Confusion

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I woke up laying on the cold, hard ground. Everything was sore. I had a pounding headache as well. I was staring up at a ceiling that seemed to be made of… well, I couldn’t tell what it was made of. It wasn’t fiberglass or wood, that’s for certain. I wonder why it’s so sparkly, though. You would think it was made out of polished diamonds or crystals or something.

But that’s just ridiculous. A ceiling made out of diamonds? That sounds stupidly expensive and very structurally unsound. Seems the wall and floor are made out of the same material. So a room made of diamonds. Interesting. Guess it could just be some sort of fancy wall covering or something. That would explain why it hasn’t collapsed in on itself. Seems the door I was laying next to didn’t get the same treatment.

And the doorknob was in reach. I could use that to help myself get up…

…Or I could just get up like a normal person. Nothing seems to be broken, after all.

After getting myself on my own two feet and confirming that nothing was broken, I had a quick look around. I could see a desk along the wall next to a window to the outside world. Looking through the drawers proved to be both uneventful and unrewarding. There were two other doors besides the one I was laying next to (which ended up leading to a closet). The one directly across from me leads to a bathroom, and the double door leads out into a hallway.

There was also a bed near the center of the room. Why I couldn’t have woken up on that, I have no idea.

Looking out the window, I could see more buildings made out of the same material as the room I was in. More importantly, I could see that I was pretty high up and that the entire outside of the building was made of the same stuff. There was a snow storm off in the distance, beyond the city border. I just had to hope that it didn’t come this way, cause if it did then I was fucked. It was cold enough around here already! I don’t need snow to add on to my list of problems.

“… Well, I have two ways out. Go through the door and see if I can find anyone, or go through the window and face my untimely demise.” ... “I’ll try the door first.” And with that, I left the room and started wandering the halls of… wherever I was. My boots echoed through the halls with every step I took as I started thinking of all the possibilities.

“Is this a dream? No, the headache proves it isn’t. You don’t feel pain in dreams. This looks too detailed to be a dream, anyway. Drug trip, maybe? Possible, but I don’t know any drugs that would give me such vivid hallucinations. Maybe I no clipped into the backrooms? No, that’s just an internet creepypasta. Besides, these hallways don’t feel liminal enough.”

I checked yet another door, only to find yet another storage room. Seems every room so far is either a bedroom or storage room. I haven’t found anyone, yet it seems this building was populated at some point.

“It’s like everyone just… vanished one day and everything they left behind was frozen in time. It’s sort of uncanny.”

The monotony of what was roughly an hour and a half journey ended when I opened a door which led not to a storage room or bedroom, but to a kitchen. A large one at that. It was also several hundred years out of date from the design of it. Still, it was better than nothing. At least I knew that I wouldn’t starve for a while.

“Hopefully the food is as well preserved as the rest of this place.”

Looking through the cabinets I managed to find a few apples. Even better, they were still fresh. So fresh you would think that they came straight from the orchard that they were grown on. Same thing with the bananas and oranges I found. It was while I was eating one of the oranges that I decided this place was as good as any to see what belongings of mine went on this little trip with me. Grabbing a nearby piece of paper (which seemed to have some sort of gibberish written on it) and flipping it around to the back, I found a pen in my pocket and started taking inventory.

Items I found while digging around in my pockets:

One cellphone. Currently has 94% battery. No service.

One pair of wired headphones.

One metal pen.

One box cutter

One name tag

One pair of sunglasses. (Lenses are tinted orange)

One pocket knife

One wallet. Contents listed below:

- One driver's license.

- One $5 bill, two $1 bills and some loose change. Added together, that gives me $7.43.

- One library card.

- One Debit Card

- Two Barnes and Nobles gift cards (amount not listed, probably used up already)

And just because I got bored…

Clothing inventory:

One blue jean jacket (or denim jacket. Whichever term you prefer.)

One hoodie (gray)

One long sleeved shirt (dark green)

One pair of cargo pants (kahki khaki)

One belt (brown)

One pair of steel toed boots (brown)

One pair of socks (white)

One pair of fingerless gloves (black)

One beanie (dark green)

The clothing inventory was entirely unnecessary. It was just my attempt to distract myself from my rather persistent headache. It didn’t work. If anything, I think it made it worse.

Maybe I should try and see if this place has some sort of infirmary? They’ve got to have some sort of medicine to treat headaches, right? Or maybe I can find some while rummaging around in this buildings seemingly infinite bed and baths?

No, finding an infirmary is better. Even if I don’t find something to treat my headache, I can at least find stuff to treat any other problems that might arise.

I stopped my thoughts as I remembered that I have zero medical experience, meaning that, even if I did find medical supplies, I would have no idea how to use them properly.

“I am so fucked if I manage to break something.”

It’s been about two hours since my kitchen raid. Maybe. I’m not sure. Maybe wherever I am only has forty-five minute hours. Or maybe an hour here is three hours in my time? Does this place even have twenty-four hour days? Has the concept of time even been invented ye-

No. Stop that, brain. You're getting sidetracked. Again. At the current moment, I am going to assume that there are twenty-four hours in a day and sixty minutes in an hour. Therefore, according to my phone, I have been wandering around this place for two hours. I still have not seen a single living soul, and my plan to find an infirmary has gone nowhere.

Well, I guess that’s not true. It has gone everywhere except the infirmary.

I managed to find a staircase that goes all the way down to ground level. Haven’t gone down there yet, but I have made a mental note of where it is. Should prove useful if I need to quickly evict myself from building grounds for whatever reason. For now, my curiosity as to what this building is has kept me hostage within the building itself. It’s only been fed by the fact that everything here looks like it was made by humans, yet clearly weren’t designed with humans in mind. It’s almost as if a bunch of midgets lived here.

And my curiosity has quite possibly hit its climax as I stand before the large double-doors before me. They were made out of some sort of dark blue wood, and I would have to bend down to grab the door handles, which were two golden rings on some rope.

Thankfully I didn’t have to, as a good shove was more than enough to get these doors open. The fact I’ve been able to get into every room in this place without once encountering a locked door is both funny and concerning. I know these people have door locks. I’ve seen them in the bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as most of the storage rooms.

“Perhaps this place had an open door policy? Or maybe the occupants didn’t have enough time to lock their doors before… Whatever happened to them?”

I was taken out of my thoughts as I examined the room before me. It was massive, easily the largest room in the entire building, but it was also the most empty. There were windows along the walls to the outside world, giving the room plenty of natural lighting. I followed the purple carpet on the floor until my eyes saw a black chair with some sort of dark blue covering on parts of it. Behind it was a collection of the diamond/crystal stuff the castle was made out of, framing the chair in a way that made it look more intimidating than it actually was.

Glancing over the rest of the room again, I began to wonder what it was for, before a realization hit me.

A throne.

This was a throne room.

I’m in a palace.

All this time, I’ve been exploring an abandoned palace.

…

I think my brain shut down at that moment, only for the reemergence of my headache to bring me back to reality.

“I’m in a palace.” I repeated in my mind. “I’m in this places center of government. And no one is here. An empty palace… where am I? What happened here? Why did everyone just… abandon this place? Is the rest of the city this empty? If so, why abandon it?”

“There’s some weird shit going on… and I’m gonna find out what.” My legs chose that moment to protest the idea of more walking. I looked at the throne in front of me and got an idea.

“It does look like a nice chair…” I muttered to myself. “… Eh, screw it. The owners are clearly long gone. It’s not like they’ll ever find out.”

I sat down on the throne – well, more laid down. The throne didn’t seem to have any legs and was instead attached to the ground – and got myself comfortable. It was surprisingly comfortable, considering the fact that this was nothing but a fancy wooden chair with two cushions on it – one on the bottom and one on the back. Not that I was going to complain, of course.

My headache also seemed to be dying down once again, though experience has already shown me that that won’t last forever.

With a place to rest a head that was only trapped in a dull throb, I began to think again about everything that has happened.

“Let’s see… I was walking home from work when… something happened. I was knocked out and woke up in that bedroom with a headache and a sore body. Afterwards, I started exploring this abandoned palace. Now, for the first question. What brought me here?”

I replayed my walk home from work in my head a few times, trying to remember anything I might’ve overlooked at the time. “I do remember looking up at the sky near the… end of… it… Did I slip on some ice and hit my head? That would explain it quite nicely, wouldn’t it?”

I put my back up farther against the back of the chair and pinched the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes as I did so. “Yeah, it does. Doesn’t explain why I’m in the middle of an empty palace at the center of a city in God-knows-where, though. Maybe I’m in a coma, and this really is all just a dream?” I pinched myself and felt a little bit of pain. “Nope. Guess my theory that this isn’t a dream still holds up.”

I let myself get lost in my thoughts for a moment longer before that entire train got derailed by a single idea:

“I should listen to some music. Might help me concentrate.”

I knew that line of thinking was bullshit. Listening to music would just distract me. I needed to think through… well, everything. I needed to figure out where I was, how I got here, and how to get home. Answers as to what happened here would be nice, but those were a secondary objective.

Still… It might help me relax. This whole situation has been stressful, to say the least. I could use a little unwinding.

That’s how I found myself opening Spotify and looking through my downloaded albums, headphones plugged in with my phone at 87% battery.

“’Nothing But The Best’? No. ‘Pebble Brain’? Nah. ‘Foxlore’? Not in the mood. Ah, here we are. ‘Chronicle’. This should be good.”

I hit play and sat back, closing my eyes and allowing the voice of John Fogerty to ease away my stress, even if just by a little.

I like the way you walk I like the way you talk
Suzie Q

The man from the magazine
Said I was on my way

I’m not sure when I started singing along to John, but I wasn’t planning on stopping anytime soon.

Somewhere I lost connections
I ran out of songs to play

I was so into the music that I didn’t even notice as the doors to the throne room opened and what sounded like four pairs of footsteps walked in, stopping a good distance away from me.

I came into town a one night stand
Looks like my plans fell through

Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

While I didn’t hear or see them, I could still feel them in the room with me. I knew I wasn’t alone anymore. I took the fact that they weren’t trying to stop me as a good thing, and continued singing along to the music with my best singing in the shower voice.

If I only had a dollar
For every song I sung

And by that, I of course mean that I am dogshit at singing. Sure, I used to be good. I was even in the choir at one point. Then my voice dropped, and now I can’t sing for shit.

Every time I've had to play
While people sat there drunk

Or maybe I still can sing? Perhaps it’s simply a case of needing to retrain my voice so that I can stop trying to sing alto as a baritone. Eh, it’s not a big deal.

You know I'd catch the next train
Back to where I live
Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

I just realized how rude I’m being by pretending my guests don’t exist so that I could keep singing. I was also hearing something… odd. Were those wind chimes? Why did they bring wind chimes, of all things?

Oh Lord, I'm stuck in Lodi again

Well, no time like the present. I opened my eyes to see… two unicorns. One was white with a purple mane, and the other was pink. The pink ones horn was glowing a nice baby blue. – ‘so that’s where the wind chime noise is coming from' - I just stared at them as John started singing about a green river, utterly dumbfounded. And they stared back, seeming to be equally dumbfounded by the current situation.

We stared at the each other for what felt like an eternity before I broke the silence with the first thing that came to mind:

“Um… hi?”

Language Barriers

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(Shining Armors POV)

The creature sitting on the throne had finally noticed us. It seemed to be just as confused as we were. Perhaps it wasn’t expecting to see anypony else here? Or maybe it was expecting us, and we had managed to catch it off guard? Regardless of what it may or may not have been planning, Cadance and I were now stuck in a staring contest with the creature, our looks of confusion mirroring its own. I was about to ask Cadence what we should do when the creature once again made noise.

~~“Um… hi?”~~ It half-asked, half-said, moving one of its appendages in what would be considered a wave, while it used the other to remove the headphones from its ears and place them around its neck.

I couldn’t understand a word of what the creature was saying. It just came out as a series of grunts and moans. But if its… “singing” from earlier was any indication, I would guess that this creature was simply speaking another language. I never learned any language outside of Common Equish, so I turned to the only pony in the room who might have an idea.

“Uh, honey? Any idea what it’s saying?”

My wife shook her head. “No. I’ve never heard anything like it before.” She thought for a moment. “I’m sure Twilight would have an idea. Auntie Celestia did say she and others should be here by the end of the week.” She turned back towards the creature, who seemed to be watching us with a look of intrigue on its face. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”

I looked back towards the creature as well. Getting a better look at it, it seemed to me like a cross between a monkey and a minotaur. It had no fur on it, and had a mane at the top of its head which went down to its shoulders and a beard on its chin. With those physical features, as well as the voice, I had no doubt in my mind that it would be considered a male of its species, and an older one at that. I couldn’t see a tail due to the creature sitting down, but I could safely assume that it did have one. Monkeys and Minotaurs had tails, after all. Why would a mix between the two be any different?

Its eyes were a little disturbing. They were so… small. How could any creature see anything with eyes that small. It also made his expressions harder to read, which helped with my newfound sense of growing unease. I also got a look at one of his hands, and counted four fingers a thumb. Another difference from minotaurs. They only have three fingers and a thumb.

Before I could answer my wifes question, I saw the creature reach into his jacket and pull something out of an inner pocket. Then he opened it, revealing it to be a pocket knife. While it was never the most popular weapon, I did know a few members of the guard who had them, just in case they needed some sort of protection while off duty. I charged my horn with an offensive spell, ready for a fight.

“Get behind me, honey. I have no idea what it’s about to do.” I told Cadance while taking a defensive position between her and the creature.

And then the creature did something I didn’t expect. He held both of his hands up in a gesture I recognized. It was one used commonly by both minotaurs and griffins to symbolize surrender. Whether or not it meant the same thing to this creature though, I didn’t know. He stood up and slowly approached us, confirming my suspicions that he was a biped. He stopped halfway between me and the throne before getting down on one knee, placing the pocket knife on the ground. The creature then stood back up and backed away from me and the knife.

~~“I mean you no harm.”~~ He began in his native tongue. ~~“I am simply a lost traveler. I don’t know where I am or how I got here. Can you help me?”~~ He sounded like he was almost pleading with us. I could also sense a bit of fear in his voice.

Cadance tapped my shoulder and I looked over at her. “Honey, I don’t think it’s going to hurt us. In fact, it seems to be… surrendering.”

“Are you sure, dear?”

“I’m pretty positive. Why else would it give up its weapon?”

She did have a point. I canceled my spell and looked back at the creature, then at the pocket knife. Picking it up in my magic, I got a closer look at it. The handle was a bit different than the designs I had seen before, but that made sense considering how the creature had used his hand to wield it rather than the hooves a pegasus or earth pony would use, or magic if the wielder were a unicorn. I could also see that the blade was old and had been well used over the years.

The detail that struck me the most was the color of the blade. Instead of the usual gray or silver steel one would expect, this blade was a literal rainbow of colors, ranging from purple to green to blue to red and orange. I also found what looked like a logo of sorts.

A logo with writing.

A logo with writing that was written in Unicorn Script.

While I didn’t know what it said, I recognized the characters from a half remembered lecture Twilight gave me years ago when she was doing a research project on old pony writing systems for Princess Celestia. From what I could remember, back before the unification and the first Hearth’s Warming, each pony tribe had developed their own writing systems, despite the fact that all three shared a spoken language. These writing systems would gradually die out over the centuries, being replaced by the Universal Equestrian Writing System that everypony uses today. Only Unicorn Script survived to the modern day, and even then it’s only used by a hooffull of Canterlot’s oldest noble houses and a few scholars, and very rarely at that. If what Twilight said was accurate, then most expect it to die out in the next few decades.

Cadance was looking at the blade over my shoulder and seemed to notice the logo. “Is that…?”

I nodded my head. “Yup. Its Unicorn Script. Any idea what it says?”

“I might be able to read it. Auntie Celestia did teach me how, but that was years ago. I might be a bit rusty.” I floated the pocket knife over to her so she could get a better look. “Let’s see… it says… ‘Dull-oath’... something… ‘Co.’? What the hay is a ‘Dull-oath’?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not any name I recognize. The ‘Co.’ at the end seems to imply that it’s a company of some kind. We might have to ask the princesses if they know any company by that name.”

“They would.” Cadance replied in the affirmative. “Anypony creating a company that manufactures weaponry needs to have a royal permit to do so. Even if they don’t know it offhoof, I’m sure they would have a copy of the paperwork laying around somewhere.”

“But that doesn’t explain why they would use Unicorn Script to write their company name. Wouldn’t they have used Universal Equestrian?”

“You do have a point.” Cadance seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before shaking her head. “We can figure this out later. Right now, we have a creature to deal with.” She said, pointing a hoof and nodding in the direction of the creature, who had been watching us silently this entire time. “It doesn’t seem to be a threat, at least not to us, but we still don’t know what it is. And then there’s the language barrier…”

“Hopefully Twilight can figure out both when she gets here. For now, we need to focus on figuring out how to stop Sombra from taking back control of the empire. Your protection spell isn’t going to last forever, and we both know what will happen when it falls.” Before I could continue, a pair of loud growls emerged from both of our stomachs. Cadance giggled.

“Perhaps we could find something to eat first? I’m starving, and it sounds like you are too.”

Before I could reply, the creature cleared his throat. When we looked over, he made a motion of rubbing his stomach with his hand, before pointing at us. Figuring out what he meant, we nodded our heads. He smiled and walked past us to the throne room doors, motioning for us to follow.

“He’s trying to lead us somewhere.” I stated. “Should… should we follow him?”

“He’s already proven that he isn’t a threat. Besides, you still have his knife.” My wife pointed out. “I say that this is a risk we take.” With that, she began following the creature, who was now waiting for us by the doors. Not wanting to be left behind, I closed the knife with my magic and followed the two of them. About twenty minutes of walking later, the creature stopped a pair of doors and gestured towards them, giving a sort of bow. Cadance opened the doors to reveal a kitchen. A thousand years out of date, but a kitchen nonetheless.

“I guess following him was a good idea after all, huh Shiny?” Cadance looked over at me with a smug grin. I simply laughed and walked in with her, the creature taking a seat on one of the countertops.

(Jacks POV)

I watched the two unicorns converse with mild amusement. It was clear to me that two were very close, and even with the language barrier I could tell that the pink one was teasing the white one.

“Siblings, perhaps? Maybe lovers? Eh, I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough.”

I was admittedly scared when the white one seemed to be ready to murder me while I was in the throne room. In hindsight, I was very lucky that the gambit with my pocket knife worked. It could’ve ended very poorly for me. These two may be a good two feet shorter than me, but I have a feeling that either one could easily beat the shit out of me if they deemed me a threat. I also noticed that the white one had been occasionally glancing at my ass with a look of surprise on its face while we were walking here, but I didn't mention it. I’m sure I could figure out the reason later.

“Alicorn.” My brain suddenly said, “The pink one is an alicorn.” I had been trying to remember the term ever since I saw the pink ones' wings. It was right there on the tip of my tongue, and now I’ve got it.

Speaking of the pink alicorn, she brought me out of my thoughts by tapping my leg with her hoof. When I looked over, I saw that she was offering an orange. I raised my hand and shook my head in an effort to refuse, since I had just eaten a few hours ago, but she seemed insistent. I finally took it after realizing that she wouldn’t stop using weaponized cuteness against me until I did.

The white one watched this entire interaction with the same mild amusement I watched his interaction with the pink one earlier when we had entered the kitchen. The pink one returned to the white one on the countertop across from mine and the three of us ate in silence. This silence was good for some thinking, which I did.

“I’m proud that I managed to get here in under half an hour. I really didn’t want to lead them on a multi-hour journey to the kitchen. They seemed really interested in my pocket knife… and hearing the pink one try to pronounce ‘Duluth’ was kinda funny.”

I froze with a piece of orange right in front of my mouth. “Wait… she could read what it said. Well, at least the first word. That means we might have a common writing system. Does that mean we also have a common written language?”

My thoughts were interrupted by the white one clearing his throat. Looking over, I could see the two giving me looks mixed with both curiosity and concern. I reached into my jacket to find the piece of paper I took inventory on earlier, as well as my pen. I pointed at them, then at the paper, then made a motion as if I were writing on the paper with the pen, before pointing back at them. The pink one seemed to get what I was trying to say with my game of charades, and she took both in what I assumed to be her magic.

I really wanted to freak out about the fact that magic was a thing here. Really, I did. I already did it internally when the white one used his telekinesis to lift up my knife, but I felt like doing it externally as well.

That could wait for later, though. Right now, I wanna see if this idea works.

(Shinings POV)

Cadance looked over the paper, trying to make out what the creature had written before. There seemed to be two lists right next to each other, each item on them being punctuated by bullet points, with some empty space on the bottom. She also held the pen the creature offered her in her magic.

At first, I didn’t realize what the creature was implying, but it didn’t take me long to figure it out. “He wants to see if we can communicate through writing.” Honestly, I thought it was a good idea. The creature wrote in Unicorn Script, meaning that Cadance at the very least would be able to write messages back and forth with him. My hope, as well the creatures, seemingly died when I saw the look on the Love Princesses face. “Honey,” I started, allowing a bit of worry to creep into my voice, “is something wrong?”

“I… this isn’t Equish.” She said, “It uses the same unicorn alphabet, and there are a few words I recognize, like “knife” and “jacket”, but the rest is just gibberish.” She looked up at the creature with an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this will work.”

The creature was obviously disappointed with this result, and even more obviously didn’t understand what Cadence said, but he seemed to get the gist from her tone and body language. The last bits of hope in his eyes died as he seemed to retreat back into his thoughts.

I honestly felt bad for the guy. He was stuck here, with no way to communicate with anypony else outside of vague gestures. I would absolutely hate to be in his shoes. I reached out and put my hoof on the halfway point of his leg, which seemed to bend backwards, and gave him a smile I hoped would be comforting. It seemed to have worked, judging by the small smile he gave me.

Cadance spoke up after a moment of silence. “Well, I figured out what to do about our guest.” She looked over to the creature, who returned the gesture by maintaining eye contact with her. “You’re going to stay here with us for now. We have some friends coming by the end of the week who should be able to help with the language barrier.” She spoke with a hopeful tone with her voice, before she grew more serious. “Once we get past that, you can help us figure out a way to deal with Sombra. Do we have a deal?” Cadance held out her hoof for the creature to shake.

The creature's response was to tilt his head in confusion. Cadance awkwardly chuckled when she remembered that he didn’t speak Equish and thus didn’t understand a single thing she said. After repeating what she said several times with some hoof gestures thrown in, the creature seemed to understand the vague outline of the agreement my wife was proposing: Food, shelter and a way around the language barrier in exchange for help with Sombra. The two shook on it.

The rest of the day was the creature giving us a tour of the castle and leading us to the bedrooms, where Cadence and I claimed the first one we walked into. The creature claimed the one next door.

It had been a long day, and right now, I just wanted some rest.

(Jack’s POV)

So I made a deal with a pink alicorn. From my understanding, they were giving me a roof over my head in exchange for help with someone named “Sombra”, whoever that was.

The three of us didn’t even realize how late it was until I had chanced a look out of a nearby window and saw the sun about to set. They seemed to have realized as well, as they (well, mostly the white one) decided to hit the hay.

So now here I was, sitting in the bedroom right next door. I had taken off both my jacket and hoodie and was currently in the process of taking off my boots when there was a knock on my door. Walking over, I opened it up to see the white one standing in front of me. He said something to me in his language, before telekinetically handing me my pocket knife back. I honestly wasn’t expecting for him to give it back to me this soon, but I wasn’t about to complain. I took it in my hand and thanked him before he went back to his room. I closed the door behind him and smiled.

“I guess it’s nice that the two trust me already. Though that was unreasonably quick.” I chuckled a bit before placing the knife on the nightstand next to my bed and finishing up with taking my boots off.

I laid my head against the pillows and curled up so I could fit in the bed without my legs dangling off the side of or end of it. At that point, I started seriously considering whether or not this was a dream yet again.

“I already disproved that theory twice. If I wake up here, then it’ll be a third.” I closed my eyes and, after a few false starts and interruptions from my headache, I fell asleep.

Peculiar Dreams, Fictional Morons and Strange Mares

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“And don't think I’m not onto you too, lady. You know what you are? Selfish. I’ve done nothing but sacrifice to get us here, and what have you sacrificed? Nothing. Zero.”

I wasn’t entirely sure why I was dreaming of a scene from a video game, but at the same time I wasn’t questioning it. When compared to what awaited me in the waking world, I was welcoming this sense of normalcy.

“All you’ve done is boss me around. Well now who's the boss? Who's the boss? It’s me.”

Who's 'me'? Is 'me' Frank Sinatra? Is he gonna come on stage and sing about a "Blue Moon" tonight?

…

I’ll shut up now.

“See that?” Oh, hey GLaDOS. Welcome back to the scene. “That is a potato battery. It’s a toy. For children. And now, she lives in it!”

“I know you.”

“Sorry, ahem, uh… what?”

And here comes my favorite part.

“The engineers tried everything to make me… behave. To slow me down.”

I started to question why my subconscious was showing me this. I mean, I’m not really complaining. It’s a good scene from a great game. But there has to be some sort of reason for it, right?

This is the scene where Wheatley betrays the main character. Perhaps something out there in magical unicorn land is telling me that someone will betray me in the future? Or maybe it's trying to relay a different message?

But what message could that be? ‘Don’t put the moron in charge?’ I feel like that would be obvious. Then again, the current state of U.S. politics says otherwise. What other messages could it be trying to convey?

Is it even trying to convey a message? Am I thinking too hard about this? Is there no message at a-

“I AM NOT! A! MORON!” Wheatley screams as he smashes GLaDOS into the glass walls of the elevator, ripping me from my thoughts.

“YES YOU ARE! YOU’RE THE MORON THEY BUILT TO MAKE ME AN IDIOT!” GLaDOS retorted.

I’m surprised that I remember this scene so well.

“WELL HOW ABOUT NOW!?” Wheatley yells as he tosses GLaDOS into the elevator with me. “NOW WHO’S A MORON?! COULD A MORON PUNCH. YOU. INTO. THIS. PIT!?!? HUH? COULD A MORON DO THAT? … Uh oh.”

And that was the last thing I heard before falling into the pit I had just been punched down. Thanks, Wheatley. You fucking moron.

“Oh hi. So, how are you holding up?”

I debated whether or not I should break character, but GLaDOS continued talking before I could finish that internal debate.

“CAUSE I’M A POTATO.”

slow clap. slow clap. slow clap.

“Oh good. My slow clap processor made it into this thing. So we have that.”

