Oh, hello again, how was your night?

That's wonderful, and thank you for asking, my night was fine.

I’m sorry about bothering you with my little story the other day…

But…

Since you’re still here, would it be okay if I kept telling you it? I promise that it’s still really interesting; I mean it has an honest-to-goodness alien in it for crying out loud! I promise we’ll get to what you wanted to talk about the other day after I spin you my little yarn.

Now where was I?...

The morning after I met the alien known as Ares I was more tired than usual, the product of mine and Shiny’s little ‘stay up all night’ party. You’d think a concussion would slow a stallion down, but with Shiny, you would be wrong, Oh so wrong.

So as the two of us walked down the hallway to The Ward to see how Ares was faring I had a teeny tiny bit of trouble walking, something I’m sure Shiny was pretty proud of. My said husband looked over to me, a big smile on his muzzle, and said while giving me a gentle nuzzle, “Thanks for staying up with me, Cadence,” he tenderly rubbed his head with a hoof, “Staying up all night plus an alien staying a few doors down from us is a little much for anypony to deal with alone.”

A nuzzled him back, a mischievous smile on my muzzle. “Who wouldn’t spend the night baby-makin’ with a hot piece of flank like yourself?” I asked, enjoying his blush. Shiny was always easy to tease with a little dirty talk, something that I always liked to do to him when we were alone. What I also saw though that, along with the blush, was a little bit of pain on his face, and I knew it wasn’t because of his concussion.

You see, for many months now after we had gotten married, Shiny and I had tried to have a foal. It was something that the both of us wanted more than anything in the world and something we haven’t been able to do. Though it wasn’t for a lack of trying, I can tell you.

We tried different positions, eating certain foods, rubbing loads of different silly concoctions on ourselves, anything that could help us in any way but for some reason, Shiny’s seed never took, something that bothered us so much that we’ve been thinking about seeing doctor Stitch about it. In retrospect, that probably should have been done first.... I can still remember how bad those skunk berries smelled when I rubbed them onto my flank.

That smell still gives me nightmares.

With a gentler nuzzle I murmured, “Don’t worry, Shiny,” I said as soothingly as I could, “The baby will come at its own time.”

The stallion almost deflated at this, an unsure look on his face. “Mom and dad keep harping on me for a grandfoal,” he said, almost whispering, “You know how traditional they are. Dad told me the other day that we should've had at least two foals already.”

I giggled at that, Mr. Sparkle was always a joker; he was also the easiest Sparkle to get along with. Mrs. Sparkle was the one that you had to watch out for; she had hounded me about dating her son for months, even though I was a princess; she didn't think I was good enough for her 'special boy'. The hounding wasn’t as bad as the questions though, questions that I do not believe I will tell you for both our sakes.

She warmed up to me in the end though, kinda.

At least she doesn't glare at me when we're in the same room together... Often.

“Hey, as soon as we have the first one I’m sure I’ll be popping them out until we have a castle full of crying babies keeping us up all night instead of monsters or dark overlords or aliens," I said, getting a chuckle from him as we turned a corner.

“We could still ask the doctor to take some blood work…” Shiny mused, seemingly still worried, looking up at me with a little bit of concern on his face.

“If you want, Shiny, “I said, “We’ll just see how Ares is doing first.”

Shiny soured at the human’s name, making me roll my eyes. “I still think we should have put that thing in the dungeons,” he muttered angrily.

“Now, Shiny,” I chided, “Remember that he’s terrified about everything that’s going on and needs our help, so you be nice.”

Shiny snorted. “Can’t you just tell the princesses that we found an alien in our borders? Let them take care of him?”

I had thought about that the other day but neglected to send a letter yet because of a few things that worry me. Aunty Celestia and Luna, though very caring ponies, might not like the notion of an alien popping up in their niece’s country unexpectedly. The kind of not liking that involves alicorns in battle armor and wielding war hammers that could crush an alien in one swing.

