“I don’t remember much after that,” Lyra finished, scratching at her horn. “It kinda gets a little fuzzy for a while. I have bits and pieces of memory. We somehow managed to get back to town. There was a big commotion going on. There was the zebra mare from before, along with a changeling and some humans. Some skeletons. Something about a mountain. I… I really don’t remember. I wish I could, but I have no real memory until a week later when I woke up in the hospital.” She paused, staring forward with a blank look on her face, before turning and glancing at me.

“Did you get all of that?” she snarked, her lips pulling back in a sneer.

“Lyra… faints… in fear… of a human… saying ‘grass’,” I muttered, writing down the last bit of information. When Lyra had started her tale, I had grabbed several of the medical forms located on the back of her wheelchair and began writing on the back of them with a provided charcoal stick. Every single inch of the paper was now covered in the recording of Lyra’s story, the words crammed so close together that it was difficult to read in places.

Leaning back, I ran my eye over the cluttered papers. “I think I’ve got everything.”

“I can’t believe you wrote all of that down,” Lyra sighed, shaking her head.

“Hey, it could be important,” I said as I folded the papers and tucked them into my shirt. “Besides, I don’t trust my memory enough to remember all of this later.”

“For what reason would you need this information for later?” Lyra asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“For the Princesses, for one,” I said, tucking the charcoal stick into the band of my short ponytail, “and for proof when the times comes.”

“Proof?” Lyra sneered. “Proof of what?”

“Proof that this is all your fault,” I answered. “It’s because of you and your meddling that the humans are now getting smarter.”

“I don’t know,” Lyra said, leaning back in her wheelchair and scratching at her lower belly. “The female human repeated a word that I said, but what about the rest of the humans? You think I went around talking to every human in Equestria? On Equus? Buck, there were a couple of humans, those with the changeling, that were using some words that I never even heard of.”

“So, what are you saying?” I asked.

“I’m saying that I don’t know if I am the one who caused this, or if I got launched into this madness at the beginning,” Lyra huffed, still scratching her stomach. “Were humans already getting intelligent and I happened to bumble in at the right time… I have to assume that’s the case, unless something is allowing humans to learn what other humans know quickly.”

“What? Like one human on the east coast learns the word ‘grass’ and suddenly a human on the west coast knows it was well?” I asked, a hint of incredulousness working its way into my voice. “Like a… a hive mind, almost? You’re crazy.”

“What’s more improbable?” Lyra asked. “That humans, a creature that nopony in Equestria has much knowledge about, have a collective intelligence that is slowly allowing them to get smarter, or that I somehow went around and taught humans everything they know at the moment?”

“Okay, fine,” I growled, leaning back and crossing my arms. “Let’s say you’re right and humans are learning through each other. Who’s teaching them the words then? Cause they sure as hell can’t understand ponies.”

“Well, you are, for one thing, King,” Lyra said, a smirk slowly spreading across her face. When I gave her a confused look, she motioned over my shoulder with a nod of her head.

Turning my head, my eyes widened when I saw that the small group of humans had moved closer while I had been distracted by Lyra’s story. They were now barely a few feet away, still partially hidden in the nearby foliage.

“They’ve been listening to every word we’ve been saying,” Lyra continued as I stared at the humans. “Especially you. Their eyes haven’t left you for more than a few seconds at any given point.”

“You can’t be serious,” I began to say, but trailed off as I leaned backwards to get a better look. As I moved, the humans’ eyes followed me, their heads turning slightly in my direction. I paused before leaning forward. Again, their eyes followed me.

“What the fuck?” I muttered, my brow furrowing.

Jane perked up before poking her head out of the foliage. “Fuck?”

My eyes widened in alarm and I shook my head quickly. “No, don’t—”

“Fuck!” she chirped. “Fuck. Fuuuck. Fuck? Fuck!”

I placed my head in my hand as she continued to repeat the word, rolling it around in her mouth and testing out different ways to say it. “God damn it.”

“Good going, King,” Lyra snickered.

“Oh, stuff it,” I growled, lifting my head and glaring at her. “Anyways, did you—”

“FUCK!”

“—did you figure out who the human in the tomb was?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Lyra grumbled. “I did some research upon returning to Equestria and even took a week and looked around the Archives in Canterlot. Nothing I could find mentioned a human being buried in such a manner. I even looked for any references of humans before their discovery in Equestria around one thousand years ago. Nothing. Not only does that human predate her species by at least two thousand years, but she was buried in a manner that was considered the greatest honor one could receive upon death at the time.”

