Down to Earth

“What do you mean, my hair’s not normal? It’s natural, I’ve never dyed it!”

“Never dyed it? It’s rainbow colored for goodness sake! What do you mean you’ve never dyed it?”

“I mean that I’ve never dyed it. This is my natural hair color!” insisted Rainbow Dash.

“But… but that’s biologically impossible!” John said. “How can it be your natural hair color?”

“But it is!” She sighed. “Fine. I’ll put on the hat, now let’s go.” She said, frowning as she put the baseball cap on.

John grinned triumphantly before realizing that the hat did nothing to hide her hair due to its length. “Uh… I don’t think a baseball cap will work, Iridis…” he said tentatively.

“What do you mean, it won’t… oh.” She said, as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She paused for a moment to think, and then said, “Do you have a hoodie?”

A half-hour later, John had finally managed to find a hoodie that Iridis would agree to wear. He sighed, and then grabbed his keys… or at least, he would have if they were there.

“Iridis, have you seen my keys anywhere?” he asked, lifting up the couch cushions.

“Uh… maybe they’re in one of the hoodies I tried on?”

“You tried on all of my hoodies, Iridis.”

“Well then it’s probably in one of them!” she retorted, picking up a hoodie and searching it relentlessly for his keys. However, it was fruitless as the keys weren’t in the hoodie. “Not this one.” She moved onto another hoodie, and searched it, also to no avail. John kept looking around the house in every nook and cranny, but couldn’t find his keys.

“Now where in the world could they be?” he asked with a groan of frustration. “I had them this morning…” he said, as he moved onto another piece of furniture.

Twenty minutes later, they had finished searching the living area to no avail, as the keys were nowhere to be found. “Maybe they’re in the kitchen?” suggested Iridis.

John sighed. “I guess it’s worth a shot.”

This continued for about another hour and a half, and it was about one o’clock in the afternoon once they had finished searching every room in the house, and turned up keyless. “I really needed to get groceries, not to mention I need my keys anyway, and now they’re missing…” said John, searching the living area once again.

Rainbow Dash groaned in defeat and collapsed down onto the couch and put her hands into the muff on her hoodie. Suddenly, her eyes opened wide with surprise. “Uh… John?”

“Yes, Iridis?” asked John, with an annoyed tone in his voice.

“I found your keys…” she said quietly.”

“What?” John walked over to her. “Let me guess… it was in the hoodie you’re wearing?”

“Yeah… sorry about that.” She said, looking out the window and avoiding eye contact with John. “I didn’t think to check… I’m always so reckless and stupid…” she said to herself, sighing softly. “Twilight was right… I never think things through, that’s why I couldn’t get into the Wonderbolts, and—” she continued, beginning to get hysterical.

“Hey, it’s okay. I haven’t known you for very long, but you’re not reckless and you’re definitely not stupid. You’re the one who suggested we look in the hoodies for my keys, remember? It’s not your fault you didn’t think to check the one you were wearing. I probably wouldn’t have, either.” He said, trying to comfort her.

Rainbow sniffles. “Thanks…” she said, wiping her face off with the sleeve of her hoodie. “I’m not usually all sappy and emotional like that. It’s just… the reality of my situation just caught up with me. I’m stuck in a place I’ve never been before, living with a stranger, and separated from my friends. No offense.”

“None taken. I guess I just didn’t realize the magnitude of your situation right now. How far away are your friends?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“All right. I guess we should head out to the store before it gets too late.” Armed with his keys, John went out the door to his car, with Iridis following behind.

“Jeez, I’ve never seen so many people in one place…” said Iridis. John sighed.

“Did you live on a cloud or something? There are barely any people here.” said John, as he placed some squash in his cart.

“Uh… you could say that.” nervously replied Iridis.

John grumbled an incoherent response and grabbed a cart. “Okay, We can get the groceries together, but you have to get your clothes yourself. Deal?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” replied Iridis, with a bored expression on her face. They began to walk towards the meat aisle.

“Do you eat meat? I just want to check before I buy anything.” asked John.

Rainbow thought for a moment. “Yeah, I eat meat.” she replied. Before she went through the portal, Twilight lectured her on human diets. Ponies don’t eat meat because it is unhealthy for them, not because there is anything morally wrong with it. There are plenty of non-sapient animals in Equestria that the Gryphons eat for food, and since (according to Twilight’s research) there are no sapient animals that are commonly eaten in the human world, she should be fine… right?

“All right then. I didn’t want to offend you or anything.” he said, as he picked up some ground turkey and placed it in the cart. He then moved further down the aisle and picked up some bacon. “Sweet, juicy bacon! Oh, I have missed you so!” he said, as he placed the bacon in the cart.

“Are you okay? You’re acting kinda… weird.” commented Rainbow.

“Oh, uh, sorry about that Iridis. It’s just… I haven’t had bacon in a while since I’ve been unemployed, but now that I’ve gotten a job again, I can finally have bacon!” he said, practically foaming at the mouth and grinning madly.

“Whoa, okay, calm down. You can get the bacon, but you’re weirding me out. And probably some of the other customers, too.” replied Rainbow.

