The First Gentleman

Chapter 1: Proposition

It really was a beautiful day, far too nice to be indoors, but tell that to the rest of the world...

I don’t think I’d ever been as content as I was just sitting there in that one spot, in that one oddly tranquil moment. Only in retrospect do I realise how apt it was that the last moments in my life before it got hurled into upheaval were peaceful:

I was sitting in the calm before the perfect storm.

I looked up from idly plucking at the strings of my guitar to survey Central Park around me.

I was sat atop one of the rock formations, strumming away as I did on most summer weekdays during lunch.

Only, today was different...

There was nobody else around.

I’d like you to think about that for a moment: I was sat in the middle of Central Park West Historic District, right in the heart of New York City at lunch time, and there was not a single soul in sight. The only sound of life was the distant occasional honking of horns in the almost equally empty streets.

Everyone was at home of course. Everybody was watching the broadcast: the first official public appearance made by the leaders of the new civilization that had appeared quite literally by magic on our doorstep.

I’d heard rumours that several scientists had driven themselves mad trying to work out why the sudden mass displacement caused by the appearance of the new island and the continent that lay beyond it hadn't caused worldwide floods killing millions.

Apparently, a wizard did it…

No, seriously…

Zap. New world. Just like that.

Okay, I’ll admit it: a wizard didn’t do it. That would be ridiculous.

No, it was actually a talking purple unicorn pony…with magic powers.

Yeah.

But yes, ponies. Did I mention the ponies? Yeah, apparently there are pegasi now too. Go figure.

Needless to say, when I’d awoken one day to over two hundred Twitter messages on my phone, all basically saying something along the lines of ‘OMFG F*@CKING PONIES!!’, turning on the news had been a somewhat surreal experience.

And, after confirming that somebody hadn’t tampered with my TiVo, and that I wasn’t simply tripping my gentlemanly parts off, I promptly moved on to the next most rational course of action:

I proceeded to point at my TV screen and laugh hysterically for nearly half an hour straight.

The two Pegasus ponies had appeared first. And naturally, the religious nuts who had already started pelting out their warnings about the apocalypse being nigh nearly went berserk when actual horses appeared.

Get it? Horses…apocalypse?

Neither did I.

This was somewhat blown out of the water though when four others had shown up, making six.

One of them, a bright pink one, somehow knew of the Four Horsemen allusion (without actually being told about it in advance) and declared herself to be ‘Brother Fun,’ and then carried on to say, ‘and this is my friend: Brother Bookworm,’ she’d then indicated a purple unicorn by her side, who then proceeded to glare at her in response.

The elderly admiral in charge of the fleet assigned to investigate the new landmass had fearfully, and somewhat embarrassingly, given into his own superstitions and asked the blue pegasus if she was ‘Brother War’. The Pegasus had then informed the old man, in a somewhat indignant fashion, that she was in fact a girl, and not to call her ‘brother’.

The admiral’s response was, ‘You’re a girl?’

The Pegasus had then promptly proceeded to smack the old man upside the head in retaliation, leading to a Twitter storm of people declaring that they ’liked the cut of rainbow pony’s jib’.

I gave that one a retweet.

But I digress…

I glanced down at the smartphone resting on the rock between my thighs.

I stopped my plucking briefly to chuckle at a particularly hilarious quip by the pony leader, Princess Celestia, about turning everyone into ponies. Strangely enough, nobody else seemed to get it.

I watched the feed on the small screen for a while until the ceremony was over and Celesta had departed, leaving her sister, Princess Luna, to handle the general briefing and Q&A sessions that followed.

“I thought I might find you here...” I looked up at the sound of the voice.

Standing on the footpath below was James Carrell: Childhood friend and U.N. liaison, “Shouldn’t you be huddled round a TV set like everyone else?” he asked.

Jim was dressed formally as usual in one of his traditional black suits. I wondered briefly how he wasn’t sweating like a pig in it under the baking summer sun. His cropped black hair was as tidily combed as always.

Needless to say, his neatness was a far cry from my ripped jeans and rough cut auburn bangs.

I set my guitar down sideways in my lap and leaned back, resting my hands behind my head to look down at Jim, “On a day as nice as this? You must be mad. Besides, being huddled around a TV with your family in awe like it’s the moon landing or something, now that’s just far too clichéd. The only worse crime would be for me to be in Times Square, watching it up on the big screen with the rest of the crowd.”

He smiled, “I suppose you have a point.”

I cocked my head, “I usually do…”

I found myself frowning in slight confusion, “What about you, Jim? What in the heck is our government’s main US-Equestria liaison doing out here talking to an unemployed bum like me while all this is going on?” I asked, pointing down at the live stream on my phone.