“Yup.” I replied. “At least we can fall to our deaths with thunderous applause, right?”

GLaDOS didn’t respond as she continued on with the script. “Since it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere - well, we are going somewhere. Alarmingly fast, actually. But since we’re not busy other than that, here’s a couple of facts.”

…

I waited for my potato companion to continue, but she didn’t. I knew there was more dialogue after that, as well as another use of the slow clap processor. I looked over and saw something… odd.

“Hm… pretty sure her eye is supposed to be yellow. Not teal.”

“You dream of the most peculiar things, creature.” Replied the potato, in a voice that very much did not belong to the crazed AI I knew and had a love-hate relationship with.

“You're not GLaDOS... Why do I have a feeling I’m about to be murdered?”

“We assure thee that thou shall not be harmed.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “At least, not for now. We had simply heard from our dear niece of a strange creature she had encountered on her mission and chose to investigate it personally.”

“Your niece… you mean the unicorn and alicorn I met earlier? Wait, who are you? And why are you hijacking my dream?” Another thought popped into my head at that moment. “And how can we understand each other?”

“The dream realm works in mysterious ways. Even I, somepony who has been walking it for over a thousand years, does not fully understand everything about it.” We finally landed unharmed in a grassy field at night, the potato somehow floating in mid-air. “And as for my identity…”

Some sort of mist surrounded the potato, covering it completely before spreading out into the shape of an equine. Before I could make out any details it parted away, revealing a dark blue alicorn with teal eyes. Her mane and tail blew in an unseen wind and looked like the night sky. “... We are Princess Luna, one of the two diarchs of the land of Equestria, Princess of the Night, and the guardian of the dream realm.” She gave me a cold glare. “And you are the creature who pulled a knife on our niece and her husband.”

“Hey, look, I was surrendering my weapon to them! I was proving that I wasn’t a threat!” I said, holding up my hands in a show of surrender. “And I’m still not!” I quickly added in a panicked tone.

“I swear, if I somehow managed to piss off a Dream Goddess...”

“We assure that we are not a goddess, even if we do possess some traits of one.” Princess Luna… replied to my thoughts? What? “Though we are flattered that you would give us such a compliment, even if it was unintentional.”

“And you can read my thoughts as well. Great.”

“We are only looking through thou’s mind to insure that thou does not pose a threat to our niece. She has enough on her plate already. She does not need the potential of a monkey stabbing her in the back when it deems it most advantageous.” She fixed me with another glare. “What is your name, creature? And where do you hail from?” She asked me after a moment of silence.

“Jackson Brunner. But my friends call me Jack. And I ‘hail’ from the United States of America.”

“And yet your mind says you hail from ‘Upstate New York’. That is a region in this… ‘Amareica’, I presume?”

“It’s pronounced ‘America’. And yes, it is.”

“Intriguing. Most intriguing.” Silence reigned in the dream realm once more before Princess Luna’s gaze softened and her horn stopped glowing.

“Didn’t even realize it was glowing.”

“You were focusing on more important things.” Princess Luna once again replied to my thoughts. “We have deemed that you were truthful in your earlier claims, and that both Cadance and Shining have nothing to fear from you.”

“And those are…?”

“The two ponies you met today. The pink alicorn is Princess Cadance, the Princess of Love. The white unicorn stallion is Prince Shining Armor, now former Captain of the E.U.P.” … “The paperwork just went through about an hour before I began my duties.” Princess Luna provided upon seeing my questioning gaze, despite the fact that was not the question I was gonna ask. “They are to be the future rulers of the Crystal Empire, which is where you three are right now.”

“Alright then. And where are you right now, if I may ask?”

“Why, in Canterlot, of course.” Her expression seemed to turn sour for a brief moment as she muttered something about “Tia stopping me from coming” before resuming her mostly neutral expression she seemed to wear when not glaring at me. “Oh, yes. You would not be aware of where Canterlot is, would you? You do appear to be from another world entirely, after all.”

“And what gave you that impression?”

“Why, the fact you have no natural magic anywhere in your body, of course.” Luna replied. “Every creature born and raised on Equis - the planet we are currently on - has at least a small amount of magic within them. So for a creature to be here yet have none at all… based on your own thoughts and memories, it is the only logical conclusion that we can think of.”

"Right… ugh, why didn't I think of that?" I mumbled to myself. Seems so obvious now. Of course I got chucked across space by a patch of ice and some concrete. Just my luck, huh?

I know a Dean Martin song that would work in this situation. Goes a little something like 'Ain't That A Kick In The Head'.

The lunar princess no longer seemed content with just watching me get lost in my thoughts, as she cleared her throat to get my attention. "Yes, well, we shall be off to inform Cadance and Shining Armor of our findings regarding… you. Our night is still young, so We shall give you peaceful dreams for the rest of it." A door appears behind her and she turns around to enter it.

At this point I noticed a detail I hadn't before. There was a symbol on her flank. One of a dark splotch with a white crescent moon on it.

"Well, her name is Luna, and Luna is the word for 'moon' in some romance languages. Perhaps there's a connection? I'll ask another time. I don't think that this is the last I'll be seeing of her."

"Besides, I have something more important to ask…"

"Just… one more thing?" I ask. When she turns back to face me, I clear my throat and continue. "Do you think you could find a way to do… whatever the dream realm is doing now in the… I don't know. I guess the term here would be 'waking world'? Using sign language to communicate without actually knowing any sign language is a bit difficult."

Princess Luna thought for a moment before nodding. "I know of a few spells that may help you to learn Equish faster, if that is what you mean." She shook her head. "As far as I am aware, it is not possible to just put an entire language into one's head and expect the recipient to speak that language fluently. And even if there was one, I would not be able to cast it on you here, for it would have no effect on you in the waking world."

"I see… well, maybe a temporary solution then?"

"Perhaps… My sister and I will be speaking with Twilight Sparkle and the other Elements tomorrow morning before they depart for The Empire. I shall mention you and your problem to them then. I am certain that young Twilight can come up with something on the way there." She turned back to the door and began to walk out of the dream. "I wish you luck, Mr. Brunner. And I do hope you uphold your end of the deal that you made with my niece."

"I will, your highness. I gave her my word, and I am a man of my word."

And so, she left.

The field faded away and I was dropped into a dream. I don't remember what it was about, but I do remember it being one of the best of my entire life.

(Luna's POV)

Several hours later…

As I set my moon and my sister raised her sun, I thought back to what I had seen in that creature's - Jackson's, I reminded myself - memories. I had gone back a little too far and seen a memory of him and some others of his species - one adult and two children - partaking in a holiday that reminded me of Nightmare Night.

I didn't stay in the memory long to get many details, but I did see that the kids were not his kids, though they were family of some kind. I had also seen Jackson in a wheelchair.

"Was he paralyzed before he came to Equestria? Did the magic of the land heal his legs? But I didn't detect any magic within him. Some would be left over if that were the case. On the other hoof, it could've been part of his costume…"

Just another thing to add to the ever growing list of mysteries revolving around Equestria's newest resident, it seems.

My tired mind continued to occasionally drift back to the human as I reached the dining hall and walked through the big double doors. Inside was a long table with a chair stylized as a throne at the end. My sister, Celestia, was sitting in a seat on the left side. I took up a seat directly across from her. It was a silent agreement between the two of us after my return: when dining alone, neither of us would take the head of the table.

"Good morning, sister." Celestia spoke, a yawn briefly interrupting her. "I trust the night shift went well?"

"That it did. I also spoke with Cadance and Shining Armor in the dream realm." I punctuated that sentence with a yawn of my own. "They have made it to the Empire safely and have taken up residence in the palace."

"That's good." Was Celestia's simple reply before the waiters arrived to take our orders. Once they were done, she continued. "Is there any other news from the Empire you think I should know?"

"Just one thing." I took a sip of my coffee before continuing. "Cadance and Shining Armor made contact with a creature who had also taken up residence in the palace. His name is Jackson Brunner, and he has proven himself to be friendly thus far. Though I have one question for you, sister." At Celestia's raised eyebrow, I continued. "Have you ever heard of a 'human' before?"

That seemed to get Celestia's attention. "I remember them being mentioned in some of Starswirl's notes from back when he was experimenting with the mirror portal, yes. Why do you ask?"

"Because that is what Mr. Brunner is Tia. A human."

The spit take Tia narrowly avoided performing with her morning tea was both surprising and hilarious. "What? But… but the mirror portal doesn't open again for several more months. How is that possible?"

"Yes… tis a mystery. Much like so much else about this 'Jackson'… Anyways, sister. I have a favor to ask. I know you're sending your student to the Empire as a test, but would you mind if I gave her a… extra credit assignment, of sorts?"

Memories Old and New

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The sound of an alarm brought me out of my slumber. Sleepily, I reached for my phone on the nightstand so I could turn it off.

"Fucking hell, where is it?"

After about a minute of looking with my hand, I finally grab my phone and look at the screen.

7:00 AM

Work

"My work alarm… great… Why did I even turn it on? I don't have work today." I turned the alarm off and just layed there, seriously considering whether or not I should get up today. Then I remembered where I was.

"Right… magical unicorn land… welp, time to get out of bed. Knowing my luck, the bed bugs here are horse sized shape shifters or some bullshit like that."

I dragged myself out of bed and to the adjoining bedroom, getting a good look at my bed head. Looking through the drawers yielded no comb-shaped results, so I had to use a brush to tame it instead. Not my preferred method, but better than nothing.

"At least I still have my hair. My old man can't say that, now can he?" I chuckled a little at my internal joke, but the humor died pretty quickly. "God, my family probably think I'm dead, don't they?"

I remembered how, on the day of my "accident", I was supposed to be meeting up with my stepbrother and spending a day with him and his kids. "Does he think I bailed on them? Or that I forgot? Or has he realized that something is wrong? No, he's definitely realized something is wrong by now. I don't just bail out at the last moment with no warning."

I set the brush down on the countertop as I stared into the mirror. "He might've left most of his brains on the football field back in high school and college, but I know he's smart enough to realize that. You don't get a teaching degree for nothing, even if it is just for high school PE."

"And what about Eddy? Has Marc told him yet?" I somehow managed a chuckle at my nickname for Anthony. "He always hated that nickname, didn't he?" I still remember when he invited me to his wedding. First words out of my mouth were "So Marc Antony has finally found his Cleopatra, huh?"

To this day, I am the only one of my brothers who has ever been almost uninvited to a wedding. It was only my tactical threatening to use the nuclear option (i.e. the "I'll tell mom card") that saved my invite in the end.

"God, I hope Edward's not taking my sudden disappearance too hard." I had always been closer to Eddy than Anthony. Maybe it was because the age gap between us was so much smaller, or maybe because, unlike Anthony, the two of us were related in blood in every sense of the word.

That didn't mean that I didn't care about Marc, though. I remember once when he was fourteen and I was six, I caught him sneaking out one night. When I asked him why, he told me that he was going out to visit his birth mother's grave. Apparently, he had been doing it every night he knew could get away with it since he was ten. I don't know the full story behind her death, but from what I do know from dad, she fell back into some bad habits that she had swore off once she learned she was pregnant.

She didn't survive her relapse. Marc was four at the time.

I offered to go with him. He declined, and he made me promise that I wouldn't tell anyone about his nightly visits to his mother's grave.

It's a promise that I've kept to this very day.

I wasn't kidding when I told Luna that I'm a man of my word. I keep my promises, no matter what.

Then there was Edward, the middle child. The first of two children born to my father and his then girlfriend. The two got hitched soon after Eddy was born. I was born on the winter solstice two years later.

Eddy was my best friend growing up. I was never the most social child, at least not until high school, so he was kinda all I had. Even when we had our disagreements, we still made up in the end.

"Blood brothers to the end." I muttered the old childhood pact we made under my breath. We even did that one blood ritual thing where you prick your thumbs and push them together after seeing it on TV once. Mom was not happy about us stealing a kitchen knife and pricking our thumbs with it.

We were dumbass kids, that's for sure.

I looked out the door and saw the pocket knife still sitting on the nightstand. I still can't believe he gave it to me so soon. Can't say I'm not glad, though. It was a gift from my father. He gave it to me on my twelfth birthday and, according to him, he got it as a present for his fourteenth birthday from his mom. While he used it to look cool at school, I just left it in my pocket in case I ever needed it to defend myself.

Such a situation has not arisen yet, thankfully. And I hope it never does.

I stepped out of the bathroom and picked it up, opening it to get a look at the blade.

Outside of self defense, I guess the reason I've hung onto this old thing for so long is for the sentimental value. It was a gift from my grandmother to my father, and my father to me. Passed down through three generations.

I miss my grandma. She passed away a few years ago from lung cancer. I was very close to her. Not as close as Marc, though. I think that was the first time I saw him cry in years.

I put my beanie and hoodie on as I remembered the good times. Back when we could head out to the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Pennsylvania, visit our grandma at her house, and swim in our own private pond. We didn't care about all the leeches that attached themselves to us and how we had to pull them all out ourselves at the end of it all. We just had fun.

Well, at least until Eddy got a leech right on the left nut. Marc and I thought it was the funniest shit in the world, while Eddy claimed it was the most painful experience in his entire life. Even breaking his leg a few years later didn’t top the leech.

"Should've listened to me when I said skinny dipping in the pond was a bad idea!" Marc's voice echoed in the back of mind, his voice sounding happy and jovial.

"Hey, when you're desperate for a blowjob, you gotta try everything." My voice replied back. "Just a shame for Eddy that our new friend here missed the mark a little."

I shook the memory from my head as I continued putting everything back on. "Hopefully I can make it back to them soon. Or at all." It was while I was tying the laces on my boots that the knock came at my door. I checked the time on my phone:

7:43 AM

"Fucking Christ, I really took my time, didn't I?"

"Come in!" I called out as I put my phone in my pocket and finished up the laces on my boots. I knew my two housemates couldn't understand a word I said, so I just had to hope the meaning of them got through to whichever one of them was knocking.

Enter stage right, the white unicorn - "Shining Armor", I reminded myself - and he looked tired. Tired to the point that I wouldn't blame him if he fell over and went to sleep right then and there.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" I asked, my concern overriding the more rational parts of my brain reminding me that he couldn't understand me. Still, the concern clearly showed in my voice

~~"I'm fine."~~ Replied the former guard, seemingly also forgetting that we can't understand each other. Even with his dismissive tone, I didn't believe him for a second. He's asleep on his feet - er hooves, I mean - for fucks sake! It's like all those times where my niece stayed up late behind my back while staying at my house and tried to hide it the next morning.

…

Actually, the resemblance was really uncanny. Uncomfortable, even.

(Cadances POV)

I don’t know what Shining was thinking last night.

He was clearly exhausted from the long trip here, yet he refused to go to bed the moment I let out a small yawn. I’m glad that he offered to take over holding the protection spell, but I told him to wake me up after a few hours so we could switch again, not take over for the whole night!

I let a sigh escape my lips as I left the bathroom. “That stallion sometimes, I swear. He’s been way too overprotective of me since the wedding.”

“I can’t really blame him though, can I? I mean, I was stuck in those caverns for three weeks and no one even noticed! I guess I would be a bit overprotective as well if the horseshoe was on the other hoof.” Looking at the bed, I notice that he’s no longer there. “Oh bucking tartarus, where did he get off too? I told him to get some sleep!” That’s when I heard the thump in the room next door.

The room that the creature - “Jackson, Luna said his name is Jackson.” I reminded myself - had claimed as his own last night.

“... Oh no.” I said simply as I rushed to the neighboring bedroom. I walked through the open doors…

… to find Shining asleep on the floor and Jackson giving himself a facehoof with an exasperated expression on his face.

~~“Fucking Christ,~~ Shining.” Jackson said to my unconscious husband in his native tongue. He then shook his head and chuckled. ~~“You're so lucky my brothers didn’t end up here with me. Who knows what dumb shit…”~~ He trailed off as he finally noticed that I was in the room. ~~“Uh… morning,~~ Cadance.” He said with a small wave.

I was a bit freaked out that he suddenly knew our names. Then again, Auntie Luna probably told him when she visited him last night. I nodded in his direction and then looked back down at the sleeping stallion on the floor. “How am I gonna get you back into bed?” I thought. I could just use telekinesis, but it was difficult to maintain that for heavier objects as well as hold something as intensive as the protection spell. I then came up with an idea as I remembered the biped in the room.

“Yes… that could work.”

(Jacksons POV)

I noticed that Cadance was now alternating her gaze between me and her husband. I could see that she was trying to tell me something, though I couldn’t be sure what she was trying to say. I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head to the side to show that I was not getting what she was implying.

She used her magic to pull my beanie off my head and float it over towards her, where she proceeded to make a show out of dropping it on the floor and picking it up again. Occasionally, she would point towards herself, then me, then the beanie, then Shining.

Repeat this for several minutes.

“Let’s see… I think she’s saying that I’m her and Shining is… the beanie? She… wants me to pick up her husband? Does she want me to carry him somewhere?”

I approached Shining and knelt down next to him while making motions as if I was going to pick him up. At Cadance’s enthusiastic nodding, I picked him up and put him over my shoulder like he was an old burlap sack.

(Cadances POV)

I had to stifle a chuckle as Jackson adjusted Shining so that his head was resting on one shoulder and his flank on the other. I had to admit, it was pretty funny to see my husband being worn like he was a scarf.

“I wish I had a camera. That would make this just perfect.”

At Jackson’s questioning gaze, I moved my hooves in a way that symbolized taking a picture with a camera. Surprisingly, he understood what I was implying and pulled out the small black box from his pocket. I had noticed it the other day, and Shining had noted that his headphones were plugged into it when we met him in the throne room yesterday.

At first, I was confused about why he was pulling out his music player, before I saw what was on the back.

Three camera lenses.

“His music player is also a camera?”

He tapped on… something a few times before handing it over to me. I took it in my magic and saw that he had... turned on camera mode? I guess that would be the best way to describe it.

“I think I’m starting to like this guy.” I thought as Jackson gave me a brief tutorial on which button to push to take a picture. I pulled the camera/music player up to take the photo. Jackson kneeled down so I could get him in frame easier, giving a thumbs up and a silly, over exaggerated smile.

While it did take a few attempts, I managed to press the button required to take the picture with my hoof. I handed the device back to him and his quiet laugh as he placed the device back in his pocket was all I needed to know that he approved of my actions.

(Jacksons POV)

After depositing Shining Armor in his room (and once again laughing at the picture Cadance took, at his expense), Cadance and I set forth on our venture to the kitchen, in our quest for breakfast.

I took the opportunity to check my battery.

74%.

“Still above fifty, surprisingly. Let's make that last as long as possible.”

"Wait… I'm in a world where magic exists. Perhaps…" I snuck a glance at my alicorn companion's horn before shaking my head. "Later. I've got more important things to worry about right now than charging my phone. Besides, it's a brand new world. How am I supposed to enjoy my time here if I spend it all staring at the screen of my phone?" My thoughts continued as we reached the kitchen and began rummaging around in the cabinets, looking for breakfast. "God knows I already wasted enough time staring at screens back home. I don't need to waste all of my time doing the same here." I finally found the cabinet where I found the fruit yesterday. "Huh. I thought it was two over to the left. Guess I should've paid more attention. Anyways," I resumed the original debate in my head as I grabbed a small selection of various different fruits and placed them on the counter while Cadance kept rummaging around. "On the other hand, I've got a lot of memories on this thing. Pictures, videos, texts… I really don't want to lose them forever."

I was interrupted by the sound of something falling and a certain pink mare letting out a rather loud and panicked "eep" noise. I looked over and saw Cadance, covered in an entire bag's worth of flour, the empty bag having made its new residence on the ground in front of her. Then I thought back to the picture she took of me carrying Shining back to bed.

"Regardless of if this is a temporary arrangement or a permanent one, one thing is for sure.

"I'll be making a hell of a lot of new memories during my time here." I let out a laugh as I quickly got a picture of Cadance. She was not amused, but her glare wasn't nearly as intimidating as her aunt's. And with the flour…

Well, let's just say I'm lucky she started laughing along as well. Otherwise, I probably would've died in that room at her hooves.

So it's been about eight hours since "the flour incident", as I have decided to call it. Shining woke up from his nap about two hours ago, and he was already looking much better than he did when he came to visit me at fifteen minutes to eight this morning. Still obviously tired, mind you, but much better regardless.

I also tried my hand at cooking in this world around lunchtime. Sure, the ovens looked like they came straight out of the medieval era, but I was certain that I could harness my very limited culinary skills to figure out how to make some grilled cheese.

Cadance was kind enough to use what I assumed was a healing spell to heal the burns I got from the several-century-year-old ovens. I also burned the first grilled cheese I made in the process. The other two came out about as well as I could get them to come out without harming myself again, though they were a little under cooked from the looks of it. Cadance and Shining still enjoyed them. I enjoyed the burnt one significantly less, but I was hungry, and I wasn't gonna let it go to waste.

I think Shining offered to eat the burnt one instead, but I did my best to decline that offer. It wasn't the first time I've burnt a grilled cheese and eaten it anyway, and knowing me, it won't be the last.

"Perhaps there are some easy native dishes I could try to learn? I'm pretty sure these guys wouldn't let me eat or cook meat, so tacos are out, and I won't be able to survive off of grilled cheese and quesadillas alone."

As I said, I have very limited culinary skills. I only know how to cook those three things.

It was during lunch that Cadance decided to reveal the fact that I have a camera in my pocket. I know this cause she told me - well, more like widely gestured to me - to show Shining. He seemed impressed until we got to the picture we took of him earlier.

The ever so slightly annoyed look on his face was priceless.

I then showed him the picture of Cadance in the kitchen, and his mood turned around very quickly from 'slightly annoyed' to 'almost pissing himself laughing'. Until Cadance said something to him, and he stopped pretty quickly.

I'm not sure what she said, but it must've been horrifying for the stallion.

Almost reminds me of Eddy and his first girlfriend, Amanda. They would playfully tease and threaten each other all the time. Everyone knew they didn't actually mean it when they threatened to rip each other's throats out over who got the last cinnamon bun. It was always just them playing around.

I'm glad they were able to stay on good terms with each other after they broke up. Amanda's always a joy to hang out with.

“I wonder if my brothers told her yet. She’s still a friend of the family, after all. And she is an editor at the local paper… maybe she was made aware through work? Or maybe she heard about it through the grapevine?”

John Fogerty decided to become the love child of a set of intrusive thoughts and an ear worm in the form of song lyrics at that moment.

Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
And I'm just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey, yeah

(Shinings POV)

Jackson seemed to be lost in thought again, humming a song I didn’t recognize. But that was hardly surprising at this point. I didn’t recognize the song he was singing on the throne, so why would I recognize another song from his world? What did Princess Luna call it again? ‘Amareica?’ Something like that.

Speaking of Princess Luna…

“So Luna visited me in my dreams during my… nap.”

“Really? She brought good news, I hope?” Cadance replied

“Ehhhh…" Good and bad.” At the tilt of her head, I continued. “She said that she spoke with Twilly and the others today. They should be here in five days.” I took another bite of the grilled cheese Jackson had made. “The bad news is that the troops from Canterlot aren’t coming. The nobles caught wind that some of their kids who are in the E.U.P. were gonna be deployed to the Frozen North, and now they're doing everything they can to delay the deployment. With all the roadblocks they keep setting up, Princess Luna isn’t very confident that she and Princess Celestia will be able to get the troops up here for another two, maybe three weeks at least.”

“THREE WEEKS?!” Cadance’s voice boomed through the kitchen, startling both me and Jackson. Seeing this, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself down before she continued. “We can’t hold out for that long, even with Twilight and the others coming! That’s, what, nine of us to defend an entire empire from Sombra? And Jackson can’t even use magic to defend himself!” She stomped her hoof on the countertop. “Not to mention the Crystal Ponies. Who knows what Sombra would do to them if he takes power again!"

Even after her attempt to calm herself down, Cadance was still pretty riled up. I don't think I've ever seen her this angry before.

Actually, no. I have. Only once.

The day she crashed her own wedding and exposed Chrysalis to the world. I was under hypnosis at the time, so my memory is a bit foggy, but that is one of the few things of that experience that I remember well.

I looked over at Jackson, and he seemed legitimately fearful of Cadance for a moment if the wide eyes and few steps he took back were any indication.

I trotted over to my wife and gave her a quick nuzzle in an attempt to calm her down. “I’m sure Jackson is able to defend himself just fine, honey. I’ll even take him down to the armory and give him a sword if it's such a big concern to you." Cadance seemed to melt a little as she calmed down. “I know that this is a stressful situation, but we need to push through it. We can’t let our emotions get the best of us. That’s how we fall.” I looked into her eyes to see the diminishing rage within them. “Knowing Twilly, she’ll find a solution before the guard even gets here. Tarturus, maybe the three of us can figure it out before even Twilly gets here.”

“I… you're right.” She finally said after a long period of silence. “We need to stay calm and not do anything rash.”

“Don’t pull a Sunset. Right, dear?” The glare I got from Cadance would’ve melted through my armor had I been wearing it. “Er, sorry.”

“It’s fine. Just… still a bit of a sore spot, I guess.” A sigh escaped her lips before she seemed to realize something. “Wait… maybe… maybe we can figure it out.”

“What?’

“How to protect the empire without our protection spells.” She clarified. “And even if we don’t figure it out on our own, it’ll still give the others a head start when they get here.”

“It’s a good idea, but how are we going to be able to do that? With the guard held up in Canterlot, I’m going to have to patrol the Empire's borders myself. You need to keep your protection spell up, and Jackson doesn’t speak our language.”

“Maybe you don’t need to patrol the border alone?” Cadance replied. “You and Jackson can work in shifts. Every other day, you trade off, and on your days off, you can ask around about potential solutions.”

“You’re right… but is it fair to him, though? I mean, I don’t want to push it on him against his will, and I don’t know how to mime ‘you need to help patrol the borders of the empire while I look for information.’” Now I was letting a sigh escape my lips.

Cadance had a look on her face.

I knew that look.

That was her ‘I’ve just solved our problem’ look.

“Well… I think we need to talk with Auntie Luna tonight.” She then turned to Jackson, who had returned to his spot at the countertop and resumed eating at some point during our conversation. “All three of us.”

I was confused for a moment before I realized what she meant. Jackson, meanwhile, had raised an eyebrow and wore a look of mixed confusion and curiosity on his face.

Her Most Faithful Student, From the Perspectives of Kindness and Generosity

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(Fluttershys POV)

“We’re going to the Crystal Empire!”