Another good reason is because of my favorite sister-in-law, Twilight. The princesses might insist that she come to see him, along with maybe a legion of Canterlot guards. Just the thought of that little purple filly meeting a new creature, an alien, one that she can study and do lots of other sciencey things to, things that Ares probably wouldn’t appreciate, gives me the mental picture of my castle on fire.

The final reason was the simplest; I didn’t think the human was well enough to travel to Canterlot, if he would willingly travel to Canterlot at all, something that my aunt’s might insist that he do. Being exposed to the elements for as long as he was needs a bit of time for recovery, even if he was mostly healed with magic.

Was I making the right choice? Well we would find out after he recovered.

Shiny might be right after all and Ares was some super death alien that was sent here to destroy us all with his laser eyes! But then SuperMare would-

Oh, hehe sorry, I’ve been reading too many comics lately.

But, for now, I would keep Ares my little secret, at least until he got a little better or I couldn’t figure out how to get him home.

“Come on, Shining,” I said encouragingly, “We have an alien all to ourselves. Doesn’t that excite you just a little bit? Think of what we can learn from him!”

Shiny snorted again. “That thing’s dangerous, Cadence,” he said, “We should tell your aunts.”

I waved a hoof dismissively. “If we can’t figure out how to send him home or if he’s too dangerous I’ll tell them, but until then he’s our guest. We're two capable adults, I think we can handle an alien that's too weak to even stand up. Now come on, let’s see if he’s awake yet,”

“Or if he's eaten anypony,” Shiny muttered, making me bump my flank into his as we entered The Ward, and as we walked over to where Ares's bed was I saw the most adorable thing I think I’ve ever laid eyes on.

There was Ares, still asleep from what I could tell, and for some reason, one of the nurses, also asleep, both holding each other. The mare was cuddled up against his side with a smile on her muzzle as the human held her, the two underneath a blanket.

I couldn’t help but let out a little coo. “Aww, look at that, Shining, that’s the cutest thing!” I looked down at him with a triumph smirk, “And you said he was dangerous.”

“I’m super dangerous,” Ares croaked out, his eyes still closed, the sound of his voice making me and Shiny jump. “I mean look at me, all muscle and piss and vinegar,” he finished by tiredly lifting up an arm and setting it down on top of the sleeping nurse. “Morning, Candy, Susan.”

“It’s Shining Armor!” Shiny hissed as Ares started to scratch behind the nurse’s ear, the mare happily sighing. “Why do you have that mare hostage?”

“For my evil plans to take over the world,” Ares murmured as we walked closer to his bedside. “As soon as I stop feeling so bad I’ll make her into a nuke or a machine gun or something.”

I blinked at the human, who had not even sworn once, something that I had thought was commonplace for him. “Ares, are you feeling alright? I thought the doctor fully healed you.”

“I thought I did too,” a voice said from beside us, Doctor Stitch seemingly appearing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shiny jump that high ever, heck, I probably almost touched the ceiling myself.

“Sweet Faust, Doctor Stitch,” I said, a hoof going to my rapidly beating heart, “Didn’t anypony ever tell you that it’s rude to sneak up on others?”

Ignoring and brushing past us, the doctor carefully looking over the IV’s attached to the human’s arms. “Yes, yes, yes Mr. Ares, you are an odd one.”

“Don’t you have a golf game to get- Ow! Don’t pull that!”

I looked from Ares to the doctor, a look of concern on my face. “What do you mean Doctor? Did something happen with his procedure?” I really hoped that wasn’t the case, accidentally crippling Equestria’s first alien wouldn’t be good for anypony.

To my relief the doctor shook her head. “No, the procedure went perfectly, it’s just how his body went about the-”

“Christ, doc, quit beating around the bush and tell them before I pass out from boredom,” Ares whined quietly, the doctor giving him a dirty look.

“Mr. Ares's body here,” She punctuated herself by pointing at Ares with a hoof, “Is affected by magic far differently than the average ponies body. When I used my healing spell on him, instead of the magic instantly healing all of his ailments like it would a normal pony, the magic seeped into his body and through him very slowly.”

