Final Frontiers

The sound of her waiter clearing his throat brought Twilight back to the present.

“Oh, right, lunch. Um,” Twilight shook her head a little to clear her mind “I’ll just have a light salad. Thanks,” the waiter nodded and trotted off when she had finished her order.

Twilight let the "newspaper" she was reading fall to her table, the headline in bold lettering reading Monster Menace or Gentle Giant? A frown crept onto her face. It’s been almost two weeks since the press conference and they’re still printing stuff like this. One of the few papers to give him a chance had been the Foal Free Press, the articles being remarkably positive and informative. Which reminds me, Miss Cheerilee asked me to see if he'd be willing to do an exclusive interview for the school paper. Twilight caught sight of another cafe patron with a tabloid, the cover adorned with a grotesque rendition of the biped holding a banana and an equally ugly title. Space monkey. The derogatory term coined for him brought a foul taste to the back of her throat.

The whole situation robbing her of her appetite, Twilight took her meal to go and slowly headed for home. She wasn't sure if Titus had seen any of the papers (the human had been keeping his distance from town since the press conference) and if he had read them he hadn't said anything during any of their numerous chats. An idea began forming in Twilight’s mind. Maybe I could bring him some lunch and we could chat. Looking at her boxed salad from the café she doubted the biped would have an appetite for hay and assorted grasses. I could go home, grab some bottles of soda, a loaf bread, and some cheese. Then I could swing to the market to pick up fritters from Applejack's cart for desert and from there head over to the hill where he should still be working. Titus did say he’d get me more data on the portal, I wonder if he’s made any progress toward that? Deciding to follow through with her plan, Twilight quickened her pace to the library.

“Spike, I’m back,” Twilight called out as she opened the door.

The little dragon appeared at the bottom of the stairs, “Oh hey, Twilight! I re-shelved the books you were reading last night and just finished checking in some books that were returned this morning. “

“Sounds like you've had a productive morning. Would you like to take a break with me?” she asked, trotting into the kitchen. Twilight explained her idea to Spike, who was more than happy to take a break for a picnic, so it didn't take long for the two to gather up a basket and the provisions they had on hoof before leaving the library for the market. The Apple family cart was in its normal spot, today being managed by Applejack’s younger sister Apple Bloom. After exchanging greetings, Twilight and Spike bought the last of the fritters and made their way out of town.

“Human-Watching” had become a bit of a hobby for some ponies in Ponyville, so their presence made it easy to tell when Titus was busy salvaging what he could from the hillside. Twilight could see some of the regulars – Lyra Heartstrings, two of the town guard mares, a group of the school foals and… Action Shot and Snappy Scoop. That would explain where all the pictures in the papers are coming from. Twilight shot the pair a sour look as she and Spike climbed the hill.

“Hello, Twilight! Hello Spike!” Lyra greeted them both, Twilight receiving a warm hug and a discrete lick on the cheek (which, she noted, was quite out of the ordinary), “You two here to watch Titus as well?” Lyra and Twilight had been friends for quite some time; Twilight often asking Lyra to act as a sounding-board for experiments because the mint unicorn was one of the best in Ponyville (Rarity being the other) at being delicate and precise with her magic.

Titus continued to dig something out of the dirt, allowing Twilight a moment to observe him. What he was wearing now was so simple: a light tan short-sleeved shirt and a pair of dark olive pants. He'd recently taken to these sorts of clothes, the only piece of the protective suit to remain with him being the gloves and boots. Definitely a change from the usual grey, yellow, and white coloring. Come to think of it, he always wears a full outfit of clothes. Is he body-conscious or do humans always wear clothes? She'd never gotten around to asking, she realized. Just what does he look like under all that fabric?

“Nope, we’re here to see if he’s hungry,” Spike replied, indicating toward the basket and bringing Twilight back from her observations in time to catch Lyra glancing between them and the guards who were relaxing on the grass and chatting between themselves.

“I tried to go introduce myself earlier,” Lyra explained, “but those two gave me a glare that could petrify a cockatrice.”

