Propositions

Some legends are told,

Some turn to dust or to gold,

But you will remember me.

Remember me for Centuries!

I remember quite well what was playing on my iPhone that morning. I remember the felling of the early-morning sunrise and the light breeze which accompanied my daily exercise. As the music rang through my ears and lifted my spirits, I began jogging down the very familiar dirt road. It was the same path I had traveled down every morning for the past two years. The path was an extension of the running experience, quite, serene, peaceful. Just the road and me.

My daily routine had been consistent since I had secured my job. Wake up, drive to this country road, run five miles, head home, shower, go to work. I liked to think that a regular exercise routine helped me in my daily life. I didn’t need a bunch of fitness freaks and magazines to tell me that.

But on top of the endorphin-releasing part of the exercise, I just loved to run. Ever since middle school and high school, participating in track and cross country, I enjoyed the feelings I experienced while running. I wasn’t always the best or the fastest, but the competition was secondary. Getting my limbs moving, hitting the peak of my stride, taking in the full breaths, it was almost a sort of high.

On this run, I was poetry in motion. My shoulders and pecs flexed around my white, sleeveless, Under Armor workout shirt, my sleek, white, iPhone securely strapped to my upper arm, blaring the music of my workout, my thighs popped with each stride through the black Nike shorts, my feet landed each graceful plant and push-off in my black-and-white Nike running shoes. I could tell from the start that this was going to be a good run.

When you run the same route every day, you naturally begin to believe that nothing can surprise you. You know that the big Doberman that one family keeps is going to bark at you. You know to take a left at the fork, because the right leads to a dead-end.

That being said, even an expert runner like me can have something sneak up on them. I had almost finished my run and was in the home stretch. Then, before my eyes, I saw a flash of purple light. Unfortunately, the light was so close that I couldn’t stop myself from running straight into it. The moment after I hit it, my next step landed not on dirt, but grass. I barely noticed this, as my eyes were still partially-blinded from the earlier light. The next step, however, was the real doozy.

*SLAM*

My face met with something hard and wooden. The collision dazed me, and I fell right on my back. I was seeing stars, but could make out the shape of a door which I had just tried to break down with my face. Instinctively, I brought my hand up to my forehead to find that I was bleeding. At the same time, I heard what I believed to be footsteps heading toward the door from the other side. The door swung open, and a female voice spoke.

“Oh my, are you alright?”

After blinking a few more times to gain my bearings, I case my gaze upward at who was speaking to me.

My first reaction was that she wasn’t human. She had gray fur covering her entire body, from her horse-shaped head to her hooves. As I tried to piece together what this creature was, I took in the rest of her. She was wearing a white t-shirt that was either one size too small, or she wasn’t wearing a bra, as her bust moved every time she made the slightest motion. She also had on a pair of denim Daisy Duke shorts. I noticed that she had hair on her head, as well as a tail, that were long and blond. Ending my gazing at her face, I noted that her eyes were of a similar golden color, though her pupils were crossed.

“Well…I…,” I stuttered, attempting to answer her initial question with little success.

“Oh Celestia, you’re bleeding.”

She was correct, and I could do little to protest as she came to my side and pulled up all 6-2 210 of me a lot easier than I would have expected. Soon, I was through the door into what I could only assume was this creature’s home, and plopped down onto a navy blue couch.

“Now you stay here,” she ordered, “I’ll go get something for your head.”

I nodded wearily, as my bearings began to return. They did so just in time for me to turn toward the creature helping me and notice something very peculiar. On her back, coming through a pair of holes in her shirt, was a pair of feathery, gray wings. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

For a short time, the winged creature left me on the couch in the living room. I could hear the water running from the kitchen. Mere moments after the sound of running water ceased, the female returned to my presence, holding a white washcloth. She wasted little time sitting on my immediate right and dabbing the warm washcloth on the cut right above my right brow.

“Oh good,” she said with a sigh of relief, “the cut’s not as bad as I thought.”

She followed this observation by drying the injured patch of skin and applying a sizable bandage over the abrasion.

“Thank you,” I smiled, turning my head to face my nurse, “May I ask your name?”

“I’m Ditzy Doo,” my companion replied with a cheerful smile, “Who are you?”

“Name is John Pearson,” I replied, extending a hand toward Ditzy, which she eagerly shook, “Now, if you don’t mind me asking, where am I and what exactly are you?”

“You’re in Ponyville,” Ditzy replied with the same, never-fading smile, “and, to be honest, I was going to ask you the same question. What are you? I’ve never seen anything like you in Equestria before.”

“I’m a human,” I said, a little put-off that she didn’t answer the other half of my question, “How do you not know what that is?”

That’s when the alarm bells went off in my head. I wasn’t having a conversation with another person. I was having a conversation with some kind of alien creature who didn’t even know what humans were. I jumped off the couch in panic, instinctively running my fingers through my short, brown, hair as a comforting gesture.

“What the hell happened?!”

“Calm down, John,” Ditzy responded, rising from the couch herself, “Everything is alright.”

With that, she stepped forward and threw her arms around me in a hug. As she was quite a bit shorter than me, she pressed the side of her head into my sternum and embraced me back to a calm state. Once I regained my senses, I realized how soft and warm Ditzy felt. Without even thinking, I reciprocated the embrace, placing one hand on the back of her head, and the other in the middle of her back, just below her wings. I still didn’t know what this creature was, but I knew that being held by one felt nice, and holding one felt right.

“Ditzy,” I asked once I had completed returned to a stable state, “what exactly are you?”

