Snow In Equestria

Chapters

Chapter 2 - A Lesson In Flying
Chapter 3 - Getting To Know The Royalty
Chapter 4 - A Snow Day
Chapter 5 - Discordant Claims
Chapter 6 - The Morning After And A Trip To Baltimare
Chapter 7 - Life Lessons
Chapter 9 - The Cleaning Lady
Chapter 1 - Awkward Arrival
Chapter 8 - Donuts And Blackmail: The Truth Is Revealed

Chapter 2 - A Lesson In Flying

December 14, 2012

“Five more minutes, Mom…” I groaned pleadingly as something prodded my side.

“I’m not your mother,” a voice replied sternly, still poking at my ribs. “But you need to get up, it’s ten o’clock, and the princess will be here in a few hours.”

I slowly opened my eyes, and as Twilight came into view, I recalled the events of yesterday.

“Oh, right… sorry Mommy.”

“I’m still not your Mom! And like I said, you need to make yourself presentable for Princess Celestia,” she continued.

I climbed out of bed and looked down at myself. I shook my head a few times to make my unruly mane about one percent more presentable.

“Meh.” Meh.

“Meh?” Twilight echoed quizzically.

“Meh.”

“No! Not Meh!”

“Relax, I look fine,” I tried to convince her, “You said a couple hours, right? I have plenty of time.”

“At least take a shower,” she implored.

“No time, gotta go!” I called back to her as I dashed out of the room and down the stairs. There was something I needed to do first. Something that required the assistance of a certain cyan pegasus. I needed to learn how to fly.

“Aha!” I mused to myself as I spotted my target. She was taking a nap on a cloud about fifty feet above my head.

“Hey Dashie!” I yelled. There was no response.

“Dashie!” I called again, eliciting a tired grumble from above. Eventually, the mare leaned over the side of the fluffy white surface and looked down.

“Oh, it’s you,” she deadpanned. “What was it, Snap… Snail?”

“Snow… my name is Snow. Get down here for a minute,” I called up to her.

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

“Fine!”

She rolled off the cloud and gracefully descended to the ground in front of me.

“What’s up?” she asked half disinterestedly.

“I need you to teach me how to fly.”

She then proceeded to cause my ego to implode by rolling on the ground and laughing uncontrollably. I waited patiently for the laughter to die down and for her to stand up.

“Oh, you were serious?” she asked curiously.

I nodded my head slowly, hoping that we could get on with the flying. I only had about two hours until the princess arrived and I had to be back at Twilight’s house before then. Rainbow Dash started laughing again, but I intervened before it got too out of control.

“Hey, stop it! I only have a couple of hours and I need your help. Can you teach me or not?” I asked a bit more impatiently.

“Alright, alright. Jeez, calm down,” she said before regaining her poise and standing up to me. She walked around to my side and examined me.

“Okay, just try extending your wings and flapping to get a feel for them,” she said.

I did as I was instructed. I flipped my wings open and heard a ‘pomf!’ shortly followed by a loud smack.

The loud smack was my right wing colliding with Rainbow Dash’s face. Apparently, she forgot how long my wings were and stood too close. She got a mouthful of my feathers and stumbled backwards.

Slowly, she stood up with her eyes squinted menacingly at me. I smiled at her nervously and I was about to apologize, but instead I just got punched in the jaw.

“My bad…” I squeaked out from the ground, both of my hooves covering my mouth at the point of impact.

“Yeah, it was! Now, let’s try this again,” she offered.

I stood back up with my wings clamped tightly to my sides to prevent any more accidents. She stood in front of me this time and told me to do the same thing. I extended my wings again, this time a little slower, and began flapping.

I only made it about ten feet up before crashing down to the ground. Rainbow Dash snickered, which was no help, but I got up and tried the same thing again. This time, I successfully flapped my wings four or five times and made it up to the cloud that Rainbow Dash was previously napping on.

“Hey Dashie, look! I’m you!” I called to her as I pretended to sleep, fake snoring like a boss. She flew up next to me and observed.

“Very funny…” she said flatly as she jumped on the cloud next to me, disrupting my faux slumber. “And didn’t I tell you not to call me ‘Dashie’?” she asked rhetorically before shoving me off of the cloud. Luckily, I was starting to get the hang of this and was able to fly in place instead of falling back down to the ground.

“Ha! I’m actually flying! Look Dashie!” I exclaimed jubilantly. She simply groaned in frustration. Whatever, I was flying.

“Yeah, whatever. I bet you couldn’t fly all the way back to Twilight’s house though,” she challenged. Said challenge was quickly and stupidly accepted.

“Oh, you’re on!” I countered before steadily flying off in the other direction. She flew next to me, making sure that I carried out the challenge properly. She continued to inch on front of me as we flew, coaxing me to go faster.

She was obviously barely trying to stay with my pathetic pace; although, the feeling of flying began to seem more and more natural.

The view was really nice from way up here with the clouds. I could understand why Dashie spent most of her time in the sky. It was also a bit cooler and the breeze felt good.

After a few minutes, I was going almost as fast as I could, but she inched forward still. I started flying even faster, and soon enough, Twilight’s tree came into view. I started descending, and Rainbow Dash did the same, staying close to my side.

I looked to the side as something flashy caught my eye. I saw a couple guards standing around a large, white and gold object that looked similar to what I imagined Santa’s sleigh looked like.

Oh snap ~!

Celestia was here. Unfortunately, the shiny sleigh distracted me enough that my left wing clipped the top of a tree. I began falling at a very high velocity towards Twilight’s house. Dashie sped up and flew next to me in an effort to help me, but I ended up grabbing her by the hoof and dragging her down with me.

Together, we crashed through Twilight’s roof and into her living room. Again, my wings began glowing and broke my fall, while my body broke Dashie’s fall. Once I was sure it was over, I began to open my eyes.

The first thing I saw was Rainbow Dash lying on top of me, coughing and sputtering, having had the wind knocked out of her. Soon I realized I was lying in a me-sized hole in Twilight’s floor, with a shocked and confused princess looking down at me. Twilight wasn’t confused, but boy, she was angry. I glanced up at the princess, feeling that an introduction was in order.

“Hullo, I’m snow!” I said cheerfully as my wings contracted back to my sides, causing the princess to jump a little.

“Snow!” Twilight reprimanded, turning my attention away from the princess.

“Oh, umm… hey Twilight. What’s up?” I asked fretfully, afraid of what an angry Twilight Sparkle could do to me.

A purple aura of light then surrounded both me and Rainbow Dash and stood us up outside of the dent in the floor. The princess continued to stare at me, but said nothing. I took the time to fix my mane the best I could and brush the dirt off of me. I then looked up at the princess.

That supposed ethereal glow that Celestia is always associated with was even more evident in person. Her mane was very long and looked as if it were being blown by a gentle breeze; although, there was no abnormal draft present inside of Twilight’s living room. She seemed otherworldly, but then again, this was a different world. Anything was possible, I suppose.

“Hello, Snow,” she eventually said in that familiar, regal, unfaltering tone.

Rainbow Dash had finally recovered and once she noticed the princess, she immediately bowed. I looked at her and realized that I had done no such thing. I poorly imitated her, but it would have to suffice for now.

“Sorry, your majesty,” I said in a completely out of character voice.

“That’s quite alright,” she replied, her voice sounding sweet and comforting. “I heard about you in Twilight’s letter. Are you alright? That fall looked pretty rough.”

“I’m fine, thanks. I just learned how to fly,” I said somewhat excitedly. “And my wings protect me whenever I fall. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it seems like they automatically protect me from any physical harm. It’s kinda interesting, actually.”

“Very interesting indeed,” she replied calmly. “We should talk, Snow. Should we move someplace more comfortable?”

“Absolutely, your highness,” Twilight immediately offered. “Please, make yourselves comfortable,” she said to no pony in particular. “I’ll get some drinks for us.”

Twilight went into the kitchen and left me with the princess. Rainbow Dash took her leave, knowing that this probably wasn’t her place to butt in right now, but she would surely get me back later for crashing us into Twilight’s house.

We sat down on opposite sides of the small sitting area. There were two couches facing inwards towards a coffee table in the center, and we each sat on one.

“So, who’s in charge of the castle in Canterlot while you’re gone? Is that Luna’s job?” I asked, trying to make this feel more like a conversation than an interrogation, which was probably closer to the reality of it.

“Yes, it is. How do you know of Canterlot and my sister?”

Crap. Stupid me just had to go revealing some of my knowledge of Equestria.

“Twilight told me,” I lied. She seemed to buy it, and we moved on.

“Where are you from, Snow?” she asked boldly, but still in her calm, soothing voice.

“I’m from Earth,” I answered tentatively. “Have you ever heard of it?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t. Is it very much like here in Equestria?”

“Well, not really. First of all, the only sentient creatures on Earth are humans. There are no ponies.” I figured it was safer to say that there were no ponies than to explain how ponies were just stupid animals where I came from.

“Oh, that is certainly different.”

“And it’s so peaceful here,” I continued. “Is there even any war here?”

“There hasn’t been any war in Equestria for a little over a thousand years,” she replied, quite pleased with the current status of her country.

Twilight returned with the drinks and set one in front of each of us on the coffee table. I hesitantly took a sip. Luckily it was tea, and not some weird, pony drink. It was pretty good tea too. I moved over to one side of the couch to allow Twilight to sit down as well before continuing.

“Wow, world peace,” I mused.

“Is there a lot of war on Earth?” she asked, sounding slightly concerned. I figured there would be no point in not being completely honest with her.

“Constantly. There hasn’t been any period of time that I know of where there was no war,” I replied rather casually.

“Oh,” was all she said. “Anyways, Twilight said that you had some rather interesting gadgets with you?”

“Oh, right! My phone and gum,” I remembered. I never did find a way to put them back, so I just kept them in Twilight’s guest room. One thing that I noticed was the battery life on my phone. My phone remained fully charged no matter how much I used it; although, there was still no service.

“I’ll be right back,” I promised before dashing up to my room. I had been practicing using my hooves as well. The night prior, I fiddled with the pack of gum until I could easily take out a piece and unwrap it. I also discovered that when I ran out of gum, all I had to do was take another pack out of thin air, just like I had the first time.

I ran into my room and headed for the bedside table. So far I had three packs of gum: ‘Rain,’ ‘Cobalt,’ and ‘RPM.’ After clamping the gum and phone between my teeth, I made my way back to the living room where Celestia and Twilight were patiently awaiting my return.

“Ah gah ‘mah stah,” I mumbled though the objects in my mouth. The princess cocked her head, so I set the stuff down on the coffee table and repeated.

“I got my stuff.” The princess nodded in understanding and waited for me to situate myself back on the couch. I sat down next to Twilight again and spread the objects out on the table.

“This is chewing gum,” I explained, shoving the packs of gum to the side. “And this is my cell phone,” I continued, picking up the phone and maneuvering it a little before locking it again.

“It lets me talk to other people and use the internet,” I explained.

“Yes, yes. Twilight told me in her letter,” she replied.

“Well, your letters are pretty detailed, aren’t they?” I asked as I turned to Twilight.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she replied shyly, taking it as a complement.

“Well then, would you like some gum, princess?” I asked as I picked up the pack of RPM and took one piece out for myself and another piece to offer to Celestia.

“Oh, um… sure?” she replied with an uneasy smile. I quickly unwrapped my piece and began chewing it. I hoofed her one and she hesitantly copied me.

“Don’t swallow it,” I instructed. Her eyes lit up after a few seconds once the flavor kicked in.

“This is… interesting, to say the least,” she commented after a few moments.

“Yeah, I was surprised that you didn’t have anything like this in Equestria. This is such a common thing on Earth, or at least in America, and our worlds seem pretty closely linked. For one thing, we both speak the exact same language, except for a few nuances that seem purely based on our anatomy. Like the difference between ‘somebody’ and ‘somepony,’” I thought aloud.

“Yes, that does seem very peculiar,” she replied. “Luna would be interested in this chewing gum of yours. I should tell her about this when I return to Canterlot,” she decided. “Which brings me to another point. I’d think it would be in our best interest for you to come back to the castle for a little while.”

My first thought was ‘Hell yeah! I’m going to Canterlot!’, but then I realized that I wouldn’t get to hang out with the mane six anymore, and I hadn’t even met Pinkie Pie or Rarity yet, which was just ridiculous.

“Oh, well… umm…”

“Yes?”

“I was just hoping to… maybe make some friends here before I had to leave?” I asked a bit sheepishly, hoping that friendship was a soft spot for the princess.

“You’ll have plenty of time for that later. You’ll only need to stay at the castle for a little while, and then you’ll be able to go anywhere you want,” she promised, her gaze softening.

“Oh… okay,” I said, standing up along with her.

We said our goodbyes and I followed the princess outside, where the shiny sleigh awaited our return. I climbed in after the princess and we took off.

The sleigh was being pulled by two royal pegasus guards. The chariot was large enough to comfortably fit about ten ponies, and it seemed heavy enough, but it didn’t look like too much work for the guards. I decided to blame magic and didn’t question it for the time being. Instead, I pulled out a new pack of spearmint gum and took a piece out. I offered some to the princess, but she declined, so I threw the rest of the pack off the side of the chariot. No point in keeping it when I can just pull out another whenever I need it.

“This sleigh thing is pretty cool,” I commented, turning the princess’ attention towards me. “So you can just ride this around whenever you want?”

“Well, I suppose I could use the chariot whenever I want, but I don’t just take it out for joyrides,” she replied.

“Why not?” I replied flippantly. “You’re the friggin’ princess. You can do whatever you want, right?”

“That’s not exactly how it works,” she chuckled.

“Ah, so it’s glamorous for the public, but all work back at the castle?”

“Yes, actually, it’s very much like that. Do you hold any royal position on Earth?” she asked curiously.

“Nope,” I chuckled. “There is no royalty in the part of Earth that I’m from. Our country is run by a democracy. Actually it’s a democratic republic, but it’s a similar idea.”

“A democracy?” she said, seemingly imagining what it would be like. “Does it function well?” she asked, obviously doubtful of the stability of such a government.

“It works as well as your autocracy does, I suppose. I think the current situation of Earth is more the people’s fault, not their ruler. Humans are generally violent and selfish as a whole. And compared to our world, your world is like an unreachable paradise. But the average human isn't bad, and I suppose I’m pretty average,” I explained.

“You speak pretty lowly of your home world. Wouldn't you like to go back?”

“Maybe one day,” I speculated. “I haven’t really decided yet.” And as I said that, I thought, ‘As long as there’s a pony in Equestria that I haven’t hugged, I’m not going back to Earth.’

“My dad will probably be out looking for me, and my friends might miss me, but they could probably live without me for a little while,” I decided. “Also, there’s one thing I’ve wanted to know for a long time…”

“Oh, what is that?” she responded. I wasn’t really sure how to ask this, because I wasn’t sure if the question would be rude or not, given the peculiar circumstances.

“How, um… old… are you?” I asked rather quietly.

“Oh. Well, umm…”

“Sorry if that was rude. You don’t look old at all,” I attempted to explain. “I don’t really know how long ponies live, but a human’s life span is only about eighty years.”

“I’ve been around for a while,” she answered before sighing. “I’m two-thousand eight-hundred and twelve years old,” she answered quickly, sort of avoiding my gaze.

Damn lady! You old!

I tried to keep my jaw from dropping and erase any sign of how absolutely astounded I was.

“Oh, cool,” I replied hoarsely. “I’m fifteen…” I added softly, my mind still attempting to comprehend the impossible. Just like last time, I eventually gave up and blamed it on magic.

“Really, you’re only fifteen?” she asked dubiously. “I thought you’d be at least as old as Twilight and her friends.”

“Huh? How old are they?” I asked.

“Twilight is twenty-two years old, as of last week actually. And the rest are similar in age,” she replied.

“Really? They’re that old?” She nodded. “How long is your lifespan?”

“Most alicorns usually live about fifteen to twenty millennia,” she replied casually.

“So you’re pretty young yourself,” I calculated, realizing that she was only about sixteen or so in comparison to a human. “Whoa! Look at that!” I suddenly exclaimed, leaning out the side of the chariot.

Canterlot was quickly approaching, and I could see the castle sticking high out of the clump of buildings attached to the side of a cliff. Suddenly, my hoof slipped and I fell forward. I would have fallen off of the chariot, but Celestia quickly grabbed me in her magic and pulled me back to the seat next to her.

“Be careful!” she ordered. “And yes, that would be Canterlot, I know it well.”

“Thanks princess,” I chuckled humorlessly, still marveling at the golden city on the cliff. Finally, we were getting somewhere.

Chapter 3 - Getting To Know The Royalty

December 14, 2012

“It’s so big!” I screamed as I jumped out of the chariot and dashed for the entrance to the castle.

“Hey! Snow, wait!” Celestia called after me. Too late. The delusional part of my brain that takes over when something is overwhelmingly awesome was in control now. And it couldn’t be tamed until my impulses were satisfied.

As evidence of this uncontrollable entity, I proceeded to shove my way past the two guards blocking the entrance. But before I crashed face-first into the door, however, I crossed my wings in an X shape in front of me. They did the same thing they always did – glowing and hardening – and I crashed through the door, no problem.

Besides the large hole I left behind, anyways.

I charged through what appeared to be a throne room, with the sound of many hooves and Celestia’s voice following closely behind. Massive stained-glass windows lined the extravagant hall, filtering the light into colorful, jagged shapes onto the crimson carpet.

Eventually, the hall came to an end and I took a different route. I ran past two more guards. They didn’t know what was going on, so they simply observed for a moment, only to join the growing herd of guards (and Celestia) that were already chasing me.

I should have probably stopped by now, but like I said, that uncontrollable part of my brain had taken over for the time being. My childish, unpredictable impulses were now my number one priority. And at the moment, I wanted to see the entire castle, so those guards were not going to stop me until I had seen as much as I could.

I took a detour up a flight of spiral staircases, causing the guards to form a single file line, slowing them down and tripping a few of them up. I looked quickly over my shoulder, and apparently Celestia was leading them, as she was the first to begin ascending the stairs in pursuit of me.

I sprinted through the hallway after I reached the top. The hallway itself was nothing special; however, the room at the end of it was rather interesting. The large door was purple with a black moon in the center. I knew what that picture was. It was Luna’s cutie mark, of course.

With all the hope in the world that I would find Princess Luna on the other side, I charged the door, again crossing my giant, indestructible wings in front of me. For a second time, the door was broken in and smashed, and when I contracted my wings and looked up, I saw the terrified face of my favorite Princess of the Night. It looked as if she was heading towards the door when I burst into her room.

Those stairs had given me a decent lead on Celestia and her guards, so I had some time. I ran up to Luna and hugged her as tight as I could.

Hug a princess… CHECK!

“Eep!” she cried.

Fangasm~!

“G-get off me!”

I let her go when I heard the sound of Celestia’s voice calling my name again and ran to the other side of the room.

Eventually, a few of the guards rushed through the door. Being the normal, sensible person I was, I jumped out of the window.

It’s not like I broke the window or anything, it just happened to be open, and so I jumped out of it. Unfortunately, most of the guards were pegasi as well, so several of them dove out after me and basically air-tackled me. Within seconds I was pinned to the ground, one of them holding down each of my legs, plus two more for each of my wings.

I laid there silently for several seconds. The guards held onto me tightly, ensuring that I was completely unable to move. Eventually, both Celestia and her sister, Luna, flew down to my point of apprehension.

“What the hay was that about, Snow!?” Celestia reprimanded me, clearly winded from the chase.

“I dunno,” I answered, getting my mind straight. “I saw the castle, and it was massive and shiny, and I guess I couldn’t control myself,” I said almost excitedly. “Then I saw the throne room! It was so cool, and I had to see more! After that, I found Princess Luna, so I hugged her and jumped out of the window,” I explained. They knew about as much as I did at that point.

“This one is very strange, sister,” Luna said in what seemed to be a calmer, quieter version of the royal Canterlot voice.

“Oh, and sorry about breaking those doors,” I apologized, remembering the damage I had inflicted on the castle. Celestia groaned in exasperation.

“Come with me,” was all she said. “Guards, release him.”

The guards were definitely hesitant to let me go, but they did as they were ordered and I slowly stood up. Celestia immediately picked me up with her magic and began carrying me back into the castle.

“Whoa! What are y-you-…?

“Quiet, Snow.”

And so I shut the buck up. I was silently carried all the way to a strange, barren room. All that it contained was a few chairs around a square, wooden table, as well as a single light in the form of a candle in the center of the table. The candle was lit and no light showed through the dark window.

The change in atmosphere was a little strange, but in reality, they probably brought me here because they didn't know what else to do with me. They were most like going to bring me to a controlled environment, ask me a few important questions, and then decide whether I was a threat in any way.

“Snow, we’re going to have a little talk about humans,” Celestia revealed as she let me down inside the room. Luna followed her sister into the room after me and shut the door. I took a seat across from the two princesses and we began.

“My sister has told me that your name is Snow, and that you are not a pony, but a… human. Is that correct?” she questioned.

“Yeah, that’s right, with fingers and everything,” I confirmed, wiggling my hooves around, which earned me strange looks from both princesses.

“What’s the diet of your species? Is it the same as ours?” Celestia asked after clearing her throat.

“Oh, umm… humans are omnivores, so some things are similar. Other things… not so much,” I replied.

“See my teeth?” I said before flashing them a large smile. I kept it up so they could examine my canines for a moment before I retracted. They seemed slightly disturbed, but overall, they took it very well.

“We shouldn’t have much trouble finding food for you then,” Celestia mused mostly to herself.

Luna took a few notes on a piece of nearby parchment with her magic. It looked like she wasn’t even trying, as if the pen wrote down anything she was thinking.

“Are humans a violent race?” Celestia asked suddenly.

Well, here goes nothing.

“Nope,” I replied simply, looking down again. Luna blinked a few times.

“You’re a pretty awful liar,” she said bluntly.

“Yeah, I know. Well anyways, yeah, some humans violent,” I admitted.

“How so?” Celestia asked after a few moments of silence.

“I mean, that’s a generalization. When compared to ponies, were very violent, but the average human, like me, is alright. But there are a few bad apples every now and then. Like I said, most of us are fine,” I repeated.

“Have you ever hurt another human?” Luna asked. I wasn’t sure what kind of question that was. I don’t think anyone could say that they’ve never hurt someone else before.

“I’ve never killed anyone,” I replied, hoping that would be some kind of equivalent. Sadly, it was not.

“Answer the question,” Celestia urged.

“Well, sure I have. Wait, what I meant was…” I sighed. “I have never intentionally hurt anyone with the sole purpose of harming them.”

“Please explain.”

“Ah, you’re m-making this difficult! Of course I’ve hurt another human before. I’ve been in a couple fights, but that’s how all humans are,” I argued. “I don’t enjoy hurting people, I don’t want to hurt people, and I hope to God that I don’t hurt any pony.” They pondered on this for a moment.

“I see,” Celestia replied solemnly. There was a short pause.

“What do you mean?” I asked worriedly.

“Just… try to behave yourself while you’re here and we probably won’t have any problems. Anyways, can you explain the anatomy of a human?”

“Well, I’m probably not qualified to go into any extensive detail, but I can try, I suppose,” I replied. They simply waited for me to continue.

“Humans are bipedal creatures. We have a midsection, I guess, two arms, each with a hand, and each hand with five fingers. There are two legs, each with a foot, and each foot with five toes. Head on the top of course. No tail,” I summarized. “I guess that’s about all I can think of at the moment,” I finished quite intelligently (not).

“Kind of like a monkey?” Luna asked.

“I’m not a monkey!” I suddenly exclaimed. The princesses drew back for a moment at my change in volume. “Closer to apes, but it’s taken us seven million years or so to evolve from them. So no, I am neither a monkey nor an ape. Only human.”

“Okay then, not a monkey. Got it,” Luna repeated. “Please explain the planet you are from.”

“Uh, well… It’s called Earth, for starters. There are about seven billion or so humans and counting. It’s rather over populated in many areas, I suppose. I think we’re expected to run out of resources around nine billion or so.”

“Hold on,” Celestia said seriously. I complied. “Your race has over seven billion humans, and you have predicted your own demise? Has nothing been done to prevent it from happening?”

“Well, of course, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do to keep the population from expanding even further. A small percentage of the population can’t keep seven billion others from continuing to re-populate, so I guess it’s inevitable, in a way. It’s not supposed to happen during my lifetime, so whatever.

“Moving on,” I continued. “There’s no magic on Earth. Not like you have here, anyways. But we do seem to be a few hundred years ahead of you, technologically speaking.”

Luna seemed the slightest bit offended after she processed what I had said.

“What would make you say that?” she asked a little indignantly. Celestia looked like she may have said something, but I interrupted her, snorting mirthfully.

“Well, that thing for starters,” I said, pointing at the candle in between us. A chuckled lightly as it flickered and made the room slightly dimmer for a moment.

“It’s a… candle?” she asked questioningly, cocking her head to one side.

“Exactly, that’s old-fashioned. Like, at least a hundred years old-fashioned, actually,” I continued. “You should consider replacing it with a light bulb. It’s an empty glass bulb with a filament inside that’s heated with an electrical current. I think the filament is made of tungsten or something.”

“We’ll discuss this later,” Celestia decided. “Now, the next question. Why did you come here?”

“Uhh… heh. About that…” I started meekly, rubbing the back of my neck. Both princesses leaned in eagerly. “I don’t know.”

“That was a bit anticlimactic,” Luna stated.

“Yeah, kinda. I was skydiving – that’s where you jump out a giant machine twelve thousand feet in the air and land safely with a parachute – and as far as I know, I turned into a… pony halfway down and crashed into the ground,” I explained. There were a few moments while the princesses talked quietly with each other. I was too far away to eavesdrop.

“I suppose that until we find out what that reason is, we’ll have to keep you in the castle,” Celestia decided.

We began to make our way back to the throne room, walking up way too many stairs along the way.

“May I ask how old you are?” Luna asked on the way.

“Because I’m so mature?” I chuckled, “I’m fifteen years old.”

“Really?” she asked confusedly. “Are you sure?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m sure. Why? Is that weird?” I asked, remembering that Celestia was also surprised at my age.

“I guess it’s not. You just look a lot older than that.”

“Oh… And sorry about the hug, Luna,” I remembered as we walked up more stairs.

“That’s quite alright,” she said dismissively. “But you might want to hug my sister too before she gets jealous.” I know it was probably intended to be a joke, but that’s exactly what I did.

Hug two princesses… CHECK!

“Snow!” Celestia cried out after a few seconds. She shook her neck around a few times, but I held fast and screwed my eyes shut. This only elicited a new bout of laughter from Luna, and Celestia was growing increasingly frustrated. She beat me with a wing a few times, but to no avail.