“I doubt they’ll mind now, the Princess appointed me as his intermediary, after all,” Twilight stated rather matter-of-factly. She cocked her head to one side, “Would you like to join us for a bite to eat?”

Lyra’s grin spread almost to the tips of her ears.

“Hey T, what’s up?” Spike waved enthusiastically and jogged over to the human, who turned around to greet the little dragon.

“Oh, heya Spike,” he said, performing the customary greeting of high-fives and fist-bumps he and Spike had made up. Twilight had scolded Spike when he first tried the greeting with Titus, fearing he would hurt the delicate-looking fingers. The human had just laughed and proceeded to assure her the fingers were more durable than they looked.

Titus gave Twilight a wave, Lyra following the motion intently, “And hello to you too, Twilight. I see you brought a friend?”

Twilight nodded, “She wanted to introduce herself earlier, but there were, uh, extenuating circumstances,” she discretely indicated toward the two guards - both seemingly content to ignore the group.

“Ah, I see.” Titus knelt to hold an open hand out toward the unknown pony, “Hello,” he said softly, “my name is Titus.”

Lyra stared at the offered hand, up at the human, then back at the hand and its splayed fingers, examining the gesture from multiple angles. “Uh…” Lyra wasn't sure out how to proceed until Twilight demonstrated by placing a hoof in the hand. With a smile Lyra mimicked what her friend had done, “Hey there, I’m Lyra-oh!“ each finger wrapped around her forehoof as it was lightly shaken, the firm-but-different levels of pressure each digit applied sending shivers down her spine. What is this sensation? Oh wow that feels... weirdly good. Before she knew it Titus let go and the delightful feeling ceased, leaving her craving more.

“Well, Lyraoh-”

“Lyra,” she corrected with a giggle, “Just Lyra.”

“My apologies. Lyra, it is always a pleasure to meet Twilight’s friends. I believe I've seen you on the hill before with someone else-” the biped said.

"Oh! That's Bon-Bon, we share a house in town."

“In that case, the next time you two are here feel free to introduce me, if she would be open to that." Lyra promised she would, so Titus turned to address the three, "So, what brings you here?”

“We were hoping,” Twilight floated the basket to Titus’ feet, “that you’d be hungry and join us for a picnic.”

“Sure, I could go for a bite,” he responded, lifting the bag of salvage from his shoulder to the ground and folding himself down onto the grass, his legs crossed indian-style. Titus wasn't actually hungry - the concentrated supplement he had each morning was more than sufficient for a full day’s hard labor - but he didn't want to look ungrateful by turning the ponies and dragon away. Plus whatever they've got probably tastes a whole lot better than that paste.

The four arranged themselves around the basket, Lyra and Twilight sitting to either side of Titus while Spike sat opposite of him. The basket was magically opened as Twilight divided and levitated the food, the ponies and dragon quickly snatching theirs up.

Titus hesitated, however, examining the bread and cheese and poking the soda bottle with a finger as it floated in the air, causing the bottle to spin about.

It also caused Twilight to giggle a bit.

The human took on a shade of pink. “Sorry, just thinking,” he said, taking the bottle from the air.

“Silver bit for your thoughts?” Twilight said, taking a bite of cheese and bread.

“Oh,” Titus indicated toward the magic aura, “it’s just that I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that because, where I'm from, the way you use your magic and the way it manifests reminds me of a group on a remote planet. They weren't nearly as friendly, though." He snatched the bottle from the air, "Was that worth anywhere near a bit?” he said jokingly.

"That was very worth it!" Twilight was beginning to wish she had brought a quill and parchment, “The idea of other planets and traveling between them is fascinating.”

“The moon and sun being raised manually is fascinating,” he retorted, grabbing the bottle cap between his thumb and index finger and twisting it off. Lyra watched the motion like a hawk.

The group was quiet for a while, enjoying the simple picnic and the nice weather.

Titus noticed that both unicorns seemed fascinated by the movement of his hands as they manipulated the food around. He put his bread and cheese down and held a hand out to each. “They must look pretty weird to you,” he said, slowly flexing the fingers, “but I don’t know where I'd would be without them.”