I blinked at that. “So…”

The Doctor adjusted her glasses before continuing, “So, Mr. Ares had the very unpleasant experience of feeling his body slowly fixing itself.”

Even Shiny couldn’t help but look a little concerned at that. “Ouch.”

Ares chuckled emotionlessly. “It hurt so bad I couldn't even scream.”

“When I found out what was happening I had to drain the magic out of the spell; If I hadn’t, he would of died from the sensory overload.”

Ares snorted. “You mean one of the nurses noticed me writhing around in my bed and told you.”

The doctor didn’t even blink as she ignored Ares. “So the human now has to naturally let all but his hands heal, that or until I can figure out a way to speed up the process without killing him.”

With that we all lapsed into silence, each of us thought over the gravity of what the Doctor said.

That is until Ares asked, “Hey, doc, you went to medical school right?”

The doctor blinked at the odd question but nodded. “Yes.”

“And I guess you know a lot about ponies right?”

“...Yes,”

Humming Ares finally opened an eye to look down at the sleeping nurse who was sleepily nuzzling him. “Alright, then you should be able to answer me this teeny, tiny question that I’ve been wondering since I’ve gotten a look at all of you alien pony thingy’s.”

We all leaned in curiously, “And that question is?...”

“Are you sure you guys aren’t part dog?”

I guess it was my fault thinking that the human was going to ask something important, but hey, I usually think the best about ponies.

“What?!” The doctor squawked as mine and Shiny’s jaws hit the floor at the insulting question.

The human shushed her, an irritated but tired look on his face. “We got some people trying to sleep here, Doc, use your inside voice.”

“How can you ask a question like that?! We ponies are in no way related to dogs!” The doctor whispered/yelled as Ares continued to calmly scratch the nurse’s ear.

“No need to get your panties in a bunch, I was just asking you a simple question. I mean, look at you guys, you're adorable and soft and furry, like a dog. I mean look at this,” he started his scratching lower and lower until he reached the nurses stomach, where he started to gently rub it. As soon as Ares continued his scratching the nurse let out an adorable little coo, slowly kicking her legs out from underneath the blanket as she cuddled closer to the smiling human.

“See? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”

The doctor started to grind her teeth so hard I thought she was going to crack them. “We are ponies, not dogs, Mr. Ares.”

Ares smile grew a little wider at that. “Aw, is the widdle doctor angwy? Does she need a widdle belly scratch too?”

That was when I decided to step in; I didn’t want to see the first alien beaten to death after all. “Um Doctor Stitch?” I flinched when the mare's twitching eye turned toward me. Leaning I whispered into her ears about the blood work, not wanting Ares to hear.

She almost immediately collected herself, clearing her throat before saying, “Yes, of course, Princess, if you and Prince Shining would sit on one of the beds I’ll get everything ready.”

As she left I gave Ares a disapproving look. “You know if you keep that up she’s going to kill you right?”

Ares looked over at me as Shiny and I shared a bed right next to him, Shiny still looking upset. “Don’t worry, Candy,” he said as he hugged the nurse closer to himself, closing his eyes again. “If the doc wanted to kill me she could have just let her spell do it. Between you, me, and Tina over there,” Shiny snorted at this, “I think the doctor loves it.”

I shook my head as I stared concerningly at him. “Ares, let me be the first to apologies about what the doctor did to you, even if it was unintentional.”

Ares took so long to answer that I thought he went back to sleep. “You didn’t know your magic stuff would do that.” He lifted one of hands and wiggled his now pinkish fingers at me. “At least it fixed my hands,” he then dropped his limb onto the nurse, now playing with her mane.

“Creature,” Shiny finally piped up, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“And what question is that, Sadie?”

Shiny poked a hoof to the nurse, though Ares eyes were closed and he didn't see it. “Why do you have that nurse in your bed?”

