The Other Draconiquus - Story 1: Imaginary Friend

It begins one night, when Twilight was seven years old, and her parents and brother had to be somewhere important, but they hired a foal sitter to watch her. This was before Princess Cadence was Twilight’s favorite foal sitter, so there was always someone new every time.

This one in particular was late in showing up, as it had already been 15 minutes since her parents and sibling had left and still no sign of her anywhere.

Twilight was passing the time waiting by reading a book on the mythology and legends of the Draconiquui (what awful things it said about how they treated ponies), when suddenly she felt a strong cold breeze coming from inside the living room, which was blowing on the pages of the book, making her loose her focus on it. She looked in the direction of the breeze, knowing that she didn’t leave a window open anywhere, when she saw a rather bizarre sight.

A large blue box was in the corner of the room, but in some kind of state between being there and not being there at all, and yet in the process of materializing. There was an odd vwoomp vwoomp noise as it came into being.

When it was fully solid, Twilight went up to it to get a better look at it. It was had two handles on one side, as though they were doors that opened up. On one of these doors, had a sign, which read PULL TO OPEN. At the top of each side of the box read the words POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.

Twilight was about to attempt to open the door, when it opened from the inside. In the wrong direction. And out came, a draconiquus.

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle!” he exclaimed. “I’m your foal sitter for tonight! You can call me, ‘L’. ” He paused. “Where are your parents? I was hoping to see them off before they left. What time is it? Did they leave already?”

This particular draconiquus had the head of a blue pony, with strangely normal pony eyes, although one is pink and the other is yellow, a green curly mess of a mane, no beard, no fangs sticking out of his mouth (unusual for a draconiquus, judging from what her book said), one ear of a rabbit, the other matched his pony head, and no horns. His left arm was the left foreleg of a leopard, his right arm was the right foreleg of an iguana, tail of a fox, and both wings appeared to be those of a dragon, both red fingered and purple membrane. Over his torso he wore a coat made up of mismatched fabrics, an undershirt, which equally didn't match, a bow tie, which also didn't match, over his legs he wore pants which also didn't match with everything else. On each hoof he wore very peculiarly shaped shoes.

Twilight was too surprised and afraid to move or respond.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked her.

"You... you’re... you’re a..." she sputtered.

L reached down and zipped her mouth shut. Literally. "Let me stop you right there. Before you get under the impression that I want anything bad to happen to you, and that you should be afraid of me, I'm going to tell you this right now. I am NOT your enemy, Twilight. I don't want to do anything bad to you, Twilight, nor anypony else for that matter. I'm not like those others that you have read about in that book."

He snapped his fingers and the book appeared in his leopard paw, and he read aloud the title: "Draconiquui: the Myth and Their Horrible Treatment of Ponies. I must say that the Draconiquui have changed their ways since the last time they had any contact with ponykind. We no longer wish to throw your world into chaos, or enslave you. Instead, today I have come here, to your home, in an attempt to make peace between us. If ponies can see for themselves that we're not complete monsters anymore, and can actually be very responsible and logical beings, they'd be more willing to negotiate with us to bring about peace between our kinds. Do you understand? I know you can't speak right now with your mouth zipped up and all but just nod if you mean yes."

Twilight nodded frantically. L bent down and unzipped her lips. She took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"Just give me a chance, Twilight. If I fail, if tonight doesn't go as well as I had hoped, or the negotiations are unsuccessful, at the very least let's be able to say we gave it a good effort."

"Sure, but would you mind telling me as to how your kind survived their supposed extinction so many years ago?"

"Extinction? Hardly. But before we get into that, have you eaten already? Are you hungry?"

"Not really. We had dinner already before my parents and Shining Armor left."

"Well then, let me rephrase that question." He snapped his fingers and had teleported into the dining room, a bunch of tea pots and tea cups placed out sporadically on the table. He was now wearing a sick green coat, a dark green undershirt, a blue bow tie, dull green pants, brown worn out shoes, and a green top hat with a large tag with the size, 10/6, still attached. "Would you care for a cup of tea?" he asked as he poured the tea into one of his ear, which the sweet brown refreshment came out the other, and landed poured into a tea cup being held in his opposite hand.

"Um, sure. I suppose I could go for that." She walked over to the table and sat on one of the cushions, and poured herself a cup with her bare hooves.

"Um, you're a unicorn, right? Why don't you use your magic to levitate the teapot?"

"I'm still a little filly, silly. I haven't much mastery over my magic just yet."

"Oh, that makes sense, I suppose. And speaking of making sense, how about something that doesn't? A riddle. Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Twilight was delighted by the prospect of having something to use her brain power to figure out, that she wasted no time in getting to it. After several minutes, she said, "I give up. Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

To this, L responded: "Because there is a B in 'both' and an N in 'neither'."

Twilight blinked three times before responding. "I think I might have misheard you on that one."

"No, you heard me correct. I told you before that riddle doesn't make sense. It's actually a riddle that has a question but no official answer. People have been coming up with many of their own answers to it. If you want one that actually makes sense, but is a bit meta of an author whose work hasn't been officially published in Equestria yet: 'Because Poe wrote on both.' "

"People?"

"Another species, who refer to themselves as people."

"Oh. And how can a riddle with no answer be so popular?"

"That is EXACTLY the reason why it's so popular! Plus it was written in a popular children's book called Alice in Wonderland. And... Oh, how silly of me! Alice in Wonderland was never published in Equestria. Every reference I make to it is completely lost on you, isn't it?"

"Pretty much."

L considered a thought for a moment. "Wait right here," he then said to her. "I'll be back in five minutes or less." He then waked into his blue box, pushing the door open instead of pulling it like the sign says to.

Twilight waited for a few minutes, and then L came back out of his box holding a small volume, titled: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carol. On the cover there was a strange creature, standing on two legs, wearing a blue and white dress, with a blonde mane, and digits on its front hooves. It was looking at a large grinning cat curled up on a tree branch.

"How would you like for me to read you a story, Twilight? Now, before you say anything about preferring to read it yourself, I must inform you that you have never truly experienced a story until you have heard it read aloud by a Draconiquus. You'll be glad that I was reading it aloud. I guarantee it."

"Alright."

L opened the book to the first page and began to read aloud:

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'..."