…

“Huh?!” The rest of the girls and I chorused in unified confusion. After exchanging some murmurs amongst ourselves, we all turned our attention back to the purple unicorn who had made the announcement.

“The Crystal Empire,” Twilight began, “it’s returned after a thousand years, and Princess Celestia is sending me there to help Cadance and my brother stop Sombra from taking it over again.”

“Well that’s all well and good, sugarcube,” Applejack started, “but how are we supposed to save it? And where the hay is this Empire, anyhow?”

“I… don’t actually know. Princess Celestia said that Cadance and Shining were already there trying to figure that out. Though they’ve had a few… complications… of their own.” Before anypony could question what those ‘complications’ were, Twilight continued. “And it’s in the Frozen North. The Princess suggested that we should head back to Ponyville and pack anything we might need before getting on the train north.”

“Oh my, the Frozen North, darling?” Rarity asked. At Twilight’s nod, she continued. “Well, I must get back to Carousel Boutique and grab a few scarves at the very least!”

“A few? Please!” Replied the cyan pegasus known as Rainbow Dash next to her. “Knowing you, you're gonna pack, like, a bajillion bags!”

“Hmph!” Rarity ‘hmphed’ “A proper lady always packs the necessities, Rainbow Dash! For some place as cold and frigid as the Frozen North, well… well I can’t allow myself to be unprepared, now can I?”

Applejack decided that now would be a good time to chime it. “Now now, you two. Despite how much I hate to say it, Rainbow does have a point, Rares. You do have a tendency to overpack, at least a little…”

As the packing discussion between the three continued on, I noticed that Twilight didn’t seem to be paying much attention. In fact, she seemed… lost.

“Um, Twilight?” I asked as I stepped closer to her.

This seemed to snap her out of it. “Oh, hey Fluttershy. Sorry, I was lost in thought. What’s up?”

“Well, you just seemed lost in thought, and I wanted to know if something was wrong… if you don’t mind talking about it, of course.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s just… you know a lot about strange creatures, right?” At my nod, she continued. “Well, it’s just… have you ever heard of a ‘human’ before?”

That question threw me for a loop. “A human…? I… No, I can’t say I've ever heard of one.”

Twilight sighed “Well, apparently, there’s one in the Crystal Empire right now. Cadance and Shining are keeping an eye on him and, according to Princess Luna, he’s intelligent enough to speak but doesn’t know a single word of Equish! And she asked me to help him find a temporary solution to the language barrier until Sombra is defeated.” Twilight’s nerves seemed to be getting to her at that moment, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

“Now calm down there, sugarcube. Did the Princess tell you anything about this “human” thing?” Applejack intervened, having seemingly overheard what we were talking about.

“Not much. Just that his name is Jackson Brunner, he is an adult of his species, the two currently believe that he is most likely from another world, and he has, so far, proven himself to be non-hostile, if not a bit snarky and rambly at times.”

“Wait wait wait, hold up. Do you girls think this Jackson guy could be the complications that Twilight mentioned earlier?” It was Rainbow who said that.

“Well… he’s more like one of them on a slowly growing list, according to the princesses.” Twilight responded.

“Well-” I started to say, before Pinkie interrupted me.

“OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH!!! THAT MUST HAVE BEEN WHY MY PINKIE SENSE WAS GOING CRA-ZY YESTERDAY! But- wait, it told me he ended up in Ponyville. Why did it…?” Pinkie seemed to trail off at that moment, so I tried to speak up again, only to be interrupted by the pink earth pony a second time. “WAIT, I’VE GOT IT! Clearly my Pinkie sense went off because he needs a welcome party! Well, Pinkie Pie is on th-” Now it was Pinkie’s turn to be interrupted, this time by an orange hoof to the mouth.

“Now settle down there, Pinks. Let poor Fluttershy over here say what she wants to say.”

I nodded to Applejack in appreciation before continuing. “Well, I think we should give him a chance to prove himself. He’s already proven to be friendly. Maybe the best approach is to help him and extend our hoof in friendship to him?”

“Helping him is non-negotiable, Fluttershy. It’s a direct assignment from Princess Luna. But I do agree that we should extend our hoof in friendship to him. Right, girls?”

Pinkie was the first to agree, if her rapid head bobbing was anything to go by. Rarity was next, followed by Rainbow, and lastly came a reluctant Applejack.

“So we’re all in agreement. With that out of the way, let’s get on the train. It’s gonna be a long trip.” And with that, Twilight stepped onto the train back to Ponyville, the rest of us following close behind.

“Now Angel Bunny, I need you to help Harry out as much as you can for the next few weeks. You’ve seen how we run things for the past few years, so I’m sure you can keep things running smoothly, right?” At Angel’s nod, I smiled. “Good. I’ll see you all in two weeks. Be good, now!”

With those parting words, I stepped out of my house and met up with Applejack, who was waiting just down the road after helping me carry the animal feed here, and the two of us began walking to the train station. We shared some pleasant conversation for most of the walk, until the topic turned back to the Crystal Empire.

“I’m just saying that this is a creature we know next to nothing about. What if it’s dangerous? Or just playing nice until it gets what it wants?” I was honestly surprised that it was Applejack who was saying this. I thought for sure I would be having this conversation with Rainbow Dash, but not Applejack.

“It’s like Twilight said. According to Princess Luna, he doesn’t seem to mean any harm to any of us, and Cadance and Shining both seem to trust him if they’re letting him stay with them.” I calmly explained to the apple farmer. “I just think he deserves a chance to prove himself before we do anything rash.”

“I hope you're right, Shy.” Applejack replied after a moment. “But once we meet him, I’m gonna keep an eye on him. Just in case.”

“I’m sure you're just being paranoid, AJ.” Rainbow's voice replied from above. “Besides, if Fluttershy is willing to give the guy a chance, why shouldn’t we?”

“I know that, Rainbow. I just got a bad feeling about this whole situation is all.”

We arrived at the train station. Twilight and Rarity were already there, the former looking through a book and the latter having Spike carry six different bags of varying shapes and sizes. I heard bits being exchanged between AJ and Rainbow behind me as I approached Twilight.

“Oh, there you are Fluttershy.” She said as she noticed my approach. “Oh, and you brought Applejack and Rainbow Dash with you! Great! Now we just need to wait for Pinkie Pie and we should be good to go.” She closed the book she was reading and placed them in her saddle bag. “I was talking with the conductor earlier. He said that, if he really pushes the engine to the limit, we can get there in just four days. Princess Luna also sent a letter, and said she would be checking in on us in our dreams during the trip and giving us updates on what's going on in the Empire.” She started looking around towards the rest of the girls. “Everypony have your affairs in order?”

“Big Mac’s gonna watch the crusaders while we’re gone.” Replied Applejack. “I’m sure he can and Granny can handle a little extra farm work for a couple weeks.”

“All of my appointments have either been rescheduled or canceled, so I have no problems here.” Rarity added.

“I have Angel and Harry watching over the animals.” I chimed in.

“And I have all of the supplies we need for Jackson’s party!” Pinkie yelled, appearing next to Rarity seemingly out of thin air and throwing confetti everywhere.

“Pinkie, this is a serious situation. We don’t have time to throw a party.” Twilight replied in an exasperated voice. Clearly, this was not the first time these two have had this conversation today.

“But it’s always time for a party! And I need to throw Jackson a super-duper special “Welcome to Equestria” party! I can’t have him feeling left out!”

“But-” Twilight started before Rarity butted in.

“Honestly, darling, you're not going to get her to stop. You know this. We all know this. Just let her plan the party. It’s… easier that way.”

Twilight replied with a sigh. “Fine. But not until after I figure out how to get around the language barrier. Understood?”

“Loud and clear!” was Pinkie’s reply as she trotted onto the train. The rest of us followed and got settled into the booths of the passenger car. After a few moments, the train started up and we had begun our trip northwards.

(Raritys POV)

"So what are you reading there, darling?" I asked Twilight as I settled into the seat across from her.

"It's a book about translation spells. Princess Luna mentioned something interesting about Jackson's language. According to Cadance, while it's completely incomprehensible to Equish speakers when spoken, it does share some words when written. Specifically in Unicorn Script." Twilight levitated another book out of her saddlebags. "I'm hoping that, at the very least, I can find or even create some sort of spell that can translate what he writes into Equish and what we write into his native language, using those similarities as a basis. It's not as good as a spoken conversation, but it should be good as a temporary solution."

"Oh, well maybe I can help with that. I know a little bit about translation spells."

Twilight cocked her head. "You do?"

I nodded "Of course, dear. Even in a small town like Ponyville, I've occasionally had to deal with clientele in the past who… didn't speak the best Equish." One particular incident involving a group of griffins from the Griffin Territories briefly flashed through my mind before I continued. "Most of the time, it was just easier for me to cast a translation spell and for us to both speak in our native tongues." I looked over the page that Twilight was on. "I may not be as knowledgeable or experienced as you are, but I'm sure with the two of us working together, we can figure this out rather quickly."

"Thanks, Rarity. That helps a lot." Twilight replied as I took a glance at the other book: "Languages and Writing Systems of the Early to Mid Celestial Era, by Lord Blank Page."

"And why do you have a language book?" I asked.

"Well, besides the fact that it's one of the best resources I have for studying Unicorn Script, as it was still commonly used in the Early Celestial Era, Jackson seems to write in a variation of Unicorn Script. I was hoping that maybe I could find some sort of reference or maybe a common precursor in this book." Twilight explained.

"But didn't the princess say he was from another world? Do you really think his language would be in there?" I questioned.

"That's just the current theory." was Twilight's dismissive reply. "If there's even a chance that I can find some sort of reference to this 'English' language - even if it's just a small hoofnote - I need to look into it. It can speed up the process a lot."

I thought about it for a moment. "Well, alright dear. How about this?" I took the language book in my telekinesis as I slid the translation magic book back to her. "How about I look for any references about 'English', while you focus on the spell. Sound good?"

Twilight, after getting over the fact that I had just taken a book from her without warning (which, in hindsight, was not my smartest move), nodded once and smiled. "Sounds good." She replied. "Thanks again for the help."

"Oh, it's not a problem, darling. Anything for a friend." With that came the end of our conversation and the beginning of my journey into the world of languages both alive and dead.

(Fluttershys POV)

It had been several hours since we left Ponyville for the Crystal Empire. For the most part, I had been sitting by the windows and watching the rolling fields of Central Equestria fly by. It was a beautiful sight, one that was only improved by the setting sun.

I glanced around the rest of the cabin. Rainbow and Applejack had already gone to the attached bunk car and went to bed about half an hour ago, and Twilight made Spike join them. She and Rarity were still looking through the books Twilight had brought with her, and Pinkie was nowhere to be found. I would be concerned about that, but I was used to her antics at this point. Knowing her, she was just somew-

"I'm actually right behind you, silly!" Pinkie from right behind me, causing me to jump up in surprise. I may be used to her antics, but that doesn't mean she doesn't scare me when she sneaks up on me like that.

"So watcha thinking about?" Pinkie questioned as I calmed myself down.

"Honestly… nothing." At Pinkie's inquisitive look, I continued. "I've been trying to keep my mind off of this situation, at least early on. I would really not like to think about Sombra or the Empire or…" My eyes wandered over to Twilight and Rarity as I trailed off. Pinkie noticed almost immediately.

"Do you remember what happened with Iron Will?"

"What?"

"Iron Will? You know, that big mean minotaur who had this assertiveness seminar and-"

"No no, I know who you're talking about, Pinkie." I quickly clarified for the party pony. "I just don't understand what he has to do with this."

"Isn't it obvious?" Pinkie tilted her head while I shook mine. "Well, after Rarity and I pointed out how you were being a big, bossy, pushy, meanie pants and you had your whole moment of self reflection, you went straight up in Iron Will's face and told him off! You told him you weren’t satisfied with his services! And he listened!” Pinkie enthusiastically told her oversimplified version of events. “Oh, and there was the dragon before that! The way you stood up for yourself and your friends scared him away!”

Upon seeing my still confused look, she continued. “You see, Fluttershy? You’re brave. You’re assertive. And I know that you can handle whatever Sombra has to throw at us!” She held her hooves out wide. “And if Jackson turns out to be a big meanie pants, then I know that you can handle him as well!” Pinkie lightly punched me on the shoulder. “You’ve got this!” Before I could get another word in, the sound of an alarm came from Pinkie’s now vibrating tail. “Sorry Fluttershy but IgottagothecupcakesaredoneokayBYYYYEEEEEE!!!!” And in a puff of smoke, she vanished. I just shook my head as I turned my attention back out the window.

During my conversation with Pinkie, Celestia’s Sun had fully set and Luna was guiding her Moon into the sky, so that it could begin its journey across the night sky.

“She’s right, you know.” Said Twilight, who had apparently been listening in from her booth. “But just know that, no matter what, we’re behind you. Me, Pinkie, and the rest of our friends.”

I responded with a loud yawn. “Thanks. I’m gonna head to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” I got up and started walking to the bunk car.

“Goodnight, Fluttershy!” I heard Rarity call after me as I crossed the threshold and closed the door behind me.

Cabinet Man / Proper Introductions

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(Shining Armors POV)

"So what do you think, Auntie?" Cadance asked Princess Luna, after explaining the plan to her. The princess seemed to take a moment to consider it, before nodding.

"Yes, that should work. Creating a shared dream with Jackson in it won't be difficult. But I will need to set it up within his dreamscape as precaution." At the tilt of Cadance's head, Luna continued. "Due to his non-magical nature, I cannot predict what would happen if I were to drag him out of his dream and into another. I am unsure if bringing him into the dream of a magical being could cause harm to either him or the host. I do warn you, his dreamscape is… confusing and a little hard to navigate at times."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Jackson's mind is much more… chaotic than that of a pony. Whether this is a personal quirk or a trait of his entire species, I cannot say. Just stick with me, and I shall guide us through." Luna's horn glowed a bright white as our room in Canterlot Castle faded away and was quickly replaced by…

"An arcade?" Cadance questioned. "Jackson's dreaming about an arcade?"

"Looks like it." Was my simple reply to my wife's inquiry.

"Something feels… off. I can't put my hoof on it, but…"

"Let's just find Jackson and get out of here." I said. Cadance looked at me with concern, while Luna gave me nothing more than a raised eyebrow. The three of us began our trek through the aisles of arcade cabinets, plastered with the names of games, some I recognized and many I didn't.

"I wonder what 'Polybius' is?" I thought to myself, in a vain attempt to distract myself from the near constant sense of unease I got from this place. There was something wrong here. I still couldn't say what, though. I could tell that Cadance was feeling it as well, with the way she was looking around, paying close attention to the shadows and to any potential hiding spots. Couldn't blame her for doing it. I've been doing the same thing this entire time, after all.

Luna, meanwhile, was doing a good job at not showing any emotion. Whether that was from her experience in the dream realm or something else, I couldn't say.

"He is close." Luna said, after what felt like an eternity of walking through this labyrinth. "He should be just around this…" Luna trailed off for a moment as she looked around the corner, before gathering herself and turning back to us. "He's just around that corner. He seems to be rather invested in the dream, though I can sense at least some awareness within him. Snapping him out shouldn't be too hard."

"Can't you just stop the dream like you can for me and Cadance?" I questioned.

"I tried that last night, but it didn't work. Something was preventing me from doing so. Instead, I had to… play along for a short while before revealing myself." Luna replied. "And that is what we must do. With his awareness and his seeming obsession for small details, it shouldn't take him long to notice part of his subconscious not going along with the script."

(Jacksons POV)

Stepping onto the crime scene, I took a good, long look at everything.

"Two tape outlines, showing where the bodies were found. According to the report, they were two teenagers. Fourteen and sixteen, respectively. The younger one was found with some really bad burns on his hands. Cause of death was determined to be electrocution. The older one had multiple bones broken and a caved in skull, as if he had been crushed by something. Ultimately, it was a mix of major blood loss and blunt force trauma that did him in."

I knelt down next to the tape outlines. Not far away, I saw an old arcade cabinet laying on its side, a pool of blood underneath it.

"Guys at the lab haven't finished testing it yet, but it's believed to belong to the two kids. Guess they were having some fun of the vandals variety." I carefully walked around the blood pool to the cabinet itself. "Yup, this all looks recent. One smashed in screen, plenty of spray painted graffiti all over the sides… looks like they took the change out of… what the fuck?"

"Something wrong, detective?" One of the officers asked me from behind. I guess my concern was showing on my face.

"Yeah, with the coin slot. Look in there and tell me what you see." She looked confused, but she obliged. After taking a good look inside, she turned to me with a face of horror and disgust.

"Ar-are those…"

"Yup. Human lungs from the looks of it. Still got some change in them as well." I replied.

"Oh sweet Celestia…" the officer muttered. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"I saw a trashcan by the door. I'm sure the others won't mind if you use it."

"How are you so nonchalant about this? The ponies who made this used real lungs to store change! That's… that's disgusting."

Ignoring her… interesting terminology for the moment, I responded. "Oh, I agree. Trust me, if I had any dinner before coming out here, it would already be in that trash can." I pointed towards the direction of the entrance over my shoulder with my thumb. "And I'm sure I'll be having nightmares about this for a good while. Still, I've got a job to do. Just gotta… push those feelings aside for now, you know?" I shrugged as I continued investigating the arcade cabinet. The officer seemed like she wanted to say something else, but she decided to step away instead.

"Let's see… multiple gashes across the sides. Probably from the crowbar we found in the victims possession. I wonder if…"

…

"... oh, sweet baby jesus."

"Detective? Did you find something?" The police chief had walked up at some point. When I didn't immediately respond, he asked again. "Did you find something?" His voice was oddly familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. Dismissing it as dream logic, I continued on with the script.

"Chief, what do you know about this machine?"

"Admittedly, not much." He shook his head. "Owners of the place just put it out on the floor one day and it quickly became one of the most popular games in the whole place. It had some… interesting anti-cheating measures. There were a few cases of kids who were trying to cheat being electrocuted or driven to madness by the thing…" He muttered something about "Tartarus" before continuing. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I don't know much about how these things work, but I'm fairly certain that they don't need two lungs to collect change or a human heart to power itself." I then looked over at the pool of blood. "And I'm starting to think that this blood doesn't belong to those two kids."

"Are you saying…"

"That someone chopped some poor son of a bitch up, stuffed their organs into this thing and somehow managed to create a fully operational arcade cabinet out of it?" I finished for the chief. "Yes. Yes I am."

"What in Equestria would compel someone to do that?"

"'Equestria'? Last I checked, chief, we were in Bos-" I turned around and saw not two humans, but rather a white unicorn with a two toned purple mane and a pink alicorn, both wearing police uniforms. I recognized them immediately.

They were the same two equines that I had been getting to know over the past two days.

"Ok, what the fuck is going on here?" I asked the two equines, “Are you two actually here, or I am dreaming of you right now?”

“I assure you that they are very real, Mr. Brunner.” The arcade faded away to a familiar field of grass, though this time it featured a hill with a tree on it. “Cadance and Shining came up with the idea for me to create a shared dream between the three of you. That way, you may better coordinate your defense of the Empire against Sombra.”

“So… this is still a dream?” Realization hit me at that moment. “And because this is a dream…”

“... That means we can speak with each other without the language barrier hindering us.” Cadance finished for me.

“So this is why you were giving me that look during lunch today?” Cadance nodded, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I thought you were planning revenge for the flour picture.”

“Oh no, I am definitely getting back at you for that one day. But right now, we have bigger problems.”

“Right… this… ‘Sombra’ guy you keep mentioning. Who is he, anyways?” I questioned.

“Sombra was the last king of the Crystal Empire and the reason for its banishment into the ice of the Frozen North for a thousand years.” Luna supplied. “He is a very dangerous foe. A unicorn who made himself near-immortal by corrupting his very essence with the darkest of magics. He enslaved the entire population of the Empire to do his bidding and waged war against most of his neighbors for nearly a decade before my sister and I defeated him.”

“So… a mix between Voldemort, Hitler, and a rich white guy from 1840’s Georgia. Gotcha.”

“Did he also try to exterminate non-pony races?” I asked.

The ponies seemed somewhat shocked at the question, or maybe shocked by how nonchalantly I asked it. Luna recovered the fastest. “I… no. He didn’t. He just enslaved them like he did the crystal ponies.” Ah, so scratch that Hitler bit. “Why would you even ask something like that?”

“Let’s just say he briefly reminded me of a dictator from my world's history and leave it at that.” After a moment of awkward silence, I cleared my throat. “Anyways, before we continue, I wanna get something out of the way.” I turned to face Cadance and Shining and held out my hand. “I don’t think we’ve properly introduced ourselves. Jackson Brunner, cashier at the 7/11 at the corner of 5th and South Main. A pleasure to finally meet you both properly.”

Shining stepped up first and placed his hoof in my hand, which I shook. “Shining Armor, former Captain of the Royal Guard and Prince of the Crystal Empire.”

“Patience, sir. Your reign isn’t secure yet.” I said jokingly as I released Shining’s hoof and grabbed Cadance’s when she held hers out.

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza of Equestria, but you can just call me Princess Cadance for short. It's a pleasure to meet you" She said, "And since you've been such a good house guest, I'll even let you drop the title." She finished with a smile.

"Way ahead of you. I haven't used it once since I learned your name from your aunt over there." I was admittedly a little scared about openly admitting that, but Cadance seemed to take my truthfulness in stride as I released her hoof.

"Oh, really? So you dare to disrespect the crown?" She questioned, though from the tone of her voice it was easy to tell that she was joking.

"With all due respect, your highness, you are no princess of mine." I replied in a similar tone. Before we could continue, Luna cleared her throat.

"Yes, well, if you three are done with introductions, we can get to the reason why we're here. Cadance, tell him the plan."

"Oh, right. Of course!" And thus, Cadance explained the plan she and Shining had come up with during lunch. "... and Shining will make sure to grab a weapon from the armory for you before you start patrolling. So what do you say? Do you think you're up for it?"

"I don't know. Am I up for it? I've never done anything like it before. Then again, it is their best bet for finding the time to look for information…"

I nodded my head. "Alright. I'll do it."

"Great. Princess Luna and I will give you an overview of what you need to watch out for out there." Shining responded. I sat down in the grass as a presentation board seemed to appear out of thin air.

"Dream logic. Don't question it." My brain reminded me as I prepared for a lecture that would probably end up saving my life at some point.

"So Yaks are sentient as well?"

"Yes. They reside along the Empire's northern border, and are one of Equestria's oldest allies." Luna replied. "Our alliance goes back over a thousand years, shortly after the war between Equestria and the Crystal Empire began. The Yak's leader, Chief Erik, was afraid that Sombra would attempt to invade the much smaller confederation. So, despite plenty of internal protests, he signed an alliance with Equestria. Sombra wasn't expecting the famously isolationist Yaks to get involved, so he didn't even station troops along the border. That was one of many mistakes he made that led to his downfall."

"After Sombra was defeated," Shining picked up where Luna left off, "the yaks returned to a policy of isolation, though they did maintain good relations with Equestria for the next six hundred years or so." He shook his head. "Then, for reasons that still aren't exactly clear, they recalled all of their ambassadors back to their homeland and expelled all foreigners living within their borders."

"Fucking christ. Not even we Americans went that far back when we practiced isolationism." I said. "So what happened after that?"

"We're still unsure." Luna replied. "We know that they reopened the exotic meat trade with the Griffon's around one hundred and fifty years ago, and that they also abolished the tribal confederation and established a more centralized kingdom. But outside of those two events, nopony knows what they've been doing the past four hundred years."

"Wait wait. Hold on one second." I said while raising my hand. "You're telling me that Griffons are real as well?" Before they could respond, I started talking again. "You know what, no. We can circle back to that later. Anything else I need to know about the yaks?"

"It's possible that, with the return of the Empire, they might send some of their own to investigate." Shining responded. "If you encounter a Yak patrol, it would be best if you stay out of sight and leave the area. While they aren't outright hostile, there's a chance that they might see you as a potential threat."

"And that wouldn't end up well for me. Got it."

"Quick question, if you don't mind."

"Go for it." Said Shining.

"If the yeti moved out of the area after the Empire disappeared, then why are you warning me about them?" I questioned.

"That was just a theory that some ponies came up with to explain their disappearance. It's fully possible that they were simply banished to the ice alongside the Crystal Ponies." Luna answered.

"But why would Sombra do that?" I pressed. "You said it yourself. The Crystal Empire had been fighting war after war against the Yeti Tribes due to their raids into the Empire's territory. And this had been going on since well before Sombra took power. And that Sombra continued those wars against them during his reign. Why would he take them with him, just so they could cause a headache for him again in the future? It's just not practical."

"While a valid point," Responded Luna, "you must consider that some spells, especially those of this magnitude, aren't perfect. There's a chance that, while he didn't mean to bring them with him into the ice, they could've been, to borrow an expression you used earlier, 'brought along for the ride'." She stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing. "Besides, if the migration theory is correct, who's to say they won't return to 'reclaim the homeland'?" She finished, giving me a questioning gaze and a raised eyebrow.

"Ok, yeah. She's got me there."

"... I concede defeat in this debate." I finally responded. Luna seemed satisfied enough with that response, as she nodded and turned back to the board. I swear I saw her smirking as she did so.

"Now, for the main threat. The one you are guaranteed to deal with." An image of Sombra appeared on the screen. It was a portrait that vaguely reminded me of the ones taken of European kings during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, right down to the extreme opulence you could see in every little detail of the thing. He was even wearing a purple robe above his armor for fucks sake!

I must have been staring at the painting quite intensively, because Cadance, who had been mostly silent up until now, felt the need to speak up.

"You know, I wouldn't think you were big into art, Jackson."

"I dabble." I absentmindedly replied. "It just reminds me of the portraits that royalty back home would have commissioned of themselves. The parallels are a little uncanny."

"I suppose some things cross dimensional boundaries." Luna shrugged. "Back to the subject matter at hoof, can you tell me the brief description I gave you of Sombra before this lesson began?"

"What am I, back in school?"

"No, but I can easily place you in one." Luna retorted.

"Hey hey, no need to go for the nuclear option!" I ignored the confused looks from the three ponies as I thought back to earlier in the conversation. "Let's see… you said he used dark magic and that he was near immortal. And… something about slaves as well."

Luna nodded. "So you were paying attention earlier. Good." She turned back to the board, then to me. "Now, if you were to encounter Sombra while out on your patrols, your best bet is to retreat back into the protection spell and stay there until you believe that you can safely continue your patrols."

