As soon as two gigantic doors opened, with one half depicting a beautiful carving of the sun and the other depicting an equally beautiful moon carving, I saw a white … horse (there was no other way to describe her), with a pink, blue and green mane. I assumed she had the same pattern for her tail. She looked down upon the three of us from across the room on top of a gold throne. My teeth chattered violently as I realised we were actually approaching their equivalent of a ruler. Well, two rulers.

I looked beside the white horse and found a slightly smaller throne, though it was no less imposing. Upon the smaller throne sat a slightly smaller horse with a dark blue hue to her coat. Her mane looked like the night sky had been captured within it, what with the way it flowed.

I jumped to the side as I felt a blast of heat come towards me. I looked around to try and find where the blast came from, only to get a faceful of heat. It felt like the sun itself was trying to burn me alive. As alive as I could get anyway, considering my circumstances. I fell backwards with a short cry, my bones breaking off from their joints upon impact within my cloak.

“That was not cool!” I shouted and then fell silent as I saw the white horse powering up something on it’s forehead. I couldn’t really see clearly from my position on the floor.

“Princess! This creature means us no harm!” Clover called out to the white horse. So she’s the princess? I wonder if she gets many visitors with that temper of hers and my earlier assumption was right. She is the ‘attack first, ask later’ type.

“What did I ever do to you?” I asked this ‘Princess’ as I tried to figure out how to reassemble myself. I didn’t hear an answer, except for hooves clip-clopping on the tiled floor, I thought it had all gone silent.

“Thou … Thou art meant to be in Tartarus. How art thou here?” the Princess asked and when I managed to turn my head to look at her, I could see her head much more clearly and found it had a horn on top of it. So she’s like Clover? Good with spells? I suppose so, what with the heat blast she gave me.

“I’m not meant to be in- Tartarus!? The Greek Underworld?” I asked back, feeling my body begin to knit itself back together. First the feet, then the leg bones realigned themselves. Then it was my pelvis, rib cage, spinal cord, arms, neck and finally my skull. I rotated my arms as much as I could to see if they still worked. Glad that they did, I cautiously crawled backwards and stood up, noticing with a bit of glee at the horse coming up to my neck with horn included. At least I don’t have to slouch as much.

“We don’t know about these ‘Greeks’ but we doth know that thou art meant to be in Tartarus, helping the souls of the dead cross the Styx,” the Princess explained, her anger momentarily forgotten as she seemed to have calmed down.

“Helping the … no! I’m meant to be back home! On Earth!” I cried, finally realising that I may never get back home. I crouched down and held my hands to the sides of my head as I heard two different sets of cries sound out around the room. I took a quick glance and even found a couple of familiar looking creatures flying passed the various windows.

“Those beasts hast been terrorising our subjects since we discovered their existence in the forest. After they began screeching at us, we knew that we weren’t equipped to fight them so I tasked Clover and Starswirl with devising a solution to help out,” the Princess explained, giving a bit of a grimace at my actions.

“Yeah well, they sound freakin’ scary! Those ‘beasts’ as you call them, are legends where I come from. Nothing but myths!” I replied, standing up and pointing to the solitary shadow flying about. I looked and counted again, making sure I got the right number. Where was the second shadow? There were meant to be two shadows! “Weren’t there two shadows before?”

At this, the other ponies present looked up to try and locate the shadows. They only found one and could not find the other one.

“This is odd.” I looked towards the thrones when I heard this and found the other princess to be speaking. “There indeed were two shadows flitting about. The other one suddenly leaving is curious,” she continued as she stepped down and began walking slowly towards us. The other three were too preoccupied with trying to find the shadow that left.

I heard a warbling cry and automatically wincing at it, managed to turn my head to find an upright pony hybrid creature with jet black, shaggy fur, giant bat wings, a goat’s head with ram horns and small clawed things in place of forelegs. Actually, as I looked at its posture a bit more, it sort of reminded me of a kangaroo. Haven’t seen one of those since I moved out from Australia to America.

“I believe we found the second shadow.” I said with a figurative gulp and quickly moved backwards from it, my bones shivering with fear.

“Thee woulds’t not fly in daylight.” I heard Clover speak those words again and I turned to face her to try once again to ask what it meant. The book wasn’t very clear on that but this turned out to be a big mistake as I was suddenly struck from behind and thrown into the wall to my left, making a noticeable crack in it. I crumpled into a heap of bones as I came into contact with the floor, my skull rolling away from my body.

Thinking up of something, I concentrated and made my head jump. It didn’t work so I was stuck with looking at what was going on instead while my body repaired itself.

~THIRD PERSON POV~

“Thee woulds’t not fly in daylight.” Clover said to herself, not really expecting anypony to hear what she said. But seeming she was close to Skye when she spoke, it was a bit of surprise to see the skeleton turn towards her when she did. There was no warning because the next minute, the skeleton was across the room and on the floor with her skull rolling away from the rest of her body.

Clover’s ears flicked as she heard a thrum of magic from somewhere near her. Her ears were attuned to the sound thanks to countless months of working side by side with Starswirl in the ways of magic. She saw a bright yellow shield get erected in front of the group just as the lumbering beast gave a weirdly distorted cry before jumping towards Clover. It howled in pain though when it felt it’s fur get torched at contact with the shield. Clover and Starswirl both looked to Princess Celestia in surprise at her use of magic.

