I was nearing the treeline around the human family's home when I saw Ivan waving to me, waiting patiently at the end of the fringe. A small smile tugged at my lips and I adjusted my scarf for the umpteenth time. For nearly the whole of winter I had been spending time trying to teach the new family Equestrian, with varying success.

"Hello," Ivan greeted, his unique accent thick in the word, as he joined me, walking to his home. I repeated the greeting and continued walking. Even though I had probably spent the past month and a half teaching Ivan the ins and outs of the Equestrian language, it was far, far harder than I'd first thought. Though the foal books that I had brought the second visit had seemed to help them learn some basic words, it was still hard to teach them verbs, pronouns and the like and put them into clear, understandable sentences. After all, most ponies can't really understand somepony who only knows a smattering of Equestrian too well.

"How Twilight today?" Ivan asked, speaking slowly.

I gave him a smile, internally cheering, "I'm fine Ivan, thank you."

"That good." he said, his teal eyes roaming about, knowledge seeming to shine from them.

As we continued to the small house my mind turned to the first meeting. I chuckled lightly. Never had I ever thought that I would meet members of a race said to have died out long ago. The princess would be so proud of me. My thoughts slowed for a second. The thought of bringing Princess Celestia's attention to the family of humans had been bugging me for the past few weeks. While it seemed reasonable, Celestia was a fair ruler who rarely passed judgment on something immediately, the only thing that is stopping me from sending her a letter requesting her to come to Ponyville to meet the human family was that I don't know how they would react. While Ivan and his mother who's name I learned was Alina, seemed to be fine with me at the very least, I'm afraid of Ivan's father.

The wall of human muscle, who goes by the name Arron, seems to detest my presence. If I am so much as in the same room he either leaves with a scowl on his face or continues to do whatever it was that he was doing, acting as though I am just a piece of furniture. It was something odd that continues to pick away at me whenever it happens, which was altogether too often.

Thinking along the lines of odd brought me to Rainbow Dash. After about a week after she brought my attention to the small house sitting at the edge of the Everfree, Rainbow continued to act strange, seeming as though she was afraid somepony was about to jump from the shadows and attack her, or worse. She seemed to calm down after another few days, going back to her usual brash self, but still acted edgy with anything having to do with Ivan's home. When she thinks I'm not looking every now and again I see her shiver, though from disgust or just the heeby-jeebies, I couldn't tell.

Something that has been bugging me even more than thoughts of Arron going rabid or Rainbow's weird behavior were things about the land that had come with the human families house. One of the days I had stopped by I stopped to take a few samples of the oddly dull trees and snow. What I had found was nothing of merit, but when I ran a test for magical energy I was nearly blinded with the residue of not just one, but two mass teleportation spells! The sheer imprint it left on the area was remarkable in strength, yet was designed to fire of subtly, so none should notice. Normally, such strong spells have base items that have the spell enchanted on them, oftentimes gems or other precious stones that when fed magic activated.

But that wasn't what was picking away at me, the fact that there the spell was fired twice was what made me wonder. Who would make or even need such a powerful spell, and how did these humans who for the most part seemed devoid of magic use it?

The sound of Ivan clearing his throat shook me from my train of thought. Looking up I saw that I was only a few steps away from the deck of Ivan's home. He smirked and nodded his head to the stairs, gesturing for me to go first. I thanked him and continued on into his home, Ivan close behind.

Not even five steps into the front room and I could hear little feet slapping hardwood.

"Ivan, Ivan!" exclaimed little Rose, who I had learned was Alina's second foal who I hadn't met on my first visit. The filly was only six years old and was a ball of energy like most young. Ivan crouched down and scooped up the human filly in his arms, giving her a big hug. Once the filly had her fill of hug she bounded out of her brother's grasp and skipped up to me, speaking quickly in her native tongue. I nodded every now and again, not understanding a word. While Ivan has advanced leaps and bounds, learning more than I could have expected, Rose has yet to realize that I don't speak Engrish. At least, I think it's pronounced as Engrish, but with Ivan's thick accent it could be Engrish, English or Anglish.

Ivan let out a chuckle and told Rose something. She stopped talking for a moment before nodding and running off, her long, blond hair trailing behind her. The sight brought a smile to my face as a group of memories of Shining Armor and I slid to the forefront of my mind. I need to go visit the Empire again soon. I sighed.

With a motion of his head Ivan and I walked into the main living area of the human family's home. Arron seemed to not be in the house at all, and if I were to hazard a guess, he was fiddling with the massive panel that was in the back of the house as he usually does. I repressed a sigh of relief. That stallion's presence itself seemed to threaten me. The spacious room had become a classroom of sorts, several of the books that I had lent them were on a small rack in the far corner. While I have yet to see any of the other humans avidly trying to read the simple books that I had given besides Ivan, I have caught a few glimpses of Alina trying to decipher one or another with Ivan's help.