"Really? That's it? I know you said he was near immortal, but that still implies that he can be fought and even killed if necessary."

"Sombra was powerful enough to battle both myself and my sister at the same time and nearly make it a draw." Luna responded. "If me and my sister, two of the most powerful beings in all of Equestria, struggled to defeat him, then I highly doubt you would stand much of a chance in a face to face duel."

"Ouch. I think you just killed my pride."

"... You don't truly believe that you can fight him, can you?" Luna asked in a concerned tone.

"Of course not!" I then took a moment to think. "At least, not alone. Maybe if I had an army or some very powerful magic users backing me. Throw in some favorable terrain and good weather, I think I would stand a decent chance."

That clearly wasn't the response Luna was expecting, if the look on her face was anything to go by. Thankfully for her, Shining was there to pick up the slack.

"That's… very pragmatic of you."

"I like to think that pragmatism is my specialty." I responded.

“It is a good trait to have, as long as you don’t go overboard.”

“Pretty sure you can say that about… well, just about any trait, Shining.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course. It’s good to be generous, but if you're too generous then you’ll end up giving away all of your worldly possessions, for example.”

“You do realize that generosity is one of the six Elements of Harmony, right?” Shining pressed.

“You do realize that I don’t know what the Elements of Harmony are, right?” I countered. “Besides, I don’t see how that invalidates my point.”

“It doesn’t.” Luna spoke up at last “But I am aware that Miss Rarity, the current Bearer of the Element of Generosity, takes her role very seriously. I would strongly advise being careful what you say around her. Especially after you learn Equish.”

“You know, since we’re on the topic now, you should probably give me a run down on these ‘Elements of Harmony’. From the way you two talk about them, you'd think that they were all powerful holy artifacts.” I saw an opportunity for more knowledge about the world around me, and I took it. Also gotta remember to bring the Griffon’s back up at some point in the future.

“While the Elements are not holy in nature,” began Luna, “you are right when you say that they are powerful artifacts. They have turned a God of Chaos to stone, banished Nightmare Moon to the moon itself, and…” she seemed to trail off at this moment, becoming lost in thought. She seemed to be much more somber all of the sudden as well.

“I know that look. That’s the look of someone with personal experience. But what personal experience could she have?”

My musings ended when Luna spoke again. “The point is, they are the most powerful artifacts in all of Equestria, and are both our first and last line of defense.”

“I see…” I debated about whether or not I should pry into whatever experience Luna may have with the Elements, but decided against it. I don't want to anger or offend someone who could give me eternal nightmares for the rest of my days.

“Besides, I can sympathize with not wanting to relive certain memories or experiences.”

“So where did they come from? The Elements, I mean. It’s not like you found them growing on a tree somewhere, right?” I asked at last.

“Actually…” Luna began

“You’re shitting me.”

“You're shitting me.” I repeated aloud.

“I assure you that I am not. My sister and I really did find them growing on a tree.” Luna probably heard my mumbling about how stupid this world is as she changed the topic. “Anyways, we have one more thing to discuss. How you are supposed to defend yourself.” The presentation board was spirited away into the aether of the dreamscape as various weapons were summoned out of nowhere.

“These are all the weapons I found while looking through the armory. Now, I want to know something: Do you have experience with any of these?”

I took a closer look at the weapons before me. “A sword, a spear, a mace, a… flail? Yeah, I think that’s the term. I wonder if… oh. What do we have here?”

“Just these last two. The bow and crossbow.” I said.

“Really? That’s it?”

“Yeah. The rest of these have kinda… fallen out of use back home. And even then, the bow and crossbow are mostly used for hunting and sport nowadays.” I grabbed the bow and took a good look at it. “First learned how to shoot this after I signed up for an archery course in my high school gym class. It sort of became a hobby of mine very quickly. There were a few tournaments that I debated signing up for, but I never got the chance. I wonder if they have those types of tournaments here?”

“Not a material I’m used to…” I said as I held the excellent piece of woodwork in my hands. “... and it’s a little small… but I should be able to use it just fine.” I then took a look at the crossbow.

“Still remember the first time I shot one of those. I was seven or eight at the time. Dad didn’t want me holding a rifle or shotgun for… well, obvious reasons. He still wanted to teach me how to hunt, though. So, he gave me a crossbow for Christmas and let me shoot it at some targets in the backyard. Later on I started nailing squirrels. Even hit a pigeon in flight once, even if it was by accident.”

“If you're trying to hit a moving target, you need to focus on where the target is going to be, not on where it is.” The voice of my father echoed in the back of my mind. “If you shoot at where it is, then you might as well be shooting straight at the sun itself and expecting it to fall out of the sky.”

“Jack? You ok?” Cadance asked from beside me.

“I’m fine.” I replied. “The crossbow just… brought back some old memories. From when my old man taught me how to shoot one.” I shook my head. “I should be able to use either of these just fine.”

"Good. I'll take you down to the armory in the morning so you can pick one of them up." Then came what could best be described as a glitch in the dream realm.

"It seems that our time is almost up." Said Luna, her horn igniting a dark blue. "You three will awaken soon, and I must return to my duties here in Canterlot. I wish you all good luck."

I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to any of them as I was pulled out of the dreamscape and into the land of the living.

Sleep Paralysis

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(??? POV)

I watched the creature as it awakened, its eyes slowly opening and adjusting to the darkness around it. I was not expecting it to wake up so soon. From my observations, it seemed to keep a consistent sleep schedule. Awaken at six every morning, go to bed at eight every night.

"Perhaps I should have waited a little longer before getting a closer look. Oh well, not like it can see me."

While I could tell that the creature was fully awake, it didn't seem to be moving. At least yesterday morning it did something on that… device it carries around with it. Now though, it wasn't moving at all. I decided to look into its mind, to see if I could find anything to explain its odd behavior.

(Jacksons POV)

When I woke up, it was still dark outside. Either that, or I closed the curtains before falling asleep last night, and this castle had some really good blackout curtains. Since my alarm hasn't gone off yet, I assumed that it was the former, and tried to go back to sleep. I had agreed to take the first shift when patrolling the Empire's borders tomorrow, meaning that I was in for a long day of wandering around a frozen wasteland. I would need all the rest I could get.

I tried to adjust myself into a more comfortable position, only to find that I couldn't move. After a few attempts of trying to move anything, I stopped for a moment when a stray thought entered my mind.

"Sleep paralysis." I realized. I had dealt with sleep paralysis on and off for my entire life, so I recognized the signs. There's only one question in my mind, a question that was answered for me as I spotted the shape in the corner of the room.

"Ah, there's tonight's demon."

(??? POV)

"Ah, there's tonight's demon." The creature said in its own mind while looking directly at where I was sitting. I was shocked. I wasn’t supposed to be seen. Nothing was supposed to perceive me in this state. Yet here it was, seeing me clear as day and calling me a demon. What was the other term it used? 'Sleep paralysis'?

Yes, I think I've heard of that before. Some of my subjects would report that, some mornings, they would awaken, but be robbed of the ability to move their own bodies. Some even reported that they would be tormented by strange shadow creatures while they were in this state. They sit on their chests, or grab their necks and begin choking them, or even… other things that even I shall not repeat.

I always dismissed these reports as nothing more than rumors. As much as I wanted to look into them, I was always stuck dealing with one crisis or another. And then…

"And now this creature is calling me one. Most interesting. Perhaps there was some validity to those old rumors after all."

The creature spoke in its thoughts again. "Well, you gonna get this over with or what? I'm not a first timer, you know."

Now it was addressing me directly. While there was some fear in its voice, it sounded more mildly annoyed than anything else.

That's when the feeling came back. The feeling that I should know this creature. That we should've met long, long before this. But why was I getting this feeling? Yesterday was the first time I had seen anything like it. It may resemble a minotaur, but it clearly wasn't one. And yet, when I first laid my eyes on it...

(Jacksons POV)

~~"...Interesting. Most interesting."~~ The demon finally said. I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Sure, I've had sleep paralysis demons speak to me before, but never in a language that I couldn’t understand. From the tone of voice and the fact it was keeping its distance, it didn't seem like it wanted to torment me. If anything, it seemed more like it was observing me.

"Perhaps it isn't a sleep paralysis demon? Or maybe it's biding its time?"

“Maybe I could question it? I mean, it's shown some interest in me. I could get some information out of it.”

Before I had the chance, however, sunlight began pouring into the window, and the maybe-not-demon chose that moment to flee into the shadows. After a few moments, I felt the paralysis lift itself from my form. I took a moment to check the time on my phone.

6:43 AM

"I guess now is as good a time as any to get up." With a yawn and a stretch, I was standing next to the bed and on my way to the bathroom, ready to get prepared for my long, cold day out.

...And It's F#@*ing Cold Out Here!

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“I don't know why I agreed to do this.”

Well, no. I know why I agreed to do this. What I don’t understand is why I agreed to it so quickly. I could see the blizzards from the palace in the center of town. I knew they were outside the city. So why on God’s green Earth did I agree to leave the radius of the protection spell and willingly walk into the goddamned thing witHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT?!?!

“Okay. Okay. Calm down. Remember the breathing technique mom taught you. Breathe in.” I breathed in through my nose as I placed my balled up fist up to my chest. “And breathe out.” I released the breath through my mouth, moving my arm out and opening my fist at the same time. “Breathe in. And breathe out.” I repeated this process several times over until I felt that I was calm enough that I wouldn’t take my anger at my own stupidity out on some innocent pony or another.

Speaking of which, the locals seemed quite interested in me while I was walking down the street. Guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. I mean, for all I know, I’m the first human to ever end up in Equestria. I’m at least the first human to ever get in contact with pony civilization. Perhaps one ended up in Yakyakistan during their four hundred years of isolation from the outside world? Or maybe there's one off where the griffons live? Maybe they’re still around?

“Or maybe I’m just getting my hopes up, and I really am the only one.”

You know, now that I think back to the walk out this frozen wasteland, the locals seemed a bit off. When I saw them peeking at me out of their windows, I thought for sure there would be a lot more curiosity, or maybe even fear, when they saw me. But I didn't see anything in their eyes. They almost seemed… uncaring.

"No, that's not the word I'm looking for. More… apathetic? Yeah, that's it. They seemed rather apathetic about my presence." Probably for the best. Can't do my part to protect the Empire if I'm being run out of it by terrified locals, after all.

"I wonder how people back home would react if the shoe was on the other foot?" … "Ah, who am I kidding? That poor pony would either get a bullet between the eyes, a one way ticket to a government lab, or mass social media fame. All three of which are the worst fates imaginable for any living creature."

A freezing wind struck me at that moment, causing chills to go down my spine. I shivered involuntarily as I took another look around my environment. Miles and miles of pristine, white snow stretched out as far as the eye could see. I could see the Empire not far in the distance. I had purposely decided to stay close enough that it would stay within my range of sight on my first patrol, just so I could rush back inside if need be.

"I may have a crossbow at the ready and some semi-decent archery skills, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have an escape plan in my back pocket. Just in case." Luna did say that I wouldn't stand a chance against this guy in a one-on-one fight, and I think it's best to listen to the one person in that dream with direct experience fighting the bastard. And as tempting as it would be to play the role of the Vietcong to Sombra's United States Army, I doubt I would be able to pull it off.

I was roused from my thoughts as the snowfall began to pick up, the lenses of my sunglasses quickly overwhelmed by white. Then just as quickly as it came, it left. The snow on my sunglasses melted away, leaving behind a small layer of water. I took them off so I could wipe them with my sleeve, placing them back over my eyes once I was finished. I had put them on so that I could protect my eyes, both from the falling snow and the sunlight reflecting off of the snow already on the ground. Not as good as a pair of proper snow goggles, but some protection was better than none.

Speaking of lackluster protection, my ears were practically frozen. I had done my best covering them up with my beanie and even headphones, but those plans only slightly worked and didn't work at all, respectively. I was almost wishing I wore my ushanka to work instead. That has the little flaps on the side that I could use to keep my ears warm.

"I wonder if this is what Amundsen and Scott felt during their expeditions in Antarctica. Eternally cold and ever so slightly annoyed by the snowfall. At least they were properly prepared for the journey. Not like it did Scott any good, but still."

Are these two situations even comparable? They were Antarctic explorers from the early twentieth century, while I'm an unwilling participant in what is effectively a civil war in an Empire that you could reasonably claim was somewhere in Siberia or Northern Canada based off of the climate alone.

“With all this snow… it’s like driving through Buffalo in the middle of winter all over again. I wonder if this is due to lake effect snow as well?” While I doubted that there were any non-frozen lakes around here, it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. I mean, Finland is pretty far north, and they’re known for having a fuckton of lakes. Minnesota as well, but no one cares about them.

“I wonder how Shining’s doing.” We split up after he walked me to the border. While I went out into the great white beyond, he turned right back around and started making his way back into town. This wasn’t the first time my thoughts had wandered to the white unicorn, and knew it wouldn’t be the last. Though one question was quick to dominate my mind:

“With how much he sounds like a California surfer bro, how did anyone take what he said seriously when he was captain of the guard?”

(Shining Armors POV)

“And you're positive that you don’t know anything that could help?” I asked the stallion in front of me one last time. “Anything at all?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t.” Replied the stallion. “I don’t remember much of anything from before Sombra, and…” He suddenly shut his eyes and flinched slightly, as if he had been struck by something. “... and I don’t think I want to remember what Sombra did.”

“I understand. If you think of anything, anything at all, visit me or Princess Cadance at the palace as soon as you can.” The stallion nodded and went back into his home, shutting the door behind him.

“Another bust. At this rate, I don’t think I’ll be able to find anything by the time Twilly gets here.” I walked down the street back towards the entrance to the neighborhood I was in currently, and took a left at the first intersection. “It’s like everypony here has some sort of collective amnesia. Is it a side effect from being trapped in ice for a thousand years, or is some outside force suppressing their memories?” I let out a sigh as I took another left and entered the adjacent neighborhood. "Whatevers causing it, it's making my job a lot harder." I knocked on the door and waited for the pony inside to answer.

"I hope Jack's patrol is going well. I still think he should've taken that spear though."

(Jacksons POV)

"There is, a house, in New Orleans
They call The Rising Sun…"

I started humming songs at some point. Don't remember when, but I started at some point. I didn't wanna risk draining my phone's battery even more just so I could listen to music while out on patrol, but the silence of the frozen wastes I found myself in was killing my morale. So, this was the compromise the practical side of my brain made with the bored out of my mind side of my brain. Sure, I got the lyrics a little jumbled up in my head sometimes, but I never had a perfect memory to begin with.

"And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy.
And God, knows I, am o- SHIT"

My foot went straight through the ice I had just stepped on and into the water below, nearly taking the rest of me down with it. Thankfully I managed to get out of the ordeal with nothing more than a wet boot.

"Should still check and make sure none of it got in my boot. I really do not want to have my sock frozen to my foot."

After ensuring that I was no longer walking over what looked like a frozen lake, I found a decently sized boulder and cleared the snow off the top of it. After taking my seat, I removed my boot to take a good look at my sock.

"Still dry. Good. Guess that guy at the thrift shop wasn't kidding when said these boots were water resistant." I was never a big fan of buying second hand, but when I saw that some guy was selling a pair of (supposedly) water resistant boots for twenty bucks, I figured that it wouldn't hurt. Especially when buying new would've cost me eighty.

And if they weren't water resistant? Well, I was still getting a new pair of boots for twenty bucks and supporting a locally owned business. Not a bad deal.

Putting the boot back on, I heard… something in the distance as I was tying the laces back up. It sounded like a cross between an air raid siren and a wounded animal. To be frank, I wasn't entirely sure what could've made that noise, and I was one hundred percent certain that I did not want to find out.

"Luna and Shining may have taught me how to deal with the local fauna, but they failed to mention anything that sounds like that."

Finishing up my laces, I stood back up and began walking once more, this time being sure to carefully avoid any frozen bodies of water. I heard the noise in the distance once more - "Further away now. Westward, if my ears don't deceive me." - and tightened the grip on the crossbow in my hands.

"Let's hope it keeps moving away."

(Shining Armors POV)

Another house, another resident who didn't have any ideas on how to protect the Empire.

"Maybe they're suppressing their own memories? I've seen some of the older members of guard do it so they could cope with PTSD. Perhaps the crystal ponies are doing something similar?"

My mind was racing with ideas as to what could be causing the Crystal Ponies collective amnesia, both magical and non-magical. The idea of PTSD had crossed my mind a few times before, but now I was seeing it as a very likely possibility, if not the reason why.

"I'm sure Twilly would know. What would she do if she were here?" … "Probably go to the nearest library and go on a three day study session, knowing her." I chuckled at the not entirely fictional image of my little sister camping out in a library that was running around my head when I came up with an idea.

"Wait… Luna said that Crystal Empire had one of, if not the largest library in the ancient world. So large that it put the Royal Archives of Everfree City to shame, according to her. So that means…"

"... the library would have the answer." I whispered aloud to myself.

Then I facehooved.

"I can't believe I didn't think of that sooner!"

After asking for directions and getting none from the amnesiac ponies around me, I managed to find the library on my own. Stepping inside, I was met with a sight that would've made my sister drool in anticipation.

"Luna wasn't kidding when she said this place was massive. Forget Everfree City, this place puts all of the libraries in Canterlot combined to shame."

"May I help you?" Asked a voice from a few feet to my right. It was a crystal earth pony, wearing a pair of golden glasses with a chain on them.

“Yeah. I’m looking for a book on the Empire’s history. Do you know where I could find it?” I replied.

“Oh, yes. History… history… ah, yes!”

…

“Um… could you tell me where?”

“Oh. I, um, actually don’t remember. I’m not sure I actually work here…” the ‘librarian’ trailed off.

“I see. Well, I’ll just have a look around then.”

“Let me know if you find anything!” She called after me as I walked deeper into the three story labyrinth of books and crystal shelves.

“Right. Gotta find the history section. I’ve been in enough libraries with Twilly throughout my life. I’m sure this will be easy, right?”

It actually was easy. Surprisingly so. Turns out that deciding to check the first floor first was a good idea, as the history section was in the left hoof corner furthest away from the doors.

“Right, let’s see what we’ve got here…

‘Blood and Snow: A History of the First Three Yeti Wars by Swift Spear’? Nope.

‘The Seven Pillars of Equestria by T.E. Lancer’? Not that one either.

‘A Comprehensive Guide to Repair Spells and Mend-Alls by Lapis Print’? What the hay is this doing in the history section?”

“Here we go. ‘History of the Crystal Empire’. This should have all the answers I need.” Skimming through the pages, I came upon an entry that piqued my interest.

“A 'Crystal Faire'.” I read aloud. “First established by Queen Amore, it’s held every year to ‘renew the spirit of love and unity in the empire so they could protect it from harm’. I think this is the lead we were looking for.”

“It sounds promising.” Cadance responded. “But how are we supposed to hold an entire Faire? We’re just two ponies, and I’m pretty sure our human friend won’t be able to help out much either.”

“I’m sure we can find a way. And if we can’t, then we can ask Twilight and her friends to do it when they get here.” I chuckled. “We seem to be relying on Twilly a lot recently, are we? First the wedding, now this.”

“Maybe Auntie Celestia should name Twilight Queen of the Empire once we're done here.” Cadance laughed. “I’m sure she would do a great job. Well, after the panic attack at least.”

"With those friends of hers, I'm sure she would be able to handle it. Tartarus, I wouldn't be surprised if she becomes an alicorn in the next few months."

"Hey now, don't get too crazy. Ascension is a long and complicated process. I think Twilight is more than capable of it, but it'll probably be a few more years, maybe even decades before her ascension."

I rolled my eyes at that. "Says the mare who got her horn in an afternoon by befriending a witch." I replied in a fake mocking tone.

"Oh, shut up." She said while playfully punching my shoulder, taking a quick glance out the nearest window. "Isn't it almost time for you to go meet up with Jack?"

I nodded. "That it is. Let's hope his patrol was a quiet one."

(Jacksons POV)

It was almost time for me to meet up with Shining at the border. I wasn’t far, thankfully. Just a short ten, maybe fifteen minute walk and I would be back on the other side of the barrier keeping the cold and snow out.

I stopped briefly as I heard something.

“There it is again.” The noise from earlier. It seemed to be circling me. Sometimes it got closer, others farther away. As if it were toying with me.

"Or maybe it's… tracking me. Like a predator does its prey. Is this what those deer felt like before I pulled the trigger on them? A sense of foreboding, mixed with a feeling of being watched? Like some unseen threat was going to jump them at any moment and end their existence in one fell swoop?"

"You're thinking too much again, Jack." A memory of Eddy replied. "They're just animals. Bet they don't even know the meaning of half the words you just said."

“I know that. It's just… I can't help but think about it, you know?" I replied, still looking down the scope of my rifle, getting a good view of the forest around us from our hunting nest, the early morning sun shining in the distance to the east. “It's an interesting thought experiment, to say the least.”

"Whatever you say, Aristotle.” He let out a small chuckle before quieting himself. I gave him a raised eyebrow and was about to say something before he beat me to the punch. “Shhh.” … “I heard something. To the left.”

Sure enough, just as Eddy said, the noise came once more. This time, from the left.

And it sounded like it was right on top of me.

As I raised my crossbow and turned to the left, I saw a patch of snow about three hundred feet away turn black. Then a form rose out of it, revealing a face with green sclera around red irises and purple mist flowing out of the edges of it's eyes. The head itself was equine in nature, though it seemed to lack teeth. To tie everything together, a red horn jutted out of the shadow monster's head, making it resemble a unicorn.

I wasn't sure what to do. Luna and Shining hadn't warned me of anything that looked like this last night, and it sure as hell wasn't a yak or yeti.

~~"What a most… queer looking creature."~~ The shadow said. It was at that moment that everything clicked.

"Sombra… this is the unicorn king…"

"... oh shit."

Enter The King

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“I am so fucked.” was the only thought running through my mind as I stared at the shadow beast in front of me. When he first appeared, he had the decency to remain at eye level with me. Now though? Now he was as tall as the Empire State building.

“Now, if you were to encounter Sombra while out on your patrols, your best bet is to retreat back into the protection spell and stay there.” Luna’s voice reminded me from the back of my head. I would be following her advice right now, if it weren’t for the fact that my legs were currently as frozen as the ice my foot went through a couple hours back.

The staring match between myself and the king continued for several minutes more, the two of us waiting for the other to make the first move. Well, I was waiting for Sombra to make the first move. He seemed to be studying me, looking up and down my body in all of its five foot ten glory.

“But why is he studying me? Is he trying to figure out the fastest way to kill me? Is he trying to figure out what I am? Or maybe he’s trying to figure out if I’m a threat or not?” A million different theories ran through my mind about just what the unicorn king wanted with me, what he wanted to do with me, what he would do to me should he decide he didn’t like what he saw. It was at this moment that I realized something…

I was in way over my head.

When they told me of the unicorn king, I thought we would be dealing with a charcoal colored stallion about the size of Shining Armor. Someone that, while a user of dark magic, could be dealt with fairly quickly if we were to play our cards right. Sure, he would have plenty of magic tricks up his sleeves, but I was certain a crossbow bolt between the eyes or to the back of the head would kill him, like it would any other mortal.

Even if I ended up in Equestria with a 12 gauge, I was now confident that it wouldn’t make a dent in the creature standing before me.

It seemed that Sombra had finished his evaluation of me while I was busy with my internal monologue, judging by the fact he was no longer giving me a scrutinizing gaze. That’s when I noticed the long red horn at the top of his head was now covered in a thin veil of pure black, small specks of green and purple scattered about it.

I had seen this with the other three horned ponies I had interacted with. He was getting ready to use magic.

“Is it the source of the ponies magic, though? Or is it just a medium? A method to channel it and use it to their own benefit? I really should’ve asked them about this last night.”

I took a glance down towards my crossbow, still pointed at Sombra. I looked back up to his horn, and an idea came to my mind.

“Maybe I could… yeah. Yeah that might work. If I can interrupt the flow of his magic, then I might be able to interrupt whatever spell he’s trying to cast. That would give me a chance to make a run for the border. At the very least, it would buy me some time.”

A plan in mind, I raised the crossbow so that I was aiming just above the horn. I put my finger on the trigger, and-

“A little to the right. You need to account for the wind.” An unknown voice informed me.

“What the-?” I whispered under my breath, briefly lowering my weapon. “Who said that?”

The voice refused to elaborate, nor did it respond to my question. It had clearly come from within my own mind, but it wasn’t a voice I remembered. It wasn’t any of my friends or family, and it sure as hell wasn’t Cadance’s, Shining’s or Luna's.

Regardless, it had a point. Raising the crossbow once more, and taking into account the voice's advice, I pulled the trigger and watched as the arrow flew through the sky…

… and I turned tail before I could see if it hit its target. Regardless of if it hit or not, it would prove be a worthwhile distra-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH"

The deafening roar of pain and rage sounding out from behind me told me all that I needed to know: I had hit my mark, and I needed to pick up the pace now.

Upgrading my run into a full blown sprint, I made my way for the border. With any luck, I would make it there before Sombra recovered. But knowing my luck, I was in for a proper chase scene straight out of a Steven Spielberg film.

"Must go faster!" I thought. "Eddy may have been team captain, but I was second only to him on the track team for a reason."

Of course, I had nearly failed to account for the fact that I wasn't running on a neatly kept track behind a high school in late spring, but rather an uneven stretch of snow and ice in winter. I had to be careful with my footing, otherwise I would become the victim of the classic "protagonist in horror movie slips and dies to the thing trying to kill them" trope.

The boots were not helping things. They weren't designed for running like my sneakers were. Still, it's either this or I gain more speed by taking them off and carrying them while running barefoot. Between those two options, I think I'll stick with the first.

"Even if I went with the second option, I doubt Sombra would give me the luxury of time so I could take them off." I briefly looked over my shoulder to see the king had recovered and was now beginning his pursuit. "And it looks like I'm outta time. Now the real chase begins."

While I couldn't hear Sombra running after me, I could still feel his presence right on my heels, slowly closing the gap. He was getting closer and closer, and my best bet was to pick up the pace once more, with the main caveat being the heightened risk of losing my footing and falling to the ground. A mistake that would surely cost me my life.

"Is it worth the risk? More speed in exchange for a greater risk of failure? No, I can't risk it. Not when I'm this close to the border. If he gets too close, I'll just have to find another way to distract him. To slow him down a little. I doubt that the arrow to the horn trick will work again. Not when he's prepared for it. I'm surprised he didn't try to dodge or block the first arrow. Maybe he was distracted with whatever spell he was trying to cast? Did I catch him off guard?"

