Starting from the background.

So here I was, trotting down the road in a location I can narrow down to a country, on my way to a place a third of a planet away, with no supplies of any kind, with no knowledge of local language, and with my current intended method of transportation locked by my own well crafted phobia. An angry voice in my head wasn't showing any sign of exhausting the stream of colorful and extremely educational insults and was the reason to believe, that time is of the essence - because either he'll kill me when the merge would become inevitable, or I'll go insane of his constant grumbling. Future looked bright and interesting, as it hadn't in years. I already had some plans how to remedy that. Especially since Strict, as every other person I've ever met, was eager to supply me with all the info I can't normally even dream to mine from someone so bent on keeping secrets. I'm quite sure, that some pieces between those insults wasn't intended for the ears of common alien folk like me - true history of those Wonderbolts happened to be quite a story, of a kind, that is doomed to be a secret at least until the last of those, who was present there, is dead, and she is supposedly immortal.

Small road, that led me from the farm, soon flowed into a larger road, that, in turn, brought me to a small town with a name I can't properly pronounce, besides I'm quite sure an attempt will summon the Old Gods or something like that. The locals seemed to ignore small winged horse walking into town - and soon I've discovered why. A dark gray mare with a very dark blue mane and batlike black wings had practically fell from the sky near me, immediately assaulting me with a long speech in Finnish and a hopeful stare from her giant yellow eyes with vertical pupils. Her sudden appearance even forced Strict to stop the swearworks.

"Wow, now this is unexpected!" he commented, after the newcomer finished with the speech and looked at us expectantly. "Congratulations, you've just accidentally met a pony of the kind, that even most of Equestrians had never seen. And she's even speaking to you. Be proud."

"I am proud, but what does she just said?"

"I have no idea. When I've seen her last, she was speaking proper Equestrian."

"Sorry, but I can't understand a word," I told the mare to break awkward silence. She groaned and, while raising her forelegs to the sky, produced even longer irritated speech. Some words in it caught my attention.

"Perhaps you can speak this one?" I've asked, hoping, that and are not the only words this one knows from my native tongue.

"You speak Russian? Me speak Russian, not good. Me can understand it good," replied the strange one, relaxing. "Me don't speak English. You go America, yes?

While her Russian could be better, it was good enough to understand and, if she wasn't lying, she could understand me pretty well, so that was a solution for our language problem, at least, while she's around. It felt like a time to make a friend.

"Yes, that's where we are going. My name is Alexander, by the way. You may call me Alex."

"Nice to meet you, Alex," answered Strict, with some acid in his voice. "Glad you can fill me in on that so soon."

"You never asked. Also, you somehow understand Russian now."

"I don't. I catch partial meaning from your thoughts."

"Please, take me with you!" pleaded the gray mare, making the cutest face a creature of the night can muster. "Me must find a way to heal this!

"Excellent, now we have to take her with us, sighed Strict, for some reason less than happy with the prospect.

"Why? She can be useful, but if you don't want to take her, I think I can talk her out of it."

"She is a lieutenant of the Royal Guard, Princess Luna's part of it," Strict sighed once more. "With no ranking officer present from my own chain of command, I have to obey her. And, since you are using my body, so should you."

"Sure, you can go with me, if you want. You may be better on your own, though. I can't fly and have no supplies, or money to buy some, so it'll take me quite a while to get anywhere."

"Me have money! Me have supplies! Me help! Just get me out of here!" now, she sounded really desperate, and that ignited my curiosity - I assumed, that she had only wanted to get out of predicament of sharing a spooky body with someone she can't even understand, but her insistence proved, that there was more to the story. After all, she claimed to have everything required for travel, yet she asked a total stranger to take her with him. I have voiced my concerns to Strict, and he agreed with me, mentioning, that back in Equestria he would've already called a unicorn guard to perform a changeling check, whatever that is.

