Rise and Shine

by ZettaGolden

The cute, the bad, and the painful

The deep, rich smell of fertile earth assaulted my nostrils as soon as I woke up. My body ached and protested to my mind regaining consciousness, and my throat was dry enough to prevent me from even groaning about these unpleasant sensations. Only one thing was for certain.

I was not in my bed.

Gingerly, I forced my eyelids open, wincing at the light that shot into my cornea's like a razor blade. If I didn't know any better, I would say I was hungover. Had I even been drinking last night? I couldn't remember. And for now, it didn't really even matter. I needed to find out where I was.

As my eyes adjusted to the harsh light, I cast a look around me. Huge oak trees grew all around, and the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind and birds chirping in the distance reached my ears. Was I in a forest? It looked that way. I had woken up in what seemed to be a small forest clearing, about the size of a basketball court.

"Hmmm..." I mumbled, decidedly confused. Or, at least I tried to mumble that, but was once again reminded that my throat was roughly the same texture as sandpaper.

I pushed myself into a kneeling position, wincing again as my muscles exacted their vengeance for being used. After resting for a second and taking another look around, I rose to my feet.

First things first, I needed to find some water. Or civilization. Ya, that sounded even better. I'd get back to town, then call up my friends and ask what the hell happened last night. Wait a second... Call. I frantically slapped the pockets of my jeans, trying to find the telltale bulge of a cellphone.

Nothing.

No wallet, no ipod, no cellphone.

Not a good start to the day.

Grimacing, I looked into the behemoth oak trees, trying to discern a path from the unwelcoming brush of the forest. At the base of one of the oaks, there was a small, dirt path. That seemed to be a good a start as any, so I approached the path, keeping my eyes trained on the dirt for any signs of shoe prints. Maybe I had stumbled in here myself, and was hungover after all.

I scanned back and forth, combing the dirt for anything. There! I knelt down and squinted at the faint trace of something. It looked like a horseshoe print. Odd. Maybe this was a riding trail? Shaking my head, I stood up again. I would find out when I got to town.

"...sterious lights had to of come from somewhere in the Everfree Forest,"

Voices. Female ones, by the sound of it. Someone was coming, thank god. It was time to get out of this forest and find out what was going on.

"Ah'm sure there was, Twilight, but Ah don't understand why we have to come pokin' around in here. These woods are dangerous, and the more time we spend in here the more likely it is that somepony's gonna get hurt", a southern voice drawled, somewhat louder than the first voice. They were getting closer. Wait a second... Did she say "somepony"? And something about a dangerous forest?

I took a few more steps back into the clearing, the gears in my head turning. I might have heard that wrong, and it was no reason to get all suspicious, but then again, I might have heard it exactly right. Maybe that's the way southern people refer to their horses?

"Aw, what's the matter, AJ? Scared?"

"Come on now, Rainbow Dash, now ain't the time for this."

Rainbow Dash? What the hell kinda name was that? I could now visibly make out rustling in the forest up ahead. The voices were very close. I tried to swallow, to no avail.

"Well I, for one, quite agree with Applejack," an upper-class British voice asserted. The rustling was close now, the voices loud. "We should vacate these dreadful woods now before we come across any- MONSTER!!!"

My mouth hung open as I took in what was in front of me, not quite believing what I was seeing. Six ponies wearing saddlebags had just emerged from the path into the clearing giving me my first clear look at what had been talking. They were all somewhat anthropomorphized, with large, expressive eyes and somewhat smaller muzzles, but ponies nonetheless.

Two of them, one a white unicorn and the other a yellow pegasus, shrieked and leapt backwards a few feet, and lay cowering behind their friends.

The four ponies who weren't completely mortified at the sight of me stood with similar expressions to my own, except a pink one, which just bounced up and down in place, smiling at me, and then whipping her head back and forth, looking first at her friends, then me, seemingly content to just wait and see how things played out. There was a silence for almost thirty whole seconds, aside from the pleading sobs of the cowering unicorn and pegasus, trying to urge their friends to run away.

