Written by Explodium

The human groaned quietly as he came to. A dull ache pounded in his skull, his ears were ringing, and his mouth was dry.

His eyes still squeezed shut, he pushed himself into a kneeling position, groaning quietly all the while. He was sore all over; it felt like he was on the receiving end of an epic ass-kicking, as unlikely as that would be. He fervently tried to remember what he had been doing, but his memory eluded him. He didn’t drink, so that was out of the question. The last thing he needed was to wake up the following morning to a hangover and realize he sold his kidneys for twenty caps, like that other poor sod. He must have taken a mighty blow to the head, which was the only immediate explanation he could think of. However, if he’d been captured, why weren’t his limbs bound? Also, the air was far too clean to be a cell.

He took a deep breath of this clean air as his eyes fluttered open. He reeled back in surprise as the reason for this became apparent.

He was kneeling on a tiled path in the middle an intricately decorated garden. The sky above was a pale violet, the sun was slowly setting. The first stars were coming out. Everywhere he looked he could see trees, hedges, honest-to-god grass, and flowers of every different color. As far as he could tell, he was alone. Off in the distance, rising high above the garden was a brilliant castle, made of white stone. The man squeezed his eyes shut, and reopened them to ascertain that this wasn’t a hallucination. Everything was still there.

It all looked so…peaceful. It sounded peaceful, and apart from the distant tweeting of birds, it was quiet.

Where am I?

Isaac Shepard, the Lone Wanderer, had been from coast to coast of the former United States, and he had never seen anything like this before. He was aware of Oasis, yes, though this looked like it was organized, being maintained. Plus, there was no castle in Oasis. Hell, there weren’t castles anywhere on the continent, as far as he was concerned.

He grunted as he tried to pull to his feet, but a sharp pain shooting through his leg made the human come crashing back down in short order. Taking another deep breath, the Lone Wanderer decided that now would be a good time to check himself for injuries.

Apart from being bruised all over and bleeding lightly in a few places, he felt pretty exhausted. Fortunately, his body would heal the bleeding cuts quickly; wandering the wastes had its perks after all. But unfortunately, he hissed in pain as he moved his hand across a certain section on one of his legs; he wouldn’t be walking on that thing. It was a rare event when he wished that he was irradiated, the regeneration would be useful right about now. He was in rough shape.

Sadly, his armor was in no better condition.

What was once a set of hellfire armor had been reduced to little more than charred, twisted plates that barely clung onto the human’s muscular form. His arms were completely open to the elements, and the exposed flesh was covered with a thin layer of soot. Curiously, he found the section of the path he was laying on was blackened, burned, and cracked as well. Semi-dried blood stains coated the tiles as well.

What the hell happened…? How long was I here…?

He sighed with dismay as he realized that with the exception of his knife, all of his weaponry was MIA, along with any other supplies he had on him at the time. His hand shot up to his throat, blindingly groping around, and it closed around a chain hidden just out of sight, around his neck. He quietly grunted in satisfaction. Being one of the only things with his name on it, Isaac felt strangely attached to his old Brotherhood holotag.

Settling into a more comfortable position, Isaac glanced down at his Pip-Boy 3000. Unsurprisingly, the ultra-durable piece of Rob-Co tech was completely unscathed by whatever ordeal he had been through. The first thing to greet him as he turned on the display was the cartoonish image of a crying Vault Boy, one of the legs surrounded by a dotted line, as well as the head. With a deft tap of his finger, he pushed the “Map” button trying to get a fix on his location. Only to be surprised at the message that flashed on the screen.

GPS unilink unavailable.

He blinked once, then exhaled deeply. He was in an unknown location, without any means to navigate, and his surroundings looked like something that flat out just didn’t exist in the wastes.

Where the hell am I!?

His heart began racing as the implications began to set in. The pounding in his head intensified as panic threatened to encroach in. As it stood, he had no way to treat his injured leg, he was thirsty, alone, and very, very lost.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Someone is maintaining this place, which likely means that someone is here, so someone should find me eventually, right? He frowned.  Isaac hated leaving things to chance.

Isaac licked his dry lips as he slowly began to accept his situation.

I could really use a drink of water right now…

It was then that a certain sweet sound reached his ears. A half smile came to his lips. He would recognize that noise anywhere; the sound of running water. Reorienting himself, and drawing his knife, just in case, he began crawling towards the noise, carefully minding his injured leg.

More than once, his wounds reopened, each time losing a little more precious blood before finally healing over once more. It was a slow trip, it felt like hours, but soon, his goal came in sight. His eyes widened as he looked upon it. It was a large, ornate fountain, carved out of brilliant white stone. A tall stature of a rearing horse stood in the middle. Curiously, several additional statues of horses surrounded the fountain.

Guy must like horses or something…

Upon closer inspection, he realized that the statue of the pony in the fountain had a horn – a unicorn. Water was shooting out of its horn into the fountain below. He noticed that the other statues were unicorns as well.