This was the first time Twilight had seen the human open to physical contact, having generally shied away in the past. She looked up to Titus for permission before gently taking the hand offered between her hooves, turning the limb slowly as she examined it. Spike got up to look over Twilight’s shoulder.

“Interesting,” Twilight remarked, her gaze traveling up Titus’ wrist to his forearm to watch the muscles under the skin move as the hand opened and closed, “you've got almost no coat at all. You’re much more, um, fleshy than I thought you would be.” Without his suit Twilight was able to examine the human’s physique to a much better extent. She had already been able to determine he had broad shoulders, especially by pony standards. She also noticed the well-defined muscles of his thick arms and wide chest, Twilight watched as the muscles in his arm expanded, causing her to inquire about the spectrum of human muscular builds. His torso is remarkably like a Minotaur's, though the tapering of the proportions is much less severe.

Titus indicated he wasn't exceptionally muscular for a human - falling somewhere between lithe and muscular - but humans came in all shapes, colors, and sizes. He momentarily took the hand Lyra was examining (much to her dismay) to roll up the sleeve of his shirt before returning it to her, allowing Twilight and Spike to better see how the muscle groups in his arm worked.

"Hey, what's this on your arm?" Spike pointed to something that had been covered by the sleeve.

Twilight stretched her neck to get a better look at the intricate blue pattern that started partially down his bicep and continued up the shoulder, disappearing under his shirt.

"It's a tattoo, they're fairly common and their appearance ranges widely among the races of the galaxy."

"Like a form of tribal marking? Fascinating," Twilight analyzed, "I'd like to hear more when I can record..."

Lyra was too busy examining the alien appendages to hear the conversation between Twilight and Titus. She nuzzled the palm lightly, Titus not seeming to mind. Oooh! Its nice and warm. Softer than I thought it would be, and the other side is a bit lumpy, she could feel the knuckles under the skin when she ran the back of it over her coat. Lyra carefully bent and unbent each finger with a hoof. These are pliable, but I can feel there's strength hidden in these whenever he puts a little resistance up when I try to unbend one. I wonder how sensitive they are? Lyra began thinking of all the things she would try if she had her own set of fingers. “These things are so bucking cool,” she thought, not meaning to say it out loud and realizing too late.

“That they are,” Titus said, Lyra’s coat unable to completely conceal the blush this time, “It’s going to be these little guys that do the majority of the work to get my ship back up and running.”

“Oh,” Twilight interjected now that the subject was broached, “how have the repairs been coming?” She felt a minute trace of the arm in her hooves going limp.

“With the help of a pair of droids I've got basic power up again; doors, lights, that sort of thing. Since then I've been working on something else that will help me lug parts of wreckage too large to carry back,” he said, one of the fingers of the hand in Twilight’s grasp pointing to his shoulder bag before he'd have to explain to the unicorn what a droid was, “Could you get something from my bag?” Titus directed Spike to one of the pockets where the dragon found something resembling a thick clipboard.

"Hey, is this one of those things Fluttershy found?" Spike remarked, passing it to Titus. It was larger than the one they had previously seen, about the size of a regular book, with thin loops and a short cylinder jutting off one of the sides

"It's a datapad," he said, the mares releasing his arms so he could work the device, "I still have a ways to go before getting the primary systems up and running, but during recent repairs I was able to retrieve a portion of the sensor data from a backup computer. I had to re-purpose this bilio-pad to put the data on-"

"Wait," Twilight was on her hooves before Titus could even look up from the pad, "Biblio? This has human literature on it?!" Her eyes snapped up to the human's. Oh please let me have understood that correctly. Please. Pleasepleaseplease.

