The King Returns

I opened the doors to the throne room to see Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. When they heard the doors open, they turned and smiled.

"Good morning Twilight. Was the trip here comfortable enough?" Celestia said, smiling.

"Of course Princess!" I said, before almost tripping over my hooves. There, standing next to Celestia, was a figure I've never seen before. "Is this the stallion we are here to meet?" I asked.

"Yes, that's right-" She stopped talking when he put one of his hands - which I thought at the time were claws - on her shoulder. Why is he touching the Princess like that? And why is she letting him? She looked at him, worry evident in her eyes, and whispered something to him. He looked back at her after he pulled his hat down lower to hide his face and whispered something back to her. He seemed worried about something. Celestia then whispered something back, and all he did was nod his head. She then got up from her throne and gestured for us to follow. We followed her down a few hallways, far enough back so that Celestia and this strange new stallion could have their own conversation. While we were walking, Rainbow dash trotted up next to me.

"So Twi, what do you think about this stallion? He looks pretty dangerous, if you ask me." she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Rainbow, if he was dangerous, I highly doubt that Princess Celestia would have let him visit Equestria. Don't you think so?" I asked in annoyance.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. But I'm gonna keep my eye on him, just to make sure." she said, never letting her eyes off of him. I just shook my head and continued following the Princess. We turned left and stopped in front of a door leading to a small conference room.

"Twilight, will you please follow Mudd and I into the conference room?" she leaned in closer and whispered, "He is a little shy, so everypony will meet him one at a time."

"That is fine with me, Princess." I said. I understood that everypony gets shy sometimes.

She smiled, "The rest of you may wait out here for your turn to introduce yourselves." The Princess, 'Mudd', and I then walked into the conference room. He still had his hand on her shoulder.

"Twilight, allow me to introduce you to a very good friend of mine," the Princess said, "this is Anthony Davis. He is not from this world, if you haven't noticed already. Anthony, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle." When she finished speaking, Anthony started to remove his hat, but Princess Celestia stopped him. "She doesn't like it when ponies bow to her." she said in a hushed voice. I was about to ask how he came from another world when Anthony spoke.

He would have been an excellent lead bass for a quartet.

"Well Miss Twilight, it's nice to meet ya. Like Princess Celestia said, mah name's Anthony, but most jus' called me Mudd. Before Ah came here, Ah lived with mah Dad in a small town called Abbs Valley, Virginia, in the country of The United States of America." but the way he pronounced it, it sounded more like 'Murica', due to his accent. "We lived on a small parcel of land, just me, mah Dad, our huntin' dogs, some chickens, and my horse, Clementine. An' before you ask, no, horses and ponies on my world weren't sapient. Humans were the only being's that was able to think right. We were also the only things that could talk."

Then Princess Celestia added, "Humans would use them for transportation and other purposes."

"That's right. Anyway, when mah high school, Pocahontas High School, got shut down; Ah transferred over to Graham High School in the next town over. Ah was there for a couple of days, mostly jus' keepin' to mahself. After about a week of being there, this guy comes up to me; Mattias Crawford was his name. He tried to take my jacket, but I clocked him in the jaw. A few days later, he hired three guys to, uh..." he looked up to Princess Celestia, who nodded for him to continue. "Well, he hired 'em to kill me. An' they did a good job, too."

WHAT?! They killed him? I was shocked. "How could sentient beings do that to you?! That's just... Wrong! Horribly wrong!" I shouted.

"It ain't all that bad. Lord Death said that Princess Celestia had been watchin' over me, and that she wanted to bring me here, so here Ah am. Besides, at least Ah was able to get one of them before the other two got me."

Well, at least he was able to see the bright side of things. However dark they may be.

"Do you think you can tell me more about your world? What is it like?" I asked, curious to see if it was anything like Equestria.

"Well, first off; there's all kinds of ecosystems all over the world. There's jungles, rainforests, deserts, oceans, an' places where it's so cold, you could make houses out of nothin' but ice. There's also places where there's lots of mountains, places where it ain't nothin' but plains as far as you could see. Then there's a place called The Grand Canyon, a big crack in the ground that covers somewhere around a thousand-an'-nine-hundred square miles. We got everything from big ol' cities; like Manhattan, New York, Las Vegas, an' Los Angeles, to small towns; like Abbs Valley where Ah'm from. Ah think that the name 'Los Angeles' is like, Spanish or somethin' for 'Lost Angels', but Ah don't know. Sure sounds purty, though."

Those names sound way too familiar for him to be from another world. I had thought to myself.

"There is no way in Equestria that you could possibly be from another world! The cities you just named strike a close resemblance to the names of cities and towns across Equestria!" I exclaimed, glaring at this so-called 'Mudd'.

"You callin' me a liar?" he raised an eybrow, and his voice had risen abruptly.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am! And here is the reason I say that." I teleported to my old room in the castle and searched my old desk until I found what I was looking for. I then teleported myself back to the room and spread out an old map of Equestria for him to see.

He sat there just looking over the entire map for a few minutes, quietly muttering things to himself. The only clear thing I had heard was "Ah'll be damned, they even got the Liberty Bell on here". A few more minutes passed before he sighed heavily and looked up from the map.

"Look, Ah ain't gonna argue with ya, it looks like our worlds share a few similarities; like with Tartarus. But Ah will tell you that if yer gonna call me a liar, then you might as well be callin' Princess Celestia a liar too. Like Ah said, she's been whatchin' over me mah whole life."

"Well, I, um..." I took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. "I'm sorry, Mudd. I might have forgotten that part." I admitted with a nervous smile.

"Ah reckon it's fine. Ah forget things all the time. Mah friends used to say that the reason they always told me their secrets was because Ah usually forgot about it the next day. But, usually it was just 'cause their secrets was trivial pieces of information that, when ya thought about it, didn't really matter. Anyway, is there anythin' else yew'd like ta ask me?"

"As a matter of fact, there is..."