing that—"
"Fluttershy," Smolder said. She jumped onto all fours, her tail wagging. "Back home, that's what you'd do if you found a big weird bird. But Fluttershy's at that conference, and if these humans are anything like ponies, every single one of them in this neighborhood probably knows that their Fluttershy's away. So next after Fluttershy when you've got a big weird bird—"
"Zecora!" Ocellus shouted, her bees whirling into a cyclone. "She knows so much about everything that you can't go wrong asking her!" The cyclone juddered to a halt and retook Ocellus's shape. "But do they even have a Zecora here?"
Sandbar grabbed the book and the pen, and ten minutes later, another mark appeared on the map Princess Twilight had sent: a 'Z' to mark a spot two blocks south and one block east.
"Okay." Smolder stepped back from where she'd been standing beside Sandbar. "Ocellus, you wanna head over there first and see if, I dunno, there's a big pink bird tied up in her back yard?"
Ocellus gasped. "You really think—?"
"No," Smolder cut in quickly. "I mean, you know what Silverstream's like." She glanced from Ocellus to Yona and again ended up with her gaze fixed on Sandbar's. "We all know. If something got her so upset that she's run off to another universe, she won't wanna go back. That's gotta be why Gallus is still here: he's trying to convince her to go back with him, and she's being all stubborn."
"Except," Yona murmured, "wouldn't Gallus go back to tell princess what happening?"
Smolder's mouth went sideways. "Okay, new rule, Yona. You only get to have big insights that fire us up from now on, not ones that bring us down."
Which made Sandbar shake his head. "We've gotta be ready for anything. So me and Smolder'll go out as a human and a dog and see what's going on at Zecora's house. Ocellus, you send some bees with us, leave some bees here, and use the others to scout the rest of the neighborhood in case we're wrong about this." He looked around at the others. "That sound like a plan?"
They nodded, and Sandbar picked up the leash.
"Fewmets," Smolder said. "I'd forgotten about that thing..."
They practiced a little inside Fluttershy's side yard, Sandbar and Smolder walking up to the gate and back with him holding the leash and her wearing it. "I swear," Smolder muttered more than once, "if my brother ever hears about this..."
Ocellus buzzed overhead. "Do more sniffing," she said. "Dogs're always stopping and sniffing things when I see ponies walking them around Ponyville and around the school."
The look that Smolder shot at Ocellus, well, it made Sandbar glad it wasn't aimed at him. "Not gonna happen," Smolder said, emphasizing each word. "Can we go?"
"Actually," Yona said from where she stood beside the chicken coop, "if Smolder sniffs, Smolder can maybe find Gallus. His scent probably not changed all that much..."
Smolder sighed, her ears tight against her skull. "Fine. But he is gonna owe me big time."
"Okay." Sandbar looked at Yona, so familiar but so very, very different, then moved his gaze to the cloud of Ocellus and finally to Smolder sitting at his feet. "Let's be careful, everycreature. Keep us connected, Ocellus, and, well, I can't think of anything else to say."
Nocreature else offered anything, either, so he turned and started for the gate, Smolder trotting alongside. "Oh," she said as he reached for the latch, "I've noticed ponies talk to their dogs all the time even though the dogs don't talk back. So anything occurs to you while we're out there, go ahead and say it. If I come up with something, I'll tug hard on the leash so you'll know to squat down and check my collar. That way, I can maybe whisper it to you."
His chest tight, Sandbar just nodded. Because these weren't gonna be ponies on the other side of the fence. He patted his pants pocket to make sure Princess Twilight's book was there, then he flicked the latch and pulled the gate open.
That was the moment he realized that he hadn't looked closely enough at the map to know whether they should go left or right after crossing the lawn to the sidewalk. "Uhhh," he said, reaching for the book in his pocket again.
"Turn right," Ocellus's tiny voice said in his ear. "We go back toward the street we walked down from the school last night, but we go two blocks instead of three before we turn left."
"Thanks," he more breathed than said.
Smolder gave him a dirty look over her shoulder and headed definitely for the right side of the front yard. Sandbar let her pull him, glad that his friends knew where they were going.
The houses along the two blocks all looked pretty much the same, he thought: fancier than in Ponyville but not as fancy as in Canterlot. Not as many humans were moving around them as he would've expected back home, but with the cars, passing on the street or pulling up along the curbs in front of the houses, he supposed humans could go longer distances more quickly than most creatures could.
Weird thoughts started percolating in his brain—if he had his own personal little train like these cars and could go anywhere he wanted to, where would he want to go? But as much as he wanted to talk to Smolder and Ocellus about it, he kept quiet just in case any humans might be in earshot.
