A Strange New Land

by Enrique the Canadian

Chapter 3 Meet the Gang

The next morning, Polaris awoke to the warm sun shining on his face. The familiar rainbow streak was bouncing around, popping clouds away and making Ponyville a sunnier place. Polaris began to grow a lot more bored watching somepony else fly around.The fact that he couldn't fly for at least a month, according to Nurse Redheart had saddened Polaris deeply. His life was flying around, racing, or exploring with his friends. He smiled, fondly remembering all the great moments with his friends. Pushing themselves to their limits, buzzing people's farms, and doing various tricks together. Just then, Polaris remembered how his friends had reacted when he announced he was going over the glacier. Some tried to stop him to absolutely no avail, of course. Others encouraged him, saying they knew he could make it there and back. His best friend, Lightning Chaser, was dumbfounded, he could not think of anything to say, and seemed to become more withdrawn. A knock on the door startled Polaris and brought him out of his thoughts. Before he could say anything, the door opened quickly, followed by an explosion of confetti.

"Hi there!" A pink pony squeaked as she bounced into the room. "I'm Pinky Pie! Sorry you're in the hospital and we had to meet like this, but I just have to meet everypony in Ponyville!" This Pinkie Pie was talking way too fast for Polaris to follow in his groggy state. "Twilight told me all about how you crashed into her balloon! She said it was so scary! Anyway, I brought you a cupcake! I made it specially for you! It has a smiley face so you'll have one too!" Pinkie Pie set down a silver tray on the table next to Polaris' bed. "When you get out of the hospital, I'm going to throw you a very special party like I do for all new ponies in Ponyville!" Has she ever heard of puncuation? Polaris smirked as he thought this to himself. Pinkie Pie looked at the chart on the end of bed and gasped, "awwwwwww! You'll be out in three weeks? That's no fun! I'll have to throw a 'You're Going to Recover Soon' or a 'Get Well Soon' party in your honour!" Pinkie Pie trailed off in an ever changing story about the parties she could throw, and it's decorations.

It was just then that Polaris had noticed Twilight was in the room too. He tried to give her a look that said "This is Pinkie Pie?" Twilight simply smirked and stood by the wall next to the window. Polaris noticed the rainbow streak was still zipping about, but there were no more clouds.

Pinkie Pie noticed this and, almost as if on cue, chimed up again. "That's Rainbow Dash!" She chirped, "she's the bestest flyer in all of Ponyville! But from what Twilight says about how fast you were going, you should give her a run for her money. Not that she'd race for money, she usually races to impress the Wonderbolts. They're the bestest flyers in all of Equestria! Rainbow Dash wants to join them so badly!" Wait a second... Polaris thoughts seemed slow against Pinkie Pie's torrent of words, did she say bestest? Pinkie had continued regardless. "Maybe someday you could join them too!" Polaris glanced out the window and noticed that Rainbow Dash was no longer in the sky. "It's a good thing cider season doesn't start for almost two months." Cider season? Pinkie continued, "AppleJack makes the best cider ever! You just have to try some! It tastes like heaven would taste, but in a cup! I just hope those meanies Flim and Flam don't come back." Pinkie made a huffing sound. "They tried to put the Apple Family out of business! They founded this town!" Pinkie was getting notably aggravated. "If they come back, ohhh, I don't know what I would do!"

"Relax Pinkie, they ain't comin' back." An unfamiliar voice chimed in. "Remember their promise?"

"Hey there, AJ" Twilight finally spoke up, still smirking. "This is Polaris, the one I was telling you about." Twilight motioned towards Polaris, who smiled and waved with his good arm.

Called it. Polaris had thought AppleJack was an awfully... Country name. "Hi. Sorry about nearly killing your friend."
Polaris apologized, trying to sound as sincere as possible. The fact that he always mumbled made people think he was never sincere.

