I can handle dying. I can probably handle being in another world. I might even be able to handle being the only human. I just wish I could speak...
Have you ever had a thought that felt almost prophetic?
Has that thought ever turned out to have a very different meaning than you’d guessed?
It certainly has for me.
I’m not really sure where I am, what I’m doing, or why any of this is happening to me, but all I can do is try to keep going—and if I’m lucky, maybe, just maybe, I’ll find some friends to help along the way.
This is going to be the day that changes my entire life...
I pulled my car into the parking space with butterflies in my stomach, taking several deep breaths to try to calm myself as I put the car in park and shut the engine off. Across the lot was my destination, the Fowler High Energy Research Building. Despite having spent the last three-and-a-half years of my life becoming increasingly well acquainted with the university’s campus, I’d never really noticed this place before now.
It was a wholly unremarkable building—perhaps slightly larger than the rest of the structures on campus, but the cladding and architecture were designed to the same look, blending into the surrounding college ambience so well you’d hardly know there was anything remarkable about the place at all. Or at least, you’d never know it if it wasn’t for the gigantic crowd currently milling around the front entrance with signs, shouting eco-centric slogans and epithets at the doors.
I shook my head slowly as I really took the scene in for the first time. It was a madhouse, especially this week. Fifteen years of intensive research into alternative energy sources had almost bankrupted the school at times, but there had apparently been a major breakthrough that was changing everything. Nobody knew what it was, though, since access to the building was so strictly controlled and no members of the press were ever admitted.
Until today, anyway.
I smirked at the fleet of numbered and antenna-decked vans parked down the side of the access road, the army of newsmen reading off long-winded versions of “we have no idea what’s happening but it sure is something” in an effort to keep viewers interested. They were all keyed up ever since the department issued a statement that there would be a major press release at the end of the week, in which they would unveil the future of clean energy. There would be no cameras, but literally the entire world was waiting and watching.
And I was going to get the first scoop...
It made perfect sense, but I could still hardly believe it was happening. While the department was operating in a largely unilateral manner, they were still loyal to the university, and so the first dibs on interviews, tours, and information would be given to the campus newspaper. And fortunately, by sheer luck (and everyone else being too busy...) it had come to me—a senior general studies major with only a passing enthusiasm for journalism—to break what was arguably one of the largest, most important stories in the history of the world.
So, you know, no pressure.
This is going to change everything, the thought rolled through my mind again. After today, my life is never going to be the same.
Only five months and change until I graduated, and as long as I didn’t completely and royally screw this up, this one story could land me almost any job of my choice. I could be a reporter at just about any paper in the country—and even if I didn’t want that, I’d be known as the guy who broke the Clean Power Story from the moment I walked in the door no matter where I went. This credit could do a lot of good for me. Granted, I didn’t exactly know how at this point, but I felt sure about it.
I leaned around and dug through the wreckage of my back seat, looking for my cell phone, which was buried under a few empty water bottles, a very smelly karate gi, and some other assorted crap. I know, I know: my car’s a mess. I don’t really use it enough to care.
Another deep breath, a second to double-check that I had my keys and my IDs on me and that my car was locked, and I headed out.
The media-and-protester circus fell out of sight as I walked around the building to a side exit hidden in among the landscaping. I stepped up to the blank, red door just as the bell tower rang out one in the afternoon, and—as per the instructions in my emails—the door was unlatched just enough for me to let myself in. I did so, making sure the door latched closed behind me and finally got a look at the man who I’d been conversing with digitally for the last week.
“Dr. Mueller, right?” I asked.
“And you must be... Ash.” The researcher reached a hand out to shake mine, his smile faltering and his stride hitching just enough to be noticeable as he did. I had to fight to keep my eyes from rolling.
“Let me guess, you assumed I was a girl, right?”
He ran a hand across his scalp, embarrassed. “Forgive me, I may not have taken the time to look you up in the student registry. I just saw your name in the email address header as ‘Ashley’ and sort of assumed... I’ve been a bit... occupied.”
I smirked. “I’m sure.” I couldn’t really be upset at him. At least at first glance, he was every inch like what I’d have stereotyped as a lead scientist, from his salt-and-pepper goatee and bald head right down to his feet, which were clad in sandals instead of shoes. He finished extending his hand and I took it, giving it a firm shake my dad would no doubt be proud of. “Don’t worry about it, my parents were kind of weird. It’s great to meet you,” I said casually. He didn’t pull his hand back after I let go, though.
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m obliged to double-check your identity before I can let you into the building.”
“Oh, right!” I knew that; the emails had made it very clear that I shouldn’t forget a photo ID when I visited. I passed over my student credentials, which he looked over and passed back with a smile.
“Thank you. Normally I wouldn’t prefer to be quite so paranoid, but it’s protocol. Also, we’ve had a few rather serious threats of late against the department, so things are a bit on edge around here.”
“Threats? Over what?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” he replied cryptically before he straightened up and went into an obviously scripted recitation. “Once we go in, I must ask that you observe a few guidelines. No press has ever been admitted to this building since it opened, and there are reasons for that. The work we do here has not only a certain financial value, but would also be worth a great deal to any institution’s pride should our research be stolen, even accidentally. For that reason, I must insist that you not take any photos, and that anything you see in any of the rooms we pass must remain strictly off the record. Failure to do so could result in charges of corporate espionage being filed against you.”
He broke a smile. “Honestly, though, I think what you’re here to see should give you plenty to write about as it is.”
With that out of the way, he swiped his ID to open the door into a hallway, and led me quickly towards the elevators at the other end. I passed room after room, all without even the typical sidelight windows that a classroom would have. Most of the doors were closed tightly, and a few even closed as we were walking down the hall. Not that I could really see much of anything, mind you.
I found my head slightly spinning as the elevator closed behind me. “So...” I began as the Doctor punched in a floor and swiped his ID again, “what am I here to see, exactly?”
