The birth of a new sorcerer
Robin groaned as he woke up to the sound of his alarm.
"Urg, why do they have to make these things so goddamn loud?"
He stretched his arms and pulled the covers off of himself. After making sure his alarm was now off, he got up on his feet and started wobbling towards the kitchen. He opened the fridge and sighed at how empty it was.
"I'll have to go out to get some groceries pretty soon."
He grabbed himself an old muffin laying in the corner of the fridge and turned on the TV.
"Today will be a rainy day, so make sure to grab your umbrellas before heading out!"
"Just what I needed..."
Robin finished eating his muffin and walked back to his room to get dressed in his favorite black and white addidas tracksuit. Once done, he went back trough his kitchen to grab the keys to his appartement and headed out to shop for groceries. As the reporter said, it was raining pretty hard outside. Having no umbrella, Robin had to run to get to the store. As he was running, he suddenly had an urge to run his eyes. Ignoring it as hard as he could, he kept running towards the nearest 7/11. As soon as he arrived, covered from the rain, he furiously started to rub his eyes. It was like his eyes were full of shampoo and no matter how hard he scratched, the itch was still there.
"What the hell is happening?!"
While scratching his eyes, what Robin didn't notice was that the world around him had changed. What was before an urban landscape full of skyscraper and tall buildings was now a dark forest full of crooked and twisted trees. Then, all of a sudden, Robin's eyes stopped burning. Slowly and carefully, he opened his eyes, scared that they would start itching again. When he finally got them opened, they widened at the sight that was before him. Not understanding what had just happened, he struggled to get words out of his mouth.
"I-And-Eyes-What??? This-this has got to be a dream! O-Or a prank!"
Robin spun around, looking for anything that looked out of place, like a camera or a microphone. Finding nothing, he started hyperventilating. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around himself.
"T-t-thats right! This is just a dream and i'll wake up any moment now!"
Cradling himself, Robin tried to find a reason for the sudden change in space. He slapped himself to check if it really was a dream.
"Ouch! That hu.r.t..."
Realizing that the slap hurt him, he got up and started wandering around mindlessly. For what seemed like hours he walked around the forest without any goals in mind. His eyes were dead and his hands were bleeding from hitting trees in anger. After a while, he reached the entrance of a cave. Robin walked in and laid down in silence. Laying down, he felt tears fall from his eyes. Then, just like a chain reaction, he broke down and started bailing his eyes out, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Why me?"
He kept repeating those words as it echoed in the emptiness of the cave. Robin then quickly fell asleep, tired from his hard day.
At the same time, somewhere else inside of the forest, six new friends had just defeated evil and brought back peace throughout the land. They stopped the night from becoming eternal...or had they? Just out of sight, a little cloud of blue mist was making it's way trough the forest, when it suddenly heard someone crying. Following the sound, it reached a lone cave, hidden from view by vines and other vegetation. As it entered the cave, the mist realized the crying came from a weird sentient looking ape sobbing in his sleep. Seeing the ape in such a miserable state, the mist entered it trough his ear and made it's way to it's mind.
When morning came, Robin woke up with a headache. As he opened his eyes, he saw not the ceiling of his house, but the top of the cave he fell asleep in last night.
"So it really wasn't a dream huh?"
He painfully got up on his feet and headed out of the cave. Once outside, he raised his head and looked up at the sky.
"I don't know what the hell happened, but crying isn't going to solve anything. Weird. The sun looks different somehow."
He sighed
"I should probably start with finding a way out of this forest."
His stomach growled
"...and find something to eat"
Having said that, Robin started looking for anything that looked edible, which he found after a good walk. A bunch of apple trees perfectly lined up. Too hungry to care for details, he climbed up one of them and picked a couple of apples, which he quickly ate on the spot. Now well fed, Robin was about to head out to find civilization, when he noticed something odd. At the bottom of one of the trees were a couple of small wooden buckets, clearly there to pick up the fallen apples.
"Then that means there's people nearby!"