“Snow, if you don’t get off, I’ll use my magic. And you do not want that,” she threatened.

“Come at me, bro!” I countered. Her horn began to glow and I think she had every intention of ‘coming at me.’ I quickly weighed my options and let go.

“Fine!” I pouted, sitting back on my haunches and crossing my arms (forelegs?).

“I swear, you’re like a little filly!” she reprimanded; although, I could sense a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Just to clarify, a filly is a young female of your species, correct?”

“Sure is,” Luna replied mirthfully.

We soon arrived in the throne room and Celestia told the guards to return to their respective posts. I recognized the room from my previous caper. Celestia took a seat at her throne and Luna and I stood in front of her.

“Uhh, I haven’t eaten in a couple days,” I remembered. For some reason, I wasn’t even that hungry right then. Maybe it had to do with being a pony, “You have food here, right?”

“Oh. Yes, of course,” she replied worriedly. As if on cue, another guard walked into the room and approached us. This one was different, though. She wore no armor, and she had a shining white coat, just like mine, although her mane was a silvery gray color.

“The issue in the royal garden has been tended to and resolved, your majesty,” she stated proudly as she approached and bowed to Celestia.

“Excellent. Thank you, Silvermane,” Celestia replied.

Silvermane? Interesting…

“Hi Silvermane, I’m Snow,” I greeted her, holding my hoof up. I was just fricken excited to meet ponies at this point.

“Oh, umm… hello, Snow,” she replied as she looked between me and Celestia for approval. Celestia nodded and she tentatively shook my hoof by brohoofing with an up and down motion. “My name is Silvermane.”

“Silvermane, could you please help Snow get something to eat?” Celestia asked kindly.

“Of course, your majesty,” she replied without hesitation, motioning for me to follow her out of the room. I bounced after her and followed her to a kitchen only a few rooms down the hallway.

As expected, the kitchen was massive. I walked over to a kind of pantry, which was essentially an entirely separate room, and it was filled to the brim with all kinds of ingredients and foods.

“So, what are you, some kind of special guard?” I asked as I rummaged through the contents of the enormous pantry. Silvermane remained in the doorway, observing me as I delved deeper into the pile of various foods.

“I’m one of the Assistant Synchronizing Supervisors in the castle.”

What? What the hell is that? I didn’t know the meaning of the title, but there was something else that I did notice.

“Ha, you’re an ASS,” I chuckled.

“Umm… excuse me?” she asked, with her head cocked to one side in disbelief.

“Assistant… Synchronizing… Supervisor… ASS,” I said slowly in between snickering, hoping she would understand my (clever) acronym. Success, she got it! Sadly, she wasn’t that amused.

“Dear Celestia…” she groaned pleadingly.

I kept digging through the piles, haphazardly tossing things to the side if they didn’t particularly catch my interest. I found a few familiar things, but nothing too appetizing. There was no meat, I noticed, which was too bad, considering I still had my canine teeth. Meat really sounded good right about now. I’d have to ask the princesses about that later. But I’d have to wait for a good time to bring it up.

“What’s taking you so long? Just grab this pizza or something and get out. And stop throwing the food!” she demanded as I nearly hit her in the face with a can of soup.

“I don’t like pizza, just one more minute,” I promised.

And yes, I don’t like pizza.

Deal with it.

I got no response for a while, so I looked over to her. She remained silent, but she didn’t need to speak. Her expression said it all. It was something along the lines of ‘Are you bucking kidding me?’

I quickly picked up a box of what looked like macaroni and cheese, although I couldn’t read equestrian. The written language appeared to be comprised of incomprehensible backwards letters. I was careful to pick out the macaroni that was in the shape of little ponies. Why they would have such things in the castle’s food supply at all still remains an enigma. I stepped out of the pantry room with the box in my mouth.

“Wow,” she deadpanned as I walked past her. “You are probably the weirdest pony I’ve ever met,” she marveled.

“Well, I’m not a pony,” I replied as I shoved all of the tossed food items back into the pantry and shut the door.

“True,” she conceded. “Celestia has informed me of this, but seriously, first you don’t like pizza and then you pick the pasta with the little shapes?” she asked, seeming more dumbfounded than insulting. “That’s little filly food.”

“Hey, Celestia called me that earlier, too.”

“For good reason, probably,” she mumbled.

“Hey, the little shapes are more fun to eat.”

She simply facehoofed and walked with me to the stove. I set the box on the counter and turned to Silvermane.

“We may have a slight problem,” I started slowly.

“And what would that be…?” she started.

“Uhh… I can’t use these hooves all that well yet. Anyways, cooking this would probably take about five hours with my current ability,” I told her, hoping she would take the hint and help out. She certainly understood, but she just stood there and stared at me.

“P… Please?” I asked hopefully, sticking out my bottom lip. She maintained her glare, but after another moment or two, she gave up.

“Give it here…” she said wearily as she approached the counter.

I quickly hoofed her the box and backed up to give her some room. She reached into a lower cabinet and expertly pulled out a pot, almost as if she had been using her hooves her entire life (imagine that).

Soon enough, the food was done and I was ready to eat. They had forks and spoons and other familiar utensils, which I found comforting but confusing at the same time.

The food tasted just like it did back on earth, so I figured eating Equestrian food wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. Although, seeing as all Equestrians are herbivores, there was still a lot of potential for this to get worse.

I had finished eating and decided to go see what the princesses were up to, so I dashed out of the kitchen, leaving my bowl and utensils on the table as I called back to her, “I’ll be back later!”

Whether I would actually return or not was undecided at the time.

“No, w-wait! Snow!” she called back.

She didn’t act quickly enough so I ignored her and went off in search of Celestia… or Luna. Really it was whichever one I ran into first.

I walked through some the hallways and passed a few guards on the way. They glared at me, but refrained from tackling me. Maybe Celestia told them not to if they saw me. I found nothing interesting, so I headed up another flight of stairs and walked down the next hallway.

This must get confusing for the princesses all the time. The hallways looked identical.

There weren’t any doors in this hallway, except for one at the end. It was a large wooden door, with no markings and a large handle.

No locks were on any of the doors I’ve used so far, so like the mature pony I was, I creeped in silently without knocking. And oh, what luck! Celestia was sitting on a fancy-looking purple cushion with her back turned to the door.

I shut the door again, making sure to not make a sound, and skulked across the room towards her. I looked around the room. It appeared to be her private quarters.

There was a bed on the opposite wall and a few more cushions like the one Celestia was lying on. There was also a fireplace on the other side of Celestia, but it was not lit at the moment. This was definitely the room of a princess. I carefully looked over her shoulder from a few feet away and looked at what she was reading. Unfortunately, I was still illiterate in Equestrian. I wondered if it was a friendship report from Twilight! Le gasp~!

Instead of saying anything, I hopped onto the massive throw cushion right next to Celestia.

“Ay yo Princess!” I bellowed.

As expected, she shrieked and jumped up to her hooves. Two guards that were apparently on the ready rushed into the room. About that moment, Celestia had recognized me and sighed in a mix of relief and frustration.

“Halt, guards! It’s just Snow,” she said just before the guards were able to charge me.

The guards vacillated for a moment, knowing that if they were ever going to tackle me, now was their chance. Eventually, they backed off and returned to the hallway. Funny, I didn’t see them on my way in. Celestia then turned to me, looking mostly surprised but disapproving nonetheless.

“What do you want, Snow?” she asked quite ungratefully, but still managing to sound polite about it.

“Oh, nothing. Just seeing what you were up to,” I replied, relishing the warm area that Celestia had left when she jumped out of her seat. The cushion itself was very comfortable as well.

“I was reading a letter,” she answered, still a bit shaky from my sudden appearance. “From Twilight.”

“Is it a friendship report!?” I suddenly cheered.

“Umm, no.” My enthusiasm visually deflated. “It has to do with you, actually.”

She picked the letter back up with her magic and moved me off of the cushion, placing me on the nearby wooden floor. She proceeded to take the her spot back and leave me on the hard, desolate floor, where I quickly felt all of my built-up warmth quickly fade and turn cold. It was a traumatizing experience, really.

She continued to read and ignored me for the time being, so I jumped back onto the large pillow and scooted up next to her to look at the letter for myself. I hoped that she wasn’t uncomfortable with me pressed up against her side, because she was warm and squishy and that felt nice. And for the third time in the past hour I remembered that I couldn’t read.

“What does it say?” I asked quietly.

“Read it for yourself,” she offered, turning the parchment towards me a little.

“I can’t…” I mumbled.

“What?”

“I can’t… read this,” I repeated.

“Oh, so you’re… illiterate?” she asked awkwardly, obviously somewhat surprised. I looked back to the letter and blinked a few times.

“I, u-uhm… suppose I am,” I realized, my ears flopping down dejectedly. She levitated the letter back towards herself and took another look.

“Well, the letter is just more details on exactly what happened when you got here. Nothing you wouldn’t already know.”

“Interesting,” I yawned, resting my head on her shoulder.

I guess around then, I was basically asleep. I wasn’t entirely conscious of it, but I knew that I must have fallen asleep once I was awoken by Luna’s voice as she conversed with Celestia.

Of course, once I heard the voices, my damned ears shot up and started twitching. Apparently it was obvious too, because they stopped talking once they realized that I was awake. I lifted my eyelids and saw Luna in front of me.

She had evidently pulled up another large pillow thing from somewhere and sat across from me and Celestia, who I had basically managed to roll on top of while I was asleep.

“Good morning, Snow,” Luna said teasingly.

“Mornin’, princess,” I groaned groggily as I looked up.

“I think it might be past your bedtime,” Luna chuckled.

“Hey, I’m fifteen years old. I’m not a little kid,” I argued, right before a poorly timed yawn.

“You mean foal,” Celestia corrected me. “A kid is a goat. Foal is the proper term a pony.

”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“You sure act like a foal, though,” Celestia remarked.

Equestria was probably the only place in existence where the royalty acted this casual and were this fun to hang around. But then again, my grasp on what really existed and what didn’t has been pretty twisted lately.

“Oh, shut up,” I mumbled tiredly as I once again rested my head on Celestia’s shoulder.

“You wanna go to your bed? Your guest room should be all ready now,” Celestia offered.

“Nah, I’m good,” I replied, not moving. Celestia groaned and we said our farewells to Luna as she excused herself.

“Fine, you can stay here if you’d like, but I’m sleeping in my bed,” she said as she stood up, bereaving me of my pillow and primary heat source.

Celestia walked over to a table near her bedside, on which she placed all of her formal regalia and jewelry. I flopped over onto the center of the cushion and continued sleeping. After a few more moments, I could tell that the lights had been turned off.

I decided to stretch out my limbs before I went to sleep, so I stretched out like a cat and spread my wings out wide. I heard the sound of a ‘pomf!’ shortly followed by a loud smack. Why did that sound so familiar? Oh… ohhhhhhhhhh.

Well, crap.

At this point I was fairly certain that I had just bitch slapped the princess with my wing in the dark. My suspicions were confirmed when I heard Celestia groan crossly at me from across the room. I must’ve hit her on her walk from the light switch to the bed.

“Snow,” she growled, drawing out the last syllable.

“Ermahgersh, I’m sorry! Here, let me help!” I offered nobly as I retracted my wings and walked at a brisk pace towards the sound of her voice. Unfortunately, the room was still pitch black. I felt my hoof catch the end of her bed as I tripped, and so the inevitable shit-storm ensued.

The good news was that I landed on something soft and I was not injured at all. The bad news was that the soft thing was a very angry Princess Celestia. She yelped in surprise and I tried frantically to make sure she was alright. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness and I could feel her under me as she threw verbal obscenities in my direction.

“Snow, get off me or I’ll turn you into a toad!”

Suddenly, there was an urgent knock on the door and a voice. It was Luna’s.

“Sister, are you alright?”

I tried to get up, but my head ended up colliding with the bed in the dark and I fell back down on top of Celestia. Luna, having not received a response, quickly opened the door and turned on the lights. I then clearly saw the irritated look on Celestia’s face as I climbed off of her.

“How did…? What is going on?” Luna asked, legitimately confused and concerned.

“Snow thought it was a good idea to strike me in the face with his wing after I turned the lights out,” she said crossly as she recovered and stood up.

“You did what!?” Luna asked in disbelief, turning her angered gaze towards me.

“It was an accident! I tried to help!” I defended. “But I only ended up making it worse,” I admitted, almost winded from that whole ordeal in the dark. I pitifully crawled back to the cushion and curled up on it like a dog as Celestia stood up and dusted herself off before turning towards me.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “Just lie there and… and be good,” she ordered. I gave up and closed my eyes.

“Your face is ridiculous,” I barely whispered to myself out of habit.

“What was that?” Celestia asked immediately.

“Yes ma’am,” I said dejectedly.

The princesses conversed quietly for a short while before the lights were turned out again and I drifted off into sleep. Maybe I could work out some of the kinks tomorrow, but for now, there was a soft cushion for me to sleep on.

Chapter 4 - A Snow Day

December 15, 2012

I woke slowly as light gently filtered through the crimson curtains and onto my eyelids. I rolled over so that the light didn’t hurt my eyes as I first opened them. I looked around the room. Celestia was gone, her bed neatly made, and it appeared to be around seven thirty or eight in the morning, judging by the position of the sun.

I stood up, smacking my lips together, and ran a hoof through my mane a few times. I looked in the mirror on Celestia’s wall, and apparently hooves make somewhat decent combs.

Just then, I remembered something I had been meaning to do. I turned to one side and searched for my cutie mark. Or where it would have been, anyways, seeing as I was a blankflank. Well, maybe it’s not all bad. I might be able to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

I charged out of the room and shut the door behind me, ready to have some fun, and hopefully not piss anypony off too badly. I decided I might as well practice flying, seeing as how I might need it someday.

I flew steadily through the halls and down the stairs. I knew my way around from my reckless sprint through the castle yesterday. Well, I knew enough to get myself back to the throne room in less than half an hour, which I thought was pretty decent, even though it was only about a two minute walk from Celestia’s room. Close enough.

I was about ten yards from the doors to the throne room and I suddenly noticed an orange mare right in my path. She had one of those big carts, like a cleaning lady in a hotel. I thought about slowing down, but then decided against it.

“Bitch, swerve!” I cried as I haphazardly shoved her into the wall and landed in front of the doors to the throne room.

Before the mare could respond coherently, I walked into the throne room. I advanced cautiously after I shut the door, just in case there was something important going on. See, I do think ahead sometimes.

However, the room was vacant of anypony besides Celestia and Luna, accompanied by a couple guards. I wondered if the guards were just for show, because either of the princesses seemed much more capable than any of the guards I had run into so far.

“Good morning Snow,” Celestia said as she noticed my presence across the large room. The guards instantly snapped their heads in my direction, keeping a watchful eye on me. Luna nodded as I approached, and I returned the gesture.

“Up so early?” Luna asked casually from her position in front of Celestia.

“Yup,” I said cheerfully as I approached them. “Probably the best night’s sleep I’ve ever gotten.”

“So, watcha’ doin?” I asked, sitting down on the floor. The guards looked a bit confused when I did. Apparently sitting down is weird to them. Those uncultured swine.

“Just arranging some things for the snow today,” she replied.

“Wait, me?” I asked.

“No, not you,” Luna answered, “The snow. The frozen crystals that fall from the sky, you know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Snow forms when precipitation freezes due to a…-”

“I know what snow is!” I interrupted her, “I meant, when is it gonna snow?” I asked again. None of this was making sense. It wasn’t even cold outside. In fact, it was even a little on the warm side.

“It’s going to snow very soon,” Celestia replied as if it was common knowledge.

“Huh? I think you’re insane, Celestia. It can’t snow today,” I pointed out clearly.

“If anypony is not in a right state of mind, it would most definitely be you, Snow,” Luna answered for her sister.

Thanks for the support, Luna.

“What do you mean? Why can’t it snow today?” Celestia asked seriously, obviously wanting to know what I was thinking.

“It just… It just can’t! Why don’t you understand?” That’s flawless logic right there.

“You’re making absolutely no sense, Snow, but I can say that I’m not particularly surprised,” Luna said.

Seriously Luna, you’re making me look bad.

“And it definitelyis going to snow today,” Luna continued, “I can show you the pegasi weather charts for this month if you want.”

Of course, it was the pegasi!

“Oh, right! The pegasi control the weather here, don’t they?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Celestia chuckled. “Do they not control the weather on Earth?”

“No,” I answered simply. The princesses’ expressions turned from humorous to slightly surprised.

“Really?” Luna questioned. “But how do you know when it’s going to rain or snow?” she asked confusedly.

“Well, there’s weather prediction, but really, you don’t. And we definitely can’t control it,” I explained. That was probably the best answer I could come up with without getting too detailed.

“Interesting. I suppose it would be rather strange for the weather to change from warm to cold in such a short amount of time under those circumstances,” Celestia replied, “Well anyways, I just need to wait for Silvermane to report back on the status of the castle and see if everything’s arranged and ready.”

“Oh yeah, Silvermane… what is she? The assistant… assistant supervisor? Or something?” I tried to remember.

“She’s an Assistant Synchronizing Supervisor,” answered Celestia.

Oh, right. How could I forget about the ASS? I snickered a bit and Luna looked at be perplexedly, but I didn’t bother explaining anything to her. Speaking of Silvermane, she had just walked into the throne room before hurriedly walking up to the princesses.

“All preparations are complete, your majesties,” she reported to Celestia and Luna with a curt bow.

“Mornin’, Silver!” I greeted her enthusiastically, interrupting her just like the last time she reported something to the princesses.

“Good morning, Snow,” she replied as she turned to face me.

“Did you know it’s gonna snow today? Weird, huh?” I asked, hoping that I could get at least one pony to agree with me.

“Yes, of course it’s going to snow. Why is that weird?” she asked confusedly. Luna turned to smirk at me with an eyebrow raised.

“Ugh! Fine, you win,” I said to Luna, “Never mind, Silver. It’s not weird, I suppose.” She looked thoroughly confused, “Anyways, I’m going outside. It’s gonna snow soon, right?” I asked Celestia.

“It should start in a few minutes,” she said, turning to gaze thoughtfully out of the window.

Sweet, my first snow day in Equestria! Instead of doing the sensible thing, I flew out of the window that Celestia was currently looking out of.

I saw that the garden was just below, so I gently flew down into the center of it. It was a shame that all of the pretty, tropical flowers were about to be covered with a cold, merciless layer of fresh snow.

It wasn’t quite cold yet, but it was definitely cooler than it was yesterday. I soon found a bench to lie on as I awaited the snow. It was very comfortable to lay on, despite the fact that it looked wooden and hard. It must be something about Equestria, but I had yet to sit or lay on anything uncomfortable.

A large leaf of some sort of tropical looking plant was just above me, shielding my eyes from the sun. I found it incredibly easy to doze off as I stared up at the slowly morphing clouds in the gray, morning sky, and soon enough, I had fallen asleep.

I woke with a start as I felt a cold, stinging weight hit me square in the face, shortly followed by the sound of females giggling. I shook the weight off of my face and sat up. Apparently, the weight was a pile of snow that had built up on the plant above me and fallen onto my face. The large leaf bobbed up and down after the weight of the snow had fallen off of it.

I looked up and saw Luna in an elegant purple coat with black fur around the upper and lower edges. It was also adorned with her cutie mark on the side. Silvermane was next to her with a casual looking jacket, small and black. I didn’t feel cold at all, so I’m not sure if the jackets were for show or function.

“Qué tal?” I said hastily as I removed myself from the bench, wiping the built up snow from my chest and stomach.

Snow was still falling, but I had apparently missed a lot, because there was at least a foot of snow on the ground, and my legs sunk in most of the way in before they touched the ground, as did Silvermane’s. Luna was slightly taller and stood more easily.

“Huh?”

“What’s up?”

“Oh, just enjoying the snow, Snow,” Luna greeted me in return.

I then began frolicking about in the fresh snow, which was still free of any blemishes whatsoever. I lay down and made a snow angel, which looked fricken sweet since I actually had wings. It was like I was a little kid again, but better, since I was a pony. Snow was pretty rare for me anyways, since I used to live in Georgia of the United States.

“You look like a little filly,” Silvermane chuckled.

“Thanks, Silver,” I said as I sat up in the snow. I then fell back into the snow and disappeared into its depths. I stayed down for a few seconds as I realized that even though it seemed to behave mostly like the snow on earth, it wasn’t cold at all. This nearly room-temperature snow was great for lying down in.

“Hey, Luna!” I called out, “Why isn’t this snow freezing cold?” I asked as she approached me and looked down into the hole I had created.

“Freezing cold?” She said in bewilderment, “Why would snow be cold?”

I stood up, stepped out of my hole, and looked up at Luna intently.

“Snow is always cold! Your world follows no natural guidelines,” I declared ardently. Luna looked a bit shocked at my words, but she almost instantly leaned forward and countered them.

“From what I’ve heard, your world is the weird one. You have strange colorful food that you chew and don’t eat, your weather acts on its own, and you have massive metal machines that soar through the sky. That’s breaking the laws of physics if you ask me,” she said.

“Colorful… food?” I repeated confusedly. “Oh, my gum!” I remembered as I whipped out a pack of ‘Swerve’ and took a piece for myself before throwing the pack at Silvermane for fun, just to see if she could catch it. I threw it a little faster than intended, but she caught it effortlessly. Girl got hands (hooves?)!

“What the hay is this?” she mumbled as she examined the alien object. I ignored her and continued my ranting with Luna.

“Some ponies can walk on clouds! Your weather can be easily manipulated! Hell, your snow isn’t even cold!” I continued.

“None of those things break any natural laws!” she argued.

“Water has to be cold so that it can change states and turn to snow! And pegasi, even though they have wings, are still denser than clouds!”

Both Luna and Silver looked at me disconcertedly and I got the feeling that I just said something stupid, even though I know I didn’t. Luna sighed and looked defeated. In a way, both of our arguments were correct, so neither of us could win.

“What would you know? You can’t even read! I’ve been out here for too long anyways, I’m going inside,” Luna stated exasperatedly as she started walking back to the castle.

I hopped onto Silvermane’s back and slapped her flank. She gasped and a harsh blush was easily visible on her white coat. “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!” I yelled at the top of my lungs before being rudely bucked off and punched in the face with a hoof.

That really hurt, considering that hooves are about as hard as the average rock, but it was well worth it to be Clayton Moore for a few glorious seconds. I stood up in a slight daze with the help of Luna and started to follow her back inside with Silvermane again.

“Why the hay did you do that, Snow?” Luna groaned irritably. Silvermane remained silent and avoided my gaze, still blushing.

“Lone Ranger… It’s a human thing, you wouldn’t understand. By the way, where are we going?”

“We’re going to go see Celestia. She can look after you while Silvermane and I discuss some things,” she explained.

“I don’t need to be looked after!” I pouted.

“I beg to differ,” Luna said flatly, “You’ll burn down the castle if you aren’t.”

“Yeah, right! I would never burn down the castle!”

I can be responsible. I’ll show them! I’ll be the most well behaved pony there ever was!

“No, no! Stop it!” I yelled at the fire as I frantically attempted to extinguish it. Welp, I tried to behave, but it didn’t work.

Perhaps an explanation is in order. You see, I was dropped off with Celestia as promised, but I left while she was distracted with some important looking pony.

Soon after that, I wanted to go find my own room, which was difficult as hell since every guard refused to speak with me. On my way there; however, I managed to catch one of the fancy looking drapes on fire.

I wanted to practice my flying again, but my wing knocked over one the candles mounted on the wall and it rolled under a decorative, red curtain hanging on the wall. And damn, those things are flammable. The second it came in contact with the fire, it lit up like a Christmas tree.

And so I yelled at the fire as I beat the flaming curtain on the floor several times. The noise attracted some attention I suppose, because after a few moments a unicorn guard peered urgently around the corner. He saw instantly what was happening and charged towards me with his horn glowing. Soon after that, both I and the scorched curtain were drenched, and the fire was no more.

Almost instantly, the guard grabbed my wet foreleg by wrapping his elbow around mine dragged me down the hallway and back to the throne room. Once we entered, Celestia stopped talking with Silvermane and some other pony to look at us.

“He set the hallway on fire, your majesty. I took care of it,” the guard reported irritably as he threw my sopping wet self to the floor in front of Celestia and hurriedly left the room. Silvermane and the stallion next to her stared at me in disbelief, and Celestia closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Explain,” Celestia commanded with a forced calmness.

“I was, umm… flying through the castle,” I began before I paused to shake myself dry like a dog, “And I knocked over a candle and it just kinda happened.”

“It… ‘just kinda happened’?”

“Yeah, I mean… well, no. I knocked over a candle and it caught one of those curtain things on fire,” I explained.

“So you burnt one of the tapestries?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“If you weren’t an alien, you would be in the dungeon by now for your incompetence,” Celestia said in a voice that resembled a disapproving mother.

“Sorry...” I apologized weakly.

I twisted the tip of my hoof on the floor nervously like chalk on a pool cue. I began to wonder about the identity of the unicorn stallion next to Silvermane as I forced my mind onto other subjects. He was large, like Big Macintosh, with a gray coat and a black mane. His hooves and horn were black as well, which was unusual based on what I’ve seen so far.

“Please Snow, just stay with a responsible pony at all times,” Celestia decided. She then turned forward to address the two ponies in front of her.

“Thank you, Silvermane and Dusk, you are both relieved for now,” Celestia said as the two in front of her bowed in respect before hesitantly turning back to me.

“Hey, Silver. What’s up?” I asked casually as I approached them.

“We just, uh, did some things for the princess. What are you up to?” she asked kindly, which was a bit of a change.

“Oh, nothing much, just set a tapestry on fire… So, you’re Dusk?” I asked as I turned to the grey and black unicorn stallion, who nodded in response. “I’m Snow, nice to meet-cha’,” I said as I shook his hoof.

“He’s the human,” Silvermane said to him softly as he greeted me.

“Oh, I’ve heard about you,” he said with a smile, seemingly amused by the stories Silvermane had to tell him.

“So what do you do here? Are you an assistant super- something too?”

“Not quite. I am the Synchronizing Supervisor,” he responded.

“Oh, cool. You’re Silver’s boss! Is there a whole family of you synchronizing, supervising ponies?” I asked curiously.

“Uh, kind of, I guess. There are five ponies, including myself that do this. We just make sure that everypony in the castle is doing what they’re supposed to do, when they’re supposed to do it. And a few other things when the princesses need a lending hoof,” he explained. Finally, that ridiculous title made a little more sense.

“Anyway, I should get going,” I decided. “I don’t think I’ve seen very much of the castle from the outside. I’m gonna go check this place out.”