“Couldn’t humans have existed elsewhere in the world before Equestria found them?” I asked, only to pause when something Lyra said registered in my head. “Wait… ‘she’? How did you know it was a female human?”

“Her hip bones,” Lyra grunted. “They were wide, built to squeeze a baby out. And to answer your other question, because there are no records of humans until Equestria found them in the mountain that Canterlot is now located on.”

“Strange,” I muttered, scratching at my beard. “Anything else you can tell me?”

“I also looked into the three pony skulls above the door, but Equestria’s genealogy records didn’t go back far enough. The closest match I could find belong to a mare in the house of Wind Dashers a thousand years ago. Her name was Firefly, and she served in the Lunar Army before Luna’s banishment. She was one of the few Lunar guards that defected when Luna became Nightmare Moon. If I had to hazard a guess, one of the skulls belonged to one of her ancestors, but I have no real proof to back up that claim.”

I continued to scratch at my beard as I processed what she had said. Behind me, I heard the humans shifting about in the underbrush, an occasional muted ‘fuck’ being whispered by Jane. Slowly, my eyes drifted back up to Lyra.

“Did you try and tell anyone about your findings?” I asked.

She huffed, a look of annoyance crossing her face. “As I said before, I tried to tell ponies about humans being intelligent, but nopony listened and I ended up here. As for the rest of it, nopony in Equestria really cares, and the zebras in Sandpoint want nothing more to do with me. They even kicked Vagabond out for having a part in the destruction of not just a temple, but an old, unknown tomb. I tried to send the information to them, but they returned it to me with a… clear indication of what they thought of me. It took me nearly an hour to clean off my desk, and week to get the smell out of my office.”

“Did you try going directly to the Princesses?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow. “I know for a fact they hold open court for just such an occasion. I’m sure Princess Luna would have been more than happy...” I trailed off as Lyra suddenly let out a bark-like laugh.

“King, due to my actions over in Sandpoint as well as my claims upon returning home, I was put on a watch-list. Right at the top. I couldn’t even get within a few blocks of the palace without a platoon of guards showing up and ‘escorting’ me away. I gave up trying to get a hold of the Princesses after the third attempt.”

“What about Twilight?” I asked, only to wince when Lyra gave me a deadpan stare. “Right, sorry.” Her gaze lowered and I watched the disgruntled unicorn as she glared at the ground, grumbling under her breath.

“This really fucked with your life, didn’t it?” I softly asked after a few seconds.

Lyra’s ear twitched but she continued to stare at the ground in front of her.

“Yes,” she growled, although the usual venom in her voice was gone. She just sounded tired now, weary and worn out. “I was kicked out of the Academy, laughed out of Canterlot, and none of my old school friends will talk to me. Hay, even Moondancer, the local conspiracy nut, won’t have anything to do with me. To make matters worse, Bon Bon called the guards on me and had me arrested and then committed to the mental asylum part of Ponyville Hospital. She said it was for my own good.” Her eyes narrowed, and she spit on the ground in contempt. “‘For my own good’ my flank. She only visited twice before she stopped showing up.”

“Hold up. I think I remember that,” I said slowly before my eyes widened. “Yeah, it was my first day in Ponyville. I had to wait outside Rarity’s place because she hated humans and didn’t want me inside.”

“Rarity hated humans?” Lyra interrupted, blinking owlishly.

“Yeah,” I said, waving a hand absentmindedly at her. “Sweetie Belle was attacked by an infected human.”

“Really? Didn’t know that,” Lyra hummed. “Must have happened when I was out of town.”

“I don’t know much about it. Just that it happened,” I said. “Anyways, I was outside of Rarity’s when a bunch of guards showed up and arrested you—” One of Lyra’s eye twitched and she growled “—and pulled all those humans out of your house. If I remember correctly there were… ninety-five? No, ninety-eight? Ninety something. It was a lot of humans.” I paused before giving her a curious look. “What were you doing with all those humans anyway.”

Lyra’s whole body twitched at the question, and her annoyed look quickly dissolved into a snarl.

“I had nothing to do with them!” she shouted, causing me to jump. “I did not collect them! I did not hoard them! I was not stealing them! They were coming to me! They were tunneling into my basement, for Maker’s sake! It wasn’t my fault!” By the end of her tirade she was breathing heavily while grinding her teeth. After a few seconds she blinked and, taking a deep breath, relaxed.

