My Beautiful Dark Twisted Reality

1st Of Tha Month

I woke up next the morning to a throbbing headache. Worst drug fueled adventure ever, I thought while letting my eyes focus. Then I saw the pegasus on the couch I’d given up.

Turns out I’ve been sober this whole time.

The headache reminded me that I never got the ice I was told to use last night, and I was feeling it right now. My legs were also aching, but I didn’t care about that as much. I was used to having legs feeling like rubber from countless soccer games I’d played before.

Rainbow Dash was still snoring lightly, and for some reason I found it disarmingly cute.

Why do you think that something that threatened bodily harm on you is cute? Are you developing Stockholm Syndrome already? I asked myself as I tried to shake the feeling out of my head. Shaking proved to be a bad idea, as my headache pounded harder.

While I was pressing my hands to my skull to try to make the pounding go away. It was then that I heard steps coming from elsewhere into the room. I lifted one hand to see what it was, which turned out to be an upside-down view of Fluttershy trotting in.

I yawned and tried to wave in greeting, but only really succeeded in flopping my arm from side to side. The corners of her (I’m assuming it’s a her)  mouth lifted, which I took for a good sign. Groaning, I spun myself over and realized she was actually frowning at me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused about the cause of her expression.

“Were you sleeping on the floor all night?” she asked back.

“Yeah...did I do something wrong?”

“I thought you were going to sleep on the couch, that’s why I offered it to you.”

“I was going to, but the floor was closer.”

“The door’s over there,” she said, gesturing towards the door. The couch was between me and the door, exposing a flaw in my argument.

“Did Rainbow force you to sleep on the floor?” she asked, continuing my interrogation.

I could have easily thrown the flamboyantly colored pegasus under the bus there, but some piece of my morality told me not to. She hasn't made a great first impression, but she probably won’t like it if you start spreading lies about her, it reasoned. I decided the angel on my shoulder was right this time.

“That’s not it. I let her have the couch and took the floor instead,” I told her.

“Oh...well, I guess that’s alright. Why, then?”

“I threw dirt in her eyes, I guess I felt bad or something.”

“That was very nice of you. I’m sure she appreciates it.”

“Sure she does,” I yawned out. “Anyways, good morning.”

“Oh, it’s not just any morning. It’s one of my favorite mornings of the year,” she said. I just stared at her until she revealed the occasion. “It’s the first of July, so that means it’s time for the Summer Sun Celebration,” she explained.

I like the sound of the word celebration, but I’m not sure what it has to do with the other two words.

“What’s that?” I asked, trying to get more information out of the now cheery face I was staring at.

“It’s when Princess Celestia raises the sun to start the longest day of the year. We really shouldn’t have slept through the night, because we might miss it if we don’t leave for the town center soon,” she said, her tone becoming worried as she went on.

“Wait a minute. Did you say that this Princess Celestia...raises the sun?” I wasn’t sure if this was meant as a metaphor, hyperbole, or literally. No one’s actually got the power to move things in space, right?

“I did, and she really does. It’s truly something that’s hard to put in words.”

I’m gonna have to wait until I see the so-called princess “raise the sun” before I believe it. Somehow it bothers me to know that this pegasus actually believes anyone can move a ball of flaming gas many hundreds of times the planet I’m standing on.

“O...kay. If it’s so important that you get to the celebration, shouldn’t you leave soon, then?” I asked her, now doubting her sanity.

“You’re right! But before we can go, we have to wake up Rainbow Dash so she can come, too,” she said. With that, she walked over to the couch and lifted up one leg hesitantly, as if she wasn’t sure if she really wanted to touch the other pegasus.

She seemed to have decided against it, so she just stood there, apparently in deep thought. Then she leaned in close, and whispered extremely quietly in the sleeping girl’s ear. I was only eight feet away, but I could barely make out a word she said. Unsurprisingly, this strategy didn’t work.

“If you wanna wake someone up, you gotta be a little louder than that. Luckily for you, I have experience waking up comatose siblings,” I announced, deciding to take matters into my own hands. “Now, you’re probably gonna want to stand back, ‘cause most of the time people don’t like my methods.”

Fluttershy took my advice as I prepared to get her friend off the couch. Taking a deep breath, I got right next to Rainbow Dash, then started clapping my hands as loud as I could.

“Wake up Rainbow Dash! You got a Summer Sun Celebration to go to and I don’t think you wanna miss it!” I yelled.

