Your Human and You: I Refuse to Play

Peter Williams

Two weeks passed during my tenure as Professor of Politics to the Purple Princess of Ponies, and a few things had come to pass. First my popularity had finally begun to die down. The paparazzi looking for an easy story had move on to fresher prey to pick at, leaving only true human researchers to pick at me. We even found one or two of them, including the illustrious Dr. Found, who could assist in our investigations on the differences between my earthling human body and the local trogs. It was only recently proposed, so no real progress was being made. The new team was getting to know each other, mostly by having hissy fits when comparing each others' notes on humans. Turns out ponies actually knew very little about humans, and most real scientific progress was conjecture based on observation. Princess Twilight had taken it upon herself to try and keep the scientists in order and to my ethical standards. We had to turn two away after they promised to only take a small part of my brain for study.

In other news my stipends were coming in weekly, and they were considerable. After paying for my suit and advances on at least three other outfits from Rarity (who still insisted on a slight discount for a friend), I took to the markets. I was now stocked up on everything I need to do three nights of cooking per week for one month. I figured if I saved up for a few weeks I could buy a decent sized shed for myself and put it in Derpy's backyard. I would have to look into getting furniture and such. And plumbing. And whatever passes for electricity in these parts. Hell, judging by my phone it was just free floating in the air. I'd have to figure that out. Either way Derpy's eyes nearly bulged out when I showed her the sum. I'd have to open a bank account to store it all. I'm was sure that would be an adventure and one half.

The Princess' lessons were progressing well. We managed to do damage control over her advanced reading and actually get through a good bit. I managed to explain how to read the work and she began to read in a new light. We'd just finished The Republic, spending most of our lessons going over the material read the day before. With that done we decided taking a few days off to print a few new books off my phone, so I effectively have a few days off to just lounge around the castle and/or house. I planed use this time to prepare my lessons and relax. While my wrist was getting stronger from the constant need for communication, it still got cramped up for particularly wordy days. I'd even started developing a system of gestures for more simple dialogue to save my hand (and paper) the trouble.

So ultimately, because something enjoys watching me suffer, this little slice of relaxation was interrupted by a rapid series of crashes outside the door. I shot up, throwing on my over shirt as I reached for the knob. I opened it to the sight of a jade green stallion brushing himself off.

He glanced off to the side in an angry glare before grumbling, “Stupid townsponies letting humans just roam around the streets.” He then turned his attention to the doorway and myself. His gaze started at the level one might expect to see a pony's head, then gradually moved its way up my hunched frame before settling at my face. “Ah, right. There you are. You're a Mr. Peter Williams, yes?” He asked. I nodded. “Good. I have been ordered to inform you that your presence is needed at Town Hall. We have received the forms for resident alien status and need them filled out by the applicant in question. Please come with me.” He instructed through barely concealed frustration. I was a little surprised. Those forms had finally come in after two weeks, and I had nearly forgotten we ordered them. Town Hall didn't have any when we went the first time, and they had to special order them. Then it was just a matter of waiting for bureaucracy to work its incredibly slow magic.

Our trip was short and quiet, the way I like them, and we quickly arrived at the second largest building in town, a circular hall with three some-odd stories of floors and a steeple. Like most other buildings in Ponyville it seemed to be built with particular interest in looking cute rather than being effective. As we entered, though, I saw it’s merits in a large auditorium with an overhead loft from which it would be easy to give speeches. Good acoustics, too. nice and echo-y. Could probably put on some decent concerts, too. Cool. We ascended the staircase and entered the offices in the back, casting casual greetings to various aides as we passed. We finally pushed open a pair of large wooden doors into the mayor’s office, where the mare herself sat with another female of the pony species, probably her secretary.