“Sorry,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her muzzle. “I still have some… repressed anger about that. Bon Bon… well, not that it matters now.” A melancholy look crossed her face, and she fell silent, staring at her hooves.

Rubbing the part of the scar that ran across my nose, I chewed on the inside of my cheek, unsure of how to change the subject. “So, uh…”

“What are you going to do with this information, King?” Lyra asked suddenly, her eyes flicking up to look at me.

“Um, what?” I asked, blinking stupidly.

“You seemed rather eager to hear my story,” she said tiredly. “So, now that you have, what are you going to do with the information?”

Absentmindedly, I reached up and placed a hand over the papers inside my shirt.

“Truthfully,” I said, patting the papers, “I’m not entirely sure. I’ll probably tell Twilight or Celestia the next time I see them, but I don’t know what we’re going to do with the information. Right now I just want to inform them about the humans being slightly intelligent, but in order to do that, I need to get back to the pal—GAH!” A pair of strong arms suddenly wrapped around me, hosting me into the air.

“No go, come!” Tarzan shouted, throwing me bodily over his shoulder. “Too long! Leave now!”

“Woah, woah, no no no, put me down! Put me down!” I shouted, trying to struggle out of his grasp but failing. He had his arm wrapped around my torso, pinning my arms to my sides. I could only kick my legs as I laid across his shoulder, and even those didn’t have a lot of force in them.

“No, no down, come!” Tarzan grunted, shrugging off my kicks like they were nothing.

“Fuck!” Jane chirped excitedly.

“Shit,” I groaned, falling limp.

“Shit?” Jane asked, blinking in surprise.

My eyes widened as I realized what I had just done. “Fuck!”

“Shit!” Jane exclaimed loudly, bouncing up and down on the heels of her feet. “Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck!”

“I have no words,” Lyra said with wide eyes, slowly leaning on the armrest of the wheelchair and resting her head on her hoof.

“I hate my life,” I groaned, my voice muffled as I grumbled into Tarzan’s back.

“You lead them so well, King,” Lyra snarked.

“Fuck you,” I growled, pushing myself up to glare at her.

“Fuck!” Jane chirped, jumping up and bopping me on the head. “Fuck King!”

“Yes, fuck the king,” Lyra snickered, an evil smirk spreading across her face. “I’m sure his owner would love that. Twilight needs to learn to not take life so seriously. Nopony gets out of it alive.”

“Hardy har haaaaaaGAH!” I yelped as Tarzan, clearly having had enough, started moving—fast. He took off down the path at a dead sprint, his feet pounding against the ground hard. I had to hold on for dear life just to stop myself from being flung about. Behind him, the other three humans followed along, Jane chanting her new words as she ran. “Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, shit, fuck, fuck!”

“This is a load of bullshit!” I shouted, trying to stop my stomach from going up into my throat.

“SHIT!”

As the group of humans disappeared around the bend in the path, Lyra shook her head, laughing softly to herself.

“What an idiot,” she said, leaning back in the wheelchair. Keeping her eyes on the path the humans had vanished down, she slowly let her mind begin to wander. During her incarceration in Ponyville General, she had limited connections to the outside world. The last information she had been given before being cut off was Bon Bon telling her that Twilight had gotten herself a human. After that, she had to rely on newspapers for any and all information, and most of them were biased based off the editor's’ belief, and none of them ever really had stories on suspicious human activity, but they were all she had.

At least, until one day when she was out in their fenced-in yard for her daily dose of “freedom”. She had been pacing the perimeter of the fence when a female human wandered up. It was a stroke of luck—a godsend from the Maker—the human had information. True, Lyra had to dig through the rubbish and random rabbling in order to find the information, but she had managed nonetheless. It had taken weeks, but the human kept returning thanks to the bits of food Lyra had snuck out.

Through the human she had learned of things that ponies didn’t seem to notice or simply brushed off. She had learned that Twilight’s new human wasn’t a normal human, but a ‘human-not-human’, whatever that meant. She also learned that he possessed traits that normal humans didn’t: the ability to swim, didn’t attack when threatened, and processed and followed orders with surprising skill and quickness. He also managed to kill four other humans during a pit fight, but didn’t become aggressive afterwards; in fact, he seemed to become more docile. Whoever this ‘human-not-human’ was, Lyra was definitely sure that he was important. Maybe even dangerous.

