I woke up abruptly, reflexively sitting up in the bed and breathing in as if I had forgotten to do so for far too long. I didn't recognize the room for a few moments and my memory was hazy. Then, I heard his voice.

Everything is okay, Recto, calm down.

"Where are... What happened?"

In our room, in the Palace in Canterlot. Are you feeling alright? he asked, worried. No headaches, anything?

"I... I'm alright, I think. I just... I think I was having a bad dream."

Well, it's alright now, he said, and I felt his mind warming up mine a bit. Felt like a strange, soothing hug. Try and get up. There's a pitcher of chocolate milk on the table. I casted a spell to keep it fresh last night.

"Yay!" I exclaimed, excited as I moved to said heavenly pitcher of goodness.

I drank a glass and sat down, the bad feeling from the dream having already melted away. Chocolate does that.

So, what's the last thing you remember? Verso asked when our heart regained its normal beat.

"I'm... not sure. I remember that mister Prince Blueblood took us to meet one of his friends, that you talked with him a little bit and after that it becomes... fuzzy."

'Fuzzy'?

"Fuzzy," I confirmed with a nod. "So, do you know what happened?"

We passed out of exhaustion, apparently. I woke up yesterday in the beginning of the afternoon, but you didn't. I was worried...

"There, there, I'm awake now, don't you worry." I gulped down another glass. Blessed be the creator of this divine liquid. "So you had to spend a whole afternoon all by yourself, huh? Is Luna mad at you again?"

No!.. I mean, possibly, but I didn't do anything to suffer this reaction. I spent the day writing in here about boring sciency stuff and Luna helped me to meet one the ponies' biggest scientists. And he had a ridiculous name.

"Really? What is it?"

'Giggle Neighton', he said, chuckling.

I laughed a bit more. "He's named 'Professor Giggle'? That hilarious!"

Yes- No, what? No! The funny thing is his last name: Neighton!

I blinked. "I don't see how that's funny. It's just a name."

Verso hesitated. It's a horse pun around the name of Sir Isaac Newton!.. You know who Newton is, don't you?

"Is he the inventor of the chocolate milk?"

No!

"Then I have absolutely no idea. Who's that?"

It's... Oh, forget it. Anyway, we will probably meet him and several of his friends during the Gala, tonight. I'll have to take over when we do, it's important. I'll try to keep it short, though.

I nodded, sipping on yet another glass. I then quickly got ourselves ready and went to the breakfast room where we usually meet up with miss Princess Celestia and Luna. Sure enough, both of them were here, having a energetic discussion. That is, until they realized that we were here. Then, they instantly stopped talking and stared at us. That was creepy.

"Good morning!" I said, waving at them. "How are you doing today?"

Miss Princess Celestia opened her mouth but no sound came out, so Luna answered instead. "Rather well, Recto. Are you feeling alright? Verso was quite worried about you."

"Did he get you worried too?" I asked as I sat down. "I just think mister Prince Blueblood's lesson were so crushingly boring that our body just chose to sleep instead of taking another one. Was he upset about this? He tends to get upset over little things."

"I have not heard about him since yesterday."

"Oh. Well, I guess it's alright, then. I do feel bad for the pony he was making us meet, though. Must be awkward to have one of your guests simply fall asleep like that."

They glanced at each other. "He... didn't seem to mind," miss Princess Celestia said, her voice strangely hoarse. Get it? Hoarse! Because she's a- oh, you got it. Okay then. Moving on.

"So, the Gala is tonight, right?" I asked, changing the topic and grabbing something to eat.

"It is", Celestia confirmed. "In fact, I have some news for you," she continued, taking a letter out of... somewhere. "Twilight sent me a letter yesterday night, to say that Spike, Rarity and herself will come too."

"Really? But, miss Twilight told me that she didn't like it..."

"Methinks that she does not want her new pupils to be left alone on such an occasion," Luna said, smirking.

"But... She was mad at us when miss Princess Celestia took us to Canterlot a few days ago! And I thought the whole Gala thing was part of Verso's punishment for telling miss Twilight and you that he brought us to the castle to read books?"

"Doesn't seem to stop her. She apparently missed you both while you were here."

"Really?" I felt weird, half-bad for making miss Twilight a bit sad, and half-happy for... making miss Twilight a bit sad? It was confusing, okay?

"By the way," Verso intervened, making miss Princess Celestia flinch, "while we're talking mail, how does the whole 'Spike mail' works?"

Why are you interested in that?

Are you telling me you wouldn't like to be writing-buddies with Twilight and Spike?

You've got a point.