The office was a bit bright red for my taste, but I wasn’t an interior designer either, so what the hell did I know. The desk looked like a nice, rich hardwood, deep brown in color, contrasting the rest of the room and drawing attention to it and it’s occupant. The new mare was a magenta, skinny little thing with a deep green mane. Probably foreign if the few magazines around Derpy’s taught me anything. Ponies come in a delightful variety of shapes and sizes when you start looking around the world. Hell, the ones that live in the desert look like straight up horses. Actually, now that the light’s adjusted she looks more like a fushia. Perhaps a deep pink, not quite red but clearly on that side of the color wheel. God, this was easier when the only sapient beings were all varying shades of brown. Wait, what’s going on? Oh God they’ve been talking! Talking to me! What were they saying? The forms? The forms! Respond damnit! They’re looking at you! Do something!

After an uncomfortable delay, I finally reached out and took the forms with what I hoped was a winning smile. Judging by their sudden cringe it probably was not, but whatever. I let myself simmer down before turning my attention back to the papers in front of me. There was little to remark on the standardized form. Names, country of origin, duration of stay, race, ect. I filled them out in a brief matter of minutes and returned them to the secretary whom had handed them to me. She promptly looked them over, with a few questioning looks, then tucked them away in a folder.

“Well, with that bit of bureaucracy out of the way,” the mayor said in her pleasant, official tone, “let me be the first to welcome you, Mr. Williams, as an official resident of Ponyville. I hope you find it as good a home as you could hope for, considering the circumstances.” She offered a hoof, which I took and gave a firm shake. It all felt very businesslike, and almost surreal like most of my time so far in Equestria. With a nod and a smile I was escorted out of the building by the aide that had brought me and I departed his company. All in all it was a short visit, and everything went smoothly. I’m pretty sure that secretary shot me a dirty look or too, but I still got a few of those walking around the markets. Some ponies had trouble letting go of some prejudices, and considering almost every other human on the planet is the mental equivalent of a trained rat it’s not hard to see why.

Speaking of the trogs, I seemed to have picked up a straggler at some point. Don’t know why, but I suppose it’s like those situations where a dog just randomly starts following you around, except in my case it was a naked woman. She was probably looking for scraps or something. She’d leave once her underdeveloped brain managed to realize I had no food to give her. She was fairly adamant about following me, though. I first noticed her as I passed the gardening shop that I had flown through a few weeks prior and seen her in the reflection of the newly replaced window. If she had any sort of mind about her I would have guessed she was attempting to be sneaky about her pursuit, but failing horribly. Anytime I passed round a corner, she was four seconds behind me and slowing down as if she had ran to catch up. If it wasn’t for the constant plain, emotionless expression on her face I might have found it endearing. She was kinda cute though. Sorta curly red hair, slim build, freckles, and toned musculature came together to make one attractive woman. If only she had the mind to go with it all… Ah well, men may dream.

As I made my way toward the Castle de Sparkle, as it was closer and I wanted to explore it some more, I saw an opportunity to engage in my new favorite pastime. So, ponies seem to be hypersensitive to music, that is to say, they are affected by music in the same manner that Starbucks affects middle class white girls, they all just have to get involved. My first experience with this was at my ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ mini party, when I decided it would be fun to introduce a little earthling culture by playing a song or two from my phone and the next thing I know Pinkie Pie is leading the town in the Cha-Cha Slide. I had to lay down after that. She was forbidden to touch my phone again.

Either way it gave me the insight to begin my campaign of minor inconvenience on the local constabulary. Seeing a few guards approaching my direction on patrol I stopped to lean on the building next to me. As they passed the tune to Imperial March came from my quietly whistling lips. Sure enough, they fell into single file lockstep like good little stormtroopers and moved in tune. Until I switched it up of course. One skipped note was all it took, and suddenly their formation stumbled and fell apart. The best part was they didn’t even know it happened to them. I stifled a chuckle as they gazed at their surroundings, confused. I even heard a near silent giggle from someone out of sight. It was a good day.

Was.

