Nobody Expected That Today
It was a rather calm and peaceful day in both Earth and Equestria. Well, relatively speaking. Plenty of bad things and annoying things and unpleasant things and crimes happen in both worlds daily no matter what, it's just a given. But today was a particularly calm day. It was early June of 2014 according to the human Gregorian Calendar. It was rather layed back in Ponyville, business as usual with no threats to Equestrian society or new visitors from distant lands walking into town causing a ruckus. Meanwhile, a man in northern England was enjoying a nice cup of tea while reading a novel, just trying to keep to himself today.
What fun is there in that for either party? Discord thought to himself. Maybe I should spice it up for them a little today, hmm? Discord pulled out a cell phone from nowhere and dialed a phone number. He waited a few moments for the man on the other end to answer his call.
Discord from time to time would watch human television. It was so fun to see humans causing themselves so much chaos and inconvenience and distress without his intervention, and he was even happier that many humans shared his passion for watching others suffer from such chaos. They had even devoted entire television shows and YouTube channels and sometimes even whole websites and television channels to causing inconvenience to others in the most clever or most simple of ways.Trolling, I think they called it? Discord had been watching an English program recently called An Idiot Abroad. The idea of sending someone as antisocial and reluctant as Karl Pilkington to countries such as China, Mexico, or India was brilliant! Discord also saw a lot of himself in the man Ricky, who sent Karl on his various misadventures and laughed at his expense but still claimed to be his "friend." He could definitely relate to him.
Karl was not expecting any kind of commotion today, just to spend the morning with his good book, go out to lunch by himself a little later maybe, and possibly spend some time with his girlfriend that night. It was going to be what to him is the perfect day: lots of alone time, some time with someone close, and no time with any strange villagers from other countries or bizarre folks with wildly different customs. He had had enough of them for seven lifetimes.
Karl's peaceful morning was interrupted by a ringing coming from his pocket. I wonder who the bloody hell would be calling me this early? Karl bookmarked his page, took out his phone, and checked who was calling. The caller ID said it was from Ricky.
"Well, that's mighty odd. I thought Ricky was on holiday this week?" He answered the call and was greeted by who he thought was his friend.
"Hey Karl, I was wondering if you by any chance would be interested in making a series four of An Idiot Abroad?
Karl was shocked, He had been through so much shit in his travels that he promised himself he would never agree to do it again, not for a billion pounds. He didn't need the money that badly, he was pretty well off right now and he didn't crave luxury. He didn't need to travel, he had been there, done that! Three times!
"No, no way in hell! I wouldn't for a billion pounds! Just forget it! I'm suck of all of the natives with their knobs out, I'm tired of the poor accommodations, I loathe the huge parties with all of those annoying blokes who won't shut it!"
"What if I made sure you got proper accommodations this time? Really nice folks, really good food, great scenery, no disgusting cock and bollocks for dinner. Just peace and relaxation."
"What's the catch, Ricky? I know you'll have something up your sleeve, you always do!"
"No catch, I swear! Think of this as your..." Ricky seemed to pause to think for a moment, "...reward for all you went through before."
Karl was a little skeptical, but bought it anyways. The last three misadventures were definitely enough hardship to pay for a peaceful trip abroad.
"Alright. Yeah, sure."
"By the way, Karl, how do you feel about ponies?" This question caught Karl off guard. What? Am I going to a farm somewhere and Ricky's going to try to get me to do some horseback riding? Karl supposed that was better than a lot of the other shit he had to put up with before, and the show needed something entertaining in it, and if that was it, he was okay with it.
"Umm, you mean the little horses? They're fine, I guess."
"Okay, great. We're starting right now." Mid-sentence, Karl noticed Ricky's voice changed entirely. It sounded like that bloke from that Star Trek show. Before he really processed what just happened, he was somehow sucked into his phone through the microphone.
"Oh, and don't forget to have some fun with it, Karl!" Discord added before hanging up, but Karl was already through to the other side and he knew it. He said that more for his own amusement than anything. Oh, this is going to be FUN!
Karl couldn't see, hear, or feel anything for a few moments, until he awoke in the middle of a field. After the initial shock of wow, I just got teleported using my damn cell phone, he decided to look around at his surroundings. There were many kinds of flowers, including some species of flowers Karl had never seen or heard of before. There were lots of little butterflies and bunnies around of various colors. Everything around him was in a brighter color than it normally should be, and he could swear he saw little outlines on some objects. The morning sun was overhead, not too warm to be unpleasant, but not too dim to let the breeze make him too cold, as if the sun itself had been fine tuned to be perfect. It was nice here, he thought. It was much nicer in this field than in any of the several continents on Earth he had visited. This, although many would find it pleasant, unsettled him. It was as if everything was too nice here. There had to be something here that was so bad, so aggravating, so annoying, that it balanced out and made the world right again.