“Sorry, I just… really like bacon.” said John sheepishly. “Honestly, I expected you to attract more attention here, with your glowing camera and rainbow hair, but I guess I’ve actually attracted more attention than you.”

“Yeah… wait, did you say glowing camera?” A glance down at the camera hanging around her neck confirmed that her camera was once again glowing. “Ugh. Hold on, be back in a couple of minutes.” Rainbow took her camera and ran into an empty aisle.

“I retract my earlier statement.” mumbled John, as he advanced towards the dairy section. “I hope she’s not lactose intolerant…”

“Please make it quick, Twilight, please make it quick…” whispered Rainbow Dash as she pressed a button and the screen on the camera lit up. Immediately, Twilight’s panicked face appeared on the screen.

“Okay, so I’ve managed to perform some adjustments to your camera remotely, but I’m not sure if they’ll work. Can you say something?”

“You did WHAT to the camera?” quietly exclaimed Rainbow Dash, trying to keep her voice hushed. “Jeez, Twilight, I mean we’re best friends and all so I can forgive you this time, but next time, could you ask first? What if  you had broken the camera and I got stuck here forever?”

“Oh, good, so it works.” Twilight said, visibly relaxing. “I’m sorry for not asking, but I was sort of impatient and wanted to see if it worked.”

“Oh, sure, that’s a great reason to put your friend in danger.”

The screen began to flicker between her and static, and Twilight exclaimed, “What now?”

Suddenly, the video stopped flickering and stayed on static for a few seconds, before cutting to a video of Discord.

“What do you want?” asked Rainbow Dash, angrily. Discord opened his mouth, before Rainbow interrupted, “If you’re gonna make some snarky remark, save it, because I don’t wanna hear it!”

“Actually, I wanted to tell you that I wasn’t involved with the portal closing, and me and Celly are working on finding a way to create a stable portal. Your marefriend Twilight—” Rainbow Dash blushed.

“She’s not my marefriend! Okay?!” said Rainbow angrily, in a defensive and hushed tone. “Besides, she doesn’t like me. She’s not even into mares!”

“I notice you didn’t mention your preferred gender.”

“Shut up!” she replied, blushing. “It’s none of your business!”

“Fine, fine. I just wanted to say that, as Celestia’s special ‘somepony’,” Discord said, snickering, “I get access to certain ponies…”

“You wouldn’t…” whispered Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, I would. Did you know Luna’s dreamwalking powers extend into other realms, as well?”

Rainbow Dash blushed yet again. “All right, that’s IT!” She hit the camera with a hand, and it went back to static before switching to Twilight.

“Sorry about that Rainbow Dash. It seems there are still problems with it. You’ll have to send the camera over here in order for me to fix those… problems.” said Twilight.

“Sure, whenever you get the portal ready, Twi.” replied Rainbow Dash. “Also, you didn’t hear any of that, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. Why? Was it something bad?” asked Twilight, curiously.

“N-no, nothing! I was just wondering! Sorrygottagobye!” said Rainbow Dash, before shutting the screen off and putting the camera back around her neck. She groaned and walked over to the produce section, where she spotted John.

“Jeez, what took you so long? And what were you doing, anyway?”

“Uh… fixing my camera. The screen messes up sometimes, causes it to do that glow-y thing.” she says, making up an excuse.

“‘Glow-y thing’?” asked John, making air quotes with his fingers.

Rainbow sighed. “Yeah. If you have a better name for it than that, tell me. Later.”

“Whatever. I have all the stuff we need here. How about you go and get your clothes, and I pick up the rest of the stuff? We’ll meet up outside the store, okay? Here’s some money. I don’t know how much clothes cost here, but I suppose $150 should cover it.” John said nonchalantly.

“Wait, you’re just giving me $150? Why would you give a total stranger a hundred and fifty dollars?”

“You live with me,” pointed out John. “Besides, if you stole from me you’d have nowhere to stay. And besides, you don’t seem like the kind of person that would betray someone.”

“Yeah, I’d never betray any of my friends.” replied Rainbow, smiling and thinking fondly of her memories of her friends back in Equestria.

“Uh, Iridis? Earth to Iridis? You need to get your clothes now, remember?”

“Oh, uh, all right. Meet you outside, I guess?”

“You’re back, finally.” said John.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” replied Rainbow sarcastically.

“And you didn’t run off with my money.” observed John. “Change and receipt, please?”

She sighed and pulled the change and receipt out of her pocket. “Here you go… Now unlock the trunk so I can put all this junk in there.”

John obliged and unlocked the car. He opened the door and pressed a button, causing the trunk to open automatically.

“Eep! What was that?!” said Rainbow, startled.

“Calm down, I just opened the trunk.” said John, smirking.

“I just asked you to unlock it…” she grumbled.

“All right…” he said, loading the groceries into the back of the car. When he finished, he got into the car. “What are you waiting for, Iridis? Hurry up, it’s getting late.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. It’s just… I was reminded of something back home, is all.”

“Well you can reminisce about your home in the car. Now hurry up, slowpoke.”

“I am NOT a slowpoke!” yelled Rainbow. She got into the car with a sigh, and sat in silence for the rest of the trip home.