After nearly four months of having the human bring her information, Lyra became more convinced that something was wrong.This human appeared to be unique. What if he was the one who had attacked her in the weird abyss of darkness where all the humans had appeared? The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. He was clearly more intelligent than the other humans, and he was staying with Twilight, so he was close to an important member of Equestrian society. It had been so clear to her fevered mind that this human was behind everything. She wasn’t sure what he was planning, but she would stop him.

With that, she decided that it was finally time to meet this ‘human-not-human’ face to face.

Her moment had come when one of the new nurses had mixed up her schedules with that of another patient’s. Left out in the yard unsupervised, she had slipped through a hole in the fence she had been working on for a week and a half. Once free, she had made a beeline straight for the library, and the human within. What had happened next was interesting to say the least. The nurse had also mixed up her medication, giving her some pills that left her delirious. This medication mixed with a bad case of sleep deprivation had left her in a demented mental state, and she had attacked the human almost immediately. There had been a chase before she had been captured and taken back to Ponyville General.

After getting the proper medication as well a good night’s sleep, she had done some thinking. Upon looking back, the look of confusion and fear on the ‘human-not-human’s’ face had been genuine. Plus, he had been one of the humans she had seen within the abyss, so it couldn’t have been him that attacked her. He was unique, that was for sure, but he wasn’t the one behind the strange happenings.

Her research continued.

She didn’t focus so much on the ‘human-not-human’ anymore, even though the female human often brought him up. Lyra tried to get information about any other unique or abnormal humans, but her source either didn’t know or didn’t care. Instead, she talked about the ‘human-not-human’, although why she kept referring to him as ‘King’ Lyra didn’t know. She had asked the human, but the only answer she had gotten was “human pony equal”.

It wasn’t until Hearth’s Warming Eve that something major happened. When the human had shown up, she was clearly excited about something. Upon being questioned, she had revealed that a new god had been born temporarily, challenging the ‘Mad God’s’ reign. A little more probing revealed that it had been ‘King’ that had been transformed somehow. From what she could understand from the human, it seemed that ‘King’—or as she had taken to calling him, the ‘Oblivious King’—had issued some kind of challenge against the ‘Mad God’, or something like that. Whatever it was, Lyra was sure that Equestria and everypony in it were now in the middle of a territorial dispute between some unknown entity and the bumbling, oblivious human that Twilight had apparently fallen in love with, if the smell coming off of him was anything to go by.

Lyra was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of approaching hoofsteps. Turning her head, she groaned upon sighting the approaching pony. It was one of the attendants of the mental institution.

“There you are,” the attendant huffed as she came to a stop in front of Lyra. “I’ve been looking for you for hours! What were you thinking wandering off like that? You know that’s not allowed.”

“I’m sorry,” Lyra said in a bored tone, “I thought this was a hospital, not a prison.”

“We’ve been over this, it’s not like that,” the attendant sighed. “What if something had happened to you out here and nopony was around to help?”

Lyra noted with a smirk that the attendant was standing right on top of the human foot prints that the strange group had left behind. “Then I would take care of it myself, like the mature unicorn mare that I am.”

The attendant puffed out her cheeks, before letting the air out in a long, slow sigh. “Whatever. It’s almost time for dinner.”

“Alright, wheel me back,” Lyra said, shifting about in the wheelchair.

The attendant gaped at her. “You can’t be serious.”

Lyra fixed her with a deadpanned look.

“Ms. Heartstrings, you do know that you don’t need the wheelchair, right?” the attendant asked.

“...”

“There is nothing wrong with your legs.”

“...”

“You can walk perfectly fine on your own. I don’t know why you insist on having the wheelchair.”

“Push me anyways,” Lyra said, a smile crossing her muzzle. She had meant it to be friendly, but the attendant shied away with a shiver.

“No, I’m not pushing you around,” she said.

“Then I guess I’m not going anywhere,” Lyra said, settling back in her wheelchair.

The attendant glared at her for a few seconds before giving in with a groan. Walking up behind Lyra’s wheelchair, her horn lit up and she began to steer the chair towards the building in the distance.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” the attendant grumbled under her breath.

Lyra’s ear twitched, and she stared ahead as the wheelchair trundled down the cherry tree-lined path. “At least you’re getting paid. I have to deal with this shit for free.”