“Ever since this department opened fifteen years ago, we’ve had one major area of study,” he began as the elevator started to slowly ascend. “We take on all sorts of projects in order to publish and keep grant money coming in, but our big goal has always been stellar physics. We’ve researched deep space, anti-matter, and the very nature of gravity itself, and all of our study has finally come together in our greatest work yet.”
I don’t know if he planned it or if the drama of the moment was just perfectly aligned, but right as he ended his line the doors opened and I found myself in a large research room. The walls, floor, and even the tables were all research-white to an almost painfully reflective degree—though about 90% of the walls were at least covered with monitors, server racks, workstations, and other research furniture. A few other scientists milled about the room with clipboards and whatnot, and a couple of doorways led off into offices and other rooms. The whole thing would have been depressingly cliche, straight out of a tech-company commercial—were it not for the feature at the far wall that dominated my attention.
The opposite wall from the elevator was completely clear, showing a massive bulk of industrial-grade machinery, and I mean “massive” to the scale where from fifty feet away, the bolts holding this rig together were clear as day. It was hard to tell what the equipment housed, but it all surrounded something so unexpected that I could barely take in anything else. I walked slowly across the room, dazed, until I came to the barrier wall and placed my hand against the glass.
I found myself face-to-face with an honest-to-God black hole.
It was tiny, sure, but that’s absolutely what it was. The truly dark center of the thing was about the size of a quarter, but the utterly perfect depth of the darkness was... well, captivating is really the only word that does it justice. I felt like I couldn’t stop staring into the void and the gently swirling accretion that surrounded it.
The doctor leaned nonchalantly against the glass, and I suddenly realized that I could feel the stresses from his body through the glass as it strained. It felt almost as if the wall was vibrating to an inaudible hum. I pulled my hand back, hesitantly. “Pretty, isn’t it?” he said. “There’s been a few researchers who have shown the same tendencies from time to time. Once they start looking into the event, it’s hard to look away.”
“I... Whu—how? Wh—what?” I flailed my arms at the black hole, still unable to truly grasp what was going on.
Dr. Mueller laughed and rolled a desk chair over to the nearby table in the center of the room so he could take a seat. “Officially, it’s known as the first Terrestrial Gravitational Event Anomaly, or TGE-1,” he explained. nodding at me to take a seat of my own. “Unofficially, we call it ‘The Hole’. As to the how, well...”
I pulled myself away from the trembling glass and found a chair across the table from him, trying to figure out just what I should be paying attention to as I laid my cell phone on the table and toggled the voice recorder on. “For several decades now, it’s been known to science that micro-black holes could be formed by particle collisions, if they were energetic enough. The problem has been that if they’re too small they tend to evaporate themselves away almost instantly via Hawking radiation, and if they were large enough to be stable, well, they tended to expand. It takes a very controlled input of mass into an event to keep it stable, and this is the first time an event like this has ever been close enough to Earth for us to have any input.”
I hastily scrawled a few sentences down. “So, how did you make it stable?”
“Ah, that’s a bit of a trade secret,” he replied. “I will have to suffice to say that our research into gravity and how we can interact with it magnetically has had much of the bearing on our success, and that’s why we felt confident enough to take a shot at creating a micro-event of our own. The upshot, though, is that this baby produces enough gravitational energy to power our homemade electrical generators indefinitely. TGE-1 alone is powering this entire campus, and will soon expand to most of the surrounding city once we refine the generator tech we’re using.”
“This is... wow,” was all I could think to say. “It’s just—It’s all so unreal.” My brow furrowed slightly as my reporting instincts figured out what the real question around all this was. “So, major scientific breakthroughs, virtually unlimited energy, zero dependance on fossil fuels and such and a huge leap forward for the human race—why are there protesters outside?”
Dr. Mueller sighed. “People often fear what they don’t understand. There was a danger when we first turned it on, I suppose, because there’s really no way to know how well the math will hold up on an experiment this large until you try it. Now that it’s on, it’s relatively harmless, but of course there will always be people who think that this will be the thing that destroys the entire world, just like they did when the CERN collider was first brought online in Europe, or when the Manhattan Project was formed to create the atom bomb.”
I leveled what I thought was my best hard-hitting-reporter’s face at the professor. “You said relatively harmless. Is there any danger from this experiment?”
“On a large scale? No. But of course a black hole isn’t completely harmless.” He nodded towards the glass wall. “That wall is all that separates us personally from an extremely surreal end of existence. It’s made right at the extent of the event horizon. Crossing the line of that glass would mean that you’d fall in and never come back, so I guess there’s that as a risk. And mathematically, TGE could expand to the point where it would begin to overwhelm the containment and swallow the earth, but someone would have to put a lot of mass into it to do so. Like, a few thousand cubic acres of dirt, lot of mass.”
I jotted more notes, hoping that I’d be able to read my shaky handwriting when I got back to my dorm room. “So, this whole thing out front of the building is a misunderstanding then, right? Do you expect it’ll all blow over soon?”
“I sure hope so...” he said quietly. “Sadly, there have been a few more... radical instances. The department has received several threats so far from some eco-terrorist front, but so far nothing has come of it.” He brightened back up. “The police and the FBI are aware of the situation, so I don’t think we’re actually in any real danger here. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t be here!” he said with a laugh.
I absently laughed along as I wrote, not really paying much attention to what was actually being said. Terrorists? Conflict over the end of the world? The holy grail of free and unlimited clean energy? Hazy visions of a Pulitzer Prize flickered at the back of my mind as the realization of just how big this event truly was started to sink in.
Honestly, I was so absorbed in my future article that I didn’t even notice anything going wrong at first. The first few muffled pops from the hallway just sounded like a blown light bulb, or a paper bag in the stairwell. Even the first faint screams didn’t register with me. It wasn’t until my interviewee froze with a worried expression and the rest of the scientists in the room started looking anxiously at the door that I even looked up.
Dr. Mueller jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over behind him. “Everybody out!” he yelled suddenly.