"It's a complicated process," miss Pearly Pony Princess answered. "Dragon fire is magical to begin with, and, when properly trained, it is possible to cast an interesting transportation spell on small, burnable objects."

"That's convenient."

"But how do you actually send a message to Spike? As far as I've seen, you don't use the same process in reverse."

"You are right," Luna answered. "My sister had to create a link with little Spike when Princess Twilight was studying under her. She connected me to it soon after my return to Equestria. We then use a specially crafted spell to transport the message."

"Could you connect us to that link too? Would be useful to have a direct line with him."

Princess Celestia nodded. "Come here."

I stood up and walked next to miss Princess Celestia. Her horn lit up and she touched our forehead with it. I felt a little spark buzzing between the horn and our skull, and it was over. Verso felt like he was looking around the interior of our body for a sec, looking for the change.

"That's it?"

"What were you expecting?" the white princess replied, sipping on her cup of tea.

Verso metaphorically shrugged, and I sat back in our sit.

"So what now? Do we just wish the letter away and that's it?"

"Basically. Try not to abuse it."

Oh, and here I wanted to spam Twilight about her long-lost Saddle-Arabian Prince of a cousin...

What?

Nevermind. We'll test that later, when we have Spike around.

I nodded. "Did you have anything you wanted us to do today, apart from the Gala and all that?"

Luna glanced at her sister. "We wanted to talk to you about the books that you are writing."

"Books? What books?"

The ones I've written yesterday.

"Oh, yeah, those ones. What about them?"

"We discussed it before you arrived," miss Princess Celestia said, "and we had some concerns."

Of course...

"Do you think it is safe to give us that knowledge?" Luna asked. "You told us your people destroyed your world with it."

"You're looking at it the wrong way, your Highnesses," Verso said, strangely polite for once. "Knowledge is but a tool. I'm not going to tell you what to do with anything. That's up to your ponies. The humans used it to blow things up, yes, but also to create wonders. And I can assure you, had humans had access to magic and the knowledge you possess about it, we would have found a way to blow everything up with it too."

"You said last night that you thought that printing these books was not enough to meet your financial goals and that you had other ideas," Luna said. "Could you tell us what these are?"

"I have two in mind, mainly. First, depending on how my meeting with Professor Neighton and his colleagues goes tonight, I was thinking about organizing paying lectures rather than just writing everything. Would occupy a few days a month at most, and I could make the tickets expensive enough to live off this."

"If it is too expensive, no one is going to come, you know?" Luna pointed out.

"Is that so? You think that Twilight would miss something like that? You think that Neighton and his friends would miss out such a valuable source of information?" Verso replied, grinning. "They will pester you into giving them the necessary budget to get there until you break. Well, Twilight might pester me about letting her come free of charge, but since I'm an asshole, I won't let her."

"You are... You are terrible," Luna said, smirking as well.

"I try."

"And you said you had another idea?" miss Princess Celestia pressed on.

"This one will take some more time, but I may actually build stuff using my more practical knowledge, patent it and then make it commercialized by a local company. It would take more of our time, though. But I figure it could also be fun."

Miss Princess Celestia seemed to contemplate the idea for a moment.

"What kind of 'stuff' are you talking about exactly?"

"No weapons, if that is what you had in mind, your Highness." Miss Princess Celestia seemed quite uneasy about him calling her like that. I wonder why? "And I don't really know. You barely have lightbulbs working with electricity, and I don't think you have many efficient ways of generating power in the first place. Maybe I'll work on a power generator first? Or maybe on some damn pens to use rather than your shitty quills."

Luna's expression got all 'I have no idea what you're talking about but I'll pretend that I do' and miss Princess Celestia's got thoughtful again, allowing us to eat before we had to reply again.

"We'll let you do as you wish, then, but on one condition," the elder princess finally declared.

Verso sighed. "Which is?"

"I want you to submit to us a report describing how your 'inventions' work and what their effects are before you try and patent them. If either of us deems it unsafe for Equestria, you'll either correct the source of the problem or stop working on that particular project altogether. Is that fine by you?"

Verso got silent, his mind considering miss Princess Celestia's proposition for a few seconds before he finally sighed and agreed. The Princess smiled happily and we resumed our conversation, Verso taking his place at the back of our mind as usual. We somehow drifted back to the Gala and Miss Princess Celestia suddenly looked like she had the greatest revelation of all time.

"Oh, my! I almost forgot!"

Her horn lit up and a golden ticket apeared our of thin air. I immediately started to drool in hope that one of my greatest dreams was about to come true.