"It doesn't matter now. What matters right now is getting out of here. Secure my continued existence in the land of the living first, theorize about Sombra and his actions later."

A beam of green and purple flew past me, striking the ground a little ways ahead and to the left. Snow was blasted up from the impact sight, leaving a small crater in its wake.

"Either he tried to hit me and it went wide, or he's trying to do… something else. But what?"

Another blast, once again ahead of me. This time to the right.

"What would he be trying to accomplish by striking the ground in front… of… me… Of course! He's making the terrain more uneven! He's trying to make me trip!"

Making a mental note to be even more careful with my footing, I put my focus back on the snow in front of me. "On the other hand, if he is trying to hit me with a spell, I need to start taking evasive actions. Stop running in a perfectly straight line."

Another blast to the right, another idea comes to my head.

"What if I turn into the craters created by blasts? I think he would be expecting me to avoid them, not run into them." … "Screw it, let's try it. Just gotta remember to be careful."

Adjusting my course so that I was moving to the right, I managed to avoid the first of the craters in front of me…

… and trip on the lip of the second. I managed to catch myself and continue moving, but it no doubt slowed me down slightly. And I'm certain that Sombra noticed, if the increased frequency of his attacks was any indication.

"Right. Not the smartest plan. That could've ended up much worse." Course correcting back towards the center path I had been running along, I began racking my brain for any more ideas.

"What's that mobile game with the adventurer who steals an idol and has to run from a bunch of monkeys? Temple Run, I think? Yeah, this is what this feels like."

Ok, maybe that previous explanation of my current thought process wasn't the most accurate.

"God, I fucking loved that game when I was a kid. Used to steal my mom's phone to play it all the time. Pretty sure I've got it on my phone now, actually. Sometimes I would intentionally kill myself just so I could see the death animations. Good times."

…

"Wait… the death animations…"

…

"Time for my dumbest plan yet."

I took a quick glance at my surroundings and found that I wasn't far from the border. Another half a mile at most. If this works out, I should be able to run in with time to spare. Maybe. I hope.

I allowed myself to fall to the ground after tripping on the edge of another crater, and I quickly positioned myself so that my back was on the ground and the front of my body was facing my pursuer. The unloaded crossbow in one hand and an arrow from the quiver on my back in the other, I frantically started to reload my weapon as Sombra slowed to a stop and started charging his horn.

~~"I know not whom or what you are, creature, nor where you hail from."~~ The king began. ~~"But you have angered me greatly with that little stunt of yours."~~ Couldn't understand a word of what he was saying, but his tone of voice was enough for me to tell that he was fucking livid. ~~"I shall take great joy in enacting your punishment."~~

I had managed to reload my crossbow and aim it straight for Sombra's horn. If I could just get another hit…

Sombra was quicker on the draw than I was, launching a beam of magic straight for me before I could even pull the trigger. I watched as it got closer and closer, still holding my weapon out as if I was going to return fire, even if I had given up on the idea entirely at this point.

I closed my eyes and prepared to pull the trigger anyways. If I did survive the first blast, I at least wanted to give Sombra one final middle finger before I die.

The blast of magic hit…

… and I opened my eyes, seeing that I was left almost completely unharmed. I looked to my hands and found that my crossbow wasn't so lucky, having been turned into nothing but scattered splinters of wood in the snow around me. A few had embedded themselves into my clothes and what little portions of exposed skin that they could lodge themselves into, but other than that, I was fine.

I looked at the item that I was still clutching in my left hand and found that it was the trigger for the now non-existent crossbow. "That's one hell of a souvenir." As I looked back at the shadow creature before me, he seemed just as confused as I was that my crossbow somehow managed to block the blast completely. He shook off his surprise faster than I could and launched another beam of magic at me…

Only for it to be stopped by the pink half-dome shield that had appeared above me. Looking to my right, I saw my savior. One Shining Armor, former Captain of the E.U.P and husband to the alicorn of love. His horn was ablaze with his light rose magic. Putting the trigger in my pocket, I thought of something to say.

(Shinings POV)

~~"Welcome to the party, Prince. What took you so long? You missed most of the fun!"~~ Were Jackson's first words to me as he stood up from his position on the ground. He dusted off the snow and splinters on his clothing while caught his breath.

"He's clearly exhausted. Guy looks and sounds like he just ran a marathon." I looked up to the creature that had been attacking him, which seemed to be retreating now. "I guess it wasn't expecting backup to arrive."

"Come on. Let's get out of here before it comes back." I said with a sense of urgency in my voice. Jack nodded and we made our way back to the Empire. Jack seemed to be keeping a close eye on our surroundings, most likely looking for the creature that had attacked him. As for me, I was trapped in my own thoughts, with one taking dominance over the rest.

"Who casted that shield spell before I arrived? There wasn't anypony else there. Not that I could see, anyway." As I was rushing over to help Jack, I had seen a lime green shield briefly flicker into existence over him, mostly protecting him from the creature's first blast before shattering. Judging by the lack of a crossbow in his possession, I think it's safe to assume that it did the rest of the work.

"Whoever it was, I'm going to find them and thank them in person. If it weren't for them, that creature would've killed Jack."

Now that I think about it, that creature did look awfully familiar. Almost like…

…

"Oh sweet Celestia. That was Sombra."

Ok, I am definitely finding the pony responsible for that shield and giving them a medal once this is all over.

As we crossed over the border, Cadance trotted over to us. Once she saw the state Jackson was in, including the small limp that I had somehow failed to notice until now, she looked to me for an explanation.

"Sombra." Was the only word I spoke to her. She nodded her head and turned to head back to the palace.

As we were walking down the road, I could see the crystal ponies watching us from the windows of their houses. While most still seemed apathetic, some watched Jack with expressions mixed with equal parts curiosity, amazement, and pity. Looking back towards Jack myself, he seemed to either not notice the attention or was actively ignoring it.

“He’s trying to put as little weight as possible on his right foot.” I noted. “We’ll need to check him once we get back. Make sure nothings broken.” I walk ahead a little to Cadance and relayed my findings to her. She nods and we continue on, no longer noticing the looks of our soon to be subjects.

“He’s very lucky.” I commented, finishing up the scanning spell I was using. “He fought Sombra head on, and he got out of it with nothing more than some splinters, a few bruises, a twisted ankle and a ripped up jacket.” Said jacket was currently hung on a chair next to the desk in the room Jackson had claimed for himself, its pockets emptied of his belongings. A few new holes were scattered about it, indicating where some of the larger pieces of wooden shrapnel had narrowly avoided landing in his arm.

“I wouldn’t call twisting his ankle lucky.” Cadance replied as she used an advanced healing spell on Jack’s right ankle. Neither of us were medical professionals, but Cadance had picked up a few healing spells over the years we were dating. She was always worried that I might get pretty badly injured during training. I always thought she was a little too worried, considering the fact that there was always a medical pony on standby just in case something like that did happen.

“Considering what Sombra could’ve done to him, I’m certain the damage could’ve been much worse.” I replied. I noticed that Jack seemed to not be paying much attention. Sure, he was cooperative and let us take a look at his ankle, as well as help him get the splinters of wood out of his body, but he hadn’t said a word or made any motions that he was trying to communicate something to us nonverbally. From the usually talkative and expressive human, it was kind of concerning.

Cadance was wrapping up her spell when she spoke next. “Best I can tell, he’s gonna be out of action for a bit. He might be able to join you to pick up Twilight and her friends when they get here, but for now you're gonna be patrolling on your own.”

“That’s fine. You know I can handle it perfectly fine.”

“I know that, honey.” She trotted over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’m just worried about you. With everything going on inside the Empire, and with Jack injured… and then there’s Sombra… he’s probably getting ready to start banging on the doors any day now.”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to take him down.” I pulled her into a hug. “We defeated Chrysalis, remember? And we were both outnumbered and unprepared then. Now that we know what we’re dealing with, and we have time to prepare, I know we can handle one more tyrant monarch. Together.”

Cadance pulled back, still remaining in my embrace. “Yeah… together.” Then the two of us locked lips, enjoying the blissfulness of the moment.

~~“And that’s the power of love.”~~ I heard Jack loudly whisper in a manner that sounded like he was quoting a song. This startled both Cadance and I as we broke the embrace and looked over at the human who was still lying in bed.

Judging by the smile on his face, that was very much intentional, and he was very much enjoying the twin glares of beet red embarrassment we were giving him.

The Homo Sapien, From the Perspective of The King

View Online

“What was that thing? It wasn’t like anything I had seen before. And how could it run so quickly on just two legs?”

I had been theorizing as to the identity of what the creature I had encountered outside the borders of my empire was, but so far my mind was coming up blank. The body structure reminded me of a minotaur at first, yet its movements as it fled from me seemed much more monkey-like.

“And it knew how to use a crossbow…” I rubbed the spot where the arrow had hit my horn once more. “Not a bad shot either… would’ve made for a good archer in my army.”

“Damnit, Sombra. You know better than to get distracted like that! So what if something that looked like… her had run into your peripheral vision! That’s no excuse to take your eyes off of the threat right in front of you! No matter how weak you think it is!”

I began to pace around the small outpost I had taken refuge in. It was an old military outpost, abandoned shortly after I assumed the throne and took the Empire on the offensive against The Sisters to the south.

“It’s the Yak’s all over again.” One of my greatest embarrassments. I had let my confidence that the Yak’s wouldn’t intervene in my war against the sisters blind me so much I left the border completely undefended. And when they did attack, my Empire practically collapsed in on itself!

I walked up to the remnants of the second floor of the outpost, providing an excellent view of my empire.

“Just who is keeping that shield up? I doubt it was that white unicorn who saved the creature earlier. I wonder if… that would be just like her, wouldn’t it? For Celestia to send a puppet to claim my throne.” Oh, how I detested the Solar Monarch. She always had a tendency to intervene when she was not wanted or needed. Even after I had taken the throne, she still tried to meddle in the politics of my Empire.

And don’t get me started on her sister. She was truly detestable. I will admit that she earned my respect on the field of battle on a few occasions, but she was clearly deranged. No sane pony talks to themselves in the middle of a battle!

“No sane pony talks to themselves at all!” I yelled out, speaking to… myself. “Like I’m doing… right now.” A sigh escaped my lips as I looked out at my empire once more.

“Was that biped also sent by her? It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s probably the usurper's guard. Not a very good one, but a guard nonetheless.”

You know what? I don’t care where the biped came from. If it was sent by Celestia, or came here of its own accord, or if it was brought here by somepony else. All I know is this.

Next time, I’m not hesitating. I am killing that thing, and that is final.

The Park Is Open

View Online

(Cadances POV)

“A jungle?” I questioned aloud. “This could be interesting. Maybe he’s dreaming about being an adventurer of some kind?” Anything would be an improvement over last night. I don’t think that even a mind wiping spell would be able to get that image out of my head.

"Still got some change in them as well." Jack’s voice echoed within my mind. I quickly shook the thoughts away as Shining and I followed Aunt Luna through the jungle, eventually stumbling upon a gravel road, turned muddy by a recent rain storm.

“I wonder what the metal bar in the middle is for?” Shining questioned, pointing towards the offending piece of metal. “It’s almost like train tracks, but only half finished.”

“I’m more concerned about where the road leads.” Luna pointed her head a little ways down the road, where we could see large metal pillars, each one connected to the others by wires.

All except for two, where the wires seem to have been forcibly removed.

There was a sign sitting in the gravel in front of the hole. While it was slightly muddy, I could still make out most of what it said.

…GER
10,000
VOLTS

“This is a cage.” Luna spoke up. “And whatever was in it has escaped.” Thunder going off far in the distance punctuated Luna’s point.

“What do you think was in it?” Shining asked, investigating the damage for himself. The roar of a creature none of us had ever heard before echoed out from somewhere in the distance. While it wasn’t right on top of us, it was still too close for comfort.

“Let’s hope we don’t find out.” Luna replied. “Jackson should be arriving soon. I have an idea on how to break his immersion sooner, but we need to wait until he gets here.”

Taking that as my cue to look around the area more, I wandered over to what looked like a collapsed straw building. All that remained were the stalls and toilets, clearly an outhouse of some kind. “What’s your idea, Aunt Luna?”

“You two know how I had you play along in Jackson’s previous dream?” At our nods, she continued. “Well, I believe that we have intruded into his mind enough that we should be able to break it as soon as he sees us.”

“And if he doesn't?” Shining asked.

“Then we play along until it does break.” Luna said while investigating the strange carriage-like vehicle sitting on the road, it’s outside painted in a mix of greens, yellows and reds. Two words were painted on the side.

“Have either of you ever heard of a… ‘Jurassic Park’?”

—

I wasn’t sure how long we were left waiting for Jack, but the sounds of a low humming and… something moving through a dirt road paralleling the gravel one we were on, combined with Luna giving us a heads up, told us all that we needed to know. Jack was almost here.

It was only another minute or so until Jack arrived, operating another one of the metal carriages. This one was painted gray, with some red added in as an accent. A row of lights were placed at the top of the windshield, providing additional visibility on top of the lights already located in the front end of the vehicle. As Jack exited, dressed in usual attire with a raincoat replacing his dark blue jacket, he got a good look at all three of us and did a double take.

“Well… you guys showed up a lot faster tonight. And here I thought I was gonna get a look at a dino or two, not three ponies.” He fully exited the vehicle and closed the door behind him, revealing a logo of a skeleton of some sort of large creature on it, the words ‘Jurassic Park’ at the bottom. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

“Greetings, Jackson. Pray tell, where are we, exactly?” Luna asked the question we had all been wondering.

“Oh, this place? The names right here on the door.” He said as he pointed to the logo on the door of his vehicle. “As for what it is… think of it as a mix between a zoo and a theme park.”

“A zoo? What kind of animals are they keeping in here if they need cages that big?” Shining asked, nodding back to the paddock behind us.

“The kind that are very big and have been very dead for millions of years.” Jack replied, confusing us all. Before we could question him, the ground beneath us began to shake as the sound of stomping came from somewhere in the distance. Another stomp brought more shaking. And another. And another.

And each one was getting closer.

Jack had a look of recognition on his face, as he turned around and started walking back towards his vehicle. “Sounds like Rexy’s coming back. Alright everyone, get in the jeep!” Jack opened the doors to the vehicle for us to enter, though the gesture was unnecessary as Luna and I flew above the doors and into the roofless vehicle. Shining jumped into the passenger's seat as Jack sat down in what I assumed to be the driver's seat, both of them closing the doors behind them.

“Rexy? Who’s Rexy?” I asked. I was answered by a large creature as it broke through the treeline behind us, releasing a deafening roar as it did so. It was massive, at least thirty feet long from head to tail by my estimate. Two powerful legs powered the creature's locomotion, while two small arms sat almost uselessly in front of it. Top it all off with its mouth filled with rows and rows of sharp banana sized teeth and scaly skin, and you had the makings of a monster straight out of a foal's nightmares.

“That’s Rexy!” Jack said as he started the vehicle and began driving off. ‘Rexy’ had noticed this and began to pursue.

“WHAT IS THAT THING?!?” Shining asked from the passenger seat of the ‘jeep’, keeping his eyes locked on the creature chasing us through the mirror on the side of the door.

“Isn’t it obvious?” At the blank stares from me and Luna, Jack continued. “What, do you ponies not have dinosaurs or something?”

“We do! But none of them look like that!” Shining replied.

“Well, let me be your tour guide for the night, then!” Jack cleared his voice and, when he spoke again, he seemed to be trying to emulate the voice of a radio announcer. “The creature chasing us right now is a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or T.Rex for short. One of the largest carnivores in the whole of the dinosaurs' multi-million year long history! They can get up to forty feet in length and have a near insatiable appetite. Went extinct about sixty-five million years ago when the asteroid hit and caused a mass extinction event that killed both it and the rest of the dinos.”

“If they’re supposed to be dead, then why is one chasing us?” Luna queried.

“Well, the company that owns this park, iNGen, found a way to clone dinosaurs with the DNA trapped in amber-encased mosquitos. Under the direction of one John Hammond, they opened up this theme park on the island of Isla Nublar. This park never opened to the public, and would be left abandoned for nearly two decades, until iNGen came back and built another park with the same exact idea in the south of the island.” Jack suddenly swerved to the right and onto the main gravel road, the T.Rex still hot on our tail.”Sorry, I’ll warn you next time I do that. Anyway, that’s not until 2015. Right now, in 1993? All we’ve got is a soon to be abandoned park that’s kind of in chaos right now.”

“Uh, he’s gaining on us!” Shining yelled.

“She.”

“What?”

“She’s a she. All the animals in Jurassic Park are female.” Jack explained. “Man, I really thought she would’ve lost interest by now.”

“Why make them all female?” I asked, charging up my horn and getting ready to take shots at the prehistoric terror chasing after us.

“To prevent them from breeding. I mean, could you imagine if Rexy right behind us could freely breed with another T.Rex? It would be disastrous for business!”

“So only this ‘iNGen’ can create more of them?” Luna questioned, taking a few shots at ‘Rexy’. At Jack’s nod, she continued. “That sounds both unnecessarily cruel and like a good method of population control.”

“It definitely was the second. Well, until life found a way, at least.”

“Don’t tell me…” Shining said.

“Yup. They found a way to breed anyway. And they did that. By the time anyone found out about it, it was already too late to stop it. Brace yourselves. Hard left coming up.” We did as he suggested and, sure enough, he took a hard left at the next intersection. Rexy was not letting up her chase. “As I was saying, by the time anyone found out, most of the animals had escaped or were in the process of escaping their enclosures and the park was already in the chaotic state we find it in now.”

The jeep entered a tunnel, illuminated only by the lights on the front and back of the vehicle. Jack parked it a little ways in and we all watched as Rexy tried and failed to enter the tunnel behind us. After her fourth attempt, she gave up and went back the way we came.

“You know, this depiction of the T.Rex is actually scientifically inaccurate nowadays.” Jack suddenly said after a moment of silence. “They were much quieter on their feet, and they couldn’t make that loud roaring sound with their vocal cords. Some think they might’ve had feathers, but I’m not sure if that’s been proven or not.”

“I… I… good to know…” Shining replied. “By Celestia, I’ve never been that terrified in my life.”

“Are you kidding? That was fun!” I said, shocking the sole unicorn occupant of the jeep. “The thrill of being chased by a monster through the jungles of an isolated island in a strange vehicle… I kind of want to do it again!”

“Perhaps another time, dear niece. For now, we have business to attend to.” Luna looked over to Jack. “Namely, how you managed to survive being attacked by Sombra.”

“Before we get to that…” Jack said, “mind if I pick the scenery this time? This dream has given me an idea or two.”

—

(Jacksons POV)

"Welcome, your highnesses, to Jurassic Park!" I said with a grandiose sweep of the arm as I slowly pulled the Jeep to a stop at the top of a hill, overlooking the famous opening scene of the first movie. The two mares in the back looked on in awe and wonder at the Brachiosaurus' in the distance, while Shining seemed to be both curious and scared of the sauropods. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze.

"Don't worry. Those gals are herbivores. As long as you keep your distance and don't try to scare or hurt them, then they won't hurt you." Shining's only response was a simple nod. I let go of his shoulder and opened my door, stepping out of the Jeep. "We'll be out here when you want to join us!" Cadance and Luna had both vacated the vehicle and set up a picnic while I was busy making sure Shining wouldn't die of a panic attack upon seeing more dinosaurs.

"It's a beautiful view, is it not?" I questioned the two mares.

"Yeah… does this all actually exist where you're from? The ability to bring back extinct animals through science?" Cadence questioned.

I let out a small chuckle. "I wish. But no. This is all fiction. Based on a popular novel back home. The novel that got adapted into a movie. These depictions are based on the dinos movie counterparts." I looked over to the two royals. "Do you have movies here?"

"Nope. Never heard the term." Cadance answered.

"Well… think of them as plays of sorts, but they're recorded and can be played back at any time."

"Like a record player?"

"That's… a really good comparison. And yeah, just with visuals as well as sound."

"Oh, that reminds me! I've been meaning to ask you about your music player." Cadance perked up. "How does it play music without any records being hooked up to it? And how is it also a camera? What else can it do?"

I took a moment to think about the questions I was just asked. "It's called a cellphone, a neat little thing we call an mp3 file, I don't know the specifics of that one, and… well, just about anything. With the press of a few buttons, you could reserve a table at your favorite restaurant, talk to someone from the opposite side of the world with your own voice, or send a letter to someone near instantaneously. Hell, that book I mentioned earlier? About two months ago, I used my phone to order both it and its sequel off of a service called Amazon and have it delivered right to my door."

"As impressive as that all is," Luna interrupted, "I believe that we have more important matters to be discussing right now." It was at this point that Shining had joined us, taking a seat in the empty spot that I had left for him between myself and his wife.

"Right. Sombra." I grabbed a bottle of Stewart's brand root beer out of… somewhere… (dream logic, don't question it) and twisted the cap off. No more stalling on my end. "Right, so the first time I heard the noise…"

—

"... and then we went back to the palace, Shining and Cadence did what I assume to be a medical checkup on me, and I'm now stuck in bed with a twisted ankle." I finished recounting the day's events.

"Wait, I don't ever remember telling you about your ankle." Shining chimed in.

"It's not the first time I've twisted one of my ankles. I know what it feels like." I laughed a little at the memory. "Coach and the captain were both paranoid that I might make it worse if I didn't get at least six weeks of leave, despite the fact that the doctor said I could go back to running track in half that time."

"I'm glad that they were concerned for your health, but six weeks seems a bit excessive. Especially since the doctor said you would be fine after three weeks."

"Well, I couldn't exactly argue with them. Coach knew the most about this type of stuff. He had a good two decades of experience under his belt, after all. He was also a very caring and very stubborn man. If I tried to argue with him about it, I would have a better chance at winning a debate with a brick wall." I replied to Shining's inquiry.

"And the captain?" Luna pressed. "Why couldn't you argue with him about it?"

"Cause the captain at the time was my older brother, Edward."

"You have siblings?" Cadence asked.

"Yup. Youngest of three brothers. My stepbrother Anthony is the oldest. He's twenty nine now. Edward's next, at twenty three. Then last comes me, at twenty, twenty one once the winter solstice hits." I shook my head. "But we're getting off topic." I look over to Luna. "On a scale of one to ten, how much did I piss off our resident former unicorn king?"

"Well, if what you are saying about shooting an arrow into his horn is accurate… I would say that you have successfully broken that scale." Luna replied very matter-of-factly.

“Ah. I’m on a unicorns ‘kill-on-sight’ list now. Amazing.” I burst out laughing after a brief moment of silence. “Fucking Christ, I never thought I would say that in my life.”

“Didn’t get on bad terms with any unicorns back home?” Cadence asked.

“Didn’t get on bad terms with anyone back home. I didn’t try to, at least. And I think I would remember meeting a unicorn back on earth.”

“Not common?”

“Nope. They don’t exist. Nothing more than myth and legend.” I took a sip of my root beer, observing the looks of disbelief on both Shining and Cadence’s faces. Luna didn’t seem to have a visible reaction. In fact, she seemed more interested in the Brachiosaurus’ off in the distance. If the ear she had pointed in our direction was any indication, though, she was clearly listening in on our conversation.

“I… I’m not sure how to respond to that.” Shining’s delayed response brought me out of my musings about the lunar princess and back to the conversation we were having. “Hey, mind if I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“You said that humans can’t use magic, right?”

“Right.”

“And Princess Luna says you can’t store magic within your own body…”

“That is correct.” Luna chimed in, confirming my suspicions that she was eavesdropping. “Why the sudden line of questioning, Captain?”

“Well, it’s just…” Shining stopped for a moment, seemingly looking for the right words before continuing. “Did anything strange happen while you were out there? Besides Sombra, of course.”

“Not that I can recall… Oh, no. There is one thing. A voice. Someone… or something… spoke to me. In perfect English. Gave me advice on how to adjust my aim so that I could hit Sombra’s horn.”

“And you didn’t see the creature who gave it to you?”

“Nope. It was just me and Sombra out there. As far as I’m concerned, the voice came from inside my own head.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Your positive nopony else was out there with you?” Shining answered my question with one of his own.

“...Now you're making me unsure.” I admitted.

“You know when you were on the ground, pointing the crossbow at Sombra?” I nodded. How could I forget? “Well, as I was running out to help you, somepony casted a shield spell to protect you. It broke pretty quickly, but it took most of the blast. I know it wasn’t Cadance or I, and you can’t use magic…”

“... So that means someone else is out there who also wants to see Sombra taken down a peg.” I finished for him.

“Sounds like it.” Was Shining’s response. “But my question is, who? And why hide from us?”

“Good questions, those.” I mulled over the idea for a while. Maybe they just want to be left alone? Maybe it was a stray Crystal Pony who was brave enough to venture out of the borders? Or maybe…

Couldn’t hurt to ask.

“Do you two have any enemies that might also see Sombra as a threat?” I asked the married couple.

“Only pony I can think of is…” Cadance trailed off. “No, but it can't be her. Why would she help us? Knowing her, she would side with Sombra to take us down! Not actively help us out!”

“Her?” I questioned.

“Queen Chrysalis.” Shining supplied. “She’s an enemy of Equestria. Has been since our wedding day.”

“How’d she manage that?”

“By foalnapping me, locking me in the Crystal Caves under Canterlot, impersonating me for several weeks and hypnotizing my future husband, all in an effort to capture Canterlot and then go on to conquer Equestria." Cadance rather angrily summarized.

…

"... Jesus fucking Christ." I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I just said the first thing that came to mind. And the first thing that came to mind? Using Christ's name in vain. "Ok, so if not her, then who?"

"The only other enemy of Equestria I can think of is Discord, but he's a statue in the Royal Gardens right now." So petrification is a possible punishment here. Good to know. "Do you have any ideas, Auntie?"

"I do not, no." Luna adopted a thoughtful expression. "I doubt your theory that it is an enemy of Equestria with a common interest in keeping Sombra down, yet I can find no other explanation as to why this mystery creature would wish to remain hidden." After a moment of thought, she continued. "I… I suppose it could be Chrysalis. We did lose track of her after her invasion was repulsed. She could've reestablished her hive somewhere in Frozen North, and now sees Sombra as a potential threat… It could've been her or one of her subjects that assisted you with the shield spell, at the very least."

"But how could the Changelings have been able to get around the language barrier? They can barely use basic offensive spells and simple telekinesis!" Shining said.

"Changelings?" I questioned.