He decided to do a little inventory to see what came with him and what didn't. He didn't have his book with him, unfortunately. He did have his clothes and his wallet. Good, he thought to himself, the last thing I want is to be nude and broke in a new place. Hell of a first impression that would make. He didn't have English pounds with him in his wallet however, he had some strange gold coins. He also somehow had his cell phone. Well, that's odd. Didn't I come here through it? He dismissed this thought, considering how weird everything else was.
After a few more seconds of being lost in thought, Karl saw something bright flash in the corner of his eye. he ignored it, until she came to him.
"HI! I'M PINKIE PIE! WELCOME TO PONYVILLE!"
Karl took a few seconds to regain his sanity after just seeing a TALKING PINK PONY yell right in his face. When he really considered it, the initial greeting was much greater a shock to him than arriving in an alien world via his telephone while talking to his friend that was supposed to be on holiday that had a random voice change during the call. Compared to this pony in front of him, all of that other stuff was a typical morning.
Karl gathered his thoughts and prioritized his possible responses to give this apparently sentient and talking pony. He decided knowing exactly where he was was the most important thing, since "Pinkie Pie" had introduced herself already and he knew how he got here. That was the who and the how, he just needed the why and the where. The why would come later.
"Where did you say we where?"
Pinkie put on a huge smile, as she always does when she gets excited about explaining things to new visitors. "This is Ponyville, which is in Equestria. Actually, if you wanna get technical about it, this is a field; Ponyville is down the road a little ways."
Karl let that sink in for just a moment before a sudden realization came to mind. He found it quite hilarious, and it even put a smirk on his face. Pinkie was happy to see the new visitor smiling and couldn't wait to hear what he was smiling about.
"Wait a moment, the land of ponies is called Equestria..."
"Yup!" Pinkie replied.
"And they live in Ponyville! What's next? Is there a Manehattan or a Canterlot or a Trottingham?" Karl couldn't help chuckling after saying each city name.
"Of course! Some of my bestest friends live in Canterlot!" Pinkie was a little confused, she didn't see what was so funny about Canterlot or Manehattan to this visitor. They were perfectly normal city names. Karl just started laughing like a madman in front of her and Pinkie had no idea why.
"There's actually a... a real city they named..."
"Yeah, what's so funny?" Pinkie was all for laughing for no reason, but she didn't like this vibe that Karl was sending out; it was like he was insulting the names rather than just laughing at something that isn't funny. She didn't get what was so insultable or comedic about Canterlot.
"Let me guess... Manehattan is the center of fashion and musicals in the country, and Canterlot is where the royal family and the knights and all that live?"
"Actually, yeah, that's about right." Pinkie was really surprised now, and that was no small feat. If this stranger really didn't know about Equestria and suddenly arrived here or got lost here and has amnesia, why can he so accurately guess the names of cities and know exactly what goes on there? Does he have a Pinkie sense for cities like she does for random events? And most importantly, WHAT WAS SO FUNNY!?
Karl kept laughing for another thirty seconds before he got it out of his system.
"Sorry, sorry, moving on..." Karl thought about other questions he should ask, and decided the biggest problem would be where he was going to stay while he was in 'Equestria.' "So, are there any hotels or inns or anything like that in town I can stay tonight? I don't quite fancy sleeping outside in strange places at night where I don't quite know the bug situation or the crime rate."
"You don't have anywhere to stay tonight?!" Pinkie thought for a moment about this, and then started thinking out loud. "Let's see, you could stay with AJ, but she' having family over this week, so she doesn't have any rooms available. Mr. and Mrs. Cake don't like it when I bring random strangers to spend the night, let along spend a few nights. I don't think you can fly, so staying with Dashie is right out. Rarity is really busy working on her new clothing line this week, so she's out too..."
'So, apparently, I just got out of staying on a farm, with this one, and with a clothing designer. Things are going better than expected so far,' Karl thought to himself.
"OOOOOH! I got it! You can stay with princess Twilight! I bet she'll be really interested to see you!"
'Oh, really, staying with royalty this time? And royalty that's interested to see me, nonetheless? I think I'm going to like it here after all.'
"By the way, I never did ask your name."
"Oh, my name's Karl, Karl Pilkington."
