The Finger Trap

Chapters

I. First Contact
II. Introductions
III. Horse Tranquilizers
IV. Your Taxes at Work
V. Maiden Voyage
VI. Sprechen Sie Pony
VII. A Royal Pain

I. First Contact

My name is Adrian Parker, and I am not a hero. If you remember nothing else of my story, remember that, because it's the entire reason I'm writing this memoir. News of my recent adventures is already leaking to the public, and my fear is that I will be romanticized as some great pioneer, bravely embracing a rare opportunity to expand mankind's horizons. In truth I made every effort to decline that opportunity, out of humility as much as cowardice. By my estimation there were hundreds, if not thousands, more qualified than myself to take my journey -- and more accepting of its risks. But circumstances and bureaucracy conspired against me, and despite my resistance I was pushed into a destiny that would change our world forever.

It all started on an ordinary Saturday, in an ordinary house, in an ordinary American suburb. Since I didn't work weekends and my household chores were fairly well caught up, I had chosen to sleep in that morning. Alas, my slumber was interrupted by the ringing of a doorbell. At least I assume it was; the exact noise that woke me up eludes my conscious memory to this day, but the bell rang several more times while my head was coming out of its fog, so it seems like a natural inference. Regardless, I crawled out of bed and toward the door, silently cursing whoever dared to interfere with my day off. Still dressed in my clothes from the previous night, I swung open the door to confront the nuisance, and...

"What the [REDACTED -- Eds.] is this?"

Knowing what I know now about the historical import of this moment, I regret not choosing my words more carefully. But at the time, I was still half-asleep and wholly unprepared for the sight before me. Standing on my front porch, just outside the screen door, was a creature unlike any I'd ever seen. If pressed, I would have described it as some kind of horse, but there were some obvious differences. The snout was too small, the eyes too large and too far forward, the head too round, the torso too compact, and the legs too short and stocky. Also, the mane and coat were varying shades of purple, and there was a single spiraling horn coming out of the creature's forehead. It was like the unholy offspring of a unicorn and a gummy bear. To my knowledge, such a thing did not exist in nature, and thus was I led to express the sentiment noted above.

As if in response to my question, though hardly answering it, the creature's horn began to shine with a faint purple aura, nearly the same color as its hair. "What the [REDACTED] is that?" I asked of this new development. Almost as soon as the words left my mouth, I felt a strange pressure envelop my skull, as though a helmet two sizes too small had been forced onto my head. At the same time, my head felt somehow lighter and hollow. These sensations were making me slightly dizzy, so I clutched the doorknob tightly for balance. After a minute that seemed like an hour, the discomfort passed, and I was left to utter the three words that had become my refrain: "What... the... [REDACTED]?" Then, inevitably, things got worse.

"I'm so sorry! Are you all right?" The voice wasn't my own. It talks? I thought. Of course it talks. It's a psychic purple unicorn. Why wouldn't it talk? By this time, I was convinced that I was in the grip of a powerful hallucination. The only question was what had caused it. I mulled over the situation and settled on four possibilities. Either I was suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness, I was tripping due to a gas leak or other hazard, I was being tormented by something supernatural (i.e. Satan), or I was simply dreaming.

That last option was the first to be crossed off. Even the most bizarre dreams only use images that are already in our memories, and the creature before me didn't register as the least bit familiar. I ruled out the devil soon after. What little I could remember from church told me that visions sent by tricksters and deceivers were sent with the purpose of manipulating mortal emotions, and this vision wasn't making that sort of impact. It wasn't satisfying. It wasn't terrifying. It was confusing, but only as much as a fraternity prank. One might wonder how they got the dean's car inside his office, but it doesn't shatter one's entire perspective on life. If this was the devil's work, he had really lost his touch.

Okay, two down, two to go. I was either going crazy or getting stoned. Neither choice was particularly pleasant to consider, but I had to decide on one or the other in order to take proper action. Of the two, mental illness seemed less likely. I hadn't experienced any symptoms in the past, and going from zero to a complex audio-visual hallucination struck me as a long shot. On the other hand, an environmental cause wasn't a sure thing. I expected a drug-induced psychedelic experience to be, for lack of a better word, more psychedelic. The unicorn was weird, to be sure, but it wasn't what I would call trippy.

Yet the longer my mind waffled between these two possibilities, the more a third intruded on my thoughts, a possibility I had initially ignored altogether. As remote and as ridiculous as it was, there was at least a chance that my senses weren't deceiving me -- that this creature was real, if only in the broadest meaning of the word. It didn't require me to admit the existence of talking unicorns, just of objects made to look like them. People had been building machines to look like living things since antiquity, and modern animatronics had turned the old art form into a fine science. But even assuming that the creature wasn't simply the product of an addled brain, I would still need professional help to identify its exact nature.

With that realization, I finally decided on a plan. I didn't want to drive all the way to the hospital unless I was sure I was some kind of crazy, and the psych ward wouldn't make a house call unless I was a danger to myself or others. If the unicorn was real, however, the appropriate authorities to deal with it would be more than happy to come to my house. And if they didn't find it here, I would have the confirmation of my slipping sanity that I was seeking. From start to finish this whole thought process was resolved in a matter of seconds, so while the possibly imaginary creature at my door was silently awaiting my reply, it hadn't yet become impatient. "Uh, yeah, I'm fine," I said to the unicorn. "Just give me one moment." I closed the door and walked back to my bedroom, where I grabbed my phone and used its Web browser to look for the phone number I planned to call. Once I found it, I dialed the number and was met by a live receptionist within two rings.

"Centre City Animal Control. How may I help you?"

II. Introductions

Hearing a human voice on the other end of the line was a small comfort for me. It meant I didn't have to negotiate a maze of menus, trying to find the correct sequence of numbers that would convey my need to have a talking purple unicorn removed from my front yard. Then again, if I were to explain my problem to the receptionist in those exact words, I would be meeting the people with straitjackets a bit sooner than I had anticipated. I had to be more subtle in my approach. "Yeah, hi," I said. "My name's Adrian Parker, and there is a... horse... on my lawn."

"Okay, Mr. Parker," the receptionist said, quickly typing my information into her computer. "And what's the address on that lawn?" I gave her my home address; I'm not giving it to you. "Super. Now, Mr. Parker, is this your horse, or do you know who it belongs to?"

"Uh... no?" The question seemed silly to me. "If I knew whose horse it was, I'd be calling them, not you."

"Not necessarily," she replied. "In some cases, the owner is either unable or unwilling to deal with a disruptive animal, and then we get called in." The explanation made sense, and I felt a twinge of guilt for being so dismissive. "Next question, Mr. Parker: does the horse appear to be injured or sick or even just stressed in any way?"

"No," I said, "it looks pretty healthy and, uh, what's the word... docile. You guys shouldn't have any trouble with it."

"All right, Mr. Parker." A moment of dead air ensued while she typed up my response. "And how big is the horse? How tall at the shoulders, specifically?"

"Uh, geez, I think about... two, maybe two and a half feet?" To be honest, this was a nearly blind guess. The only height I could state comfortably was at the top of its head -- three and a half to four feet -- which, as I would learn later, is not the standard measurement for quadrupeds.

"Hm. Sounds like a miniature or a foal," the receptionist noted. "Well, Mr. Parker, that should be all the information we need for now. We'll have someone out there in fifteen to twenty minutes. Until then, just stay inside. Don't try to confront or provoke the animal. Okay?"

"Yeah, I can do that," I said. "Thanks for helping me out here."

"Not a problem. Is there anything else I can do for you?" she asked.

"No, that should be it." Unless you can put a rush order on those guys getting here while you're at it, I thought.

"Great," she said. "You have a good day then, Mr. Parker."

"Yeah. You too." With that, she hung up. Don't try to confront or provoke the animal, I repeated in my head. But I can still keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't go anywhere, right? I headed back down to the front door and cracked it open. Sure enough, the creature was still there, standing on my doorstep.

"What was that all about?" the unicorn asked.

Dammit. That's what I get for not installing a peephole. Seeing as stealth was no longer an option, I opened the door fully. "Oh, nothing. Just had to make a phone call." I'm talking to it. I'm seriously talking to a horse.

"A... phone... call?" it echoed. "What's that mean?"

I held up my phone to show it to the creature. "Telephone. It's a machine that sends sound over long distances. Lets me talk to anyone in the world, or in this case the local animal control."

"What? Why would you --" A flash of recognition crossed the unicorn's face. "Oh, no, no, no. I'm not an animal. I mean, technically I am, but not the kind of wild animal that needs to be... controlled."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really?" I asked. "Well, as much as I value your opinion, I'd rather leave that determination up to the professionals. What the hell are you, anyway?"

"Ah. Well." The creature straightened its posture and smiled. "I am Twilight Sparkle. I run the library in --"

"That's not what I asked," I interrupted. "What are you? We'll get around to who in good time."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Twilight grinned sheepishly. "I'm a unicorn pony, one of the three types of ponies that live in Equestria."

I nodded. "Okay, and what's Equestria?"

"If we're going to do this," it asked, frowning, "can I at least come inside? It sounds like there's a lot I need to explain."

I glared at Twilight for a moment. It looked harmless enough, but the receptionist's directions were clear. Besides which, I had no desire to invite a stranger into my house. "Not happening," I said with a shake of my head. "Animal control told me to leave you alone until they can get here. I shouldn't even be talking to you right now."

Twilight rolled its eyes and gave an annoyed groan. "You're honestly going to listen to them and treat me the same way as some... rampaging beast?"

"That would be the plan, yes." I couldn't help but smirk, confident in the knowledge that my house was secure. "So, Equestria: what is that?" I asked cheerily.