"Miss, I'm quite sure you are better prepared for travel, then I am, so pardon my curiosity, why exactly do you need me? I'm pretty sure you can make the trip faster on your own," for the lack of unicorns around, I've decided to use the good old "ask directly" approach.

"The law! No pony can travel alone! You do not know?"

"No, and I will be grateful if you'll explain."

"When ponies started to appear, people got scared. Some think ponies a threat. Some want ponies dead. So, they made a law that no pony should travel alone, so they can be protected. But everyone here is scared of me. Me fear they will harm me if me stay, and me be caught travelling alone, me transported back here. You travel alone, so they catch you too."

Now, when put that way, it was quite clear, that I had even more problems, than I've ever imagined. Of course, some degree of panic I did expect, but noticeable ponycide was, by my calculations, several weeks down the line, with laws, limiting ponyfied people rights, even further away. Well, as always, my take on average person xenofobia was off. Probably, need one of my own to really understand it. I scratched the back of my head with a wing and surrendered to the cruel world messing up my plans once again.

"I guess, we have no choice then. Gather everything you may need and let's go. What's your name, by the way?"

"Me name Maire Hannele Hämäläinen. Be right back!" and with this she vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Why do everyone else get the competent ones? angrily screamed Strict, while I was trying to get my jaw off the ground. "She gets one, who can fly and use her stealth movement talents, and I get a creep, that can't look down his own height without getting the shivers! That's not fair!"

"Life is pain. I'm missing my opposable digits, a good chunk of my understanding of the world, thanks to you and your magics, and I fell of a cloud a couple of hours ago, so we're even," I had answered, still trying to process what's just happened. "I assume, that trick is something only chosen few are allowed to know about, so you'll kill me if I ever talk about it?"

"No, that's just Blue Mist's special talent - stealth," replied Strict. "She can hide an entire platoon in the mists during the night. And she uses her skills for late night guard checks. Spooked half of the Guard senseless by now. Unfortunately, Their Highnesses find that amusing, so it's just a matter of time before she spooks all of the remaining ones, me included."

"Sounds like you guys like to sleep on a job. Anyway, what's with the bat ponies? I don't remember seeing one in that pilot, and never heard any mention of them before."

"You've seen only a small glimpse of our life, so it's very much expected, that you don't know about them. To be honest, before that Nightmare Moon incident, there were probably only a dozen ponies aware, that they exist. They are nocturnal and was always closely affiliated with Princess Luna, so you can imagine, why they were avoiding everyone for the last thousand years."

"Hmm... if you put it that way, I'm really surprised they wasn't hunted to extinction by angry mobs. Serving a kill-crazy goddess of evil is enough to start a good old witch-hunt. They must have really good hiding... Whoah! Don't you EVER do that again!"

"Sorry! Sorry! Me no know, how me do it! Me can't stop! apparently, Maire was startled no less, than me, when she appeared right next to me, carrying full saddlebags on her back, and another pair on one of her forelegs. "No one can see me when I move."

"That's Blue Mist for you, all right. " laughed Strict. "Some think, that she can teleport around like a unicorn."

"That can come handy sometimes, I guess. Too bad you can't understand your pony, she must know, how to control it. Well, since we are ready, let's go."

I did put the saddlebags on my back, wondering, where Maire had got them on such a short notice, and sighed, looking how she took off, clearly expecting me to follow. While the autumn sky did look inviting enough, compared to walking, I was still pretty sure, that anything above two meters will make me freeze in panic. Still, walking all the way was going to take too long, and with no idea on how long Strict can fight the merge (or even how he can fight it in the first place), time seemed of the essence, and there was that one idea I got from an old anecdote.

"Seems like I'll have to fly after all," I sighed, unfolding the wings. "But for it to work, I'll have to adopt an alligator style of flying."

"Great, now you are going insane," groaned Strict. "Alligators can't fly!"

"That's where you are wrong, winged horse, that's where you are wrong. Alligators are natural flyers. They fly better, than any other creature in universe. They just do it very-very low."