“I doeth what I must to protect mine subjects.” Celestia said as she kept up the shield, watching for another attack from the beast.

Another attack was attempted, but this time, Clover saw it come from behind Princess Celestia in the shape of the second monster. The ‘Harpy’ that Skye raved on about earlier. She went to erect her own magical shield behind Celestia but a dark blue one got put in place instead. When this happened, Clover fired off a few random spells at the Harpy to see if they would have any effect.

Two missed but the third one connected, causing the Harpy to give a shriek as it felt its wings begin to freeze. It abandoned the attack on the horse and retreated for now, crashing through one of the stained windows in an attempt to escape.

~SKYE’S POV~

I did not expect the Harpy to retreat as quickly as it did. When my body picked my head up, I felt a tingling sensation as it got reconnected with it’s spinal cord, signalling that I could move around again. I shook my arms and grabbed my scythe from where it fell. pointing the hooked end towards the Jersey Devil.

“Alright, you ready for round two?” I asked it; acting cocky when in reality, I felt my kneecaps knock together underneath my cloak. It gave a roar and I flinched backwards at the sound of it, which most likely saved me from having another meeting with Mr. Wall behind me. When I flinched, I saw the abomination move to rake its claws along my chest but it missed by a millimetre.

The Jersey Devil gave another howl and went for my neck, clearly intending to behead me. Again. I was fine with it being done once, but twice? I’m just glad I ‘lived’ through it the first time. I ducked as I saw it leap and held my scythe up, not really sure what else to do. I looked to the ground as I felt the hooked end connect with something. Soon as it did, I turned to the side, away from the group of coloured horses, and swung with as much strength as I could muster towards the nearby window.

Another warbling cry sounded out as one of the beast’s arms got sliced to the bone, getting my weapon stuck. I let it go as I felt myself be pulled along with the momentum, watching it and the beast fly through the window and into the forest beyond. There goes what was possibly my only defense in this messed up world of colourful ponies … and mythical beasts.

I turned from the window to look at the group, only to find the Princess levelling her glowing horn at me. I took a quick look along her body and found a tattoo of a sun on her butt as well as wings. So what? That made her a Pegacorn or something? I can see why she would be considered royalty though.

“Seriously? I just helped you and lost my weapon in the process. What else do you want from me?” I asked her, crossing my arms in front of my ribcage. She most likely had another reason for pointing her horn at me threateningly.

“We want thou to go back to Tartarus,” the Princess said, acting as if the monster attack never happened.

“Are you kidding me? Two monsters attacked here and you’re just waving it off as if it was an everyday occurrence. Is it an everyday occurrence?” I told her, suddenly becoming fearful if that was true.

“Unfortunately, it is. We don’t know how to combat them but we do know how to defend ourselves from them. So far, only these two have shown any signs of aggression towards us,” the other Princess spoke up, now descending from her own throne after making sure that the monsters wouldn’t return.

“Before anymore is said, I want to know something. What are your names?” I told them, pointing to both Princesses.

“They are Princesses Celestia, and Luna.” Starswirl introduced them and then faltered when he realised that he didn’t know who I was.

“Princesses, I am Skye, or Death if you prefer. According to Princess Celestia, I’m meant to be in Tartarus. Obviously, I am not. I don’t even know what I’m doing here so if someone can explain what’s happening around here, I’ll be grand.” I answered for Starswirl, introducing myself and bowing a bit to show respect.

“At least she is respectful.” Princess Luna commented, looking to her sister in worry. I looked at Celestia and felt extremely worried for my well-being when I saw that she hadn’t powered down her horn in the slightest. In fact, I think it may have gotten brighter.

“Princess Celestia, I doth not understand why thou still have magic going through thine horn. Skye has just helped us with the fight and hast not done anything untoward to us since. If anything, I believe that she is a good creature, and not one of the bad ones.” Starswirl tried to convince Princess Celestia that I was not evil but it appeared that she was having none of it.

“‘Tis because I doth not trust this creature one bit. Even though she did help us, who knows what can happen later on? I am going to imprison her in the dungeon until mine sister and I can figure out why she is not in Tartarus like she is supposed to be.” Princess Celestia explained, causing me to freeze in shock. Imprisonment? Why? I’ve done nothing to warrant that! The only thing I’ve done is lose my weapon to the Jersey Devil and laid around as a pile of bones for the duration of the fight.

“You’re going to do what?” I asked her, hoping that my feigned lack of hearing can save me.

“I am going to imprison thou until mine sister and I can sort thy predicament out. I cannot risk having another creature running around, especially one we know nothing about.” Princess Celestia repeated patiently and then zapped me with her magic. I saw a flash of white and felt my body dissolve and reassemble in a quick few seconds. When the light faded, I found myself stuck behind a mesh fence with stone walls to either side and behind me. There were no windows so I had no chance of escaping that way.

“That bitch didn’t even give me a chance to plead my innocence!” I protested, stamping my foot like I was three years old again. I grumbled for a bit then resigned myself to sitting in the corner, facing the mesh fence with what I hoped was a scowl on my face.