"They're a race of shapeshifters." Luna began lecturing. "When undisguised, they look like ponies with black chitin instead of fur, and large, single colored eyes. They were the ones who attacked Canterlot during the wedding."

"And Chrysalis is their queen?" Luna nodded. I was really regretting that bedbug joke I made two days ago now.

"What's next, a cult leader who steals the images off of these ponies' flanks?"

"Any chance some of your troops could've gone AWOL and come up north without orders?" I proposed.

"If any had done so, my sister and I would've been made aware of it by now."

“Maybe there’s a hermit living around here somewhere?”

“Um, guys.” Shining attempted to interject. We ignored him.

“Unlikely. The Frozen North is widely known for being inhospitable. They would need to be much closer to Equestria’s borders in order to survive.”

“Guys?” Shining failed to interject once again. Cadance seemed to notice and turned to him. She said something, but I wasn’t paying attention.

“Could any of the local wildlife have done it?”

“You and I both know the answer to that is no.”

“Maybe… maybe it’s a spirit of some kind? You know, like a ghost or something?”

"That is a possibility. If a spirit were to possess you for a short amount of time and was either too weak or unwilling to take control of your body for themselves… Yes, that could explain the voice from within your own mind. But who's spirit could it be?"

"That's the million dollar question."

“Jack?!” Cadance punched my arm lightly with her hoof, getting my attention. “What are those?”

“What are wh-” I silenced myself as I saw the small green lizard-like creatures on the blanket, fighting Shining for his sandwich and somehow managing to put up a good fight against his magic. - “Dream logic.” I reasoned. - When not battling Shining, their pure black eyes darted around at the other residents of the dream realm.

“They’re kind of cute, in a weird way.” Luna said as we witnessed Shining pull one off of his sandwich and place it on the ground using his magic.

“Compsognathus.” I confidently pronounced incorrectly. “Most people just call them Compys though. They’re scavengers, but they do hunt insects on occasion.” I decided to leave out the fact that they could take down a grown man when in a large enough group, or how three of them managed to eat a baby alive in the books. I think I’ve given them enough nightmare fuel with the arcade and Rexy.

“It’s odd though. They aren’t supposed to be in this scene.” I added.

“I believe it may be a case of your subconscious mind acting of its own accord.” Luna threw her two cents in. “I allowed them into the scene with my magic after I sensed your mind trying to introduce them into the dream. I thought it was you trying to introduce more of those… what did you call them again?”

“Brachiosaurus.”

“Right. Worry not, this is nothing to fear. And if Jackson says they aren’t a threat to us, then I am inclined to believe him.”

“You ponies are way too trusting.” Before anyone could reply to that remark, we were all alerted to a yelp of pain from Shining, who still battling the Compy’s for his sandwich.

“Ow! That’s my tail!” When he turned to deal with the distraction, the other Compys took the opportunity to snag his sandwich and bolt, the distraction escaping with them. “Hey! Get back here!” He yelled, jumping up and chasing after them.

“And here I thought you couldn’t feel pain in dreams.” I commented.

“That is a common misconception.” Luna replied as we watched the Compys literally run circles around Shining, playing a game of keep away with him and winning. “Any living creature is fully capable of feeling pain in dreams. It’s usually just not as intense as it might feel in the waking world.”

“Interesting.”

“Should we go help him?” Cadance asked, pointing down to her tired out husband.

“Yeah. We should. Those guys can take him out if they feel like it.”

“I thought you said they were scavengers and hunted insects?” Cadance questioned with a concerned look.

“They are, and they do.” I replied. “There's also a scene from the second movie where they manage to kill a full grown man with numbers alone, and there’s a famous scene in the novel where they break into someone's home and eat an infa-” That was enough for Cadance to ignite her horn and rush into battle against the Compys, providing some much needed assistance to her husband.

“Are you going to finish that sentence?” Luna questioned.

“From the look on your face, I think you could already tell where I was going with that.”

“That I could.” Luna confirmed. “The human mind seems quite creative, if not rather dark and morbid at times.”

“You could say that about the whole of the human race. In all seriousness, not all of our literature is like that.”

"I assumed so." Luna stopped me. "Every culture has its own dark side, and that dark side is often seen in that cultures literature, in one way or another. Remind me to introduce you to the stories of Scare Master after you learn how to read UEWS. He was a master of both theater and literature, and his works have scarred foals for centuries."

"Are you proposing we start a horror themed book club, your highness?"

"... I suppose you could call it that, yes." Luna answered after a moment.

"Well, remind me to introduce you to the works of Bram Stoker and Stephen King. Just for the sake of cultural exchange." Maybe throw Michael Crichton as well. The JP books may not be pure horror, but they can be pretty damn terrifying at times.

"And how do you expect to be able to do that when you don't have access to any of those books?"

"I'll, uh, I'll find a way." I lamely replied to Luna's inquiry.

"WHY WON'T YOU STAY PUT?!?" We heard Cadance yell in the distance, still launching magical blasts at the Compys.

"We should help them." Luna stated with finality.

"Can't you just end the dream now and call it a night?" I questioned. "Actually, couldn't you have done that back with Rexy?" I added.

"I could have." Luna replied, giving me the first smile I think I've ever seen from the mare. "But my niece wasn't the only one who was having fun during that chase." With that, she flew up into the air and glided down to Shining and Cadance, providing them with air support against the tiny green menace.

As for me, I walked back towards the Jeep and rummaged through the back, finding a bolt action .17 HMR. Ignoring the fact that this caliber should not exist in the year 1993, I loaded her up and moved into a position where I could get a clear shot, laying down on the ground and setting up a bag to prop the barrel on top of. I managed to strike a few down before I heard a chirping noise coming from right next to me. Turning my head, I saw a Compy watching me in curiosity with its brilliant amber eyes.

"Clever girl." I responded to the curious chirping between chuckles as I reloaded the rifle and took aim once more, taking care to avoid hitting my pony allies. Surprisingly, the Compy seemed content to just stand there and watch as its family was slowly wiped out for the crime of stealing Shining Armor's sandwich.

Her Most Faithful Student, From the Perspective of Loyalty

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(Rainbow Dash's POV)

I don’t wake up this early in the morning very often. But on the rare occasions that I do, I like to go out for a quick flight to stretch my wings and watch as the sun rises from the east. It’s always so much more beautiful up here than when I’m on the ground. The clouds slowly shifting from orange to their usual white. The long beams of light being projected from the great orb whose ascension marks the start of a new day.

When I flew in the sky at this time of day, I almost felt like I was part of it all. Like I was the sunrise, bringing light to a land that had previously been shrouded by the night not but a few moments before. Like I was the one moving the sun with my wings, and not Princess Celestia with her magic.

Indeed, the sunrise is truly beautiful.

…

Not that I would say any of this out loud, of course. I have a reputation as a cool mare to uphold. I couldn’t drag it down by talking about the sunrise like I wanted to marry it. The day I do that is the day Spitfire starts writing poetry, and that’ll never happen!

Shaking the thoughts that would make Rarity proud out of my head, I got another look at the town below. When I asked the conductor why we stopped earlier, he said that we were refueling, and that we were gonna be here for a good hour or two as they got the coal loaded on the train. I took the opportunity to get some air time before being crammed into a train car again. I may be the fastest flier in Equestria, but even I couldn’t keep up with a train going at full speed on mostly flat ground twenty-four seven.

It was a fairly small town, just barely bigger than Appleloosa. All it had was a town hall, a motel and a train station, with the rest of the buildings being houses. I heard there was a diner somewhere from one of the train workers who used to live here, but I hadn’t seen any sign of it.

“Maybe I’ll have better luck looking for it on the ground.”

A new course of action decided, I moved to make a landing on the platform of the train station, where I found Applejack waiting for me. That wasn’t much of a surprise. She always woke up super early. Something about work on the farm. I never paid much attention whenever she told me about it.

“You're up early. You feeling alright, Dash? You don’t usually wake up before noon.” Applejack teased me.

“I have my early mornings.” I retorted. “One of the train ponies said there was a diner somewhere in town. Wanted to see if I could find it.”

“Yeah, I heard something about that too. So did you find it?”

“Nope. Couldn’t see it from the air. I was thinking about going on a walk into town to see if I could find it that way.”

“Well, let’s get going then. I’ve had a hankering for anything that isn’t train food or Pinkie’s sweets since we left Ponyville.”

“Hey, Pinkie’s sweets are awesome!” I defended the pink mare’s confectionary treats.

“They are, but I don’t want them to be a cornerstone of my diet.” AJ responded.

“Speaking of Pinkie, shouldn’t we get the rest of the girls before we head out?”

“I already checked. Pinkie says she’s busy ‘learning everlong’, whatever the hay that means, Twi and Rares are still fast asleep after their late night study sessions, and Shy said she and Spike would meet us here once you landed.”

Sure enough, almost as if on a hidden queue, the yellow pegasus and purple dragon exited the train and stepped on the platform, trotting/walking over to us the moment they spotted us.

"Hey girls!" Spike called out.

"Mornin' there, Spike. Ready for some real food?" AJ questioned the dragon.

"You bet! I'm starving." He emphasized his point by patting his stomach with his paws, which his stomach responded by growling so loudly I was sure my parents back in Cloudsdale could've heard it.

Finding the diner didn't take that long. Turns out the reason I couldn't see it from the air was due to the fact that it was built into the first floor of somepony's home, so it looked just like any other house around here. That was a little strange to me. Sure, it was pretty common back in Ponyville to live where you work, but every restaurant usually had a sign that could be easily seen from the air.

Here though? The only sign was a small piece of wood in the window, the faded text advertising one "Grill Bit's Family Diner", supposedly the best diner in all of Jewell Valley, Macintosh Province.

"More like the only diner in Jewell Valley."

Entering the establishment, there really wasn’t much to write home about. Hay, the place barely looked like a diner. It was more like an old style bar you would find in Manehattan. All wood furniture, a few tables scattered around the single room. All empty. Not a single pony in sight. There was a stage off to the right, a single sign promoting a karaoke night for nine pm tonight.

“Better not tell Pinkie about that. She would demand that we turn the train around so we could participate.”

Walking up to the bar itself, the four of us took our seats and waited for the bartender to arrive. In the meantime, we got to talking. While we started off talking about Ponyville and how everypony back home was doing, our conversation soon veered towards our mission and the creature of the hour.

“I just don’t think we should be trusting this Jackson so quickly. I mean, he just shows up out of nowhere and starts helping out?” AJ once again stated an argument she had been repeating since we had gotten on the train three days ago. “Doesn’t that seem a bit odd to you three?”

“I mean, I guess?” Spike was the first to, rather hesitantly, speak up this time. “But what if he’s just scared of Sombra? I know I would be in his situation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” AJ seemed to almost demand. When Spike didn’t provide an immediate response, Flutters stepped in.

“What I think Spike was trying to say is to think of it from his perspective. What would you do if you were ripped from your home, away from your family and friends, and into a place you knew nothing about with no way to communicate with those around you.” Flutters took a moment to let that set in before continuing. “Add on the life threatening situation he’s in with Sombra, I wouldn’t blame him for being scared.”

“But if he’s really so scared like you say, then why did he agree to help out?” Applejack shook her head. “From what little Princess Luna’s told us, he doesn’t seem all that scared.”

“Maybe he offered to help out so he could use his fear to distract himself from something else.” A new voice spoke up, startling the four of us. Behind the bar stood a white unicorn stallion with deep blue eyes and bright red hair, a cutie mark of a simple sun on his flanks.

At our collective looks of surprise, his only reaction was to smile a little. “Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear. Figured I would throw my two bits in. Names Solar Flare, and I’ll be your bartender for the morning.” He pulled a notepad and a pen out from somewhere under the counter with his magic. “Can I start you off with some drinks? Keep in mind that the bossmare has a strict ‘no alcohol until five pm’ rule.”

“Probably for the best, what with how much cider Dash here likes to drink.” Before I could retort, AJ placed her order. “I’ll just take a water.”

“Same here.” I said, which was responded to by a hum of agrement from Flutters.

“I’ll have some milk.” Spike said.

“Alright. Three waters and one glass of milk, coming right up!” Solar Flare turned around and started grabbing our drinks.

“So what did you mean by what you said earlier?” I asked. When his only response was a simple “Hmm?”, I clarified. “About distracting himself, I mean.”

“Ah, that.” Solar Flare placed our drinks on the counter and seemed to take a moment to think before he continued. “Well, I was speaking from personal experience there. When I moved here from back east, the first thing I tried to do was find a job and distract myself with work. I might have left home of my own accord, but I still missed my family." Solar Flare let out a sigh. "I wanted to distract myself from the fact I missed them, is what I'm saying. Maybe that's what your friend is trying to do. Distract himself from his grief, at least for a while." He flashed yet another small smile as the four of us absorbed the information.

"My brother did something similar, after our ma and pa died." AJ spoke at last. "He threw himself head first into his work and didn't look back. Took months of Granny and I slowly trying to convince him before he finally took a break." AJ took a sip of her water. "Considering the circumstances, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he would do something similar."

"My condolences." Solar Flare spoke up. At the questioning look AJ gave him, he clarified. "For your parents, I mean. It's never easy losing a loved one." He then cleared his throat. "Anyways, I'll leave you four alone to take a look at the menus if you need it."

"No, no." I stopped him. "We've already got our orders ready." After taking our orders, Solar Flare stepped back into what I could see was a kitchen area and gave the piece of paper with our orders on it to a dark blue earth pony with a light brown mane at the stovetop, the cutie mark of a spatula on his flanks. The pony nodded and began to prepare our orders as Solar Flare stepped back behind the bar. We talked again for a short while before he excused himself to help some other customers who had entered the building while we were talking.

Not long after, our food arrived. Flutters, Spike and I spoke about anything that came to mind while we ate. AJ, on the other hoof, had stayed mostly silent after we got our food, and she had this look on her face like she was thinking long and hard about something.

"I guess that stallion did give her a lot to think about."

We made it back to the train about an hour after leaving the diner. Now that we knew where we were going, the trip was a lot shorter. AJ and I were carrying some takeout we had gotten for the rest of the girls. Spike assured us that, at the very least, Rarity would be awake by now.

On the way, AJ finally spoke up with an interesting question.

"You think that bartender was right?"

"Um… what?" I asked, genuinely confused about what she was talking about.

"Do you think Solar Flare was right? About Jackson trying to distract himself from his grief by confronting his fear?"

"I… I don't know, AJ." I responded honestly. "I mean, it's not like we can just walk up to him and ask the guy. He's hundreds of miles away right now and he speaks a different language."

"Just tell me, Rainbow." AJ pushed. "Do you think he could've been right?"

"I… I… I dunno? Maybe? I guess?" Then an idea came to my mind. "Maybe you should ask Rarity about this? I mean, she has a tendency to go all 'workaholic mode' when she's stressed or anxious."

"I guess that is a good idea. I'll talk to her about it some other time." That was the last thing she said before we entered the train and found Twilight fully awake, with her nose pressed into a book.

"Twilight, we're back!" Spike called out. "And we brou-" he was interrupted by a scroll manifesting itself from the green flames of his dragons breath. "-ght food! Oh, and there's a scroll for you!" Spike set the scroll on the table next to Twilight, while I placed the food on the table, making sure to be careful to place it somewhere it wouldn't even touch her notes. I really didn't want her going twilly-nanas this early in the morning.

"Thanks Spike. And thanks girls." She said, moving some of the papers around so she could place her breakfast closer to her. "So who's the scroll from?"

"Princess Luna, if the royal seal is anything to go by." Spike answered. Her breakfast suddenly forgotten, Twilight practically ripped open the letter to see what the princess had sent her.

"Whoa, Twi. With how fast you opened that, you would think you just got a letter from your marefriend." I teased her. The sputtering and red cheeks I got in response from the purple unicorn were reward enough.

"Now now, Rainbow. No need to tease the poor mare." AJ admonished me, to which I responded with a scoff. "So what's the letter say, Twi?"

"Oh, right! The letter!" Twilight levitated the letter up to her face and began reading.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I had another conversation with Jackson about the language barrier, and after some interesting experiences with a selection of extinct animals from his world, I mentioned your attempts to break the language barrier between us and him in the waking world and he proposed an idea to me. You see, he would spell out a word in his native language and I would then memorize it and copy it into the written word in the waking world.

While it took us multiple attempts, and some creative usage of my magic to get around the dream realm's translation properties, we managed to work together to get a few basic phrases and an old folk song from his world fully translated. Included with this letter is a secondary parchment with the translations, as well as the original English version of each phrase, copied as to the best of my ability and memory, with the assistance of a memory spell. I hope that this will help you in your attempts to crack the language barrier.

I wish you luck with your mission,

Princess Luna

P.S. Your brother says hello and that he can't wait to see you again.

…

I think the letter broke Twilight.

She just kinda… sat there, unmoving. If I didn’t see her chest moving up and down, I would think that she wasn’t breathing either. I was kinda concerned for her.

“Um, you alright there, sugarcube?” AJ asked, the concern in her voice matching mine. When she didn’t receive a reply, she asked again. “Um, Twi? Can ya hear me?” Still no reply.

…

“Twilight…?” Fluttershy nervously asked.

…

Spike looked on with concern clearly written on his face. Before he could say anything, however, the librarian finally spoke.

“... I can’t believe it.” She finally said, her voice barely a whisper. “I can’t believe it.” She repeated, this time slightly louder. She pulled the second piece of parchment out and stared at it, repeating the same phrase over and over again, each time a little louder. A small almost manic smile formed on her face as she finally seemed to snap out of her trance.

“RARITY! GET OVER HERE!” She practically screamed in the general direction of the bunk car. “I’VE GOT A LEAD!”

We left the station a few hours after Twilight got Princess Luna’s letter. Since then, Twilight and Rarity (well, mostly Twilight) had been obsessing over the small piece of parchment Luna sent. I had gotten a glance at it earlier, but I only got a few lyrics. Some song about a mare named Clementine, but I didn't pay much attention to it.

Applejack seemed interested, though. She seemed really interested. Interested to the point that Twilight had to make a copy of the lyrics for her just so she would stop trying to steal the parchment whenever Twi and Rarity weren’t looking. Now she was reading over the paper for the… I don’t even know anymore. I lost count after nineteen, and that was an hour ago.

“See something you like?” I questioned from the other side of her booth.

“It just reminds me of the songs Ma and Pa used to sing me when I was younger.” Applejack replied, clearly understanding that I was talking about the paper. “I should stop obsessing over it so much. I’m acting like Pinkie does when it’s someponies birthday.” She folded up the paper and placed it under her hat.

“Hey, I don’t mind.” I replied. “Just wanted to make sure you're doing ok.” I added. “I know your parents are a bit of a sensitive spot for you, and-”

“Dash.” AJ interrupted me. “I’m fine. Really, I am. Just some old memories is all. Nothing more.”

I could tell she was lying, at least partially, but I didn’t want to press her on it. “Alright. If you say so.” I finally said, while trying to mask the unease in my voice.

"And just like how I could tell she was lying, she can tell that I'm lying."

I let out a yawn, making sure to make a big show out of it. "Well, I'm gonna go back to the bunk car and take a nap. I'm sure you can handle things if they get a bit hairy, right?"

"Of course I can. What, are you doubting the mare who saved you from a changeling back in Canterlot?"

"Oh, har har." I sarcastically retorted, a small chuckle escaping from my lips. I got out of my seat and started making my way to the bunk car. "See you in a couple hours?"

"I better. I don't wanna have to come in there and wake you up again."

"That was one time!"

"Are you also gonna count all those times I caught you napping in one of my trees when I needed you for something?" Applejack verbally jabbed, the newfound smirk on her face getting just a little bit wider.

I didn't respond, instead making my way to the opposite end of the car to the door. As I was about to leave, I could faintly overhear a conversation behind me.

"Say, Twi, can I ask you something?"

"Sure Applejack. What's up?"

"Well, I was just wondering, if Luna's in Canterlot and Jack's in the Crystal Empire, how are they tal-"

That was the last I heard of that conversation as I finally left the main passenger car and entered the bunk car, claiming one of the higher up ones for myself and settling in for a mid-afternoon nap.

Author's Notes:

The twelfth chapter of the first story. I wonder why Applejack is suddenly so curious about how Luna and Jack are communicating?

As you can tell, I took a few creative liberties when it came to writing Rainbow Dash. I've always thought that there was more going on up there other than "I wanna be a wonderbolt" and I decided to introduce that idea early on. That way when it comes up later, it won't feel completely out of the blue. I still tried to stick to her core personality as much as possible, and I think I did a good job. Maybe.

Idk. Maybe a Rainbow Dash expert will give me a detailed breakdown about how this interpretation is shit lmao.

The previous sentence was a joke.

The song that Jack provided the lyrics to is called "Oh My Darling, Clementine". It's kind of depressing, if I'm being honest, but it's a good song nonetheless.

Also, if your interested, I now have a spot where can see all of my writing scraps. You can find that here.

And to those of you who already saw the scrap bin, yes. I did a reuse a character from a scrapped story there over here.

Language Theories, Bathroom Hauntings and Hope

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“So why do English and Equish share such similar writing systems? I mean, it can’t be a coincidence, right? Even Luna agreed that it couldn’t have been.”

That was one of many thoughts going through my mind as I took a shower. I first figured out how to use it yesterday morning, after getting over my initial surprise that this place had modern plumbing. Like, come on, it’s a ten-century old castle! How does it have modern plumbing?!

“This is a lead pipe situation, isn't it?” If it was, that did not bode well for my physical health. “Am I showering in contaminated water right now? Wait, no. It’s only dangerous if I drink it. I think.”

I stood there for a brief moment, trying to see if I could remember the symptoms of lead poisoning off of the top of my head. As it turns out, I couldn’t because I never looked into it in the first place.

…

“You know, I really shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, rich Romans used lead pipes to get drinking water into their homes. Why shouldn’t pony royalty?” Add that to the ever growing list of parallels between Earth and Equis. It only seemed to get longer and longer the more I got to think about it.

“And there aren’t any temperature controls on this thing. Are they getting it from an underground reservoir? Perhaps there’s a river or lake nearby that it’s taking the water from? My foot did break through some ice into a body of water of some sort yesterday.”

Turning off the water and stepping out of the shower, I grabbed the towel that I had found hidden in the cabinet under the sink yesterday and began to dry myself off. That shower was way too low. I had to crouch down at an uncomfortable angle just so I could get the water on myself.

“Fuck, what was I thinking about again?” … “Right, the alphabet thing. That implies that there must have been some sort of contact in the past. Is humanity an extinct species here? Or did humanity never have a chance to exist, and we instead got a precursor race of some kind developing intelligence and language?” Stopping myself before I started veering into Ancient Aliens territory, I took a mental step back so I could reevaluate my thought process. All the while, my hair was becoming even more of a wild and untangled mess as a side effect of me rather aggressively drying it off with a towel.

“I really need to trim this down at some point.” I didn’t usually let my hair grow past my shoulders and down to my upper back, but I will admit that I had been slacking off in terms of keeping it short in the weeks leading up to me landing in Equestria. I usually try to keep it at about the shoulders.

“And I’m getting sidetracked again. Language. What do I know about it?” Admittedly, not much. I read a lot back home, but I never really studied the evolution of language. Never did well in language classes either. Had to retake Spanish in ninth grade because I failed it the first time around, and the second time around I barely got out of it. All I learned were who to introduce myself, the word piscina, and how to read the twenty-four hour time format. The third one always seemed very random to me, but our teacher insisted that it was important.

“Maybe it has nothing to do with humans at all, and a completely different intelligent race just so happened to create a similar writing system to both Equish and English?” Nope, that has the same exact issue as Unicorns developing this worlds version of the Latin Alphabet completely independently from humanity on Earth.

“Oh for fucks sake, the ancient alien theory actually sounds semi-reasonable now.” Ok, so did humanity come down to Equis on fancy spaceships, give ponies the alphabet, and then fuck off?

…

I mean, it is another dimension. Just because my version of Earth is stuck with Mars bases being nothing more than some Twitter buying billionaires pipedream doesn’t mean that there couldn’t have been some space faring homosapians who-

“Wait, no. That’s not it either. Some humans are greedy bastards, and they would’ve taken the chance to exploit this worlds resources. Maybe ‘relocate’ the natives as well.” That statement did not describe humanity as a whole of course, but I still have to hesitantly and sadly acknowledge the fact that those people do exist. And plenty of workers would just do what they were told so they could get their paycheck and make an honest living. “Even if that didn’t happen, I’m sure there would at least be a human settlement or two scattered about.”

“Is humanity an extinct species here, only ever existing in ancient times?” That seemed like the most likely possibility to me. “Alright, after I learn how to speak and read in Equish, I am looking into this. But how? Luna admitted that she had never seen anything like me before.” I took a moment to think about this, and it was as I was finally finishing up drying myself and putting the clothes back on the lower half of my body that I came up with an idea.

“Back home, legends would be passed down throughout generations. Those legends would always have an inkling of truth, no matter how small. Maybe Equestria has legends of strange, hairless bipeds scattered throughout their history?” It could also explain how Luna might not have known about humans before. She simply isn’t aware of the old legends that contain descriptions of humans, or human-like, figures. “I would need to account for how the descriptions may have changed over years of being retold, but it might just be my best lead so far.

“Religious texts as well.” My thought process continued as I put my belt on. “The Bible may be a purely religious text, but some events depicted within it do have some basis in historical reality. Surely there’s a religion of some kind, in practice or not, that may have some events involving humans that were simply exaggerated or justified as the ‘divine wrath of the gods’ or something, right?”

I was never a religious man by any means, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t sometimes fascinated by The Bible and some of the stories it told. Especially if those stories were confirmed to have some basis in real world history. My brothers may have loved the stories themselves, but I was always entranced by the story you could find between the lines and with some cross-referencing of history books and academic sources. A true history of the world at the time of The Bible’s publication, hidden beneath the already masterfully told stories of Noah’s Ark and David’s battle with the famous Goliath.

I may be an atheist, but I can at least respect Christianity for having many generations of excellent writers and storytellers.

I would still much prefer a book entirely based upon facts if writing an essay or document about a historical event, of course, but…

But…

…

Fuck, I just lost my train of thought again.

After trying, and failing, to regain it, I took a long look in the mirror, my hazel brown eyes staring back at me.

“I really should write all that stuff down.” I suddenly said aloud, pulling my shirt over my head and looking around for the brush I had used yesterday.

“Goddammit, which drawer did I put it in yesterday?” After another minute or so of rooting around, I found it. “Ok, this time, I’m leaving it on the counter. That way, I know for a fact where it is tomorrow morning.”