Twilight narrowed its eyes at me. As best I could figure, it was in no mood to keep talking if I wasn't going to show it any hospitality. After a few seconds it relented, perhaps in the hope that education would cure my stubbornness toward it. "Fine," it muttered. "Equestria is a nation of ponies like myself, in a world very similar to this one, but in a different... position."

I scratched my head. "So you're from outer space?"

"Mm... yes and no." Twilight tapped a hoof on its chin. "You know how there are three ways you can move around: left and right, up and down, and back and forth?"

"Yeah, sure," I replied. "The three dimensions."

Twilight's eyes lit up. "Dimensions! That's the word. Thank you. Well, some of my books discussed other dimensions, ones we can't see, and how it's possible to move along those dimensions to reach other places -- whole other worlds. And depending on how far you go, they could be almost identical or completely different."

"You mean parallel universes," I said.

"You have a word for them?" it asked. "So you know what I'm talking about?"

"Well, yes, but around here they're..." I wanted to say "something you only see in movies," but it occurred to me that if Twilight hadn't heard of telephones, it might not have heard of motion pictures either. "They're something you only read about in story books. They're not supposed to be real." Granted, certain interpretations of quantum physics do allow for them, but even those theories don't provide any means of travel between universes.

Twilight chuckled. "Yet here I am. If you'd like, I can give you a demonstration and take you with me back to Equestria."

"No thanks. I'll -- I'll take your word for it." What kind of offer is that? I wondered. The whole reason I called animal control is to get you out of my life, and you think I'll let you take me on a road trip? "But how exactly did you manage to get here from... wherever Equestria is?"

"That was the difficult part," it said. "I spent months analyzing teleportation spells to discover a way they could be adapted to those hidden dimensions. After I finally found a way to make the trip, I had to memorize other spells to prepare myself for whatever was on the other side. There was Home Away From Home, for if I landed someplace I couldn't survive. Speaking Terms, to communicate with the locals; that's the spell I used on you. And if I needed to blend in, I had --"

"Hang on a second." I held up a hand to stop Twilight. "Spells?" It had said the word so naturally that it didn't register as unusual at first. "As in magic?"

"Of course. What other kinds of spell are there?" it asked.

"Okay, this is the part where I say you're screwing with me," I said as I crossed my arms, "because magic is not a thing that exists. Not in this universe, anyway. Maybe things are different on your freaky planet."

"That... doesn't make sense," Twilight said skeptically. "If you don't have magic, then how does that 'telephone' of yours work?"

I remembered Arthur C. Clarke's adage about sufficiently advanced technology, but somehow I had always expected that it would only apply to less sophisticated societies, not to one that had developed interdimensional travel. Nonetheless, I had no choice but to roll with it. "Gremlins," I deadpanned.

Twilight shook its head. "What?"

"Sorry, that -- that was a joke. Electricity, actually. It's basically lightning, only instead of shooting huge bolts of it through the sky, we send small amounts of it through intricate networks of metal and silicon." I held up my phone again and started scrolling through the menus in order to show off the capabilities of electronic devices. "We use it to make lights and sounds, to run machinery, and to do complex calculations that used to be impossible."

"And you're telling me that that's not magic?" Twilight asked. "Or at least a kind of magic?"

"It's not," I said. "It's all based on natural scientific principles."

It pouted. "So's my magic."

"Then why call it magic?" I asked with a shrug.

My question appeared to catch Twilight off guard. "I... I don't know," it stammered. "I never really thought about it. I suppose it's because it's been a part of our lives since... long before we could understand how it worked. Thousands of years ago, even the most common magic was shrouded in mystery. Early conjurers like Star Swirl the Bearded had to rely on trial and error to develop new spells rather than any sort of method. Nowadays there's nothing truly mystical about it, but the name has stuck."

"Hm." My mind started rattling off other words the etymology of which could be traced to a pre-scientific mindset. Influenza, lunatic, melancholy, sanguine, quintessential, and the list continued. "Okay, I get that. Still, magic or otherwise, we don't have the ability to teleport across universes."

"And I don't have the ability to call ponies on the other side of the world and talk to them," Twilight responded. "But enough about me. I'm curious to learn more about this world, about you. Who are you? What are you? Where am I?"

"Fair enough. In no particular order," by which I meant the exact order it asked those questions, "you can call me Adrian Parker -- or just Adrian is fine. I'm a human, officially known as Homo sapiens. If you have monkeys on your world, we're very closely related to those. And right now you're in the United States of America, the most powerful nation on Earth, until the Chinese get their act together."

Twilight nodded at my answers. "Okay. Am I right to think that you humans are the dominant race in the United States of America?"

I snickered. "We're the dominant race pretty much everywhere. In fact, we're the only species to have developed any sort of civilization. I take it that's not the case where you come from?"

"Not even close," it said. "In addition to the ponies of Equestria, there are nations of donkeys, zebras, buffalo, dogs, cats, bears, griffons, dragons,..."

"Thank you. I didn't need you to elaborate." Wait, they have griffons and dragons too? Hell, why not? Maybe instead of humans, they have elves and fairies.

"Sorry." Twilight peered closely at me. "By the way, I hope you can forgive me for asking, but are you a male human or a female human?"

I was vaguely insulted by the question, until I realized that I would need to ask Twilight the same thing. "Uh... male. You can usually tell the females by the, uh, pair of mammaries they have up here at the breast. In fact, that's what we call them: 'breasts.' Well, among other things. Anyway, which one are you?"

Now was its turn to be vaguely insulted. "Female, obviously. Not as obviously as I thought, but since I'm not wearing any clothes right now, I figured you'd be able to..."

"The day I start looking at horse genitalia to sate my curiosity is the day I kill myself," I said to it -- to her. Come to think of it, Twilight's voice was fairly feminine by human standards, but I had wanted to avoid making any assumptions about her.

"Pony genitalia," she corrected. "Do you consider those parts ugly? Is that why you've covered your own?"

I pondered her questions for a moment. "Sure, let's go with that." I didn't know how to explain the nudity taboos of Western society, so I wasn't even going to try.

"Fascinating." Twilight leaned over to look past me into my house. "Are you sure I can't come inside so I can see more of your culture and technology? It all sounds so exotic."

I sighed. I still wasn't interested in bringing her inside. On the other hand, if animal control arrived and saw a purple unicorn, they might have assumed I was pulling some kind of prank and kept driving. "All right, fine." I pushed open the screen door for her. "But you poop on anything and I swear I'm taking your head as a prop to scare people in bed."

"I keep telling you," she grumbled as she walked in, "I'm not that kind of animal."

"Relax. It's the same warning I give to all my houseguests." I spent the next several minutes showing Twilight the wonders of modern electronics. She was especially intrigued by the Internet and by my phone's ability to act as an e-book reader.

"If we had the ability to store and transmit information like this," she said while scanning a page from one of my programming manuals, "it would revolutionize Equestria!"

"Understatement of the century right there," I told her. "The Internet only went public about twenty years ago, and already it's turned our world upside down." At last, I heard a knock at my door. "Sit tight for a second. Even if I don't need these guys to wrangle you, I still need someone I can talk to about this whole thing." Finally it was the moment of truth, when I would know whether I was being visited by a creature from another universe or merely by a bout of madness. I braced myself for both possibilities and opened the door.

III. Horse Tranquilizers

There were two of them. One was a thirty-something African-American man, tallish with a medium build, his black hair in a crew cut, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a moustache. The other was a petite woman in her mid-twenties, a fair-skinned Caucasian with shoulder-length auburn hair and pale green eyes. The man was the first to speak. "Are you Adrian Parker?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I'm Danny Thiessen, and this is my partner, Molly Wootton," he continued. "We're with Centre City Animal Control. We were told you needed our help to remove a horse from your yard. Can you direct us to the animal?"

"Uh, yeah." I pointed a thumb over my shoulder. "She's sitting on the couch right now."

"What?" Danny's voice became stern. "Mr. Parker, you were given strict instructions not to confront the animal, and you brought it inside your house? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"Oh, I'm well aware of the risks. I can also assure you that those risks are nonexistent here. This is... far from your typical horse." I propped open the screen door for them. "If you could just follow me, I'd be happy to show you what I'm talking about."

"Please, Mr. Parker," he scoffed as he and Molly walked in. "I'm not entirely sure what that's supposed to mean, but I can't think of any possible circumstances that would justify y--oh sweet God!" Danny stared at the creature on my couch.

"You see her?" I asked, uncertain whether to be relieved or frightened to know that Twilight Sparkle was in fact a real being.

"Of course I see her!" he exclaimed. "It's kinda hard to miss a freaking... deformed purple unicorn!"

"It's really more of a lavender," Molly added.

Danny rubbed his forehead. "Is this some kind of joke? Am I being punked? Is there someone in the other room, watching his hidden camera feed and hoping I'll do something hilarious while I'm freaking out?"

"No, no, and no," I said. "Respectively. But you're lucky. You only had to worry that the horse was a prop. Here I thought I'd gone nuts and was seeing things."

Twilight sat up straighter at this remark. "Wait. You mean to say that all this time, you thought I was a figment of your imagination?"

Danny's eye twitched. "It... talks?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "Does magic too. Not the Siegfried and Roy kind, either. I'm talking real magic. Merlin magic."

"Excuse me," Twilight interjected, "but can we get back to the part where you thought I was your imaginary friend?"

I held up a finger. "Hang on a second, let's keep things straight. Imaginary, yes. Friend, no."

"And can you blame him?" Danny asked. "Talking purple horses with horns don't normally exist."

"Well, where I come from," Twilight shot back, "talking hairless monkeys that walk upright don't normally exist, but somehow I managed to avoid accusing you of being fake."

Danny considered her words for a moment. "Wait, did you just call me a monkey?"

