A Long Vacation

by starshine_dash

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Human, Romance, Comedy
Length: 1448

Princess Twilight decides to take her friends on her first vacation as royalty. The destination is a surprise to everyone.

Deckard Jones lives an easy life in a house full of contradictions. It is rustic, but filled with technology and modernizations. In the middle of nowhere, but connected to everywhere thanks to the power of the internet. He lives his life alone, but with hundreds of friends.

A wonderful life for an author, or so he thinks until he finds an odd object in the middle of the woods and his whole world is turned on end.

Takes place after the end of Season 3.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-05-08 06:53:08 UTC

Chapter 1

Deckard Jones, known as DJ or Deck to his friends, was enjoying another long walk around his property with his corgis. Over the last two years, he'd worn down a nice walking trail that wound through the trees and next to a beautiful little river. It was here he planned to spend the rest of his life, barring a feasible way to live comfortably while traveling around the world. So far his options were rather limited given technology.

It was during this walk, that he found his dogs with their attention completely focused on something in the brush. They were quiet, but sniffing around it curiously. He sighed, thinking it was probably yet another dead animal or particularly brave squirrel, "Come along, Ponds!"

The dogs ignored him, "Amy, Rory! Come here!" he shouted before storming through the brush until he reached the two, "What has got you so... the hell is this?"

He bent over and pushed Amy's muzzle out of the way, brushing some leaves off the surface of the object. It was half-buried in undergrowth, but seemed unharmed. With a little digging, and a little effort, he yanked it free and held it in the palm of his hand. It was a perfect pyramidal gem, ruby red, and etched with intricate designs that made his head ache to look at for too long. He blinked and looked at his dogs, who were looking at him curiously, "Come along, Ponds, time to head home I think. This is too weird."

Deck put the gem in his pocket and continued along the path with his dogs close to heel, the forest seeming a bit claustrophobic now. It poked his thigh no matter which way he shifted it, and he was glad to return home. He set it on his kitchen table on the way through to shower and change, and by the time he was dry and dressed for the evening, he had forgotten it even existed.

A few hours later, a growling stomach interrupted "Sleepless in Ponyville" and bade him to enter the kitchen to construct something to feed it's growing displeasure. Filling a pot with water to boil, he then began to peel the potatoes as the oven heated to cradle the chicken in its warmth. He turned to eye the table and spotted the pyramid again. His eyes didn't want to focus on it. Something in the back of his mind screamed at him that this object was wrong and shouldn't exist.

He willed himself to look away and continued to peel the potatoes, dropping them in the pot of water once it boiled and had some salt and garlic added to it. He was just finished breading the chicken when he heard an odd noise from behind him, like some twinkling music that came from far away. Turning carefully, and eyeing the pyramid with fear, he brandished the knife he had been using to trim the chicken breast as the gem began to glow.

There was a bright flash and he dropped the knife to cover his eyes as the gem shown with powerful light. It gradually dimmed and Deck looked at his kitchen table to find a small creature standing on top of it, looking at him. It was just the outline, and it seemed to be emitting from the object on the table, possibly some kind of hologram. In the moment it took to process what he was seeing, the figure smiled and spoke, "Hello! I'm Twilight Sparkle. Can you understand me?"

"Sweet colorful pony Jesus!"

The princess flared her wings a little in shock, "I'm... sorry? What?"

"Er, sorry, yes, yes, I can understand you! I'm just... really shocked and don't know how to react."

"Well, I don't mean you any harm."

"I know that, I do, well, it's complicated!"

"Complicated?"

"Er, yes. I'm guessing you're not familiar with this world?"

"Not at all, that's why I sent the Seeker through. It's designed to scan a world and find out what's there, but it can't scan beyond a certain range so I was going to come investigate, then it detected a life form so..."

"Ah, well, in this world, you and your friends are characters in an animated show, and, well, I happen to be a fan, so it's probably a good thing I found your... Seeker? and not somepony else."

"Well, that's... interesting, but it is a big multiverse after all... I suppose it stands to reason that in one of them our world exists as fiction," the princess said, looking thoughtful and a bit flustered, "How much of our... lives are shown?"

"Not everything, just major adventures... Discord, Chrysalis, the series starts when you free Luna from Nightmare Moon."

"I... see," she looked around and spotted the pot of potatoes that was about to boil over, "Oh, I'm sorry, have I interrupted your dinner?"

"I welcome it, really, Princess Sparkle. It's such an honor to meet you and have one of my multiverse theories actually proven right!" Deck replied, rushing over to the stove to turn down the heat, "I can talk and cook at the same time. I just need to put this chicken in the oven."

"Oh? Are you a carnivorous species?"

"Omnivorous, actually. We need both plants and animals to survive. I tend to stick to the more herbivorous side of things, but I do enjoy the occasional meat product. Does that bother you?"

"I had to have lunch with the gryphon ambassador two days ago, if your table manners are better than his, I shouldn't have a problem."

"Hah! I can imagine," he said, turning around after putting the chicken in the oven, "Anyway, why exactly are you scouting out other worlds? I thought being a princess would be a pretty busy life."

The alicorn sighed and facehoofed, "I've been princess for three months and I already need a vacation. I've had to deal with press, ambassadors, imitators, fanfillies, and my parents. Everypony knows who I am now, and the only place I could think of to escape all the bowing and worship was another world. I see now that I may have been mistaken if I'm as famous in your world as I am in mine."

"Well, yes, you are rather famous, but colorful ponies don't exist here, and I live twelve miles from the nearest town so it's secluded if you still wanted to vacation here. Just... I would suggest sending somepony else first to make sure your magic still works on this side."

"Well, if I could connect to the Seeker gem, magic works. It was completely separate from me until I scryed for it... Oh! I'm so sorry, I never asked your name!"

The human chuckled and checked the potatoes with a fork, "It's Deck. Deckard Jones. Everyone calls me Deck or DJ though."

"Okay, Deck, it's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too. Hm, will you be vacationing alone or are you bringing your friends?"

"Well, they're almost as stressed out as I am. I think I caught Rainbow Dash willingly going to the spa with Rarity the other day..."

"Sounds like it's getting to everypony.  Tell you what, take five minutes and ask them if they want to come, and I'll finish getting my dinner ready, then we can talk arrangements."

"That's a good idea. I'm sure Rainbow and Pinkie would love to. The others, not so sure."

"Alright, call me back in five?"

"Five minutes!" Twilight said with a smile and the connection faded, her form flickering out into nothingness.

Deck took a few moments to completely freak out. He'd just met Twilight Sparkle! His mind was pretty much completely blown until he realized his dinner was going to burn if he didn't get it together. Five minutes later he was sitting at the table with his meal, waiting for Twilight.

Ten minutes later, he was eating and hoping she hadn't forgotten or lost the connection.

Twenty minutes later, he put the dishes in the sink and the leftovers in the fridge.

Three hours later he lay on his couch watching ponies and occasionally glancing at the gem that he had moved to his coffee table, most of his hope gone. He wondered if he had been hallucinating, a freakout brought on by maybe too much sun and just the weird designs on the pyramid. Glaring at his ceiling, he reached down to scratch Rory's head as it landed on his stomach, the corgi whimpering up at him. He sighed and ruffled his ears, "I'm fine, Rory, just a bit disappointed is all."

Another hour passed as he dozed off there on his couch.