With a smile on his face, he climbed up the tree a bit more to get a good view of his surroundings when he saw it. In the distance, he could see a barn and a bit further away, a whole entire town. But as he looked closer, he couldn't see anyone. From what he could see, there was just a bunch of colorful quadruped walking around the streets, but no humans. As weird as that was, it wouldn't Robin from trying to go get some help. Just as he was going to jump off the tree, he heard two girls talking to each other. Robin was about to call out to them, but then the owner of the voices came into view. One was an orange pony with a stetson on her head while the other was a purple unicorn. Confused, Robin thought he would be better to hide and see what comes out of it. He backed up a bit and hid around the leaves.
"Applejack, you have to let me help you!"
"What? If I have a pen? No I don't, why?"
It seemed like they were arguing about something. The purple one seemed upset that the one named Applejack didn't understand what she was saying. Thinking it would be better to leave them alone, Robin jumped off from trees to trees and got off at a reasonable distance from the two ponies. He then headed towards the small village.
"God, don't tell me the whole village is filled with those creatures."
As he approached the village, he saw that the whole streets were filled with ponies of various colors. Some were blue, some were green, there probably was every color in existence there.
"They seem to be sentient, but it looks like there's not a single human there. To them I'm probably an alien."
Robin gulped noticeably loud
"and I know what they do to aliens back home. I can't let them find me."
He turned around, ready to head back to the forest, when a thought struck him.
"What if they have a library here? I could probably find a bunch of information about the place"
It was a risky move, but Robin thought that it would be worth it, so he climbed up on one of the houses from the back to, again, get a better view of his surroundings. Now that he was closer than before, he could see that the village was a bit bigger than what he saw back on his tree. In the middle of it was what he could guess was the town hall. In the streets below, he could see different shops scattered all around, with different ponies tending to them. Some were selling carrots, other apples and what wasn't sold in little booths had stores dedicated to it.
"Huh. Seems like these ponies have a whole society going on. If I base myself on the style of the houses though, they don't seem that advanced technologically speaking."
Now observing the ponies themselves, he noticed that a lot of them had a tattoo on their flank and that most of them were related to their jobs. The carrot vendor had a carrot tattoo just like the apple vendor had an apple tattoo. There was a few of them that didn't make any sense, like the grey one with the bubble tattoo.
"what does she do for a living, blow bubbles?"
There also seemed to be different races of ponies. Some had wings, some others had horns and some didn't have any of the two.
"That would make them unicorns, pegasuses? and regular ponies I guess? It's gotta suck to be born without wings or a horn."
Something else that catched Robin's eyes was the gender difference. From what he could gather, the males had a larger build with square muzzles while the females were smaller and had rounder muzzles. But from what he could see, there were very little males compared to the females.
"I hope for them it's only a problem in this village."
Now that he was done investigating, Robin looked around for any building that could be the library. Throughout the whole city, there was what he could guess was the town hall in the middle of the entire village. There was a house that looked made out of gingerbread and there was a house built inside of a big tree. In front of said house was a sign with a book on it.
"That's probably it. Now how do I get there."
Fortunately for Robin, the library was only a couple of houses away. There wasn't much space between the houses, so robin thought that he could jump from house to house. He took a running start and made the jump from the first house to the second. He repeated the process a few times until he reached the last jump before he arrived on the roof next to the literal tree house. Robin took a running start like all the other times, but once he was about to jump, ponies arguing below him in the alley made him flinch. He missed a step and fell into the alley, landing on a pony and knocking him out in the process.
"Damn it!"
"W-What? Who are you?"
His neck hurting from the fall, Robin painfully turned his head to the side and came almost eye to eye with the grey pony with a bubble tattoo from before. He couldn't tell if they made eye contact as the pony's eyes were cross sided.
"O-Oh I-I'm so sorry about your friend there I was jus-"
The grey pony cut Robin off as she jumped on him and started hugging him.
"Oh thank you so much mister! That pony always bullies me about my eyes and I was so tired of it!"
Confused, Robin got up and laughed nervously. The mare was starting to tear up a bit, tears getting absorbed by his shirt. Awkwardly, Robin hugged back the pony now hanging around his neck. He looked around to see if there was any other ponies around and felt relieved when he saw that the streets were empty. He sat back down on the ground and just stayed there a bit in silence.