It wasn’t long into our journey that the trees started to disappear, replaced instead by rocky, uneven ground. We also appeared to be slowly traveling down the mountain by means of pass that had been worn into the rockface. I wasn’t entirely sure though, as Tarzan was still carrying me over his shoulder and I could only really see what we passed by. However, when ground gave way to cliffs and drop-offs, I knew we were near the edge of the plateau Canterlot was built on. Then, everything disappeared and we were left with a small path barely wide enough to stand on. I eyed the empty space nervously, well aware of the fact it was a long, long way down if Tarzan slipped.

Trying to take my mind off of the fact that a single misstep stood between me and death, I turned my attention to the only real source of entertainment I had.

“There was a tree,” I sang softly, bobbing my head from side to side.

“There was a tree,” Jane repeated, matching my head bobs.

“In the middle of the woods.”

“In the middle of da woods.”

“The prettiest tree.”

“The prettiest tree.”

“That you ever did see.”

“Dat you ever did see.”

“Oh, the tree in the hole, and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around, all around and the green grass grew all around,” I finished, only to watch with a small smile on my face as she attempt to repeat it only to crash and burn. I could almost see the smoke coming out of her ears as she stared up at me in a daze.

I had noted that what Lyra had said earlier was true: the humans were indeed listening to me and picking up on different words I said. Deciding that I didn’t want to just have them learn curse words, I had started to play around with Jane in an attempt to not only learn what they knew, but to see if I could teach them some more. The results were interesting.

For one, they seemed to latch onto random words and repeat them with almost zealous-like determination. After spending nearly fifteen minutes trying to get Jane to stop saying ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’, I could see why Lyra’s human had continued to say ‘grass’ for nearly eight hours.

Another thing I noticed was that on their own the humans seemed to speak in broken english. However, when trying to get them to repeat whole phrases, they did so without leaving out words. On their own, they might say “we need go now”, but if I told them to repeat “we need to go now”, they did so with very little complication. There was a few times they sounded like toddlers what with their ‘the’s becoming ‘da’s and the like.

Lastly—and I realized this completely by accident—they seemed to learn words faster when it was put in song form. It had to be simple songs though, something repeatable too like Row Row Row Your Boat. If the song had too many complicated words, or had too long a phrase, Jane would get confused or flustered and stop playing.

Just like now.

“Green grass.. grow around… h-hole,” she stuttered before holding her head in her hands. “No… no like. Head hurts.”

“Come on, you can do it,” I urged her. “It’s simple. The green grass grew all around, all around…” I waited as she repeated that back to me—albit at a slower pace—before continuing. “...and the green grass grew all around.”

Jane repeated that as well before her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands excitedly.

“Green grass grew all around!” she chirped.

“There you go!” I cheered. “See? It wasn’t that hard, was it?”

“Nope!” she chirped again before beginning to repeat the whole song softly to herself. I watched her for a few seconds before my eye slowly began to drift over her appearance. She had short brown hair that barely reach her shoulders, and was in a tangled mess. A brown long-sleeve shirt covered her upper body, but she didn’t appear to have anything else on besides that. Luckily, the shirt was long enough that it fell down to just below her hips, which had…

I blinked in surprise before cocking my head to the side. As she walked, the hem of the shirt shifted up and down, revealing the edges of what looked to be a brand. As she stepped over a particularly large gap in the rocks, the shirt lifted higher, exposing the full brand: an hourglass.

I stared at the brand for a few more seconds before Jane suddenly ducked down and looked curiously into my eyes.

“Something see?” she asked.

“That mark on your hip…” I said slowly, trailing off as I motioned towards the brand.

Jane glanced down at it as well, running finger over the scarred skin. “Pony Keeper.”

“Pardon?” I asked, pulling my gaze away from her hip and up to her face.

“Pony Keeper,” she repeated.

“What did they look like?” I asked, curious as to how humans would describe the race that was unknowingly enslaving them.

Jane placed a fist on her forehead, one finger pointing out. “She horn-pony.”

“What color was she?” I asked.

Wordlessly, Jane pointed up towards the blue sky above.

I glanced up as well before glancing back at her. “Blue?”

“Blue?” she chirped before nodding. “Yes? Yes. Blue-horn-pony.”

I nodded absentmindedly before looking back down at the brand which was now partially hidden by her shirt again. As I stared at it, a faint memory oozed its way up out of the dregs of my mind—one of the first memories I had of Equestria: the smell of burning flesh and muffled screams of pain.