"This is your ticket to the Gala tonight," she said, crushing my dreams and giving us the little golden piece of disappointment.

"Why do we even need one? Can't you just tell to the guy that lets people in that the only human in existence is going to that party?" And why do you make everything out of fucking gold?

"Are you just unable to take it without whining?" Luna muttered, and I was unable to hold my snicker in. "On another note," she continued louder as she conjured as little pouch in existence, "I remember that you are rather short in terms of currency?" she said as she levitated the pouch to us.

Verso looked somewhat irritated at her. "And I remember telling you that I refused any direct payment from the Crown?"

"Oh, it is not a 'Royal Donation'. This comes from my personal treasury, and I count on you to give it all back in due time," she said matter-of-factly.

"I'll keep a checklist of our spendings, then," Verso replied, still sounding unhappy about it. He snatched the pouch from midair and used his sense field to count the coins inside. "And I suppose a 'thank you' is in order."

"Indeed, it is," Luna said, grinning wider as Verso's started to glare daggers at her.

He stayed silent for a rather awkward amount of time, not letting our eyes away from Luna's, who kept grinning.

Are you going to say it?

His eye twitched. "Thank you, Princess Luna," he finally said between our teeth.

She looked deeply amused by his antics and her smile widened a bit. "You are most welcome, Verso."

We finished eating and excused ourselves soon after to go back to our room. Having nothing to do all day was both a bit boring so I decided to go and wait for miss Twilight and the others by visiting the palace and its surrounding a bit more thouroughly than we previously had. In the following few hours, I befriended a couple birds and a squirrel, discovered the guards' training grounds, some sort of big arena that a passerby told us had been used in the past for friendly jouts between ponies, managed to get ourselves permanently banned from the kitchens, and got lost in a labyrinth, forcing Verso to get us out.

It was fun.

And sadly, before I could find another activity that would have probably been loads of fun, a group of guards came to tell us that miss Twilight, miss Rarity and Spike had arrived. They escorted us to our friends in record time, but none of them reacted to my jokes, so it was boring. At least, until they made us enter a huge bedroom where our pony friends and Spike were.

"Hello guys!" I said, waving.

They turned their heads in my direction and smiled, waving back while I reached them. I noticed that miss Rarity was levitating a few cover bags.

"We really weren't expecting you to come! I thought you didn't like the Gala?"

"Last time was awful, but it doesn't mean it will always be that terrible," miss Twilight said. She then took a more sheepish expression. "Besides, since I'm a princess now, it is expected of me to be present."

"And of course, dears, we couldn't just let you experience something like the Gala all alone," miss Rarity said.

I blushed a bit. "That's really nice of you."

"And lastly, I wouldn't have been able to give you this!" she continued as she levitated one of her cover bags to us.

I grabbed it carefully and looked at her, confused. "What-"

"It's your suit for the Gala tonight!" she answered, beaming.

I blinked. I opened our mouth. I closed it. I looked at the bag. I looked at miss Rarity. I opened our mouth again.

"That's... I don't know what to say... Thank you!"

"It's alright, dear. I just couldn't let you go to such an important event dressed like a bag of potatoes."

"You made the clothes we are wearing, you know that?"

She nodded. "Of course, I do, but these things are not made to go to a formal party."

"Okay. How much do we owe you?"

Miss Rarity blinked. "You don't owe me anything, dear. It's a gift."

"Doesn't matter, I'll find a way to pay you back. Again."

"You really don't-"

"You can't expect me not to repay you after you've been so generous to us, Rarity. This isn't debatable. I'm sure Recto agrees on this, right?"

"Yeah! You've been so nice to us and we didn't do much to repay you. Please, let us do that!"

"Well, I don't think I would be able to make you change you mind now, would I?"

"Nope."

"Nope. Now, let's get that suit a proper look."

I opened the bag and I felt our eyes starting to shine in excitement. It was beautiful! A three-pieces black suit just like in the movies. Felt like it was what James Bond would wear. Only needed a funny-sounding gun, a diabolical genius mad scientist and whatever a martini is to become the legend.

"So pretty~! Can't wait to try it on!"

"Please do. I may have to make final adjustments to it," miss Rarity said.

I nodded and quickly found a side-room were I changed into the best-looking clothes we had ever put on yet. Only one little problem, though: a dumb piece of fabric neither of us had any idea what to do with. Since miss Rarity would have probably known, we went back to the main room. Both the girls smiled widely when they saw us, and I couldn't help but blush.

"It looks simply fantastic on you, dears!" Miss Rarity commented as she started to inspect us.