Fortunately, they moved pretty quickly down the two blocks. As she'd said, Smolder didn't stop to sniff anything on the ground, but she did have her head raised, looking around and sniffing the air. He noticed a couple black spots in the short orange fur of her head, and a squint showed them to be bees. Not hearing any buzzing beside him, he glanced sideways and saw three more bees sitting on his shoulder, so that was all right. Creepy, but all right...
At the end of the two blocks, though, the bees on Smolder stirred. "We cross the street here," Ocellus's voice said in Sandbar's ear, and he assumed they were saying the same thing to Smolder.
Stopping, he turned, looked up the street, down the street, and back up in again, Smolder doing the exact same thing, he noticed out of the corner of his eye. Fortunately, no humans seemed to be around to notice...
He and Smolder stepped off the curb at the same time, too, crossing the street easily enough and starting down the next block. "Okay," Ocellus buzzed. "We go one block, then this world's Zecora lives in the second house on the next block on the other side of the street. Oh, and my other bees haven't come across any sign of Gallus yet. And Yona just asked if we should ask the princess if they have animal shelters here like we do back home. I'd guess they do since Princess Twilight said Fluttershy's a veterinarian here, and, I mean, veterinarians and animal shelters go together, don't they?"
Smolder shook her head, her ears flapping. That launched the bees sitting on her out and away, and Ocellus made a little squeaking noise. "You're right," she said even more quietly than before. "I'll stop talking before I maybe get us all in trouble..."
They passed more of the square and nondescript houses, but Sandbar could already tell which house on the next block belonged to the local Zecora. The tree towering up behind and looming over the house made it absolutely unmistakable: it was as if some bigger mirror had transported a little slice of the Everfree Forest to this land of overcast skies and close-cropped lawns.
Crossing the next little street, he tried to keep his eyes on the house without obviously staring at it. That made him dizzy, though, flicking his gaze back and forth, so he had to stop.
An instant later, he had to stop not just rolling his eyes around but actually moving forward, too: Smolder gave a yip, jerked her head back, then jammed it down against a section of the parkway between the sidewalk and the curb. The sounds of her sniffing came loud and frantic to Sandbar's ears, and the way Smolder planted her paws, he didn't think she was likely to be going anywhere for a while.
Sandbar blinked down at her in confusion, but then he remembered the signal she'd mentioned just before they'd left Fluttershy's house. "What is it, girl?" he asked, trying to sound like he'd ever had a pet and knew how to talk to one. He squatted down beside her, and she jammed her snout into his ear.
"In the front window!" she whispered, her breath against his neck. "In the cage! D'you see her?"
Not sure how to do it inconspicuously, Sandbar glanced up...and forgot that he even knew the word inconspicuous. Because the big pink bird sitting in the big black cage visible through the front window of the house, her crest feathers drooping down the sides of her head and her wings sort of hunched up to meet those crest feathers, couldn't've been anycreature other than Silverstream.
"Guys?" a wispy but nasally and way-too-familiar voice asked behind him. "Is...is that you?"
It took some effort for Sandbar to tear his attention away from Silverstream across the street. But the bedraggled blue cat with the patch of yellow fur along his chest that was creeping out of the hedge between the two houses closest to him on this side of the street got his head turning so quickly, he almost knocked himself over.
"Gallus?" Smolder said way louder than she should've. She realized it right away, though, the way her ears and tail fell, but then she was jamming her face into the side of Sandbar's head again. "Grab him! We've gotta get back to Fluttershy's and regroup!"
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nice work
Ah, so now we know what Gallus and Silverstream became. Now comes the hard part: Figuring out how to bring them back without attracting attention.
I LOVE YOUR SANDBAR VOICE, he's so spacey and whimsical and sweet, can't wait to find out what Gallus and Silverstream have been up to
Yeah I still don't know how that works either but it's still pretty interesting and very unique way
The answer is yeah there's probably other different versions of the existence of Equestria especially you sandbar but he's probably somewhere else
Sandbar realized, was a human standing on a street corner with a dog and a giant, bee-covered yak.
Yeah that's not weird at all but then again I'm sure the other kids especially the ones who goes the same school as Sunset seen weirder things
Whelp, they've found their wayward catbirb and horsebirb...now just to figure out how to get them all back home. Preferably without causing a big interdimensional incident.
...well that was boring
you coulda done something cool, but you blew it
i'll stick around, but you better make things interesting or i'm out
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Thanks, folks:
One more chapter to go, and four more days to get it written!
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Fortunately:
Fimficiton contains thousands and thousands of other stories, and a little diligent digging will no doubt find one more appealing to you.
Mike