One of the entry doors to the room burst open, almost tearing its hinges from the casework as several rather large-looking people stormed into the room. They were all dressed in roughly-matching piecemeal military surplus, but they were toting some serious hardware. I felt like I should have been able to identify some of the weapons, but I was a bit shocked, to be perfectly frank.
As the college kid in a hoody and the sole person in the room not wearing a lab coat, I stuck out badly. Sure enough, one of the armed men moved rapidly over to me, pushing me roughly out of my seat and back against the glass wall, bellowing at me to stay put.
I cowered, I admit it. My mind was fuzzy, and all I could think as I covered my head with my arms was It’s not fair! This is supposed to be the beginning of a whole new life for me!
Against my back, I could feel the strain of the glass as it fought against the pull of the unnatural gravity field. I watched, horrified, as the assailants began to herd the scientists together, keeping them all in check under the barrels of their assault rifles.
One of the insurgents, just as unrecognizable under his ski mask as all the others, stepped up to one of the larger consoles, eyeing it meaningfully. “You were warned. We’re shutting this little experiment down, professor.”
“You can’t!” Dr. Mueller protested. “There are procedures for that! The containment system is critical, if you—”
“Someone please shut him up?” the leader snarled, raising the butt of his rifle to smash the console’s panel in.
Time figuratively slowed down as everything went to shit around me. The professor sprang up to tackle the pseudo-soldier, and they collided hard. I flinched back as a loud crack rang out in the room, and had just enough time to look up and see the tiny hole in the wall above me, cracks spiderwebbing across the face of the sheet.
The wall behind my back exploded inwards, and I felt the unreal sensation of falling backwards from my place against the ground.
Time began to slow down in a much more literal sense. As I fell, I watched the Doctor get thrown to the floor. The terrorist leader drew a pistol from his belt with excruciating slowness as chaos broke out in the room. Fleeing scientists and chasing insurgents drifted to a stop, and everything went perfectly still as my body accelerated to the same speed as the light that was bringing the information to my eyes. In the lab, I could see Dr. Mueller’s flinch stuck in time like I was, the blooming muzzle flash of the pistol frozen like a flower, and even the tiny bullet hanging in midair between the two. I could almost even make out the ripples of violently displaced air around the bullet.
I knew in my mind that outside, in the real world, it was already all over. Dr. Mueller and who knew how many scientists were already dead, and I had already snapped out of their existence in the space between heartbeats as the black hole claimed me.
The knowledge was nothing on the actual experience, though. Time had no meaning for me anymore, and I felt the agony both forever and in an instant. My body felt stretched, like every individual inch of me was on a separate torture rack—but beyond that, I could feel my mind being pulled apart at the seams. All I could do was scream. I screamed long past the point where it hurt. I kept screaming even after it stopped hurting altogether. And I screamed long beyond the point where my throat was capable of producing any sound at all.
I can’t really explain it any better, even though that really doesn’t get the point across. I didn’t feel like I’d gone from unconsciousness to consciousness; there wasn’t a fade into waking or anything. All I know is that there was an instant where I was suddenly somewhere, and before that I wasn’t.
My senses seemed to lag, catching up to me as I found myself sprawled on what felt like grass. Without the ability to make a coherent thought yet, I grasped at the sensation of being able to feel anything again, clutching the grass like a shipwreck victim washed up on shore.
Even without opening my eyes, I could take a certain stock of my situation. My body felt intact, even though I still had the vivid, all-encompassing memory of the pain of being torn beyond even the atomic level. The only actual things I could feel were a fresh bruise on my shoulder from where I had been thrown against the glass, and my throat.
Sweet mercy, my throat. I couldn’t decide between the metaphor of gargling with steel wool or swallowing flaming glass, but neither really seemed to be adequate to the task. It was definitely my reminder and remnant of my trip into the black hole, and all that screaming had done me no favors. It was very, very tender, and by touch alone I could tell that my throat was visibly swollen. I could barely breathe, and the best sound I could produce was a rough, raspy breath that produced far more pain than communication.
I whimpered internally, content to just lay still and enjoy being merely in pain for the time being—but it wasn’t to last.
“What the...”
The voice wasn’t familiar, and I couldn’t really place it at first between male and female, but I definitely wasn’t alone.
Wait, the thought suddenly hit me, I understood that...
I slowly pulled my head to a vaguely upright position, trying to will my inner ear to stop making me feel like the world was tilting. The first hit of light on my eyes was intense—too intense. Everything was blurred, and I wondered if I was concussed or something, because the blobby shapes of color I could make out were saturated beyond anything I’d seen before.
“Woah, are you—you’re alive?”
A hazy image of a vibrantly blue-colored smudge began to resolve itself into an outline, but it didn’t look like anything familiar...
“So, did you make that bang?” The blue with the hesitant voice came slightly closer, and I could make out what appeared to be leg shapes. “What are you?”
What do you mean, ‘what am I’? I blinked several times, trying to let my eyes acclimate to the brightness around me, and the world resolved itself. The scenery around me was incredibly bright, almost overly saturated with color. Beyond the ring of blackened grass immediately surrounding my body, the green of the foliage was otherworldly, like this place had never heard of a drought. The sky was vibrantly blue, with clouds straight out of a Bob Ross painting floating lazily through it. This was all a bit tangential for me, though, because in front of me, leaning cautiously down to stare intently at my face, was a bright. Blue. Pony.
With wings.
It pulled back slightly as my eyes focused on it. “Woah...” it muttered, and I flipped out. I had no idea what this... thing I was seeing was, but I attempted (unsuccessfully) to shriek like a little girl as I jumped backwards, curling into a defensive ball. The sudden movement startled the small horse, which shied back, its wings flaring in something like a fight-or-flight response.
The pony’s eyes were huge as it stared at me, growing frantic as I tried to retreat. “Oh, woah, jeez. Uhhh, calm down there... guy? Oh, harmony, what is happening right now?” It glanced around anxiously, as though searching for help.
I strained to make any sort of noise I could, but my throat wouldn’t allow it, only letting me express myself in breathy gasps rather than the severely unsettled ranting I’d have preferred to have been doing.
