Everybody Needs Good NEIGH-bours
Susan opened the gate and took a cautious step towards the pool, seeing that the alien was having trouble climbing out. "Need a hand?"
The alien blinked in surprise, but reached out what Susan recognised as a hoof. She leaned over, took it, and walked beside the pool towards the steps. The alien walked up the steps and onto... mostly dry land. Susan could now see its whole body and could only describe it as a purple, or perhaps lavender, unicorn.
"Thank you for your help," said the unicorn, who Susan now guessed was female. "Now, could you tell me who you are, where I am and how you're speaking Equish?"
Susan blinked. "I was about to ask you a similar question." She paused as she saw that the unicorn got her meaning. "My name is Susan Kennedy, and this is Number 30 Ramsay Street, Erinsborough, Melbourne." Seeing the unicorn was still confused, she pressed on. "Victoria, Australia. ...Earth?"
This got a reaction from her. "Earth is... the name of your planet?" Susan nodded. "Interesting. I'll need to investigate that later. Among other things," she said, half to herself. She turned back to Susan. "So I'm on another planet. The spell worked!" she said with a smile.
"'Spell'?" Susan asked, bewildered. "Look, I have a lot of questions, but I think right now we'd better get you out of the open." The unicorn gestured her head to the backdoor of Number 30. "Not here. My house is next door. ...I'm not sure we should go round the front." Susan walked back through the gate of the pool and over to the fence bordering her garden.
The unicorn followed her. "Over here?"
Susan nodded. "I'll give you a boost, if you want."
The unicorn smiled and shook her head. "No need." Her horn lit up and she disappeared in a sphere of bright light.
Susan stood there stunned for a moment. The unicorn's voice piped up from over the fence. "Are you coming?" Susan looked over to see her walking to the backdoor.
Susan decided to just go with it. "I'll be there in a minute!"
***
"'An Interdimensional teleportation spell'? How does that work?" Susan asked, fascinated by Twilight's story.
Twilight hesitated. "I ...really don't think I can explain it to someone who doesn't already have years of experience studying this kind of thing." Susan nodded, conceding the point. "Long story short, it's what got me here, and it's what will get me back, once I've spent a day or two recharging." She winced and rubbed her forehead, just below her horn. "Probably shouldn't have teleported over the fence earlier."
Susan smiled sympathetically, before switching to a concerned frown. "Seems like a big risk, just coming over here alone and unprepared. If you'd landed just a few kilometers to the south, you'd have drowned for sure."
Twilight shook her head. "I went over the spell in detail with the Princesses. It was designed to zero in on a populated area. Though, I would have preferred to materialise a little closer to the ground. As for the lack of supplies, it would seem to be a limitation of the spell. I had saddlebags with a few days of food and other supplies on my back, but they didn't come with me."
Susan paused. "Well, I guess we can put you up for a few days. Only Karl, Billy and Libby would need to know. If that's what you want, of course."
Twilight smiled, clearly appreciative of the offer. "Yeah, I'm not sure I know enough about this world to go out in public yet." She took a sip of hot chocolate. "Well in that case, what can you tell me about yourself, Susan?"
Susan took a moment to decide where to start. "Well, I'm a teacher at Erinsborough High School. I've been living here for three years with my husband Karl and our three children." She gestured to the painting of Malcolm, Libby and Billy on the wall. "Karl's a doctor, with-" Susan paused as she heard his car pull up outside.
Twilight caught on. "How is he going to react to me?"
Susan sighed. "No worse than I did, I hope. Do you want to wait in the kitchen, so I can ease him into this?"
Twilight nodded, and trotted over to the kitchen as Susan went to the door, surprising Karl as he came in. He began asking her about the house in Wangaratta she'd been looking over, but Susan quickly turned the subject around to her return home. However, before she could ease him into into the subject of their new guest as planned, Karl had picked up on the smell of chlorine in the room. "Have you been swimming or something?"
Susan took a breath. "No, I got home not too long ago, and as I was walking in the door, I heard a couple of strange noises coming from Number 30. Since no one was supposed to be home, I went around to have a look in the backyard, and I found... something in the swimming pool."
Taking this as her cue, Twilight slowly trotted around the kitchen island, into Karl's line of sight. He went silent for several seconds. "I... think I need to sit down," he finally muttered.
Twilight spent the next twenty minutes recapping to Karl everything she'd told Susan about Equestria, her friends, the princesses, and discovering Starswirl spell that had brought her here. She was just getting to the details of her mission when there was a knock on the door. "I think you'd better hide in Libby's room," Karl instructed, pointing to it as Susan got up to answer the front door.
Twilight left the bedroom door open a crack and watched as Susan greeted a younger brunette woman by the name of Sarah, who, Twilight soon realised, lived at #30. "I've just been cleaning up what looks like a very messy pool party, and I'm eager to find out who's responsible, especially since I've found what appear to be traces of animal fur," she told them.
As Susan tried to keep a good poker face, Karl replied, "Well, I can't imagine anyone around here who would do something like this, certainly not in the middle of the day." Susan held back a smirk at that remark.
Satisfied, Sarah got up to leave, telling Karl he'd see him tomorrow, but was interrupted by an older white-haired man who Karl greeted as Lou. "Karl, look, I'm not here on the happiest of errands, I'm afraid. There's been an accident- Sarah! Here you are, I've been trying to contact you all afternoon." Lou walked over to her.
"I've been out walking, mostly. What's happened?" Sarah asked, fearing the worst.
Lou hesitated. "Sweetheart, there's been an accident at the Calder Park raceway. Ben's been injured."
Sarah's fears were confirmed. "W-well, how seriously?"
"Very," Lou replied gravely. "Last time I checked he was still in theatre, and things looked pretty bad."
As Twilight watched Sarah's pained reaction from the doorway, her thoughts quickly turned to the few healing spells Celestia had taught her.