"Um," Titus hadn't been prepared for the sudden interruption or the purple unicorn staring at him so intently, "I don't think they're exclusively human, there's most likely a translated text or two in there," he returned his attention to the datapad, tapping the screen a few times. Twilight didn't catch the twitch of his mouth as it fought a smile. "It didn't have enough space for all of the sensor data, so I was going to make space by deleting the unnecessary book files-"

"NO! Don't delete them!" Blinded by her inner bibliophile it took a second for Twilight to realize she had gone up on her hind hooves and pushed the seated human onto his back at the mention of destroying the books on the pad - her front hooves were on his chest and her hind legs were on either side of his hips, essentially pinning him to the ground. She could feel his heart racing under one hoof and in the corner of her eye caught the two guards on the hilltop getting to their hooves.

The empty picnic basket rolled the rest of the way down the hill.

Oh no! Twilight desperately searched his face for a reaction, but his alien features were extremely hard to read. Is that a wince or a smile? What have I done? She squeezed her eyes shut as his empty hand moved toward her, preparing herself to be thrown off, "S-sorry," Twilight said sheepishly, "I just-"

Twilight felt her mane get tussled lightly. She cracked one eye open to look at the human.

"It's okay, Twilight," Titus chuckled and waved an arm at the guards to indicate everything was fine, "Rainbow Dash might have dared me to say something that. Sorry. We were talking earlier and I didn't take her seriously when she said you'd attack over the chance to read alien books. I guess I owe her a few bits or something."

Dash would dare him to do something like that, she's probably laughing her flanks off in a cloud somewhere. Twilight searched the clouds for a rainbow mane, but couldn't find one. Lyra leaned in to whisper something to Twilight, immediately causing a burning red blush to appear beneath her purple coat as she became aware of the rather dominating position she had taken over the human.

Titus wasn't sure what Lyra had told Twilight, but her deepening blush was probably his cue to speak up. "Um-" Twilight issued a little squeak when the biped beneath her spoke, "Fluttershy is the yellow pegasus, right? Did you say she had a datapad?" he said, grimacing slightly when Twilight shifted her weight and placed a bit of pressure on his still-sore side. He assured her he was fine when her face contorted in worry as she gingerly moved off him.

"Um, yes," Twilight finally replied after sticking her tongue out at a still-giggling Lyra, "she found one the night you crashed. Unfortunately, it also ceased working the same night. She left it at the library because she wasn't comfortable asking how you would, um, bury it." That last bit received a raised eyebrow from the biped, so she attempted to explain how Fluttershy had come to identify with the artificial intelligence and also repeated what the pad had diagnosed as broken.

The human hummed thoughtfully, Lyra's attention keenly on the fingers now tapping his chin, "That's not complicated, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to fix. With two functional pads I should have enough space to transfer the rest of the sensor data..."

Meaning he wouldn't have to delete the books! Twilight's ears perked up at the realization, "I've still got a few things to do today, but I can come back later to give it to you."

"Sure, that gives me enough time to finish up here and haul this load back," Titus jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the forest. "Before you go, I'll leave the pad with the sensor recordings-" his fingers tapped in a few commands to bring up a list for Twilight, "and the books with you." The human watched an excited Twilight prance her front hooves a bit. Hooves... hmmm. Titus looked down at her hooves and then to the pad in his hand, "Um, potential problem. Our alphabets are similar enough in both letters and phonetics that you shouldn't need to translate anything to analyze the information, but... can you use the touch interface with your hooves?" He turned the screen to Twilight "Here, try pushing a few of the buttons on the screen."

Twilight's tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she tried to concentrate, lining a hoof up with one of the larger buttons on the screen. *blee-BOOP-whee-ep* A cacophony of tones came from the device as it registered multiple button presses. Another attempt with the tip of her hoof was also a failure - the pad didn't even respond to the hard surface. Twilight's ears drooped in disappointment.

"Could I see your hoof for a moment?" Titus asked with a hand outstretched.

Twilight obliged, her eyes drooping half closed when a wave of relaxing pressure rolled up her leg. Oh wow, he's massaging the soft part of my hoof with his thumb! By the Princesses, that feels good! Now he's running his thumb along the edge... What's he trying to-

The human hummed thoughtfully as his fingers examined the hoof. "The sole of your hoof is the right texture, but it has too much surface area. Meanwhile the leading edge is precise enough but the pad doesn't register the contact. We need to find a balance between the two."