"You wanna talk about it a bit?"
Hearing his voice, the mare then realized what she was doing and backed up from the embrace
"O-Oh, I'm sorry about this. I just want to thank you again for helping me miste- Wait, you're not a pony! What are you? I never saw anything like you before."
Robin was about to run, but quickly realized from her tone of voice that this pony was probably more curious then alarmed by his appearance.
"I'm a human, pretty much all there is to say about it"
"A human huh? First time I hear about your kind. Where are you from? You don't seem from around these parts. No offense mister human."
The mare wiped off the last of her tear off the corner of her eye and started questioning Robin.
"None taken. Just call me Robin, no need for the mister. As to where I'm from, let's just say it's really far away."
The pony smiled and got back up on her hooves.
"If that's the case, then just call me Derpy! All my friends do!"
"Friends? That seems like a pretty mean name for friends to call you by it."
Derpy frowned a bit when Robin mentioned the fact.
"W-Well I know my friends don't mean it in a hurtful way. Other mean ponies, like the one you're seating on, is another thing though."
Just now noticing that he sat back on the bully, Robin quickly got up on his feet.
"Wow! You're tall Robin!"
"Uh? I guess I am compared to you ponies... It's what your specie is called right?"
Derpy nodded her head.
"Yeah, it is. By the way, do you have anywhere to stay Robin? I know the ponies here in Ponyville can be easily scared from what they don't know, so you're probably not staying at the inn."
"Well, I don't really do... Except if a cave in the forest back there counts."
Looking behind Robin, Derpy saw the forest and gasped.
"You stayed the night in the Everfree forest?! You can't go back there, it's considered one of the most dangerous place in Equestria! No, you're staying at my house tonight. I don't want to lose a friend I just made."
Robin looked back at the Everfree forest and asked Derpy, confused.
"Is it really that dangerous? I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary in there."
Derpy shook her head.
"Ponies don't have any control over the forest. There's also all kinds of nasty critters in there, like chimeras or timber wolves. Now come on, I'll show you the way to my house."
Derpy took hold of Robin's hand and started walking him towards the exit of the alley.
"Wait, wait! I don't want other ponies to see me! You said yourself they wouldn't exactly treat me kindly didn't you?"
Hearing him, the mare let go of Robin's hand and smiled shyly.
"Y-Yeah, sorry about that. I just don't want you heading back to the Everfree alone."
Robin rolled his eyes.
"Look Derpy, I promise to not go back in the Everfree alone, okay? Now, just show me the way to your house and i'll meet you back there when the sun is down, alright? I have a few things to take care off before."
"Thank you. My house is the fourth one after the library over there. Just be careful when you arrive, I live with my little sister and I don't want you to spook her."
Robin waved an arm at Derpy and she did the same back.
"I will, see you!"
He then started climbing up the side of the building again. Once on the roof, Robin looked down at Derpy. She walked past the library and, just like she said, entered the fourth house after it.
"Well, that was something."
Robin rubbed his neck that was still hurting.
"At least I got a friend and a place to stay out of that fall. Now, let's go check out that library."
He made one last jump and ended up on the roof next to the library. Next to that roof was a balcony that led to inside of the library. Robin jumped off his current roof and grabbed the railings of the balcony. He then hissed himself up on the balcony and tried opening the door. Fortunately for him, not only was the door unlocked but the lights were off, so as far as Robin knew, nobody was there. He slowly crept inside, making sure that nobody that could potentially be home could hear him. In the room he entered was a bedroom, which surprised Robin considering the place was supposed to be a library. He looked around the place but couldn't find any books. He headed over the stairway he noticed while checking out the room. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, his eyes glimmered as he saw the amount of books in front of him.
"Bingo."