Shaking my head to clear it, I blinked when I saw Jane was trying to get my attention, a concerned look on her face. “Hello? Yes? Fine?”

“Yeah… I mean, yes. Yes, I’m fine,” I said. My eye darted back down to her hip though, and I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Did it hurt?”

“Hurt?” Jane chirped, tilting her head to the side.

“The brand,” I said, pointing at the mark. “Did it hurt?”

Jane ran a hand over the brand again before replying. “No, no hurt. Blue-horn-pony took Jane to big den. Had other humans too. White rooms, white walls. Pony in white coat. Give Jane bad water. Made Jane sleep. Woke up with mark on hip.” She scratched at the raised skin absentmindedly. “When got back to blue-horn-pony den, it hurt, but she have stuff to put on hurt. It smell bad, but make pain stop.”

“She put stuff on the burn that stopped the pain?” I asked. Upon Jane nodding enthusiastically, a small smile touched my face. It’s always nice to see that some ponies do actually care about their humans. “Does she take care of you?”

“Yes!” Jane chirped, bouncing up and down. Several stones fell from the path beneath her feet and tumbled down the mountain side. I tried my best to ignore them and focus on Jane instead.

“Blue-horn-pony take care of Jane,” she said. “Give food and water. Give place to rest. Hold Jane when sky goes dark and loud noises hurt Jane’s ears. Took care of Jane when leg go ‘snap’ and pain hurt bad.”

“Does she make you happy?” I asked.

She paused before giving me a confused look. “Happy?”

“Yeah, you know, happy,” I said before pointing at my mouth and smiling. “Happy.”

She stared up at me with wide eyes before pulling her lips back in a grimace. It took me a few seconds to realize that she was trying to duplicate my smile, but for some reason couldn’t. She repeated the process several times before giving up.

“Happy?” she frowned. “Happy good, yes?”

“Yes, happiness is good,” I said with a soft laugh.

“You happy?” she asked, cocking her head to side.

I froze, my eyes widening. “W-what?”

“You happy with Pony Keeper?” she asked again.

I opened my mouth to tell answer, but paused. That was a question I hadn’t really answered for myself in a while. Was I happy? Was I truly happy with how my life was going at the moment? Scratching at my chin absently, I let my mind wander back over the past events of the month. Was I happy with the way things turned out? Would I change them if I could? Sure, I would have preferred to still be able to understand my pony friends, but I could speak again. Plus, if they had never used the Elements on me, I wouldn’t have discovered that humans were intelligent.

Then there was Twilight. Did I regret what had happened between me and her? I thought about it for a few seconds, only to have my face heat up. No, I didn’t regret that. Definitely didn’t regret that.

So, was I happy?

Pulling my hand down my face, I chewed on the inside of my cheek before glancing back down at Jane. She was watching me, an eager look on her face. She was waiting, like my answer would mean the difference between life and death.

Slowly, a smile spread across my face.

“Well, it hasn’t been perfect,” I said softly, “but, yes. I would have to say that I am happy with my Pony Keeper.”

Jane opened her mouth—most likely to ask something else—but she was interrupted by Tarzan suddenly speaking up. “Den here.”

I glanced around, but due to my position on Tarzan’s back, I could only see the rocky path beneath us, the cliff face to my right, and the wide open space to the left with the fields of Ponyville far below.

“Great. Where’s here?” I asked, glancing upwards on a whim. There, dangling off the cliff face several hundred meters above us, was part of Canterlot Castle. I stared up at it in disbelief.

“Seriously?” I said, twisting around uncomfortably to glare at the back of Tarzan’s head. “The palace is right above us? We did that whole detour thing for nothing?!”

“No?” he said, giving me a confused look over his shoulder.

“We could have just gone straight down from the palace!” I shouted, pointing upwards towards the large white buildings far above.

Tarzan’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “No down. Not safe. Took safe path. No fall.”

Grumbling, I fell back across his shoulders. “Well, I guess it did give me a chance to talk to Lyra. Where are we anyways?”

“Den!” Jane chirped as Tarzan suddenly started walking again. “Den! Come and see, King!”

“Stop calling me that,” I huffed. “I’m not… king…” I trailed off as darkness descended around us and upon glancing up, my mouth dropped open at what I saw. We had entered into a large tunnel in the cliff face; a cave system if the stalactites were anything to go by. The tunnel slowly dipped downwards, and I could only watch as the sunlight streaming through the opening gradually became a pinprick in the distance. I could hear the soft sound of the humans’ feet hitting rock as they walked, as well as the sound of their breathing. A faint dripping noise came from all around us, echoing around the cave in an eerie manner.

