At the End of the Tunnel

Princess Twilight Sparkle,

It had given me great pleasure to read about what you have learned about the newest citizen of Equestria, and everything you have mentioned so far has piqued my interest thouroughly. To that end, on behalf of Princess Luna and myself, we would like to extend an invitation for dinner to both you and this human as your guest for tomorrow night. We will send a royal carriage to bring you to the palace.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

"This is very exciting," Twilight said after she had finished reading the letter, "Princess Celestia wants to meet you personally, it's quite an honor." She seemed to be trying her hardest to keep in squeals of delight. I, on the other hand, was more interested in seeing what Rarity would come up with for me to wear to such an occasion.

"I'm sure it is," I sighed, looking down at the floor of the boutique for a moment, "Pardon me for being less that enthusiastic. It's just that I've never met a soverign before, let alone two, and I'm very nervous about it." Twilight seemed a little peeved at this last statement.

"Hey, I'm a princess too, you know," she said matter-of-factly, "And trust me, you have nothing to worry about, both Celestia and Luna are very down-to-Earth." In my heart, I knew Twilight was right. After all, she knew them better than I did. But the heightened levels of anxiety that I knew all too well just wouldn't leave my mind.

"Twilight's right, darling," Rarity beamed, coming into the room with a stack of clothing held by her blue aura of magic, "You should hear about the time we almost tore the castle apart. You can't make a worst first impression than that." This finally made me smile somewhat, of course now wondering what that story entailed, but I couldn't think about for long. "Here it is, your outfit for the evening, down to the socks." Rarity levitated the clothing stack over to me. A pair of black pants, a white, button-down, long-sleeved dress shirt, a black three-button vest, straight black tie, and a new pair of black leather dress shoes. I quickly made my way over to one of the side rooms to change while the mares worked on Twilight's wardrobe.

Before long, I was dressed and pressed for the evening. Every piece of my attire fit like a glove. I had to hand it to Rarity, this was remarkable, particularly considering she had never made clothes for a human before, and was going basically only off my measurements and what I had told her about human fashion. This was the perfect level of formal without being over-the-top for the occasion.

When I came back out to the main foyer of the boutique, I could hear the two mares talking and moving about in another room. I figured it would take them the rest of the time before the carriage arrived to get Twilight ready. For creatures that didn't wear clothes most of the time, they turned out to be just like human women when they did, spending seemingly endless amounts of time styling their manes or doing their make-up and the like. I chuckled to myself as I sat down and waited patiently for my royal escort. Fortunately for me, time must have flown by, because it wasn't long before somepony knocked on the front door. I being the only person or pony near-by, I answered it myself. There stood a peagsus stallion, clad in golden armor, including a helmet. I hadn't seen pony armor yet, though it was pretty much what I expected. I could see a size-able carriage, as well as another similar pegasus just outside.

"I assume that you are the human," the pegasus said in an official tone of voice.

"That I would be," I replied, "I'll just go get Princess Twilight, and then we can be on our way."

"That's Princess Twilight Sparkle to you," the guard said with slight disgust as I shut the door and turned back inside. And just as I was about to call Twilight to tell her that our transportation was here, she and Rarity came back into the foyer. I had to admit myself that Twilight pulled off the princess look rather well. She had styled her mane in sort of a bob fashion, topped with a small crown. The dress was simple, white and purple, though quite elegant.

"I think I heard one of the royal guards," she said, going past me toward the door, "shall we?" She magically opened the door and made her way outside. When I followed I saw that the two guards bowed to her momentarily before the one who knocked open the door of the carriage for her. I swiftly made my way inside as well, and before I knew it, we were off.

For riding in a carriage being pulled through the air by a pair of pegasi, it was a surprisingly smooth trip to Canterlot, the capital city of Equestria. Twilight and I didn't talk much during the trip, my mind being far too preoccupied with how I was going to introduce myself to the princesses once we arrived. I knew that they knew some things about me from Twilight's letters, but that's not a complete substitute for first-hand face-to-face encounters. To be fair, Twilight herself seemed to be going over something in her own head, at least as far as I could tell. I had learned even in my short time in Ponyville that Twilight had this habit of moving her lips when thinking to herself, not saying anything out loud, mind, but it was still an interesting little personality quirk.