“Wait,” Celestia chimed in, “One of you go with him,” Celestia told Silvermane and Dusk.

“Relax Celestia, I won’t burn down anything else,” I promised.

“I don’t believe you. Silvermane, you are hereby exempted from your duties for the rest of the day. Just make sure Snow doesn’t hurt anything or anypony.”

“He won’t, your majesty. But if he tries to ride me again, I’m not promising that I won’t hurt him.”

“Well, It’s nice to know how much I’m trusted around here,” I commented.

“You set a tapestry on fire a couple minutes ago,” Silvermane reminded me dryly.

“Meh. It didn’t look too great in the first place.”

“I specifically hoofpicked those tapestries because I thought they looked very nice,” Celestia interrupted.

“No, what I meant was-…” I sighed. “I’ll just shut up now.”

“A wise decision, my little human.”

“It's empty in the valley of your heart ~,” I sang in a hushed voice as I attempted to find a way out of the castle. “The sun, it rises slowly as you walk, away from all the fears and all the faults you've left behind ~.”

I eventually found a door to the outside. It was the same door Luna and Silvermane had led me through from the garden earlier that morning.

“The harvest left no food for you to eat, you cannibal, you meat-eater, you see ~. But I have seen the same, I know the shame in your defeat~.”

“What are you singing? It sounds… strange.” Silvermane asked as I walked out of the castle and into the garden.

“The Cave, by Mumford and Sons,” I told her. And so I continued.

“So tie me to a post and block my ears, I can see widows and orphans through my tears ~.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice,” she commented, interrupting me again.

“Fine, I’ll sing in my head,” I decided as I continued to walk through the garden. The garden got denser as I we continued further.

“What’s back here?” I asked curiously, shoving a few brambles to the side with my wing.

“This is the Everfree Forest,” she replied.

“Huh? All the way up here in Canterlot?”

“The forest is pretty big. It stretches all the way from Ponyville up to here,” she explained. I still didn’t quite understand how that worked, but I didn’t question it any further.

After several more minutes of walking, we came to a small clearing, which contained a large patch of blue, tulip-like flowers. I was a little bit bored, so I used a wing to shove Silvermane into the patch. She tumbled into it, but landed softly and wasn’t hurt.

“Snow, what the hay!?” she cried, sitting up. I jumped into the patch next to her and rolled around in it.

“Chill out Silver, they’re just flowers.” She groaned and looked down at the flowers we were sitting in.

“Oh, no…” she murmured. “Snow, look at these flowers.”

“I see them.” She glared at me.

“Snow, this is Poison Joke,” she continued.

Oh, shit.

“What? Are you serious?” I stood up urgently, as did Silvermane.

Oh god, why the hell didn’t I recognize these?

“Ugh… this is your fault, Snow,” she accused, picking some flowers with her teeth and throwing them at my face. I sputtered and fell back onto my haunches. She couldn’t help but laugh at my expense.

“I’m still -hah- mad at you, Snow,” she said whilst snickering.

“Yeah, whatever. So, do we have to take a bath now or something?”

“What?” she asked confusedly.

“The remedy… I thought it involved taking a bath, with pink bubbles.”

“Uh, you can do that if you want, but I’m just going to drink the antidote.”

“There’s an antidote? That sounds a lot nicer,” I mused. She shook her head and gave a scoff.

“But we should get back to the castle soon,” she decided. “The first symptoms of Poison Joke appear within the first couple hours.”

“A couple hours? Pfft, we’ve got plenty of time. Come on,” I replied, stepping out of the clearing before she could protest. Apparently, she had no choice but to stick with me.

I held open a pathway with my wings as I walked through a few shrubs, keeping the shrubs open for Silvermane as well.

“Where are we going?” she asked after a few minutes of hiking.

“I dunno,” I replied nonchalantly. “I’m just waiting for something interesting to happen. I figure something will happen sooner or later since we're in the Everfree Forest.”

We kept walking deeper into the forest for about three minutes before I heard the rustling of bushes. We stopped. I put a hoof up to my lips to signal for her to be quiet, and I peered over the top of a wall of shrubs and brambles just in front of us.

I was expecting, and even hoping for, some nice family of rabbits, or maybe some squirrels… but no. I got a big, freakin manticore, staring right back at me.

It roared a few feet from my face and I instantly ducked down behind the bushes and grabbed Silvermane. She looked up, screamed when she realized what was happening, and promptly took off in the other direction.

“Silvermane! Wait!” I cried after her, struggling to keep up at all.

“No! Do you see that thing!?”

I looked over my shoulder, still blindly and clumsily dashing through the forest, and instantly regretting it. The manticore was right on my heels, snarling and flaring, and Silvermane continued to gain a lead on me. I realized that I would never outrun it, so I tried flying. Thankfully, that was much faster, although it was equally harder to weave in between the trees.

In a few seconds, I caught up with Silvermane and scooped her up. I then flew both of us up and out of the forest through the canopy.

“Ha! Stupid manticore!” I called back, sticking my tongue out in its direction. It responded by roaring again and flying above the canopy as well.

“Oh… it has wings…” I realized somberly.

“Fly faster, you idiot!” Silvermane cried from my grasp below.

“I could if I wasn’t carrying you! I could just drop you, so watch what you say,” I chided before flying as fast as I could towards the castle.

Apparently, the manticore was just as bad a flier as I was, because even while carrying Silvermane, I was able to keep a good distance between us and it. After several grueling seconds of flying as fast as I could, we neared the castle. I vacillated for a moment, trying to decide where to go. Why the Manticore decided to follow us this far still confuses me; although, at the time, I wasn’t particularly concerned about its peculiar motives.

“The window!” Silvermane shouted before pointing a hoof at an open window leading into the throne room. It was stained-glass and narrow so this was going to be difficult. Oh, well.

I took as much time as I could to line it up before the manticore almost caught up with us, and then I made a b-line straight towards the window. I threw Silvermane in before going through myself and we tumbled to a stop in front of Celestia, who was having some sort of formal conversation with a couple of unfamiliar ponies.

“Snow, Silvermane!” she yelped in astonishment, “What are you two-…!?”

Celestia’s question was cut short as the manticore crashed through the window, shattering it into several multicolored shards that spread across the floor.

However, before the Manticore knew what was going on, Celestia enveloped it in an aura of pink light and then it was gone.

“We should probably reschedule. Our apologies, you highness,” one of the previously engaged gentlecolts said immediately before he and his partner affrightedly dashed out of the room.

“Get off of me,” Silvermane grumbled from beneath me. I quickly did so and we both stood before Celestia.

“Silvermane, would you please explain to me the reason behind that manticore smashing through my window?”

“I followed Snow deep into the Everfree Forest,” she explained, “and that thing started chasing us. He flew us back here and we came in through the window.”

“What were you doing deep in the Everfree?” she asked, turning to me.

“It looked like fun… So I did it,” I replied. There was a short pause while she looked at me intensely.

“I’m glad you’re both alright. But try to avoid situations like that, Snow,” she ordered.

“’Of course, Princess.”

“Of course, your highness,” Silvermane said with a bow. I vacillated for a moment but decided not to bow. I figured doing nothing was better than screwing up some ancient formality.

“Copycat,” I whispered. She lightly punched me in the side to show her disapproval of my lack of seriousness.

“Who were those ponies, anyways?”

“They were the Salt’s,” she replied with a sigh, remembering how I drove them away in a panic.

“The Salt’s? That’s a weird name,” I thought aloud.

“Their family owns the majority of the salt mines and salterns in Equestria,” Silvermane explained, “Salt is currently the leading export in Equestria, so that’s a pretty big deal.”

“What’s a saltern? Is that a pony thing?”

“It’s an evaporating pond. Sea water evaporates in them and then they harvest salt from-…”

“Hold that thought,” I interrupted her, partially because I didn’t care about what she was saying. “Silvermane, shouldn’t we take that antidote before something bad happens?”

“Oh, I completely forgot about that!” she exclaimed. “Yeah, and we should hurry.”

Silvermane and I hurried to the door before Celestia stopped us. “What antidote? What happened?”

“Snow shoved me into a patch of Poison Joke,” Silvermane called back as we left.

I followed Silvermane for a little while until she led me into some sort of medicine room. It’s like a medicine cabinet… but room sized. ‘Nuff said.

A couple guards stood by and scrutinized me as I watched Silvermane rummage through various potions and medicines. Eventually she pulled out an Erlenmeyer flask with a green liquid inside.

“Here, take a swig of this,” she instructed. I did as I was told and then gave it to her. She did the same. It was relatively tasteless, so I had no complaints. It was only afterwards that it suddenly had some weird aftertaste and I felt a vigorous rumbling in my stomach.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed, attempting to stand up on my two back legs to look at my stomach. I failed, however, and reared up into the wall of glassware. One by one, the medicines fell off of the wall and shattered on the ground around me. I did my best to avoid the falling flasks and beakers, but a few hit my flailing limbs.

Silvermane had no luck in escaping the shit storm either, and after a while, we were both on the ground with our forelegs covering our heads, covered in countless antidotes.

“Snow!” she yelled crossly. I kept my forelegs over my head, but now it was to protect me from Silvermane rather than falling glassware.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I cried back before something lifted me up. I quickly looked up and saw that a guard was carrying me towards a smaller room in the corner of this one. Dang, he was strong.

“Into the safety showers, you two!” he ordered, tossing me into the small room.

“What!?” I yelped, landing on the tile floor of a small shower.

“It’s either that, or you can take your chances with magic poisoning. Take your pick,” he replied adamantly in the same, gruff voice. Silvermane, however, was not thrown into the shower. She walked in on her own accord, with her dignity unspoiled… for the most part, anyways.

The door was slammed and a button was pressed, and next thing I knew, Silvermane and I were drenched. Jets of absolutely freezing water came from the walls and ceiling, making sure that whatever chemicals were on us were blasted off.

“I’m g-going to k-k-kill you, S-Sn-Snow,” she seethed after the water had stopped running. We were both shivering as the icy water penetrated our coats and drenched our skin. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

“K,” was all I could say in return. I’m not sure if that confused her or made her angry. Once she had recovered a bit, she looked over to me and stared for a moment.

“Wow,” she said softly to herself.

“What?” I questioned, still shivering.

“You’re really, uhh…” she began, awkwardly stopping herself mid-sentence.

I spun around; looking for what could be the source of her wonderment. When I turned almost all of the way around, I noticed that one of the walls was reflective and made a large mirror. I immediately knew what she was talking about when I saw myself.

With my fur plastered against my sides from the water, it was painfully evident how skinny I really was. My ribs showed clearly and my hip bones were mostly visible, leaving a boxy trace around my flank. Anyways, it wasn’t very flattering. I looked like a walking skeleton.

I found it strange through, because I had never had any weight problems as a human. It’s very easy to get very skinny when you have no meat to eat, and it showed evidently on me. I sighed disconcertedly and turned back to Silvermane.

“… I should probably start eating more in this pony form,” I half whispered.

I snickered for a moment as Silvermane flopped her wet mane out of her face, but she quickly silenced me with a glare of pure death. We walked out of the shower after the guards had opened the door for us. They saw Silvermane and laughed a bit as well. One of them wolf whistled from the back.

“The next one of you that makes a noise is getting fired,” she warned. They shut the buck up in a hurry.

I guess the only thing now was to report the damage back to Celestia. I hoped she wasn’t going to be too angry with me.

“SNOW!”

Well, damn.

Chapter 5 - Discordant Claims

December 16, 2012

My morning routine was almost identical to the day before. I heard the faint drumming of raindrops, and so I lifted myself from the purple cushion and peered outside though the window to see the rain melting away the snow from yesterday. I wondered why it was set up to snow one day and then leave the next, but I didn’t ponder on it too long. It was hard to think about things for extended periods of time with the magical world of ponies constantly distracting me.

Celestia remained in her bed, and I didn’t want to disturb her slumber. I figured I had put her through enough the day before. I walked around the bed and watched her sleep for a few moments. Not in a creepy way, but more in a fascinated way. Eventually, however, I grew bored and searched around the room for something to do.

“Whoa,” I muttered to myself as I spotted a massive telescope placed conspicuously out on the balcony. I pushed open the two glass doors that stood between me and the telescope as quietly as possible and stepped out onto the balcony.

The balcony had a slight cover that I managed to stay under and out of the rain while I peered through the telescope. It had no lens covers or any protection whatsoever, but the weather didn’t seem to have an effect on it either.

I aimed the telescope down and saw many of the city’s denizens commuting to work or wherever else it was they had to be at the time. It was interesting, really; spying on ponies as they silently conversed and interacted with one another. I saw a couple yelling at each other in front of what appeared to be some sort of apartment complex.

I was decent at reading lips back on earth, mostly from watching the television on mute while my dad slept, but it was difficult with ponies. I didn’t recognize either of them from the show, but they seemed like any other normal ponies.

The stallion didn’t say much, but listened to the irate mare. Maybe it was some sort of break up. The stallion looked stressed beyond the point of caring, and he stepped aside for a moment to discard a disposable cup of coffee into a nearby trash bin before returning to listen. This seemed to only infuriate the mare more, but he could care less.

I was only able to make out the word ‘done’ from the mare before she stormed off in the other direction. The stallion simply watched her leave before slowly disappearing back into the building.

“Well, that was interesting,” I muttered to myself as I removed my face from the telescope and looked out over the huge city with my naked eye once again.

I looked back into the telescope, but sadly, the clouds decided to part a little and the bright sun shone through at the same time. I immediately yelped and fell backwards onto my haunches as the harsh sunlight connected painfully with my retina, clamping my hooves over my eye.

“The sun is bright, isn’t it?” a familiar voice chuckled from behind me. I jumped in surprise and whipped around to see Celestia standing behind me in all of her formal regalia, topped off with a cheeky grin.

“H-how did you…?”

My question was left unfinished and she replied with a knowing smile. I still don’t know how the hell she did that. There was no noise, so she would’ve had to have been dead silent, and she wasn’t too small either.

“Dear Lord, that was scary,” I said as I stood up straight and regulated my breathing. “Anyways, I’m sorry about yesterday. I won’t break anything else,” I promised.

But seriously, no promises.

“Thank you, but we must still take precautions to make sure that you don’t cause any more trouble,” she said with a sinister smirk.

“Oh, come on! This isn’t fair!” I whined as Celestia sat at her throne.

“No, it’s perfectly fair,” Celestia countered, “When you’re left alone, you destroy things and create chaos. We might as well put all that energy of yours to good use. You’re going to help Silvermane with anything she needs or wants, got it?”

“Fine,” I grumbled. Great, I was going to be an assistant’s assistant.

“Lead the way, boss,” I said with a roll of my eyes before she turned to leave the throne room.

I followed her out of the throne room and outside of the castle. I waited in the doorway for a moment as she walked fearlessly out into the rain. Eventually, I ran out behind her and put a wing over her to shield her from the rain.

“What are you doing?” I asked unfavorably, “You’ll catch cold.”

“As much as I appreciate your concern, I need to find two guards that were supposed to report back to me half an hour ago and never did.”

“Where are their posts?” I asked, dropping unfriendly attitude for a more curious one.

“In the garden,” she replied vaguely. I struggled to keep up with her fast pace while maintaining my wing over her entire body. Meanwhile, I was getting soaked.

I decided to focus on keeping up and didn’t ask any more questions. Eventually we crossed into an area that appeared to be a sculpture garden with several massive, marble structures. It all looked a little fuzzy through the rain.

One statue depicted a mare playing a harp, and another was a pony holding a large scroll. It was all very elaborate, but I had the feeling that I had seen it all before. It all looked so familiar. Maybe they showed a glimpse of it on the show before. Suddenly, it appeared that Silvermane had noticed something and briskly trotted off towards a statueless pedestal, at the base of which was an empty guard’s helmet.

“No, It couldn’t be…” she began aloud. I was about to ask her what was wrong, but she instantly turned and bolted off back to the castle. I struggled to stay close behind her, but we eventually made it back inside.

“Wait! Silvermane, what happened!?” I called up to her as she ran into the throne room. I ran in behind her and she was talking urgently with the princesses.

“Your majesties, the statue of Discord is gone, and the two guards on duty are missing,” she immediately explained, dropping the helmet of one the guards in question. It landed on the floor with a resounding clang that echoed through the stunned silence.

…So that’s why it looked so familiar. That was the same statue garden that Cheerlee brought her students to on a field trip in that one episode; and the same statue garden that Discord was imprisoned in. Well, if any villain was going to attack, I’m glad it’s this one. Discord never actually hurt anypony when he was in control, and besides, he’s my favorite villain. I’d have to get his autograph or a picture while he was here.

“I’ll make sure the elements are still here. Silvermane, go alert all the guards,” Celestia instructed.

Celestia stepped down from her throne and made her way towards what I recognized as the vault where the elements were supposedly secured. On the opposite end of the room, Silvermane opened the door and stepped out of the room.

I turned around and stifled a snicker as Celestia shoved her horn into a hole in the wall. The vault shone radiantly and opened up to reveal that the elements remained in their correct places.

“Are you sure?” Dusk asked urgently.

“Of course I’m sure!” Silvermane replied adamantly, “Discord has escaped, it’s a Code Seven!”

“Alert all the guards on the east wing, Frost and I will handle the rest,” Dusk instructed quickly before he too went off to do his part.

“Hiya, Silver,” I said as I trotted up alongside Celestia. She promptly ignored me and turned her undivided attention towards Celestia.

“Your majesty! I was about to alert all the guards on the east wing. Dusk and Frostwind are alerting the others,” she reported.

“Excellent,” Celestia responded, “We must make certain everypony is aware of the situation at hoof, and then we should wait for Discord to make the first move. We still possess the elements, so that is our smartest option.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Silvermane said with a bow before turning and leaving. That left only me and Celestia.

“Welp, I’m bored. Wanna go find Luna?” I asked. Celestia looked down slightly and sighed.

“Sure, why not?” she said patronizingly, obviously upset, before walking off in the other direction.

“I… I’m sorry,” I apologized as I followed her.

“No, no. It’s not your fault,” she replied after a short pause, with a dismissive wave of a wing.

I still felt bad though, for reasons obvious enough. The stability of Celestia’s country was about to be threatened by an evil draconequus, and I was fooling around in the midst of it all. I followed her silently for a while, but eventually we spotted Luna talking with a large, blue pegasus.

“Hello sister,” Luna said exasperatedly, and Celestia nodded in return. Everypony was a bit saddened in general, and the rain matched the dreary atmosphere. The blue mystery stallion bowed to Celestia, but he said nothing.

“Hullo, my name is Snow,” I greeted the new stallion in what I think was the most polite manner I had used in Equestria so far. He shook my hoof as Luna raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

“I’m Frostwind, I’m one of the Assistant Synchronizing Supervisors,” he said.

Great, yet another ASS.

“Okay, just like Silvermane.” He nodded. There was a short pause before Celestia broke the silence.

“I must be going back to the throne room. It’s about to get very busy in there,” she said as she turned to leave.

“I need to take care of some paperwork as well. You can come with me, Snow,” Luna offered (like I had a choice).

“Okay,” I responded flatly as I walked out of the room after Luna.

Luna led me all the way back to her room before we settled down. The door had been replaced and there was essentially no trace of my prior break-in.

“Luna, can I axe you a queckstion?” I asked quickly as she shut the door behind me with her magic.

“Sure,” she replied after a short pause. She was currently focused on retrieving some parchments from her desk and sorting it in the air with her magic.

“Why are there two princesses? And no king or queen?” I asked.

“Our father, Soleil, was a great king,” she replied, “Since Equestria is ruled equally by both me and my sister, neither of us would have our status elevated to ‘queen’. And there is no king presently,” she finished thoughtfully, going through the several parchments on her bed. Speaking of Luna’s bed, I hopped up onto it without permission.

“Seems legit,” I replied. “I could be king of Equestria if you need somepony to fill the position,” I offered. Luna snorted before responding.

“I don’t think you’re qualified for such a position. Anyways, you’d make a much better jester, considering the royal court,” she replied.

“Whatever. Whatcha doin’?” I asked as I looked up at some of the papers that were floating just inches in front of Luna’s face.

“Just looking over some of the recent census reports… See?” she replied as she moved one of the papers slightly closer to me.

“Confound these ponies, they drive me to illiteracy.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t read.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. Well, it’s a mostly phonetic language, so hopefully you’ll be able to learn soon. For example, that’s a doh,” she said, pointing to one of these symbols: Я.

“Huh? What sound does that make?” I asked.

“Ah, as in apple or avalanche,” she replied absentmindedly, still consumed in whatever it was that she was reading. There was a short pause and it appeared that she had completely forgotten about me for the time being.

“Is that it?”

“I’ll tell you more later,” she promised before looking back down at her papers. Well, at least progress was being made, albeit one letter of progress.

“Fine, I’m gonna take a nap,” I said as I quickly crawled under the sheets of Luna’s bed and pulled them over me before she could object.