“Unemployed?” he echoed, “Thought you had gigs lined up…”

I leaned back to observe the skies and breathed out a weary sigh, “Note the past tense, Jimmy: thought. Such is the life of a struggling musician. But don’t worry about me, I’ll get by.”

“I always worry about you. Someone has to, especially since you continually lie to your mother about your employment status.”

I groaned, “I know... I keep telling her things are progressing each time we talk. It’s getting a bit embarrassing really. By all rights I should be some kind of fusion of Bon Jovi and friggin’ Mozart by this point…”

My brow furrowed and I sat back up into a cross legged position, “I’m sensing you’re dodging the question, Jim. What are you doing here? Sure, I could be doing better things with my time, but you on the other hand really should.”

He waved it off and began slowly pacing. My suspicions rose, “Celestia’s done with her speech and I’ve got an hours’ time out. Her own attendants can take care of her needs for a while.”

I hummed, “Hmm, hanging with the Princesses? I’m almost envious. Celestia seems nice. I like her sense of humour."

”You would…” he grumbled, hands clasped behind his back, still pacing.

He then stopped, turned on his heels to face me and raised an index finger as if to make a point.

He opened his mouth to speak.

“No.” I cut in before he could get a word out.

Jim scowled, “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You didn’t have to. You had your ‘I have a proposition for you, Sam’ face on. And not the good ‘I have a proposition for you, Sam: it’ll end up getting you a gig or a cushy part time job.’ face. No, you’ve got your ‘I have a proposition for you, Sam: Join me on my business trip to Taiwan, where we won’t get hammered out of our skulls and you won’t, underany circumstances, wake up with a tattoo that you’ll have to hide from your mother up to this day, and you most certainly won’t end up having an erotic encounter with a woman who will turn out not to be entirely female’…face on.”

Jim hummed and rocked on the balls of his heels, “And yet you always refer to her as ‘she’ in conversation…”

I looked away, “I refer to people by whatever their gender identity may be. It’s only proper.”

“Of course…” he said, “but seriously-“

“-No…” I cut in

“At least hear me-“ he tried to say.

“-Don’t care…”

“Well you could at least-“

“-Not listening, tra la la la…”

He was quiet for a moment, “Don’t be a dick, Sam.”

I clammed up on reflex. Jim has the ability to make people do that; must be a diplomat thing. Rumour has it that he said the same thing to the North Korean delegate once. Didn’t help much, but it did at least manage to shut him up. Being able to stun a man ranting about drowning you in nuclear fire into dead silence is probably what landed him his current surreal assignment.

Being only twenty-two and a year my senior, Jim was one of the most junior members in the diplomatic core and what you might call a prodigy. I suppose they also thought that the imagination and open mindedness that came with youth might help when dealing with magical talking ponies.

I heaved a defeated sigh, and beckoned a weary hand, “Speak…”

“How kind,” he intoned, “You’re right, Samuel-“

“-Dude…” I cut in, loathing it when he called me by the name only my mother did or was allowed to.

“That’s what you get for being such a douche.”

“Being called a douche by a politician? I really have sunk low. Carry on.”

Jim smiled reluctantly. All this was no worse than any of our usual banter, and so he inclined his head and carried on as requested, “As I was saying: You’re right, or at the very least…half right.”

I cocked an eyebrow, idly playing with a tuning key, “Half right?”

He inclined his head, “This…will seem crazy, Sam. You might say its half-way between both those kinds of propositions you mentioned.”

“I’m not clear on crazy. Put a figure to it for me on a scale of one to ten: One being Friday at my place watching cartoons while drunk as skunks; ten being that weekend we spent in Amsterdam when we ended up getting married just to get the newlywed special at that muffin joint next to the chapel.”

“Firstly, never, ever mention that again, and in answer to your query…hmm…about a seven, at worst seven and a half…”

I nodded ponderingly, “So, merely on the precipice of being batcrap crazy then. Very well, regale me with your insanity.”

“Okay,” he said, turning to climb onto my rock and sit down by me. He extended a hand off into the distance, “Sam Sebastian McNamara, imagine for a moment, if you will: a brave new world; a world of wonder, a world of-“

“-You’re sending me to ponyland, aren’t you?”

Jim froze, mouth still open, hand still extended, “…Maybe,” still holding that posture, his eyes flicked to me, “You game?”

My shoulders sank. It wasn’t the maddest thing he’d tried to rope me up in (Seriously, he is considered the mature one out of us), “Continue…”

He dropped his hand to his side and shuffled closer, pretence dropped, “Right. Here’s the thing: Celestia, you know her, right?”