Soon enough, the awkward silence of the carriage was interrupted by the sound of wheels landing and rolling on the ground. I took a peek out of the rather small window of the carriage to confirm my suspicions that we had arrived at our destination. One of the Royal Guards opened the door to the carriage. I quickly exited first, followed by Twilight, the guards again bowing to her. Meanwhile, I was standing in awe of the Canterlot Castle. I knew it was huge, judging by the fact that you could see it from Ponyville, but up close it was just staggering, not to mention that the masonry almost shone in the light of the full moon.

"I think we should go inside now," Twilight said, snapping me out of my architecture-induced haze. She began to move toward the main entrance to the castle with me swiftly catching up to and walking alongside the princess. Two more guards, both of whom were unicorns, bowed to us as they opened the gates.

"The princesses will be waiting for you in the dining hall, Princess Twilight," one of the guards said. Twilight acknowledged him and continued to lead me through the main corridor.

For the second time, I was almost struck dumb at the beauty of the castle. The inside was supported by numerous white marble columns, reaching to a ceiling that seemed to be two hundred feet above us. Along the walls hung various banners, tapestries, and pieces of art, broken up by the occasional statue or bust. The hallway was lit by the natural sunlight coming through multiple extra large stain glass windows, each of which were very colorful and seemed to depict some sort of scene, though I didn't have the time at the moment to study each one in detail. Twilight chuckled a little in amusement at my gawking, to which I only smiled and shook my head.

After a spell, the two of us turned down a different hallway which came to a dead end at a large wooden double door, again manned by two unicorn guards.

"The princesses have been awaiting your arrival," one of the guards said as they bowed, they then proceeded to open up the doors.

Now I was feasting my eyes upon the royal dining hall. An almost impossibly long table was the centerpiece, covered by a fine white silk cloth. Each place at the table was set with what I would later confirm to be silver platewear with stainless steel utensils. The walls of this room were again decorated with multiple pieces of art.

"I'm so glad you both arrived safely," a new voice said, again breaking me out of my thousand-yard stare. I turned to see not one, but two alicorns standing before us.

On my right was an all-white alicorn. She was very tall, the tallest pony I had yet seen, and the only creature thus far who could look me straight in the eyes without flying. Her tri-color mane and tail seemed to be ever-flowing, as if there was a breeze that only affected her.

On the left stood another alicorn, this one with a dark blue coat. She was slightly shorter than the first one, but if you included her horn, she also reached six feet. Her mane and tail billowed in a similar way, though due to their similar dark blue coloring and sparkling, star-like flecks it seemed like they were made of the night sky itself.

It didn't take me two guesses to know who these two were.

"Princess Celestia, Princess Luna," Twilight cheerily greeted, walking up to the two rulers. I stood stock-still, my nerves starting to get to me again. I could feel little beads of sweat begin to form on my brow as I was unsure how I should proceed, whether they would greet me, or whether I should greet them first. Fortunately, Twilight helped me out. "Princesses, I'd like you to meet Guy," she said, motioning with her hoof as the two taller alicorns continued their path toward me, "this is the human I've been writing to you about." When the introduction was finished, the two of them were not five feet infront of me. I took a deep breath.

"Your majesties," I greeted, bowing at the waist and casually lifting both of my arms out and away from my body. I held the bow for a few seconds before rising again to look Princess Celestia dead in the eyes.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," the princess of the sun greeted.

"Yes, 'tis a pleasure," said the princess of the night.

I let out a deep sigh, happy to see the hard part was over with.

"Come, let us eat," Celestia said, turning back toward the table. Luna and I followed, as did Twilight when we passed her again. As we were walking, Twilight looked up and gave me a little smile, one that I returned.