“Okay, this is freaky... I need Twilight...” The sky-blue—pegasus? Yeah, pegasus, that’s it—crouched slightly on its rear legs. “Umm... Don’t go anywhere, okay? I’ll be right back, I promise,” it said in its rough, sorta-feminine voice before jumping into the air and taking off in a rush of wind.
What the unholy hell did I just see? I sat, huddled, wringing my hands anxiously as the short while passed. Where the hell am I, and why can’t I say anything, and why is everything so bright and what the HELL IS A FLYING HORSE DOING ANYWHERE—
I let out another silent yelp, my thoughts neatly cut off in mid freakout as a different, equally colorful small horse suddenly appeared out nowhere with a freakishly loud POP of displaced air. I scrambled backwards, eyes wide, until I felt my back slam up against a tree trunk.
Oh God no, not another one!
The new pony shook its head, apparently trying to refocus after teleporting or whatever it had just done. Its eyes very quickly found me and widened in response.
“Oh my...” it muttered, in a much more distinctly feminine-sounding tone than the first one had. She frowned, looking over her shoulder into the air. “Rainbow Dash!” she called out, “I found it!” Mere seconds later, the blue pegasus appeared, landing smoothly next to the new arrival.
I was absolutely losing my shit. I would probably have crawled backwards for a mile or more by this point had the tree not been so sturdy behind me. I’m pretty sure my eyes were about the size of—well, the size of the ones these ponies had, really. I’m definitely sure that I was hyperventilating to the point of being slightly lightheaded, which probably wasn’t doing any favors to my ability to be rational.
“Twilight, what is it?” the pegasus asked its friend.
The purple-coated pony shook her head slowly, still examining me closely as I shook in fear, the motion suddenly revealing to me the horn affixed to her forehead. First a pegasus, and now a unicorn? Sure, mind; why not? As long as I’m going insane, I might as well go all the way, right?
“I don’t know, Rainbow, I’ve never heard of anything like it before,” the unicorn replied, frowning slightly.
“Do I need to get the rest of the girls?”
The unicorn’s composure broke, and I stopped suddenly as I was struck with just how human the look of complete exasperation on her face was. “Rainbow Dash, we are not going to just start blasting every new thing we find with the Elements of Harmony just in case!”
The pout the pegasus put on was equally expressive. “Sure, just wait until half the town is eaten by parasprites, see if I care...”
“To be honest, though, I’m not even totally sure this thing is Equestrian...” the unicorn said, her voice low as she expanded her study to the darkened patch of grass my arrival had evidently created.
“Twilight, are we gonna do something or not? I—” the pegasus hesitated, giving me a weirdly intent look. “I feel like he’s gonna hurt himself or something...”
“He?” the unicorn countered.
“I dunno, it’s just a gut feeling, but I think it’s a ‘he’.”
The unicorn bit her lip. “Has it—or he—tried to communicate?”
“Um, not really...” her friend admitted. “It looked like a scream, but he didn’t really make any sound.”
“Okay, well, maybe we can bring it back to Ponyville and talk things over.” The unicorn took another step closer to me and gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry about this,” she said quietly as her horn began to glow with an amethyst light that mirrored her coloring, “but I need to put you to sleep for a little while.”
I felt the sensation of something wrapping gently around my head and saw a slight haze the same color as the one around her horn just before the feeling changed into one like a vise being tightened on my brain. I pushed back even harder against that tree, with no way to express the intense pain I was feeling, all the way up to the point where I dropped into unconsciousness.
Again.
What a day...
Thankfully, life gave me a break and let me wake up slowly this time. I think regaining consciousness in a rush again would have completely broken me. As it was, I woke up very slowly and groggily. It was kind of like when you take a nap that’s too long to be light, but not quite long enough to be considered sleep and you just wake up sort of sleepy and disappointed. I was all sorts of disoriented, but at least the bed I was in was soft.
Wait, I thought again, hoping this opening line of thought wasn’t going to be a running theme in my life now, I’m in a bed...
For what it was worth, though, it was a very comfortable bed. The sheets were warm without being stifling, the room seemed cool and comfortable, and it was quiet enough that I felt alone. I didn’t feel like I needed to wake up in a hurry.
I just sorta lay there, enjoying the restfulness and lack of discomfort until my eyes eventually opened. I was definitely in some sort of bedroom, one that felt almost organic in its shape. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of wood, and the room looked not so much built as carved. The furniture scattered around the room seemed to be formed from a darker, polished wood, and a majority of the accents—including the bedspread I was currently beneath—were done in a variety of purple and magenta hues. I had no idea which direction the room was facing, but the low, slanted light streaming through the window made me think it was either late afternoon or early morning. Having just experienced the day I had, I really couldn’t tell either way.
And, really, that’s only assuming wherever I am is still on Earth...
I stretched out in the bed, trying to loosen my stiffening muscles, and bumped up against both ends of the bedframe. In all honesty, most of the room felt like it was just slightly undersized. The dresser and such were just about right, but the ceiling was just a bit too low to feel normal, and even just glancing at the door I could tell that even average, five-foot-ten me would be close to hitting my head on the top of the frame. It wasn’t quite claustrophobic, but it was close. Clearly, this dwelling was constructed with beings in mind that walked lower to the ground than I did.
Well, I guess that makes sense if I really saw what I think I saw...
I could feel a moderate attempt at freaking out working up steam, but I quickly clamped down on that before I lost control. Given how comfortable I was, I thought this was probably the best possible place to think over everything I’d been through and to attempt to sort out just where I was and what I should do next.
Okay, I told myself, trying to order my thoughts, what do I know? First off, I definitely fell into a black hole. That happened. I had a quick shudder as I recalled the experience. There was no way I could deny everything I’d felt, no matter how farfetched it seemed. Modern science be damned.
Second: I’m definitely not dead. I didn’t consider myself an overly religious person, but pretty much every theology on Earth agreed that the afterlife was either a great place devoid of pain or one of utter torment, depending on how you lived your life. This wasn’t really either—and if this counted as Purgatory, then some cosmic deity was really getting their money’s worth out of my confusion right now. I chose to believe that I wasn’t dead. It was easier to wrap my head around.
