Philosopher of Earth

+++ At the same time, Downstairs +++

Silver Star was confused. How could Cheese plan lessons for Twilight, AND read that stack of books within a week?! It didn't seem equinly possible! But then again, he wasn't a pony... And tales of Twilights' reading ability had been going around for years... So maybe it was possible... But Silver couldn't comprehend that amount of information in her head at once... It have her a headache just thinking about it. I wonder how he'll handle it? She wondered to herself. She decided to sneak up the stairs and have a look. She soon found herself peering through the door in the third bedroom. Cheese was furiously scribbling on a piece of parchment. How he was able to read it, Silver couldn't understand. But he already had a sizable part of the parchment filled with words. He suddenly stopped and read over the entire thing. He seemed satisfied enough to put it down and pick up the first book on the pile. And he began to read.

+++ The next morning. +++

Silver got up at her usual time. But she noticed something strange today. The light from the third bedroom was on. Curious, she slipped her head through the door. Sitting there still, was Cheese, already half way done with the pile of books, with multiple pages of filled out parchment. He looked like he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep, his eyes were red and bloodshot, the skin on his face looked like it was ill fitting somehow... But now Silver understood how he claimed he could finish them all before next week. And possibly why he wakes up so late... She thought to herself. Silver decided she didn't want the human to die of sleep deprivation and abandoned all stealth.

"HEY!" she yelled into the room, giving the entranced human a start.

"AAGH!" he shouted, genuinely startled. "Five more minutes!" he exclaimed.

"Do you know what time it is?" she asked coolly.

"Yes! It's ten..." He looked at the watch on his wrist and paled. "I'm going to bed now..." he mumbled as he got up and started towards his bedroom. Silver chuckled as the door gently closed behind him. She walked over to the desk, curious on what he had written down. The spidery writing made no sense to her. It looked Equestrian, but she couldn't read what it said. Some words were legible, but they didn't have anything to do with any sort of history she knew of... Star, moons, dust, gases... Microbes, cells, oxygen... What was he writing about? She shuffled through some more, careful not to mix up the order. The understandable words changed drastically from page to page. She finally stopped trying to understand what was written on the pieces of parchment and went back downstairs for breakfast.

Silver was sipping some tea when she suddenly remembered something. She had to go to the hospital to check up on her leg! She downed the tea in a gulp and burst out of the door as fast as her limp would let her. Thankfully Cheese had stayed up the entire night, so he was going to be asleep for most of the day... Silver thought to herself as she half trotted half limped towards the hospital. She soon had checked in and was waiting for her appointment.

+++ The Doctor's Office +++

"Hmm..." The doctor studied the cast closely. An x-ray image on the wall showed Silvers front right hoof. "Well Miss Star, I think we'll have you out of a cast in about a week." he stated. "I guess Princess Twilight's healing magic did help a little after all..." Silver shrugged, she was told after the event that Twilight had used some of her magic to speed along the healing of her broken leg. "I can however remove this cast and give you one that you can walk on." The doctor continued. "But! No unnecessary running, trotting, or any straining movement of any kind!"

"Deal." Smiled Silver. If anything needed done that desperately, she supposed she could use magic to help, and anything to stop that annoying limp. She offered the doctor the broken leg. He took it and with some difficulty removed the cast. It hurt a little as the strained leg took some of its own weight. The doctor gently held the leg up, to make sure the bone wasn't stressed during the switch, and started strapping on a black replacement that looked like it could be walked on.

"There..." he said finally. "Stand up and try it out." said the doctor. Silver nodded and stood up. The doctor bent down and made some adjustments. "Go ahead." Silver took a step forwards. The doctor nodded, satisfied. Then he seemed to remember something. "Before I forget, I heard that you were making sure the human kept his nose out of trouble." He stated.

"Yea..." Silver nodded.

"Princess Twilight ordered me to give back this..." The doctor pulled out the blood soaked clothing that had once wrapped around her leg. Silver shifted on the new cast.