"Calm down, dude," I said. "It's not a black thing. It's a human thing. She means we're primates, all of us. She doesn't even know enough about humanity to be racist. Not against you, anyway. Maybe against horses without horns."

"Right. Sorry. Force of habit." Danny took a deep breath. "It's a sensitive topic, you know? Who am I kidding, of course you wouldn't. Not personally."

"And for the record," Twilight said, "I am not 'racist' against earth ponies, pegasus ponies, or anypony else. I can't believe you would even suggest that."

"My Little Pony!" Molly suddenly blurted, apropos of nothing. Danny, Twilight, and I all turned our heads to face the woman in silent confusion. It was a standoff of sorts, each of us expecting one of the others to demand the explanation we were all seeking.

"What?" I asked after several awkward seconds.

"My Little Pony," she said again, as if we would get it the second time. "I knew this pony reminded me of something, but I couldn't quite place why she looked so familiar. So here I am, wracking my brain while you three are going at it, and it finally hits me: duh, My Little Pony."

"Like the little girls' toy?" I asked.

Molly nodded. "My niece absolutely loves them. Funny thing is, she's a total tomboy otherwise. She'll act out these war games where the G.I. Joes ride the ponies into battle against the Decepticons. And sometimes the good guys lose. It's very grim for a kid her age."

"Molly, please," Danny said. "Even if you're right about this, we don't need to hear the details of your niece's toy collection."

"And what makes you think this isn't just your typical... magical... talking... pony?" By the time my brain picked up on how stupid the words sounded, they'd already left my mouth.

"Look at her haunches." Molly pointed at Twilight's upper thigh. In all the commotion, I hadn't even noticed the strange marking there. It appeared to be a six-pointed magenta star, with five smaller white stars surrounding it. "Each of the toys has a similar marking. It's part of what identifies them, since they all come from the same few molds."

Twilight glanced back at the star. "Oh, you mean my cutie mark?" she asked. "It's something everypony gets as we're growing up. It's supposed to represent our most special talent. Strange that you'd have fictional characters that work the same way, but... no worse than finding a world where the Daring Do stories are real, I guess."

"Cutie mark? That's what you call it?" A wide grin formed on Molly's face, and she squealed with delight. "Oh my God, that's adorable! You're adorable! I need to introduce you to my niece! She would just eat you up with a --"

Danny interrupted her euphoria. "Molly, could you at least pretend to be a professional?" Big words, I thought, coming from the guy who practically peed his pants in terror when he first laid eyes on this pony.

"Oh, come off it, Danny." She waved her hand dismissively. "We're dealing with something way beyond our professional expertise. Where's your sense of wonder? Where's your appreciation for this beautiful creature that fell into our laps from... uh..."

"Equestria," I said to complete her sentence. She and Danny looked at me questioningly. "It's located in a parallel universe that's only reachable by moving along hidden higher dimensions, which she did by using her magic." Their questioning turned to doubt. "Hey, I'm just telling you what she told me. You think her story's crap, you take it up with her."

"Why would I lie to you?" Twilight asked, hurt by my insinuation. "And even if I did, what other explanation would make more sense?"

"Genetic experiment gone horribly right and implanted with false memories," Danny offered.

"Some child with latent psychic powers turning her fantasies into reality," Molly suggested.

"I was just gonna say 'robot,'" I said, "but I like their answers a lot better."

Twilight's expression soured. "That was supposed to be a... what do you humans call it... a rhetorical question."

"Yeah, well, clearly you underestimated our creativity." I turned my attention to the animal control officers. "All right, enough of this. I called you two in to take this pony off my hands, so... make that happen."

"What?" Twilight gasped. "You said you just wanted to talk to these humans."

"I did. Long enough to determine if you were real, which you are, and to explain your situation to them, which I have. Now that that's done, I can safely entrust you to their care." Twilight eyed me angrily. "I'm not asking them to take you in as one of their stray animals," I told her, "but rather as a person who's a long way from home and needs a place to stay."

"But why can't I stay here with you? What about all the time we spent together, when you were showing me your electrical machines? I thought we were bonding." I could swear she was giving me puppy dog eyes. Apparently those were a thing in Equestria too.

"We were killing time," I said. "There's a difference. 'Bonding' implies a long-term relationship, whereas we'll never see each other again." Yeah, hindsight's a bitch. "Look, I'm sure you're a nice person, a wonderful person. But... I am a simple man who lives a simple life. Wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed. Eat and poop as necessary, repeat until death. So far it's worked out pretty well for me, and I have no complaints. But you, and all you represent, are anything but simple. You are staggeringly complex. Your presence in this world is the sort of thing that makes scientists, philosophers, and theologians give up on trying to understand the universe and take up something more fruitful, like drinking heavily. And I want no part of that."

"Maybe in the future," I continued, "after the dust settles and we as a species have learned to cope with this bit of novelty, maybe then I'll let you hang out here. And even then I'm not making any promises. I am not a people person, and those people being ponies does little to change that fact. But for the time being, I definitely want nothing to do with you. All I'm asking is that you leave the revolution to the revolutionaries. You're the one who decided to build a bridge between our worlds, not me. So do what you will here, but do it with those who want to help you: again, not me."

"And what leads you to believe we're any more likely than you to volunteer to contend with this weirdness you've so eloquently described?" Danny asked. "After all, we don't have to take her; intelligent animals aren't in our job description."

"It's in your nature," I responded. "There's no way you two took the animal control job for the money. You took it because it's what you want to do, what you love to do. That tells me you have helpful and nurturing personalities. Well, what has four hooves and could totally use some help and nurturing right now?" I pointed my thumbs at Twilight. "That girl. Oh, sure, intellectually you might realize that you'd be getting in over your heads by making her a part of your lives, but emotionally all you see is a poor little lost pony, and all you can think is 'Oh no, look at the poor little lost pony!' You can't help yourselves."

"You think we're so predictable?" Danny tried to stare me down, but his gaze flickered toward Twilight once, twice, three times, and at last he brought his eyes to the ground in defeat. "All right, you win this round," he said through gritted teeth. "We'll do it." He looked at Twilight. "So what do you say? Would you like to come with us?"

"Will you treat me with more respect than this human has?" Twilight asked, gesturing toward me with her head.

"That's not setting the bar very high," Danny joked, "but I think we can manage it."

"In that case, I'd be glad to go with you two. But before we go, I should properly introduce myself." She bowed her head slightly, as if curtsying. "I'm Twilight Sparkle."

"Really?" Molly clapped her hands together. "Even your name is like one of the toys!" she said giddily. "As soon as we're out of here, I have to --"

"We are not taking her to see your niece!" Danny scolded. Molly's face sank. "We have to ease people into this whole notion of... magical talking ponies... if we don't want to start a panic. That means not taking her straight to the public. When we get back to the shelter, we can start doing research on the safest way to reveal her existence. There has to be some part of the scientific community that's prepared for... perhaps not this exact scenario, but something similar enough that we can use their general game plan."

"Well then," I said, "there's no time to waste. The sooner you get out of here, the sooner you can find a way to introduce Ms. Sparkle to the world -- including Ms. Wootton's niece. So... goodbye to all three of you. I wish I could say it's been a pleasure, but that would be a filthy lie."

"Likewise, Mr. Parker," Danny said. "Come on, Twilight. Let's go." Twilight rolled off my couch and stood up to leave. "By the way, I'm Danny and that's Molly. Not sure if you heard me say that to Mr. Parker, but now I've said it to you." The three of them headed toward the door. Danny held it open for Molly and Twilight. Thank God this is over, I thought. Then Molly stopped right at the door and turned around. Or not. Dammit. And I was so close!

"Hold up, I just thought of something," she said. "We can't leave just yet."

"Why the hell not?" I asked.

"We've never seen a pony like Twilight Sparkle before, right?" Molly explained. "She's an entirely new species. And Mr. Parker, as the first human to discover that species, you get to name it."

"We already have a name," Twilight objected. "We're ponies."

Danny shook his head. "She means a scientific name. Something unambiguous that can be used across languages."

"Oh, for the love of -- you have my blessing to give it whatever name you want. Even Adrianparkerisanassholicus rex. I couldn't care less if I tried. Now get out before I call the cops and have the lot of you arrested for trespassing!" I shooed them away with my hands.

"Okay, geez," Molly said. "Sorry to have bothered you." She turned around and led Twilight outside, while Danny brought up the rear and closed the door behind him. As soon as it was closed, I made sure it was locked. As I was saying, thank God this is over. I don't know whether I was tempting fate or simply fooling myself. In either case, while I spent the next twenty-four hours trying to settle back into my daily routine, Danny Thiessen, Molly Wootton, and Twilight Sparkle were setting into motion a chain of events that would end with me being taken into custody by the Air Force.

IV. Your Taxes at Work

By mid-afternoon Sunday, I had convinced myself that the previous day's events were truly in the past. However Danny and Molly were handling Twilight, they hadn't involved me since they left my house and I could see no reason why they would involve me in the future. So when I heard a knock at the door, I assumed it was from someone unrelated to the matter. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I opened the door to be greeted by a man in full military uniform. He looked barely old enough to drink, and while his large frame was naturally imposing, his posture seemed almost submissive, like he was going out of his way not to scare me. "Adrian Parker?" he asked. I nodded. "Lieutenant Milton Wright, United States Air Force. I've been asked to escort you to McCracken AFB."

McCracken is the local Air Force base, less than a half-hour's drive from my house, though I didn't usually travel in that direction. My mind tried in vain to discern why they of all people would be interested in me. "Uh... what?"

"Sir, yesterday there was an incident at this location. I was not cleared to know the details, but I was told that it had national security implications and... something to do with ponies, if that makes any sense to you." Wright read my face for some sign of recognition.