"Y-yes, it does, thank you," I squeaked, my voice deciding on its own to try and get to miss Fluttershy's level.

"Oh, look at you, all flustered," she continued, chuckling.

"I... We just wanted to know, what's that supposed to be?" I asked, pointing at the surplus of fabric she had give us, trying to change the subject.

"Hmm? You don't know?"

"Nah, and neither does Verso."

"That's your bow tie, of course!" miss Rarity explained.

Verso and I figuratively glanced at each other, before I got another look at the black piece of silk. I then looked at miss Rarity, who smiled back at us.

"Aren't bow ties supposed to be those butterfly-thingies people wear around their neck? That doesn't look like a butterfly," I said, putting empa... amfa... illustrating my words by pointing at the so-called 'bow tie'.

"Well, of course it doesn't, you have to tie it properly first. Let me show you."

Miss Rarity's horn lit up and she levitated the black thing out of our hand and around our neck, folding it onto itself until it somehow magically transformed into what I could recognize as a bow tie. While I was looking at our reflexion in a nearby mirror, I could only think one thing.

Man, bow ties look dumb.

Happy to see that we agree on that.

But, I can't tell to miss Rarity that I don't like it! She made it just for us!

Well... As much as I hate to say it, this kind of dumbfuckery is expected on a formal party. I think it's better to just roll with it.

But I would have to lie to her! I don't like lying...

Not necessarily. It's not lying if you don't talk about it in the first place, is it?

I nodded at his silent response and smiled at miss Rarity. She frowned.

"Is there a problem, Recto?" she asked.

I blinked. She's onto me! I panicked. What do I do? What do I do?!

Verso, far from helping, started to snicker before he got into a proper laughing fit the more I was panicking, unable to answer miss Rarity's inquiry.

"I... Huh... No! Nothing! It's perfectly fine! No problem of any kind!" I answered, looking around and hoping to find something to distract her.

"Really?" she asked, her frown deepening into a dubious stare. "You wouldn't try to hide anything from me, now, would you?"

"N-No! Why would I ever do that?" I felt my smile falter.

"Tell me," she ordered.

"No?" I squeaked.

"Tell me tell me tell me!" she repeated, her stare becoming too insistant for me to ignore.

"Okay!" I finally cried out. I then took a sudden interest in the ground, as looking up would have meant looking into miss Rarity's eyes. "I..." I suddenly had a great idea that could arrange the bow tie problem without making me at odd with miss Rarity. "Verso doesn't like bow ties!" I blurted.

What? Did you just... Did you just use me as a scapegoat?!

Miss Rarity's stare mellowed, and she smiled kindly at us. "Oh, that's not a problem, dear. Look, we can just replace it with a normal tie," she said, turning around to snatch another piece of fabric out of somewhere. "And I must say, Verso, it is quite mean of you to put your brother into such stress over such trivial business."

I... But I... What?

I'm sorry! I pleaded silently to him as miss Rarity untied the dumb, evil-looking bow tie and replaced it by a much better formal tie. I didn't want her to be angry with me!

Oh, don't worry, there will be retribution... he replied in the happy-threatening tone he uses to warn me about incoming pranks from his side.

I shivered in apprehension. I also got a better look at our reflexion with the superior neck-wear-thingy and smiled happily. Much, much better. I knelt down to properly hug miss Rarity.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

She chuckled. "That's nothing, dear," she replied. "Now, if you could release me, you're going to crease your suit."

I let her go and miss Twilight looked at us. "So, I'm curious, how bad was Princess Celestia's punishment for you two?" she asked, a smile forming on her face.

"It was really, really boring," I answered. "Miss Princess Celestia forced us to get lessons from her nephew, mister His Highness Prince Blueblood, about how to act during the Gala."

Miss Rarity went wide-eyed. "With this ruffian?" she gasped. "Please tell me you're not going to follow his advices!"

I blinked. "You know him?"

"Sadly, I do," she answered, her voice growing deep. "He is nothing but a dreadful, ill-mannered, rude excuse of a unicorn noble!" she nearly hissed. "How Princess Celestia could have thought that somepony like him could properly teach you in any manner is above me!"

"To be fair, that wasn't really Celestia's intention to begin with," Verso interjected. At miss Rarity's raised eyebrow, he continued. "Remember that it was a punishment. She forced us to stay with him for three, horrendous, days. I could already take care of myself before she decided to torture us via this prick, thank you very much."

"Yes... I do keep forgetting that this whole affair is supposed to be a punishment for you somehow..."

"Speaking of which, I trust that you learned your lesson?" miss Twilight asked, her face taking as more serious expression.