“You really shouldn’t leave your personal care items lying around everywhere.”

“Well I would much prefer to not spend several minutes looking for my brush every morning, thank you mysterious voice in my head.” … “Wait, mysterious voice?” It was then I finally noticed a very odd sensation. It was almost as if my body wasn’t entirely mine anymore. I still had full control, but it felt like I was now sharing my body with something else.

I looked up at the mirror and, for a split second, I saw my right eye had turned a brilliant amber. As soon as I noticed it, it returned to its normal color. The sensation of sharing my body left at the same time, leaving only me, staring at the mirror, with a brush in my left hand.

…

...

“What the fuck was that!?” I yelled out after a moment of silence.

That’s when I recognized it.

“The voice… That’s the voice from before. The crossbow… That was her.” But who is ‘her’? What does she want with me? Why did she possess my body but make no effort to take control? Am I just going crazy? Did I just have a schizophrenic episode?

“No, I didn’t. Or at least, I don’t think I did. I don’t know. I’ve never seen or experienced a schizophrenic episode before, so I wouldn't know what one feels or looks like. Besides, it’s a lifelong thing. You don’t just suddenly develop it overnight without warning.”

Firmly putting the question of if I have schizophrenia in the ‘no’ box of my mind, I started doing what I was originally going to do before that happened; comb my hair. As I did so, something Luna mentioned last night resurfaced.

“If a spirit were to possess you for a short amount of time and was either too weak or unwilling to take control of your body for themselves… Yes, that could explain the voice from within your own mind.”

All she’s done so far is help me and violate my personal space with her split-second possession right there. “Could she be a guardian spirit of some sort? Meant to protect me during my time here?” If that was the case, then why the secrecy? Why hide her identity? I’m thankful for her help yesterday, don’t get me wrong, but she is acting very shady right now.

I want answers. I need answers. Maybe she’s still in the room with me? Maybe…

…

“Who are you?” I questioned aloud, speaking to no one in particular.

No response.

“What do you want?”

Still no response.

“Why did you help me yesterday?”

…

Nothing.

Not a single fucking peep.

Either she’s gone, or she’s ignoring me. Both are possibilities at this point, and both made me varying levels of pissed off.

"First, she possess me. Now, she ignores me. Talk about fucking rude."

I finished brushing my hair and, just as I said I would, I left the brush on the counter. I stepped out of the bathroom shortly afterwards, grabbing the spear Shining had given me to use as a walking stick to keep weight off of my ankle. I was spared feeling any significant pain thanks to the fuckton of painkiller spells they used on me, but I knew I still had to keep as much weight off of it as possible to ensure that it healed properly.

I think they were overreacting with the painkillers, but it wasn’t like I could stop them. Not for lack of trying, mind you. I told them not to do it in the dream realm. I mimed to them that it wasn’t necessary in the waking world when they let themselves into my room this morning. Both times I was ignored.

On the brightside, the magic they used on me yesterday means that my ankle should be fully healed by tomorrow afternoon. A whole lot better than last time, if I say so myself.

I made my way to the small desk next to the window, settling myself in the too short chair. As it turns out, ponies tended to sit in a chair like dogs, with all four legs on the seat. Why they have backrests if they don't use them, I have no idea.

"Is it a status symbol of some kind? A way of saying 'I'm rich and you're not'?"

Yeah, no, that's just ridiculous. There's no way they could've turned chair backrests into a status symbol. That's just idiotic on so many levels. Then again, I guess there have been dumber trends in history.

Taking a look at the items that were thrown haphazardly onto it, I made sure that everything was here. Then the box cutter caught my eye.

"And here I thought you were supposed to be my good luck charm." I said to the inanimate object, not expecting a response. It was a gift from a coworker, back when I first entered the workforce as a stocker at Dollar Tree. It was my first day. The manager on duty didn't want to deal with training me, so she dropped me on another employee named John, but everyone called him 'Old Man John'.

It wasn't meant to be a rude or offensive nickname. There were just three different John's working there at the same time. Original John, Manager John and Old Man John. "The Three Johns", as I called them.

I still remember that day. And when he gave me the box cutter.

"Are you sure, man?" A sixteen year old me asked my coworker.

"I'm sure. I've still got plenty of them from when I used to work at Walmart." Old Man John replied. "Like you said, you don't have one of your own. Figured I would do something nice for you."

"You really don't have to-"

"Relax, kid. You're acting like I just bought you a new car." He interrupted me. "Look, you said you were saving up for college, right?" I nodded my head. "Then think of this as a way of making sure you don't have to waste any of your college money on buying a box cutter."

"You know that would barely make a dent, right?"

"You're a bit of a smartass, you know that?" He shook his head while laughing quietly. "Alright, just think of it as an act of kindness. From me to you. Besides, you've already been using it all day. It's basically yours now."

He would be quick to turn me down anytime I tried to return it to him over the next week.

I'm not sure what happened to him. He disappeared into thin air two months later, never to be seen again. I still remember that act of kindness though.

As for his gift, I haven't had to use the box cutter for actual work in years. Got switched over to register duty about three weeks in, and when I got hired at 7/11 they just threw me right back on register. Sure, I would help with stocking shelves whenever I got the chance, but that wasn't very often. For the most part, I only carry it on me because I see it as a sort of good luck charm. A gift from a man who had been in the workforce for decades to a teenager who was just starting out. I never knew John well, but I do still cherish his gift.

Setting the box cutter back down on the desk, I picked up my phone to check the time and battery.

59%

8:57 AM

Even after turning on every battery saving feature I know (short of shutting it off completely) and using my phone as sparingly as possible, I'm still losing power at a concerning rate. "Just keep conserving it as much as possible. That's all I can do right now."

Turning off my phone and placing it back on the desk, I leaned back in the chair as comfortably as I could manage. I closed my eyes and just… sat there. It wasn’t any longer than five minutes, yet it felt like an hour at least.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something… Right, I said that I was gonna write all that stuff I thought about in the bathroom down somewhere.” Looking through the drawers of the desk I was sitting at, I finally managed to find what looked like an old journal. After checking to make sure I wasn’t about to steal someone's diary, and seeing that it was completely empty, I began writing down my theories on the first page, making sure to keep the lead pipe and schizophrenia things out.

“Right. So the most logical theory so far is that humanity did exist at some point here, and had some sort of interaction with the unicorns at the very least. These interactions lead to the Unicorns adapting this worlds version of the Latin Alphabet into Unicorn Script. That's the working theory, at least. I don’t exactly have any way to prove it at the moment.” Still, it’s a start and a start is better than nothing at this point.

Note: Need to look into Equestrian folklore and religion. Potential leads could be found there. I wrote that note down right at the end. As I said earlier, the moment I learn how to read and speak Equish is the moment I start looking into this stuff.

“How would a religion work when the goddesses of the Sun and Moon are government bureaucrats?” I remember that Luna mentioned she had a sister. Celestia was her name, and her job was to rule the kingdom during the day. She could also raise the sun, while Luna could raise the moon. While I am very skeptical of those claims, I’ve already acknowledged the fact that anything is possible here through magic. Still, I’m gonna wait until I see it for myself before forming a final opinion on the matter.

“And knowing my luck, my opinion will be ‘magic is bullshit’. Wow, maybe deciding a box cutter would be my good luck charm wasn’t such a good idea.” Still smarter than most of my ideas recently. I’m convinced my little stunt of intentionally falling on the ground is what caused me to twist my ankle in the first place.

“Note to self: Don’t use death animations from mobile games as inspiration for plans that need to get me out of a life or death situation. It barely worked the first time, but that’s just because I got stupidly lucky with two shields and a ghost giving me advice.” Looking back towards the bathroom door, I let out a small sigh. “What the hell has my life come to? Talking ponies, ghosts, magic, evil demon kings from a thousand of years ago? It feels like I’m in a cartoon.”

Maybe that’s the true explanation to everything? I’m trapped in a cartoon world, with no way to return home. It would explain so much…

…

The fact that sounds semi-reasonable is both depressing and infuriating.

“Best not to dwell on that possibility. We don’t know if sending me home is a lost cause yet, just that I’m going to be stuck here for a long, long while until we figure out if it is or not. Just gotta be optimistic.”

Deciding that I’ve spent enough time at the desk, I grabbed the various items scattered about the top of it and stuffed them haphazardly into my pants pockets, the sole exception being my headphones, which I left there for the moment. Walking over to the bed, I looked over the remaining clothes I hadn’t put on.

“One hoodie, one pretty badly torn up jacket…” With how many new holes and cuts were in that thing, you would think someone tried to recreate the whole ripped jeans trend but for denim jackets and went just a little bit overboard. “... and one missing beanie. I know I was wearing it when I got here yesterday, and it was sitting here this morning, so where did it disappear to?”

That’s when the knock on the door came. “Eh, I’ll figure it out later.” I threw on the hoodie and, after moving some stuff from my pants pockets to the hoodies only pocket, as well as remembering to grab my new weapon/walking stick, I stepped up to the door and opened it, finding Cadance standing on the other side, wearing a dark green beanie.

“Oh, that’s where it went. At least it’s in safe hooves.”

“Morning again Cadance. I hope you're enjoying the stolen property.” I joked, motioning towards her new piece of headwear.

(Cadance’s POV)

"Joking tone, relaxed posture, a gesture towards his hat. Good, he's not mad about me stealing his beanie." I was worried that he was going to be mad about me wearing it. I always had a secret love for them, one I was never able to indulge in due to the fashion scene and rumor mills of Canterlot. I gave him a nod and a smile, which he reciprocated with his own smile. "How did I not notice those canines before?"

Putting that thought aside, I decided to inform Jack of the reason I was here. Levitating the small plate into view, I saw Jack eye up the two waffles with the same surprise Shining gave his pair this morning before he went out on patrol. "Just because I'm a princess doesn't mean I can't cook." My half-joking scolding of my husband from earlier this morning echoed in my mind. I picked it up as a hobby after Auntie Celestia suggested it and gave me a few pointers. I haven't stopped since.

~~"Thank you."~~ Jack said while reaching out for the plate, pulling me out of my thoughts. I playfully pulled the plate a little further out of reach with my magic.

Jack responded to this by holding one finger up, then pointing at his hat. Next he held up two fingers, and used one of them to point at the waffles. He finished his performance by putting his hand to his chest and giving me a facial expression faux offense. I responded to this with a roll of my eyes while moving the plate closer to him. He grabbed it in his free hand and I released the hold my magic had on it.

Seems his grip with only one hand wasn't as strong as the two of us originally believed, since the plate slipped out of his hand almost immediately after I released my magical hold on it. Reasserting possession over the waffles and plate before they hit the ground, I looked over at Jack to see him nervously chuckling while rubbing the back of his neck with the hand that was previously holding the plate.

"That's odd. I don't think his hand was injured yesterday." Performing a quick diagnostic spell confirmed my suspicions. "No hand injuries, and I know his grip is stronger than that." That's when I noticed him looking around briefly, as if he was searching for something. "He seems distracted. Did something happen?"

I tapped his knee with my hoof to get his attention. When he made eye contact with me, I cocked my head slightly to the right, allowing a look of concern to show on my face. He just chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.

~~"I'll tell you later."~~ He said. He then nodded his head in the general direction of the kitchen before starting to make his way there, closing the bedroom door behind him as he did so.

"Something is clearly bothering him. I'll ask him tonight." With a new goal in mind, I followed him down the hall and to the kitchen. The whole way there, I heard him humming a song I had never heard to himself.

"Something from his homeworld, I assume." Another thing I'll ask him about tonight.

The rest of the morning went by without incident. At around one in the afternoon, Jack left the castle to take a walk around the city and I decided that I would join him. During this walk, I noticed that some of the crystal ponies had started to make their way into the streets, and more than a few of them were looking at us. I wasn't very surprised. In fact, they reminded me of many of the stares I used to get around Canterlot after I first moved there.

The murmuring was new though. Well, not the murmuring itself, but rather the content of it.

"Is that the creature?"

"Why is it so tall?"

"I heard it survived a fig…"

"What happened to its crossbow? Didn't it ha…"

"Did it really have an encounter with him?"

"Did they really hear about that so soon?" I guess somepony must've seen what happened and spread the word of Jack's antics. But who? Shining and Jack both said there wasn't anypony around while Jack was running from Sombra. "Was it whoever cast the first shield spell?"

"Um, excuse me, sir?" A stallion asked, glancing nervously between me and Jack as we stopped and looked at him. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Jackson doesn't speak Equish." I answered him, causing his nervous gaze to land squarely on me. "Maybe I can answer whatever questions you have?" I added.

"I-I was just wondering if the rumors were true." This caused me to tilt my head in confusion.

"Rumors?" I repeated.

"Did he really survive a fight against… him?" The fear in his voice was clear as day with that final word. Jack seemed to realize who he was talking about sooner than I did. He tapped me on the shoulder and, once he had my attention, he pointed towards the general direction of the border with his thumb. I looked back to the crystal pony to give my reply, only just now noticing all of the eyes on the three of us.

"Sombra, you mean?" He flinched for a fraction of a second, and then nodded. "He did, yes."

"How? Nopony who crosses him ever survives."

"A well placed arrow and some very fast legs."

"He… he outran him? How? He only has two legs!" Before I could answer, I looked over to Jack and non-verbally asked for his approval. "This is his story, after all."

He seemed to understand the meaning a lot better than I thought he would, and he nodded. Before I could turn away, he pulled out his phone (to the amazement of the surrounding ponies) and, after tapping the screen a few times, he showed me the screen.

He had pulled up his music player, a song whose name I couldn't read outside of the numbers '1800' at the end being shown. The album art was of another human, standing on top of an incomplete star on a golden background. According to the small white bar, he was about halfway through. Then he took his finger and moved the bar back, rewinding the song to the beginning. After doing so, he carefully lowered himself down into a sitting position in a way that would put as little weight on his ankle as possible. I got the meaning almost immediately.

"Start from the beginning."

The beginning… I guess I'll start with that morning. It's as good a place as any.

"So it all started that morning when Jackson received a visit from a strange shadow creature…" As I continued on with the story, I noticed that the ponies around us began with faces of curiosity, then fear, and finally a look I had seen back on my wedding day. Just after the Changelings had been banished from the city.

Hope.

They had looks of hope.

Author's Notes:

The thirteenth chapter of the first story. It seems word of Jack's fateful encounter with the Shadow King has reached the populace.

But the question is: How did it reach the populace?

The answer: Hey VSauce, Phoenix here. Why did you think I would spoil my own story?

Happy Nine PM upload (or Twenty-One Hundred Upload for those who use the 24-hour time format, like me). I actually took a break right in the middle of editing this chapter to rip an old carpet off of a living room floor. That was fun. Helping to renovate a house is fun. As long as wasp nests aren't involved. Never again.

That's my very long way of saying that I'm in the process of moving, so there's a chance updates will slow down a good amount. Might even throw the story on hiatus for a bit. Idk though. We'll see what happens in the future.

The Homo Sapien, from the Perspective of the Crystal Ponies

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(Clear Cut's POV)

As the human and alicorn made their way to the border, I could hardly believe some of the stuff I had heard today. A creature from another world with no magic surviving an encounter against Him? It sounded like a foals story or a poorly written adventure novel.

And yet…

"You okay, Clear?" Crystal Smith asked me from my right.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just… it's all so hard to believe."

"It is." Crystal responded. "I do feel bad for the guy." He added. "I mean, torn away from home. Separated from his friends and family."

"That unicorn who visited us yesterday… he said we were gone for a thousand years, right?" I asked

"He did." He confirmed. "I guess we've got some common ground with him, huh?"

"Yeah." I responded. We had family in Equestria before we disappeared. To think that they all died hundreds of years ago, while for us it was just last week…

"Let's head to my shop. I've got an idea." Crystal said suddenly, leading me towards the building in question.

"Oh? And what idea is that?" I questioned as we walked into his shop.

"Well, it's more like two different ideas." He clarified. We stepped into one of the backrooms, where his workbench was. "You remember that folding crossbow design Queen Amore commissioned me for? Before He came to power?" At the nod of my head, he continued. "I still have the schematics somewhere around here… I just need the right materials to make the parts… maybe make a few modifications so Mr. Brunner and carry it more comfortably…" He seemed to brighten up much more as he got 'in the zone' as he called it. "Yes, that's it!"

"And the other idea?" I asked before I lost him completely.

"Hm? Oh, yes." He turned fully to face me. "Princess Cadance said he didn't speak a word of Equish, right?"

"She did, yes."

"Well, you know that one foals story. The one about a griffon being gifted a magic necklace by a young pegasus which allowed him to speak our language?"

"You can't be serious."

"What? Do you not want to help him?"

"Of course I want to help him!" I nearly shouted. Taking a moment to calm myself down and recompose myself, I continued. "That's just an old foals tale. No enchantment like that exists."

"It didn't exist a thousand years ago, no. But it might exist now."

…

Dammit, he has a point. "But how do you expect to get out of the Empire to learn that enchantment? He's still out there, you know."

"That…" He seemed to finally realize the flaw in his second plan. "Alright. I see your point. No translation necklace, at least not for now. I'll just stick with the crossbow."

"Are you sure you'll be able to get everything for it?"

"First time I built it, I sourced everything from right here in the Empire." He responded confidently. "And I'm sure that I can do it again!"

"Alright. But I'm gonna help you."

"Clear, honey, I assure you that I can-"

"Nope. Your social skills are horrible. You'll need me to help you convince other ponies to give up their stock for this little plan of yours."

Crystal let out a heavy sigh. "And you're sure you don't mind helping me?"

"You're my husband. Of course I don't mind helping you!"

That got him to smile. "And that eagerness is one of the many reasons I fell in love with you." With those words, his coat seemed to regain the shine it had lost before Queen Amore's fall as he got the necessary tools to begin his work.

Author's Notes:

The fourteenth chapter of the first story, this time focusing on two of the crystal ponies.

I always thought the possibility of some Crystal Ponies being caught outside the Empire right when it's banishment began was an interesting one, and something that isn't explored all that often. How do those ponies react when they realize that they will never be able to return home within their own lifetime? How do those ponies relatives in the Empire react when they learn that those loved ones caught outside of it's borders, their brothers and sisters and cousins and parents and aunts and uncles and children have been dead for hundreds of years?

I've never seen any other story focus on that idea and, while I don't plan on focusing on it much at this stage in the story, it's an idea that I do want to explore later on.

"My role in life is to give people hope, because if you run out of hope, we may as well give up." - Jane Goodall

Meeting the Sun / A Lesson in Human History / Equish 101

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(Luna's POV)

"Are you certain, Tia?"

My sister nodded. "I am. With how much you've told me of this young man and his world, I think the time for me to meet him has come."

"But I thought you were waiting until you could meet him in person before introducing yourself?" I questioned her. It wasn't like her to push such an important meeting so far ahead.

Unless…

"You just want to unwind a little, don't you, sister?"

"… Okay, yes, but can you blame me?" She quickly admitted. "The nobles have been more insufferable than usual, I'm concerned about my student and niece, and I haven't taken a vacation in centuries." She visibly slumped down during her confession. "And you make his dreams sound so fun! Making an escape from creatures that should be dead? From the way you spoke about it, it was almost like you were a filly again."

"I understand, Tia." I gave my sister a nuzzle along her swan-like neck. Not that I would ever make that comparison out loud, of course. "I'm certain that I'll be able to get you in. But I'm warning Cadance and Shining first."

"That is perfectly understandable." She seemed to perk up at my response. "You're not going to warn your new friend?"

"I think it'll be a pleasant surprise for him." The two of us broke out into giggles as we parted ways and began making our ways to our respective bed chambers.

"Tonight is going to be interesting."

"Hello dream realm, my old friend. I've come to speak with you again." Those weren't the exact lyrics I got from Jackson’s mind on the first night we met, but I thought that they were fitting. Accessing the fabric of the dream realm itself, I took a quick look around.

"Shining and Cadance are both asleep, Tia is about to enter the dream realm. Jackson is… still awake?" That was odd. He was always asleep by now. At least, he has been since he first arrived here.

"I wonder what he's up to?"

(Jack’s POV)

Light pollution really fucked up my perspective of the night sky.

I was never into astronomy. That was always Cousin Rob's thing. Yet even I could admit that this, Equis' night sky, was the most beautiful I had ever seen.

Crazy to think that I can see it in its full majesty even when standing on a balcony in the middle of a medium-sized city. Though I'm sure the fact that there is no other civilization for God knows how many miles is helping out with that. Then I saw something I never thought I would see outside of pictures online.

Aurora Borealis.

At this time of night.

In this part of Equis.

Localized entirely within the night sky.

And it is so much more beautiful in person.

I wasn't sure how long I spent on that balcony just staring at the stars and the light show of greens, blues and purples, but I did know that it had been far too long. With a loud yawn, I turned my back to the night sky and stepped back into the confines of the castle. As I made my way back to my room, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching me.

"Probably just that spirit again." I dismissed the feeling pretty quickly. I obviously can't confirm it, but I'm certain that it's been following me around all day. It hasn't made any more attempts to possess me, thankfully, but I've still been a bit on edge about it since this morning.

"And it'll possess me when I go to sleep tonight. I wonder if it can look into my dreams? Eh, I'll ask Luna about it." Finally making it to my room, I open the door and step inside, making sure to close and lock it behind me. Taking off my boots and hoodie, I lay down and get ready for yet another night in a land of magic and adventure.

(Luna's POV)

"Are you sure you're not just overreacting, Lulu?" Tia asked for the umpteenth time tonight. I already gathered her, Shining and Cadance in a recreation of the hilltop from Jackson’s dream from last night, dinosaurs and all.

"Yes, I am positive sister." I began to pace back and forth. "It would be one thing if it was just a few minutes, but he is an entire hour and a half late!"

"Auntie Luna, you need to calm down." My niece advised. "So what if he decided to stay up a little late tonight? He could just be dealing with a little bit of insomnia."

"That is a perfectly fair point." And it just replaced my old concerns with a set of new ones. A friend of mine is having trouble sleeping, and I can't do anything about it!

"Maybe you should check again, sister." Tia advised me. "He might be asleep now."

"I already checked five minutes ago, Tia." I grumbled. Regardless, I decided to oblige her and connected to the fabric of the dream realm once more. "I highly doubt that… oh."

Tia gave me a small smile. It wasn't the same regal smile she gave everypony else though.

No, this was her knowing smile. Her 'I know I'm right' smile.

"'Oh'?" She asked innocently. "'Oh' what?"

"... He's just fallen asleep. Seems he hasn't started dreaming yet." That wasn't a concern. It always took a short while before anypony started dreaming, and Jackson had proven no different in that regard.

"So now we wait." Shining said. "At least those little green things aren't here."

Speak of the Windigoes and they shall appear, the Compys returned to torture Shining once more. I may or may not have played a small role in that.

(Jackson’s POV)

"Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish we were sent to the Rockies instead." The soldier next to me said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Well it's either this or let the Syndies in Chicago or the Longists in New Orleans take San Fran, and I would much prefer to keep democracy alive, thank you."

"You gotta be such a stick in the mud, Jack?"

"We're in the middle of a fucking civil war, Billy." I replied. "I apologize for not finding the humor in our situation."

"Hmph. What about you, David?" He asked our third patrol buddy.

"I think we should be marching east and ending the war." He flatly replied. "Hell, I'll go over to Atlanta and take care of the Constitutionalists myself if I have to."

"The black man wants to kill the segregationists. How surprising." Billy sarcastically remarked.

"And you don't?" David and I questioned at the same time.

"It sounds like a fun time." I added. "I would more than love to put a bullet between the eyes of those neo-confederate bastards."

"Of course you would, Mr. 'I voted for George Norris'." Before I could come up with a response to Billy's jab, David shut the both of us up.

"Do you two see that?" He questioned, his gaze going up to the sky.

"See what?" I asked, my gaze following his upwards.

"Is that… is that something in the sun?" Billy questioned. Sure enough, there was something in the sun, but none of us could see what it was very clearly. It had wings, and a long protrusion coming out of the top of its head, but that’s all I could make out.

"Is it an angel?" David asked.

"Either that or we're about to collapse from heat stroke." Billy replied. As the shape got closer, I realized that it was equine in nature.

"That… is that an alicorn?" I questioned.

"A what?" David turned to me.

"An alicorn. But…" Let's see, she's coming out of the sun. Does that mean…

"Boys, I think I know who our visitor is."

"Well don't keep us in suspense. Who is it?" Billy excitedly asked.

"Luna's older sister." At the confused looks from my colleagues, I turned my attention back to who I assumed to be the Solar Sister.

"Celestia!" I called out. "Luna's told me a lot about you! Did you really need to go with something so generic for your entrance?!"

The dream seemed to freeze around me as Celestia halted her descent. It was now that the other ponies stepped out of their hiding spots and the Mojave faded away around me, with me still in military uniform.

"Hey Luna." I said. "So, was I right about my guess?"

"You were." She replied. "How did you figure it out so quickly?"

"Alicorn coming out of the sun? You mentioned that you had a sister who moved the sun and governed the kingdom during the day. I figured that it was the most logical conclusion."

"That it was." A new voice said from behind me. Turning, I saw a white alicorn towering over me, coming in at roughly seven feet tall. Her long neck reminded me of that of a swan, and her horn was easily the length of my arm. "It is nice to see Luna making friends with such intelligent creatures."

"I assure you, your highness, I am incredibly stupid." I jokingly said while holding out my hand. "Jackson Brunner, though I'm sure you already knew that."

She grasped my hand in her hoof and shook it. "Princess Celestia, but I'm sure you already knew that." She blatantly stole my joke. "But you can drop the titles. I know you've already done so for every other royal you've met."

"That I have. Though it helps you don't act much like the royals back home." I doubt I would be able to just walk up to Charles in London and have a casual conversation with the guy about my day. With Luna, Cadance and Shining, that was pretty much every night.

"I'm sure it does." The Mojave desert reformed itself around us, though David and Billy were still nowhere to be found. "So is this desert your home?"

"Nope. I live on the opposite of the continent. This is just another work of fiction from my world." I replied, taking a seat on a nearby boulder that I'm fairly certain wasn't there before.

"I see." Was Celestia's only reply. "And what is it called?"

"Kaiserredux. It's a modification for a popular game back home. Based off of another popular modification for the same game. Kaiserreich, that one is called." I grabbed the canteen I had strapped to my belt and took a swig out of it before continuing.