When we reached the table, I saw that it was wide enough to have not one, but two ponies seated at the head. Celestia and Luna took their respective positions, while Twilight and I took the first seats on the sides, Twilight on Celestia's side, and I on Luna's. A finely-dressed unicorn waitstaff stood behind each chair, magically pulling them out for us, and carefully pushing it back in. I had to admit that I wasn't used to be waited on quite like this, and I certainly could never get used to it, but such was the perks of being an honored guest of the princesses, I suppose.

As the first course of the meal, a light salad, began, I could see Celestia and Twilight quickly making light conversation, no doubt catching up on the many things that were happening in Ponyville and across the empire. I quietly enjoyed the food and picked up on one or two little things in their conversation, but decided to stay out of it. Luna seemed to be of similar mind, eating her salad, usually with her eyes closed, and choosing to forgo talking for the time being.

The second course was a vegetable soup, which I found to be of very high quality. Naturally, the castle employed only the best chefs and bakers they could find, and they did not disappoint. As I continued to eat and enjoy myself, I began to find it odd that Celestia had not yet addressed me directly. Of course, she already knew everything I had told Twilight, and perhaps that was all she needed, or wanted, to know. But on the other hand, she had specifically extended an invitation for dinner to me, so there had to be some reason. However, she wasn't the only princess in the room.

"Art thou tense," Princess Luna asked. I stopped mid-spoonful to turn and look at her, wondering whether she had actually been speaking to me or not. "Thou seem," she cleared her throat, "at a loss for words."

"Well your highness," it was now my turn to clear my throat, "when I'm in unfamiliar situations, I do tend to be rather cautious. So to answer your original question, yes I suppose I am a little tense."

"Be not so formal," the princess responded, turning her head slightly to the side, "We prefer to be called Luna." I smiled and chuckled just a little, more at her use of long-forgotten syntax than at her request. I wondered to myself if many ponies had trouble understanding her.

"OK...Luna," I bowed my head slightly before looking across the table to Twilight, who seemed to be going on and on to Celestia about something, "answer me this, are those two going to talk like that all evening?" Luna momentarily shifted her gaze to her sister, then back to me.

"More than likely so," Luna said with a slight sigh, "dearest Twilight Sparkle is our sister's favorite student, after all." I smiled and nodded before ingesting the last spoonful of my soup. Princess Luna did the same.

Before I even had time to say something else, the waitstaff brought the third course, the main course. This was a splendid spread of pasta with just the perfect amount of sauce, served with more vegetables and a side of garlic bread. And though I had been drinking water up to this point in the meal, the unicorn waiter almost insisted that I switch to wine, which I accepted with Luna's recommendation. Soon enough I had a glass of red sitting in front of me, the perfect compliment to a pasta dish.

"So...Luna," I started again, still getting used to calling an all-powerful royal by her first name, "since I'm here, I'd just like to comment on the night sky. I find it very pleasing to look at." This caused a beaming grin of pride to cross Luna's face.

"We thank thee for thou most generous compliment," she said, the grin still plastered to her muzzle, "We are glad that thou thinks so highly of our creation."

"Well, it isn't everyday that one gets to meet the being responsible for causing such phenomenon." By this point, Luna had returned to her more demure expression.

"Yes, Twilight Sparkle did tell us about how the sun and moon work in your world. We found it very confusing, truth be told. All of it seems so, random."

"It's random and it's not random at the same time," I replied, jumping into full-on scientist mode, "that's the beauty of it. But I suppose that now. seeing the difference between my past world and this one, it is quite nice to have a full moon to look at every night."

"Are thou sure of this knowledge?"

"Twilight asked the same thing. Yes, I am sure. It's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hell, my species have even had people walk on the Moon."

This almost caused Luna to do a spit-take. "'Tis a lie! If thou Moon is similar to our Moon, how did thou species survive? We were there for a thousand years, but we are immortal."

"Well, its very complicated and took a lot of technology. Nobody could just snap their fingers," I literally snapped my fingers to show Luna what the expression meant, "and go to the Moon."

Luna's mini-outburst had caught the attention of Twilight and Celestia, who looked at the two of us on the other side of the table with curiosity.

"Is everything alright, Luna," Celestia asked.