"Jesus Face-Hugging Christ." My head and shoulders drooped. What did those idiots at animal control do? I asked myself. "Let me guess: you're really here as part of some government coverup. You've been ordered to silence all the witnesses to the, uh, 'incident.'"

Wright shook his head. "No, sir. The Air Force knows better than anyone the impossibility of plugging an information leak in the digital age. And in addition to violating several federal regulations, forcing your silence would deny us a vital source of intelligence. We only want to bring you in for questioning, to assess the damage and determine how much time we have to devise a response."

"If that's the case, I've got good news," I said. "I haven't told a soul about the incident -- except for the people I brought in to deal with it, and I'm sure you've already tracked them down."

"Be that as it may, sir, I have my orders." He paused. "But you do have the right to refuse my request. I can't legally compel you to appear. Just say the word, and I'll leave you in peace."

"No, no, that's fine. It's probably for the best if I cooperate. Incidents as big as this one have a way of making people forget about silly little things like federal law and the Constitution." I smiled wryly to mask a genuine pang of fear. "If I don't go with you, I'm sure I'll be brought to the base in the middle of the night, bound and gagged by some covert ops team."

Wright stifled a laugh at what he thought was mere paranoia on my part. "If you say so, sir."

I motioned back inside the house. "Can I at least grab my housekeys before we go?" I asked. "So I can leave the door locked while we're out?"

He thought it over for a second. "I see no problem with that, sir." I went back for my keys and picked up my phone charger as well, in the admittedly unlikely event that I was held at McCracken for an extended stay without having my personal effects seized. "Are you ready to go, sir?" Wright asked when I returned to the door.

"I am," I said. "Let's roll." With the door locked, we departed in Wright's Jeep. As I sat there in the passenger seat, I marveled at how few precautions he'd taken with me: first coming to my house alone, then letting me leave his sight possibly to retrieve a weapon, and now allowing me to sit next to him without any sort of barrier. Either he'd been trained very poorly or someone in the chain of command was absolutely certain I could be trusted. Maybe when this is over, I thought, I can get a security clearance for an IT job at McCracken. Civilian contractors for the military make a lot of money.

After a few minutes of driving, I decided to break the silence. "So... how 'bout them Reds? I know they've been playing pretty well this year. I just can't see them making the playoffs when all's said and done."

"Sir, I'm from Virginia," Wright said. "I don't follow local teams."

"Oh." I looked down and away. "So... Virginia. Is that Orioles country?"

"Nationals, sir," he answered.

"Right. Duh." I slapped my head lightly. "Bit of a brain fart there. Forgot Washington had a baseball team."

"I can't blame you, sir," he said, cracking a faint smile. "The way they play, sometimes I'd like to forget Washington has a baseball team." We carried on talking about baseball and other sports until we arrived at the base. After clearing me with the guardhouse, Wright drove me to a moderately impressive office building at the heart of the complex. He led me to a particular office on the ground floor, occupied by a heavily decorated gentleman with graying hair and well-worn features. "Colonel Patterson," Wright said after exchanging salutes, "this is Adrian Parker, here per your request. Mr. Parker, Col. Frank Patterson, commanding officer for McCracken Air Force Base."

"How do you do, sir?" I asked.

"Fine, thank you," Patterson replied. "That will be all, Lieutenant. You're dismissed." Wright closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with the colonel and feeling somewhat intimidated. "Have a seat, Mr. Parker." I did. "I'd like to begin by double-checking the information I've received about you. Yesterday, at 0911 local time, you contacted Centre City Animal Control regarding an intelligent pony-like creature at your house. The creature called herself Twilight Sparkle and claimed to have come from an extraterrestrial civilization known as Equestria. At approximately 0930 the same day, Ms. Sparkle was removed from the premises by two animal control officers. Am I correct so far?"

"Y-yes, sir," I stammered. My voice was uncertain and fearful; the gravity of the situation had finally caught up with me.

"Good, good." Patterson shuffled some papers on his desk. "Then let me bring you up to speed on what's happened since then. Animal control called NASA. NASA called us. We brought Ms. Sparkle and everyone else here. Now we're interviewing everyone who made contact with Ms. Sparkle in order to formulate a plan of action."

"And what are you doing with Ms. Sparkle herself?" I asked. "A good old-fashioned alien autopsy?"

"No, Mr. Parker," he said as gruffly as he could manage, which was quite a bit. "That's only in movies and TV shows."

"Really? Would you do one if I asked nicely? Heck, I'll even pay you for it." I should note here that I didn't really want to see Twilight in the morgue. I sometimes use inappropriate humor as a coping mechanism. "'Cause ever since she showed up, she's been a thorn in my side, so if you could make her go away, --"

Patterson cut me off. "Mr. Parker, have you ever seen E.T.?"

"Uh... yeah," I said. "Who hasn't?"

"Have you ever seen the alternate ending," he asked, "where E.T.'s alien buddies come back to pick him up, find out we've slaughtered him like an animal, and nuke our population centers in retaliation?"

"Um..." I scratched the back of my neck. "Was that before or after they replaced the guns with walkie-talkies?"

"Neither," he said, furrowing his brow. "It was never a part of the movie. And do you know why?"

"Because..." I hesitated. "Because it would have destroyed the film thematically?"

"Because we don't go around cutting aliens open without a damn good reason! Our policy toward extraterrestrial intelligences is and always has been to show them the same deference we would show any other official guest of the United States. That includes respecting their funerary customs, so even if one came to our world already dead, we wouldn't do an autopsy until we could confirm that their family or other basic social unit was okay with it." Patterson leaned back in his chair. "But I'm getting off topic. You're here to discuss your experiences with Twilight Sparkle."

"Oh right," I said. "The interrogation."

"Interview," he said firmly. "Okay, first question: according to Ms. Sparkle, you were the first human she met on our planet. Were you lucky enough to witness her actual arrival or did you only see her afterward?"

"The second one. I didn't see her come here." I shrugged. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize," Patterson said with a smile. "All I want out of you is the truth. We can worry about everything else later. Second question: Ms. Sparkle says she used, and I'm quoting here, 'magic' to extract knowledge of the English language from your brain. Do you recall her having done such a thing to you, and if so can you describe how it happened?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I know what you're talking about. There's not much to tell. Her horn started glowing, I got a nasty headache, and about a minute later they both suddenly stopped and she was able to talk."

"Interesting." He looked over his papers again. "Third question: besides Centre City Animal Control, did you notify anyone else about Ms. Sparkle, either personally or over the Internet?"

"I did not," I said. "Honestly I've just been trying to forget about her since she left. You guys aren't making that very easy."

"If that's so, I can guess the answer to my fourth and final question," Patterson mused. "But I have to ask it anyway. Did you record any photographic or videographic evidence of your encounter with Ms. Sparkle?"

"Again, I did not. You guessed correctly." I smiled. "So, if that was the last question, is there anything else you need from me?"

Patterson's face turned serious. "I'm afraid there is. Mr. Parker, the fact that you know of Ms. Sparkle's presence puts you in a rather privileged position. Until such time as she can be revealed through more official channels, I may have to rely on you and the others to assist me in certain endeavors. Nothing illegal or immoral, but maybe a bit unpleasant. Can I count on your help?"

"Do I have a choice?" I asked.

"Do you want to be sent to Gitmo as a security risk?" he replied. And Lt. Wright laughed at me, I thought. "Your first task is simple. Follow me to rendezvous with the other contactees. Come, Mr. Parker." He stood up and led me out of the room, to a medical facility in the basement with Danny, Molly, and a man with olive complexion and hair up to high heaven. "I take it you've met Mr. Thiessen and Ms. Wootton already. Dr. Renzetti, this is Adrian Parker. Mr. Parker, Dr. Beniamino Renzetti, formerly with the European Space Agency, now part of NASA."

"I'm the man they sent to look at these two's so-called 'meteor impact,'" Renzetti said with a mild but noticeable accent. "Very naughty. Lying to federal agents is a crime, is it not?"

"Let it go, Doc," Patterson sighed. "They weren't hindering an investigation. And our final guests should be joining us shortly." Sure enough, a pair of double doors soon swung open to allow a woman with glasses and a lab coat through, flanked by the pony that had ruined my weekend. "Everyone say hi to Major Dr. Megan Faust, chief of medicine here at the base, and of course Twilight Sparkle. Major Faust has spent the past several hours studying Ms. Sparkle. Can you tell us your findings?"

"Certainly, sir," Faust said with a smile and a nod. "Well, look at me. I'm a veterinarian for a real-life My Little Pony. It's every little girl's dream come true."

"Not quite, Major. You still have to report your results to icky boys," Patterson joked.

"Oh, that's -- that's clever, sir." Faust looked down at her chart. "All right. The physiology is largely equine. No surprise there. But the skeletal and muscular structure is very much anthropomorphic. The face is capable of a vast variety of expressions and vocal articulations. The shoulder and hip joints have a wide range of motion, slightly larger than that of human shoulders. The body is proportioned such that she can sustain bipedal posture and motion. Ms, Sparkle, if you could demonstrate...?" Twilight reared up on her hind legs and took a few steps before dropping back on all fours.

"And the hooves," Faust continued, "the hooves are the really curious thing. They have the keratinous walls, as you'd expect. But on the underside, instead of a thick layer of calloused skin, they have thin skin over a retractable muscle mass, almost like a tongue. When pulled in, it turns the hoof walls into natural horseshoes. When pushed out, it can be used for grasping and manipulation. It doesn't provide as much dexterity as a hand, but it's still fairly useful. Observe." She handed a pen to Twilight, who held up a forehoof to take it. The pen appeared to stick to Twilight's hoof, and she even twirled it a bit before the major took it back.

"This is all quite riveting, Major," Patterson said, "but it's not why I had you look at her."