“W-wait! …Oh, never mind,” she sighed as she resigned to continue her own work while I did whatever I felt like.

~~~

Soon after I had lain down, there was suddenly a huge crash, disrupting my short-lived rest. I instantly sat upright to see a massive hole in the wall and the absence of Luna. I tried to get up, but only to be instantly pinned down by an invisible force. Slowly, ominously, a figure entered the room through the opening. The figure was neither equine nor human, but a mix of several parts.

It had a long, snake-like body, claws of an eagle and a lion, and legs of lizard and of a lion. A large fang adorned its sinister expression, and two different sized eyes and a pair of horns, one from a goat and one from a deer, decorated its remarkably shaped head. It also had a pair of wings, one from a bat and one from a pegasus, and a dragon’s tail to top it off. It was certainly Discord.

There was no noise; all was silent as he slowly flew towards me with a demented grin splayed fantastically across his unusual jaw line. He rested the tip of his talon on my chest and spoke.

“Here's something to ponder on, my little human,” he said, still smiling, “You’re just as evil as I am, and you will do I want, and I will rule this pitiful world with you as my puppet.”

“What!? No!” I cried, “Sure, you’re my favorite villain, but seriously, I’m not helping you take over Equestria!”

“I'm flattered. Oh, and you will,” he chuckled, “You’ll understand soon enough.”

He then proceeded to pound me in the chest, with his talon balled up into a fist, until I could no longer speak, but instead remained gasping for air. I repeatedly heard a feminine voice calling my name, and soon I recognized it as Luna’s. My eyes opened and I sat up, still breathless, and found Luna’s hoof abusing my chest in place of Discord’s fist.

“Are you alright? It looked like you were having a bad dream. I would have entered it, but I wasn’t sure if you’d have been okay with that,” she asked as I looked around and found that it was all only a dream. I let out a sigh and looked back at Luna.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry,” I apologized as I lay back down. She said nothing and turned back to her papers. There was now a stack next to her on the bed, indicating that she had been through several of them already while I was asleep.

The Discord thing was freaking me out just a bit, though. Was that just a mindless thought that turned itself into a dream, or did it actually mean something? My view of Discord in the dream included more parts of him and more detail than I thought I would have remembered from the show, so that was evidence towards the latter. I tried not to let it bother me too much. Whatever was going to happen would happen, so whatever.

“I’m almost finished with these, and then we can do something you want to do for a while,” Luna revealed, much to my liking. She then took a pen from her desk and began writing a few symbols on the papers that she had previously read.

I frowned as I watched her write out incoherent ciphers with ease, creating what I guessed were signatures. As much as I would rather do something else, I should probably learn how to read before anything else. I resolved to do the responsible thing for once and ask Luna to help me as soon as she was finished with her work.

Luna had finished writing on the papers and she banged the stack lightly on the desk to align them properly before heading towards the door.

“Are you done?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be right back, so don’t leave,” Luna instructed as she left the room with several papers floating in tow. I acknowledged her with a nod before watching her leave, closing the door behind her. I sat up in her bed and looked around. Her room wasn’t nearly as spectacular as Celestia’s. In fact, it almost looked normal.

Again I was bored, however, and so I left my mind wander.

Unfortunately for me however, my thoughts drifted towards home, and a small lump began to form in my throat. I wasn’t exactly homesick, but I figured my dad was most likely depressed and drinking more than usual. My friends were probably slightly worried but assumed that I’d turn up sooner or later.

I thought about how my dad would be all alone again, and my eyes began to water just a little as the lump in my throat became progressively larger, despite my efforts to push it back. I realized that there was a genuine possibility of me never being able to return to Earth, and a warm sensation hit my cheeks as a few tears ran down them.

I wasn’t sobbing, just silently crying. Just a few moments later, the door began to open slowly. I sniffled and tried to wipe the tears away, but hooves weren’t great for that, plus when I touched the moisture, it just soaked into my coat.

Suddenly, the door opened fully and revealed an alicorn, but not the one I was expecting. Celestia was in the hallway, looking into the room curiously.

“Luna? Do you have the papers you’re supposed to have signed?” she asked as she stepped in. Apparently knocking wasn’t commonly practiced in Equestria. She stopped when she saw me on the bed.

“Snow…you’re crying,” she thought softly.

Thanks, captain obvious. I didn’t respond, but again tried again to wipe the moisture off of my face, which was near impossible with my hooves. Celestia shut the door and approached me cautiously.

“Are you, um… sad?” she asked hesitantly.

Again, impressive deduction skills, Celestia. She obviously didn’t have much experience with this kind of thing, which was very surprising, considering how long she's been around, but I didn't feel like pondering it at the moment.

“I’m fine,” I replied as steadily as I could. “It’s just… my father,” I said softly. I don’t particularly enjoy talking about my feelings, and Celestia climbing onto the bed as well and putting a hoof around my shoulder wasn’t making it any easier to shake off.

“You miss your father? And what of the rest of your family?” She clearly had good intentions, but she wasn’t really helping all that much, nor was she understanding the origin of my sadness, although it felt like something closer to guilt.

“I have no other family. He is all.”

“You mean you have no brothers or sisters? What about your mother?” she asked again, her curiosity growing.

“I have no siblings and no mother,” I said, hoping she would understand. She seemed bewildered still, so I decided to clarify before she could ask any more questions.

“She died when I was very young, and I don’t remember her. It’s not that uncommon on Earth to have only one parent. I can’t really miss someone I never knew, so I really don’t mind,” I said as the tears flowed once more and Celestia moved closer.

“I… I’m sorry,” She responded.

I tried my best to suck it up and be masculine for one of the first times since I had arrived in Equestria, but the lonesomeness that I imagined my father feeling was killing me. I leaned forward and embraced Celestia, earning a surprised gasp. Soon, she returned the embrace as I sobbed lightly into her shoulder. I’m sure this seemed very out of character for me, and it was.

Celestia stroked my mane a few times. I felt pitiful. So pitiful, in fact, that I didn’t even look up when the door was opened and I caught a glimpse of Luna’s blue coat out of the corner of my eye. I forcibly stopped sobbing and screwed my eyes shut with my face up against Celestia’s shoulder and her hoof still running through my mane. I heard Luna step into the room and shut the door, without saying a word.

After a few moments of silence, I shifted a little and lifted my head up, opening my eyes again. Luna was looking at me worriedly, and Celestia retained a slight smile, looking me in the eye. I couldn’t help but smile a little in return.

“S-sorry,” I whispered, looking down to avoid any more uncomfortable eye contact.

“It’s quite alright,” Celestia spoke softly. “And remember that Luna and I are here for you if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” A whisper was all I could manage. There was a brief pause before Celestia spoke again.

“Twilight and the other elements have arrived, so I must be going,” she said softly before she shifted away from me and stepped down from the bed.

“Twilight? And her friends?” Celestia turned back to me and nodded, “Can I come?”

“Certainly,” she replied, “You should come too, Luna.” Luna nodded and followed her sister out of the room. I got up, fixing the sheets a little, and wiped the moisture from my eyes with the fur on my front legs until my face was dry again. I had honestly surprised myself when I cried. I’m not really the type to cry. Hell, I couldn’t even remember the last time I had, but this was different. This was about my father.

I followed the princesses on a silent walk back to the throne room, where we found the mane six waiting for us. I saw Rarity and Pinkie Pie for the first time, which was awesome, as well as some familiar faces.

“Sup everyone,” I said as I approached the girls alongside the princesses. The four ponies I was slightly familiar with greeted me in return before Pinkie Pie jumped up and confronted me at an impossible speed.

“Hey Pinkie Pie, I’m Snow,” I said gleefully before she could get a word out.

“You’re not snow, silly! You’re a pony!” she exclaimed in return. “And how did you know my name? Ohmygosh are you a psychic!?”

“Wild guess, I suppose,” I replied with a wink. Her expression remained unchanging and I smiled back before being approached by Rarity.

“Hello, Snow. My name is Rarity,” she announced. “It’s a pleasure.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Miss Rarity,” I said with a smile.

“Oh, a gentlecolt,” she replied, returning the smile, “But please, just Rarity will do.”

“Pfft, a gentlecolt? Him?” That was Rainbow Dash, being helpful.

“Aw come on Dashie, I can be whatever I wanna be,” I argued.

“Hey, you call her Dashie too!?” Pinkie gasped, “That’s so cool!”

“I know right!? Isn’t that cool, Dashie?” I asked Dashie with my copied ‘Pinkie Pie’ enthusiasm.

“Ahh!” she groaned as she looked down and closed her eyes, “I could handle one of you, but this is too much!”

Twilight suddenly voiced up, "If you’re not too busy, I think it might be a good idea to find out about the situation with Discord."

“Fine,” Pinkie and I simultaneously complied after a moment.

“Sorry, princesses,” Twilight apologized with a nod towards Celestia and Luna.

“Don’t worry,” Celestia reassured her.

About then is when I stopped paying attention. All Celestia was going to do was explain stuff to Twilight, all of which I should already know.

…I wondered what kind of music they have in Equestria. Maybe there was cool pony music. I should get my iPod later and show them a thing or two.

“… right, Snow?” Celestia asked, as if she were confirming something. My name was all I heard, so I had no idea what the question was. Well, everypony was staring at me, so I had to say something.

“Hey Celestia, is there any pony rap music?” I asked absentmindedly. The ponies looked confused for a moment. Celestia knew better though.

“You weren’t listening to me at all, were you?” she sighed.

“Uhh… no,” I confirmed as I lay down and rested my head on my front legs. Celestia soon turned back to them and started talking again. I got thinking about music and took out my fifth generation iPod Touch and a pair of black and red Studio Beats by Dr. Dre. It took a minute to get them on correctly, but they fit decently enough.

I hit shuffle, and it landed on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BMnXXrvcyA]a good song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BMnXXrvcyA) so I left it and closed my eyes again. I got almost halfway through the song, which was only about two minutes, before I started shaking violently. I immediately opened my eyes and looked up. All of the ponies were staring down at me with wide eyes and I was being shaken around by none other than Twilight’s magic. I immediately yanked off my headphones and stood up on my hooves, letting the headphones fall to the floor carelessly.

“What!? What do you want?” I asked, thinking that there better be a good reason for scaring the hell out of me while I was listening to One Republic.

“Are you alright? What are you doing?” Celestia asked urgently, glancing between me and my headphones that were lying on the ground.

“Well, I was relaxing,” I said with a glance at Twilight. “These are headphones, calm down,” I explained, lifting them into the air with one hoof.

Celestia looked perplexed still, but I didn’t feel like explaining anything at the time, so I picked up my stuff and shoved it back into my pocket.

“Hey, you learned how to put your things back,” Twilight observed. I suddenly realized that I had put my iPod back into my invisible pocket. I looked around to make sure that it was actually gone before looking back up at Twilight.

“Whoa, you’re right! I did put it back,” I realized cheerfully.

“Anyways, that’s about all that’s happened so far. Any questions…? Okay, good.” Celestia said as she cleared her throat in an unnecessary preparation. “Like I said, Discord didn’t take the elements, so we have the advantage. You six will need to stay in the castle for the time being, in close proximity to the elements, until Discord reveals himself. Then we’ll need to act quickly to stop him before anything gets out of control.”

“Right,” Twilight agreed. The rest of the mane six showed their approval by nodding with expressions of determination.

“Are we done yet?” I asked. Everypony’s look of determination deflated with that.

“Patience is a virtue,” Celestia told me sagely, looking down at me with a slight grin.

“Virtue is for wimps,” I replied, “And I am not a wimp.”

“Oh, really?” Luna asked sardonically, just before she created a spark of magic right in front of my face. I immediately let out a less than manly squeak before falling backwards on my ass. Everypony laughed at that, of course.

“Says the little colt,” Luna added, snickering along with the rest of them.

“Hey, I’m fifteen! A young stallion at least,” I argued from my sitting position on the floor, crossing my forelegs in a pout.

“Whoa!” Pinkie Pie suddenly gasped, “You’re only fifteen!?”

“Yeah, is it really that weird? How old are you?” I asked, a bit disheartened at everypony’s similar reactions.

“I’m twenty two years old!” she exclaimed. “And Twilight’s twenty two, Dashie’s twenty one, Fluttershy’s twenty two, Applejack’s twenty one, and Rarity’s twenty four!”

“Uh, thanks Pinkie… I think,” I replied, only slightly dumbfounded at her continuous hyperactivity.

“You’re welcome!” Okay, then.

I uncrossed my legs and stood up again, giving an ungrateful glance at Luna for knocking me to the floor in the first place.

“Really? Are you sure you’re not older than that?” Dashie asked.

“Unless changing into a pony skipped about five years of my life, yeah, I’m sure.”

“Oh, yeah. I brought this for you Snow,” Twilight said, simultaneously digging through her saddlebags with one hoof. Eventually, she pulled out my Motorola Droid X2 and levitated it in my direction, “You left it at my house.”

“Oh, I must’ve forgotten. Thanks, Twilight,” I said as I shoved my phone back in my pocket with my newfound ability.

“It’s no trouble to help out a friend,” she replied.

“Le gasp! Hey Celestia, I have friends!” I exclaimed.

“Of course you do,” she chuckled.

“This calls for a party!” Pinkie gasped.

Pinkie bounced away deeper into the castle before I could say anything on the matter.

Oh, wait, what? She was serious?

Oh, well. Yes! My first Pinkie Pie Party!

“Um, where is she going?” I asked confusedly.

“There’s a room in the castle for Pinkie Pie to throw parties,” Celestia explained.

“She’ll tell us when she’s ready,” Applejack added.

Wait, there’s a room just for Pinkie Pie parties? This must happen a lot if they felt the need to devote an entire room in the castle to such an event.

“Sweet, so how long is it gonna take?”

Twilight began to answer but was interrupted when Pinkie Pie stuck her head in through the door on the opposite side of the room.

“It’s all ready!” she announced. Everypony began walking towards her and abandoned my question.

“H-how did-… b-but-…”

“Don’t question it,” Dashie replied, “Just enjoy the party.”

I accepted her answer and followed most of the mares out of the room. The princesses and other castle staff stayed behind, obviously, due to the current situation. They weren't going to need me anyways, so why not enjoy a party?

It took a good five minutes to walk to the room where the party was set up, which was much longer than the time Pinkie Pie was gone in total. Again, I didn’t question it.

The room was already set up, and it looked like someone had worked on it for days. In addition, there were already several guests. Honestly, this seemed awesome at the time, but when I think back on it, it just creeps me out beyond comprehension.

Nothing was out of place, and there was even a bowl of punch on a table adjacent to the door. I promptly poured a cup of it and planted myself on a nearby couch, right in between Twilight and Rainbow Dash, who had motioned for me to come over.

“How is this even possible?” I asked as I sat down.

“Pinkie’s Law,” Rainbow Dash replied immediately before downing about half of her punch. I took a sip of my own. It tasted great, so I went ahead and drank the whole cup rather quickly.

“Huh?”

“It states that Pinkie Pie is exempt from all natural laws of physics, even if it’s completely illogical,” Twilight elaborated, “I came up with it a few months ago.”

“Seems legit.”

We continued to talk for a while, but it’s difficult for me to recall exactly what the subject was.

After that, I don’t remember too much. I would say it’s a blur, but I do remember fragments of that night.

I continued to converse with Twilight and Dashie before going off to do something else. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it involved Dashie and possibly Celestia.

Then it all went blank…

December 17, 2012

As I developed consciousness, everything was hurting. I was sore, I had a headache, and I think I pulled a few muscles. I tried to open my eyes, but before I even opened them all the way, I had to screw them shut again from a pain emanating from directly behind my eyes. I let out a dissatisfied groan as I shifted around a little and found that I was in a bed, which was generally good, and I was hugging a pillow.

I didn’t know if I was injured, sick, or what, so I just pulled the pillow closer and hugged it tighter. It was warm and soft, and its breathing was almost in sync with my own.

Wait a minute. That wasn’t a pillow. I sorely opened one eye and looked straight ahead. I’m pretty sure my heart skipped a beat or two when my vision was obscured with a blur of rainbow colored hair. It was the back of Dashie’s head, to be precise.

I promptly spazzed out and agonizingly flipped out of the bed, bringing most of the covers and Rainbow Dash along with me. She landed on top of me with a thud before the sheets and blankets fell and covered us both. She groaned a little as she came to and began to open her eyes.

Before Rainbow Dash could become aware of her surroundings, however, the door was opened and in came Silvermane.

She stopped and stared at the pile on the floor that consisted of me, Dashie, and all of the bed’s covers.

“S-Snow?” Silvermane asked a bit hesitantly. I responded by staring at her helplessly, “What are you doing in my room?” she asked worriedly.

“Sss… Snow? Are you still there?” Dashie suddenly asked, sounding sleepy and dazed.

Silvermane mouthed the words ‘What’s happening?’ with an urgent expression. I mouthed back ‘I don’t know’ with a helpless shrug before replying to Dashie.

“Uh, y-yeah. I’m still here.”

She hummed and smiled, hugging my waist with her eyes still closed. Silvermane maintained an anxious poker face as she slowly backed out of the door, shutting it without a noise.

Well, this was bucking great... Dashie shifted a little to get even closer to me and my cheeks were hotter than they’ve ever been before. My wings began to extend on their own accord, so I suppose that wing boner thing was actually true.

I hope what looked like had happened hadn’t actually happened, because I’m fairly certain that committing such an act with a pony would earn me a ticket straight to hell.

The only thing now was to wait until she realized that we were on the floor, and then I had to figure out exactly what had happened last night. Whatever it was, I’m sure it involved either drugs or alcohol that I was certainly unaware of.

Chapter 6 - The Morning After And A Trip To Baltimare

December 17, 2012

“The punch was spiked!?” Twilight cried from the inside of the throne room.

Oh, that made sense. I had suspected that alcohol was the culprit behind this madness anyways. Rainbow Dash and I were just about to walk into the room, and we had decided tell them everything that had happened.

I had already vomited twice, which didn't seem to do too much.

“Of course it was, Silly!” Pinkie Pie replied happily to Twilight.

Anyways, according to Rainbow Dash, we hadn’t done anything very serious and must’ve past out from the alcohol. Well, this was generally an awful experience.

Although, she did mention that we probably would have if I hadn’t passed out from the alcohol.

“Snow is only fifteen years old, and he had a lot of it,” Twilight remembered, “And you heard what Silvermane said she found in her room.”

Well, now seemed like a good of time as any to enter, so I opened the door and walked in first, Rainbow Dash following close behind. I still refused to open my eyes all the way, and so I kept them uncomfortably squinted.

My mane was a complete disaster too, so I probably looked borderline ill. But that’s okay, because Rainbow Dash did too, although I admit she wasn’t nearly as bad as I was.

My coat was matted down as well, and I saw that the bones in my hips and my ribs showed rather noticeably from my sides.

“Good morning, Snow,” Celestia said cautiously. My ears twitched unpleasantly as I walked up to the group of ponies near Celestia’s throne.

I took note of the way the ponies looked that morning. Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and I all looked about the same (myself to a heightened degree), and the rest looked the same as usual. Celestia and Luna looked like they had been vigilant all night, which would make sense because of the current instability in the situation with Discord.

Silvermane looked just plain tired, but not like she had a rough night or anything. I replied to Celestia with a groan before sitting down and staring at her.

“We didn’t have sex,” Rainbow Dash said after a brief pause. “I think…”

Welp, that was reassuring. I had never done anything like that before, so I was definitely vouching for anything that did not involve sex with a pony. I wouldn’t have even known what the hell I was doing.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure nothing too bad happened,” Rainbow Dash said after she thought for another moment. Celestia seemed slightly more at ease, but wasn’t quite content.

“Silvermane, did you have anything to do with this?” Celestia asked un-menacingly, turning to look down at Silvermane. She looked tired and lost in a daze, but she instantly snapped back to reality as the princess addressed her.

“Absolutely not, your majesty,” she replied instantly with a bow, “They must’ve snuck in after I left for the night shift.”

“Then you are excused,” Celestia granted. Silvermane thanked her with a nod before trotting back to her quarters for rest.

“Have you ever ingested this much alcohol before?” Celestia asked softly with obvious concern.

“No.”

“I’m glad to see that you’re okay, then,” she said. Okay? Do I look okay to you, Celestia?

“Well, better than you could be, I suppose,” she corrected herself with a humorless chuckle, “Can I please talk with Snow and Rainbow Dash for a moment?” she asked.

The rest of the ponies followed Luna out of the throne room and into the hallway.

“Oh, and Twilight,” Celestia called. Twilight turned her head back just before leaving, “You stay too.” Twilight nodded and walked back towards us.

“Yes, princess?” Twilight questioned.

“Do you know anything about this… incident that may help?” she asked as I began fixing my mane.

“All I saw was Rainbow Dash talking with Snow… a lot, and then she said she needed help with something and they both left,” she replied. I turned my head to Rainbow Dash and she looked down and blushed.

“Alright then. Can you wait with the others for a moment?”

Twilight complied and hurriedly left the room, leaving me and Rainbow Dash to stand awkwardly in front of Celestia’s throne.

“Rainbow Dash, you say that you don’t think much happened, and I trust you. I also realize that you may not have been in a right state of mind. As for you,” she began thoughtfully, turning in my direction, “It wasn’t your fault for drinking the punch. None of us knew it contained alcohol, but you are too young for this kind of behavior, and I don’t want to have to deal with you getting some mare pregnant,” she said sternly.

Well, that escalated quickly.

“What!? I-I don’t even-…!” I cried, hurting my own head because of my headache, "I'm fifteen year-..." I suddenly felt the sensation of vomiting again and immediately stopped talking.

“Yes, I understand you didn’t do it on purpose,” Celestia interrupted. At that point, I had no choice but to sit there and take it, “Do not argue, just do as you are told,” she warned irritably.

I shied away from her a little but she continued to glare at me. Eventually she dismissed us, and we walked out of the throne room.

Rainbow Dash joined Applejack and Fluttershy, with whom she talked about something I couldn’t hear. I stood uncomfortably a few yards away, listening to their conversations, until Twilight approached me.

“Are you okay, Snow?” she asked worriedly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think I’m gonna go throw up,” I decided, turning and galloping away to the nearest bathroom.

Well, these past few days could have been a little better. I decided not to ponder on it too long and went back up to Celestia’s room to sleep on the purple cushion, as I never found where my room was.

I slept rather peacefully; I dreamt of ponies. It wasn’t long before I woke again though.

I had yet to find a clock that wasn’t on a giant tower in the center of town, so I was stuck with using the sun for reference. Judging by its position, it was about noon.

I felt a little better than I did this morning, considering my migraine had degraded to a minor headache. It was my first time being drunk and I had no idea what was going on. I’m just glad I didn’t manage to make a dumbass of myself one way or another.

From that point on, I decided that I was going to try to act my age. Actually, on second thought, I might want to make my goals reasonable. Maybe I’ll act half my age. No, that’s not good enough. Ten years old, maybe? Yeah, acting ten sounds good. That’s probably a step up, right?

With my newly devised goal of acting two thirds my age, I left Celestia’s room and headed back to the throne room. As I left, however, I met a familiar pony just outside the door.

“Oh, um… hey, Rainbow Dash,” I said softly.

“Hey Snow… the princess said I might find you here,” she replied, anxiously shuffling one of her hooves. “I just wanted to apologize about last night,” she continued.

…

Rainbow Dash just… apologized…?

…

“Ahh, it’s a changeling! Quick, kill it! Kill it with fire!” I hissed, backing away from her with both of my wings flared up in front of me in a defensive stance.

“What, me!? N-no, I’m not a changeling!” she hollered back.

I thought about it for a moment and realized how ridiculous that sounded. And I had to start acting better, so I retracted my wings and stepped up to her again.

“Oh, sorry,” I muttered. She looked half confused, half worried, but she continued anyways.

“Well, anyways, I’m sorry for… possibly taking advantage of you when you had no idea what was happening,” she suddenly spat out in one breath.

“O-okay,” I replied, “You’re, um… forgiven?”

“Great!” she replied mirthfully before hugging me. She didn’t seem to think much of the hug, but when she saw my blush and nervousness, she blushed as well and then cleared her throat.

“Uh, thanks,” she said, “I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“See ya,” I replied as I turned the other way to head back to the throne room.

I’ll admit, that was a little awkward, but at least we talked about it. Otherwise, it would have probably been really weird between us for a really long time. I looked over my shoulder and saw Rainbow Dash staring at me as I left. She didn’t look away and I held eye contact until I was forced to break it. And by ‘forced’, I mean I ran into a wall.

I wasn’t looking where I was walking, and so I ran into the wall at the end of the hallway. At least I hit one of the tapestries, because they were a little softer than the bare wall, but it didn’t help cushion the blow to my self-esteem. Rainbow Dash stifled a giggle and I quickly shuffled down the nearby staircase, eager to get away from the humiliating situation.

Smooth, buddy.

With my ego decimated, I made my way back to the throne room. When I got there, Celestia was busy conversing with who I recognized as the Salt’s once again. I took a spot next to the throne and stared off idly.

“With the value of salt depreciating at this rate, I’m sure you can understand our concern,” one of the salt ponies pleaded.

Meh, boring.

Why couldn’t this trip to Equestria be all fun and games, like a lot of the fan fiction I had read? I’ve never seen anything suggestive or provocative in the television show either, and yet I managed to almost sleep with one of the mane six in less than two weeks after I arrived here. It definitely unnerved me for a little while.

Eventually, back in the real world (Equestria), the two ponies departed and I was left with Celestia.

“Sorry…” I muttered after a few moments of silence. She sighed and looked down at me.

“It wasn’t your fault. Just try not to let it happen again.” I looked back down and nodded, trying to think of something else.

My mind began to wander and I wondered what would happen when and if Discord decided to show himself. With the way it’s been going, I would say he may not show himself at all. Maybe he just wanted to escape and run away.

“Have you ever met Discord, Celestia?” I asked as I looked back up at her. She was still looking at me. She looked a bit surprised, but that quickly faded.

“Well, sure. He was free not long ago.”

“Yeah, I know that. But did you ever talk to him? I mean… have a proper conversation with him,” I clarified, looking away and shrugging.

“I can’t say that I have. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering what kind of person, er, draconequus he is.”

“Not a very good one,” she muttered dryly, obviously not very open-minded about it.

“How do you know?” I asked with a little bit more assertiveness than I meant to. This really called her attention, “I mean, he didn’t physically harm anypony last time he escaped. And chocolate rain (~some stay dry, and others feel the pain~) sounds pretty awesome, if you ask me. I know Pinkie Pie enjoyed it.”

“Snow, I promise you, he is bad. Regardless of whether Pinkie Pie enjoyed herself during his reign or not, Discord does not care for the wellbeing of others, and he manipulates ponies only to benefit himself and reach his own selfish desires. When he’s free, the stability of all of Equestria is at risk,” she replied adamantly. I figured she knew better than I did, so I didn’t argue.

“Oh… so do you think he’s actually going to reveal himself? Or is it possible that he’s run away this time?” I asked thoughtfully.

“He’s not the type to run away,” she stated simply. I started to get bored, so I decided I was going to look around for any of the mane six for something to do. I said farewell to Celestia as I walked out the door.