Ares shook his head tiredly. “No idea, I just woke up and she was there. I must have snatched her up in the middle of the night,” he let out a quiet hum, “She is really warm though, really warm and soft, kinda like a big adorable teddy bear. And I am still cold. The way I see it, it's a win-win for the two of us.”

“You will let her go when she wakes up,” Shiny commanded.

The human snorted. “She’s been awake for the past five minutes, Elizabeth.”

I couldn’t help but giggle as the nurse stiffened, her white face becoming beat red as she tried to look like she was still sleeping.

“I could feel your heart-beat going faster, nursey,” Ares said, still playing with her mane, “You heard, Betty, you can go and leave me cold and cuddleless if you want to, I’m not gonna stop you. Heck, I don’t think I’m strong enough to stop you.”

“Stop teasing the nurse, Ares,” I said as the nurse buried her head under Ares arm, though she didn’t get out of the bed.

“Yes, mom,” He cheekily said.

“You know creature, for an ‘alien’ you seem to be taking everything well,” Shiny said almost accusingly as he glared at the human.

“Anna,”

“MY name is Shining Armor, Shining Armor,”

“And my name isn’t creature tough guy; you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. So as I was saying Susan,” He seemed to shrink a little bit, “Magic, alien ponies, Yeti’s? I promise you; if I wasn’t so damned tired right now I would probably be losing my mind,”

I clopped my hooves together happily. “Hey look at you, Ares,” I said, “We’ve been talking all this time and that was your first swear word!”

Shiny looked like he was about to say something about that when one of the other nurses appeared. “Prince Shining,” she said after bowing, “Doctor Stitcher, could you follow me, please? The doctor decided that it would be best if she had your bloodwork done in a cleaner,” she narrowed her eyes at Ares, who stuck his tongue out at her, “Environment.”

“Go, Shiny,” I said, giving him a nuzzle, “I’ll just talk to Ares until it’s my turn.”

“Aw, is Mary here for an STD test?” Ares asked, a big smile on his face as Shiny walked past him. “Hope it goes well.”

As Shiny went out of sight Ares looked at me and saw my scowl. “Aw, come on, Candy, don’t give me that look; he’s too easy to rile up,”

“He’s trying to be nice, Ares,” I chided, getting off the bed and walking over to him. “The least you can do is try the same.”

With a sigh the human nodded. “You’re right, that was pretty shitty of me. I’ll apologize when he comes back out,” He smiled at my look of disbelief. “I'm not always a bastard, Candy. Look, I promise I'll make amends with your boy. So, how’s, Candy.” He asked, trying to turn the conversation.

I snorted. “Fine, thank you, Ares,”

“Good, good,” he murmured, shaking his head slowly.

I was about to continue the conversation when I heard what sounded to be a large mob of angry ponies outside The Ward. Oh crud, what now? I thought with a groan, turning around to see an actual mob of ponies, no joke, they had pitchforks and everything, coming towards us with what I guessed to be malicious intent.

As the crowd came within a hoof’s distance put myself between the mob and Ares, who had the common sense to fully cover the nurse with his blanket. Drawing myself up to my full height and giving them my best smile, I said, “Oh, hello my little ponies, might I ask what is going on here?” My ears flattened against my skull as dozens of angry questions were shouted at me until a mare broke off of the group and walked up to me, the group becoming eerily quiet as she cleared her throat.

Bowing, the mare said, “Your highness, we heard that a Yeti had entered the kingdom, we have come to slay it,” the group agreed with this, rattling their collective weapons. “You may be our princess, but we will not allow one of those creatures refuge here, not after what they did to us with the tyrant.”

Though my face showed serene figurehead-ness I was quietly screaming on the inside. “Now my subjects-”

“Give us the creature, princess!” somepony in the crowd shouted, the mob loudly agreeing with them.

“Candy, move outta the way for Christ sakes, I wanna see the pony mob,” Ares croaked out, the crowd jumping at the sound of his voice. “I’m not a Yeti you silly ponies. Oh, and please don’t kill me...”