"I know, sir. I'm getting to it." Faust flipped the page on her chart. "Unfortunately, the exact mechanism behind her magic is still unknown. What I do know is that her cells contain microscopic particles that are somehow tied to her magical ability."

"So they're like the midichlorians from the bad Star Wars movies?" I asked.

"Sort of," Faust said, "except these are smaller -- on the scale of ribosomes. Now if you'd like to know how they work, we can either send them to a physics lab and run months, maybe years, of tests on them, or -- and this was Ms. Sparkle's idea, not mine -- she can retrieve the Equestrians' own research material on the subject from her library." Twilight perked up at hearing her suggestion.

Patterson nodded. "I like the second one. Much faster. We shouldn't be reinventing the wheel if we can avoid it. But we should send someone with her so we can learn more about Equestria while we're at it. It'll have to be someone in this room. And since traveling to an alien world unattended is potentially quite dangerous, there's only one way to decide." The colonel touched his finger to his nose. By the time I realized the significance of the gesture, everyone else had done the same. "Congratulations, Mr. Parker. You're going to Equestria."

"Wait, whoa, whoa," I said. "You can't call 'not it' to decide who goes on a trip like this! You need the most qualified people for the job. Was the crew of Apollo 11 decided by short straws?"

"No," Renzetti said, "but after Apollo 1, perhaps they should have done it that way."

"Besides, the moon landing required a great deal of technical and navigational skill. This trip only needs you to do two things: survive and grab some books, and it's the first one that concerns me." Patterson cracked a smirk. "You're not Neil Armstrong. You're more like the dog the Russians sent up with Sputnik."

"Laika," Renzetti chimed in.

"Didn't that dog die?" I asked flatly.

"I should hope so," Renzetti responded. "They didn't even try to bring her back safely."

"But you have much better odds. We're not shooting you into the cold void of space. And if Ms. Sparkle can survive here, it's likely you can survive there. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get you ready to go." Patterson left the room for a few moments and came back carrying a helmet with a camera attached. "Wear this. It'll record your stay in Equestria."

I took the helmet. "You know, I really don't want to do this."

"And I really don't care," Patterson said.

I strapped the helmet on and looked at Twilight. "Are you sure you can get me to Equestria and back safely?"

"Very sure," Twilight said. She turned to the rest of the group. "And none of you want to come with us?"

"Not on the first attempt," Danny answered.

"Not on such short notice," Molly noted.

"Not while I have work to do," Faust said.

"Great." I took a deep breath and nodded at Twilight. "Okay. Two to beam up, Mr. Scott."

"What?" she asked.

"...nothing. Just go." Her horn glowed, and my entire body was covered with warmth, presumably because all my molecules were being excited in ways they shouldn't have been. In a few seconds, the drab walls of the Air Force base melted away from my vision and were replaced with the all-too-vibrant colors of Equestria. I was a long way from home, and it was only going to get longer.

V. Maiden Voyage

Twilight had forgotten to warn me of how disorienting transdimensional travel could be. Warp lag is well understood today, but back then my body's resistance to the tilt and spin of a different world came as an unpleasant surprise. I needed a few seconds to regain my footing, after which I was able to take in my surroundings. We'd obviously landed in someone's farm. I could make out a chicken coop, a field of vegetables, and even one of those stereotypical big red barns, though this one had the distinction of also containing the farmhouse. The most prominent feature of the property, however, was the massive apple orchard planted on one side. This was definitely their cash crop; if the sheer size of it wasn't evidence enough, the apple-themed decor on the buildings was equally convincing.

"We're here!" Twilight chirped.

"For some value of 'here,'" I grumbled. "What is this place?"

"This is Sweet Apple Acres," she said. "My friend Applejack works here. It's the only farm in Equestria that harvests the magical Zap Apples."

I rolled my eyes. "Neat," I lied. "And how far is this place from where we need to be?"

"Not far at all. See that town back there?" Twilight pointed a hoof at a quaint little village in the distance, full of small wooden cottages with thatched roofs. I was reminded of Trogdor and his penchant for burninating such places. Hey, didn't she say this world has dragons? Burnination could be a real hazard here. "That's Ponyville. That's where my library is."

"Great. Then... we should go that way." I gestured toward the town.

"Hang on. First I'd like to say hi to Applejack and let her know I'm back." "Her." So Applejack is a girl too. Noted. "I just hope she's around here somewh--ah! There she is!" Twilight trotted toward one of the farm sheds, from which another pony was stepping out with a bale of hay balanced on its back. This pony didn't have a horn, but its muscles were a bit more defined than Twilight's. Its coat was orange, its mane yellow (blonde?), and its cutie mark a trio of red apples.

"Is that Applejack?" I asked while trying to keep up with Twilight.

"Yes it is." She then called out to the other pony in a strange language. It was harsh yet fluid, like a creole of Klingon and Shyriiwook.

Applejack said something back in an upbeat tone, then nodded at me and said something more matter-of-factly.

Twilight's lengthy response included the words "Adrian Parker," so I assumed she was introducing me among other things.

Applejack looked at me with suspicion before saying something else to Twilight with a rising tone. As it does in English and many other human languages, this indicated a question, though I didn't know it at the time.

After giving an excited reply, Twilight turned to me. "Do you still have your telephone with you?"

"I do." I pulled it out of my pocket. "Good luck making any calls with it, though."

"But you can still use the -- what did you call them -- apps, right?" she asked. "I just want Applejack to see your electrical devices at work."

"Gotcha." I tapped the icon to start up the classic video game Pac-Man. Applejack and Twilight moved in closer to get a better look at the screen. "So why am I doing this? What have you two been talking about?"

"I told her where I've been and who you are," Twilight said, keeping her eyes on my phone. "She asked about the helmet you're wearing. I explained what it is and how you humans have all kinds of amazing machines to make up for your inability to use magic. And now you're showing her one of those amazing machines."

Applejack's voice was suitably awestruck as she made her next comment.

"She's saying that we have magical screens that light up like this," Twilight translated, "and that we can even use them to play games, but they're in big bulky boxes and the games are nowhere near as fancy."

"She thinks this is impressive?" I asked. "This game is thirty years old! More recent games are advanced enough to make you feel like you're guiding real people through entire virtual worlds."

Twilight started to say something to Applejack.

"Don't -- don't translate that," I interrupted. "I don't want her to think I'm bragging. Because I have no reason to brag. As much as we've accomplished without magic, you ponies must have achieved some incredible things without electronics. The fact that you're the ones who discovered us and not the other way around is proof of that."

Twilight spoke to Applejack again. Her tone was apologetic, though I couldn't tell whether she was apologizing for me or for herself.

Applejack smiled and gave a simple reply.

"She likes your humility," Twilight said. "And as long as you don't cause any trouble, she says you're always welcome here at her farm."

"Great. Does that mean we can go now?" I asked. "Since we can always come back later."

"I suppose so." Twilight said her goodbyes to Applejack. "Come on, Adrian. Put the telephone away so we can start walking."

I was loath to quit in the middle of a game, but if it meant finishing my business in Equestria and going home, I wasn't about to complain. We started down the hill to Ponyville. "So... that was kind of awkward, not being able to speak your language. That spell you used yesterday, the one where you read my mind to learn English: is there any way you can turn that around so I can learn to speak Equestrian or whatever you call it?"

"Equine," she answered. "And yes, but not until we get to my library. I only memorized the spell to learn somepony else's language. Teaching somepony my language requires a different spell. It's similar enough that I could probably cast it without looking at my books, but I'd rather not take any chances. Mental magic is extremely dangerous, especially when it involves permanent alterations. There's a reason we still do most of our learning the slow way."

"Ah." She'd mentioned that early magical research was performed by trial and error; I wondered how many pony brains had been fried in order to perfect these particular spells. "You seem to have survived it well enough. Is there an inherent danger to mental magic, or is it one of those things that's only a problem if you screw it up?"

"The second one," Twilight said. "I wouldn't have even tried it if there was any inherent risk."

"So as long as you're careful, it's perfectly safe. Phew." I wiped my brow. "Just promise me you'll be as protective of my cognitive function as you were of your own."

"Of course." Twilight sounded hurt. "You didn't even have to ask. What kind of pony do you think I am?"

"When brain damage is at stake," I said, "it doesn't matter what kind of pony I think you are. What matters is what kind of pony I know you are. You aren't taking any chances, and neither am I."

It wasn't long before we reached Ponyville proper, and it wasn't long after that that a bright pink pony with a slightly pudgy physique and a perm from the 1980s appeared without warning to greet me. I craned my neck around, trying to figure out how it was able to sneak up on me in an open street. The pony said something cheerfully in Equine.

"You know this one?" I stage-whispered to Twilight.

"This is Pinkie Pie," she replied. "She lives at Sugarcube Corner with Mr. and Mrs. Cake. She likes parties and sweets and parties with sweets." Twilight then said something to Pinkie. As before, I could clearly hear my name among her words.

Pinkie spoke to me again, this time including the words "Adrian Parker."

Twilight said something else to her, and I could detect a hint of frustration in her voice.

Pinkie looked down sadly, then brightened up as the flash of an idea crossed her face. She ran off. "That was weird," I said.

"Yeah, Pinkie Pie is... different. But she's really quite nice once you get to know her. Come on, let's keep going." Twilight and I continued on our way to the library. We didn't get far, however, before Pinkie came running back out, now carrying a folding table and a set of figurines. She set up the table and placed the figurines on it. Twilight asked her a question.

Pinkie responded with a rapid-fire monologue. As she talked she gestured to the figurines, including ones of herself, Twilight Sparkle, and Applejack, and a strangely human-looking figure wearing clothes almost identical to my own.