I had no idea where any of the mane six were staying, and I didn’t even know if they were in the castle at the moment.

But I took my chances anyways, and it wasn’t long before I ran into Twilight Sparkle… literally… and she dropped her books.

“Snow!”

“My bad, I’m sorry,” I apologized before I picked her books up for her. There were at least twenty of them, varying in size. After I stacked all of them, she picked them up with her magic and placed them on her back. I don’t know how they stayed balanced, but she seemed pretty good at handling them.

“What’s up?” she asked once everything was situated.

“Not much, I was feeling kind of bored actually. You need help with anything?”

“Well, if you’re bored, I could probably find a use for you…” she mused, “I was on my way to back to my room to do some studying. Learning a few things about Equestria would do you some good.”

“Yay learning,” I replied in a dead tone, earning a chuckle and an eye roll from Twilight. I followed her a short distance back to her room. Twilight’s looked almost identical to Silvermane’s. Standard issue, I guess.

“Can you read off this list to make sure I have all the books I need?” she asked, spreading the books out onto her bed and levitating a small piece of paper in my direction.

“Uh… no,” I replied as I brought one hoof up to grab the paper and hold it in front of my face.

“Very funny, just start at the top and go down the list,” she instructed. Easier said than done, in my case.

“I… umm, er…”

“What are you doing, Snow?” she looked over her shoulder at me after giving me at least ten seconds to start.

“I wasn’t kidding. I can’t read.” Her expression was a mix of bewilderment and concern.

“Sorry,” I muttered as she took the paper back with her magic.

“No, it’s… it’s fine,” she responded. She looked at the list for herself, taking much longer than she would have if she had another pony to help her out.

“Actually, I think I can help you,” she said once she finished going through each book, “I’ll probably have a while to look at these books, so I can teach you a little if you want,” she offered.

“Really? Are you sure?” I asked cautiously.

“Yes, of course. Come here,” she directed as she walked towards her bed. I was used to sitting on everypony’s bed, so at that point, it wasn’t weird anymore. And thus began my first lesson in reading.

This was going to be a piece of cake!

Damn, this was hard to learn.

Apparently, the language was half phonetic, half logographic, which was confusing as hell. That also meant more memorizing symbols than just knowing patterns and sounds. The lesson lasted about two hours, and so far I could write very few words, including my own name. The lesson ended only when there was a knock on the door.

“Get off the books Egghead, you’ll be late for dinner,” a familiar voice called from the hallway.

“Food!” I exclaimed, standing up on the bed and attempting to turn around. I say attempting because I tripped up on my own hoof and fell off of the bed with a crash. I didn’t land on anything too breakable, but it still hurt a lot.

“Whoa! You alright, Twi?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Get up, Snow,” Twilight said with a sigh.

I’m fine by the way. Thanks for asking, Twilight. Oh, and thanks for helping me up too.

I lifted myself up with a groan and opened the door.

“Oh, hey Snow,” Rainbow Dash responded instantly, “I didn’t know you were in there.”

“Yup. I can write my name now,” I said, moving out of the doorway to make room for Twilight.

“Huh?” she said confusedly.

“Twilight’s teaching my how to read,” I clarified, “It’s harder than I thought it would be. It’s different from any language I can already read.”

“What other languages are there?” Rainbow Dash asked confusedly, “Besides, ya know… Equestrian.”

I shot Twilight an inquisitive glance. She yielded no answers, so I turned back to Rainbow Dash.

“Wait, just how big is Equestria?”

“The recent census report told just over four million residents,” Twilight remembered.

“So, everypony is united under one language?”

“Not just one,” Twilight answered, “Equestrian is by far the most prevalent, but some groups of griffins have their own language, as well the crystal ponies, but Princess Cadence is the only one around here that knows any.”

“That means Earth is considerably larger. We have about seven billion people,” I told them.

“Seven million humans? Earth must be pretty big,” Twilight contemplated. Rainbow Dash was just listening for the most part, “How many languages do they have?”

“Frist of all, it’s seven billion, with a B. Actually, never mind. The letter B won’t make any sense to you. But yeah, it’s a seven with nine zeros.” The collective pony jaw was then dropped, “And as for languages, I would guess there’s probably a few thousand, and I can speak two of them.”

Twilight remained silent. She was still gawking over the world ‘billion,’ apparently.

“So… food?”

“Totally,” Rainbow Dash agreed. I followed Rainbow Dash down the hallway towards the dining hall.

“B-but…! Questions!” Twilight yelled as she trailed after us.

“Maybe later, Twilight.”

“Whoa, what’s all this?” I asked confusedly as I looked at the long table.

There was a full, colorful spread of different foods.

None of it was meat, but it looked moderately appetizing, and I was hungry enough to eat a horse. Literally.

I bet Pinkie Pie would taste sweet.

“It’s… food,” Twilight replied.

“This is for us?” I asked, just to be sure.

“No, I led you here so you could stare at it,” Rainbow Dash replied. I responded by walking up to a nearby salad and staring at it from a couple inches away.

Pinkie Pie then burst through the door, followed by Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Princess Luna.

“Let’s eat, everypony!” Pinkie exclaimed.

Dinner wasn’t too exciting. I wasn’t a big fan of having my entire diet replaced with fruits and vegetables, so I didn’t eat much. After about ten bites, I just kind of shoved a piece of lettuce around with my fork.

“You’re not gonna get any less skinny doing that, Snow,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight reprimanded, nudging her with a hoof.

"What? It's true," replied Dashie.

“It’s fine, Twilight. I am way too skinny. This isn’t my normal diet,” I responded, looking over the colorful display of vegetables distastefully.

It’s not that I don’t like vegetables, but they’re the only thing I’ve eaten since I got here, and I’m not a fan of veganism.

“What do ya mean?” Applejack asked incredulously, “Everything you could want is right here!”

“Well, I’m just used to a little more meat, I guess.”

A silence quickly engulfed the room, and the only sound was a few ponies setting their utensils onto their plates with a clang, only to look up and stare at me. Oh yeah… I forgot. Meat wasn’t exactly ‘popular’ in Equestria.

“Oh, right…” I said sheepishly.

“Well, you d-do have sharp teeth,” Fluttershy remembered. Oh no, was I making Fluttershy uncomfortable?

“On second thought, I’m fine. Sorry about that,” I apologized softly, quickly eating the piece of lettuce that was already stabbed by my fork.

“It’s alright,” Twilight replied timidly, “We shouldn’t judge other ponies because of their cannibalistic tendencies.”

What

“Cannibalistic!?” I cried, “Where’d you get that idea from!?”

“I... I thought-!”

“No! Humans don’t eat other humans! Well, most of them don’t… Anyways, the only meat I eat is that of non-sentient creatures,” I explained.

“W-what are some non-sentient creatures on earth?” Fluttershy asked worriedly.

“Actually, ponies are non-sentient on my planet.”

“You eat ponies!?” Rainbow Dash cried. Her and Twilight stood up out of their chairs and backed away from me.

Okay brain, way to pick the worst possible example.

“I don’t eat ponies!” I yelled back, “That was just an example! No one eats ponies! Well, most people don’t, I guess…” I continued right before I was interrupted by something much more important.

Celestia came quickly through the door with a couple of guards.

“Discord’s in Baltimare,” she announced urgently.

“Hehe… Baltimare. Where’s that, in mare-yland?”

Oh, I crack me up…

“We need to get you all and the elements there as quickly as possible,” she declared.

This was a good of time as any to go Discord hunting, I suppose. Well, it could have been before the cannibalism accusations. Actually, this was an awful time. Oh, well…

I had successfully been able to explain the eating habits of humans to the ponies in a way that didn’t freak them out or scare them.

It’s actually much harder than it sounds.

It involved a lot of lying. I felt bad, but I think I’d feel worse if I hadn’t.

Anyways, it’s been only a few minutes riding in the chariot. Celestia explained what the plan was to everypony. The first step was to get to Baltimare, of course. Unfortunately, it was about two hours away via sleigh chariot thing, and this was the fastest mode of transportation in Equestria, according to Twilight. Apparently trains were very slow here. So we had a little less than two hours left until we reached our destination.

In my chariot were the mane six, the two princesses, and Silvermane. That’s a pretty good group, if you ask me. Anyways, the next step in the plan was to find Discord.

The plan seemed rather simple, but with the infinite amount of unknown variables, we couldn’t plan much else. I assumed that after we had found him, we would just blast him with a rainbow or something, like the elements did last time.

I sat near the edge of the chariot, looking out the side as the wind stung my eyes and my blonde mane was blown backwards. It really didn’t seem like we were going that fast. Maybe fifty or sixty miles per hour at best, but then again, I didn’t really expect the Equestrians to have airplanes going six hundred miles per hour either.

I probably laid there for a good twenty minutes, with my head rested on my forelegs like a dog, pondering anything that happened to jump into my mind, until I heard somepony approach from the side.

I turned my head a little and saw Rainbow Dash lying down beside me out of the corner of my eye. She said nothing but sighed and stared off into the distance, like I had been a few minutes ago. I turned my head back before she spoke.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Dashie,” I replied. Rainbow Dash exhaled mirthfully.

“Are you, uh, nervous at all?” she asked hopefully.

“Not really,” I answered. She looked a bit deflated, “Are you?”

“N-no!” she immediately defended, “I… I mean, maybe a little,” she admitted in a hushed tone.

“Don’t worry about it. You turned him into a statue once, and you can do it again,” I assured her.

“What are we whispering about?” Pinkie Pie suddenly chimed in, bounding up to us from behind. Rainbow Dash and I both turned our heads to look at her. Her exclamation had also gathered the attention of everypony else in the chariot.

“Nothing Pinkie, go away,” Rainbow Dash replied calmly. There was an awkward pause for a moment while Pinkie Pie stared at us.

“Okie Dokie Lokie!” she replied before trotting away.

Welp, that was awkward and pointless.

“Discord gave us a free shot last time, but he probably won’t be so careless this time,” Rainbow Dash whispered back to me.

Why was she telling me about this?

“You’ll find a way,” I told her.

I would help too, of course… unless I found out that Discord wasn't all that bad and he just wanted to be left alone. Only then would I be a little hesitant to turn him back into stone.

“I’ll probably be helping too,” I reminded her.

“Good,” she replied weakly.

There was another silence between us as I stared off into the distance again. After a little while, Rainbow Dash shifted a little closer to me. What the hell is she doing? I guess I was a little distressed as well because I didn’t do anything to counter it.

I hadn’t even realized that I had dozed off, but I woke with a start about an hour and a half later with a pink demon yelling at me.

“Wake up Sleepyheads, we’re almost in Baltimare!” it exclaimed mere inches from my face

My eyes instantly snapped open, assuming the world was coming to an end at the hands of Discord.

Oh, my mistake, it was just Pinkie Pie. My sense of urgency faded and I relaxed again, shifting into a more comfortable position.

It was only when I shifted that I felt Rainbow Dash leaning up against me, tiredly murmuring. I blushed and quickly stood up.

“Aww, you’re so cute when you blush!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, eliciting a chuckle from Princess Celestia, who was sitting nearby. She then stood up and made her way over to us.

“I think he’s had enough teasing for one day,” she said. Bless her she saved me.

Unexpectedly, however, we suddenly passed through a bubble of some sort. Specifically, we passed through a ‘membrane,’ as Twilight calls it now, and into a ‘chaos bubble’.

The city of Baltimare looked no different from the outside, but as soon as we passed through the membrane, everything basically flipped upside down. The sky was pink with the mass of cotton candy clouds that rained chocolate milk onto the ground, which was composed of rolling hills of a ceramic floor with alternating colored tiles. There was no evident pattern, of course. It was all random and chaotic.

“We’ll be at the heart of the city in about five minutes,” Celestia declared, successfully drawing everypony’s attention, “We’ll need to split up once we get there. We’ll go in groups of two: Applejack and Luna, Rainbow Dash and Snow, Twilight and Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity, and Silvermane will be with me.” Celestia listed off the groups, pointing at each pair, respectively.

“Actually, Snow, you switch with Silvermane. That leaves Silvermane with Rainbow Dash, and then Snow and myself as the last group. Does everypony understand?”

There was a unanimous “Yes, Princess,” from each of the mane six. I trailed after them with the last syllable of ‘princess,’ hoping to blend in. It didn’t work too well with my voice being the only masculine one.

“We’ll branch off into five directions, since there are five groups, and search for Discord. The first group to find him should get the attention of everypony else. With the groups I’ve placed you in, you should have no trouble doing so.” she continued.

The chariot was parked under a tree to shield us from the raining chocolate milk. It was useless, however, because the tree proceeded to stand up and walk away a few moments after we slid under its canopy. All the more reason to get moving, I suppose.

“Each of you needs to take your own element and get going,” she instructed as she opened the case to reveal the elements of harmony.

I made a mental note to ask Celestia later why the elements are in the shape of jewelry, and not something a bit more practical.

I stood next to Celestia as she made sure everypony else had departed before we went on our way. She ordered the two guards pulling the chariot to remain with it and protect it while we were gone.

“Where exactly are we going?” I asked as we headed out towards the city.

The chocolate milk soaked through and darkened both my and Celestia’s white coats.

“We’ll just search through the city until us or a different group manages to find Discord.”

“Sounds good,” I said as we carefully made our way over the hills of slippery tile until we reached what appeared to be the inner city. It looked very similar to a normal city in the United States, minus the graffiti, grime, and other general uncleanliness.

Pathways randomly shifted and broke, cracking and crumbling with each movement. This made it harder to navigate between the buildings, especially when going up a staircase means there’s a fifty percent chance of ending up at a lower elevation than where you began.

The entropy seemed to increase as we went on; although, much of the changing of the ground below us was avoided with our wings. I almost crashed into Celestia a couple times, and she managed to catch me once or twice.

“I think it’s getting even worse,” I called to her over the noise of the splattering milk and the shifting earth.

“You’re right,” she replied, not taking the time to look back over her shoulder.

Suddenly, the ground beneath us stabilized and ceased moving. The chocolate milk rain also cleared, but this normalcy was only occurring in about a fifteen foot radius of us, as if we were in a small haven from the chaos.

“It’s good to see you again, Princess,” a rasping voice called from no place in particular. “And I see you’ve brought our friend, the human.”

I scooted closer to Celestia at the mention of me.

“Discord! Show yourself!” Celestia demanded. Discord let out a pleasant chuckle in return.

“As you wish…” he sinisterly agreed before appearing just about ten feet in front of us.

Celestia’s horn lit up brightly and shot a beam of golden light high into the air. It crackled like thunder as it collided with the pink clouds, sending a very noticeable shockwave of color across the sky, which continued to linger.

I visibly flinched as I noticed Discord. His appearance was identical to that in my dream, with no detail left out. Although, he was wearing a strange silver necklace, with an amulet in the shape of an eight pointed star dangling from it. He noticed me flinch and laughed heartily as he looked down at me.

“Remember me, Snow? Isn’t that what you’re calling yourself now, Samuel? How creative,” he smiled.

At least I know now that he had something to do with my presence in Equestria. I’m not sure whether that’s a bad thing or not.

“Yeah, I do remember! And your little puppet prophecy thing was wrong!” I declared, taking a few bold steps towards him.

“Oh, but my little human, you have not waited long enough. It will happen in due time,” he replied maniacally.

I caught a glimpse of an indigo alicorn out of the corner of my eye and turned my attention towards it. I remained silent as I watched other ponies make their way to the small safe area. First was Applejack, being carried through the sky by Luna, and then came Twilight with Fluttershy, and soon the rest came as well. Discord watched amusedly as we gathered in a tight group, a few of us (everypony but me) glaring daggers at him. I was a bit indecisive at the moment.

“You ready to show him the power of friendship one last time, girls?” Twilight asked with a determined stare. Discord never dropped his humorous air, apparently amused by all of this. The mane six fashioned some sort of formation, with Twilight in the front, and they began to collectively glow. Honestly, it was kind of weird.

Twilight’s eyes glowing white looked creepier than it did friendshipfull. Celestia and Luna looked a bit anxious, like they were worried of the outcome, and Silvermane’s expression reflected my own thoughts.

Discord yawned and looked generally bored while Twilight and the other elements shot a massive rainbow of energy into the sky. It ran high up into the air before making a U-turn and heading straight for Discord. It looked like it was about to demolish him completely, but when it was only a few feet from him, his chaos necklace shined a bright, blood-red color.

The rainbow suddenly broke apart into six monochromatic beams, each of which silently dissipated upon contact with the ground.

Twilight was the first to look up at the completely unaffected Discord, her mouth agape. The others reacted similarly and Discord added his maniacal laughter into the mix.

“You see this?” he asked with a knowing smile, lifting the amulet with his talon, “I call it the disharmony necklace. It’ll break apart any type of friendship or harmony you throw at me. It repulses it like the opposite end of a magnet.”

My only response was to stand there silently, waiting for discord to make the next move, because apparently, we didn’t have a backup plan. Way to be prepared, Celestia.

“Anyways, now that you’ve cooled off a little bit, I have an offer for you. Specifically for Snow,” he began, turning everypony’s attention towards me.

“How about you come over to my side, and enjoy this lovely chaos I’ve created?” he offered.

“Why would I do that?” I asked nonchalantly, knowing that he had to have prepared to offer me something if he expected me to actually join him.

“I glad you asked, my little human! I’ve got plenty to offer,” he said with a devilish smile, “How about a way back to Earth?”

I took a brief pause after he said this, staring straight back into his demented eyes. I flicked my eyes around for a moment and saw the very worried glances of the ponies around me. Oh Lord, this was difficult. Well, no matter what I chose, I was going to need some proof.

“Prove it,” I replied sternly, trying to stay as expressionless as possible.

“Hmm… here we go,” he said as he held out the palm of his lion’s paw. A hologram-like, three-dimensional image was projected out of it and onto the empty space above. The image was of earth, apparently seen from outer space.

“This is Earth, is it not?” he asked. I immediately recognized the continents and bodies of water on the spherical form.

“It is,” I replied quietly, intently staring at the image. It suddenly changed into an image of my own home from the front.

“And this is your house, correct?”

“It… it is,” I confirmed, marveling at the familiar sight.

“Also, you seem a little malnourished,” he observed. “How does a nice steak dinner sound?”

Discord pulled a large, white plate with a huge ribeye steak right in the center of it. I don’t know how, but I could smell it clearly from a fairly long distance. The other ponies were obviously repulsed by both the sight and the smell of the meat.

My mouth watered rampantly and I felt the sharp points of my teeth with my tongue, making the offer that much more tempting.

I tried to regain a little control and stopped to look around at the ponies surrounding me. They looked to be in a mixture of mortification and apprehension.

“Is he gonna take the offer?” I heard Pinkie Pie mutter before being shushed by Twilight.

“No,” I said, looking up at Discord again. “I… I can’t.”

“What?” Discord asked disbelievingly, suddenly losing his playful attitude, “Come on, you want it, do you not?”

“I do, very badly,” I replied.

“So, what’s you decision…?” he asked looking down at me. He looked like he was ready to obliterate me if I said something wrong.

“I don’t accept,” I repeated hoarsely, earning a couple smiles and sighs of relief from the ponies.

“What do you mean!?” he demanded angrily, “I reasoned that an average human would accept this offer without a second thought! What’s your game, human?” he seethed, approaching me quickly. The ponies parted to give him a clear path (thanks a lot you guys) and I had no choice but to stand my ground.

“Well, I guess I’m not particularly average,” I replied sheepishly.

“No… you’re not…” he agreed solemnly, his face now mere inches from my own. He scrutinized me for several second, scaring the living hell out of me, before he backed away a little.

“Bah!” he cried out, “You’re worthless!” Discord swung at me with his arm and I reared up, putting my wings up in defense.

The initial contact didn’t hurt at all, but his blow had enough force to knock me back a few feet, and my head and back collided with a cement wall, left over from a ruined building.

I heard a few feminine voices call out my name and I forced my eyes open a little. Everything looked hazy, but I soon saw Discord disappear into nothingness and the chaos began around us again.

I felt myself being slung over somepony’s shoulder like a ragdoll after I closed my eyes again. A few moments later, I was dragged into unconsciousness.

Chapter 7 - Life Lessons

December 17, 2012

I shifted around a little in the darkness. I felt a hard surface below me and heard breathing of another pony close by. I opened my eyes painfully and shifted again. A sharp pain in my lower back manifested itself in an unpleasant way as I did. I took a sharp intake of breath.

I mumbled unintelligibly as I managed to lift my head up and saw a blue figure sitting in front of me. The magenta eyes gave away her identity before my field of vision widened and I saw the rest of her. I heard a voice to my side when I put my legs under me to make my position more comfortable.

“Are you awake, Snow?” Fluttershy asked softly. She was lying near me. My eyes were almost opened all the way and my sense of touch came back fully a couple moments later. I could tell that we were still in the chariot. Hopefully, we were safely on our way back to the castle.

“Yeah,” I replied weakly, “Where’s Discord?”

“He’s gone for now,” Celestia replied immediately. She was lying just on my other side, “Are you feeling alright?”

“I… I think so,” I muttered.

“Good,” Celestia replied delicately, “You were really brave back there,” she reminded me. The rest of the mane six nodded their heads in agreement.

“Uh, thanks,” I replied, closing my eyes and sighing as I remembered my irrevocable decision to decline Discord’s offer, “Will we be back to Canterlot soon?” I asked, looking up again.

“We’ve got about an hour left,” Celestia replied.

“Ugh… why don’t we have anything that goes faster than fifty miles per hour?” I whined, “We could get back in like ten minutes going five hundred.”

“Well, I’m sorry we don’t have anything faster than this,” Celestia chuckled. That was shortly followed by Dashie noticeably clearing her throat.

“Sorry… Miss Rainbow Dash,” Celestia deadpanned. Apparently, Dashie didn’t notice the insincerity of the comment and swelled with pride. Oh, well. I wasn’t going to ruin it for her. Instead, I tried to stand up.

It was shaky at first, and as I stood higher, a sharp pain came in my lower back and washed over me again. I immediately flopped back down with a noise of general discomfort. Discord was definitely not my favorite villain anymore. Congratulations, Nightmare Moon, you’ve been promoted.

“Be c-careful!” Fluttershy warned, rushing to my side, “You should rest,” she advised as she began stroking my mane.

“He’s not one of your wounded animals, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said irritably.

“Oh, s-sorry Snow,” she apologized, removing her hoof. That actually felt good, but I guess I didn’t really want to be seen as being treated like a ‘wounded animal,’ as Rainbow Dash so graciously put it.

“I’ll just go back to sleep,” I said dejectedly, resting my head on my front legs again.

“N-no,” Fluttershy said softly but urgently, “We should keep you awake in case you have a concussion or other head trauma. I… I mean, if th-that’s okay with you,” she added at the end with a squeak.

“No, Fluttershy. No it’s not. I’m going to sleep,” I repeated, closing my eyes for a second.

“Snow,” Celestia warned.

“Ugh… fine. Hey Twilight, you busy?” I asked as most of the mares broke up into smaller groups and talked amongst themselves.

“Uh, I guess not. Do you need something?” she asked, turning from her most recent conversational partner. She slowly trotted in my direction.

“I was just wondering if you would mind… maybe giving me another lesson,” I said softly, somewhat embarrassed.

“Of course,” she replied softly with a smile. Thank God these ponies are so nice.

I learned more about how to read during the remainder of the flight home. Fluttershy helped as well. Her patience was unbelievable and she made for a very good teacher, even if she didn’t understand many of the complicated concepts that Twilight did. Together, they did a pretty good job of helping me.

Already speaking a language fluently really helps when learning to read it, but because of the way this language worked, being part phonetic and part logographic, this was going to take some time.

For example, my name makes perfect sense. I just put together the characters that make up the sounds in my name, and cupcakes! There’s my name! However, in the word ‘hello,’ there is only one character. It makes no sound on its own, it just means ‘hello’. Spelling the word out phonetically would make no sense. I had no idea if they found this to be practical or not, but it made absolutely no sense to me.

Anyways, I made decent progress, and I think I managed to make better friends with Fluttershy in the process. Overall, it was a good experience.

Eventually, we arrived back at the castle. It was probably about eleven o’clock at night. Applejack and Dashie helped me out of the chariot, and I began to walk on my own again, slowly.

“I thought you’d have some sort of healing magic, Celestia,” I said as we walked back towards the throne room together.

“I do,” she said soberly. Most of the other ponies’ gazes shifted away from me, “I already did all I could. You were… in pretty horrible condition after discord hit you. I healed you as much as I could, and you should feel better soon,” Celestia promised.

I silently continued to walk with a new sense of fear embedded into my heart.

December 18, 2012

It was fairly late by the time we got back that night, so I went straight to Celestia’s room for some rest.

Again, by the time I woke, Celestia was still asleep. My back barely hurt at all this morning, which was good. I noticed quickly just how efficient Celestia’s healing magic was.

Also, I had figured out by now that Luna and Celestia take turns staying up late and waking up early to be present in the throne room. So since Celestia stayed up late last night, she got to sleep in today. I decided to try to entertain myself until she woke, because I was afraid of running around in the castle without her to bail me out of any sort of trouble.

Anyways, some part of my brain deemed it a good idea to go try on Celestia’s regalia. The massive golden jewelry on the table next to Celestia’s bed was difficult to ignore, so next thing I knew, I was putting my head through what could most accurately be called a golden horse collar with a purple gem in the center-bottom.

Just some FYI: gold is very heavy. I don’t know why I continued to drag it off of the table once I had it around my neck, but as soon as the table wasn’t supporting it, my body had no chance of holding it up. The collar plummeted to the floor as if there wasn’t even a pony’s neck inside of it, and it brought me down just as fast.

Luckily, I kept my face from hitting the floor as it usually does, but I was still stuck in it. This was generally just an awful idea. I don’t know how I decided that that this was an acceptable thing to do while waiting.

Well, at least it shortened my wait by waking up Celestia with the thud it made when hitting the floor. She urgently peered over the side of the bed and stared at me silently for a few moments.

I looked back up at her the best I could from my awkward position on the floor, with my neck stuck through a heavy loop on the ground. Luckily for me, ponies have pretty muscular necks, so I was still able to breathe fairly easily.

After looking at each other for a couple seconds, she rolled over and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder.

“Celestia?”

“Yes, Snow?” she asked politely, still turned away from me.

“Umm… do you think you could help me? I’m stuck and-…”

“Give me a few more minutes,” she cut me off tiredly before growing silent again.

I had no option but to yield, and so I waited about ten minutes on the floor, with my body squished uncomfortably onto the floor.

I tried in vain to free myself from the golden death trap, but I eventually had to wait for Celestia to slowly roll out of bed (and I swear she was trying to draw it out as long as possible) and use her magic to free me. However, this freedom didn’t come without a price. She walked towards the door instead of me and stepped out into the hallway.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised, holding back a snicker.

“No, wait, I-…!” She shut the door.

I’ll skip over my toils while she was gone and get to the part where she brought Luna back with her and they both laughed hysterically at the apparent spectacle that was me squirming under the impossible weight around my neck.