Third: I don’t appear to be in danger. Heck, if anything, I appeared to be rather well cared for. Whoever my hosts were, they actually cared enough to put me in the bed. There was that whole matter of what my hosts were, though. Talking, flying, magic-wielding equines was a stretch no matter how I looked at it, so I was either insane—not unreasonable, considering the day I’d had—, I was dead and this was all a joke, or I was well and truly off the map with no idea where my towel was.
The fact that I could understand the speech of these ponies just hurt my brain, though. How was that even possible? Granted, I was extremely grateful for that little detail, especially as it appeared that my own communication was cut off for the foreseeable future...
I tried to say something out loud, and as before, my throat protested vehemently. All I could force out was a raspy, choked breath, and even that much made my eyes water with pain. I clutched a hand gently to my swollen throat, hoping beyond hope that my affliction was only temporary.
I glanced over at the door as I heard the barest hint of voices through the wood. Someone was out there. I couldn’t really think of a reason to stay put anymore, so I threw back the covers, saying a silent prayer to whatever cared to listen that my clothes had survived the trip with me. Wish I’d have kept my phone in my pocket, though... I stepped out onto the—of course—purple-toned rug and made my way towards the exit on legs that were only slightly unsteady.
I put an ear to the door and could still barely make out that a conversation was happening somewhere else in the house. Someone out there must have been yelling or something if I’d heard it from inside this room. I cracked the heavy, solid door and peeked out. There wasn’t anything to see from where I was except a short hallway with a few other doors along the wall, and a stairway down and out of sight.
I crept out into the hallway, trying to move silently, even though I really didn’t have a reason to do so. I stopped at the end of the wall, just before the stairs. I could hear the conversation much more clearly now. There were at least three people—well, I guess the even money was on them being ponies, actually—and I thought two of them sounded familiar enough that I could place them as the two who discovered me. I slid slowly down the wall until I was sitting on the floor and listened in, hoping to figure out where I stood.
“I don’t like this idea,” the first voice said. It was that purple unicorn, I was pretty sure.
“I understand,” a second voice replied, one that was sounded much older, calmer, and motherly, but definitely authoritative. “Unfortunately, I can not afford to take chances where other ponies may.” There was something about this conversation that I really didn’t like...
“Princess, I unders—”
OH SHIT, I thought immediately. It was the fuzz! Freaking royalty was here to investigate me!
I’d missed a few sentences during my realization, but I picked things up just as the third voice chimed in, easily identifiable as the blue pegasus who first found me in the forest. “I know you have to be careful, but Twilight’s right. You haven’t seen him yet.”
“Are you telling me that you’re sure this creature is intelligent, Rainbow Dash? You have proof of this?”
“Well... not really proof...” this Rainbow Dash admitted, “but I saw his eyes. There was something there.”
The Princess hmmmmed quietly. “What do you think, my student?”
Student? Now things are getting interesting...
“I—it’s hard to say,” Twilight said, obviously hedging. “I agree that we shouldn’t take chances, but I think Rainbow is right; there was something in the creature’s eyes beyond just animal fear. We need to know for sure if he’s intelligent or not before we try to decide anything. It’s just—nothing like this has ever happened in Equestria before. How we decide to approach this situation could have enormous consequences...”
I nodded along, pleased that these pony-creatures would go to bat for me, even knowing nothing about me.
There was silence from below for a long time, and I could almost feel the nervous energy in the room.
“I agree,” the Princess finally said, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized that I had been holding. “Are you sure that the creature is still resting?”
“He was when I checked about an hour ago.”
Is that my cue? Downstairs were three clearly nervous ponies, at least one of which had magical powers of some sort, one of whom was an authority figure wherever I was, and the other was... um... blue. If things went sour, I would be in a very bad way. At any rate, I decided that it was probably rude to keep them waiting longer than necessary, and I couldn’t really do anything to improve my stock anyway. I stood back up as quietly as possible and started to make my way down the stairs one tentative step at a time.
The stairs led down along the curved wall of a large, open main room. Bookshelves lined every exposed wall, and they were crammed full of books. Too many books, in fact, as small piles of books were also scattered around the room, centering on a desk under a window near what I assume was the front door. The carved wood motif was continued throughout, it seemed, as if the entire home was inside of a gigantic tree. I couldn’t really put more thought into it, though, as I caught sight of the occupants.
The pony facing the stairs was the pegasus, Rainbow Dash. I blinked as I finally took notice of her mane and tail, which were multi-hued like a rainbow. I’m not really sure how I missed that earlier, to be honest. I guess it made a certain amount of sense on her, though, at least as far as her name. She looked extremely uncomfortable, and was fidgeting nervously. Next to her was the unicorn I had “met” earlier, Twilight. Now that I was able to get a better look at her as well, the decor above suddenly made sense, too. Her mane and tail were striped with the same purple and magenta hues as the soft furnishings, though it was a nice complement to her coat’s... color. Lavender? No... Puce? Purple-ish? I swear there’s a name for that color...
Both of these two ponies were pretty close to the same size. The pegasus seemed a bit leaner, but both looked as though their shoulders would be right around my stomach’s level. If they stood up on their rear hooves, we’d probably be almost the same size. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t a whole lot of things I could compare to what I knew of as a pony on Earth. Their eyes were larger, and obviously intelligent. If they had hooves, they weren’t as obvious as the horses I was familiar with, and why did they all have pictures on their flanks...?
The room’s final occupant was in another league altogether, though. Where Rainbow Dash and Twilight were obviously ponies, this was a PONY. The Princess was at least half again as large as the others, and probably stood a solid head taller than me at least. Her mane and tail were utterly unlike the others’, and seemed to be made of something ethereal that moved in a silent and unfelt breeze, and to top it all off she had wings and a horn! Her very bearing made it clear that she was in control, and even from behind I felt quite small indeed in a way that had nothing to do with height. This was a creature to take very seriously.