I say was, because that giggle tipped me off on something. You see, the whole ‘trip up the guards with music’ thing was really my own personal pleasure. Ponies, at least outside special exemptions, never noticed these small musical outbursts. Oh, the effect was there, the happiness or somberness of whatever song struck would last, but usually it would seem, at least to the ponies, that whatever happened would have been in normal dialogue. As such, I was the only one who knew about the Imperial March trick. Not even Princess Sparkle seemed to notice, only seeing the guards pass, then inexplicably stumble. I explained the phenomenon to her, and she chalked it away to the relation between earthlings and magic for study later. The issue now was that someone had noticed it. Since ponies couldn’t see it, there had to be anoth-

The girl was covering her mouth.
Her eyes met mine for a moment, full of surprise and terror, before they disappeared around the corner she had followed me from. Immediately I was on the chase. That was not some coincidence or trick of the ear. I know I heard that, and I know it came from her. I just needed to reach her. I’d figure out the next step when it came up. I needed to know, how different was she? Was she just bright enough for some schadenfreude? Or was she on par with me? Maybe smarter? Maybe- god damnit she’s fast!

Left, right, left again, over the cart, around the stallion, under the bridge, She just kept going. The echoes of discontent and frightened ponies faded off behind me as we moved deeper into the town. My stunning lack of fitness was hitting me again, as I moved a hard as my legs were willing to carry me, which was just a little bit slower than the girl. She turned another corner as my lungs burned from overuse. I was almost completely out of juice when I turned a corner and slammed into the back of my target. A brief tumble and exhausted flump to the ground later I heard the cackling. I raised my head to see this alley had not been as empty as the last twelve I’d run through, possessing two earth ponies, a pegasus, and a unicorn, all with shocked but elated looks.

“Well, well, well. What an interesting development.” The unicorn chipped with a nefarious grin, “Drag, wasn’t I just saying how much we could make in the human fighting racket?”

“That you were, Hoop.” one of the earth ponies respond, “What fortune that we should get two just falling in our lap!” Not good. I’d heard about human fighting rings. While illegal, they were like drug dealers, if your town gets big enough, at least one will be operating. The thought of ending up inside of some arena fighting trogs for my life did not sound like a good time, so I slowly backed up until my back ran into the giggle girl. God damnit.

“Wait a sec…” The pegasus drawled, “Ain’t that the princess’ pet or whatever? The smart one that ?” Ha! Connections are an amazing thing to have, and I’ve finally got an in! Just need to play this-

“Could be, but that just makes the profit bigger.” The unicorn smirked at his friend. No! Crazy pony needs to shut up!

“What? We can’t do that, Hoop! The Guard would be on us like a fly on a cowpie!” The pegasus exclaimed. This was a good pony! Listen to this pony!

“We won’t have to worry about that once we have the money from selling these two, Rap. We’ve been talking about splitting this one horse town anyway right? This is our shot!” The unicorn argued back. Sush, stupid pony, your ironic statements are not appreciated!

“Woah, like tonight?” the other earth pony chimed in, “I dunno, Hoop. This all feels like it’s happening a bit fast.” Good, rational arguments should win the day.

“Don’t be such a wuss, Goldie. We’ve been talking about it for ages, so let’s do it! just get around them.” Whelp, so much for reason. Time to run!

I bolted up, taking the girl’s hand, and burned the last fumes in my legs with a great leap towards the back of the alley, bowling over the pair that had been encircling us. With a fire in my belly I didn’t know I had, I flung the girl onto my back and sprinted back to Derpy’s house, flinging the door open and tossing the girl onto the couch as I barred the door. The girl introduced herself as Zelda, she was intelligent as me, and in fact a big admirer. She had been following me to try to figure out how to introduce herself, but was too nervous to talk to me. We got to know each other, and fell in love. We got married in the spring of the following year, bearing two beautiful children, Nathaniel and Superfly and we were so very very happy until a blinding flash of cold water suddenly hit my face-