“Get it off!” I eventually yelled, continuously rolling around and trying to get my head unstuck.

Their laughter never faltered, but after a few more moments, Celestia lifted it off of me with her magic. I stood up for the first time in a while and approached the princesses, both of which looked in danger of laughter induced suffocation.

“Stop it, it’s not funny!” I reprimanded, but my efforts were fruitless.

“I… I c-can’t breathe!” Luna chortled, desperately sucking in air in between bursts of laughter.

I decided that I couldn’t do anything about it, so I waited for them to finish. It took about five minutes, but they stopped.

“What were you even doing?” Celestia asked, still smiling from the aftereffects of the laughter.

“I wanted to see what it’s like to wear all that jewelry,” I told her, “How can you even lift those? And you wear them around all day!” I said as she levitated the golden collar onto her own neck and held it up like it was nothing.

“I’m stronger than you are, Snow,” she pointed out plainly, levitating the rest of the regalia in her direction before adorning herself with them.

“Yeah, but-… Never mind. Just don’t tell anypony about this.”

“No promises,” Luna snickered, heading back out of the room with her sister.

I followed close behind until we reached the throne room.

“Is this all you do? Just sit in the throne room all day?” I asked, still a bit defensive from the prior incident.

“No, of course not,” Celestia replied, “I do spend a lot of time in here, though, I suppose.”

“Whatever. Are the mane six still here?”

“The what?” Celestia asked confusedly, ascending her throne. Luna stayed by my side.

“Oh, umm… I mean Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, et cetera,” I explained.

“Oh. They’re still in the palace, if that’s what you’re asking. Which reminds me, I should really check on Twilight’s progress,” she remembered as she descended her throne as quickly as she ascended it.

“Progress…?” I asked as I followed her out of the throne room. Celestia nodded to Luna on the way out to signal for her to take over for a few minutes.

“Last night, after you went to sleep, Twilight, Luna, and I worked on a solution to thwart Discord,” she elaborated. “We started on a ‘harmony magnet’, which should properly oppose that ‘disharmony necklace’ Discord has. We just have to make sure ours has a stronger form of magnetism.”

“Already?” I asked incredulously, “So Twilight’s been up all night?”

“I’m afraid so. She refused to sleep. Sometimes, I think Twilight is too good of a student,” she sighed.

Celestia turned into a doorway, through which I immediately followed, and walked into a large laboratory. It was like a full blown Dexter’s Laboratory, too.

Anyways, we soon found Twilight, about ready to pass out, tiredly standing in front of a rainbow-colored, emerald-cut gem.

The gem was propped up on a stand, smoking in a purple aura as if Twilight had just blasted it with some sort of magic.

“How are things going, Twilight?” Celestia asked softly. Even so, Twilight immediately jumped and spun around.

“Oh, it’s you, princess,” she said with a bow. I don’t think Twilight even noticed me, “I just made kind of a breakthrough, actually,” she said before yawning.

By the way, Twilight Sparkle yawning is on my list of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. It’s just like how a little puppy would yawn, but with a cute purple pony.

“I combined a love potion with the harmony attracting spell we worked on last night, and the love potion appears to be amplifying its effects almost ten-fold,” she continued before pausing to yawn again, “The original spell seems to work just fine, so I just need to keep finding ways to amplify its power until we can be sure that it’s stronger than Discords.”

“Very creative. Excellent work, Twilight. You should go rest now,” Celestia recommended.

“But I’m so close to… the gem is… uh… harmony…” And then she fell asleep. Right there, standing up, she was out like a light.

“Uh… I’ll take care of it… I guess,” I offered as I approached the sleeping Twilight, ready to catch her if she fell to one side or the other.

“Thanks, Snow. I should be getting back to my post,” Celestia replied. I slipped a wing under Twilight and rolled her on to my back. She was easy to carry. Apparently, ponies have some sort of mechanical advantage that allows them to carry large amount of weight on their back rather easily.

I took care of Twilight and then made my way outside to get some fresh air. The garden seemed like a nice place to go.

“H-hello, Snow.”

“Hi, Fluttershy. Watcha doin’ out here?” I asked.

I approached her as she sat under a tree, seemingly conversing with a few squirrels and a rabbit. As I got closer, Fluttershy hoofed the rabbit a large carrot and the squirrels scampered away.

“I’m just meeting some of the critters here at the castle. My first visit didn’t… g-go to well,” she confessed; although, I already knew that.

“Oh. You seem to be getting along with them just fine now,” I said, observing the rabbit as it slowly whittled down the carrot. I stepped under the relieving shade of the tree and sat down next Fluttershy.

“Yeah, it’s getting a lot better. I think I took the wrong approach last time,” she chuckled inwardly, “I really love animals,” she said as a few birds came and perched comfortably around her, each singing an upbeat tune.

“I think they love you too,” I laughed.

She laughed too and then we both fell silent. I enjoyed the nice weather for a few minutes. I wonder if they even have seasons here, considering the pegasi weather control. I would have enjoyed it for longer, but the sky was suddenly covered in a layer of dark, sickly-looking clouds. This was definitely not normal, even for Equestria.

“W-what’s happening?” Fluttershy asked urgently.

She cowered closer to me and the rabbit hopped off into a nearby shrub, leaving the carrot behind. Soon enough, I could hear a faint buzzing sound, like a cloud of locusts. After a few more moments, hundreds of insect like creatures came into view, raining from the sky like bullets with thin, rapidly beating wings.

“Changelings…” I said softly, staring up at the sky distantly. Fluttershy was in full recoil behind me at this point.

“Come on, Fluttershy,” I said adamantly as I pulled her by a hoof, “We have to get to Celestia.”

“O-okay,” she squeaked, following close behind me.

We made it about halfway to the castle before the first changeling fluttered down to the ground. A few more reached the ground as I galloped towards the door on the side of the castle. I was running at about the same speed as Fluttershy while at full speed… I can’t decide whether that’s good or bad.

“Watch out!” Fluttershy suddenly called from behind me.

I urgently whipped my head around and spotted a changeling hissing and charging at my left. I stood in front of Fluttershy protectively and swatted it away with a wing. It was surprisingly easy to knock it back ten feet or so and render it unconscious. Fluttershy let out an affrighted ‘eep’ as I made contact. I quickly pulled her hoof again and we ran towards the door.

A few changelings were making good progress towards us, but I kept running. I shoved Fluttershy into the doorway first, through which she ungracefully tumbled (I felt pretty bad about that), before I sprinted through after her.

A changeling caught me with a claw and left a nasty scratch a centimeter or two above my left eye before I slammed the door on its face, hopefully breaking its nose or something, and violently twisted the bolt lock. Thank God these doors had locks, because the ones within the castle certainly didn’t.

Fluttershy had already recovered by that time, so we sprinted back to the throne room, luckily seeing no signs of changelings on the way.

“Celestia! There are Changelings everywhere!” I yelled as I busted through the doors to the throne room.

“I know!” she yelled back, just before blasting three changelings out through an already broken window with her pink-colored magic.

She was fighting them off alongside Silvermane in the center of the room. Two guards were already unconscious in the corner of the room, seemingly dragged away from the heat of battle.

Several of the long, stained glass windows were shattered, acting as an easy entrance for the flying changelings. Fluttershy and I made our way to the center of the room. Fluttershy was shaking violently behind Celestia and I joined the resistance.

I easily swatted changeling after changeling into walls and out of windows with my wings, but every changeling we knocked out would quickly be replaced by two or three more.

Silvermane used her hind legs to knock them around, and Celestia was a fricken tank with her ridiculous magic. The changelings in general were rather weak and uncoordinated, but their sheer numbers easily made up for that.

Blood from the cut one of them gave me earlier was now running into my left eye, tinting the little vision I had left from it red. After figuring out some of the more efficient ways to use my wings against them, I began mowing changelings down at a little less than Celestia’s pace.

Silvermane then approached me, limping with one of her front hooves lifted off the ground. I kept battling the changelings, but turned some of my attention to her.

“Silvermane, are you okay?” I asked. She responded softly and I got closer to her. Suddenly, I heard a voice from my side.

“Snow, watch out!” Celestia called.

As its cover was blown, the changeling emulating an injured Silvermane changed back into one of the hissing demons and lunged for me.

I didn’t have time to get a wing or hoof on it, so it tackled me and we rolled about ten feet backwards. It hissed sadistically as I writhed underneath it, keeping it at a short distance with my two forelegs.

When it opened its mouth, it revealed several rows of glaringly sharp teeth, the back ones protruding outward like a massive lamprey, which was probably for intimidation. It would’ve worked, if it wasn’t for a polychromatic blur that knocked it out of the way.

I got up and swatted away more changelings that had accumulated while I was wrestling with the last one on the floor. The rainbow-colored blur quickly flew back towards me and landed by my side.

“Sup, Dashie?” I said casually before hammering a changeling into the floor with the bottom of my wing, which glowed yellow with every strike.

“Snow, are you alright?” she asked urgently, motioning towards my eye. The cut was definitely deep, but it was clean enough that it didn’t hurt too badly at the moment.

“Yeah, I’m fine. We should hurry with these and then go find the others.”

The battle ensued for a good ten more minutes before the changelings began to retreat. They flew out the windows, carrying their unconscious comrades with them. We were able to hold them off, for now.

I sat next to Rainbow Dash, rubbing my eye. The blood had started to dry, and it was becoming very uncomfortable, but at least the bleeding had stopped. Rainbow Dash and I were both panting from the battle, and soon Celestia trotted over to us with Silvermane.

“Snow, what happened to your eye?” Celestia asked urgently, quickly approaching.

“My eye isn’t hurt, it’s just a scratch above my eye. I’ll wash the blood off once we find the others,” I decided. As if on cue, Luna came into the throne room, with Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity trailing behind her.

“Is everypony alright?” Luna asked in the loudest voice possible. I pretty sure that hurt worse than any of my injuries. Twilight walked through the door as well a moment later.

“Yes, sister. We’re all fine,” Celestia replied to Luna.

“What happened?” Twilight asked apprehensively, looking around at the damage done. She must’ve just woken up.

“Thank goodness you’re okay, Twi,” Applejack said to Twilight before Celestia informed her on the recent past events.

“That sounds awful,” Twilight responded softly, “I just woke up on a cushion on the floor of your private quarters, Princess. Was I moved there because of the changelings?”

“I don’t believe so,” Celestia replied confusedly, turning to me, “Snow said he would take care of you when you fell asleep in the lab.”

“I did,” I argued, still with one hoof over my eye, “I forgot where her room was, so I just put her on the cushion that I sleep on.”

“You sleep on a cushion on Celestia’s floor?” Rarity asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah. It’s a very comfortable cushion,” I argued weakly.

“Not really,” Twilight grumbled, rolling her head around, “My neck is gonna be sore for the rest of the day.”

“More comfortable than most things I used to sleep on, then,” I corrected myself, “You ponies be cray.”

My Ebonics was not taken in good humor.

“The proper conjugation is ‘are’,” Twilight corrected me.

“Totes cray,” I mumbled to myself.

“Uhh… Where’s Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked suddenly. Everypony looked around the room urgently. I instantly spotted a shaking tapestry with a pony shaped object underneath it.

“I think I found her,” I chuckled, pointing a hoof at the shivering curtain. Twilight used her magic to lift the tapestry off, revealing a frightened but unhurt Fluttershy. She then turned her attention back to me, gasping when she seemingly noticed my eye for the first time.

“Snow, your eye is-…”

“Yes, I know! I am aware of the blood on my face!” I interrupted exasperatedly, “I’ll go wash it now.”

I washed out my eye and, with much nagging from Twilight and Fluttershy, put a bandage on the wound. Apparently, there were no such things as stitches in Equestria, so a bandage was all that we could do. I wasn’t particularly concerned about it, though. With the bleeding stopped, there wasn’t too much to worry about, besides infection, but they had magic for that.

“So, do you think Chrysalis is working with Discord?” I asked absentmindedly, fiddling with the bandage on my head.

“That’s one possibility. Or Chrysalis decided that now would be a good time to invade, since Discord was already here to distract us. And stop messing with that, you’ll open the wound back up,” Twilight scolded, “Anyways, when did you learn about Chrysalis and the changelings?”

“Uhh… Celestia told me,” I lied.

“Oh. Well, I need to go work on the harmony magnet. See you later, Snow.”

“See you, Twilight,” I replied as she left the room. That left me with the remaining five of the mane six.

“So, what now?” I asked, turning back to the group.

“You should probably take it easy, with your injury and all,” Fluttershy replied softly.

“Oh, come on Fluttershy, I-…”

And then it happened. Fluttershy got very close to me, her eyes as large dinner plates. She stared right through my eyes and straight into my soul.

It was one of the most utterly terrifying moments of my life. I couldn’t tear away from her gaze, and I felt a bead of sweat run slowly down my forehead.

It was the legendary stare.

I couldn’t believe it was real, but there was no denying it, since I witnessed it personally.

“I’ll… t-take it easy…” I whimpered back hoarsely.

“Good,” she soothed in her normal, comforting voice. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking, so I sat down.

“We could, umm… play a game,” Applejack suggested. Her accent still fascinated me to no end. I guess I wasn’t quite jaded to it yet, “It’s gonna rain soon, so we might as well stay inside.”

“Good idea, Applejack,” Pinkie Pie approved gleefully.

I looked over at Rainbow Dash. She looked back but remained silent. I followed the five mares upstairs to some sort of lounge. I’m surprised I hadn’t run across this room before, because it seemed like a cool place to hang out. There were several comfortable chairs and couches, and books lined some of the walls. There was no television or anything, but it was a nice space nonetheless.

“Anypony have any ideas?” Rarity asked.

“Ooo, ooo! Truth or dare sounds fun, I’ll go first!” Pinkie Pie replied not so civilly.

Well, I guess we were playing truth or dare, then. I mean, I wasn’t about to argue with Pinkie Pie.

“Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed as everypony seated themselves on a white, circular shaped couch. I sat on one end and leaned against the armrest.

“Truth or dare?” she offered sinisterly. Rainbow Dash looked up and smiled slightly.

“Dare,” she replied fearlessly. She only remained in this mindset for a few seconds, though. Rainbow Dash just unknowingly opened up a world of opportunity for Pinkie Pie.

“You have to sit in Snow’s lap for the rest of the game,” she said with a devilish smile.

“What!?” both Rainbow Dash and I exclaimed in unison.

What the actual buck, Pinkie?

“You were never like this before I got here,” I stated absentmindedly. A few of the girls looked back at me inquisitively.

“What do ya mean, sugar?” Applejack asked inquisitively.

“Oh, um, nothing,” I replied immediately, “Just speculation.”

“Rules are rules, you have to do it!” Pinkie Pie cheered before Applejack could ask any more questions.

Rarity and Applejack gave me an apologetic look and Rainbow Dash stood up and sauntered over to me. Everypony else sat on their bellies with their legs tucked under them comfortably, but I leaned back on the couch and so Rainbow Dash could awkwardly climb up onto me and turn around, planting her rump right on my lap and leaning back on my torso. Her mane tickled my nose.

The blush on Rainbow Dash’s face was unmistakable, and I assumed it was even more evident on my white coat, if my entire body wasn’t glowing red at that point.

“Okay, my turn,” Rainbow Dash growled, “Pinkie Pie, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Pinkie Pie challenged with mock solemnity.

“Pinkie, go hold your head underwater for five minutes,” Dashie dared.

“Okie dokie lokie!”

Pinkie Pie bounded off somewhere else and soon came back with a large bucket of water. I was shocked when no pony stopped her, but I was even more surprised when Pinkie Pie actually carried out the dare… successfully. She didn’t come up for air once, and didn’t even seem out of breath when she surfaced again.

“That doesn’t even-…!” Rainbow Dash stammered, “Ahh!”

I let it be, and just went on with the game.

The game was rather normal for a little while. Besides Rainbow Dash sitting on me, anyways. I’m pretty sure she weighed more than me, which is not a good thing, and she was becoming rather heavy.

I couldn’t do anything about it, though. The only thing I could do at that point was call her fat, and I had enough sense to know that saying that wouldn’t go over well.

Rarity was dared to get her mane wet, which she whined about for several minutes before actually following through with it. And I asked Applejack if she has ever lied before.

Apparently, the element of honesty wasn’t as honest as we all thought. She recounted several times where she had to twist the truth; although, most of them were just white lies to help out a friend.

Generally, things went on like this until Celestia walked in. My blush had taken a while to fade, but both mine and Rainbow Dash’s came back in an instant as Celestia approached our group.

I expected Rainbow Dash to hop off, and I think she was about to, but she only shifted her hips around before deciding to stay. That only made it feel like my face was about to catch fire, and I’m sure the intensity of the blush was easily visible on my white coat.

“Hiya, Princess,” Pinkie Pie greeted her.

“Hello, Pinkie Pie. Do any of you know where Twilight is?” She asked, arching an eyebrow at me. I knew it was about the position I was in, and not the question she just asked. I shrugged helplessly and she blinked a few times before turning away from me.

“She’s w-working on the harmony magnet,” I told her, stammering a little.

“Thank you… Snow,” she replied awkwardly before turning to leave.

Rainbow Dash moved around embarrassedly again.

“That was a bit awkward,” I mumbled. Rainbow Dash, being the only one that heard me, nodded in agreement.

“My turn!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. Oh God, it was her turn again.

“Snow! Truth… or dare?” she rasped, dramatically drawing out the word ‘dare’.

“Uhh… dare, I guess.” Wrong choice ~!

“You have to make out with Dashie for ten seconds!” she declared.

There was a short pause before Rainbow Dash responded, "What is it with you making Snow and I do stuff?” she asked irritably.

“It’s just so fun to see you all flustered like this,” she replied happily. That only served to fluster her more, “And Snow is so cute when he blushes! He does that a lot around you, you know.”

I blushed at Pinkie’s statement. Rainbow Dash moved to climb off of me, but Pinkie stopped her.

“Nuh, uh! Can’t break the rules, Dashie,” Pinkie Pie reminded her. Rainbow Dash said nothing, but she leaned backwards and looked up at me. I held her up with my foreleg behind her neck. This was all part of Pinkie’s evil plan.

I leaned down slowly and our lips touched. An urging ululation rose from the group of ponies, the more distinctive voices including Rarity and Pinkie Pie. The kiss felt weird, and that made sense, considering the anatomy of a pony, although these ponies were quite different from the earthly ones. So much so that I probably shouldn’t even be comparing them, but my point is that the kiss felt different than anything I had ever done before.

We broke apart almost fifteen seconds later and I caught my breath. Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and sat up in my lap again.

“We’ve played this… game for a while. How about we do something else?” I asked pleadingly. Pinkie deflated a bit, but Applejack agreed.

“That sounds good, sugar cube. We should do somethin’ else, right Pinkie?” Pinkie didn’t have time to answer before there was a huge crack of thunder. Fluttershy squeaked and scooted right up against me. My heart hurt at her adorableness. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash took that time to climb off of me and go back to her own seat. I was then able to lie down normally, like everypony else.

“Calm down, Fluttershy darling,” Rarity soothed, “It was just thunder.”

Fluttershy almost recovered, but jumped and squeaked again when the door opened. It was Twilight, looking mostly unhappy. She shut the door and came to join us.

“What’s wrong, Twi?” Applejack asked worriedly.

“The princess is making me take a break so I don’t overwork myself,” she pouted, taking a spot next to Rainbow Dash on the circular couch.

“That sounds horrific,” I said, putting my hoof over my mouth in faux shock. She sighed.

“What are you all up to?” she asked, looking back up at everypony else.

“Well, we just finished watching Rainbow and Snow wrestle tongues,” Rarity told her disinterestedly. I cleared my throat softly and glanced in the opposite direction.

“It was truth or dare,” Rainbow Dash clarified.

“You were dared to do it for ten seconds,” Applejack chimed in, “You went for at least twenty.”

“Did not!” Rainbow Dash argued.

“I’m sorry I asked,” Twilight mumbled as Rarity and Applejack disputed with Rainbow Dash.

I glanced over at Fluttershy, who had been sitting there silently for the last thirty minutes. I felt kind of bad for her, she was obviously uncomfortable. Well, so was I, but it’s not like I could do anything about it. Eventually, Twilight made peace and voiced what was probably the best idea of the afternoon.

“It’s getting late. How about we go get something to eat and then get some rest. We never know what’s going to attack us next.”

“Sounds great,” I immediately agreed, standing up with everypony else and following Twilight out of the room.

Chapter 9 - The Cleaning Lady

December 19, 2012

A very surprised, very feminine outcry disrupted my slumber. I wasn’t aware enough to react to it at first, but I woke up quickly when some form of magic repeatedly hit me in the face and head.

“H-hey! What’s going on!?” I cried, my voice cracking in surprise. The magic then lifted me into the air and the lights flicked on in an instant.

Celestia’s face was staring at me with unfamiliarity for a moment before she recognized me and groaned out of frustration. Her regalia were already removed and she looked like she had been asleep for a little while, so I assumed she hadn’t noticed me until she felt me in the dark or something.

“Snow!” she chided, “What are you doing in my bed?”

“What… What time is it?” I asked tiredly before yawning, as she placed me back onto the top of the bed. She herself was standing next to the bed, having apparently jumped out of it when she was startled.

“About one o’clock in the morning,” she replied quickly, “Now, what are you doing?”

“I’ve been asleep for like five hours already. How did you not notice me until now?”

“O-Oh. My shift went late tonight,” she explained, suddenly a bit flustered, “I just got back from the throne room and got into my bed. I noticed you about five minutes after that when you hugged me – in your sleep, apparently.”

“…Did I really?” I asked incredulously. Well, it’s not the strangest thing to happen so far, “My bad. Your bed is really comfortable, by the way,” I stated awkwardly.

“Well, I’m too tired to do anything about it now. Either go back to sleep here or on that pillow you’re so fond of,” she offered tiredly, climbing back into her own bed.

I guess sharing a bed wasn’t that big of a deal in Equestria. The bed was huge, so I just slipped into it on the opposite end. Trust me; if you knew how ridiculously comfortable her bed was, you would have done the same thing. The light’s flickered out and the room was once again plunged into darkness.

I woke about nine hours later. That was by far the longest night’s sleep I’d gotten in a while, and if I could help it, I wasn’t going to leave this bed until somepony made me. Celestia was still there, which was expected because she had worked the late shift the night before.

By the time I woke up I was laying sideways, completely on top of Celestia, so I immediately moved and lay next to her, waiting to see if she had noticed. I move around a lot in my sleep, I guess. She shifted a little but became still again. I let out a breath that I was subconsciously holding, surprising myself doing so.

Unfortunately, the breath was a little louder than intended and she stirred again. This time, she rolled over and yawned, just millimeters from my own snout with her eyes still closed. Wow, she had a big mouth.

Her eyes fluttered a little, and once I was sure that she was about to open them, I closed my own in a desperate attempt to save my ass. I quickly shut my eyes and pretended to sleep.

I flapped my ears down just in time to slightly muffle her shriek, but I couldn’t have done anything to soften the blow of her hoof to my face.

“I’m so sorry, I’d forgotten you were here!” she exclaimed once she looked around and saw what she had done.

“It’s good to know that I’m easily forgettable,” I replied, rubbing my offended nose. Slightly to my surprise, there was definitely not a lack of blood on my hoof as I held it up to my gaze.

“Here, let me help,” she said, snaking one of her hooves towards my face. I immediately recoiled and flopped out of the bed like a fish, landing painfully on the floor.

“Snow!” Celestia exclaimed.

Sure, my nose was bleeding, but it wasn’t a very bad injury. I tend to get a lot of nose bleeds, and I was determined to draw this out as painfully as possible for Celestia. I tumbled my way to the door and leaned out of it.

I looked down the hallway and spotted the perfect setup. Three conversing ponies, including Silvermane, Luna, and Twilight were no more than twenty feet away, walking in my direction. Oh, yes, this was going to be fun.

“Celestia, I’m sorry!” I exclaimed as I crawled out of the doorway, blood covering my hooves and face. That really got the mares attention.

“Snow!?” Luna said affrightedly.

“It was an accident, I promise!” I continued.

“Get back in here, Snow!” Celestia huffed, dragging me back in and shutting the door with her magic

As soon as the door was shut, I burst out laughing, knowing from experience that Celestia’s room was well soundproofed.

“Ungrateful blankflank! It's too early for this!” She shouted at me once I was inside, “Aren’t you hurt?”

“Not really, this happens a lot,” I replied, gasping for breath.

“I’m not surprised,” she deadpanned in response, “Now, clean yourself up.”

Celestia produced a towel out of nowhere and dropped it on my face. She then put her on her regalia and opened the door.

“I’m leaving, and I’m going to explain to whoever was out there what actually happened. And you should consider taking a shower for once,” she advised not so subtlety.

“Thanks. I’ll consider it,” I replied, wiping the blood away and then standing to my hooves. Celestia shut the door and then I climbed back into her bed. I pulled the sheets up over my shoulder and closed my eyes, sighing to myself.

I made a goal about right then. My goal was to be super lazy that day. Like, ridiculously so.

Celestia soon left and I slept for another hour until somepony else entered the room. I looked up to see an orange mare in a traditional French maid’s outfit entering the room with a cart full of various cleaning supplies. The orange unicorn shut the door and went about her business. She obviously hadn’t noticed me yet.

“So, that’s how Celestia’s room gets nice and clean every day,” I commented, putting my forelegs behind my head and leaned back against the headboard.

“Oh my Celestia!” she exclaimed, dropping a spray bottle of who knows what that she had in her telekinesis. She looked up and examined me for a moment. “I didn’t know anypony else was in here. I’ll leave now,” she said embarrassedly.

“No, no it’s fine,” I assured her. “I was thinking about leaving soon anyways. Celestia oh-so-kindly recommended that I take a shower.”

“Oh…” she replied, hesitantly picking up the spray bottle again and heading towards the bookshelves. “Well, I’m Orange Star... Just Star will do though.”

“Okay Star, I’m Snow,” I told her, closing my eyes and letting out a long breath.

“Oh really? So… you’re the human, r-right?” she asked hesitantly. I reopened my eyes and she was looking at me intently.

“Uh, yeah… Is my name that recognizable?” I asked skeptically.

“‘Uh, yeah,’” she copied me, “You’re an alien from a different universe that has no magic and unbelievable technological achievements. Word spread quickly around the castle.”

“Oh… wow,” was all I said.

“I heard you were really young, but I guess that was just another piece of gossip,” she mused, casually dusting and cleaning the various objects that lined the bookshelves, “I’ve never seen anyone in the princess’s bed before.” She smirked up at me for a moment before looking back to her work.

“I’ve been told that I look older, but I’m fifteen years old,” I told her.

“F-fifteen years old?” she asked, her voice squeaking a little out of surprise. She once again stopped what she was doing to look up at me. “And you’re b-… with Princess Celestia?”

It took me a minute to put that together with her previous statement, but it eventually clicked for me. Nevertheless, I was still taken majorly by surprise.

“N-no! I mean, we’re not… doing… that,” I stammered out awkwardly. She blushed a little and I’m sure my own blush was even more evident.

“Oh… then does she know you’re in her bed?” she countered worriedly.

“Yup,” I replied plainly. She turned to me with a raised eyebrow, so I continued, “Being an alien, I can pretty much get away with anything odd or somewhat unacceptable around here,” I said with a chuckle.

“I’ve noticed,” she replied sardonically.

“Huh? What exactly have you seen?” I asked curiously.

“We’ve met once before, actually,” she said emotionlessly, going about her cleaning.

I tried to recall when we may have met, but I really couldn’t remember.

“Sorry,” I replied softly.

“Let’s see if this rings a bell. ‘Bitch, swerve!’,” she cried in a deep, mocking voice.

Oh God.

The memory was slowly coming back.