As he passed several statues, it did not escape his notice how much the horses’ appearances differed from how they looked in textbooks. Their muzzles were much shorter, and their features strangely human.

He didn’t have much time to ponder it before he found himself coming to a stop, and peering over the lip of the fountain.

Am I really this desperate…?

He could see his reflection in the water, and he couldn’t deny that he looked like crap, even if he didn’t count the scarring. His dark hair was dirty and matted, and dark circles lined his bright green eyes. They too looked dulled. His reflection rippled as he experimentally tapped the surface of the water with a single finger. It felt pleasantly cool.

He cocked an eyebrow as he realized that the bottom of the shallow pool was full of coins.  His eyes darted between the statue in the middle and the water. The man had heard of the concept of throwing coins in fountains and wells to make wishes. Curiosity piqued, he deftly plunged his hand in and grabbed a few of the shiny coins.

He withdrew it and gazed at the trio of coins resting in his palm. It wasn’t like any kind of currency he was familiar with. They were each roughly the size of a pre-war quarter, albeit thicker. A profile shot what appeared to be a unicorn was embossed on one side, where on the other was a picture of two winged unicorns, their bodies arranged in such a way to make a circle.

Someone must really like horses… he thought as he dropped the coins back into the fountain.

It was then that he heard something else. He felt a pang of alarm at the sound of metal-on-stone. Something was coming.

The grip on his knife tightened as the source of that sound drew closer and closer. He rapidly tried to come up with an excuse to whomever was approaching, assuming that they were friendly. If not, he was in trouble, given the fact that he could barely stand.

It was not long before the source of the noise came into view. He learned very quickly what was up with the excessive horse motifs as a column of equine creatures stormed into the garden. They quickly caught sight of him resting against the fountain, and before he even really had time to think, the injured human found himself surrounded by armored ponies, both from the ground, and from above. Much to his surprise, several of the ponies had wings. Pegasi.

All of them were wearing gold-plated armor, the helmets had blue plumes. Each of them were wielding nothing more advanced than a spear, either somehow held in their hooves, or suspended in a strange glow.

Under most circumstances, Isaac probably would have been able to take them all on, but not now. A pony with a different colored plume stepped forward; he assumed it was the leader.

It barked something at him; the human couldn’t understand a word of it.

“I’m sorry…” Isaac rasped tiredly as he tried to stand, leaning on the fountain for support, “I can’t understand…”

The pony shouted something again. He then noticed that each ponies’ eyes were on his knife. Before he could say anything else, each of the soldier ponies readied their spears. Isaac took a deep breath.

Come on…you didn’t survive what you did just to be killed by a bunch of ponies!

His eyes frantically darted about, trying to find an escape route. He knew it was pointless though, given his injured leg wouldn’t get very far.

If he surrendered, what would the ponies do though? Would he be treated fairly, or promptly killed?

Before he could even contemplate it, he yelped in surprise as his knife was abruptly enveloped in a blue glow and yanked from his inattentive hand. He desperately tried reaching out for it, but it was too late. The wall of spears surrounding him closed in slowly. Strangely, it felt as if his remaining strength was being siphoned away

Why…tired…so…weak…

His legs gave way beneath him, and he slumped to the ground. He groaned; the ponies still appeared to be advancing. Abruptly, another shout echoed through the air. Immediately, all of the soldier ponies stopped closing in on him, albeit with their spears still lowered.

From his spot on the ground, he could hear the leader of the soldier-ponies speaking to the unseen new-arrival. While the soldier sounded male, the newcomer sounded female. His head was bowed as he listened intently.

The circle surrounding him parted. Shortly after, a solitary pair of slender white legs entered his vision, each ended in a golden shoe. Isaac could barely find the strength to raise his head as he looked up at the new pony.

He subconsciously found his jaw dropping as he stared at her.

Her coat was a purest white, a long, spiraling horn protruded from her forehead and a pair of feathery wings protruded from her sides. She was significantly taller than the other ponies if Isaac could stand, he guessed that neither of them would have to look up or down to stare into each other’s eyes. Her mane was hard to describe, it looked like a shimmering curtain of bright pastel colors, blowing in a nonexistent breeze. A tiara was perched atop her head and a golden collar of sorts was around her neck, each set with a purple gemstone.

If I’m not mistaken…a queen or a princess or something…? He wasn’t sure whether to be worried or not.

As if seemingly sensing his unease, the pony crouched down so she was at eye level. She said something to the human in a calm, soothing tone. As his bright green eyes met her pale violet ones, Isaac felt a sense of calmness settle over him.

He wasn’t sure how, but he could sense that the pony before him meant him no harm. Weakly, he reached out for her, she understood the gesture and gently nuzzled the extended hand.

The pony took another step forward and wrapped her forelegs around the injured human, whispering more gentle words into his ear. It was strangely comfortable. As the blood loss and exhaustion finally got to him, he couldn’t help but notice just how cuddly the pony was.

Everything is going to be just fine… Next Chapter: An Unexpected Journey, Discovery of the Heart Estimated time remaining: 27 Minutes