“*Gasp* It talks!”

“Slay the beast while it’s weakened!”

“Kill it! Kill it with fire!”

“ENOUGH!” I roared, using the Canterlot Royal voice, my ponies shrinking under my now stern gaze. “Now listen here; Ares is NOT a Yeti,” I pointed a hoof at him, “Now, why don’t you all stop being silly and go say hello?”

The group of now nervous ponies huddled together, whispering to each other while they threw looks at me and Ares. Finally, all of the ponies nodded, making their way toward the human and dropping their weapons as I moved out of the way.

Ares watched in amusement as the group cautiously made their way over to him. The mare leader lifting a tentative hoof to poke at him. “…Say something creature,” she said as Ares cocked his head at her, “Prove to us that you were speaking earlier, it is known that Yeti's cannot speak the tongue of ponies.”

They all leaned in as he cleared his throat, “Look at you guys, all scary and adorable with your pitchforks and such.”

I snorted as the group jumped back again, only for all of them to start to start crowding the human, who slowly raised a hand. “Stay calm, stay calm,” he said, slowly reaching his hand out to the crowd, who watched the hand like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “I’m just gonna pet one of you, to show you I'm a nice and friendly guy, no need to beat me to death, there we go.”

He then very slowly reached out to play with a mare's ears, the mare looking panicked for a second before she closed her eyes and sighed happily, leaning toward his hand as the group gawked, though they didn’t move in any way to stop him.

Looking back to me Ares tiredly grinned, “I think this is the best life/death situation I’ve ever been a part of,” he turned toward the lead mare. “Miss, what's your name?” he asked, releasing the mare from his fingers, the mare letting out a little whine of dissatisfaction before she melted back into the group.

The entire group turned toward the mare, who whittled under their collective gaze before clearing her throat and saying, “I, creature, am Grape Vine.”

Humming to himself, Ares leaned his head back into his pillow and closed his eyes, “Well, it's nice to meet you Grape Vine and company, my name is Ares,” he stifled yawned, “Now I’m sure you have a whole bunch of questions, and I’d ab-so-lutely love to answer them all, but all of this excitement isn’t good for injured people, so how about I give ya’ll a reign check so I can get a little shut eye, eh?”

The ponies looked at the human, then to me. “That is reasonable, creature. Since we can see that you are not one of those creatures we will leave you to recuperate; we will be off then,” Grape Vine said, the crowd leaving The Ward quietly and calmly, just leaving me and Ares.

“Well, that went a thousand times better than I thought it was going to go,” Ares commented, seemingly surprised that he hadn’t been mobbed to death.

I nodded, giving Ares a gentle smile and walking back and sitting back onto my bed. “My little ponies really are more open-minded than many ponies I’ve known elsewhere.”

Ares groaned. “‘My little ponies’? Candy, for Christ's sake, you better not talk like that in public; that shit’s embarrassing and me and nursey are the only ones in here with you.”

I ignored the heat coming to my cheeks. “Shut up,” I muttered, throwing the pillow on my bed at him and growling as he laughed at me when I missed.

“Candy, I’ve seen blind kindergarteners throw better than you. Look at-” Ares then sat up and broke into wet, painful sounding coughing, causing the nurse, who had been still underneath the blanket the whole time, to throw off the covers and hop out of the bed, doting over the human, who tried to waved her off.

I drew closer to him, giving him a gentle nuzzle, noticing as I drew closer how pale and thin he looked. “Ares,” I said with concern, “Just calm down, you need to remember that you are nowhere near well enough to be jumping around like you are.”

“I’m *cough* not jumping *cough* I’m laying *cough*, Candy,” Ares rasped out as the nurse galloped away, muttering something about getting him some water.

“You know what I mean,” I chastised, gently rubbing his back with a hoof as his coughing fit ran its course. “You can be the big bad human when you’re all better, but for now you need to do what the doctor tells you.”