“So, um… what’s the den?” I asked softly after several minutes. Despite me trying to be quiet, the cave still caused my voice to echo around.

“You see soon,” Jane said through the darkness. “Almost there.”

“How can I see it in all this darkness?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “And how do you know where you’re going? I can’t see my hand in front of my face!”

“Follow scent. Lead us home,” Tarzan huffed before inhaling through his nose.

“Well, I can’t smell anything,” I sighed before going limp against Tarzan’s shoulder. I briefly wondered if I was going to be stuck in these caves forever, unable to find my way out once Tarzan finally released me. I quickly pushed that thought from my mind. There was nothing to eat down here, so the humans had to leave to find food, right? I could just follow them out when the time came.

During my musing and plotting, I failed to notice an increase of light until suddenly a red lantern floated past, causing me to stare at it in wonder. Despite the sudden relief I felt at being able to see again, the sight of it confused me. It was bolted to the wall by a metal chain and hook. Judging by what I had seen of the Equestrian humans so far, I highly doubted that they were responsible for it. So then… who put it there?

We passed by another lantern, this one on the opposite side of the tunnel, and I could faintly see in the red light that Jane was eyeing them curiously.

“What’s with the lanterns?” I asked as a third one floated past in the darkness.

“Light guide packmates that not smell way home,” Jane said softly. “Not have good nose, so put up light to help see.”

“Yeah, but… who put them up?” I asked.

“Not know,” Jane said simply. “Light here when Jane arrive. Not know who put up.”

Humming softly to myself, I returned my gaze to the lanterns. I kept my eyes on them as we continued to descend, noting that they seemed to slowly be shifting from a deep red color to a light pink the further we went down. Before too long they had become soft white, illuminating the tunnel fully now. By now, the dripping noise had evolved into a loud trickle, and although I couldn’t see the running water, I knew it was nearby.

Suddenly the tunnel gave way to a large cavern, and I gazed up in wonder. The ceiling was high above, so high that it was hidden in the gloom of darkness. The sound of rushing water came from my left and glancing over, I saw that there was a waterfall cascading downwards from a hole in the rock face. The path rounded the edge of the cavern, slowly descending as it curved around the circular room. Straining my neck until it was about to pop, I could just barely see out of the corner of my eye a large lake sitting in the middle of the cavern, spanning nearly a couple hundred meters.

As I gazed around at what I could see of the cavern, the faint sound of voices reached my ears, muffled by the sound of rushing water. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could tell that there was a good number of speakers.

Before I had time to listen too long, Tarzan was on the move again. Turning, he descended down the sloping path, heading deeper into the cavern. Jane and the two other humans followed after him, but their eyes were locked on something in the middle of the room.

As we reached the bottom of the ramp and began to make our way towards the center of the cavern, the voices slowly began to fade. I had the sudden uneasy feeling of multiple eyes looking at me, which was even more awkward considering that my ass was currently facing these unknown beings instead of my face. I struggled slightly, but Tarzan’s grip was still too strong. Is he going to let me down anything time soon—

I let out a loud yelp that echoed around the large cavern as Tarzan suddenly picked me up off of his shoulder and tossed me to the ground. Bracing myself to land on hard rock, I was pleasantly surprised when I landed on soft moss instead. Still, the sudden drop caused my head to spin, and I laid there, groaning in discomfort as the floor beneath me shifted back and forth.

As I waited for the room to stop spinning, I heard something shifting nearby. The soft sound of feet on stone reached my ears as that something drew nearer.

More humans? I thought groggily as the unknown thing came to a stop in front of me. I was about to speak up and voice my discomfort when it spoke. “There you are big guy! What did ya find this time? Another stray?”

I froze as my mind processed what I had just heard, but refused to register it. The speaker had a gruff voice with a hint of southern American accent. Not only that, but they had used complete sentences.

It… it can’t be…

Pushing my way through the spinning in my head, I pushed myself to my hands and knees. A pair of bare feet suddenly entered my vision, as well as the torn hems of a pair of camouflage pants. My heart was pounding wildly away in my chest as my gaze slowly drifted upwards until I was staring up into the face of another male human.