~~~

…I suddenly noticed an orange mare in a small, black uniform, right in my path. She had one of those big carts, like a cleaning lady in a hotel. I thought about slowing down, but then decided against it.

“Bitch, swerve!” I cried as I haphazardly shoved her into the wall and landed in front of the doors to the throne room.

Before the mare could respond coherently, I walked into the throne room…

~~~

“Although, being on the other end of that deal sounds like a lot of fun,” she chuckled back, “I might have to join you sometime, if you can get away with things like sleeping in Princess Celestia’s bed.”

“As long as you don’t blow my cover,” I agreed, “I don’t think they understand that the weird things I do aren’t any more normal for a human than they are for a pony. They’re just weird things. Have you ever slept in this bed? It’s amazing!” I exclaimed, rolling around in it extensively.

Eventually, I was completely wrapped in a cocoon blankets, making a mess of the bed.

“Hey!” Star half-shouted, half-laughed, “Don’t mess it up too much, I have to make that!”

“Yeah whatever,” was my muffled reply, rolling off of the bed with all the covers in tow.

“Oh, come on! Now I’m going to have to wash all of those,” she complained, walking over to where I lay on the floor at the foot of the bed.

When she got near enough, I reached up and yanked her down into the massive conglomerate of Celestia’s bed sheets. She yelped in protest at first but then giggled as I rolled around some more and hopelessly entangled us both in the endless sea of fabric.

I stopped to catch my breath after a few moments before Star spoke.

“Oh my goodness, you’re going to break something,” she panted mirthfully. That was my cue to start again, but after only a few seconds, I rolled strait into some object. I instantly looked up and saw a very large bookcase hanging over me.

Everything on the shelves wobbled and shook before the noticeably largest object leaned out a little bit further than it should have. An elliptical purple vase that was about half the size of my body began falling from the highest shelf.

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit

As it got nearer, I noticed that it was even larger than I previously thought, probably large enough for a small pony to fit inside of.

SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT

When it was no further away than an inch to my face, it was suddenly covered in an orange aura, just hanging there. It took me a moment to realize what had happened, but eventually the vase floated back up to its proper place and I sat up on the floor, still wide-eyed. Star looked a bit shaken as well. Naturally, I jumped up and tackle hugged her.

“You saved me, my Orange Dreamsicle!” I hollered in her ear, hugging her on the floor.

“It’s… Orange Star…” she corrected me whilst being constricted.

“I love you, you saved me!” I squealed in the highest voice I could muster, letting go of her and standing up. She struggled for a moment on the floor before eventually staggering to her hooves.

“Calm down, Snow. We only met a few minutes ago, and you’ve already got me in bed and told me you loved me,” she remarked playfully. She tapped me on the head with her horn, which was a stranger feeling than you’d think.

Technically, we were on the floor, I thought awkwardly.

“I-I…” I started to speak, but my voice cracked. Thanks puberty, I needed that self-confidence. “I think I’ll go take a shower now,” I finished. She giggled at my inopportuneness.

“See you later then,” she chirped as I walked out of the room.

“Hmm…” I mused as I stared at one of my hooves. It appeared to be pruned. I don’t understand how a hard surface like that could get wrinkled after prolonged exposure to water, but sure enough, it was a wrinkled hoof.

I suppose a hoof could become wrinkled eventually, and I had been in the shower for about two hours by then.

Because lazy, that’s why. Also, the water had yet to turn cold, and hot showers are da bomb, yo.

A knock at the door interrupted my train of thought and I looked up from the wrinkled appendage.

“Is anyone in there?” a familiar voice asked.

“Just a minute,” I replied before quickly turning the shower off and drying my mane off with a towel. Draping the towel over my neck, I opened the door, letting profuse amounts of steam exit into the hallway.

“Whoa… Snow?” The orange unicorn said confusedly.

“Eeyup,” I replied in a deep voice, “I’ve been in there for a couple hours. I suppose it was time to get out.”

“Why in Equestria have you been in there for multiple hours!?” she cried, squinting her eyes incredulously at me.

“Uhh… It’s a human thing?”

“Somehow I doubt that, but whatever. Just move so I can clean. This is the last thing I have to do before I can be done for the day,” She explained hastily, pushing past me to get inside.

“Is it that late already? I haven’t even had breakfast yet…” I said mostly to myself, realizing how hungry I had gotten.

“It’s a little late for that,” she chuckled as she did her routine over again in the new room, “unless you normally eat breakfast at two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Meh, whatever. Can you go make me a sandwich?” I asked hopefully. She looked up for a moment. Her expression said no, but I urged on.

“Technically, I’m still a guest in the castle, and you’re castle staff, right? So you have to make me a sandwich,” I deduced with the largest amount of logic I was willing to use at the moment.

“…I’m not going to acknowledge that with a proper response, but if you’d like to wait a few minutes, I’ll come to the kitchen with you,” she offered.

“Better than nothing, I suppose,” I mused aloud, “Don’t take too long though.”

“Oh, I won’t,” she promised with a smirk.

“Come onnnnnnn-ah~!” I whined. “You’ve been cleaning for like, three hours!”

“Stop complaining, it’s been like ten minutes,” she deadpanned.

“There,” she said after a few more seconds, “All done. Happy?” she asked as she packed up and pushed the cart out of the room.

“Quite. You take too long,” I commented as we walked towards the kitchen. She shoved the cart into a nearby closet and left it there, along with most of the maid’s uniform.

“It’s my job,” she argued, “And stop being whiny about everything.”

“But I don’t wannnaaa-ah~!” I whined, “What do I get in return if I stop?”

“I don’t know, I’ll scratch you behind your ear or something,” she kidded.

“Huh? Does that even work with ponies?” I asked confusedly. She raised an eyebrow and addressed me quizzically.

“Well, let’s try it,” she said with a snicker as we entered the kitchen. Her horn began to glow and I felt a touch on my head for a moment, but I leaned away from her.

“You won’t hurt me, will you?” I asked warily, walking over to the oversized food pantry before standing still again.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be such a baby,” she urged. Not one to back down (half of the time), I closed my eyes and awaited the touch.

“Don’t think you can-… Oh God, yessss…” I stopped mid-sentence and melted onto the floor, one of my hind legs kicking of its own volition. It probably wasn’t the most flattering image, but if it had looked as good as it felt, I would have appeared no less than pulchritudinous.

“Whoa… I didn’t expect that to work,” she said a bit apprehensively as her magic dissipated. I heard two or more ponies enter from a different door, but that wasn’t the first thing on my mind at the moment. The next thing I noticed was that my wings were at full extent.

I suddenly felt extremely violated, looking up at her in a daze from the floor. I followed her gaze roughly to whoever just walked in. I staggered to my hooves and looked over as well. Luna, Frostwind, and Silvermane walked over to us as they conversed with each other. They slowed to a stop a few feet away from us, apparently staring at me.

“Well, what’s going on here?” Frostwind asked with a smirk. The other two mares remained speechless.

“Huh?” I said confusedly, “What are you talking about?”

He snickered for a moment but quickly recomposed himself. About then, I realized they were all looking up, so I followed their gaze to my flared up wings. With my wings being as big as they were, my wingboner wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

Oh shit…

I then looked over at Orange Star. She had a very embarrassed look, and her blush was so deep that it showed clearly on her orange coat.

“… I’m afraid I don’t know enough about pony anatomy to know what this means, so please don’t make fun of me for it,” I pleaded fretfully.

Luna and Frostwind couldn’t help it any longer and began laughing, stifling it as much as possible, but failing miserably. I turned to Star and suddenly made a connection.

“Uh… I guess this kinda happened when you rubbed my-…”

“Stop,” she implored, interrupting me, “Just stop.”

“This… is too great…” Frostwind gasped in between bursts of laughter. Luna laughed just as hard, but said nothing. Silvermane, on the other hand, managed to remain completely composed, seemingly wanting to stay out of this affair.

“We should probably leave, you two,” Silvermane suggested. They slowly followed her out and eventually it was just me and Star again.

I looked at her and grinned apologetically. She just took a deep breath before slowly exhaling.

“This isn’t your fault…” she said slowly, mostly trying to calm herself down.

“Yeah, it was that magical ear orgasm thing you did,” I added, probably not helping much.

“You seriously don’t know what that means, though?” she asked curiously, pointing up to my wings. I shook my head in response. She leaned forward and whispered the reason into my ear. I’m sure it should have been pretty obvious at this point, but apparently I was stupid.

“Oh… so that’s why they were…”

“…Yeah…” she replied.

“So…” I began awkwardly before becoming silent again.

“…What?”

“…You think you’ll ever, umm… do it again?”

“…”

“Maybe later, only if I want to force you into something and need a bargaining chip,” she decided.

“Yay,” I deadpanned, preparing to change the subject, “Now let’s eat something. I’m already malnourished because of the lack of meat you have here,” I said exasperatedly, completely ignoring any expression of repulsion Orange Star made.

“You really eat meat?” she asked wearily, “I mean, I heard some rumors… and I guess I noticed your sharp teeth, but I would have never guessed they were true.”

“What, are you worried? I probably won’t eat you, if that makes you feel any better,” I chuckled, looking through the pantry for something that was least like a vegetable. My wings had mostly returned to their original places by then.

“What kinds of animals do you… eat?” she asked hesitantly, obviously curious on the matter.

“Well, uh… cows, pig, chicken, fish, unicorn. The usual,” I listed off-handedly. I glanced up for a fraction of a second just to see her horrified expression.

“Wh-what was that l-last one?” she asked shakily.

“Chicken.”

“No, after that,” she clarified apprehensively.

“Fish?”

“Ugh… never mind. Actually, I’ll make something for us, just go wait out there,” she said almost pleadingly.

“No, it’s fine. I can just-…” I began smugly, waiting for her to cut me off.

“No,” she interrupted adamantly, “I mean, I’ve got it taken care of. I’ll make something we’ll both like… without meat.”

“Well, if you insist,” I replied, grinning a bit to myself as I walked out of the pantry and sat down at a counter near the stove.

And that’s how I got her to make me dinner.

She eventually came up with some pasta similar to spaghetti, which was alright; although, there was no meat of course. I’d definitely gotten skinnier since I got here, and I wasn’t too thick to start out with, so I really needed to consult Celestia about it as soon as possible.

Speaking of Celestia, I went to see what she was up to after my meal. Mostly out of boredom, but also because I needed to discuss some dietary issues. Anyways, Star tagged along as well, also due to boredom.

When we arrived in the throne room however, my anxiousness suddenly rose when I spotted Silvermane, Luna, and Frostwind on the opposite side of the throne room casually conversing with Celestia. They soon noticed our presence as we approached.

“There’s the big guy,” Frostwind said playfully, messing up my mane a bit. I was too socially awkward to know how to respond to that, so I remained silent.

“Shut up, Frost,” Star said ungratefully, “It’s not what it looked like.”

Celestia looked confused, so I assume no rumors were spread. Hopefully Frostwind wouldn’t screw that up, but I suppose that was wishful thinking.

“What exactly did it look like, Star?” he asked slyly.

“Ugh, you are annoying and immature,” she huffed, looking away to the side.

“It looked to me like you two were doing something fun before we interrupted you. It showed on Snow,” he reminded her. Thanks for that, Frost. Celestia raised an eyebrow in my direction.

“What exactly happened, Orange Star?” Celestia asked her, catching her off guard.

“Your highness,” she immediately replied, “You mean what Frostwind is talking about?”

Celestia nodded her head in response.

“W-well, if you must know…” she began awkwardly.

This was going to be one of the more stupid things to happen this week.

“Go on,” Frostwind urged. Star shot him a glare before continuing.

“I, uh… scratched him behind his ear,” she spat out awkwardly. Celestia sighed, obviously skeptical about the statement.

“Yeah, right,” Frostwind said.

“Frostwind, remain quiet,” Celestia told him.

“Y-yes, Princess,” he replied immediately, shrinking back a little. I let out a little snort at his sudden submission.

“I swear that’s what happened,” Star went on, “You can try it for yourself. Just scratch him behind the ear with your magic.”

“What!? No, that was weird! I mean, it felt good, but…” I looked down and contemplated what to say before Luna interrupted me.

“That’s ridiculous. I’m going to have to see this for myself,” she said slightly impatiently, her horn suddenly flaring up.

“No, w-wait, I-… Nyaahhh ~!”

Damn it! Damn it all! Not again!

It was basically a repeat of last time, but Luna didn’t stop immediately, so my back arced involuntarily and I let out an unwanted, high-pitched moan. I fell down on my side and squeezed my eyes shut. I am so glad they don’t have cameras in Equestria or this moment would have been immortalized in film. My leg kicked like last time, and my wings shot up almost right away. Luna let out a surprised yelp and stopped.

It was official: I had been raped. It still counts as rape, whether I liked it or not.

I slowly opened my eyes, panting heavily, and eyed Luna with as much hate as I could muster at the moment.

“I… hate you all…” I said in between breaths. I very shakily stood to my hooves and stabilized myself, “I’m going to leave… while I probably still… have my virginity,” I announced quietly, slowly making my way out of the room.

I used the smaller door located behind the throne, which in hindsight was a bad idea. My wings hit the top of the door, which hurt very badly. I kid you not; wings are the most sensitive appendage I’ve ever had.

My wings were even more sensitive in this state of arousal (I feel disgusting saying that), so I let out a yelp of pain and backed up a little. I crawled through the door so that my wings barely brushed the top while I went through. I made it through and walked leisurely and shamelessly all the way back to Celestia’s room, which I proceeded to lock myself inside of.

I was lazy, I hung out with a maid, I got teased about my wings, and last but not least, I got ear raped by Princess Luna. Not a bad way to spend my birthday, I suppose.

“Come on, let me in Snow,” Celestia said after she tried the locked door. I lifted my head from the cushion and looked over to the door.

“No, your sister raped me,” I replied calmly.

“I did not rape anypony!” a different voice came instantly.

“You brought her!?” I asked, surprised.

“We were just talking for a bit before she has to take the night shift,” she replied uninterestedly, “Now let me in.”

“Fine,” I replied, slowly getting up and cantering over to the door, “Only because you asked so nicely,” I added as I unlocked the door and opened it for her. Celestia stepped in and Luna had apparently left. I shut the door behind her and turned around again.

“I actually need to talk to you about something, Celestia,” I began before she had a chance to say anything. For the first time in a while, Celestia looked genuinely curious.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Well, uhh… you’ve probably noticed that I don’t eat much,” I said awkwardly, “I was just wondering if… there was a way to…” I tried desperately to find the right words.

“Go ahead, Snow,” she urged.

“Well, I, uhh…”

“Spit it out,” she said mirthfully, finding humor in my stammering.

“I want to eat chicken, and cows, and pigs!” I suddenly barked, “Hay, I could eat a pony at this point!”

Celestia recoiled a bit, but then sighed and turned around to walk in the other direction. She circled once before laying down on one of the purple cushions. I stood there awkwardly for a moment after my unexpected outburst, pursing my lips together.

“Come, sit,” she said tiredly, motioning for me to lay beside her. I quickly complied, cantering over next to her and laying down.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-…” I began before Celestia cut me off.

“No, it’s perfectly fine. I think… I think I understand,” she started, “I thought this might happen and… we might be able to do something about it.”

“R-really?” My face lit up expectantly, but I soon settled down and looked back down.

“No promises, though,” she reminded me quickly, “And if you eat one of my little ponies, you’re going to the moon. No trial. But we do coordinate some shipments of edible meats for a few of the griffon and hippogriff residents of Equestria. It shouldn’t be too much trouble… getting one here every once in a while without the public eye noticing…” She trailed off as if she was thinking it over, but I didn’t give her a chance to change her mind.

“Oh my God, you’re awesome!” I exclaimed, tackle hugging her and rolling off of the cushion. She snorted mirthfully before recomposing herself.

“I try,” she said, standing up and stepping over me to get to her bedside.

“You have the early shift tomorrow, then?” I asked as she removed her Jewelry, as per usual.

“Yep. It’ll be a little slow tomorrow morning though, so I’ll have time to look into the shipments then,” she sighed, seemingly exhausted, "Anyways, the Harmony Magnet should be finished very soon, so try to stay well rested for when we have to use it,” she advised, turning the light switch with her magic.

“‘Night, princess.”

“Goodnight, Snow.”

Chapter 1 - Awkward Arrival

December 13, 2012

I kept the best poker face I could while I fell at a lethal velocity from ten thousand feet above sea level, all while mentally panicking. I had let my friends talk me into skydiving, God knows why, and it was just as terrifying as I had imagined. I had learned all the poses back on the ground, spreading out wide and arching my back to slow down, or putting my arms at my sides and legs together to speed up. Needless to say, I remained frozen in the slow position the entire time. It was a torturing experience really, and after a while I started to feel a little nauseous. I simply screwed my eyes shut and waited for the instructor to tell me when to pull the ripcord, like he promised he would five minutes and eight thousand feet ago. I would get used to the sound of the wind rushing past my ears and it would seem silent for moments at a time. After a while, the periods of quietness grew, and I felt almost like I had been falling for much longer than I should have been.

I opened my eyes, but could see nothing of the ground through the thick layer of clouds, so I looked over my shoulder. There was no one in sight. I was suddenly on my own, and I waited for the blanket of clouds to come closer and closer before I simply fell right through, small droplets of water forming on my goggles for a split second before they were blown back into space by the air resistance.

I opened my eyes again once I was sure I was on the other side, and I am fairly certain I almost passed out when I saw how close to the ground I was. There were still no signs of my friends or the professional, and the ground was getting closer with every terrifying moment. Screw the professional, I pulled the cord. Or so I tried to, anyways. I clumsily hit the handle several times before looking down to see what was wrong, and I definitely found the problem. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get my fingers around the handle. The real problem was locating my fingers at all, seeing as how where my hand should have been was now a flat, hard surface that simply clanked against the metal handle as I tried to pull it. A similar fate had consumed my other hand, and I felt the adrenaline surge through my body as the little undefined blurs on the ground became distinguishable buildings and structures. The buildings weren’t huge; it seemed like a small town actually, but either way, this was NOT where I was supposed to land.

In some sort of fight-or-flight response, I grew a second pair of arms out of my back.

Wait a minute… arms?

I looked up and to the side and saw a stiff, feathered appendage. It was the same color of white that the rest of my body had decided to turn to, but what was this new limb? I looked to the other side and saw the same thing. A feathered appendage… a wing! Surely I had wings! Now I was almost certain that I had passed out and was in some sort of dream, but I felt the need to survive anyways, whether it was real or not. I tried flapping my wings once.

Let me stop right there. If you are ever skydiving and you grow wings that you don’t know how to use, do NOT try to use them. Soon after my failed attempt, I twisted into an uncontrollable barrel roll, my wings only adding to the speed at which I was spinning. The only thing left, I suppose, was to wait for impact.

“Thanks for the book, Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash after having dropped off the last edition of Daring Do and picking up the next one to take back with her.

“No problem, Rainbow. It’s always good to see a friend reading,” Twilight replied before turning back to Spike, who was with pen and paper, waiting to write out Twilight’s friendship report to the princess.

However, as soon as Rainbow Dash reached for the door to leave, a loud crash came from just outside, followed by the ground shaking a little. Both mares turned back to face each other immediately.

“Whoa! What was that!?” Rainbow Dash yelped.

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied uneasily. “Let’s go find out.”

The mares raced out of the door and towards the strange noise. Spike sighed and placed the pen and paper back on the desk as he waited for Twilight to return.

I heard the sound of muffled voices, more of them approaching as time went on. After a few more moments, I tried to open my eyes. I had deduced that I wasn’t unconscious very long – if I was unconscious at all – since my eyes were still properly adjusted to the sunlight. I heard people talking, but all I saw was a small group of technicolored, miniature horses surrounding my apparent point of impact.

After I looked around for a bit, the whisperings turned silent and the colorful horses stared at me for a while. Things suddenly seemed a little familiar and I got the feeling of déjà vu.

No. It can’t be… I thought silently.

I knew well where I was. I was in Equestria, no doubt about it, especially since I recognized one of the ponies as none other than Twilight Sparkle, whose expression was a mix of shock and concern. Rainbow Dash was flying just above her with a similarly shocked look. There were a couple more that I recognized as Fluttershy and Applejack.

Wow, almost the whole mane six…

I decided to look around to see what damage had been done. Sure enough, I was sitting in big ‘ol, smoking crater. My wings were glowing under me with a golden aura as well. As it looks, my glowing wings protected me, breaking my fall by spreading out to take the impact. The people, erm… ponies around me flinched as my wings suddenly retracted and returned to normal.

As I began to realize while I was falling, I had been turned into a pony as well. A snow white pegasus with a blonde, almost golden mane, to be exact. Looking around, I saw that I was about the same size as Rainbow Dash… how masculine. Although, my wings were rather massive compared to hers, and apparently they were magical, too.

“H-hello?” Twilight asked cautiously. “Are you alright?”

I figured I might as well find out. I stood up and stretched for a moment. My clothes were gone, and so was the backpack with the parachute, but that was probably for the best at the moment.

“Yes, I’m fine thanks,” I replied slowly as I walked up towards the purple mare. She looked a little hesitant, but I smiled in a rather poor attempt to diffuse tension. “Umm… where am I?”

“You’re in, uh… Ponyville,” she answered a bit more confidently this time.

Well, duh. I knew that!

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Asked the cyan pegasus, who had now landed on the ground next to the crater. “You just kinda… fell out of the sky, ya know.”

I grinned back and answered, “Yes, I’m sure, thank you. My wings took the fall, and apparently they’re indestructible,” I said as I looked back at one of them, twitching and examining it.

Applejack suddenly spoke up, “Where ya from, stranger?”

“Oh… Well, I’m not from around here, I guess,” I answered a bit sheepishly.

“Well, duh,” Rainbow Dash answered somewhat irritably. “And are you some sort of vampire or what?"

“Vampire?” I repeated confusedly after a moment, “What do you mean?”

“Are you serious?” Rainbow Dash asked, “Your teeth are like, pointy.”

I felt around my mouth with my tongue, poking at the tips of my teeth. They were the same as usual despite the elongation of a pony’s mouth; incisors, canines, molars… the whole package.

“My canines? Well, of course they are,” I reply a bit curiously, assuming she was referring to my canine teeth. “How else am I supposed to eat meat?”

The mares looked a little scared at this point, and I suddenly remembered that ponies were herbivores. I panicked a bit before coughing. I continued until I was practically pretend choking and the ponies began to get worried and tried to help me.

“Do you think I could get some water?” I asked a meekly as I could. Luckily for me, Twilight somehow complied, inviting me back to her tree home with the others.

Fortunately, we were only about a two minute walk from Twilight’s house. Before we entered, she began introducing herself and her friends.

“Well, I’m Twilight, and this is Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy,” she said, pointing a hoof at each one respectively.

“Sup.”

“Howdy.”

“H-Hello.”

It was obviously my turn to introduce myself, but then I realized I didn’t have an awesome pony name yet, and there was no way I was going to be stuck with my boring old human name that I shared with hundreds of other people back on earth.

“It’s nice to meet you all.” I looked down at my forelegs while I tried to think of a name. “You can call me… Snow,” I finished, getting the idea from my snow-white fur.

“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Twilight replied as she opened the door to her house. The other girls agreed and followed Twilight in. I was the last to follow suit, joining them inside. I made myself comfortable in the best library-tree-home in existence while Twilight levitated a glass of water from the kitchen with her magic. Magic was so awesome like that (Or at least that’s what I used to think... Oh, how naive I was).

Suddenly, she floated the glass in my direction. At first, I was glad to see a familiar substance in this foreign world, but then I was terrified.

How the hell am I supposed to grab this!? I thought frantically as the glass was shoved into my hooves. I reached out to grab it with one hoof, because the other was supporting me, but without fingers, there was no way to take ahold of it.

The purple aura suddenly vanished, and the cup began to fall. I had no choice but to bring my other hoof up to the cup, but it was no use. The cup fell as I scratched at it with my hooves. The cup hit the floor about the same time as my face and the water spilled everywhere. I lay down and groaned in defeat as the water soaked my white coat, turning it a darker hue.

“Um, are you… are you okay?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

Out of all the things I could have done, I started laughing. I don’t know why, I just started laughing. I’m fairly certain that all of the mares thought that I was certifiably insane by the time I was rolling around on the floor in my own spilled beverage, laughing so hard that my eyes were watering and my sides were hurting.

However, I eventually had to stop laughing and, as I stood up and wiped a tear from my eye (hooves don’t work well for that, by the way), I happily replied to the confused and frightened yellow pegasus.

“Yes, yes. I just haven’t gotten used to the ‘picking up stuff with hooves’ thing yet.” The girls, aside from one, looked worried and confused. Twilight; however, looked intrigued, and was the first to speak.

“Where are you from again, Snow?” I figured there was no point hiding it anymore. I just went out and told them.

“I’m from a place called Earth, I’m new to this planet actually,” I said with a chuckle.

Most of the mares obviously thought I was insane, but that’s okay. With Twilight here, I figured all would be settled in due time.

“Well, Snow, do you know how you got here?” asked the mare in question. I figured as much from her, while her friends still looked weary of the drenched, seemingly deranged pegasus standing in their friend’s living room.

“Well, I was skydiving and-”

“Sky diving?” interrupted Rainbow Dash. “What’s that?”

“It’s when you jump out of an airplane and-”

“What’s an airplane?” She asked again.

I know, she’s a pony, but still. She was starting to piss me off.

“How about I finish this thought and then you can interrupt me more afterwards?” I offered. She stayed silent and backed off a little. I decided to try to explain everything with detail so I could avoid as many questions as possible.

First, I explained sky diving and what an airplane was, to the best of my ability anyways. That was followed by a long and frustrating argument with Twilight as to how a machine much denser than air could fly. I explained that the shape of the wings causes the air underneath each wing to be denser than the air around it and push the whole airplane up, just like a pegasus’s wing, but I don’t think she bought it. After all, a pegasus was propelled by ‘magic’, according to Twilight. She resolved to try an experiment for herself, and thus we moved on.

“So, you jumped out of a giant, flying metal tube from twelve thousand feet above the ground?” Twilight asked, attempting to clarify.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Why would you do that?” Fluttershy asked in her cute little shy voice. I was about to squeal and hug her, but then I remembered that she thought I was insane, and I mustn’t risk scaring Fluttershy. That would be unforgivable. So I settled for grinning stupidly at her for a while before giving my answer.

“Well, they said it would be fun, and I think they thought it was fun, but to me it was terrifying. I wouldn’t do it again. Anyways, I as far as I know, I turned into a pony on the way down and crashed into Ponyville.”

“Oh…” she replied timidly. It was impossible to tell whether she was satisfied with my answer or not.

“Do you know why you’re here?” Twilight continued.

“Well, no. I was hoping you might know. Did anything happen here that could have triggered it?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Dash and I heard a loud noise, and it turned out to be you lying in the bottom of a crater,” she replied, just as dumbfounded as I was.

“Seems legit. So, what now?” I asked, wanting to know what was going to happen. I wanted to stay with them in Ponyville and befriend them. The ‘Equestrian dream’, if you will.

“I should find out what time it is,” she said first, as if that would affect her decision of what to do next. Naturally, I whipped out my phone to help. I looked at the screen of my Droid X2 and relayed the time to Twilight.

“It’s five thirty-seven,” I said simply. The mares whipped their heads from Twilight to me, trying to figure out how I knew that. They saw me holding my phone in front of my face. It was rather dark so I could assume that it was casting light on my face and probably looking a little strange to them.

“What is that?” Twilight asked, quickly approaching me. She took a spot next to me to get a better look, and in a few moments, all four mares were at my sides, gaping at the screen of my phone. Luckily, the tip of my hoof looked almost exactly the same as a fingertip, and it was easy to maneuver it with one hoof while holding it with the other.

Unfortunately, once I held both of my front hooves up, my face hit the floor again. I settled for letting it sit on the floor as I used one hoof to unlock it. It made an audible click and Applejack jumped a little at the unexpected noise.

“It’s my cell phone. It’s an electronic device. Normally, I can talk to people over pretty much any distance. It also gives me access to the internet,” I explained quickly as I went through a few a few of the phone’s features.