I made it about five quiet steps down the stairs when Rainbow noticed my approach. Her line of sight flicked up to meet mine, and I saw her eyes widen considerably as she tensed.
Twilight noticed her reaction, too. “Rainbow?”
Rainbow just nodded slightly at me, not looking away, or even really blinking. The other two ponies swiveled around to look. Twilight seemed caught between joy at seeing me up and apprehension at the situation, but it was the Princess’ expression that I paid the most attention to. Her gaze was piercing beyond the level of anything I’d ever experienced before, and I stopped in my tracks immediately. She had an excellent poker face—assuming pony expressions were even that close to human ones—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just one bad move away from being a pile of ash.
I willed myself back into movement until I reached the bottom of the stairs, where I faced the trio with a nervous, forced smile. Okay, now what?
It was something simple, non-offensive—all that stuff; but as soon as I raised my arm all three ponies drew back, eyeing me warily. I put my hand back down very, very slowly, rather afraid of the prospect of making things worse when half of the room had unknown powers. I glanced around the room, trying to find escape routes.
If I see a hint of a horn glowing, I’m going to make a break for the window.
Hesitantly, I took a few steps forward towards the circle and the open chair/bench/seat. I felt like a circus exhibit with how intently the three watched me. I tried to gesture towards the seat in a “is this seat taken” sort of way, but it didn’t really get a response from anyone. I shrugged and sat down.
The stares were starting to get uncomfortable. I needed an in, and soon.
Twilight and Rainbow Dash glanced at each other. “Uh... what now?” Rainbow asked.
“Don’t look at me, I don’t know!” Twilight huffed, looking to her mentor with obvious distress. “I mean, does it even understand what we’re saying?”
Aaaaaaand, there it is.
I nodded.
All three sets of eyes sprang back to me.
“Wait...” Rainbow said, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes. “Did you just nod?”
I nodded again, letting a big ol’ grin spread across my face.
Twilight cocked her head to the side. “And you’re not just nodding because we’re saying things to you?”
I turned to her and shook my head in confirmation.
Twilight and Rainbow Dash’s jaws dropped. It was fantastic.
“Oh wow!” Rainbow crowed. “We meet something from another world, and it can understand us! How cool is that?”
“I—wow—I have so many questions...” Twilight muttered, shaking her head absently. “I, uh, what’s your name, I guess?”
...well, damn.
I grimaced, glancing around nervously—maybe for inspiration, I don’t know.
Twilight frowned. “You don’t want to tell us?”
I shook my head, frustrated.
“You can’t speak,” the Princess finally said, more of a statement than a question.
I nodded, touching a hand to my throat as I let out a raspy breath and winced.
“Oh...” Twilight said, her ears falling back as she slumped. She looked so disappointed it hurt to see. “Are you injured?”
Was I? I mean, yeah, my throat was wrecked, but what was she going to try to do about it? I gave her a hesitant nod.
“I know a few basic healing spells, do you think that could help?”
If the last time she used magic on me was any indication of what that would feel like, I’d honestly rather just die, but I didn’t really have any way to communicate that concept beyond a vigorous head-shake.
Twilight seemed confused, but she relented. “Well, then, what do we do?”
“Just yes and no?” Rainbow suggested.
I frowned as I thought of just how quickly that would get annoying. No, what I really need is a... way— Wait, paper!
I put my palm flat out, pantomiming writing on it with my other hand, hoping that one of the ponies in the room would catch on.
It took a few moments, but Twilight eventually realized what I was requesting. “Oh, right! Writing!” She perked up, her ears springing back to alertness as she scanned the room for supplies.
A small bound notebook, a quill, and a small pot of ink floated over from a nearby table to hover in front of my nose, wrapped in the faint purple haze that denoted Twilight’s magic. I shied away from it without thinking, unwilling to get any closer to the magical field than I had to. Thankfully, Twilight seemed to realize my position and set the objects down in front of me.
A quill... I wondered, shaking my head. This place is so weird...
I slipped off of the chair to sit on the floor, cross-legged. All three ponies watched me closely with varying degrees of amusement at the ways my body moved and bent. I picked up the quill, dipped it into the ink, and scrawled a single messy, splotchy word on the top of the page.
Hi.
“No way...” Rainbow breathed, wide-eyed.
Twilight gaped.
The Princess actually let out a small laugh.
“Oh my gosh, you guys!” Rainbow blurted, her wings actually lifting her out of her seat in excitement. “We can ask anything! What are you—no! Wait, where are you from—no, no...”
“Perhaps,” the Princess interjected, actually holding a hoof to her face to cover her smirk at Rainbow’s antics, “we should begin with introductions before we get too deep.”
I nodded, inclining my head towards her.
“That’s a very good point,” Twilight agreed, straightening up. “My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is my home!”
Twilight... Sparkle... Ooooookay... I dismissed my thoughts of her odd name and tapped a finger against my forehead, giving her an inquisitive look.
“Oh, yes,” she replied, “I’m a unicorn. I suppose you’re not from around here, are you?” I shook my head emphatically. “Ah, well, I guess we’ll cover all that next,” she said, turning to the pegasus at her side. “This is one of my best friends, Rainbow Dash.”
“Yes, I’m a pegasus,” Rainbow said, puffing out her chest proudly and flaring her wings with a smug expression. “Fastest one around, too.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help from smirking at her friend. “And this,” she said, looking deferentially to her other side, “is Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, and my mentor.”
I gave the Princess a long, respectful nod, unable to really bow from my seat on the floor. She returned it with a wan smile. “And who are you, traveler?”
I scrawled on the paper again and held it up. All three ponies began to scoot closer together on their seats so they could all read the paper at once.
My name’s Ashley, but most people just call me Ash.
I prepared myself for the inevitable comments about having a girl’s name.
“Just Ash?” Rainbow asked. “That’s a cool name.”
Oh yeah... I mentally facepalmed. They’re ponies, they wouldn’t know what’s a girl’s name or not.
