Greater Lights: Adaptation

Chapters

Prologue - A Summons
Chapter One - Wakey, Wakey, Hands Off Snakey!
Chapter Two - Castle Tourgasm
Chapter Three-A - Brave New World (Part One)
Chapter Three-B - Brave New World (Part Two)
Chapter Four - Peas and Carrots Meeting Awkwardly
Chapter Five-A - Party Hardly (Part One)
Chapter Five-B - Party Hardly (Part Two)
Chapter Six - Hangover Cure
Chapter Seven-A - Canterlot Blues (Part One)
Chapter Seven-B - Canterlot Blues (Part Two)
Chapter Eight - Canterlot Nocturne
Chapter Seven-C - Canterlot Blues (Part Three)

Prologue - A Summons

Four days had passed since Hearth's Warming Eve, and morning over Ponyville had dawned with a brisk chill that made the lungs tingle. The town was painted white from the previous week's anticipatory snowfall, and the streets were filled with ponies starting their daily enterprises, eager to make up for the holiday-shortened work week. The wan winter sun sluggishly climbed towards its zenith as the laughter and shouts of foals playing in the winter wonderland intertwined with the industrious noises of the adults in that strangely harmonic symphony of life.

For eight ponies and a baby dragon, however, life in Ponyville was about to get a little more interesting...

On the western outskirts of Ponyville stood an old farm that had been there since the town's founding. Despite the age of the farm, the buildings were all relatively new, and freshly painted a red as bright as the apples that the residents cultivated. The centerpiece of the farm consisted of a large barn that housed said residents – an orange-coated earth pony mare named Applejack; her older brother, Big McIntosh; her younger sister, Apple Bloom; and the Apple family matriarch, Granny Smith.

Beyond its status as the site of Ponyville's beginnings, Sweet Apple Acres held the distinction of being one of the most productive farms in Equestria, largely due to the care that the Apple family put into running the place. In addition to the apples and apple accessories the farm was associated with, it also produced bountiful harvests of corn, squash, cabbage, and a few other pony dietary staples. By itself, the Acres accounted for roughly thirty-five percent of Ponyville's food supply, and this alone was usually enough to keep the farm afloat even during lean years.

That fateful morning, in the waning days of the twelve-hundred and second year since the founding of Equestria, Applejack and her brother were mulling over numerous wooden barrels in a modest cellar near the northern edge of the zap apple orchard. For his part, the red-coated stallion would jab his left foreleg at each of the barrels in a column in rapid succession, taking an inventory of the type and condition of each barrel before going over to the western cellar wall and making appropriate notations on the parchment pinned there. Each time he did so, Applejack would trot to the next column of barrels, casting an appraising eye over each one and stopping every so often to sniff at a particular barrel or to give an offending barrel a gentle tap in specific locations with her right forehoof.

Even though the process for these particular barrels was a fair bit more involved than that of ordinary cider, the modest size of the task coupled with the efficient work of the duo meant that after only fifteen minutes, every last barrel in the cellar had been inspected and catalogued. Their task finished, the two ponies made their way over to the stairs and began their ascent back into daylight. Applejack turned to her brother with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Well, Big Mac, it looks like the Zap Apple Cider back there is almost ready,” she said as they emerged from the darkness below. The dirt path upon which they were walking caused the sound of their hoofsteps to soften. Applejack's eyes lit up like a foal on Hearth's Warming Eve with the next words out of her mouth. “And good thing, too. Pinkie's puttin' together one humdinger of a New Year's Eve party, and I'm bettin' that our cider will go over like a wildfire in a dry field. Why, I dare say that this is the best idea we've had in a generation!” Her expression darkened considerably all of a sudden. “I just wish it hadn't taken those two no-good snake oil-sellin' charlatans tryin' to run us out of Ponyville to come up with it.”

Trotting on the familiar path that he had taken many times since he was a colt, Big Mac watched his sister out of the corner of his eyes. The range of emotions she'd just expressed provoked a knowing smile on his muzzle. “Eeyup,” he replied.

Big Mac was like that – often expressing a paragraph's worth of meaning in just one word.