Walking over to what Ivan labeled the 'Book Corner' I grabbed a book at random, finding a book revolving around actions. Looks like I'm going to be acting things out again. I thought, a small part of me already laughing at the fool I'm going to be making of myself.

After a few hours of exaggerating motions to have Ivan laugh at me and answer with the verb I was playing out we broke for lunch. Though Alina was still somewhat wary of me and my intentions she was still nice enough to make lunch for Ivan and I during our language sessions. Today he had a sandwich with some kind of meat, celery sticks and carrots. I had much of the same, only with a sandwich of cauliflower. At first the idea of these small, weaker-looking humans eating meat seemed kind of absurd, Arron made a point of cooking up meat the next visit. I was forced to face the fact that they do especially when I saw the look of savory on Ivan, Alina and Rose's faces when they were eating the meat.

The encounter had also shown me several problems. Though I didn't, and still don't, want the human family to go out and interact with the denizens of Equestria, or Maker forbid Ponyville, quiet yet, they need food to survive. But I had found out, along with fruits and vegetables, humans need meat in their diet. Or at least, that's only what I could assume from how important Ivan and even Arron seemed to make it out to be. Luckily there is a shop in Ponyville, at the very edge of the market that is run by a griffon who sells different meats. Most ponies avoid the place but traveling griffions or minotaurs seemed to give the store enough patronage to keep the store running. Taking it upon myself I promised to bring them supplies once every week to restock, even though it was rather uncomfortable to go into the little store selling meat.

Ivan waved a hand in front of my face, a mouthful of celery in his mouth. I looked up to him in confusion as he swallowed. "When we let go out?" he asked, accent partially obscuring his words, "Famil not happy with stay home."

A pang of sympathy shot through me, and I found my half eaten sandwich very interesting. "I don't know Ivan, but you seem to be learning really fast. Maybe sometime soon." he blinked, trying to translate what I had said for a second, before nodding and taking another bite of celery. It hurt me to tell him that he and his family that they had to stay within the treeline, but my concerns are valid and reasonable! I didn't want another Cerberus incident. There was panic enough on a daily basis.

Alina walked up to Ivan, asking him something. Ivan responded with what seemed like an answer, before asking his own question. Alina huffed and answered. Ivan rolled his eyes. "Mama want to know if leave soon be before winter end."

I chewed some of my carrot before speaking. "I don't think so. Winter Wrap-Up is only a couple days away, and I'm going to have to organize everything again. Maybe sometime in March or April?"

Ivan seemed to understand me for the most part but had something bothering him, "What Winter Wrap-Up? Sound funny."

My eyes widened as I realized that I hadn't been teaching him Equestrian culture. For all I knew, human didn't have a Winter Wrap-Up like the minotaurs to the west. How they cope with their wild weather, I'll never know. Choosing simple words I continued, "Winter Wrap-Up is when everypony helps clean up Winter to let the farmers grow their crops again."

Ivan looked at me with shocked disbelief. Alina said something to her son, but he ignored her. "What mean, everybody help clean winter? Winter go away when it want to." And my suspicions were confirmed.

"The seasons have to be brought in and moved away to keep the balance of the land." I stated, matter-of-fact.

"But seasons leave in week, maybe month, not day!" I really need to rehearse plurals with him.

"That's how it's always been in Equestria Ivan."

Ivan looked as though he was going to say something but stopped. Closing his mouth he huffed and mumbled something under his breath in Engrish. He took a moment to talk with his mother before she left, casting a look back to us. The rest or lunch and the lessons were uneventful as I went over plurals. But neither he nor I were paying the utmost attention we could. While I was thinking about how to teach the humans what was socially acceptable and what wasn't, he seemed to be mulling over the idea of Winter Wrap-Up.

The two of us wrapped up around five, and I left, receiving a tight hug from Rose and a far smile from Ivan. His eyes were slightly glazed over looking at something miles away. Fumbling with my scarf again I looked for the residue of the mass teleportation spell again, finding it quickly. I took a moment to try and find the endpoint of the first casting and the starting point of the second casting, but let out a sigh when I fail again. Why did the pony who designed this spell have to make it so hard to detect on casting and hard to track? I wondered, idling a few seconds longer before making my way back home, where Spike was surely waiting for me to get back.

Author's Note

Get ready for the cringe train, Engrish is gong to be a continuous joke. Broken English deserves and broken joke.