"Yes, everything is most alright," Luna replied, slightly blushing from embarrasment as she regained her composure, "We think we may have gotten a little too excited."

"I was just telling her that humans walked on the moon," I stated innocently.

"Oh boy," Twilight muttered, though still loud enough so that we could all hear her, "that explains a lot."

I smiled and chuckled to myself as we all returned to our meal, finishing the main course in mostly silence. The end of the third course meant the beginning of the fourth and final course: dessert. The waiters floated over to each of us a small plate, upon which sat a reasonably-sized slice of cheesecake, topped with strawberry drizzle and an entire whole strawberry.

"Forgive us for our rudeness earlier," Luna said before I could even take my first bite, "We are still trying to wrap our head around some of the things we've heard about thou world." I shook my head and waved my hand.

"Think nothing of it, Luna. If Twilight came to my world and tried to explain to me how everything works here, I would have trouble believing it myself."

"We suppose it's a bit of a shock on both ends then, correct?"

I just nodded in answer.

The four of us finished our delectable dessert. Once the waitstaff had cleared the table, Celestia rose from her seat.

"I do apologize," the princess of the sun began, "but it has been quite a long day, and I am very tired. I think I shall retire for the night. Twilight, you and your guest are more than welcome to stay here at the castle tonight. The guest rooms have already been prepared. Goodnight."

Before she could leave, I hastily rose from my own seat and made my way into her path. I bowed, though in a simpler fashion than I had done before, and eventually returned to a standing position. "Thank you very much for your gracious hospitality. It has been an honor meeting you, your majesty."

"It has been an honor to meet you as well. I am sorry that we could not converse as much as I would have liked, but I am sure Twilight will continue to inform me on everything that you tell her."

"I'm sure she will," I replied with a slight laugh.

Celestia made her way out of the dining hall. Twilight soon got up as well.

"I'm going to turn in too," she said, "that meal was very filling. Goodnight Luna, goodnight Guy."

Luna and I said our goodnights to her in turn, before a royal guard entered the room, presumably to escort her to her chambers for the night. I returned to my seat beside Luna and had the waiter top off my wine glass.

"Art thou not yet tired?"

"Surprisingly, no," I replied, taking a sip of wine, "You would think I would be, it's been a long day."

"Well if thou wish to accompany us, there is something that we wish to show thou." It was now Luna's turn to get up out of her chair, and I soon did the same, grabbing my wine glass and following the princess out of the dining hall.

I followed the princess of the night down one hallway, then another. Eventually we came to a room which was manned by another guard. Luna said something to him, and then entered the room. I followed behind, the guard not paying me any mind. The room was a bedroom, and a giant one at that. On one side sat a large four-post bed, completely surrounded by blue curtains not unlike the shade of blue in Luna's mane. As I looked around, I noticed a heavy theme of nighttime, stars, and moons. I quickly realized that this was Luna's chamber.

"Umm...Princess Luna," I began with hesitation, "something tells me that I shouldn't be in this room."

"Well then, 'tis a good thing we are going to the balcony then." Luna replied with a chuckle as she moved toward the far side of the room, swishing her tail slightly. I wondered to myself if all the ponies in Equestria were giant flirts, or if I was just imagining things. The princess of the night opened the double oak-wood doors that led to her private balcony. She then used her magic to levitate a black leather sofa out onto it. "Come, stargaze with us."

I decided to accept the invitation, walking across the room and out to the balcony before taking a seat on the far right side of the sofa, still holding my glass of wine. Luna soon took her own place, taking up the other two-thirds of the sofa, facing me. For a moment, we looked at each other, a slight smirk coming across her face.

"Does our presence make thee uncomfortable," she said with no unusual inflection.

"Not in the slightest," I replied, taking another sip of wine and turning my head forward, toward the darkness. "So, just how does one go about creating a night sky?" Now I was the one wearing the smirk as I turned back toward the princess, awaiting an answer.

"'Tis not as difficult as thou mayest think. Time-consuming, yes, but difficult, nay."