"Oh, heavens, not that again..." Verso sighed. "No,I won't go and wander in 'dangerous, ancient locations' on my own again." At least, not with that stupid bug following us... "There, happy?"

"Mostly, yes," miss Twilight giggled.

"But you haven't spent all of your time with Blueblood, right?" Spike asked. "What else have you been doing?"

"We've been exploring!" I answered happily, describing our latest discoveries. "Oh, and Verso's been writing boring books too."

"You've been writing?" miss Twilight asked, tiling her head. "I didn't know you were much a writer."

"That would be because I'm not, Princess Purple," Verso replied, smirking when miss Twilight glared at him. "But I have an exhaustive knowledge of human scientific discoveries and theories since the age of stone, so I've started to write it down."

"You've WHAT?!" she cried, suddenly rushing right in front of us, a frantic look on her face. Verso stepped back, startled, and she kept following us. "You've always stayed infuriatingly vague about your people's knowledge when I have been asking you about it and you're telling me that you've been doing that on PURPOSE?!" Verso had reached a wall when she shouted that last word in our face.

"Uh... Why do I have the slightest impression that you might be upset?"

"UPSET?!" she screamed at us, her pupils turning into pinpricks. "I'M NOT UPSET!"

"'Could have fooled me..." Verso muttered.

"I'M... I'M... I'm incredibly excited!" miss Twilight finally rectified, her scowl turning into one of the biggest smile I have ever seen.

Her horn lit up and she conjured multiple stacks or paper, as well as an impressive amount of pencils. Of course, most of it ended into Spike's hand, who only had the time to cry in surprise before he was buried under writing supplies, not that miss Twilight seemed to notice, as her gleeful smile only grew bigger when she levitated something to write with. To be absolutely honest, there was something in her stare that I felt was a little disturbing. Verso gulped down.

"I want to know everything!"

"Calm down, Purple Pony Princess," Verso said. "I've only just wrote a couple tomes and-"

"YOU HAVE TWO BOOKS FINISHED ALREADY?!" she squealed in delight. "Where are they? I want to read them!"

"I've lent them to someone I-"

"Who?!"

"Professor Giggle Neighton, but-"

"You've met Professor Neighton?!" she screamed, looking positively crazy.

She looked like she was about to explode in glee, and given that I still don't know jack about magic, it could have been within the realm possibilities, for all I know. Verso was mentally reviewing all of the protection spells we knew, after all. Miss Rarity and Spike seemed to notice too, and thankfully came to our help in calming down the hysterical alicorn.

"Twilight, dear, calm down! You're making the poor soul nervous!"

"Yeah, you look half as hysterical as the week you got subscribed to the Encyclopedia Ponyversalis!"

Verso groaned and rolled our eyes, before he tried to slowly push miss Twilight away. "If you could let me finish my sentences, I'd be thankful, thank you very much."

Miss Twilight blushed and smiled sheepishly at us. "Sorry! I... got a little over excited, I think."

"Yeah, 'a little', alright," Spike muttered under his breath, making me snicker.

"Now that I can talk without being interrupted, I was saying that I had only written down two books at the moment. Princess Luna introduced me to Professor Neighton, and we decided to meet again tonight, during the Gala, after he had been able to review my work a little bit." He looked at miss Twilight and smirked at her nearly drooling expression. "I take it that you would like to join our meeting?"

"Yes!" she screamed, before she blushed again and cleared her throat. "I'd... I'd like to, yes."

Verso shrugged. "Be my guest, then." He looked at the two other persons in the room. "Is anyone else interested, by any chance?"

Miss Rarity shook her head. "As far as I figure it could be interesting to listen to, I fear that I would probably be lost in your technical mumbo-jumbo. Unless you were to speak about more culture-oriented aspects of your people?"

"That's not the plan, no." He looked at Spike next. "And I suppose you wouldn't be interested either, Spike?"

"Nah. Sounds like it's gonna be on the level of Twilight's experiments, and I want to do as little as possible with that kind of things."

"When does the Gala even start, to begin with?" I asked.

"Princess Celestia does the opening speech for the Gala at six," miss Twilight said. "It's only one pm."

I opened our mouth to ask what exactly we were going to do until it started when our stomach growled. I blushed, and the girls giggled at my embarrassment. We decided that having lunch would definitely be a better occasion to keep talking, and I went to change back into our more normal set of clothes. Once I was done, miss Rarity told us about a nice place in town where we could have lunch and we headed outside of the Palace.