I stopped Pinkie's speech short. "Wait a minute. You'd never heard of humans before you came to my world, right?" I asked Twilight.

"That's correct," she said.

"Then how does she have this toy of a human? And not just any human, but me!" I found it odd that Twilight would hide the existence of My Little Human dolls in Equestria, even after we revealed our own metafictional secrets.

"I told you," Twilight sighed, "Pinkie Pie is different. She has abilities that magical science can't explain. She may have seen your coming before I first went to your world, and it looks like she prepared for it."

"Hm. So what is she planning to do with all these props?" I asked.

"She says it's her way of communicating with you without words. I don't know how successful it'll be, but you can at least give her a shot at it." Twilight nodded at Pinkie and said something gently to her.

Pinkie grinned eagerly, then started fiddling with the toys. Her first act was to pick up the figurines of Twilight and myself. She slammed them on the table and made a shocked expression. Next, she took the Pinkie figurine and walked her over to those two. She wiggled the toys and made gibberish noises as though they were talking to each other. She then took the Pinkie toy back to "talk" with the other pony figurines. She pushed all the toys to the center of the table and added bits of confetti and streamers. The Pinkie figurine nudged the Twilight and Adrian toys into the mix, and she led the Pinkie and Adrian toys around the crowd, "talking" to each of the other ponies in turn. Finally, she walked the Pinkie and Adrian figurines off together, with all the others following close behind.

Pinkie looked at me for my reaction. I frowned and shook my head. I moved the Pinkie, Twilight, and Adrian figurines off to one side and set up all the others in the middle as she had. I made the Pinkie figurine "talk" to the Adrian toy and gave his response as an angry growl. When the Pinkie toy pushed the Twilight and Adrian figurines into the crowd, the Adrian toy yelped and ran away. Then I had him go back, pull the Twilight figurine out, and "yell" at her. I had the Twilight toy make twinkling noises and snatched the Adrian toy into my hand, off the table. I made a happy squeal to let Pinkie know that this was my desired outcome.

Pinkie motioned for me to give back the Adrian figurine. When I did, she swept away most of the pony toys, leaving only Twilight's and her own. She placed a number of toy pastries on the table: cakes, pies, muffins, et cetera. The Pinkie figurine pushed the pastries toward the Twilight and Adrian figurines. She made eating noises for all three toys, then had them walk off together. She looked back at me with a tentative smile.

I growled and shook my head again. I copied her actions with the figurines, making the Pinkie toy move the baked goods toward the Twilight and Adrian toys. The Adrian figurine let out an irritated groan, then "talked" to the Pinkie and Twilight toys before walking off alone. I had the two pony figurines "eat" the pastries while the Adrian toy gave a relaxed sigh, then I moved him back to "talk" with the Twilight figurine. The Twilight toy twinkled again and I yanked the Adrian toy away. I squeaked with joy at this ending.

Pinkie pouted and took the Adrian figurine back once more. She brought the Pinkie figurine up to him and made questioning noises, then moved to give them some separation. She looked at me with curiosity.

I rubbed my chin briefly, then picked up the Adrian toy and made him pace around for a moment. I walked him over to the Pinkie figurine and had him pat her on the head. I shrugged and made a sound of uncertainty, then walked him away from her. At last I turned the Adrian figurine back toward the Pinkie toy and had him give a grunt of thanks.

Pinkie nodded and said something to Twilight, then scooped up all the figurines and took them and the table away, leaving me alone again with the unicorn.

"She said that... if you ever think of anything you need, she'll be ready to help." Twilight paused. "I'm gonna be honest, I didn't follow you two at all. What happened between you?"

"We reached an understanding," I said. "That's all that matters. So, we were on our way to the library?" We continued on our way and soon arrived at a building shaped like a tree. Whether it had been carved out of a real tree or was just designed to look like one, I didn't know and frankly didn't care. The sign with a picture of a book told me this was a library. Twilight opening the door told me this was her library. "Oh good. We're here. And here-here, not just the general vicinity of here. Do you know where you can find the spell to teach me your language?"

"No, but I do know where I can find somepony who can locate it for me." She said something in Equine to someone I couldn't see. I followed her inside and she magically closed the door. I noticed a small purple and green reptile grabbing a book from one of the upper shelves. It was about two feet tall and bipedal with opposable thumbs.

"What the heck is that thing?" I asked. "Your pet lizard?"

"That's Spike," Twilight said, slightly annoyed. "He's a dragon, and he's my assistant."

"That's a dragon?" I snickered. "I thought they'd be bigger."

"They get bigger," she said. "Much bigger. He's just a baby."

Spike said something to Twilight as he came down from the ladder. He turned around and his eyes bugged out when he saw me. He said something else in a more panicked tone.

Twilight said something to calm him down, then took the book and started flipping through the pages while muttering in Equine. "Got it. 'Speaking Terms, Inverted. For teaching one's native tongue to others. Caution: as with all mind-altering magic,' blah blah blah, 'not responsible for permanent neurological damage,' and so forth. Are you ready?"

"Um... what was that about permanent neurological damage?" I asked.

"Oh, they put these warnings on all the spells. Most of them are self-explanatory. Transformation spells can put limbs and organs in the wrong place. Teleportation spells can get you stuck in solid objects. That sort of thing. As long as you follow the directions, they're nothing to worry about. So," she said, "are you ready?"

I winced. "I... guess?"

Twilight read through the spell a couple times. Her horn started glowing, and I could feel a pressure around my skull. This time it was accompanied by a heaviness in my head, like my brain was made of lead. It was painful and dizzying, so much so that I thought I would black out.

Then I did.

VI. Sprechen Sie Pony

My thoughts immediately following the blackout were an incoherent mess. A strictly autobiographical version of events would leave it at that, but for the sake of the narrative I've chosen to fill in this gap in my memory with a third-party record. I'd like to thank my editors for convincing the Air Force to give me a copy of the helmet-cam footage from my first trip to Equestria. [You're welcome. -- Eds.] Having watched the video, I can say that Twilight didn't even notice my collapse until she'd completed her spell. But as soon as it was finished, she ran to my side. "Adrian! Are you all right?" she asked.

My eyes cracked open. "Put me... put me back in, coach," I mumbled. "I can still play."

She created a magical ball of light and shined it into my eyes to check my pupils. "Adrian, can you hear me?"

My gaze drifted lazily toward her and I smiled faintly. "Oh hey, horsey lady. I remember you from being a horsey lady."

"And what's my name, Adrian?" Twilight asked.

"You're Twilight." I blinked slowly, as if yawning with my eyes. "Twilight Sparkle." I giggled. "Like the crappy books. 'Oh, Edward, I am so young and so pretty and so obviously not a stand-in for the author. Take me with your chiseled Mormon vampire [REDACTED]." Not my proudest moment.

"Okay,... not sure if that's a good response or a bad response." She frowned. "Let's try this. How many claws is Spike holding up?" She turned to the dragon. "Spike, hold up some claws on your foreleg," she said to him in Equine.

"Relax, little lizard dude. I can do it," I said in a singsong manner -- and in Equine. I held up two fingers to my face. "Two! Two fingers! Ah ah ah!" Technically I called them "foretoes," but some liberties have to be taken when translating between human languages and those of the ponies.

Twilight stepped back with a start. "Does this mean you can understand me right now?" she asked, not slipping back to English this time. "If that's the case, it looks like the spell did what it was supposed to do. That's good. Now we just have to make sure you haven't suffered any side effects."

"Yeah, side effects are bad," I said. "Especially if you're nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. Babies can't handle grown-up medicine. It makes them..." It was around this time that my senses fully returned and I realized what language I was speaking. "Holy crap, I'm speaking in pony, aren't I?"

Twilight nodded. "That's what you wanted, right? This way you can talk to everypony else without needing me to translate."

"I guess, but..." I rubbed my forehead and temples. "Did it have to feel like I was hit with a sack of bricks?"

"I really didn't expect that to happen," she said. "I followed the instructions to the letter. It may just be that your human brains," or more literally "ape-person" brains, "are different enough from ours that the spell needs to be rewritten for your sake. I remember you had a bad reaction to my first Speaking Terms spell also. I'm almost afraid to try casting the spell on any more of you humans without doing more research first."

"Oh sure," I grumbled, "make me the only one who can speak your language. I'm probably gonna be chained to a desk in a windowless room and forced to translate your magic books at gunpoint when I get back."

"If it's any consolation, the spell doesn't grant literacy in the foreign language. I'd have to teach you the Unicornish alphabet by hoof first." Twilight smiled. "So if you need an excuse to get out of continuing to work for the human soldiers, you do have that."

"Thanks, little pony," I said. "Maybe you're not so bad after all."

"Excuse me," Spike said, holding up a hand to stop us. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Twilight, you said you were going to tell me what was going on as soon as you were done casting that language spell. Well, it's been cast. So... what's going on? Where have you been for the past day and a half? Where did you find that 'human' you're talking to?"

"This human has a name. He's called Adrian Parker. And remember that special teleportation spell I've been working on? I finally got it to work," Twilight explained, "and I traveled to a place called America, full of humans like this one. They weren't too friendly, but they weren't openly hostile either, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And their world is so strange. They have no magic, but somehow all their natural cycles occur spontaneously like in the Everfree Forest. Even the days and seasons change on their own."

"As opposed to what?" I interjected. "How do days and seasons work here?"

"Oh, that's right," Twilight said, "you weren't there when I talked with Danny and Molly about this. Princess Celestia raises the sun every morning and lowers it every evening. She's normally very precise about it too, but sometimes..."

"Sometimes she's too busy to do it," Spike filled in, "so she leaves the task up to her court magicians, and they're... less careful. Twilight told me about one time when she was a filly and the sun was stuck at two o'clock for at least an hour."