"Why does Twilight think I need this?" She asked.

"I don't know... I guess she thought the human would want it back..." guessed the doctor. Silver took the dry blood soaked article of clothing, still wondering why it wasn't thrown away.

"Why wasn't it thrown away?" she asked, hoping for an answer.

"I was going to, but then Twilight noticed that the fabric was strange." answered the doctor. Silver looked at the cloth closely.

"Strange? How?" she couldn't see anything overly weird about it. Then she saw it. Well more felt it. On the inside of the cloth, it was softer than many pony fabrics that she had felt, even with her dried blood on it.

"I guess it just felt alien to her..." said the doctor. Silver could understand, it did feel otherworldly.

"And you never know... He may want it back..." continued the doctor. He opened the door to the outside hallway. "Come back next week, we'll see about your cast then." he stated.

"Thank you doctor." she said to him as she walked out, slightly tingling in pain as she got used to the improved cast. When outside she examined the bloody piece of clothing. There was nothing overly strange about it, but being weird shouldn't have stopped the doctor from burning it. It was after all , still covered in blood... She sniffed it. It smelled unnervingly like a timberwolf kill... and another world... Silver hung it over her back. She now wanted to know about it, and there was only one place in Ponyville where she could get her answer.

+++ Carousel Boutique a few minutes later +++

When Silver opened the door to the garishly decorated shop, the owner, a unicorn by the name of Rarity, was sweeping the floor in the foyer. She looked up in surprise, she mustn't have expected a customer today.

"Hello!" Called Rarity, putting down her broom. "My, my... I don't believe that I've had the pleasure of meeting you before..." she said. "What would we like today? A nice dress for an equally nice stallion? Perhaps a new set of casual wear?" Rarity continued, an obvious expert sales pony when it came to clothes.

"No, I actually came for you to look at this..." said Silver Star, she pulled the bloody garment off her back. Rarity picked it up with her magic, a little disgusted by the dried blood.

"My goodness dear! What ever did you do to this?" she asked.

"Well, technically it's not mine, I didn't do it, and I was wondering if you could examine the fabric for me." Silver avoided the question that was asked.

"You want me to examine this dirty piece of garbage?" asked a skeptical Rarity.

"Let's just say it's not from around here." answered Silver. Rarity looked confused and held the garment out so she could see what Silver was talking about. Rarity's already white complexion paled further.

"Um... This isn't a ponies piece of clothing is it?" she asked, already knowing the answer. Silver shook her head quietly. "I see..." Rarity had obviously heard about Cheese. "I'll see what I can find out. But I wouldn't hope for much..." Stated Rarity.

"Thank you." Silver bowed her head in appreciation, and left the shop.

+++Carousel Boutique, a few seconds later.+++

Rarity had never seen a pattern like this strange piece. What she could tell from her first serious glance was that what ever wore this wasn't from Equestria. The front legs were too thin for a pony, the neck was too small for a pony neck, and the general layout of the piece just wouldn't fit a pony. There were also several features that seemed odd to her. One was a piece of fabric sewn on the outside, where the belly on a pony would be, the stitches were on the top and bottom, creating a kind of tunnel. What this was, Rarity had no idea. But the other thing was a floppy attachment near the neck. She looked it over, it was extremely concave, creating a sort of a bowl of material. There's no way I'm going to learn anything about this thing if I don't wash it first. Rarity thought to herself. Thankfully, the white unicorn wasn't the first customer to need a blood stain removed. Several Royal Guards on vacation sometimes needed blood stains removed from their cloth uniforms. But not this much... Rarity thought to herself as she took the thing to her cleaning tub. She ran hot water into the bathtub sized sink, and poured several cleansers that had proven effective in the past. She pulled on rubber gloves that covered the entirety of her front legs and put a sort of mask on to protect her head and chest from splashing water. Blood stains were a pain to remove from her fur, as she learned after the first time. Rarity soon began scrubbing furiously on the durable fabric.