"Try your nose!" Spike suggested.

Twilight rolled her eyes at the idea. But what if it does work? I'd be the first pony to read alien literature! "Sure, I'll give it a shot," she scrunched her muzzle against the pad.

*Bloop!* the device emitted a cheerful tone and the screen displayed a new window of text as the command was entered. Twilight's grin of triumph couldn't have been any wider.

"Great," Lyra said, feigning disappointment, "now she'll have her nose in a book all night."

Twilight, Spike, and Titus issued a collective groan.

With a little bit of practice, Twilight was capable of basic navigation around the datapad's interface. Titus was genuinely surprised at how quickly she had picked up on his instructions, "Twilight," he said, getting her to break her gaze from the device, "By the time you get back I'll have figured something out so you can interface without having to look so..."

"Cute?" Lyra filled in, poking him with a hoof and sticking her tongue out playfully at the other mare.

"Yes, that's one word for it," he admitted with a laugh before he could stop himself - it is cute hearing a little beep or bloop every time she gingerly touches that little nose of hers to the device - "Anyway, like I said, I'll figure something out for you."

"Thank you, Titus," Twilight's cheeks had taken on a crimson tinge, "I look forward to seeing what you come up with."

The picnic was quickly packed up, the two mares leaving toward town while Spike joined a group of school foals for a friendly game of hoofball. With Spike out of earshot, Lyra moved closer to her friend so they could speak in confidence as they made their way up the hill. "So... he called you cute," she started, a grin creeping onto her face as Twilight tried to ignore her by reading something on the datapad, "and that thing he did with your hoof? I bet that felt like foreplay."

Twilight almost let the pad slip from her levitation aura, "He was just-" She quickly looked around to make sure nopony had heard Lyra, "What is going on with you? I swear, Lyra, you're acting like you're in-"

Realization dawned on her.

Lyra's small grin turned into a wicked smile, "It only started two days ago, so I can't be that bad yet. I'm just surprised how restrained you were with him, barring the one case where you were literally all over him." Lyra rolled her eyes when her friend didn't respond to her teasing, "Oh come on, Twilight, lighten up. This isn't the first time you and I been through our estrous cycles together," she said, adding under her breath "and it's not like he moved too quick to get you off of him."

Twilight had stopped walking, instead she was now standing in place shuffling her hooves, "Er, Lyra?" she hesitated, "I, um...I still haven't started my cycle yet."

"Sorry, didn't catch that, Sparkles," Lyra responded, stopping so she could turn to face Twilight.

"I still haven't started my cycle yet," Twilight repeated with a nervous smile.

It was Lyra's turn to have her eyes go wide. "Wait, you mean...? Oh, you sly mare, you!" That wicked smile returned, "You're putting your moves on Titus now, that way you'll have your whole cycle to enjoy those-" she bit her lip as a shiver worked it's way from her ears down the length of her spine ,"-those wondrous fingers of his." Her tail was twitching just imagining what he could do, "When he was letting us play with his fingers, you have no idea how hard it was to resist sticking a few in my mou-"

"Lyra, I-" Twilight felt a bit indignant at the accusation, "I haven't been scheming like that!" She turned around to watch the human as he walked toward the treeline with the salvage bag over his shoulder and a fritter held in his teeth, his hands busy brushing loose blades of grass from the seat of his pants. "He's... Titus is like no stallion I've ever met before."

Twilight caught the sarcastic look Lyra gave her.

"You know I didn't mean like that. I meant that... UGH!" she shook her mane half in frustration and half to dislodge the distracting phantom-feeling of his thumb massaging the sole of her hoof, "Whenever I'm around him I get this sense of excitement, like I've discovered the lost journal of Star Swirl himself."

"In that case you'd better get home and hurry back here," Lyra said, playfully giving Twilight's rump a light swat with her tail to send her on her way before lying down to resume Human-Watching, "before I get tired waiting and try my luck with him."