“What’s the internet?” Twilight immediately asked.

I tried to think about how to explain this quickly and move on.

“It’s a massive source of information on basically anything. You can look up anything on it and find just about every bit of known information about it. It’s kinda like the universe’s biggest library.”

Grinning, I looked over to Twilight to see her reaction. Her eyes were basically glowing with interest, as I suspected they would.

“But I have no service in this world, so I can’t access it now. I need to be within a certain distance of a signal so I can actually see the information.”

Twilight’s expression deflated and I decided to put my phone away. I turned to put it back in my pocket, but then I noticed I wasn’t wearing any clothes.

“How do I put this away?” I mumbled, trying to figure out where to put it.

“Oh, uh… Where did you get that from, anyways?” Twilight asked, having heard my mumbling.

“Well, normally I just keep it in my pocket. I just kinda pulled it out,” I replied, still looking for a way to put it back from wherever it came.

“Hold on, let me try this again,” I said. The mares gave me a little more room and I stared straight ahead. Trying to do the same thing I did last time, I reached into my non-existent pocket and pulled something out. It worked.

What I held in my hand was a black and green pack of ‘Five’ gum, the spearmint flavor. It made sense, as the two things I had in my pockets at all times were my phone and a pack of gum. Spearmint was definitely my favorite flavor.

“Is that another, um… cell phone?” Twilight asked cautiously. I don’t know why she asked that, because this looked absolutely nothing like my phone, but I guess she didn’t have much information to go on.

“Uh, no. This is gum. Are you sure you don’t have this in your world?” They all stared blankly at me. “Chewing gum?” I repeated. They all shook their heads.

I figured I’d have some. I rested my front half on my elbows (thank God I had joints where my elbows were supposed to be; although, they were twisted and almost backwards) so I could use both my hooves and my teeth to get it open. My ass was currently sticking up in the air, but I didn’t care, I was about to introduce chewing gum to Equestria.

“Ya need some help there, partner?” applejack asked before quickly picking it up and flipping it open for me, almost as if she had fingers.

“How did you…?” My question was left unfinished.

“So, how does this work?” she continued.

“Just uh, take out one of those strips and unwrap it,” I told her. Applejack did as she was instructed and was left with the piece of green chewing gum.

“Now put it in your mouth,” I added. They all gave me uneasy stare, wondering why I would want Applejack to put a foreign substance into her mouth.

“It won’t hurt you, I promise. Just chew it, but don’t swallow it,” I reassured her. Luckily, she was brave enough to comply.

Tentatively, she slid the green stick of gum into her mouth, little by little, until it was gone and she began chewing it. Her eyes widened after a couple seconds and she smiled.

“This thing tastes pretty good. It’s almost like peppermint, but it’s chewy,” exclaimed Applejack.

“I know right? And how did you unwrap it and stuff with your hooves?”

“Er... what do ya mean, sugar?” She asked in that over exaggerated country accent of hers.

“Well, where I’m from, I had fingers, like griffons or draconequus. Your hooves are flat, so how did you do that just then?” I elaborated.

“Oh… Ah guess ah just did it. Sorta like how you pulled that cell-thingy out of yer invisible pocket.”

“I’ll have to learn how to do that,” I decided with a sigh before there was a short, slightly awkward pause.

“I’ll send a letter to the princess. I suppose you can sleep in the guest bedroom here if you don’t have a p

lace to stay,” Twilight offered.

I smiled back at her to show my approval as she turned went deeper into her house (assumingly to find Spike). The others needed to return to their respective homes, so I said my farewells, and they were on their way.

“Good-bye Dashie!” I called after Rainbow Dash, as she was the last to leave. She turned around and stuck her head into the door for a moment.

“Don’t call me that,” she deadpanned before leaving again.

“Okay, Dashie…” I mumbled to myself after she was out of hearing range.

Chapter 8 - Donuts And Blackmail: The Truth Is Revealed

December 19, 2012

Today started like much like yesterday, minus the rain and me getting my head stuck in Celestia’s jewelry. Instead of waiting for Celestia to wake up, however, I went ahead and began my day without her. Soon after I left the room, I headed towards the lab to see Twilight, but I was stopped by something-… a smell.

Dear God, what is that smell? It was a most heavenly smell, from an unmistakable source. It smelled like doughnuts.

I made a full one-eighty and changed my destination from the lab to the kitchen. Within about five minutes, I cautiously entered the room.

I scanned the kitchen for anything that looked out of the ordinary, and soon I spotted a small box on one of the counters. I approached it stealthily and stopped when I was a few feet in front of it.

“Uh, hello…?”

No response. I took that as a green light to go ahead and grab one or five.

I opened the box, and there in front of me was one dozen, glorious powdered doughnuts. Meh, I would have preferred glazed, but this would have to do.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I thought aloud as I inspected them.

“I won’t if you let me have a few,” came a voice from behind me. I instantly twirled around and saw a blue pegasus a few feet away from me.

“Oh, um, hey Frostwind,” I greeted him.

I recognized the Assistant Synchronizing Supervisor from our previous encounter. There was an awkward pause as I stared at him, trying to figure out if I was about to take his doughnuts or not.

“Just Frost will do. And don’t worry, they’re not mine,” he chuckled, “but between you and me, we should grab some quickly and get out.”

“I like the way you think,” I replied, picking up a doughnut and scarfing it down. Frostwind did the same and the cycle repeated.

“Ha! These are great!” Frostwind exclaimed through a mouthful of his third doughnut.

“Yeah, I know! Maybe we shouldn’t eat all of them, though. If somepony comes back for these and they’re not-…”

“Good morning Frostwind,” a familiar, feminine voice sounded as somepony approached us from behind, “Oh, and you too, Snow.”

Frostwind and I remained silent and perfectly still, him with a doughnut still sticking halfway out of his mouth.

“Excuse me, I just need to get some doughnuts that I-…” She trailed off when she realized what was happening. We slowly turned around and saw the irate mare glaring back at us. I swallowed the remaining bits of doughnut in my mouth and shied away from her a little.

“Oh, uhh… hey Silvermane,” Frostwind began. “I’m so sorry, we didn’t mean to-…”

“Cheez-it!” I yelled, interrupting him and bolting past Silvermane and out of the kitchen.

I quickly looked over my shoulder and saw Frostwind about ten feet behind me with Silvermane hot on his heels.

“You bucking idiots! Those were for a meeting!” she called after us angrily.

It didn’t take long for Frostwind to catch up with me and we ran side by side away from the enraged being that was Silvermane.

“I know where we can go,” I told him urgently before turning up a flight of stairs.

We had a good twenty second mad dash through the castle before we reached our destination.

“What are you, crazy!? Do you know whose room that is!?” Frostwind panted as we approached Celestia’s door.

“Of course I do, I sleep in there too!” I panted back.

“What!?”

“You heard me!”

I shoved the door open and ran through with Frostwind just behind me.

“Celestia! Help!” I cried as I jumped up onto her bed in a full sprint.

I hadn’t planned out my next move, however, and so I flapped my wings to avoid crashing into the princess. I soared over the bed and crashed into the headboard before falling down and sprawling out on top of Celestia. There’s an art to doing that without getting hurt.

“Wh-wha-…? Snow!” She cried as she flung me off of her with her magic.

I landed on the floor and slowly sat up next to Frostwind. Silvermane came dashing in after us, but stopped and sat down next to me when she saw the princess glaring down at us. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. I opened my mouth to speak, but was instantly silenced.

“I don’t care, Snow. What’s that powder all of over your faces?” she asked, looking between me and Frostwind.

“Cocaine.”

“What!?”

“Silvermane’s doughnuts.”

“All of you get out in the next five seconds, and no pony is getting fired.”

Neither of the ASSes needed to be told twice, and I quickly followed Silvermane and Frostwind out of the room. Celestia slammed the door with her magic, making sure to hit my rear end with it on the way out.

Frostwind and I sat in front of our merciless judge, Silvermane, as she tapped her hoof and squinted her eyes at me unfavorably.

“Frost… I hate to let you walk free like this, but I owe you many favors. Consider us even.”

Frostwind sighed in relief and then stood up and walked forward to stand next to Silvermane.

“Traitor!” I seethed.

“I owe you nothing, Snow,” Silvermane reminded me. Then she smiled, “Princess Luna told me all about what happened yesterday morning.” She walked up close to me and leaned towards the side of my head.

“Unless you want everypony else to find out about how you decided to try on Celestia’s pretty princess outfit,” she whispered into my ear, “you’ll do anything I want for all of today.”

Dammit, Luna. I knew she couldn’t be trusted.

“A whole day!? I call blackmail!” I cried.

“So what? If you don’t like it, I can always tell Frost. I’m sure he would waste no time in spreading it to every pony in Canterlot.”

“B-But-…”

She smiled a devilish smile.

“Okay, fine,” I conceded as my ears flopped down dejectedly. “Whatever you want… for today.”

I later found Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Twilight chilling in the lounge room from yesterday.

Twilight was on another forced break issued by Celestia, and she wasn’t too happy about it.

Soon after my arrival, the conversation was turned to something having to do with fashion, which I cared little about. Rainbow Dash wasn’t too involved, either.

“I’m sure the lengthier, thinner dress would appear more attractive in any formal setting,” Rarity spoke with the upmost confidence. Twilight was ready to counter it, though… with nerd speak.

“Several statistics show clearly that most stallions are more attracted to something more plain,” she argued.

“Maybe we’ll just have to get a stallion’s opinion,” Rarity decided. Oh, no. All three mares turned towards me. Unfortunately for them, I was barely listening.

“Huh? What?” I stammered once I realized that I was being stared at.

Rarity wasted no time in standing and sauntering over to me. Her horn began to glow, and the next instant, she was covered in a long, tight, red dress.

“Which do you find more appealing, Snow? This?”

Her horn glowed again, and a different, shorter, less formal dress in the same color replaced the other one.

“Or this?”

“Go back to the first one,” I requested. She complied.

“I like that one better,” I decided.

Twilight looked a bit flustered. I consider that a success.

“Composure, Twilight. Any gentlecolt, such as Snow, would recognize how good I look in any dress,” she reasoned, emphasizing her point with a glamorous pose.

“You’re saying it’s you and not the dress? That’s another variable, so your test is invalid!” she stated.

“Way to egg-head it up, Twi,” Rainbow Dash commented.

“Well, then. I guess we’ll need more models,” Rarity countered to Twilight.

Rarity’s horn began to glow again and the same red dress appeared on all three of the mares.

“Oh, come on, Rares,” Rainbow Dash complained as she stood up.

“Indeed,” she replied mirthfully, picking up Rainbow Dash and Twilight in her magic and lining them up beside her.

“Anyways, this?”

The dresses changed once more.

“Or this?”

“Uhh… I still like the first one better,” I decided.

“How about now?” Twilight asked, her horn beginning to glow.

Determined to win, Twilight shoved Rainbow Dash towards me with her magic while she wore the dress that Twilight was in favor of.

“Hey, Twilight! Calm down!” I squealed, reeling back in my seat as to not be smothered by Twilight via floating Rainbow Dash. That was the last time I voiced my honest opinion to a pair of bickering girls.

“Twi, cut it out!” Rainbow Dash yelped as she was thrown in my direction. I evaded the attack and stood up on the floor, ready for whatever came next. I flinched when the door was opened to reveal Silvermane and Luna.

“Oh, are we… interrupting something?” Silvermane asked as Rainbow Dash lifted herself off of the floor, I stood stiff as a board, and Twilight and Rarity squabbled about dresses.

“Thankfully,” Rainbow Dash commented.

“Well, in that case, I need you Snow,” Silvermane continued, “I’m supposed to get some information from Frost and report back to Dusk. But Frost is on the other side of the palace in the statue garden, and I don’t want to go all the way over there, so you’re going to do it for me.”

“No way! Do it yourself,” I responded defiantly.

“Fine, have it your way,” she replied. Luna smiled at the thought.

“You wouldn’t,” I said worriedly, perking the interest of Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash.

“Do you three girls wanna hear what Snow did in-…?” she began.

“Fine! I’m going, I’m going!” I interrupted, making my way towards the door. Luna simply laughed at me. I glared at her, which wasn’t as effective as I would have liked.

“We’ll be here when you get back,” Silvermane added with a smirk before shutting the door in my face. Welp, this sucks. A trip across the castle couldn’t possibly take that long, could it? Wrong~!

With much effort and about half an hour, I made it to the sculpture garden. The castle was much larger than I had previously assumed. Anyways, I found Frostwind and he told me that all guards were accounted for and that there were no sightings yet, whatever that meant.

“Do you know where Dusk is?” I asked him.

“Uh, he should be in the throne room.”

“Ugh…”

‘Ugh,’ Indeed. The throne room was in the center of the castle, so I passed through and told Dusk the report.

“Why isn’t Silvermane reporting this to me?” he asked curiously.

“She, uh… needed to tend to some sort of emergency. I told her I’d help out.”

“Okay, then. Thank you, Snow.”

“…Eeyup…”

It took a little under an hour, but I was finally finished, and by the time I got back to the room, I could hear laughter from the inside. I slowly and cautiously opened the door. All of the mares were basically rolling around, laughing. When they saw I had returned, they instantly sat up and stared at me.

The small circle of mares held back snickers as I slowly approached them. I sighed.

“You… told them anyways, didn’t you?” I deadpanned.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it,” Silvermane chuckled.

“You-… you got your head stuck in-… Princess Celestia’s jewelry!” Rainbow Dash gasped in between bursts of laughter.

“I’m glad to know that ponies can share joy at my expense,” I replied dryly, avoiding the captivated mares and lying on the couch next to them.

“Gold’s heavy, alright?” I pleaded, but to no avail.

I was a little relieved; however, that Silvermane no longer had the ability to make me her bitch.

Rarity and Twilight were the first to recover from the laughing fit, while the other three took a little longer to stop laughing at my expense.

“Come on, Luna. You’re a freaking princess, shouldn’t you have better things to do than going around gossiping?”

“That’s one of the perks!” she replied cheerfully, “I get most of the day off. I only do as much as I do to lighten the load on my sister. Technically we co-rule, but she does most of the work. And I’m perfectly fine with that if it means I get to gossip about you all day long.”

“That sounds ridiculously unfair and irresponsible,” I replied.

“Speaking of which,” she continued seriously, “I should really get going. Celestia is going to take her lunch break soon, so I need to take over for a little while.”

Everypony followed Luna out of the lounge and back to the throne room as we discussed trivial matters of life. Just small talk, really. However, we soon came across the topic of Discord again, which made me a bit uneasy, but we carried on anyways.

“How does Discord keep getting out of his statue prison at all?” I asked as we walked into the throne room.

“He’s able to slowly weaken the spell. We figured out we have to renew it every one thousand years or so,” Luna replied. “As to how he escaped this time though… we’re not entirely sure.”

“The first time he escaped was soon after the school in Ponyville had taken a field trip to see the sculpture garden, correct?” I asked as we entered the throne room. We stopped and continued our conversation.

“Umm… I actually do believe that was an almost overlooked detail,” Luna replied thoughtfully, “but how could you have possibly have known that?”

“Oh, uh, Celestia told me,” I lied absentmindedly, only to remember a moment later that she was in the room as well.

I cautiously glanced to my side at the alicorn princess that was currently sitting atop her throne. She had one eyebrow raised curiously in my direction, and rightfully so.

“Oh,” was all Luna said. Celestia descended her throne and approached us.

“Thank you, sister. I’ll take my break now,” she announced before shooting me an emotionless stare, “Snow, could you please come with me?” I hesitantly nodded and followed her out of the throne room as Luna and the other mares conversed quietly behind us.

“Have you eaten yet?” she asked, not taking the time to look down at me.

“No,” I replied softly.

“Good. We can talk over lunch.”

Buck me.

“Did you want to discuss something?” I asked tentatively.

We had been sitting at a table out in the garden for a few minutes now, mostly in silence. Celestia ate slowly, in small bites. I had yet to touch my food. She swallowed and delicately cleared her throat.

“Snow,” she began, “Why did you lie to my sister?”

“I-I, umm…” I stammered and looked down.

Think of something, brain! Stop slacking!

“You knew something very specific and then you lied to her,” she reminded me, “You told her that I was the one who informed you, and we both know that is not true.”

Yeah, like I’d forgotten. Got anything yet, brain?

I’m working on it, sheesh! But for now it appears that you’re boned.

Can you at least give me something to stall?

Uhh, try this…

“Did I? I must’ve misspoken. I meant to say Silvermane.”

Is she buying it?

No, brain, she most definitely is not.

“I’ve dealt with all kinds of ponies over my many years,” Celestia replied flatly, “I can tell when you’re lying.”

Anything else?

Uhh… nope, sorry. Maybe we can change the subject?

What kind of idea is that!?

I don’t see you coming up with anything!

“Nice weather we’re having, huh?” I asked desperately, looking up at the sky. The weather actually happened to be very nice, but her stare never faltered.

“Snow, if Discord is communicating with you in any way, you need to tell me,” she replied adamantly.

What

I dunno, dude. Just say something.

What do I say?

Anything! Say anything! At least deny it, we both know it’s not true.

Geezus, brain, calm your tits.

“N-no! I mean, of course not,” I maintained. She looked genuinely confused for a moment.

“Then… who told you?” she asked, setting her utensils down and giving me her full attention.

“Uh, no one, I guess.” I saw it on a television show, so technically that was true.

“Come on, Snow. Don’t waste my time, this is important.”

What now?

Just tell her the truth, man. You can’t escape it now.

“I know it… from Earth,” I answered finally. I assumed what was probably the most serious poker face that I had ever used in my entire life. She developed a similar expression.

“Go on,” she urged.

“On Earth, we… watch your world. For entertainment, I suppose,” I tried to explain, “I saw it myself.”

“That’s… why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded, displeased for being kept in the dark.

“I-…I’m sorry. I d-didn’t-…”

“Well, it’s too late now I suppose,” she countered before I could finish. “How much do you know, exactly?”

“Not much…”

She immediately eyed me with suspicion.

Hold up, dude!

What is it, brain?

I have an idea!

Uh, it’s a little late for that…

Shut up and listen. Hold perfectly still and maybe she won’t see you.

Oh, okay.

I tried to remain perfectly still, taking a big gulp of air before freezing in place. Her glare slowly turned from suspicious to confused.

“Snow, what are you doing?”

I didn’t dare move.

“Snow!” she demanded. I let out a long breath and looked back up at her.

“I thought that if your sight was based on movement, like a t-rex, you couldn’t see me if I held perfectly still.”

“I’m not even going to ask what that is. Stop being stupid and answer my question.”

Dafuq, brain? That was the stupidest idea ever!

I’m yourbrain! You’re just calling yourself stupid!

“Well, I, um…” I began, scratching the rubbing of my neck, “I saw when Luna returned from the moon as Nightmare Moon… and kind of all the big events, and some minor ones, from then till now.”

She stared at me for a moment in silence. She made no facial movements, but for just a fraction of a second, I saw in her eyes what I recognized as uncertainty.

“That’s quite a bit of information you’ve got then,” she replied stoically, “Tell me more.”

I explained to her the concept of television, comparing it to my cell phone. I told them how we watch them, and who the main characters are, and she found it easy to compare the show to a play, but with real ponies rather than actors. I left out the part about them supposedly being fictional.

“How do they watch us?” she asked disconcertedly, “Are there ‘cameras’, like the one on your phone?”

“I... I’m not sure,” I answered shakily, almost ready to make a run for it. When I failed to mention that they were considered fiction, I had no way to explain this.

“Snow,” she began in a warning tone, “Don’t withhold information. There will be consequences.”

Brain, what am I supposed to do?

I don’t… I can’t… I don’t know.

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered, looking down at the ground.

Celestia sighed, “…Me too.”

I looked back up to see her horn glowing.

Holy shit! Brain, give me some options.

One, you could run. Two, you should run. Or three, bucking run!

I didn’t have to think twice. In the wise words of Sweet Brown, "I didn’t grab no shoes or nothin’, I ran for my life, Jesus!"

Anyways, I didn’t stick around long enough to find out what Celestia was going to do. As much as I wanted to seem not guilty of something, I feared what Celestia’s magic could do to me that much more.

“Snow!” She called as I ran off towards the castle, “Get back here!”

I rushed into the massive building as she gave chase only a few feet behind me. After a moment I heard the sound of more hooves, so I assumed that some guards had joined the chase.

For a split second I recalled memories of my first chase through the castle, when I ended up hugging Luna. Oh, that was a fun time… much unlike this one.

After about thirty seconds, I realized that I had no idea where I was running to, so I eventually decided that the throne room was probably a good idea. I don’t know why Celestia hadn’t used her magic to apprehend me yet. I guess she was just enjoying the game of cat and mouse. Or rather alicorn goddess and pitiful human, as it were.

After another minute, I burst through the doors to the throne room just as one guard tripped me and I stumbled inside. I sat up for a moment and saw the same five mares from earlier conversing, Luna sitting up on the throne.

They immediately adjourned their conversation and stared at me. I made desperate eye contact with Luna for a moment before two guards tackled me.

We rolled a good distance before they had me pinned to the floor by each foreleg. I thrashed around and they struggled to keep me under control until Celestia stepped on top of me.

The guards moved out of the way and Celestia easily kept me still by standing on each of my forelegs. My wings were splayed out to either side beneath me, twitching every once in a while apprehensively.

We looked into each other’s eyes for what felt like minutes, although I’m sure it was only a few seconds. I could tell that she was unsure of herself, as if she felt betrayed. I panted heavily, but she was only slightly winded from the chase.

“If you’re not going to tell me the truth, I’m going to have to go inside your head,” she warned.

“Before you do this, I just want to warn you…” I began with as much of a straight face as I could muster. I paused to try to regain some of my courage.

The room was dead silent.

“Warn me about what?” Celestia asked nearly pleadingly.

I stared back up for a few more seconds.

“…you may not like what you find,” I finally finished, ceasing to resist.

After several more seconds, her horn began to glow, and I found it increasingly difficult to break eye contact. Her eyes turned into amethyst pools, and I felt myself being drawn into them.

It was a scary feeling, and it seemed that if I were to let them devour me, I would drown. Eventually, it was impossible to resist. While I had the sensation of drowning, my body held still, and then my vision went black.

When I came to, I tried to stir, but I couldn’t move. I tried to sit up. No such luck there, either.

I slowly realized how cold it was. It felt like I was submerged in freezing water, or closer yet, frozen in a block of ice. Whatever she was doing to me, it was painful, and I wished she would stop. Despite my wishes, it continued.

I felt another consciousness within me, one that was not my own. It was the one in control. She easily overpowered my own will and searched through my brain for whatever she was looking for.

She went through several memories, retrieving some that I would have preferred left untouched, and others that I felt indifferent about. I could tell when she had found what she was looking for, and soon after, she left my body.

I sat up, choking and sputtering, before opening my eyes. I was recovering from the feeling of drowning, and it wasn’t pleasant. Remind to avoid waterboarding at all costs.

When my vision finally cleared, I saw Celestia still in front of me, her face only a few inches from my own. I yelped in surprise and recoiled backwards.

“Don’t lie to me,” Celestia said plainly. My ears flopped down affrightedly at her cold tone. “I understand that you were unsure how I would react to the truth, but you must understand that I have been around for a long time.” I nodded sheepishly in response.

“Luna, Snow, please accompany me in my private quarters presently,” she said immediately before teleporting herself away.

I looked over to Luna and gulped nervously. She wore an unreadable expression, but I could tell from her eyes that she was deathly curious. She stared at me intently before finally speaking.

“Come on Snow, let’s go.”

I nodded obediently and stood up to follow her., avoiding eye contact with every one of the mane six.

I had followed Luna silently through the halls and up to Celestia’s room. I guess she couldn’t teleport as easily as older sister. We stopped in front of her door and she glanced over to me.

My ears flopped down and I quickly looked down to avoid her gaze. She sighed. I looked back up in time to see her slowly lift a hoof and lightly strike it on the door three times.

After a few moments, the door was opened from the inside, apparently by magic. Luna walked in and I followed hesitantly. The door shut gently behind me and I looked around the room. Celestia was seated comfortably on her bed and Luna soon accompanied her before Celestia motioned for me to come too.

“Please join us, Snow,” she said softly. I silently obeyed.

“I’m sure you are aware what this is about,” Celestia told me before turning to Luna.

“Luna… I don’t want you to be shocked by what I’m about to tell you, so prepare yourself.”

“What do you mean, Tia?” she asked, looking between me and her uncertainly.

“I will simply tell you candidly sister, because I can think of no better way,” Celestia began with a sigh, “On Earth, the planet where Snow is from, they have the ability to observe Equestria from across universes. I’m not sure entirely how it works, but most Earthlings consider our world to be merely a work of fiction.”

“I’m not sure if I… understand what you mean,” Luna responded before looking towards me. I turned away shyly and my ears flopped down again. Damn ears – constantly giving away my emotions.

“Like I mentioned, I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I think the important point is that they can and are watching us, if Snow’s memory serves us correctly,” she said.

“Also, Snow, which was a name he made up on the spot when he arrived here, has been watching us for about two years. He simply pretended to know nothing of Equestria prior to arriving here, but he actually knows quite a bit… about a lot of ponies.” Luna was silent for a few moments. Inevitably, she glanced at me.

“Please explain,” she said almost coldly. I visibly faltered, unintentionally showing how uncomfortable I was.

“Remain calm, sister, he is not guilty of anything. I have been inside his head,” Celestia assured her.

“About that,” I began, “Getting mind raped wasn’t exactly the most pleasurable experience.” My comment was ignored and Luna continued.

“But sister-…!” she blurted before recomposing herself, “He did lie to us, and that is a very big secret to keep, is it not?” She didn’t take her gaze off of me, “I think we should at least keep an eye on him.”

“Very well,” Celestia sighed, “If it will put your mind at ease, you may watch him however closely you want. But I think you’ll find that he has nothing to hide. Nothing… concerning the safety of Equestria… at least.”

Celestia turned to me and raised an eyebrow. I blushed and looked down. I knew the things she was referring to. And no, I’m not going to tell you any of them.

“That is all,” Celestia said as she gracefully stepped off of her unreasonably massive bed, “I will return to my post now.”

I quickly jumped off of the bed and followed Celestia out so I wouldn’t be in a room alone with Luna. She easily flew and caught up with me, though. The three of us walked silently back to the throne room. I occasionally looked over to Luna, who returned my glance with a suspicious glare. Eventually, I settled for avoiding her gaze. I had a nagging feeling that this wasn’t quite over yet.

“Go away, Luna,” I deadpanned for the umpteenth time.

“Not until you tell me your plans,” she replied.

“What the buck are you talking about? I already told you. I’m planning to take a nap. I’m tired,” I replied, an ungrateful expression crossing my face.

Luna had basically followed me around since the talk, and now I wanted to be alone. I tried hiding in Celestia’s room, but apparently that’s the first place Luna thought to look. And so I stood in the doorway, attempting to shoo away the pesky Luna.

“You’re too young for such language.” I groaned, she glared, “And I don’t believe you. You don’t look tired at all.”

I tried shutting the door on her, but she was quicker than I. She held it open with her magic and eyed me irritably. I grumbled in frustration and turned around and walked into the room.

“Fine,” I said, “Come in. Watch me sleep if you want.”

I slid in under the sheets as she shut the door and walked up to the bed. I kept my eyes shut and rolled over so that she couldn’t see my face. I heard her sigh before she spoke.

“I don’t think my sister would appreciate you sleeping in her bed,” Luna stated matter-o-factly.

I didn’t reply and began fake snoring. She sighed again before speaking in a different, more curious tone.

“Snow?”

“Mhmm?” I replied lazily.

“What is your real name?” she asked cautiously.

I opened my eyes and slowly rolled over to face her.

“My full name… is Samuel Luna Pollock,” I revealed to her.

She stammered for a moment, “Did you say-…?”

“Yes, my middle name is Luna,” I interrupted her, “It was my mother’s name.”

“Uh… what does it mean?” she asked after a moment.

“I think Samuel means ‘Name of God’ in Hebrew or something, Luna means ‘moon’, and as for Pollock, I don’t really know. I think it’s Scottish or something,” I thought aloud.

“Luna means moon?” she asked proudly.

“Yup.”

That’s probably why the writers of MLP gave you that name…

There was another silence that was eventually broken by Luna.

“Why didn’t you tell us? About the things you knew?” she asked.

“I… I didn’t want to… scare anypony, I guess. Does that make sense?”

“Perhaps. Sometimes lying is the safer option, I suppose. But I don’t want you to think that I can’t handle the truth,” she said sternly, “I’m approximately one hundred and fifty times older than you are,” she reminded me.

“Ugh… fair enough. I’m sorry,” I replied weakly. She slowly headed towards the door.

“No harm done. I suppose I’ll let you sleep now,” she said quietly as she opened the door. She stepped out and shut the door, leaving me alone in Celestia’s bed. I wasn’t planning on actually going to sleep, but I was feeling a bit sleepy since I’d gotten some of that weight off my chest. I shut my eyes again and sighed.

Oh God, I hope Celestia doesn’t hurt me when she comes back… I thought as I drifted off into sleep in what was probably the most comfortable bed in the known universe(s).