I nodded and rolled my eyes, “The big horny pony? Yeah, who doesn’t?”

“Y-yeah, she doesn’t like that name so much, especially after I explained the innuendo.” He cocked his head, “Luna found it hilarious though...”

“Huh, okay. Carry on.”

“Right, the thing is, Celestia is looking to better relations between our two societies, as you do, and she came up with an idea: an exchange program.”

“I don’t like where this is going…”

“Hear me out, Sam. The deal is: We take a select group from all walks of life, professions, social classes, et cetera. You know: people who can spread the good word about the alien culture among their people, and we swap them over: immerse them in the other society so they can later return and instill all they've learned into every level and demographic.”

“And what demographic am I supposed to represent; the unemployed musicians of America?”

“You’re on Twitter; you have a good few thousand followers thanks to your music, god knows how…“

“-Dick-”

“-Pot, kettle, black, moving on. And there are a lot of unemployed young people out there with their finger on the electronic pulse, Sam. That’s a lot of ears and a lot of voices. There are few more vocal than those who would put on their census form ‘from the Internet’.”

“So you want me to go there and tweet about my experiences in the hope that, what? It’ll go viral?”

Jim cocked his head, “Officially, it’s just a gesture of goodwill between us. We’ll be getting some of their ponies coming here in return, of course.”

“But off the record…?” I asked, “Propaganda?”

“No, Sam. This is merely education; spreading the good word, like I said. That is all Celestia intends, and we agree with her.”

Jim sighed and deflated somewhat, “Come on, Sam. It’s nothing nefarious. Just go, have fun and let some people know about it. You’ll be helping to alleviate a lot of the fear that’s still simmering among the people.”

I had to admit: like me, James did know how to make a good point. The last thing any of us wanted to see was a war being started out of fear and ignorance…

I nodded, “I suppose I could use a vacation, but what about expenses?”

“All paid, as well as five hundred bits a day spending money. And if you need more, all you need do is ask.”

“Bits?”

“Local currency.”

I groaned, “Horses…I get it.”

Jim frowned, “You’re not an internet reviewer, Sam, so please don’t…“he suddenly cut himself off, “On second thoughts, yes: Do just that. You go review the hell out of that place, anally retentive sarcasm and all. It’ll make it seem all the more genuine.”

“The first human in Equestria…” I mused, “Hmm…”

“You won’t be the first human there, Sam. We’ve got boots on the ground already.”

“Oh…”

“We’re being diplomatic, Sam, not mad. You really think we’d want our Equestrian Neil Armstrong to be an out of work, tone-deaf musician?”

“Ouch, right in the soul.”

Jim looked at his watch and sighed, “I’ve gotta get back. Look, Sam, do you want to go on the stupid magical adventure to the land of unicorns and ponies or don’t you?”

“The last time you asked me that I woke up two days later in A&E with my hair dyed six different colours…how in the hell are you a diplomat again?”

“Through no small amount of cunning and very wise manipulations of the departmental sick leave policy. What’ll it be?”

“Are you using that cunning now? Are you manipulating me in some way to further your own goals and career?”

“Blatantly and unashamedly,” he replied with an emphatic nod.

“At least you’re honest about it…”

“When aren’t I?” he asked, withdrawing a business card and jotting down what appeared to be a date and address on it. He glanced over his shoulder as the sound of a horn honking not far off echoed.

He held the card out between us, “What’s your choice, Sam?”

I zipped my guitar up in its bag and slung it over my shoulder. My eyes flicked down to the card as Jim waved it between his fingers.

I swiped the card up.

Jim smirked, “You won’t regret this, Sam.”

“I already am…” I deadpanned, turning to walk off as Jim headed for the waiting car.

Jim’s voice followed me a second later, “Oh, and Sam?”

I stopped and glanced back, “What is it?”

Jim had stopped and was looking right at me, “I'll be seeing you before you depart, but let me take this opportunity to plead: When you do get there, please try and stay out of trouble…”

It was my turn to smirk, and I relished the quick flash of worry that briefly crossed Jim’s face, “Oh, don’t worry, James.” I said, my tone bordering on sly, “I assure you: I’ll be the perfect gentleman…”

To be continued…

Author's Note

Well that's that, my first foray into this genre. Initial thoughts, opinions, scathing hatred? Let me know regardless. All criticism is constructive when looked at in the right light. All credit for this fic I would attribute in a second to Laharl for his creation of such a brilliantly fleshed out fanverse and recommend again you give the work this fic is based on a read. Hope to see you again in Chapter 2 if the fates allow it!