"There was an uproar," Twilight added. "She fired her top wizard the next day. She had to, to keep other nations from taking action against Equestria. A lot of them resent having to rely on unicorn magic to keep their days and nights happening, so when those things stop happening, they're quick to demand justice."

The whole story sounded terribly far-fetched, but knowing how many other ways this world was different from mine, I was in no position to accuse them of lying. "Weird," I said plainly. "But it makes sense. I know our people get antsy when the nations we depend on are less than dependable -- which happens with frightening regularity. Lousy oil-based economy."

"And speaking of Princess Celestia," Twilight said, "that reminds me: Spike, could you take a letter?" Spike ran over to a desk with a piece of parchment and a quill pen. Seriously? I thought. Even the Amish have advanced past quill-pen technology. Spike looked up at her expectantly.

"Dear Princess Celestia," she dictated, "this is not one of my usual reports on the magic of friendship." The magic of what now? "Instead I am writing to inform you of a project I have been pursuing on the side. Several of my books mention spatial dimensions beyond the three we normally use and speculate on the existence of alternate worlds set along those other dimensions. Yet no effort has been made to contact, to visit, or even to document these other worlds. I wanted to change that, and I am pleased to report that I have succeeded."

"I have recently returned from one such world," she continued, "inhabited by creatures that I will call 'humans.' The humans have sent one of their own, a stallion named Adrian Parker, back with me to learn about Equestria and to bring them our knowledge of magic. (Enclosed is a photograph of Mr. Parker.) Conversely, they have much to teach us about industry and electrical machines. It is my belief that by combining our respective advances in science we can change both of our worlds for the better. I do not wish to proceed without your approval, however, as I recognize the potential for such an endeavor to upset the delicate balance of Equestrian society. Please respond with your recommendation as soon as possible, in order that I may act accordingly. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." She stopped for a moment to give Spike a chance to finish writing. "How was that?"

"Not bad," Spike said, "except for the part where I don't have a picture of this human to enclose."

"And that can be fixed." Twilight walked up some steps to a balcony with a bed and some other furniture. She pulled out a camera, an older model with a fairly large flashbulb, and floated it down to Spike with her magic. "Here you go."

Spike took hold of the camera and pointed it at me. "Smile, Mr. Parker!" I did no such thing. He took the shot anyway, and the camera spat out a sheet of photo paper that quickly developed into a full-body picture of me. No phone, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury... but they do have Polaroids. Which branches of the tech tree have these ponies been climbing, anyway? "Okay, I've got the photo. Are you ready to send the letter?"

"I am, if you could do that," Twilight said. Spike placed the picture on the parchment and rolled them both up like a scroll. He tied a red ribbon around the parchment, then breathed green fire on the package to burn it to a crisp.

I furrowed my brow. "Um... question: how's he supposed to send the letter after he's torched it?" I asked.

"That's how he sends letters," Twilight answered. "Dragon flame is magical. His flames send things to the Princess."

"Ah. Well. That explains that, then, doesn't it?" There was a trace of facetiousness or perhaps sarcasm in my voice. I think I was suffering a sort of nonsense fatigue, because it was soon after that I started to accept Equestria on its own warped terms. "But what makes you so important that you get a direct line to a princess?"

"Oh, nothing much, really," she deadpanned, waving a hoof. "She took me in as her personal student when she discovered that I have the most magical potential of any unicorn in the past thousand years. Then she sent me here to make some friends so they and I could wield the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful artifacts in all Equestria, to stop her sister from drowning the world in eternal darkness. Then she called me and my friends to wield the Elements again to defeat a god of chaos whose corrupt reign predates Equestrian history."

"So what, you're some kind of national hero?" I asked. "It's a good thing I didn't know that before. As much as I wanted you gone when you were just Jane Q. Alien, I probably would have taken hostages and killed one every half hour until you promised to stay out of my life if I knew you'd already made history in your world. Hell, I can't guarantee I won't do that now."

Twilight's face darkened. "Please tell me you're joking," she said.

"I can't," I said with worry. "I want to say I am. I want to believe I am. But sometimes people do crazy things when they're pushed to the wall. I like my privacy, and if I can only have it in a steel cage or a pine box that's most likely how I'll take it."

"You know, If it's that important to you," Twilight replied, "I'll see what I can do to keep you away from the public eye. I'm afraid I won't be able to remove you completely from the matter at this point, but I can do my best to help you avoid the attention that'll come with it. In the meantime, don't think of this as deciding the fate of our two worlds. Just think of it as a vacation, and leave the details to the rest of us."

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to set aside the whole world-changing aspect of it," I said.

"It's easy. Just relax and enjoy Equestria." She glared at Spike. "While Spike is gathering my books on basic magical theory to send with you when you go back home,..." He took the hint and climbed up to one of the library's shelves. "you and I can take a stroll around town and I can introduce you to the rest of my friends."

I crossed my arms and breathed a heavy sigh. "All right. Let's go. See you later, Spike."

"Bye, Mr. Parker," he said.

Twilight led me out of the library and to a local park, where a light blue pony with wings was napping in the branches of a tree. This one had an athletic figure, and its mane and tail contained all the colors of the visible spectrum. Its cutie mark was a multi-colored lightning bolt shooting out of a cloud.

"Male or female?" I asked Twilight discreetly.

"Female," she responded. "Just assume all my friends are girls unless I say otherwise." She looked up at the other pony. "Hey, Rainbow Dash! Wake up!"

Rainbow opened a single eye to look down at us. "Oh, hey, Twilight. Hey, freaky monkey thing."

"Seriously?" I asked. "That's all I get? Why are you all so accepting? Shouldn't at least one of you ponies be like, 'Oh my God, what is this dread beast, come to lay waste to our fair land?' and then running off to whip the whole town into a frenzy? It's not natural."

"What can I say?" Rainbow said. "After a while you get used to it. The way Fluttershy is with animals, Twilight is with abominations of science and nature." She chuckled and glanced at Twilight. "Like, remember when you were experimenting with that summoning spell, and you brought up that nasty thing with all the tentacles, and --"

"We agreed never to speak of that again!" Twilight interrupted sharply.

"I didn't think Pinkie Pie was ever gonna walk straight after that!" Rainbow carried on, undaunted.

"And we're done here," Twilight said. "Come on, Adrian." She started to walk away, and I saw little choice but to follow.

"Aw, you're no fun!" Rainbow shouted after us.

We went further into town, to a shop that had been built to resemble a merry-go-round. Standing just outside the door were two winged gray ponies with helmets and armor. "Stop right there!" one of them said as Twilight attempted to enter the shop. "Ms. Sparkle, is this the human?"

"I am," I said. "What is it to you?"

"Mr. Parker, by order of Her Royal Highness, Celestia the Princess of Equestria, you are to be brought to the Canterlot Palace for questioning and refreshments."

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Oh Lord. First human soldiers ordering me around, now pony soldiers doing the same thing. I'd ask what's next, but I don't want to tempt fate." I looked at the war ponies. "And what happens if I refuse her order?"

"Her Highness reserves the right to punish such defiance with exile to any of the dungeons she maintains outside Equestrian territory," the guard answered.

For the first time in a while, I switched back to English to express my despair. "Jesus Chest-Bursting Christ."

VII. A Royal Pain

It was a neat inversion of the old cliché. Instead of the alien demanding to be taken to the natives' leader, their leader was demanding that the alien be brought to her. The problem, of course, was that I was (and remain) the sort of person who has no business talking to anyone's leader. Had Col. Patterson known that his sacrificial lamb would be given an audience with this nation's royalty, I imagined, he would have been a bit more careful in his selection. Nonetheless, he hadn't explicitly forbidden me from meeting with Equestria's government should the opportunity arise, and in principle it would be an excellent way to learn more about the land as he had requested. "All right," I said to the armored pegasi. "I'll go. But how do I get there from here?"

One of them nodded at a nearby cart, simple in design but ornately decorated. "We can provide transportation for you -- and, if she so desires, for Ms. Sparkle as well."

"Oh, did Celestia say I could come too?" Twilight asked. "I didn't know if she wanted to speak with Adrian one-on-one, or if there was anything she wanted to ask me, or..."

"Her Highness does have some questions for you, Ms. Sparkle," the other soldier said. "But she's willing to resolve them through your usual channels. This is primarily an offer for you to speak on Mr. Parker's behalf."

"Do I... do I need someone to speak on my behalf?" I asked nervously. "And if so, shouldn't I get some proper legal counsel instead? No offense, Ms. Sparkle, but your personal relationship with the Princess can only do so much to keep me out of pony jail."

"You're not under any criminal suspicion," the first soldier answered, "not yet. You do not need an advocate. Ms. Sparkle's role would be merely advisory. Should there be any cultural misunderstandings during your stay at Canterlot, she may be more able than yourself to smooth them over." He looked at Twilight. "You have spent a fair amount of time among the humans, is that correct?"

"Only a couple days," Twilight said. "But since Adrian's only been in Equestria for a few minutes, I still have the advantage."

"Her Highness's point exactly." The soldier straightened its posture. "So, will you be joining us then?"

"Of course." Twilight smiled warmly. "I'd never turn down a chance to visit Princess Celestia. That's the thing I miss most about Canterlot."

"Excellent. Both of you, come with me. You too, Silverblade." The two war ponies walked to the cart, with Twilight and myself following, and worked together to fit and secure each other's harness. I was briefly amused by the idea of ponies pulling other ponies, until I considered the existence of rickshaws in our world. Without beasts of burden or motor vehicles, these creatures' transportation options were limited. I didn't know enough about Equestrian magic to say whether they could enchant vehicles to move automatically, but I suspected they couldn't do so reliably; otherwise such technology would have driven out non-magical transport long ago.