A cyan, rainbow mane'd pegasus broke the silence. Probably safe to assume this was the Rainbow Dash.

"What the hell is that thing, Twilight?!" She said in a tone that straddled the line between curiosity and disgust.

"I... Don't know," Twilight replied looking at me with curiosity. Six talking ponies come out of the woods, four of them creatures straight out of mythology and I'm the freak? Right.

"Can it talk?" The orange pony asked apprehensively, eyeing my clothes.

"I... Don't know," Twilight simply repeated. She looks into my eyes and cleared her throat. "Uhm... Right... CAN-YOU-UNDERSTAND-ME?" She says loudly and slowly, as if she's speaking to an immigrant.

I try to say, "Yes, I can,", but what comes out is a wheezing gasp. I swallow, and begin walking towards them, raising my arms in what I hoped to be a friendly, non-threatening gesture, considering I was almost twice as tall as them.

"WOAAH! Here it comes!" Rainbow Dash cried out, blasting towards me at a blinding speed, slamming her two front hooves in my chest and knocking me hard onto my back, winding me.

Ow.

"Rainbow! Take it easy!" Twilight called out, too late.

Rainbow Dash straddled my stomach with her hind legs, pinning me to the forest floor, and raised a hoof to strike again. She brought her pony fists of fury down on my face three times before I finally decided I had had enough.

I had read somewhere that humans were actually stronger than horses, proportional to our size. If humans were as large as them, then we would actually be stronger. I figured that this fact could come in handy here.

Rainbow Dash raised her hoof again. but I brought up my hand and caught it on it's way down to my face. She gulped audibly before I shoved her off using the last of my already flagging strength and struggled onto my knees. A small canteen had fallen out of the pegasus's saddle back. I snatched it up and downed the entire contents in four long droughts.

"Hey! That was-" She begins, but I cut her off.

"Look!" I yell, now that talking doesn't cause my throat to feel like it's the sahara desert, "I'm not a monster! I'm just some guy, lost in the forest!" At this, the mouths of all of the ponies drop, rendering them silent, leaving the clearing almost completely silent, save for the chirping of the birds. Even the white one and the yellow one stop their screaming and shouting.

"You... Wait... What!? You... What are you?!" The white unicorn asks, completely shocked.

"Uhm..." I began in a confused tone. "I'm a human. What are you?"

"Your new bestest friends!" The pink one practically screams bouncing over to me. "Sorry Rainbow Dash was such a meanie, but she thought you were a big scary monster when you started growling at us and with your arms all stretched out like... Well... A monster!"

I squinted at her, not trusting her cheerful ways. Her expression seemed completely innocent, but after getting sucker punched by Dash, I decided not to drop my guard so easily.

"I'm Pinkie Pie," she continues, oblivious to my very suspicious looks. "That's Rainbow Dash, though you already met her, that's Twilight Sparkle, that's Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy! What's your name?" Pinkies fast, cheerful talking had disarmed me, and I was struggling to remember all of this at once.

"Uhm... James. James West." I say, head still swimming with all these new names.

"WOW!!! That's an interesting name! Is it foreign!?"

I suddenly remember that I'm in the middle of a strange, apparently dangerous forest talking to ponies. "That depends," I begin, trying to pick my words carefully in order to be absolutely sure I get the information I want. "Where is this?" I do a mental facepalm. So much for choosing my words carefully.

"We're in the Everfree Forest," Twilight Sparkle says. "It's near the town where we live, Ponyville. On a grander scale, you're in the kingdom of Equestria." Twilight is looking at me analytically, taking in my fleece sweater, dirty jeans, and brown hair.

I look back at Pinkie.

"Yup. Definitely foreign." I'm a little surprised that I've accepted the fact that I'm talking to ponies, but hey, after you get into a fistfight with something, they tend to seem pretty real. "So... Are there more of you?"

"More ponies?! Well DUH! There's Lyra and Bon-Bon and Ditzy and Mr. Cake and Mrs. Cake and Aloe and Vera and..." Pinkie continues on, and I decide that the other five are more likely to give me the answers I'm looking for.