Ares didn’t answer me until the nurse came back with a glass of water, which he quickly snatched and drank in one go, carefully giving it back to her before falling back into the bed. “Piss on the doctor.”

“Ares.”

“Yes mom?”

I resisted, boy did I resist, the urge to facehoof. “Do I have to tie you down?” I growled as the nurse trotted away.

The human smiled at that. “You know, if I could think straight, I’d say something about that,” He sighed when I nuzzled him again. “Hey look, Mary’s back.”

I turned around, and smiled when I saw my Shiny along with the doctor, though I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t heard all of the commotion that had happened. These rooms must be soundproof, I thought as Ares broke into another coughing fit.

“Mr. Ares, is there something wrong?” The doctor asked as she trotted over to the human, manually checking his temperature and pulse, frowning after she did. “Your core temperature is dropping again.”

The human hit his chest hard, trying to clear whatever was in his lungs. “Ya, I lost my cuddle buddy so I'm all cold and lonely now.”

“Oh, you mean Nurse Sweetheart? She rushed to find me. She said something about a coughing fit.”

Ares smiled as the Doctor fretted over him, pushing that little button that alerted the nurses that she needed help, you know the one. “Nurse Sweetheart? God, that’s adorable,” he said as he closed his eyes.

The doctor grunted as the nurses moved Shiny and I out of the way, throwing blankets over the human and checking his I.V.’s.

“Is he going to be alright, Doctor?” I asked as she brought out a big needle and flicked it with a hoof.

“Hum? O yes princess, as long as he’s close enough to equine anatomy that this wouldn’t kill him,” she casually replied as she pierced one of the humans I.V. bags and injected it with with whatever was in the needle.

“WHAT?!” I shouted, my wings flaring as the doctor chuckled.

“Just a little doctors humor to break the tension in the room, Princess, no need to be alarmed. I’m at least sixty-five percent sure that this wouldn’t kill him,” Dr. Stitcher said, all of us looking at her in shock “This should stabilize him and clear up that cough.”

I think Ares voiced what we were all thinking. “Doc, seriously, and I mean this with all my heart, fuck your doctors humor..”

Shining snorted, getting over the shock like the rest of us. “There’s the foul-mouthed creature I know.”

Ares looked at him, looking oddly guilty, “Look, Shining-”

“Oh, so the creature knows my name?”

Ares grimaced at this as I stayed quiet; they needed to settle this out themselves. “Look, I know we had a pretty rough start yesterday; I head-butted you, you tried to horn me to death, and some words were said. How about we bury the hatchet and start over,” he raised a hand toward Shiny, “Come on, I’ll even promise to keep down the language, what do ya say?”

Shiny looked at Ares then to me before grumbling, walking over and shaking the humans hand. “Fine.”

I smiled. “There you two go! You always complain about not having enough guy friends, Shiny. You spend a little more time together and I can tell the two of you will be the best of friends!” The two grumbled as they broke the hand/hoof shake.

I looked at the nurse beckoning me. “Well it looks like it’s my turn.”

Shiny nodded. “Alright honey, I think I’m going to go lay down for a while, My heads starting to hurt again,” he said, giving me a peck on the cheek and walking away.

As I turned to go with the nurse and the doctor I couldn’t help but notice the nurse from before hopping under the covers with Ares, the human smiling while he said, “Silly dog-ponies, you can't hide your pony-dogness from me."

…

Shining walked back to his room in a foul mood. He had a gut feeling that the alien was lying, that it was trying something funny, and that it should not be trusted.

“Sorry honey,” he muttered as he used his magic to levitate paper and ink over to himself. “But you are wrong.”

Dear Princess Celestia,
…

Author's Note

Well, there's another chapter, a very unimportantly important chapter.

And no, if any of you are thinking this, Ares wouldn't be able to have kids with any of the ponies.

If the chapter seems not great blame my flu and remember, I fought through coughing, sneezing, and all around shittyness to get this out for you guys.

Until the next one comes out ;()