After nearly an hour and a half of scrubbing, refreshing the water, and pouring more cleaners into the water, (and making sure that none of the red mess got on her), Rarity finally pulled a dark green garment from the suds.

"Without the dirtiness, it is quite charming in its own way..." she murmured to herself. Rarity then emptied the sink, and then hung it on a drying rack. She stood back and looked at it on the rack. For the umpteenth time her eyes wandered to the tube on the belly, wondering what it was for... Maybe a sort of pouch? She asked herself, she then shrugged and examined the material it was made of. Without the blood, its closely packed stitches were clearly visible, Rarity doubted if she ever could get fabric stitches that close. She also had noticed, while handling it in the tub, that the fabric was durable, she had scrubbed and scrubbed far more than what she would've done with a pony fabric, and it had not torn or frayed. Rarity decided that it would be best to leave it dry for the time being...

+++ High in the sky above Ponyville. Three hours ago +++

The dracaniquis known as Discord floated above Ponyville. Ever since the supposed capture of the human, he was curious about the creature that was now living in Ponyville under Celestia's orders. It was a fine day, to pony standards, to him it was a little boring. Can't do anything about that... Thought Discord. Celestia would have his head for sure. But, he could get away with a little mischief. Moving a ponies keys, or hiding all the left horseshoes... Things like that, but they never were exciting for him. But that was besides the point. The being in Ponyville required his attention, even if it didn't know he was there. He floated down towards Ponyville like a gentle breeze, laying on his back like any pony would on such a nice summer day. He finally landed on a newly refurbished house on the outskirts of town. He mockingly stretched. No pony could see him, he didn't want it known by every pony that he was there, in fact he was supposed to be handling something much farther North today... Some odd errand of Celestia's that he couldn't remember right now. Oh well... He thought to himself. Time to see what he could do to this new alien! He whispered through the natural cracks in the house, and soon found himself standing over a sleeping form.

"Well that's disappointing..." Discord whispered to himself. "Now I can't see what I can do to him..." Suddenly an idea struck him. The human was sleeping, sleeping was known to be infested with nightmares, and the guardian of dreams, Luna, would most certainly be asleep at this time of day... Discord giggled to himself. "Time to see what chaos I can do..." he eagerly floated above the bed and peered into the mind of the sleeping creature. It was like looking down into a bowl of water for Discord, he saw the dreams happen like watching a screen, not the full body experience of Luna. What he saw confused him. Staring upwards were two eyes, burning like two miniature suns in a void of blackness. Discord could hear laughter in his head. That's not supposed to happen... He thought to himself. Suddenly a fiery claw burst from the dream and grabbed him by the neck. Not good...Not good... He thought to himself. Then a bestial face of the same fiery substance materialized around the burning eyes, like it was coming from some deep abyss into the light... It's sharp teeth gleamed in the fiery glow of itself. Its voice suddenly boomed out, somehow echoing at the same time. What it said, Discord, nor any other living being had ever heard the language, but it's meaning was still as clear as transparent glass...

MY ASCENSION IS AT HAND!

Terror seized Discord. He didn't know what to do, he tried breaking away, but the claw had an iron grip on him. The bestial face gave a gruesome smile.

EVERYONE SHALL BURN!

The voice boomed. The laughter in Discords head increased. The mocking laughter of mares and stallions, fillies and colts, Oh Celestia, there were so many... Discord had no choice. He forcibly broke the spell that allowed him to view this monstrosity. Breaking a spell like that was never advised. It went against all the rules of magic to break a spell. But thankfully, the face burned bright, and suddenly Discord was staring down at the form of the sleeping human. He tried recovering from the effects of the break, without success. It could take months if not years to recover from it. Discord suddenly remembered that he had something important to do for Celestia, and decided not to play any more tricks on the sleeping human. He floated weakly out of the the house, and vowed to never look at a humans dreams again as he was pushed North by a gentle breeze.