Soon after we had exited the Palace, I felt Verso growing both annoyed and apprehensive and I started to look a bit more at our surroundings. Our little group was far from being all alone in the streets, and while most of the passerby simply ignored us and went about their day, a good portion of them were staring at us -as in, Verso and I- and were whispering to each other, some pointing at a pile of paper they had with them. When we passed next to a stand with a lot of these piles of paper inside it, miss Rarity stopped, levitated a bit out of her saddlebag into a slot in the stand, and took one of the piles. Verso's anxiety level shot up.

"I didn't have time to get one this morning," she explained, unfolding the pile of paper and letting us see that it had colored pictures and writing all over it.

Recto, I just remembered that I have something to tell them, Verso told me just as she started to look at the cover. Alone.

What? Why?

It's, huh... It's a surprise! he said quickly, as miss Rarity's expression was turning into a shocked one. Clearly, these piles of paper must have contained many secrets. You wouldn't want to ruin a surprise, would you?

Absolutely not! But, the lunch...

I'll do my best to wake you up in time for lunch.

Very well, then. 'Night!
Sleep well, Recto.

***

Of course, they had to learn about it sooner or later. One simply isn't suspected of one of the most terrible crimes in the Equestrian law without it making its way into the news, after all. I felt bad having to force Recto to sleep after he had already spent half a day unconscious, but there was simply no way that I could have damage controlled the situation with him awake.

Rarity paled quite a lot, as much as it seems complicated for an already white miniature horse, and her shocked expression didn't escape her friends' attention.

"Rarity? What's wrong?" Spike asked.

"I... Uh..." she blabbered, still a bit too stuned to form a coherent response.

"May I?" I asked as I levitated the newspaper to myself, making her flinch.

I didn't have to look that far into the Canterlot Times to find what she had read exactly. It was on the first page, as I had guessed. 'Count Boddy murdered! The human visitor found covered in blood on the crime scene!'. I was honestly surprised that it didn't straight up accused me of the murder, but I seemingly ended up in a universe where the press keeps to the facts, not to the speculation. It was still pretty bad, though. Glancing at Rarity, I could say she was more than a bit apprehensive of my presence next to her. I was about to start explaining when I remembered that Spike, the baby dragon, was right there too.

"Spike, how old are you again?" I asked, locating some sort of gem vendor with a conveniently long waiting queue.

"What? Well, I..."

"Doesn't really matter, in fact," I interrupted him, floating a couple shiny bits into his hands. "Why don't you go and buy yourself some shiny rock over there?" I told him, pointing at the previously mentioned shop.

"Just before lunch?"

"Keep it for your dessert if you want. We'll wait for you."

"What are you-" Twilight started, thankfully interrupted by Rarity, who realized what I was doing.

"Go for it, Spike," she advised, flashing him a smile.

Confused about wether he should be happy or not about this opportunity, he nonetheless decided to cash it in and left the three of us alone. I couldn't help but wonder if I should really put 'three bits used to prevent mental scarring on a young dragon' on the list of my spendings of Luna's money. As soon as I estimated that he was out of earshot, I turned to face Twilight, who looked just as lost as her scaley assistant.

"What are you two doing?" she asked.

"This may help you understand a bit more," I told her as I handed her the newspaper. She paled as soon as she read the headline.

"You were at a murder scene!?" she squeaked in shock. "Are you okay?"

I've gotta admit, I didn't anticipate this question. I was more expecting something of a 'What have you done?'. It left me wordless for an instant, and she took that time to cast a magical checking spell on me. When she was assured that I wasn't hiding any injury, she relaxed somewhat.

"We're both somewhat fine, but this topic is to be avoided while Recto is awake," I said tapping on my temple to put emphasis on my words. "I just barely managed to convince him to 'leave' the front seat quickly enough to avoid a rather bad situation."

"What happened?" Rarity asked, equally worried.

"Blueblood brought us to meet Count Boddy yesterday, and we blacked out because of a sudden surprise migraine. I managed to get Recto to wake up first while I was fixing the problem, and he found the Count's corpse still leaking blood." I looked away. "He... didn't really realize what was going on and tried to put pressure on the wound, getting blood on our hands just before the cops arrived and arrested us."

"Poor thing!" Rarity gasped. I nodded.

"He gave his testimony, and the Princesses let us out. After a few words with the princesses, he began to realize just what had happened and started a mental breakdown. I woke up just in time to help him to sleep to prevent further injuries to his psyche, and he subsequently forgot the whole story." I looked at them it the eyes. "I fear his problem may happen again if he is reminded of this story, so I ask for your cooperation, ladies."