All around him were bookshelves on top of bookshelves full of books. Robin walked over to the center of the room, where there was a table with what he could guess was the list of all the books that the library owned. Robin looked trough it quickly and found two sections that piqued his interest. The history and geography section and the magic section. He walked over to the history and geography section first. He took a look at all the titles that were aligned on the shelf and grabbed a book entitled Equestria and it's surroundings Robin put the book under his arm and kept looking until he found another book that gave a quick rundown of equestrian history. Not wanting to be too greedy, he left the rest of the books alone and went over to check out the magic section. Robin thought it was weird that magic had a section of it's own. Unless the ponies here could do literal magic, which excited Robin at the thought. As he arrived, he didn't have much time to think as he started hearing voices approaching the library. He grabbed the first book he could reach and booked it to the second floor. He ran over to the balcony and jumped off onto the next roof.
Exhausted, he laid down there for a bit to catch his breath. In front of the library, he could see the purple unicorn he saw a while back with a small also purple lizard looking creature on her back. Not much later, they opened the door and walked in the library. Robin guessed that she was the owner and decided not to stick around too long in the open. Just like the last times, he parkoured his way from roof to roof until he reached the one he saw Derpy enter. Once on the roof, he dropped the books on the roof and carefully hanged himself from the back. There, he opened up a window leading to the second floor and jumped in. He closed the window behind him and was about to call out to Derpy before he remembered that her little sister was also home. Robin stealthily walked around, careful as to not make any noise. He entered the first door he encountered slowly. Unfortunately, the door squeaked and the pony on the other side heard it.
"Sis? Is that you?"
The small unicorn walked over to the door. Panicking, Robin opened up another door and threw himself in there, closing the door behind him. He was now sitting in a dark broom closet. Trough the little crack, he could see the small unicorn from before walk past the closet and into another room a little further in. Then, the little pony started to talking to someone else.
"Sis, did you try to scare me?"
"W-what? N-No... What would give you that idea?"
"Well, I heard somepony open up my door, but there wasn't anypony on the other side!"
"It must have been the wind. Don't worry about it and go back to bed, I'll come and later to tell you good night."
"Okay, if you say so."
The small unicorn walked out of What Robin guessed was Derpy's room and went back to her room. Once she closed the door, Robin creeped over to the room he had heard the voices from and entered slowly.
"Robin! Glad you could come."
Derpy noticed Robin walk in and greeted him with a smile.
"Follow me, I'll show you your room. It used to be our parent's room, but they moved out due to personal reasons."
She signed Robin to follow her and went down the stairs. On the first floor, there was the kitchen and the dinning room. There also was a door in the corner of the room, which is where Derpy led Robin. She opened the door and inside was a big bedroom with a queen sized bed.
"Here you go, just stay in there and dinky won't find you. We never enter this room, so there's no risk of her finding you here."
"I don't want to sound rude, but why do you never come in here, it's beautiful."
Derpy looked down at the ground, a frown forming at her lips
"It's a long story. Do you need me to get you anything?"
Robin briefly recalled the books he left on the roof and noticed Derpy's wings
"Um, there should be three books on your roof. About this size each."
He made a motion with his hands showing approximately the size of the books.
"Could you go grab them for me please?"
Derpy looked confused at the request, but accepted anyway.
"If you say so. I'll go get them, wait here for a second"
She walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. While she was gone, Robin took it upon himself to search around the room a bit. The room was practically empty, save for the very large bed and a little desk on the side. On the desk was a picture of two ponies, a mare and a stallion. One was holding in his arms what Robin guessed to be Dinky and a young Derpy was standing next to them smiling goofily with her eyes still looking in different directions. Robin pulled one of the drawer and inside found a letter addressed to Mr. Hooves. Before he could open it, he heard Derpy arrive and quickly closed the drawer. He then walked back nonchalantly to where he was before as the mare entered the room.
"Basic history and geography of Equestria huh? Makes sense, as you seem a bit lost. But I don't understand why you would have a book about fire magic. Only unicorn can do that, as far as I know."
Derpy handed over the three books to Robin. He grabbed them and put them aside on the desk for later use.
"I think I'm just gonna go to bed. Pretty big day today and I have a lot of things to think about."
the mare smiled, nodded her head and headed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
As she left, Robin crashed in the bed and quickly fell asleep, exhausted from all the running and jumping of the day.