"It's an alternate history thing. About if the Germans won the First World War. Right now, we're in the middle of the Second American Civil War. Pacific States territory, going off of where we are and the flag patch on my shoulder." I tapped it with my finger, drawing attention to the white, red and yellow tricolor on my shoulder. A trio of red stars and a bear both being prominently featured on it.

"I'm sorry, but… 'First World War'?" Luna questioned. She looked slightly concerned.

"Yup. The first. There were only two, and both were well before my time." That statement seemed to calm her somewhat.

"Were they truly global wars?" Luna asked.

"Well, there was fighting of some sort on every continent during both. So I would say yes."

"How many?" Celestia questioned. "How many lost their lives during these wars?"

"Well… how many ponies live in Equestria? Just for comparisons sake."

"About seven million, as of the last census."

"Nine million during the first war. Fifteen million during the second." I decided to leave out civilian casualties. I was not in the mood to describe the holocaust to them right now.

"And they were all human?" Celestia asked, to which I nodded. Then Celestia did something unexpected.

She sat on the rock next to me, stretched out her wing, and hugged me with it.

"Um… what are you doing?"

She didn't respond at first, instead choosing to nuzzle my hair. When she finally spoke, her voice seemed to be filled with sorrow.

"You poor thing… no race of creatures should ever have to witness such death and destruction. Especially not amongst their own kind."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I looked to Luna for help. She seemed to be more focused on her own internal thoughts at the moment, so I looked to Shining and Cadance. The former seemed equally as surprised as I was about the situation I had found myself in, while the latter was more like Luna; lost in thought, trying to imagine two entire Equestrias being wiped out in a single war.

Now I'm glad I didn't count the civilian casualties.

"I mean, like I said. It was before my time. The wounds on our society have healed." Not fully, admittedly, but they're at a point where I can at least say they have without feeling like I'm lying through my teeth.

"It does not change the fact that it happened." Celestia insisted. "Our first war against Sombra occurred over a thousand years ago, yet we still do our best to remember the ponies who had fallen during that conflict."

I heard someone clearing her throat. "Sister, perhaps it is best if we get off the topic of history for the night?" Luna suggested.

"No. No, it's fine." I said. "I was planning on bringing that up anyways. Transparency, you know?" Finished the hypocrite- I mean me. Then an idea came to mind. "How about I show you something that's gonna blow your minds and lighten the mood a little?"

Celestia finally released me from the feathery cocoon she held me in and looked at me in curiosity. "Oh? And what do you have in mind?"

"It's simple, really." I stand up and walk over to Luna. "But as always when it comes to the dream realm, I'll need your sister's help with this." I called over my shoulder.

To say that I had piqued Celestia's interest was an understatement.

Ah, my living room. A familiar sight. It was almost like I was back home.

Almost. There was a large white alicorn sitting in my recliner, a dark blue one sitting in an exact copy of said recliner, and a pink alicorn and white unicorn sitting on my sofa, keeping the rightmost seat empty.

As for me, I was no longer dressed in late 1930's military garb, but instead much more casual clothing; A white t-shirt and a pair of black pants. Can never go wrong with a classic.

"Right. So I'm sure you're wondering why I gathered you all here today." I started.

"You said that you would 'blow our minds' and have refused to elaborate." Celestia reminded everyone in the dream room. "I hope you weren't speaking literally."

"What? Of course not!" I said, casually throwing the Anti-Materiel rifle that appeared in my hands out the window into nothingness. "Thanks, Luna."

"So Cadance, remember when I told you about movies?" I asked the pink alicorn

"Yeah. You said they were like plays, but you could watch them at any time." She then brightened up. "Ooooo are we about to watch one?"

"Of sorts." She gave me a confused tilt of the head. "You see, we're about to watch something called a 'video' which is like a short movie. This one is about nineteen minutes long and is very famous."

"What's it about?" Luna asked, genuinely interested in whatever I was about to say.

"The history of the entire world." Before any of them could respond, I pulled out my phone, which I had connected to the TV behind me earlier, and hit play on the video on screen. Was all of that necessary? No, but I wanted to go for an authentic experience.

"Hi, you're on a rock, floating in space. Pretty cool, right?"

"By the way, where are we?" Were the final words of one Mr. Wurtz as the ending card to one of the most famous videos of all time appeared on screen.

Overall, I would say that exposing the ponies to Bill Wurtz went well. I did have to pause so that I could clarify some things every now and then, and I noticed that each pony took interest in different things.

First was Celestia, who was interested in humanities technological advances. Particularly the radio. As it turns out, it did exist here, but it was only popular with nobility and some of the richer non-noble ponies in cities like Fillydelphia and Manehattan at the moment. When I told her that the radio had not only seen mass adoption, but had also been surpassed in popularity by TV and the internet back on Earth, that seemed to fascinate her even more.

Next was Cadance, who took particular interest in the 'South Africa might need a moment to think about it' joke Bill made when it came to racism. That lead to a pretty ugly discussion about Segregation and Apartheid. It was, unfortunately, not a new concept for her or the other ponies in the dream room. Cadance worked as an ambassador for a few years to some of the Griffon Territories, and in one of them, Longsword, they practiced a similar system up until that nation's collapse into civil war. Some of the specific details were different, but the overall gist was the same.

Then came Shining, who wanted to know more about humanities weapons and an explanation for the 'pacific showdown' joke. He seemed apprehensive about the idea of a single bomb being capable of wiping out an entire city. He also seemed appalled that humanity would willingly go to such lengths as to wipe out an entire city to end a war in the first place.

"We're good at war, and the only reason we're good at it is because we've had a lot time to practice." Was the reasoning I gave him.

Finally came Luna, who, unsurprisingly, wanted to know more about the space race and humanities exploits in her domain. I told her of Yuri Gagarin and Vostok 1, then Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 mission, then the Voyager probes, finally ending off at the ISS and the rovers on Mars.

"So there's an entire space station where humans from all over the world stay in year round?" Luna asked.

"Pretty much, yeah. If you wanna get super technical, each crew only stays up there for six months at the time, but it is populated year round."

"Fascinating. And to think such an idea is mere science fiction here in Equestria."

"You can learn a lot from our history." I said. "Both from our successes and our mistakes. We've done a lot of really fucked up shit, but we've also done a lot of good things. We've done things that seemed like good ideas at the time that ended up being bad for us in the long run, and vice versa. Or well, that's how I like to look at history. A mix of both good and bad, and very rarely can any one event be described as purely one or the other."

"That's always a good way to look at it. Are you sure you were a cashier back home?" Celestia asked.

"If I wasn't, then 7/11 wouldn't have been paying me for showing up there almost everyday to do just that." Came my sarcastic reply.

"Yes, of course. It's just… the way you speak about your species and it's past… you sound more like a philosopher or historian. One who has been in school for many years."

"Never heard that one before." I truthfully admitted. "I've always been a bit of a history nerd, I read a lot when I was younger, still do. And I was saving up money to head to college to get a degree in it before landing here."

"You could continue your education here in Equestria." Luna offered. "It wouldn't be hard to get you into the E.E.A's registry as an exchange student of some sort. And we could cover all the costs for you."

I'll admit, Luna's offer sounded tempting. Very tempting, in fact. I mean, here is the diarch of an entire country offering to cover my college expenses while I get my degree.

But it didn't sit right with me. Should I really be exploiting her kindness like this? I didn't want to use her or Equestria's Treasury as my personal piggy bank.

"I'll… I'll think about it." I finally said. "We can figure out education, and how I'm going to pay for it, later. After Sombra, and after I learn Equish." Speaking of…

"Think you four can teach me a few basic phrases? Greetings, goodbyes, run for your life cause we're gonna die if you don't. You know, stuff like that?"

Most of the ponies around me didn't react much to my question. Most of them. Celestia reacted by plastering a manic, predatory and almost demonic smile.

"Uh… should I be concerned about that?" I asked.

"Absolutely." Cadance replied. "But just know that you brought this on yourself."

With that ominous warning, I turned back to Celestia to find she was now talking with Luna, the two of them summoning small rectangul-

"Those are textbooks. Textbooks on language if I had to assume."

"You know, on second thought, maybe we could hold off on this for a bit? I mean, the broken charades have been working well enough so far, and-" A dark blue hoof to my mouth halted my objections in their tracks.

"Oh, but Jack, you gave my sister such a generous offer!" Luna began, a smile on her face the whole time. "She has been pining for a new student to teach since Twilight Sparkle moved to Ponyville, and you have just given her the opportunity to teach somepony else her near infinite knowledge!" Her very grandiose speech ended with the removal of her hoof from her mouth. I took that opportunity to speak my mind.

"I don't remember agreeing to this, Luna."

"I know. But listen. What I said about her pining and wanting to teach somepony else is true. When I saw how she reacted to you wanting to learn Equish… I saw an opportunity to do a good thing for my sister."

"I can understand that, but-"

"I'll be here to watch over your lessons with Tia to make sure she doesn't go overboard." Luna interrupted me. "And we both know you'll have to learn Equish eventually. Why not get the basics down as soon as possible?"

… Okay. I'll admit that her argument was a reasonable one. "Ok, fine. I'll go along with this. But next time you have a plan that involves me you tell me ahead of time instead of throwing me in the deep end. Alright?"

"That is a perfectly reasonable request. I accept these conditions." Good, because they weren't optional. She looked over her shoulder, the smile returning to her muzzle. "Just in time as well. Tia is ready."

Looking behind Luna, I saw that she had knocked down a wall and built a small classroom there, with a blackboard and a single desk that looked fit for a pony and not a human. "Um, Celestia? Mind if I make one small change?" I said, leaning over the too short chair. Once she realized what I was referring to, she nodded. With Luna's assistance, the chair and desk took on the proper proportions for a human. Taking my seat, I prepared myself for what could possibly be either a great boon or the worst learning experience in my life.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

(Celestia's POV)

"It wasn't what I was expecting, but I still had a lot of fun." Despite my initial fears and his reluctance early on, Jackson proved to be an excellent student. One of the best I've had in years, I could say. While Luna insisted that it was in part due to the knowledge going straight into his subconscious mind, thus allowing him to absorb it faster, I like to believe that he would have done just as well in the waking world.

Unfortunately, I had to end the lesson early due to my duties. I may love teaching, but I am still responsible for raising the sun every morning. That always took priority over everything else. When I went to raise the sun this morning, however, something was wrong.

The moon was still high in the sky.

I knew Luna said that she would take a moment longer to speak with Jackson about something, but she was never late for our daily ritual.

Concern was quick to override the rest of my thoughts, but before I could act upon it I watched the moon set below the horizon. Taking that as my cue, I quickly rose the sun.

Perhaps I was a little too quick. My work this morning was rushed and sloppy by comparison to yesterdays sunrise. It looked more like the work of me back when I was a filly and first learning how to use my magic all of those years ago. Still, the job was done, and I wasn't particularly concerned about how it was done. Right now, I was far more concerned about my little sister.

Getting to Luna's wing of the castle was an easy enough process, if not a little time consuming. By the time I got the hallway that Luna's bedroom door was located in, I saw my sister step out of it. We locked eyes for a brief moment before she trotted over to me, closing her door behind her.

"Good morning, sister. And to what do I owe the visit?" Luna questioned.

"I was just concerned is all. You're never late to lower the moon. Why were you this time?" I asked as the two of us made our way to the dining hall.

"Jack has… informed me of a spirit that has been stalking him and occasionally possessing him." She began. "I fear it may have malicious intentions, or that it may have been looking into his dreams. I didn't sense its presence last night, but…"

"But you fear it may have managed to slip in without you noticing before?" I finished for her.

"Yes." She nodded. "I'm going to be keeping a closer eye on it, so we can confirm whether or not it has been doing so."

"Is there anything we can do about it?"

"Unless Jack can somehow convince it to stop, then no." Then an idea came to her mind. "But… we might be able to get information out of it if we can trap it in Jack's dreamscape. Figure out what it wants."

"But are you sure that's safe?" I asked. "We don't wish to make an enemy out of a potential friend by harming them unintentionally."

"Are you speaking of Jack or the spirit?"

"Both."

"Regardless, you have nothing to fear, sister. I might be rusty, but I've done this sort of thing before." My little sister said with the most confidence I've heard from her since before her banishment. "I'll speak with Jack about it tomorrow night while making sure the spirit is unaware of what we are planning." She finished as we entered the dining hall and took our usual seats.

"Well that’s good." The rest of our breakfast went uneventfully, with the only topics being paperwork and the nobles continued blockage of our military reinforcements for Shining and Cadance. Times like these, I almost wish that I listened to that group of ponies who wanted to get rid of the Noble Council seven hundred years ago.

It was when Luna was leaving that she said something I should have been expecting.

"I'll be sure to tell Jack that you'll be joining us again tonight!" She called out as she left the dining hall, not giving me a chance to respond to her comment.

Author's Notes:

The fifteenth chapter of the first story. Celestia enters teacher mode, and Luna is made aware of the spirit watching Jack. I wonder what their plan of capture will be?

Yup. It's the "make the ponies aware of the World Wars" trope. Overused, but eh. Figured I would get it out of the way early on.

I wanted to give Jackson a more nuanced view of humanity than most HiE stories go for, and I think I did a decent job. I thought it would be a refreshing change in a genre that almost always has the Human protagonist take either a hardline "humanity is the best" stance or a hardline "humanity sucks, embrace pony" stance.

We must acknowledge that humanity has done some fucked up shit, but we shouldn't let it overshadow our accomplishments. Similarly, we should not allow our accomplishments to cloud our vision and hide the fucked up shit we have done in the past behind the veil of progress and innovation.

Or well, that's what I think, at least.

The last bit from Celestia's POV was originally gonna be it's own short chapter, but I decided to stick it right at the end of this one instead. It just ~~works~~ fits.

A Barber I Am Not

View Online

The blaring sound of my alarm once more alerted me to the fact that it was seven in the morning.

"I should really turn that off. It's a waste of battery. I think. It probably isn't, but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?"

Grabbing my phone, I opened it up to turn off my alarm for good. Now I just had to hope that I didn't accidentally sleep in after doing that.

"I've been waking up at seven for years now. Surely I can manage it on my own, right?" With that thought and a significant lack of confidence in my own ability to do what I just said, I got out of bed and stepped into the restroom. Taking care of my private business, I turned on the shower and began to undress.

Despite my best attempts, my clothes smelled terrible. It's not surprising. I have been moving around and sleeping in the same clothing for five days straight now. At least my jacket will see some salvation from my own body odor until I get it patched up. I learned last night that sewing wasn't a very common skill in Equestria due to the fact that ponies rarely, if ever, wore clothes. Which meant that it would be a while before I could get my jacket fixed. At first I thought it strange that views on nudity here seemed to be a near perfect inverse from my world, but in the end I decided not to question it. As long as no one was being hurt by it, then it wasn't my place to go around questioning someone else's culture or lifestyle. That was my view back home, and I'm sticking to it here.

I also learned that denim is a thing here, but it's not popular with the nobles so no one gives a shit about it.

"Rich assholes being out of touch. Add that to the list of parallels." I finally stepped into the shower and assumed the same hunched over position I had yesterday.

"Wait… I've been here for five days. How did I not realize that sooner? And didn't Luna say that that Twilight pony and her friends would be here tomorrow?"

…

"Shit." Not sure why that was my first reaction. I mean, that was a good thing, right? Twilight would, supposedly, have a solution to the language barrier when she got here, and-

"But I already came up with my own solution, didn't I? Or, well, Luna and Celestia came up with a solution. I just went along with it." I was still a little pissed off at Luna for throwing me into the deep end there, even if I could understand her reasoning behind it. Didn't mean I had to approve of her actions, though.

"Just gotta hope she keeps her promise. Cause I'll raise Hell on Equis if she doesn't." At the moment, I don't think I have to worry about that. Luna seemed trustworthy enough.

"Then again, so did Jessica." Eddy's fifth girlfriend. We weren't even rich, yet the gold digging whore still tried to drain his and dad's bank accounts dry. There's a reason that relationship only lasted two months.

"Times like those, I'm glad I never entered the dating scene." Grabbing a bottle of soap, I put a glob of it in my hand and began to wash myself. While I couldn't read the writing on the bottles themselves, I could make some reasonable assumptions based off of the pictures on the bottles.

For example, there was an orange bottle with a pair of feathered wings prominently featured on the front. I assumed, rather logically, that this was a special soap or shampoo designed for pegasi wings, so that those ponies could keep their feathers clean and nice looking without causing any sort of damage to the wings themselves. I left that bottle alone, since it wouldn't have any use for me.

The rest of my ten minute shower was uneventful, and I wasn't possessed by a ghost again as I clothed the lower half of my body and brushed my hair. Then I found a pair of scissors sitting on the counter.

"That… I did not put those there." I dumbly stated aloud. I knew they weren't there yesterday either. In fact, I'm fairly certain that there wasn't a single pair of scissors anywhere in this bathroom until just now.

"Either that, or I'm going blind. Or forgetful. Or both." Not even old enough to drink yet I've already got dementia. That's gotta be a new record, right?

"The fucking spirit put it here, didn't she?" Was she listening in when I was thinking about cutting my hair to its usual length yesterday morning? I guess it doesn't surprise me. A ghost with mind reading powers would be a normal Tuesday at this point.

"But why would it care so much about that?" I picked up the scissors and gave them a closer look. They were a regular pair of scissors, nothing obviously wrong or suspicious about them.

"Why do they look like they were designed for human hands? Shouldn't they be designed to work a ponies hooves? I know that Shining said they were rather flexible, but I doubt a design made for something with fingers works well for a creature with hooves." Setting the scissors back down on the bathroom counter, I thought over the possible reasons as to why I shouldn't use them.

"Maybe there’s a magical enchantment on them that'll set my hair on fire." Highly unlikely possibility, but I'm in a bit of a paranoid mood this morning and I'm making the mistake of letting my mind go into fourth gear with wild theories and unlikely probabilities. I like to think of myself as being practical and rational, but I will admit that there are moments like these where my mind will throw both of those character traits of mine out the window and dive head first into a pool of paranoia and irrationality.

"Ok, get myself out of the pool and climb back into the window. Think about this rationally. What reason would the spirit have for giving me a pair of scissors?" Perhaps the threat wasn't the scissors themselves, but rather an implication of something related to the scissors.

"Or I'm overthinking things again. The spirit hasn't done anything overtly malicious to me yet, non-consensual possessions aside.” Then an idea came to mind. Well, more of a theory. A crazy theory. A theory so crazy that it makes MatPat’s FNAF videos sound sane by comparison.

“Could the spirit and the demon be one in the same?” I was well aware that sleep paralysis demons weren’t real. They were auditory and visual hallucinations. Tricks of the light and nothing more. I initially dismissed it as another figment of my own mind. But thinking about it, one detail sticks out to me. One that didn’t make sense.

The fact that the demon spoke Equish.

Why would a figment of my imagination speak a language I didn't know?

“Was it actually Equish, though? Or was it my mind piecing together something that sounded enough like Equish to masquerade as it?” That was a very likely possibility, but I’m at a point where discrediting more supernatural explanations would make me, in simple terms, a fucking idiot.

"If it was the spirit, then there's still one question to be answered."

"Why would it try to harm me now, when it has seemingly ignored so many other chances to do so?" I seemed to be finishing my thoughts out loud a lot more recently. Should probably put a clamp on that. Don't wanna make my temporary roommates (castlemates?) concerned.

Looking back at the pair of scissors that started this entire thought process, I came to a decision. Picking them up, I positioned them in a way that would allow me to use the damn things.

"This is either going to be a long-overdue haircut or the greatest- no, second great- no, hmm… Well regardless of where it places, I'm sure it'll have a spot in the top ten."

(Shining Armor’s POV)

"We're good at war, and the only reason we're good at it is because we've had a lot of time to practice." Was the response that Jack gave me.

“That can’t be it, can it?” I pushed. “There’s gotta be some other reasoning. Couldn't they have just invaded the islands and ended the war that way?”

“They could’ve.” Jack admitted. “But in the end, they decided to drop the bombs instead. If they went through with an invasion of the Japs home islands, well… a lot more people would have died in a war that had already taken millions.” He sat back on the spot of the couch he had claimed after the video started, seemingly thinking for a moment.

“I guess you could say that they went with what they believed to be the lesser of two evils. Two cities destroyed for a million lives saved.”

“I get what you're saying. But it's one thing to have the power to wipe an entire city off of the map. It’s another to do it not once, but twice. The idea doesn’t sit right with me.”

Jack didn’t respond verbally, instead choosing to nod in understanding. We sat in silence for a moment before Princess Luna began asking Jack questions about humanities space programs.

The memories of last night still hung heavy in my mind. Now that I had more time to think about his words and let them sink in, his logic, while bucked up, did make sense. From a strategic standpoint, dropping the bombs made sense. There was a chance to end the war much sooner, so they took it.

"But two entire cities?" Even if it meant the end of such a bloody conflict, was the price really worth it? My guard training and experience as Captain practically screamed 'yes' at me, yet my morals were giving me a calm and firm 'no'.

"Is this what Truman felt when he had to make the choice in the first place?" I remembered Jack mentioning that Truman was the leader of America when the bombs were dropped, and that, as Commander-in-Chief, he was the one who had to make the decision at the end of the day. "Did he have to fight a war against his own morals?"

My internal musings were interrupted as I entered the kitchen and approached the pink alicorn currently making some pancakes entirely from scratch. I guess Princess Celestia was a better cook than I thought, if Cady was able to make food this good from ten century old ingredients.

"Good morning honey." I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "How are you feeling?"

"A bit drained, admittedly. But I'm still going strong." She replied, though her smile was a bit weaker than usual.

"Magic burnout?" I questioned. Princess Luna had warned us about the possibility. Even after she had been taught how to maintain the protection spell in her sleep so that Cadance could still get some rest, the drain on her magic reserves would be constant.

Cadance nodded her head. "Yeah. I started feeling it yesterday. I barely even noticed it then, but it's really starting to kick in now."

"Maybe you should take a break tonight. Let me take over." My offer was swiftly rejected by a shake of Cadance’s head.

"No, no. I'll be fine. We should stick to the plan. You and Jack go out to meet Twilight and her friends when they get here tomorrow. I'll hold down the fort."

"Are you sure?" I pressed, not entirely convinced by Cadance’s words. "You remember what happened to me a couple days ago, right?"

"As long as Jack keeps that picture, I don't think I'll ever forget." She mirthfully replied, a chuckle sneaking past her lips once she finished speaking. Then her mood grew more serious. "I know you're worried, Shiny. But I'll be fine. It's just one more day until Twilight gets here and fixes all of this."

"And you say I'm stubborn." I replied.

"That's because you are~" Cadance retorted in a sing-song voice. Before I could provide her with a response to that statement, the door to the kitchen opened.

"Good morning, Shining. Cadance." Jack called out from the doorway, putting the Equish lessons Princess Celestia gave him last night to good use, even if he did mispronounce the word 'morning'. I can't really bash him for trying, though. He did get pretty close on his first attempt. Turning to face him fully, I had to do a quick double take once I saw his hair.

Instead of going about halfway down his back as it used to, it now only reached down to the end of his neck. He had also brushed it in a way that ensured none of it covered his forehead.

It wasn't perfect. The left side went down slightly more than the right and several strands of hair were noticeably sticking out of place.

Cadance had noticed as well, and pointed to Jack's head. He responded by giving a thumbs up with one hand and a thumbs down with the other. After we both pointed at the thumbs up, he nodded and took a seat at the kitchen counter. I decided to join him.

"Sleep well?" I asked.

"Yes." He replied.

"Good job." I said after a moment of silence, moving a hoof over my mane as I did so.

"Thanks." It felt so weird to see him reduced to simple one or two word responses, but at the same time, it felt nice to have some sort of a conversation with the guy without us needing to be asleep.

A brand new awkward silence had come to take the place of the old one, one that thankfully didn't last long with the arrival of Cadance and plates of-

"Pancakes?" I asked, more surprise in my voice than even I expected.

"No need to sound so shocked. It's not that different from the waffles yesterday." She teased while placing the plates on the table. "It's practically the same recipe. Just different ways of cooking it."

Taking my first bite, I could tell what she meant by those words. They tasted exactly the same as the waffles yesterday.

That didn't mean that they were bad, not by a long shot, and I'm not just saying that because my wife is an alicorn. They were legitimately very good. She did an amazing job making them with what little resources we have here.

Looking over at Jack, I noticed a distinct lack of the near orgasmic reaction Cadance described him having when he had her cooking yesterday. He was clearly enjoying it, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't going as far as the pink alicorn described. I mentioned this fact to Cadance and she laughed it off.

"Trust me, you should've seen him yesterday. It was almost like he hadn't eaten anything in months."

I think the 'Source: Dude, trust me bro' joke from Jack's homeworld fits perfectly here.

The rest of breakfast went by uneventfully, and as I got up to leave, I heard someone clearing their throat. Turning to see Jack as the culprit, I waited to see what he would do.

"Knock the ~~bastard~~ dead, Shining."

Assuming the… whatever word that was… was referring to Sombra, I nodded and left the castle, making my way to the border for my daily patrol.

Author's Notes:

The Sixteenth Chapter of the first story. A shorter one today (well, short by my standards) with not a whole lot going on. I guess you could say that this is the first real "filler" chapter of the story. This is the first chapter to be typed and edited almost entirely on a mobile device, so there's a good chance you'll notice more errors than usual. I know I did while editing the thing.

Sorry about the long wait. As I said in a previous authors note, I'm currently in the process of renovating a house and moving into it. I also put in my two weeks notice at work recently and I'm trying to get in as many hours as I reasonably can before I leave. Gotta make money somehow, right?

I'm seriously considering putting this story on a short hiatus until I have everything sorted out. Idk yet though. I'll let you guys know if and when I come to a decision.

The reference photo for Jack's new hair style can be found here.

The Crystal Human

by PhoenixHorseGuy

Confusion

Language Barriers

Peculiar Dreams, Fictional Morons and Strange Mares

Memories Old and New

Her Most Faithful Student, From the Perspectives of Kindness and Generosity

Cabinet Man / Proper Introductions

Sleep Paralysis

...And It's F#@*ing Cold Out Here!

Enter The King

The Homo Sapien, From the Perspective of The King

The Park Is Open

Her Most Faithful Student, From the Perspective of Loyalty

Language Theories, Bathroom Hauntings and Hope

The Homo Sapien, from the Perspective of the Crystal Ponies

Meeting the Sun / A Lesson in Human History / Equish 101

A Barber I Am Not