Southern Anon in Equestria: Chapter 3

>It's been two hours, according to your phone (still not one bar of signal), and you're still walking.

>You still haven't seen a single living thing besides the foliage growing up around the path

>Who knows? That horse you chased here could have been a ghost

>Or a demon luring you in to suck your soul out

>...

>No, we aren't going down that line of thought again

>Not again

>If you ever get back home, you swear you'll never watch another horror movie again

>It's not that you're afraid of the woods

>On the contrary, you grew up on the edge of the woods in a rural town

>The woods were a huge part of your childhood

>You hiked all over your family's land, found all the good fishing spots in the river, and had a great time

>You never bought a gun and went hunting, though

>Your father was strictly against it

>When you asked for one on your thirteenth birthday, he gave you a guitar, and said "Boy, learn this. It'll get you a lot further in life than killing."

>And thus started your evening guitar lessons with your father

>He never did let you buy a gun, and it just felt wrong to buy one in the wake of his death

 

>You check your phone again

>5:03PM

>It's only been a half hour since you checked it last.

>Thankfully, the battery hasn't gone down at all yet

>You look up into the reddening sky

>The sun's going down and it sure as hell wasn't winter when you left

>Everything's so different here...

>Right, different worlds, different seasons

>Makes sense that it would be like that

>The lifelessness of this forest scares you, and you don't want to be caught out, alone, at night

>Whenever you went into the woods as a child, you always saw birds, rabbits, the occasional fox, and even deer

>Absolutely nothing so far

>Are they avoiding you?

>That's a silly question

>They've probably never seen a human before

>They've never seen how cruel your race can be

>There's no reason for them to be afraid

>But they are

>And that's what scares you

>You always hated being alone

>To pass the time, you begin playing your guitar

>Walking in time with the beat

 

>The forest looks like it's thinning out ahead

>Through the trees, you can see the mountain descending into the horizon

>You can also see that the trees number fewer further up the path

>Most uplifting of all, you can smell wood burning

>You're probably near the rising smoke you saw back at the castle

>You pray that your journey is going to be over soon

>The woods abruptly end in a sharp tree line, and you find yourself about a hundred yards from a yellow cottage

>With a green thatched roof

>Wait, is that grass growing on top?

>You write it off as more new-world weirdness

>The smoke still rises, so someone has to be home

>You figure language is going to be a bit of a barrier

>And...shit.

>Another realization:

>The dominant species might not have seen a human before

>They might consider you a non-sapient species

>You have to prove that you're intelligent

>You get an idea

>Music is universal

>Every culture has had music

>Music requires thought and skill

>You take your guitar and lay down some fingerpicking so fine it'd make Chet Atkins himself jealous

 

>Hey, we're not in a land devoid of life!

>That's always good. Plant life is good. Animal life is (usually) better. Intelligent life maybe?

>There's a yellow horse outside the cottage

>With butterflies tattooed to its flank

>And holy shit it's got wings

>That's different

>Your jimmies are a little rustled from seeing the spawn of Pegasus at a few dozen yards away

>It's noticed you, too

>It's ears are also pricked up and facing you

>You've got its attention

>It's equine in nature, and the horse you chased here could talk

>Could this one talk as well?

>You stop a few feet in front of the horse

>Its head comes up to your chest

>You keep playing guitar, and decide to greet it

Hey there. Can you talk?

>Its mouth moves, but you can't hear anything

>This world might have developed differently; maybe vocal chords evolved to be out of your hearing range

>Everything else in the world seems at least somewhat similar to your own

>You decide to try again

Heya...can you talk at all?

>"...aryn't deya"

>You sigh when you realize it was just talking too soft to understand

>That and from the high vocal tone, it's likely female

>Her voice also sounds very humanlike

>There's definitely a language barrier

>That's going to present a problem

>When you sigh, she blushes and walks backwards, away from you

Nono, wait! I didn't mean it!

>She pauses and just stands in place, staring you down

>Does she know what you are?

>Are there humans here?

 

>The yellow horse turns around and runs back to what you assume to be her cottage

>She's a bit small, now that you think about it, to be a horse

>She's more p0ny-sized than horse-sized

>You're not dead yet. This might be a nonviolent species.

>If an unknown creature walked up to a human farmer, it would be dead already, killed out of fear

>You stand there contemplating equine behavior until your jimmies reach a new magnitude or rustlage

>The yellow winged p0ny comes out of her cottage with another p0ny

>It's not a p0ny, though

>It's an honest-to-God unicorn

>You never went to college, but you're pretty sure unicorns aren't a thing back home

>It's confirmed: You are no longer on Earth

>You are on a strange, alien world

>Possibly a different universe

>You have no means of meaningful communication

>A pegasus is walking to you with a unicorn

>And, to top it all off, you haven't had anything to eat all morning

>This is going to be a long day.