"So... do I just get in the cart?" I asked.

"That's correct," Silverblade said.

"Okie-dokie." Twilight had already stepped on and scooted to the far side of the cart. I took the seat next to her. "In the words of my people," meaning English, "Let's go!"

"One moment, human." The other soldier turned his head around to face Twilight. "Ms. Sparkle, do you know how to send signal flares or do I need to give you that spell?"

"Oh, I learned that spell long ago." Twilight laughed. "I remember practicing it when I was younger. I gave you guys all kinds of crazy false orders. Sorry about that, by the way."

"The time for that apology is long past," the soldier said, "but you have my forgiveness regardless. Now if you could send the 'mission accomplished, return to base' signal, I'd be grateful. The confirmation code is Khal Teng Two Seven."

"Got it." Twilight shot a burst of light up from her horn into the sky, where it exploded into a multicolored pattern of lines and spirals. "Was that right?" she asked.

"As surely as if Her Highness had fired it herself," Silverblade said. "That's everypony else's cue to fall back, and it should be ours also. Brace yourself, Adrian Parker."

"What? Why? How fast are you planning on -- WHOA!" Very fast, as it turns out. I quickly discovered that Equestria's ponies were capable of land speeds that were more appropriate for NASCAR than for the Kentucky Derby. I gripped the side of the cart and held on for dear life as I watched the two pegasi start flapping their wings. "Oh no," I groaned. "Oh sweet merciful baby Jesus, no." Sure enough, the cart and myself were soon lifted off the ground. We continued to accelerate, and I wondered which would come first: the sonic boom or the first-degree burns from the air resistance. Thankfully, it wasn't long before the war ponies leveled off their speed and my heart, having jumped into my sinuses, could finally settle down.

"The first chariot ride is always the hardest," Twilight shouted over the whipping wind. "But I thought you'd be more prepared for it! You humans have flying machines, don't you?"

"Yes," I responded. "We also have enclosed cabins to protect us from the wind and seat belts to keep us from plummeting to our deaths! Not so much here."

"Don't worry," she said. "These ponies are professionals. They won't let anything bad happen to you! Even if something does go wrong, they know how to recover from it and rescue anypony who's endangered by it."

"You better be right. I didn't come all this way to be splattered against the rocks!" I relaxed my grip on the cart slightly, though my body stayed pinned to the seat back. I looked ahead at what I assumed was our destination. A city of gold and ivory had been built on the steep face of a great mountain. Parts of it had been carved into the rock, while others jutted out precariously over the abyss. "Is that Canterlot?" I asked Twilight.

"Yes!" she answered.

"Must've been one hell of an engineering job," I said. "What in the world would inspire you ponies to build a city like that?"

"I have no idea," Twilight said. "I never studied local history. Maybe after we're done at the palace, we can go on the Canterlot walking tour and find out!"

"No thanks," I said. "I don't care that much!" I scanned the skies, doing my best to gauge our distance to Canterlot without looking down. We were at least a few minutes away at our current speed. "It's gonna be a while. How about some traveling music?" I asked.

"What?" Twilight asked back.

I pulled out my phone. "This thing plays music, remember? I have some songs saved on it! Human songs, obviously; nothing you'd recognize. But still better than nothing at all!"

"Oh! Yeah, go ahead!" she said. I scrolled through my MP3 collection to find a song that captured the spirit of my trip to Equestria or our trip to Canterlot. In the end, though, I came up empty and defaulted to my '80s Classics playlist. Batting first: "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats. As I recall, I had to crank my phone's volume to maximum for it to be heard above the wind. "Safety dance?" Twilight asked as the song went to its chorus. "What does that even mean?"

"That's a good question!" I replied. "Don't focus on the lyrics. Just listen to the music! I have songs on here that even I don't know what they're saying. That's not counting the ones that aren't in English!"

And so it went. The music did its job: I don't remember how long it took us to reach Canterlot. I do remember that we arrived in the middle of Europe's "The Final Countdown." The pegasi slowed down more gently than they had sped up, so as not to throw Twilight and myself out the front of the cart, and eventually landed on the grounds of Canterlot Palace. The palace was a magnificent building by any standard, as large as any human castle and built from only the most luxurious construction materials.

The soldiers freed each other from their harnesses and faced Twilight and myself. "Ms. Sparkle, Mr. Parker, if the two of you could follow us," the one that wasn't Silverblade said, "we will take you directly to Her Highness."

"All right then," I said. Twilight and I stepped off the cart on opposite sides. "Lead the way." The two soldiers led us through the spacious corridors of the palace, and I could have sworn that Silverblade was humming "Danger Zone" all the while. Oh crap, I thought, it's a musical chazzwozzer. I'm gonna come back here in a year, go to a concert, and instead of playing whatever songs these ponies have written on their own, it's gonna be nothing but Kenny Loggins covers. I'm still a bit disappointed that this hasn't come to pass.

At last the pegasi brought us to a truly massive hall with stained glass windows on either side. Most of the windows portrayed characters I couldn't identify, but there were two with some very familiar faces. Both featured a group of six ponies, four of whom I could name as Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash. The other two were a white unicorn and a yellow pegasus. Those must be the two she wanted me to meet next, before these guys interrupted. I wonder if she has any friends other than the Mighty Morphin' Pony Rangers. One window showed the six blasting with magic a large black pony with wings, a horn, and armor not unlike that worn by the two soldiers. The other displayed them likewise blasting an unusual creature with parts mixed and matched from a number of species, a grotesque parody of the hybrids of ancient mythology. "A pony of darkness and a god of chaos," I muttered, nodding toward the windows. "I guess your story checks out."

"I told you," Twilight said. "Why would I lie about something like that?"

I shrugged. "Well, I don't know how well the idiom holds up in your language, but in English we would say you had balls the size of a whale."

Twilight frowned. "It doesn't hold up at all."

"Balls. Testicles. Male reproductive bits," I explained. "We use them as a metaphor for courage, especially courage in the face of decency and common sense. I admit it doesn't exactly speak well of our species that we define our males by their willingness to do stupid things, but there's not a lot I can do about that."

"You can try not to fit that mold," she suggested.

"Believe me, I am," I said. "But one person can only do so much. Sometimes that's enough. Usually it isn't. In this case, it probably isn't." I spoke up to address the soldiers in front of me. "Hey, how much further until we get to the Princess?"

"Are you kidding?" Silverblade asked. "This is the throne room! Her Highness is right in front of us!" I looked ahead, and at the head of the room was a majestic white pony, six feet tall at the shoulders, with wings and a horn like the creature depicted on the stained glass. Didn't Twilight say the eternal-darkness pony was this one's sister? Must be a genetic thing. Her mane and tail shimmered and glowed with the colors of the aurora borealis and waved as though blown by a nonexistent wind. Her cutie mark was a stylized sun -- I guess that story checks out too -- and she was wearing a golden crown and collar necklace.

"Well. Don't I feel like a moron?" I asked rhetorically.

"As perhaps you should," the other soldier said. "How do you miss that? The entire room is built to make Her Highness the focal point."

"Honestly I wasn't looking for her in this room," I said. "I figured you'd say something before we entered her chamber."

"Why would we need to say anything?" Silverblade asked. "It would be obvious to anypony who was paying any attention where she was."

"That's just it!" I lifted my hand in an emphatic gesture. "I had no reason to pay attention to anything except where you two were going. I take my eyes off you for a second and, congratulations, I'm lost."

"Which would be a valid excuse," Silverblade observed, "if she were in any direction except the one you already had to look in order to see us."

"Enough!" the other soldier said. "We're here." And we were, after what felt like an eternity crossing the room. The two soldiers bowed before Princess Celestia. Twilight and I followed suit.

"Hello, Silverblade. Hello, Ironshield," Celestia said in a voice that radiated maternal authority. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Your Highness," Ironshield responded, "we present Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville and Adrian Parker of... um... Human...land."

"Thank you, Ironshield," Celestia said. "Thank you, Silverblade. You two are free to leave." The two pegasi rose to their feet and began the long walk out of the throne room. "Hello, Twilight Sparkle. Hello, Adrian Parker. Mr. Parker, there's no need to bow. You're not one of my subjects. Or would you like to be?"

"No thank you, Your Highness," I said, standing up but still averting my eyes. "And forgive me. I thought it was merely a sign of respect for your station."

"It's not," Celestia said. "It's a show of allegiance. But thank you anyway. And please, call me Celestia. You're among friends here. You don't need to be so formal."

"Respectfully, Your Highness, I would prefer not to," I replied. "As long as I'm here, I'm effectively a representative of the United States of America. If, God forbid, relations between our two nations ever deteriorate, I would rather not have done anything that could be used to blame me for the hostility."

"If such a thing did happen," she said, "I wouldn't dream of blaming you for it."

"It's not your blame I'm afraid of," I said grimly.

"Very well. If it concerns you that greatly, you may continue to address me in accordance with royal etiquette." A note of sadness permeated Celestia's voice. "But do lighten up. Like I said, you're among friends here!"

"I highly doubt that, Your Highness," I said. "I find I'm only among friends when I'm alone."

"Is that so?" she asked. "You sound like an old student of mine. In time she learned the error of her ways. I can only hope to teach you the same lesson."

"If you must, Your Highness, I wish you the best of luck," I said. "Because you'll certainly need it. But you didn't bring me all the way here just to make friendly conversation, did you? I would humbly request that we get down to business. You have questions, I have answers."

"So be it," Celestia said. "You're right, I do have questions. But first I'd like you to tell me your story in your own words. It'll give me a better idea of which questions need to be asked. The floor is yours, Mr. Parker. Tell me about your world, your people, your United States of America, and yourself."

My eyes bulged. Hoo boy. Where do I begin?