They took a few seconds to assimilate the information, only to finally nod and look at me with what were supposed to be reassuring smiles, I assume. "You can count on us," Twilight said. "We won't talk about it."

"Thank you," I said.

"But... What about the Gala?" Rarity suddenly realizing in just how much trouble I was that night. "The Count was fairly well known, and it's the most shocking news in weeks! Surely, ponies will talk about it during the whole party!"

I waved my hand. "I'll improvise, but I should be fine. I'll be able to distract him enough, I think."

"Are you sure?" I confirmed with a nod, and she tightened her lips. "Well, it can't be helped, now, can it?"

"Nope. On another note, I now need to organize a surprise for Recto."

They looked at me like they would have looked at that horrid pink abomination on one of her more mentally unstable days.

"What-"

"I told Recto I needed him asleep to plan a surprise. I'd hate to disappoint."

"Easy, just go and talk to Pinkie," Spike said, as he came back from his shoping trip with a faceted sapphire the size of my fist in his hands.

This place is somewhat unnerving, sometimes.

"No!" I shouted by sheer reflex, not desiring to go anywhere even remotely near that thing on my own accord. Of course, such a... hearty reaction confused the others. I smiled awkwardly. "It... huh... He would expect Pinkie Pie being the one to through her surprise party?" I tried. "You know, since it's kind of her butt-mark and everything?"

"Your reverence to pony anatomy is charming," Rarity deadpanned. "But still, she is the best party planner that I know of," she continued. "Besides, do you have any reason to throw him a party?"

I blinked at that. Yes, a cover would make it more believable... I thought. But for what occasion? I couldn't think a real reason. No real accomplishment, not any particular event, we were in the end of summer, so a fake Christmas was out of the question, our bir-... I levitated the news paper to me again, looking at the date.

First of August. Heh, wouldn't you know it..."I actually have a legit idea."

"Which is?" Twilight said, as I casually gave the news back to Rarity.

"Well, it looks like our Earthern Calendar and the Equestrian one aren't synchronized. Our birthday is next week."

"What?" the little trio cried. "How could you forget that?"

"As I've said, the calendar changed. For us, it's been nearly four months already. Still, I guess he would appreciate. And it would be surprising."

Rarity nodded. "Very well, then. When exactly is it?"

"On the sixth."

"We'll organize something for you two, be assured."

"Thank you. Now, of course, we never talked about any of this, okay?" I asked them as I prepared to wake Recto up.

"Talked about what?" Spike asked, looking legitimately lost.

"Precisely."

***

Verso woke me up after what felt like an eternity, but we apparently hadn't moved that much. Spike had a shiny rock in his hands, though, and looked like he had just saw someone quacking while being followed by a legion of ducklings passing through. I checked: no ducks were to be found. And that's sad, because ducks are adorable. Once, in Ponyville, I found a whole family of-

Hm? I'm going off topic? Okay, okay, where was I... Oh, yeah, the ducks! No, lunch! Well, before lunch, to be precise. Okay, back on track.

We resumed our way toward a much desired lunch, while miss Rarity abd liss Twilight were trying to awkwardly hold a conversation with me about the Gala and what each of us was going to do. Amusingly, everytime one of them would mention mister Prince Blueblood or our lessons with him, the other would stare intently at the perpetrator and slowly shake her head, causing her to giggle awkwardly and to change the subject. It was hilarious, even more so when Verso simply mindpalmed and grumbled something I couldn't hear.

We quickly reached miss Rarity's restaurant and sat around a table, waiting for the waiter -Ha, ha!- to come by. Other clients were apparently surprised to see us and started whispering with each other, glancing in our direction from time to time. It seemed to make miss Rarity and miss Twilight pretty uncomfortable, but they kept smiling at me. Spike apparently didn't notice anything.

You see that, right? I asked Verso.

Of course, I do. They're probably still surprised to see us. We're the only human they've ever seen, after all.

Yeah, but they make miss Rarity and miss Twilight uncomfortable. We should tell them to stop.

As I was going to voice my conclusion aloud, Verso interrupted me. Let that go, they will continue to stare anyway. Besides, here comes the waiter.

As Verso had said, a pony waiter was coming our way, bringing the menus with him. The thought of the soon to be coming food immediately occupyed my mind. The pony hoofed us the menus and Verso quickly told me which of the dishes weren't poisonous for, letting me choose. I opted for a salad and gave the paper menu back to the strangely sweating pony. I smiled at him to show that I was friendly, but he only looked down on our teeth, gulped down and nearly ran back to the inner restaurant as soon as he got all the orders. I tilted our head, curious.