Applejack looks at Pinkie in wonder for a few seconds and then turns to look me in the eyes. "Ya, our whole world is home to Ponies. Well, Dragons and Griphons and the like to, ah guess, but Ponies seem to be dominant. At leas', they are in Equestria."

"Wha... Dragons!?" I ask, flabbergasted, eyes going wide. I'm not really sure why I'm surprised at this point, but I've played Skyrim. I know what they can (theoretically) do.

"Ya. Twilight lives with one. Goes by the name o' Spike."

"Spike the dragon... Of course."

There's silence for a few seconds as I process this. I'm no longer in Canada, and I very much doubt I'm even on Earth. So that means I'm on another planet. The question is...

"How did you get here?" Rarity asks, apparently having gotten of her initial fear of me. Not that I can blame her. From the sounds of things, humans aren't exactly common in Equestria.

"I... Have no idea. The last thing I remember was that I was walking to a friends house. After that, I woke up in this forest, dehydrated and aching."

Twilight nods and turns to Fluttershy, who still seems to be in a catatonic state.

"Hey Fluttershy, your cottage is closest. Can we get uhm..." She thinks for a moment "James! Can we get James cleaned up there? We can bring him to town afterwards, and try and sort this out a little more."

"Oh... Uhm... Yes, of course." The quaking yellow Pegasus hides behind her pink mane, giving me a look of terror. I grin at her, trying to show that I am, in fact, not going to rip out her throat. She seems to soften at that, and returns a nervous smile before getting up and nodding weakly to Twilight. "If you'd like, we can go over now... I mean, if that's okay with you..."

Twilight looks at me again with a quizzical look on her face.

"I'm ready to go if you all are," I say, trying to seem more relaxed than I really was. After all, they could be bringing me to some shack straight out of the Blair Witch Project. But on the other hand, they're my best hope for survival, especially if what they're saying is true.

Rainbow Dash and Rarity continue to look at me somewhat suspiciously, but I'm determined to earn their trust. Well, not so much Rainbow Dash. But Rarity seems nice enough. Applejack walks up to me boldly and flashes me one of the most genuine smiles I've ever seen.

"Hello! Ah'm Applejack. Ah now we've been introduced, but ah figured that I may as well make it official! Welcome to Equestria!"

"Thank you, Applejack. If I'm being honest, this whole thing still seams so... Surreal. Ponies where I come from don't tend to talk much."

Almost everyone begins to walk back over to the path, peppering me with questions about where I come from. I don't really mind answering them; they're probably as weirded out by my existence as I am of theirs.

"... and Colgate. Did I mention Lyra?" Pinkie finishes her extensive list, suddenly realizing that everypony was leaving. "Hey! Wait for me!" The chipper pony chirps cheerily.

Author's Note:

This is my first fic of all time, so please try and keep that in mind as you all absorb its suckiness. That said, criticism is appreciated, as this is something that I actually want to get good. The adventure will come in later chapters, as James begins investigating why he's in Equestria.

Comments

[poisedanimeBloke]

Love it

[ZettaGolden]

Hey guys, my computer wigged out and Chapter two ended up being posted prematurely. It was incomplete, and really unpolished, so apologies about that. I'm looking to release it on Saturday, should I not run into any problems. Thanks for all the positive feedback, and sorry about any confusion.

[Hi]

Okay so he's okay with being on a different planet/dimension/universe/time with talking ponies and he is perfectly fine with going with them through a supposed dangerous forest... i would of just been like "Strange. How did I get here? Well time to find civilization but i better grab that big stick over there for protection."

[Sonson-Sensei]

You've interested me enough to see where this goes.

[DrakeDragon13]

A Canadian, finally! It was getting to the point were I thought only americans where allowed in Equestria.

[The killer Bacon]

wow rainbow is a dick

[Lord Charles]

2084874 im an 'murican and and i say that seems to be the truth. But I've seen good story from atlest 5 difficult Nations also..... DAM you phone!