It had the desired effect. The pegasus’s eyes shot open as her peaceful slumber was forcefully ended. She flailed around in her panic and connected with my stomach, just inches away from much worse damage.

“What’s going on? Why is everypony yelling?” were her first words.

Meanwhile, I was doubled over, trying to catch my breath and avoid losing whatever dinner was still in me from last night.

“Um, Rainbow Dash, today’s the Summer Sun Celebration remember? And I couldn’t wake you up, so Sean over there did instead,” Fluttershy explained on my behalf.

“Oh yeah! How could I forget?” she asked rhetorically. “So are we gonna get going or not?”

“Um, yes, of course,” Fluttershy sounded rattled after the wild display.

By this point I’d recovered from the surprise punch. “Can I come too?” I asked, not really specifying who I was asking.

“Why do you want to come?” Rainbow Dash asked me, her tone bordering on accusatory.

I wasn’t going to admit it to them, but I didn’t like the idea of being left alone. Even if they were talking mythical horses, it was a lot better to be able to have a conversation with something real than with voices in my head. My relatively short time in the forest was affecting me more than I thought it would.

“I don’t know. It just sounded like something worth seeing from what Fluttershy told me,” I lied.

Rainbow Dash looked like she was about to say something, but just as she opened her mouth, Fluttershy beat her to it. “Of course you can,” she said. Rainbow Dash started staring at her companion incredulously.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“I’m sure of it. Sean’s not a bad...human,” she answered, though the last word sounded like she was still struggling to remember what I was. “He’ll be on his best behavior. Won’t you, Sean?” Now she was talking to me like a mother would to a toddler.

“Uh, yeah. I’ll be the best behaved human you’ve ever seen,” I told her.

“You’re the only human she’s ever seen,” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“I heard that.”

She just crossed her front legs and stuck her tongue out at me.

“Now now, no fighting, you two,” Fluttershy said, still talking like I was a small child.

“Al-right,” Rainbow Dash answered, adopting the tone of a teenage daughter.

“Now let’s get going, we’ve got a celebration to see!” she announced.

I followed the two out the door, but didn’t make it before Rainbow Dash turned around. “You don’t have to wear clothes, it’s not like this is a fancy event or anything,” she told me.

This was the first time I’d ever been told nudity was the way to go. Her statement actually disarmed me with its bluntness.

“I’m not wearing clothes to be fancy. This is about as informal as I can get.” I mean, it’s hard for me to go much lower than a t-shirt and shorts while maintaining my dignity.

“Don’t you know you only clothes for special events?”

“I wear special clothes for special events, if that’s what you mean. This is what I’d wear for everyday use.”

“Why would you want to wear clothes all the time?” she asked incredulously.

“Probably ‘cause it’s illegal not to.”

“What’s wrong with the place you come from?”

“Lots of stuff, but banning public nudity isn’t one of them.”

“I know you two are having fun talking about clothes, but, um, shouldn’t we go before it’s too late,” Fluttershy said, not looking like she really wanted to interrupt our conversation.

“We’ll finish this later,” Rainbow Dash informed me.

“You got it,” I assured her.

We finally got on our way down the dirt path. It was dark out. Actually it looked like it was the middle of the night. Luckily, there was ample light from the moon and the stars in the sky. I had to admire the stars, since they were clearer than anything I’d ever seen back home. I didn’t notice I’d stopped walking until a voice broke me from my thoughts.

“Are you coming or not?” Rainbow Dash called to me from well up the path.

“Yeah, just a second!” I answered before I jogged to catch up to them.

As I got back behind them, it occurred to me that I didn’t know anything about the other inhabitants of this town. I’d spent so long fantasizing about meeting other people that I hadn’t considered any other possibility. So now I was gonna ask my escorts what exactly lived in the town we were heading towards.

“Are there going to be more like you in town? Is everybody else a pegasus, I mean” I ventured.

“Well, there are pegasi  in Ponyville - that’s where we’re going - but there’s also a lot of earth ponies and unicorns,” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Wait, unicorns? Like, with horns and everything?” I asked. The more I learned about this place, the more confused I got.

“Yes, pegasi have wings, unicorns have horns, and earth ponies, um, have neither,” Fluttershy answered.