"Is it just me, or was the waiter sweating quite a lot?" I asked, and the two mares in front of us shared a glance, their awkward smile not leaving their face.

"I didn't notice anything," miss Rarity said.

Maybe it's just hot? Verso proposed.

"No, it's not," I replied aloud. "The temperature is kinda nice."

Maybe for us, but the ponies are quite literally wearing a fur coat.

I glanced at the mares and, sure enough, they looked like they were sweating too. "Is it too hot for you out here? I asked. "Maybe we could find a darker spot."

"Oh, it's fine, Recto," miss Twilight said, giggling weirdly. "We're enjoying one of Celestia's sunny days. It would be rude to hide from the sun, wouldn't it?"

I hadn't considered that. Since the Equestrian weather is manufactured, is it ill-mannered not to show that we enjoy it? I immediately voiced my concernd, and we started to converse about the weather, and how the ponies made it work. We learned that a schedule for the rainy days and other weather events was publicly placated in every pony town. It had rained a couple times since we had arrived in Equestria and the experience was still wonderful. We even got affected by that weird singing magic the ponies had and started to make our own rendition of the old 'Singing in the rain' song. Then, we spent the next day sneezing inside while miss Twilight was chastising us. Verso spent the day thinking about a way to get ourselves immuned to the singing urge, but quickly gave up, as miss Twilight told him that the event remained mysterious even for the ponies themselves.

I'm getting off-track again, ain't I? Well, we were talking about the different kinds of weather that were coming when miss Twilight said something that somehow made Verso nervous:

"What do you mean, 'there's a storm scheduled in three day'?" he said, forcing himself to the front seat.

"Well, the weather ponies missed a rainpour in Ponyville last week and have to counter-balance by making the next one be heavier," miss Twilight explained.

"Why in the seven hells would anyone scheduled a fucking storm?!" he said, clearly upset. "And why are those weather ponies so incompetent?"

"I'll have you know that Rainbow Dash is one of these 'incompetent' weather ponies," miss Rarity scolded.

"Explains a lot, actually..." Verso muttered, just loud enough for Spike and I to snicker.

"Besides, storms are a necessity, now and again," miss Twilight explained. "We need the lightning to-"

"To produce ozone, I know," Verso rudely interrupted her. "I just... I don't like lightning." Everyone else just mouthed a silent 'Oh' of comprehension.

Spike grinned. "Are you saying that you're af-"

"Finish that sentence and we'll find out if you can actually choke on that gem of yours," he nearly growled, making Spike gulp down and renew his interest in his plate.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," miss Twilight said. "Worst case scenario, you can just let Recto take full control and 'go to sleep', right?"

Verso had a sour laugh. "Yeah, I could just do that, right."

The other three shared a glance before we changed the subject. We finished our lunch soon after and the funny sweating waiter came by to get the payment, and we were off once again, heading back to the castle this time. Ponies were staring at us all the way back, of course. It was getting weird. Like, really weird. Thankfully, there weren't anymore staring ponies once we had reached the Palace. Well, the guards were still staring at the wall in front of them, but it was fixated on us anymore, so that was nice. We walked back to the girls' room to pick up our suit, and Verso said that he needed a little bit of time to prepare for the encounter with professor Neighton and his friends later that evening, so we excused ourselves and elected to meet again shortly before the Gala would actually start.

Verso carefully hanged our suit in our room's cabinet before he started to write down some notes on paper with a quill. When he finished, he took a look at the room's clock: five pm. We both agreed that we shoukd take another shower to be perfectly clean in our suit, and so we did. We spent the next hour getting ready and finally headed out, taking Verso's thankfully dried notes under our arm. Just by exiting our room, we could tell that something was definitly going on, as the castle was unusually noisy. We took a slightly broader route by an inner garden to enter the Gala by the big door.

There was a huge file of ponies talking with each other walking in the direction of the Palace's main gates, all dressed up in fancy dresses and suits. Some were even wearing top hats. Hehe, top hats... Anyway, we walked toward the the gates too and handed our ticket to one of the receptionists, who didn't even looked at us as he validated our ticket and allowed us to enter the Gala. I hesitated a second, taking a deep breath in, and stepped in.

Author's Note

And here's the 24th chapter! Only a little bit more than two weeks late! A new record for me! Huzzah!

Seriously, though, I had really planned to publish it before the beginiing of Season 5, but as I was nearly finished, I decided that I didn't like the thing and started all over again. There were supposed to be a lot more ducks originally.

Don't ask.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed reading this chapter! See you on Chapter 25: At the Gala!