"Don't worry 'bout it." AppleJack beamed. "Twilight can take care of herself. Ah was quite worried about yerself, hearin' you hadn't made it out and all." Polaris liked the voice on this one. She didn't speak a mile-a-minute like Pinkie Pie. And her accent made him want to laugh.

"Thanks." Polaris croaked, his voice still hoarse and unused. "I think it would be a good idea to watch where I'm going next time." The present party of ponies stated that they agreed with a round of snickering just as Polaris heard somepony humming. It definitely wasn't the nurse, as she hummed softer, in a way you couldn't hear until she was right there. Then Polaris saw a purple mane with a white unicorn under it saunter into the room. She took one look at Polaris and gasped.

"Oh!" She gawked. "That simply will not do! These sheets absolutely do not compliment your eyes!" This is probably Rarity, then. Polaris gave a confused look as Rarity stated everything wrong with his "Hospital ensemble".

"Hey there Rarity." Twilight commented. "This is Polaris, the one who needs a suit." Twilight smirked. Polaris shot a look saying "what is wrong with you?!" Twilight's way, but she merely laughed at Polaris' look of desperation.

"Oh, Right! as soon as you are released from this fashion nightmare, you come straight to my office!" Polaris noticed Rarity seemed to have an accent he had never heard before. Exotic. He thought. "I just have to know," Rarity continued, "how do you think you looked against the balloon's purple?" This made everyone in the room laugh, including Polaris.

"I wasn't really looking, sorry." Polaris said in between his laughter. "My main concern was not dying."

With that, Pinkie started up again, speaking stupidly fast. "Ohmigosh! You could have totally died! I'm gonna throw you a 'You Didn't Die' party!" Pinkie Pie was grinning ear-to-ear at this point.

"Pinkie, you alright?" Another new voice sounded. Polaris looked to the door and saw the cyan body of a Pegasus with a confused grin on her face and one eyebrow elevated above the other. Polaris then noticed the pony's mane was rainbow, matching her tail perfectly. "I think you're scaring him" Rainbow Dash motioned toward Polaris, who had a confused, yet kind of worried expression.

"Hello, Rainbow Dash." Twilight said. "This is Polaris, he's the one I told you about." Smiling coyly, Twilight returned to her position on the wall.

"Hey." Rainbow Dash greeted Twilight with a wave. "Sorry I'm late, I went to see Fluttershy. She said she can't come, she has some new animals to take care of." Rainbow Dash turned to Polaris. "I heard you were going really fast when you hit the balloon. I've never heard of a pony crashing into a balloon before."

Polaris smiled sheepishly, "I wasn't really looking where I was going."

Rainbow Dash snickered and replied "Yeah, maybe you should start doing that. I remember last time I wasn't watching where I was going. Broke my own wing. Guess I'm lucky, seeing how you broke... Everything." That earned a round of laughter from everypony present. For roughly an hour, the group stayed and talked, joking and conversing as if they were old friends. Polaris couldn't shake an odd feeling of incomplete-ness under the ecstatic feeling of making so many friends. His pain, for that hour, seemed to fade, almost completely disappearing. After that hour, nurse Redheart poked her head into the room and politely informed everyone that visiting hours had ended. With various good-byes, the group wandered out of the room, still laughing at some jokes that were mentioned.

The next three weeks in the hospital were occasionally punctuated by short visits from either small groups or single ponies. The visits were a lot of fun to Polaris. They managed to keep his mind off of his situation, keeping him from the ever-looming depression. When he was alone, however, he found it very easy for his thoughts to stray to home. Polaris would often stare into space and just think. He never thought about anything in particular, usually it was his opinion of the other ponies, and how this mysterious Fluttershy always seemed to be busy, probably an excuse he would think to himself, among other things like she definitely hates me would also go through his head.

Comments

[Haunted Toaster]

this can be interesting i will keep an eye on it

[Enrique the Canadian]

1990455 Thanks. That really means alot.