“I’m a pony,” she replied without moving her head, “a Pegasus pony, to be exact.”

This information finally made me release the embrace. I stepped back and looked Ditzy over again, which made her giggle. Contrary to what she was probably thinking, I was not checking her out, only double checking to make sure that my post-impact eyes and my recovered eyes were seeing the same thing.

“There are ponies where I come from, too,” I explained, “but they don’t look anything like you.”

“What do they look like?”

“Well, for one, they stand on four hooves, instead of two. They don’t have hands with thumbs, and they certainly never have breasts.”

Ditzy giggled again, “You’re funny, John, I’ve never heard of things like that before. What about pegasi and unicorns? I guess they look different where you’re from too.”

“Pegasi and unicorns don’t exist in my world,” I explained, but then paused, “Wait, are you telling me there are unicorns in Equestria?”

As if on cue, the front door opened. Ditzy and I turned to face the two individuals standing in the doorway. One was purple and of Ditzy’s height and cup-size, wearing a matching sun dress. The other was significantly shorter, and obviously younger, with grayish purple fur and a blonde mane. Their most interesting feature, to me anyway, was the horns coming from their foreheads, in colors which matched their fur.

“Mommy,” the shorter one cried, running up to Ditzy and hugging her legs and torso, as children are wont to do.

“And how was my little muffin’s day at school,” Ditzy asked.

“Umm, Ditzy,” the older unicorn interrupted, pointing at me, “Who is this?”

“Oh, that’s John,” Ditzy said out-of-hand, as if we hadn’t just met thirty minutes ago, “Oh, how rude of me. John, this is my step-daughter Amethyst Star, and this little muffin,” she tousled the small one’s mane, “is my daughter Dinky Doo. Dinky, Amethyst, this is John Pearson, he’s, umm, new to Ponyville.”

“New to Ponyville,” Amethyst questioned, crossing her arms over her chest, “if you ask me, he looks like he’s new to Earth.”

“Earth,” I mused aloud, “you all call your world Earth? That’s funny, that’s exactly what humans call our planet.”

“Your planet,” Amethyst asked with a raised eyebrow, “So you’re kind of alien?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly. I’m not sure how I even got here.”

“Ooh, mommy,” Dinky piped up, “has Pinkie come by yet? You know she always does when there’s somepony new in town.”

“You’re right muffin,” Ditzy mused, “wonder what’s taking her so long? Usually, she would have barged in by—”

Ditzy was interrupted by a very fast knocking at the door. I was beginning to think that these ponies had the best sense of timing in the universe.

Amethyst turned around and opened the door, revealing two ponies standing there. The one on the left was hopping up and down with excitement, her curly pink mane and tail bouncing even more than the ample bust that her low-cut blue shirt was trying desperately to contain. On the right was a much more sober pony, another mare, who was a purple color with her mane and tail done straight. Her outfit suggested a cross between a Catholic schoolgirl and a librarian, with the long-sleeved, button-up, white shirt of the former, and the knee-length purple skirt of the latter. I also immediately noticed that while the purple one had a horn and wings, which I could see the tips of, the pink one didn’t seem to have either appendage.

“Pinkie,” Dinky exclaimed excitedly, “Princess Twilight!”

“Hi, everypony,” the mare who I naturally assumed was Pinkie greeted, “See Twilight, I told you there was something in town I had never seen before.”

“How on Earth could you just know that I was here,” I questioned.

“My Pinkie Sense told me,” the excitable mare explained nonchalantly, “when my ears get itchy, it means that there is something in town that I’ve never seen before.”

I opened my mouth to make a comment on the randomness of such a sensation, but was cut off by the pink pony’s companion.

“I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria,” she declared, obviously trying to sound a lot more regal than her normal tone of voice, “As I welcome you to Ponyville, I must ask, who are you and what are you?”

“My name is John Pearson,” I replied with a slight head nod, “and I’m what’s known as a human.”

“And that is what exactly,” the princess interrogated, looking me over in a very scientific manner.

“Humans are basically highly-evolved primates. We share most of the same features, though humans have less hair overall and have the power of speech.”

“Fascinating. And since you aren’t from Equestria, how did you get here?”

“Well, that’s what I don’t understand,” I confessed, folding my arms over my abdomen, “all I know is that there was this bright light, in a color not unlike your fur princess, and I ran into it. Next thing I know, I run head-long into Ditzy’s house.”

“A bright light you say,” the princess asked with a tone of slight trepidation, “this will have to be looked into. I think it would do you good to come see me tomorrow morning so that we can discuss some things. In the meantime, do you mind him staying here Ditzy?”

“No, not at all,” Ditzy smiled, “it’ll be interesting to have company over.”

“But, princess,” it was my turn to ask a question, “where am I supposed to find you?”

“Oh don’t worry, my house is easy to find. It’s the only purple crystal castle in town.”

The way in which she said this gave me a serious feeling of ‘Not in Kansas anymore’. If nothing else, that conversation was going to be interesting.

“Well now that that’s all settled,” the princess said, “I’ll be looking forward to speaking with you tomorrow, John Pearson. Come on, Pinky, I don’t think there’s anything more to see here.”

“Aww, Twilight,” the pink pony whined, “you always get to do the interesting things with alien creatures.”

With that strange sentiment stated, the two of them left. Amethyst wasn’t far behind. It seemed that she shared a house with a mare named Golden Harvest. That left me with just Ditzy and Dinky.

“So,” Ditzy said, once it was just down to the three of us, “who’s up for muffins?”

“Yeah, muffins,” Dinky exclaimed.