“What’s ‘pee-oh-pull’?” Twilight asked.
I returned to writing, having to stop to re-dip my quill several times in the process. Thankfully, all three ponies recognized my plight and were pretty patient. Rainbow Dash’s rocking in her seat notwithstanding, I mean.
I am a human. We refer to each other as a person, or people for plural. I’m from Earth, but I have no idea where this is.
“You’re in Equestria,” Celestia replied in her gentle voice, “and I very much doubt that our worlds are the same.”
Yeah, I thought as much.
“So,” Twilight asked, plainly excited by the prospect of discovery, “how did you get to Equestria? Tell me everything!”
Before I could even contemplate how open the subject of astrophysics with alien ponies, I was rescued by Celestia.
"Before that, Twilight, I must interrupt. I've been away from Canterlot for too long already today, and it's almost night." She turned to look back at me, though she still spoke to Twilight. "But I still need to be sure of your safety..."
The ruler of Equestria stood and stepped forward until she was directly in front of me. Whether by magic or sheer force of will I don't know, but the room seemed to darken, and the pure white winged unicorn seemed to grow in my vision. She was both beautiful and terrifying in a way I'd never even imagined before, and her voice was deadly serious as she addressed me in a quiet tone.
"Are my subjects in danger from you, Ash? And think well before you answer, human."
I couldn't even swallow, my mouth was suddenly so dry. I picked up the quill, my hand only slightly shaking more than I'd have liked it to, and began to slowly write out my response. The Princess waited on me, patient and implacable, until I held up my answer for her to read.
The best answer I can give is no, Princess. I know nothing about this world, and my world doesn't have anything like magic in it. I'm grateful to Twilight and Rainbow for helping me, and the last thing I want is for my presence here to hurt anyone.
Celestia read carefully and closed her eyes in thought, and when she opened them again her expression was back to normal, perhaps even happier than before.
"I am very glad to hear it, Ash," she told me. "Though it may be a bit late, I'd like to officially welcome you to Equestria." I nodded, a goofy, relieved smile on my face. She turned to her student. "Twilight, please keep a watch on Ash and help him adjust, as we discussed. I'll wait to read about his undoubtedly exciting story in your report," she instructed, giving the unicorn a friendly wink.
"Of course, Princess."
Celestia's horn lit up, which made me flinch away from the intensely bright flash that followed. When I turned back, she was gone, and I was alone in the home with my two new friends.
So you're in charge of me, huh?
Twilight chuckled, some of her own nervous energy apparently starting to burn off. "The Princess asked me to watch out for you if you turned out to be a friend. Just to help you get on your hooves - so to speak," she quickly amended.
I nodded, finding it very hard to keep from laughing at the way the two mares kept unconsciously fidgeting in their seats with excitement.
Alright, I'm sure you two have questions. Let's get started...
I finally realized what time it was when the sun started to peek over the horizon and through the window. I let out a huge yawn and stretched out as I took stock of our progress. Rainbow was completely passed out on her bench, snoring lightly, her back leg kicking ever so slightly as it hung off the edge. Twilight looked pretty haggard, but no less excited than she had almost ten hours ago. We’d covered more topics than I could recall, and I’d used almost fifty pages of the notebook for my responses and questions.
Twilight followed my gaze out the window and mimicked my yawn. “Oh wow. I guess we got a bit carried away, huh?” I nodded. “Well,” she continued, standing up and wincing as her joints popped loud enough for me to hear, “I guess I’d better show you around so you can get settled in.”
I got up to follow her. My joints didn’t complain any less than hers had, but I guess sitting on a floor for an entire night will do that to a guy. We hobbled our way around the house.
“The kitchen is through there. I don’t know how much of it matches your diet, but we’ll go pick up some new groceries tomor—well, I guess this afternoon. The bathroom is through this door under the stairs. I... hope everything is familiar?”
I opened the door and peeked around inside. Everything looked pretty comparable to what I was used to, except that the sink was lower, the shower was enormous, and the toilet was the right shape, but lower to the ground. It looked like it belonged in a kindergarten restroom back home or something. I gave Twilight a satisfied nod.
We started to climb the stairs when I stopped Twilight. I pointed over my shoulder at Rainbow Dash.
Twilight laughed. “It’s not the first time she’s spent the night on my couch. I swear, for a pony who hates being thought of as an ‘egghead’, she sure will get wrapped up in a book. She’ll be fine.” We paused at the top of the stairs. “My room is through that door,” she said, indicating. “Of course, you probably knew that already, since you woke up there. Spike’s room is this one.”
I glanced at the middle door. Spike? With a “what the hell” shrug, I knocked on the door. It opened up to reveal a small purple dragon, standing about waist-level to me. His spines and eyes were bright green, and he stared out at my knees before looking up to see my face. Huh...
“Oh, hey!” he chirped in an unusually high voice, “You’re up! I wasn’t sure you were gonna wake up, as deep as you were under.”
“Ah, sounds good. I’ll keep an eye on things this morning,” he replied as he trotted off down the stairs.
Dragon. Spike. Dragon... I shrugged. My brain wasn’t properly equipped to deal with this world after being awake for this long.
Without missing a beat, Twilight swung to the last door, closest to the stairs. “This one will be your room, I guess. It’s sort of a guest room, but it’s rather... um...”
I swung the door open, which immediately knocked over a pile of books.
“...messy.”
I gave her an incredulous look. “Messy” didn’t even start to cover it. The room was completely covered in lab equipment, books, scrolls, loose quills, and every other research tool I could think of. There was a bed in there, somewhere.
Thankfully, unicorn magic has its strengths, and Twilight quickly had the bed unearthed, at least. “Hopefully this will work for tonight,” she asked, apologetically. I reassured her with a nod, far beyond actually caring as long as it meant my head and a bed were soon to be acquainted. “Sleep well,” she said, turning to leave, where she stopped in the doorway.
“Oh, and welcome to Equestria.”
I think I lasted all of a half hour before I just couldn’t lay still anymore. Being unconscious apparently plays havoc on your sleep schedule.