"I suppose as long as you only have to do it once," I began to chuckle, "Imagine...imagine if every night, in addition to raising the moon, you also had to put each and every star in its place. That would take all night!" By this point I was in full-blown, perhaps alcohol-induced laughter. Fortunately, Luna decided to join in on this levity.

"That would be a daunting task indeed," she replied, finding it hard to keep up her esteemed speech while chortling, "but at least then we would have something to do all night." This set off another round of enjoyable laughter for both of us.

Eventually, we both calmed down, and simply had cheesy grins plastered to our faces. Now our stargazing began in earnest, with Luna pointing out various stars and constellations to me as I sat there. Of course, all the stars are different, so this was all new to me, but I found the patterns quite easy to recognize and find, a nice thing to have at hand if I found myself awake one night bored. We talked at length about the different constellations and their meanings, I regaled her with various stories concerning the ancient Greeks and Romans who named most of the constellations in my world. Many hours passed in this fashion before I lazily drifted off to sleep.

***************************************************

When I awoke in the morning, probably right after the sun had been risen, I found myself confused by my surroundings. I was on top of a bed, that much I could be sure of, a large bed topped with sheets of the finest quality, and pillows that felt just like the clouds that Rainbow Dash had shown to me in an attempt to explain how the weather worked. Around the bed were shades, all drawn, with very familiar patterns on them.

Realizing where I was, I sat up instantly, all the blood rushing to my head and the light hangover I was experiencing from all the wine I had consumed. I tried to shake it off and make my way up, but my efforts were interrupted.

"Good to see thou has risen," it was Luna's voice, "Twilight Sparkle told us that thou are an early riser." The curtains to my immediate left, the near side of the bed, were magically drawn open to reveal the princess of the night standing there, sans clothing. Of course, this was normal among ponies, but I figured with some foreign creature in her bed, she would at least don a nightgown. "We were just coming to see if thou planned on partaking in breakfast." She said this a bit too loud, and I winced, holding my head in mild pain. I saw that she immediately put a hoof to her mouth, aware of how I was feeling.

"Breakfast sounds lovely," I softly replied, waiting for the pain to subside, "Why am I in your bed?"

"Thou fell asleep on the sofa. We took the liberty of moving thou sleeping form to our bed. 'Tis not as if We use it in the evening, anyhow."

"I hope that's the only liberty you took," I mumbled, still groggy, but not groggy enough to notice that I was no longer wearing my tie, vest, or shoes.

"Did thou sayest something?"

"No, no," I turned to address Luna directly, "just give me a minute, and I'll be up and ready."

I slowly inched myself around on my backside until my feet were parallel with the floor. I saw that my shoes were not far away, so I reached down, picked them up and put them on. At this point I noticed that my vest and tie were slung over a near-by chair. Good thing I knew where they were, I would hate to go home and have Rarity angry with me for losing some of the garments she made. Besides, I had plans to wear the vest again sometime.

After finishing with my shoes, I followed Luna back down the same hallway we had come last night and into the royal dining hall once again. As soon as the double doors were opened, my nostrils were filled with the smell of the food that I consider heaven on Earth: cinnamon rolls. I had only had them once before in Equestria, and that was courtesy of Pinkie. I presumed that Twilight had told Celestia of my love of the sweet pastries and she in turn had made it a special occasion to have them while I was here.

By the time Luna and I had reached the hall, Twilight and Celestia were already there, though while Celestia had taken the same seat that she had sat in the previous evening, Twilight was now seating in what had been my seat. I took this as an invitation to sit next to Celestia through breakfast.

And what a breakfast spread it was. In addition to the stack of warm, gooey cinnamon rolls in front of us, there were baskets filled with various fruits and each place was served a large glass of apple juice. This was possibly the best breakfast of my life and I was having it with the immortal co-rulers of the entire country. If I had been Rarity, I would have magically pulled in a chaise lounge and fainted dead away.

