Ladies Of The Night

The fuck happened last night?

My head hurts, unsurprisingly, and everything aches. I'm thirsty as hell, and the sun's too bright. Stop it, sun. Please. I'll give you my firstborn child.

The sun doesn't listen. Stupid celestial bodies and them being too high up to hear me. As well as not having ears. I open my eyes a tiny bit, and see rosy eyes staring into mine.

Oh, awesome. Tara came to pick me up. Tara's my best friend, and I honestly don't know what I'd do without her. She's the logical, straight man to my flighty rebelliousness. I'm instantly relieved, and open my eyes all the way. I scream and leap back when I discover it isn't a blond-haired, purple-contact-wearing freshman, and I'm not at the party, I'm in a garden. (I really have no idea why she wears contacts, she rocks brown eyes like no one's business.) It's a small light blue pony who looks just as freaked out as I am. The loud noise causes my head to object again. Yay.

I am very grateful I still have my backpack. I quickly slip it off and hold it in front of me as a shield, ignoring the pain in my head as I scream, "Don't hurt me! I'm just a helpless little girl! I'm too young to die-"

"I don't plan on hurting you!" The distinctly feminine-sounding creature shouts, effectively silencing me. "My name is Trixie Lulamoon, and I am the student of Princess Luna." Trixie walks up to me, her pretty Tara-esque eyes examining every part of me. I feel oddly exposed as I take out my water bottle and gulp the sweet nectar within. Ah. That's better.

"I like your hair." Trixie says abruptly. She sticks her face into my long black hair, sniffing it daintily with her little nose. She's almost like a puppy. "It's pretty. And it smells good." Well, a puppy that can talk. And is blue. And wears a purple cape and hat studded with stars for some reason. And has a horn.

"Thank you." I gently nudge her away from my hair, as it's a little uncomfortable having a horse sniffing my hair. "Do you know how I can get back to my world?"

Trixie stares at me for a minute longer, give or take, then nudges me to my feet. "Yep. I'll take you to see the princesses, Celestia and Luna. They'll know what to do." I grab my backpack, and she leads the way out of the gardens. Then we go into the castle, and my jaw promptly drops.

The castle is huge. And gorgeous, all white and purple, with red carpets going down the middle of all the hallways. I stop to admire the scenery for a bit, but Trixie nudges me along, apparently used to the decor by now. After finally getting to the end of the fourth long-ass hallway, we enter the throne room, which has a ton of stained glass windows for some reason. And then I catch a glimpse of the two coolest-looking horse princesses I've ever seen.

One is a little shorter than the other, but they're both taller than I am. Besides, everyone knows it's not size, it's how you use it. Their manes and tails are all floaty, like they took chunks of the sky and used it as hair. The smaller one looks like she was dipped in dark blue, every inch of her looking like the night sky, including her floaty mane and tail. She wore silver shoe-things on her hooves, with a dark blue necklace bearing a white crescent moon symbol. She had a crescent moon with a black background tattooed onto each side of her butt. Her expression was stately and serious.

The other one had a tiny smile playing around her mouth. She was pure white, with gold shoe-things and a gold necklace with a purple diamond gem. Her mane and tail was pink, light green, light blue, and light purple striped. She had a golden sun that looked like some kind of Middle Eastern symbol tattooed on her butt. Taking another look at Trixie, she had a butt tattoo as well; a wand with a blue blob. Was I expected to have a butt tattoo as well? I really didn't want to take off my pants in front of weird horses.

Trixie nudges me. "Bow!" she hisses, already bowing in a weird crouch. I scramble into a bow as well just as the giant horses see us. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated.

The blue one, who I assumed was Luna, gestures for us to stop bowing. "Trixie, who is this...thing you have brought with you?" She asks. I'm a little miffed at being called a thing, but I'm probably in some parallel dimension where humans don't exist. You know, that'd explain a lot.

"I..." I start. She nods for me to continue speaking. "I'm Kathleene Tess, and I'm a human from Planet Earth. I was wondering if you knew of a way back there." My voice trembles a little. The two princesses exchange looks.

"Tell me, are you familiar with Canterlot High?" The one who must be Celestia asks me.

I nod vigorously. "Yeah! That's only a couple blocks from my house." I thank my lucky stars my excessive drinking had landed me in a dimension fairly close to my own.

Celestia smiles. "The reason I asked is because there is a magic mirror in the Crystal Empire that could send you back to your own dimension."

"Perfect!" I hop happily at the thought of being able to go home soon and tell Tara all about my little escapade.

But, of course, it couldn't be that easy. "Unfortunately, we cannot send you to the Crystal Empire to go through the mirror." Celestia continues. "It only opens once every thirty moons, and we will have to wait another three to send you back home."

I tilt my head to the side in confusion. "How long is a moon?"

"About twenty-eight days." Luna chimes in.

I do the math in my head. "That's...three months!" I can't help it, I break down crying. Don't get me wrong, this dimension is really cool (and how many other people can say they've been to an alternate universe where there are colorful talking horses?) but I like my dimension, my house, my school, my daily routines. They might have gotten boring at points, but they were familiar; they were home.

And now these creatures are telling me I can't go back for three more months.

Trixie awkwardly pats me on the back. I didn't realize I'd fallen into a sitting position. Eventually I remember that I'm sitting in the middle of a throne room and get myself together, Celestia and Luna looking on with pity. I take a huge watery breath and look back up at them.

"Once the time comes for the mirror to open, we will arrange for you to go to the Crystal Empire." Luna says gently. "Until then, you may stay with Trixie."

Trixie nods to confirm she's okay with this. "You are dismissed." Luna waves us out, and Trixie leads me up several winding staircases to her room, occasionally pointing out some of the more interesting stuff. I nod and smile when I have to, still kind of in shock at not being able to go home.

Trixie eventually stopped and pushed open a door. Inside was a small bedroom, painted light blue. A few posters were stuck up on the walls, all advertising "The Great And Powerful Trixie". She must really like herself. Pushed up against the wall is a small bed, with six or seven different spell books on the floor around it. Against the other wall is an unremarkable brown wardrobe.

Trixie bites her lip. "Are you alright with sleeping on the floor?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't expect you to give up your bed for me, anyway." I walk into the room and sit down next to her bed.

Trixie looks somewhat relieved. Then a lightbulb appears above her head, and her horn lights up. I scoot away, but it turns out she just picks up the comforter from the end of her bed and laid it on the floor like an air bed. Her horn lights up again, and she opens the wardrobe and gets out another comforter and a blanket, laying them on top of the first comforter. She then takes one of her two pillows and drops one at one end of the little nest of fabric. "Voila! A place for you to sleep. Do you want me to bring you something from the kitchens? Breakfast had just ended when I went out and found you." Trixie turned toward the door.

I shake my head and slide my backpack off. Rummaging around in it, I find a protein bar and eat that. "I'm good."

Trixie looks interested in my food, so I break off part of it for her. She tentatively accepts it with her magic, nibbling on the piece of oats and honey. "Your human food is good."

I laugh. "Thanks."

"By the way, I'm going to need your help with something." She says as she swallows her protein bar.

I raise one eyebrow. "What?"

"Twilight and Luna."

I'm still confused. She sighs.

"Those two are so obviously into each other, it's killing me. All you have to do is help me set them up on one date. It doesn't work out, then fine, we leave them alone. If it does, then we let fate run its course, maybe giving them a nudge or two. We're getting started today at lunch. Alright?" She looks confident. I don't have anything else to do in this strange dimension, and I'd like to meet this Twilight. Why not.

"Okay, I guess."

Well. This is going to be interesting.