One Nap Later...

Once again, I was paralyzed. After a moment, I looked around at the departing ponies. I had an idea – one of them had to know where I lived. My eyes fell upon Twilight Sparkle. I had determined so far that she was somewhat introverted and into books. It wasn’t much, but it meant I had the most in common with her out of all ponies. It also meant that she was the pony I’d most likely ask out on a date… which was extremely important given what I was about to do.

I trotted after her, and pulled up alongside her. It wasn’t hard given she was carefully carrying a baby dragon on her back. “Um, Twilight…”

“Yes?”

Man, this was hard to say. “Would you mind if I… walked with you? Home, I mean?”

She smiled and said without hesitation, “Of course!”

Either she was oblivious enough to believe that my request was purely platonic, which amusingly enough it was, or else we were already dating. Which would be very awkward, to say the least. I spent the next few moments wondering how to tactfully figure out if one is in a relationship with someone. Maybe if I was unlucky she’d give me a goodnight kiss.

The most obvious flaw with this plan was that, if her house was closer to the hill than mine, I’d be left high and dry with no idea which house in this thankfully-small town was mine. I decided to go out on a limb and asked, “Forgive me for asking, but in this darkness I’m not sure I’ll be able to pick out my house…”

“Oh, no problem! It should be… right over there!” She gestured with her hoof up the street, lined with similar-looking two-story thatched houses.

I did my best to gauge where she was pointing at, and as we came alongside the house in question, I asked, “This one, right?”

“Yep.” She looked at me for a long moment, making me slightly uncomfortable. I hoped she wasn’t expecting a kiss. I was very definitely not going to provide. Could ponies even kiss, anyway?

I broke the silence. “Thanks. I’m… just feeling out of it tonight.” I flashed a small smile at her and she returned it. I then turned and faced my “new” home.

As I pulled the door open (after fumbling a bit with it), I had several objectives in mind. See, I now had a couple of hypotheses in my head, and I needed to figure out which was the more likely.

One is that I had been utterly inserted into this new world, with everything and everypony set as though I had always been here. As an alternate but similar possibility, I, Silver Key, had amnesia coupled with delusions of life as a human.

The other possibility was that both I and Silver Key were separate, real individuals, and this night had had our minds and lives switched.

Either way, until a way to reverse the process was found, I needed to search my house, find out what made Silver Key… Silver Key. I needed to acclimate and assimilate into this new life long enough to figure out a likely explanation… as well as figure out who to trust with my dilemma.

As I thought about this, I proceeded to bump into what I assumed was a table. In my ignorance, I had failed to realize that there weren’t any lights on in the house. I wandered about the darkness until my nose bumped into a wall – I couldn’t figure out a good way to reach out with foreleg in front of my face while walking – and from there tried to find a light switch.

It was 10 minutes before I found a lamp, and another 5 to figure out that it ran on fireflies.

Well, it seemed to work fine for all parties involved, so I turned to survey the room I was in. As it turned out, I was in a kitchen/dining room, with the offending table from before in the center. Lying on the table was a stone-grey cat, eyes narrowed at me as though he were bored and had watched me for the past 15 minutes thinking, “What an idiot.”

I stared back at the cat. I wondered, was this the Moonstone that Fluttershy had mentioned earlier? Awkwardly, I said, “Hello, Moonstone.”

The cat merely flicked his tail, his expression contemptuous.

I decided that perhaps his problem was that he needed feeding. Or watering. I just hoped that this was Moonstone and that I didn’t have a roommate or something to deal with. In any event, I walked over to the kitchen counter, trying to find where I’d keep the cat food. The table was relatively clean and tidy, which meant that I’d have to open the cupboards and drawers. Without hands.

It didn’t make sense, really. Why did everything look like it was designed by creatures with hands?

I glared at a drawer for a moment before deciding that perhaps now was a good time to try out that telekinesis I had seen Twilight use. I hoped it was as easy as it looked, because I was after all from a world where such magic didn’t exist. I wasn’t even sure how to go about it, and the cat’s gaze performing a lobotomy on me wasn’t helping. At last, I simply willed the drawer to open, and low and behold, a silvery glow surrounded it and it slid outward.

I was sure if the cat could clap, with mocking slowness, he’d have done so. Particularly since the cat food was not in this drawer.

A dozen more applications of telekinesis later, and I had found a bag of cat food in a lower cupboard, which I decided would be great for more practice of telekinesis. Carefully, I moved it over to a food bowl on the floor, and rotated it so some dry kibble poured into the bowl… and proceded to overflow it and spill cat food on the floor.

The cat hopped down from the table and brushed past me, smacking my foreleg with his tail. I swear it was on purpose.

In any event, he seemed satisfied with the food, so I decided to investigate the rest of the house. Despite having the trappings of a house from the 50’s, it seemed to lack electrical equipment, at least outside the kitchen. No TV, no computer, no phone. Just books. In fact, my bed was surrounded by bookshelves. Most even had books in them.

There wasn’t actually a whole lot in the house other than books. In contrast with my house back on Earth, it looked like more a place where I slept. And read. And probably fell asleep reading. Most of my time was probably spent outside, probably socializing. I wondered if that was normal for ponies.

Seeing the books reminded me that I’d apparently borrowed a book from Twilight, and it was with some dread that I looked around and tried to figure out which one it could possibly be. Thankfully, my choice was narrowed down to the… four books on the nightstand. Evidently my- err, Silver Key’s – attention flickered wildly between books.

I checked each of the books for a bookmark, and found one in a book with an illustrated cover, Daring Do and the Griffon’s Goblet.. The bookmark was near the beginning, so I figured I could simply start over again and hope I didn’t stop because it was boring.

Wait a moment, I thought. I’m here for one evening and I’m already making long-term plans!?

I decided I was too tired for this. It was my personal philosophy that, when I went to bed, all of my troubles could collectively screw themselves. I’d had a rough day, taken a nap, and then woke up to find my old troubles gone but replaced with something completely different. I lay on the bed, pulled the covers up, and closed my eyes.

I hoped the real Silver Key wasn’t in too much trouble by now. And that he hadn’t ruined my life too much.

Meanwhile, on Earth, a tall, brown-haired man was staring down a horse. If the horse could talk, he probably would have asked, “Why the long face?” As it were, the man acted as though the question had been asked anyway.

“And then there’s Rainbow Dash, she’s cyan blue with a rainbow… Hey, don’t just walk away!”