Once all four of us were seated, the three alicorns each magically took a cinnamon roll off of the stack. I smirked and chuckled at the ease with which those magic-users could do their stuff. In jest, I motioned my right hand and arm forward and closed my eyes, as if I was trying to do magic myself. Then, somehow or another, I felt the sticky goodness of icing on my fingers and closed my index finger and thumb onto the pastry. My eyes shot open to reveal myself holding a cinnamon bun which in turn was being held by a dark blue aura, the same color as Luna's glowing horn. I smirked and licked my lips before pulling the cinnamon roll to my mouth and taking a big bite with such ferocity that a certain porcelain unicorn would call it animalistic. This elicited laughter from my audience, as I sat there smiling like a fool, icing caked on the corners of my mustachioed upper lip.

We all dived into our respective breakfasts after my little show. Twilight was talking to Luna, though the princess of the night seemed to be doing her best to listen without giving off the impression that she was bored. I knew that feeling. Meanwhile, I again wasn't sure if I should address Celestia first or wait for her to initiate conversation with me.

"I do hope that you slept well last night," the princess of the sun suddenly asked me, right as I was in the middle of a bite. After hastily swallowing the piece of pastry I answered.

"Well enough, though I did wake up with a bit of a headache, though that was easily remidied by this scrumptious spread."

"Too much wine," Celestia asked knowingly.

"Too much wine," I conceded.

"I only ask because the guard assigned to your guest room told me that he didn't see you all night. Where were you?"

I quickly glanced over to Luna and then back to Celestia, neither of them seemed to notice, "Let's just say I fell asleep earlier than I expected, and thus didn't make it to my room."

"Don't tell me you slept on the floor somewhere," the princess said with a snicker.

"Oh, of course not, if I had, I wouldn't be in such a good mood, cinnamon rolls or no cinnamon rolls. I slept in a bed, but not the bed you set aside for me. Please don't think that I don't appreciate your hospitality all the same."

"I know you appreciate all of this, you told me last night, if you remember."

"I remember. I didn't have that much wine."

"By chance," Celestia turned her whole head in Luna's direction for a moment before returning her gaze to me and continuing, "did you share a bed with somepony?"

I hacked and coughed at this question, doing my best not to spit out my juice. Did Princess Celestia, the co-ruler of the land, just imply that I had sex with her sister!? One of the waitstaff gave me a few pats on the back until I assured them that I wasn't choking. This also had the effect of drawing the attention of Luna and Twilight from the across the table.

"Your majesty," I finally was able to say, "if I had, I'm sure one of your guards would have told you about it."

"Don't think that I'm trying to embarrass you."

"Well you're certainly doing an excellent job of that," I replied sarcastically. I literally bit my tongue after saying this, afraid of insulting one of my guests, "I'm sorry, that was impolite of me."

"I am sorry as well for making such accusations and presumptions," Celestia apologized, her voice dropping in volume, "but between you and me, I worry about Luna's personal life, perhaps a little more than I should."

"Well she is your little sister," I mimicked Celestia's whisper, "it doesn't surprise me that you worry about certain things concerning her more than any other pony."

The four of us finished our breakfast soon after this short conversation. Twilight and I said our good-byes to our guests, I even received a full-blown, unexpected, hug from Luna. The pages of the castle had fetched my vest and tie, the former of which I donned again. Soon, I and my royal escort were off in another pegasus-drawn carriage.

"So what did you and Celestia talk about," Twilight immediately questioned me as we begun our journey home.

"Oh, the same stuff about my old world. She's almost as fascinated as you are. I'm quite surprised she had any questions for me that you hadn't asked me yet."

"Like what," Twilight tilted her head.

"State secrets," I smirked.

"Princess, remember?"

"Still confidential."

I could tell Twilight wasn't happy with my lie, but she didn't call me out for it. She seemed to be turning the thought around in her head about what Celestia could have asked me, perhaps so that she didn't repeat the question later, or perhaps because it would say something about Celestia.

"So," Twilight once again began conversation, "who's bed did you sleep in if you didn't sleep in your own chambers?"

"Oh wouldn'st thou like to know," I said with a smile and a wink, which caused Twilight to blush vehemently.

"Um, uh, uh, for-forget I asked, OK?"

"Whatever you say, your majesty."