Well, I was interested to see what these unicorns look like, and the earth ponies were easy enough to visualize. The word earth got me excited, but the way she said it made me think it wasn’t the Earth I was used to. Also, I guess these guys considered themselves ponies, which sorta made sense to me, but they were nothing like the ponies I was familiar with. It would explain why I heard pony used in place of body at the end of some words.

“Alright, next question. What’s gonna happen when they see me? Based on your reactions, I’m something that’s never been seen before, so are they gonna run from me? Try to attack me?” This is what I was really worried about. I don’t know if Rainbow Dash is a good measure for how their society is going to react as a whole, but I really hoped that I wasn’t getting charged from 100 directions at once by ponies trying to repel an alien invader.

“They’ll probably think you’re weird, ‘cause you are, but once they see you’re with me, they’ll know that you’re not going to be a problem to anypony,” Rainbow Dash said. “Even if you do, I’ll take care of it in a heartbeat.” Her confidence was staggering if she really thought I would let her beat me a second time.

“Uh-huh. What do you think?” I asked Fluttershy.

“Um...you are a bit scary because you’re so...big,” she said.

I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud, since that was almost the exact opposite of how everyone else had described me. I’m 5’7”, 125 pounds, which apparently translates to pure intimidation in this strange world. Fluttershy was about 4 feet tall, give or take a few inches, but I didn’t have a good estimate for Rainbow Dash since she was always flying. Still, being described as scary is something that hasn’t happened to me since I was wearing Halloween costumes as a kid.

“So I’m weird and scary, but also not a problem for any...pony. Thanks for your expert analysis, guys,” I said.

We walked on in silence after that, all the way until we got into the town of Ponyville. It’s a really weird name for a town to me, like naming a city Humanistan. I wasn’t really in a position to judge, since I was outnumbered who-knows-how-many to one, but I still had to wonder who was responsible for naming a town so literally.

The town itself didn’t look very big from the outside, and it didn’t look very modern either. Most of the buildings were made out of wood with what appeared to be thatched roofs. I could see a few of what must have been ponies milling about.

My experience with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash should have prepared me for seeing ponies with impossible colors, but it didn’t have anything on the variety that I saw in the town. It looked like a Crayola factory exploded and all of the ponies were at the blast site.

You wanted pink? You got it.

Purple? Of course.

Red, orange, or yellow? All over the place.

So far, no one noticed me as I walked inside the town’s borders. That didn’t last long, as I heard someone yell out, “Oh my goodness, it’s a monster!”

This was followed by cries of “The horror!”

First, everyone looked in the direction of who had called me a monster, which was a bright pink pony with green hair, then they looked in the direction it was pointing. After that, there were three reactions from the ponies. They either screamed and ran, stood with their mouths opened, or stared at me with a really creepy-looking smile for some reason.

Most chose the first option, and that cleared the streets out faster than I would have thought possible.

“So, should I stay here or do you still want me to see the celebration?” I asked the two nearest me, not wanting to make a bad situation worse.

“We’ll just keep going. You actually made it easier to get to the town hall,” Rainbow Dash answered.

That makes me feel better. Causing a panic that almost empties an entire street didn’t do much for my self-confidence, especially since I hate being the center of attention for any reason whatsoever.

“Well, let’s go,” was all I said.

With no one to impede our progress, the journey to the town hall was a short one. It was a larger building than the other ones I’d seen, but it wasn’t very impressive. Really, it was just a bigger wooden building, about the size of four of the houses I’d walked by earlier.

At the door, I rushed in front of the pegasi to hold the door open, trying to prove that I wasn’t the monster I’d been accused of being earlier.

“Thank you, Sean,” Fluttershy said as she walked in. Rainbow Dash merely nodded. I followed them into the hall, which was almost pitch dark. The door we came in was at the back of the room, with a large, elevated stage built in the front.

I followed the pegasi to a spot in the corner, away from prying eyes. A few ponies had turned around when I opened the door, but I don’t think any had gotten a good look at me. If they did, I couldn’t tell, because there was no screaming or panicking like before.

“How long until the celebration starts?” I murmured to Fluttershy.

“It should be really soon, we barely made it in time,” was her answer.

Not 5 seconds after she finished that sentence, a tan, grey-haired pony with glasses came on to the stage.

“Fillies and gentlecolts,” she said. “It is with great pleasure that I announce Princess Celestia to conduct this year’s Summer Sun Celebration.”

This was met with raucous applause from the crowd in front of me, while I just continued staring ahead.

Let's see what all the hoopla is about, I thought.