It was undeniably daytime out as I slipped my shirt back on and headed downstairs, barefoot. Spike was in the kitchen, putting something in the oven as I walked in. Given our brief meeting, I couldn’t help but just stare for a few minutes as he puttered around, humming to himself as he cooked, seeming like he was having the time of his life.
When he finally did turn around and realized I was standing there, he yelped out loud and jumped backwards, planting his hand squarely on the hot cooker. I winced, but he barely even seemed to notice.
“I, gah, dude, you gotta make more noise when you walk or something. You’re gonna give a guy a heart attack!” My grimace only got bigger as he continued to hold his appendage to the stovetop. “What?” he asked, following my eyeline. “Oh, that? Meh, don’t worry about that. Dragon claws are remarkably heat resistant,” he said smugly, pulling his claw free and blowing on it, wisps of smoke curling off the ends of his claws.
I gaped, not sure what to do. To be honest, it was pretty freaking badass. I settled on just shaking my head in a bemused sort of way and sat down at the table.
“Oh, yeah, hang on. I’ll be right back!” Spike raced out of the room, only to return a few seconds later with a notebook and a pencil. “I gathered from the way the discussion was going last night that talking probably wasn’t an option.”
I flipped the book open, still shaking my head in amazement.
And you just had this set aside for me?
He chuckled. “I’m Twilight’s assistant. You have no idea how well-trained I am at preparing for any possible scenario.” I didn’t really have anything to say back to that. My head was still spinning like crazy, and being able to see the town outside the window wasn’t really helping.
“So, you’re a human, huh?” Spike said, setting a rack of what appeared to be muffins down on the counter to cool and taking a seat at the table across from me. “I guess you couldn’t sleep after last night’s excitement?”
I rolled my eyes. I think it has more to do with th me being unconscious most of yesterday.
“Ah, yeah,” Spike said after reading my writing. “So, what do you think of Equestria so far?”
I’m freaking out is what I think. Spike raised an eyebrow (how does that even work with scales?), but didn’t say anything as I continued writing. I mean, I’m sitting in a pony’s house right now talking to a dragon. That’s not normal where I come from. NOTHING here is normal where I come from.
He laughed. “Eh, I wouldn’t call me ‘normal’, not really. Dragons aren’t exactly common around here. But I get what you’re sayin’.”
So how does a dragon end up living with a pony, anyway?
He leaned back, kicking his tiny footclaws up onto the tabletop. “‘Because Twilight’s crazy powerful’ is the short answer. You already know that Twi is Princess Celestia’s student, right?” I nodded. “Twi applied for her school as a filly, and there was an entry exam. Every unicorn who wanted to apply had to attempt to hatch a dragon egg.” He waved a claw over his body, stretched out casually between chair and table. “Me.”
So... do not many ponies pass or something, if you’re rare?
“The thing is, the test isn’t really about succeeding. Dragon eggs are crazy resistant to magic, so nopony was ever really supposed to ‘pass’ the test. It’s more about seeing how powerful and creative a foal is, that sort of thing. Nopony saw Twilight coming, though. That’s when I was born.”
She raised you?
“Yeah, pretty much. Her family helped, sure. I mean, she was only a filly at the time. But we grew up together, so she’s basically my older sister.” Catching my expression, Spike anticipated my next question. “Oh, I’ll be eighteen in just a couple of months. Twilight’s twenty-three.”
But No offense, but you look like a kid.
“Aw, yeah, I know,” he said breezily, waving a claw dismissively. “That’s part of being a dragon; I’ll live crazy long. If I were a pony, I’d be an adult pretty soon, but I’m still barely out of being an infant by dragon standards.”
That sounds... uh. I struggled for the right word. Awkward.
“Yeah, it can be. I mean, I went to school like anypony else, so I’m educated, you know? But I haven’t hit a bunch of shifts in my growth, or really changed much at all, so I still look like a kid—and honestly, I suppose I still am.” He shook his head. “Still, I do feel older a lot of times, and it can be frustrating.”
Dude, I bet. So, being the only dragon around, do you ever feel like I do right now?
Spike cocked his head to the side. “How’s that?”
I scrawled my response and flipped the paper over for him to read.
Scared to go outside.
His expression scrunched self-consciously. “I, uh, honestly? No.” I raised my eyebrow in a Seriously? sort of expression. “Okay, see, this pony you’re living with? She’s, like, a national hero. And I don’t mean like an athlete or something, I mean as in she’s saved Equestria multiple times.” Spike rocked nonchalantly in his chair. “She and her friends are—well, there’s this power called the Elements of Harmony, and Twilight and her friends are the ones who wield it. Aside from the Princesses themselves, Twilight’s probably the most powerful pony in Equestria. So, obviously, she’s gotten a lot of attention over the years. And once the papers and magazines have run out of stories about her and her friends, they figure ‘hey, maybe that dragon she lives with will an interesting story?’, and so... yeah.” He flashed me an embarrassed grin. “I’ve been interviews and highlighted by basically every publication in Equestria at one point or another. Everypony knows about me, so it’s not really a surprise when I show up somewhere.”
Like, not at all?
He shrugged. “I mean, yeah, foals and stuff still gawk the first time they see me, and occasionally I’ll get a strange look, but the only time it was even a thing for me was when we went to the Crystal Empire, and even then everypony there was pretty much brainwashed, and then I was a hero when I left, and—” He shook his head. “Sorry, dude. I guess I really just don’t know how you feel...”
I frowned, but I could hardly blame the guy.
“Hey, just because I don’t know what it’s like doesn’t mean I can’t sympathize, right?”
I gave him a wan smile as I pulled my notebook back to myself.
I just don’t want to be seen as a monster.
“Yeah, I get it.” The dragon’s chair fell back to the floor as he got up, offering me a fist to bump. “Hey, don’t sell Equestria short, though. The ponies here will be great, you just need to give them some time and a chance.”
I bumped his fist with my own and nodded my thanks as he went back to check on his baking.