Dressed in faded camo pants and gray shirt, he had his arms crossed over his chest as he eyed me curiously. His face—or what little I could see of it behind his full beard—had the gaunt look of someone who used to be heavy-set but had recently lost a lot of weight. Blue eyes watched me with suppressed mirth. However, the thing that caught my eye, the thing that made my jaw drop and my heart skip a beat, was the large grin that was plastered to the human’s face.

“Well, what ‘ave we here?” the human asked, cocking his head to the side. “You look a little dinged up. Owner not take care of you?”

Unable to process what I was seeing, I just shook my head in disbelief.

“What the hell?” I blurted out.

The human’s eyes widened in surprise, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline.

“What the…” he breathed before turning and shouting over his shoulder, “Hey! They found another one!” There came a squawk from somewhere behind him, followed by several more voices speaking up. Ignoring them, the human turned back around to me.

“Let me help ya out there, partner,” he said, holding out his hand.

When I grabbed it, he pulled me to my feet with little effort. I staggered slightly, but he caught me and helped steady me by placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Woah, easy there,” he said. “Easy. That was a nasty drop the big guy gave ya. Take your time. We don’t want ya fallin’ down again.”

“What?” I asked dumbly.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” the human asked with a chuckle—an actually chuckle.

I stared at him with wide eyes, my mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

“Can’t believe what you’re seeing?” he asked. “Don’t worry. I’m the real deal, I swear. The name’s Dustin Revees.” He held out his hand again.

“M-Max,” I stuttered as I grabbed his hand, only to wince as he gave me a crushing handshake.

“Well Max, nice tah meet ya!” Dustin said as he about yanked my arm from its socket. He released my hand and I quickly pulled my arm to my chest, massaging the sore muscle. Putting an arm around my shoulder, Dustin then turned and motioned with a hand. “And welcome to our humble abode!”

With that, I got my first good look at where I was.

Along the shore of the underground lake was a small camp. There were dozens of large tarps and blankets of various sizes scattered across the ground, all of them gathered around several campfires. A few tents were set up as well, one of which appeared to be a repaired carnival tent. A small pile of crates and baskets was stacked nearby, and I could see that one of the baskets was full of apples. Occupying the camp—lying, sitting and standing around—were humans. At first I thought that there were only about a couple dozen of them, but as my vision grew used to the level of light, I saw that the camp extended around the shoreline, more blanket gathered around several more campfires. I tried to get a rough number, but with all the humans milling about, I was unable too. If I had to estimate though, I would have to say that there was at least a couple hundred humans gathered in the large cavern.

Pulling my gaze from the veritable sea of humans, I glanced at the nearby campfire that Dustin was pointing too. A dozen or so humans were gathered around it, sitting around the crackling flames, and I could make out a few of them: a large black guy with a bald head who had multiple bandages around his body and limbs; a thin tan man with scruffy reddish-brown hair and beard minus the mustache; a young woman with a shaved head who was missing part of her left arm just below the elbow; a male with short brown hair that has several scars across his face, as well as a weird metal grate-like mask across his mouth and nose.

There were a lot of them, far more than I had time to observe. All of them looked worse for wear. Several were sporting scars and injuries, and most of them looked half-starved. However, there was something about these dozen or so humans that made me sure that they couldn’t be Equestrian humans. It could have been their faces and the way they held their bodies, so completely different than that of the Equestrian humans.

It could have been the fact that they were dressed in tattered clothing, but unlike the Equestrian’s simple brown attire, these humans were dressed in normal clothing. There was even one wearing blue jeans.

It could have also been the fact that they were all looking at me with small smiles of their weary faces.

No, these weren’t Equestrian humans. These were… these were…

“I don’t believe it,” I breathed, slowly shaking my head.

“Believe it, man,” Dustin said, patting my on the back hard. He walked around in front of me, a large smile on his face. He motioned again towards the humans around the fire, one of whom waved at me, a warm smile on her face.

“I’m not sure what you’ve been through, and judging by that scar on your face it’s one hell of a story,” Dustin continued, “but you’re among friends now.”

I continued to shake my head, staring at the humans in front of me. “You… you’re all… you…” They’re… they are… terran humans.

“Eeyup,” Dustin said, his smile threatening to split his face, “we’re just like you! I know it’s kinda hard to believe, what with all these neanderthal-like humans around, but unlike them, we’re the genuine article.

“We’re humans from Earth!”