“And just think,” his sister said, “If this pans out like we think, we could sell enough of the remainder to keep the farm afloat for years to come!” A thought occurred to her, and she chuckled heartily in response. “I can just imagine the look on Twi's face when she hears that we're experimentin' with the zap apples.”

An errant wind rustled the nearby trees as Big Mac took a moment to reflect on the mental image that statement produced, his agile tongue shifting the wheat stalk from one side of his mouth to the other. He found himself having to suppress a chuckle at the resulting visuals. “Eeyup,” was all he said.

By this point, the snow-covered apple trees lining the fields were starting to thin out, and the Apple family residence came into view. Here, the path diverged into two: one road lead to the barn they called “home,” and the other was bound for the trellised gate of Sweet Apple Acres and beyond it, Ponyville proper. Applejack turned to her brother as she made for the road leading away from the farm.

“I'm gonna go get those supplies we talked about earlier,” she said, turning her head to face him. “Be sure to let Apple Bloom know that Rarity will be by later this afternoon to pick her up for the Crusaders' sleepover.”

Once more the laconic reply issued forth from Big Mac's mouth: “Eeyup.” He then turned for home, where the rest of his morning chores awaited.

Applejack watched the receding form of her brother for a few moments with a content smile on her face before continuing on her way to the front gate. Once there, she secured her saddlebags to her body and cantered off towards town, secure in the knowledge that nothing unusual was going to happen that day.

Just east of Ponyville's town hall, the towering spire that held the Ponyville Weather Patrol Station rose to an impressive height, looking every inch as though it was trying to pierce the heavens. It also happened to be Rainbow Dash's destination as she winged her way through the skies above Ponyville. Always the daredevil, Dash took time to smell the proverbial roses during final approach, which naturally meant performing ridiculously difficult twists, turns, and aerobatic stunts that left little margin for error.

Three times during the home stretch, she narrowly averted disaster while buzzing the rooftops. The fourth time, however, she wasn't so lucky. Lining up for her last trick – a triple barrel roll through the open windows of the top floor of the Weather Patrol Station that lead into an immediate Immelmare turn, finishing by swinging her body one-hundred eighty degrees to land backwards on the rooftop platform – she miscalculated the timing of the last barrel roll and smashed into the ceiling of the top floor. Fortunately for her, years of pushing the envelope had hardened her body, and she was only shaken up for a few moments. She was just shaking off the last of the cobwebs as twin pegasi with lilac coats and teal-gray manes trotted over to check on her.

“Goodness,” said the younger mare, Flitter. Her mane was neatly styled and adorned with a bow. “Are you okay, Boss?”

“I've hurt worse,” Rainbow groaned. She glanced up at her impact point, noticing the vaguely pegasus-shaped spiderweb of cracks in the drywall. “Wish I could say the same about the ceiling, though.” She chuckled sheepishly.

“Yeah, maybe you ought to consider a somewhat safer location for your practice sessions,” Cloudchaser, Flitter's spiky-maned sister, replied.

Dash pondered the suggestion for a moment, then let out a modestly heavy sigh. “I suppose you're right,” she grumbled. She was preparing to get to her hooves when Flitter dropped a bombshell on her.

“There's something you should know before you go downstairs, Boss. Raindrops is waiting in your office with the mid-morning report,” she said, hesitating slightly. Dash let out an exasperated huff and waved a hoof for her to continue. “You might want to be careful around her today. She's rather put out, and won't say why.”

Dash briefly considered beating a strategic retreat and spending the rest of the day in bed. While Raindrops wasn't prone to flying off the handle without provocation, the morning shift manager's temper was a force to be reckoned with. Seeing her on a tear could give even the mighty Rainbow Dash pause. But only momentarily. Dash had a reputation to uphold, after all; it wouldn't do to let a subordinate run roughshod over her. Besides, she thought, I made enough noise to wake the dead with that crash. It'd be impossible for Raindrops to miss my arrival. She'll be expecting me. And so, she quickly discarded her initial response in favor of one more appropriate to her awesomeness.

“Raindrops is always –” Dash waved a hoof dismissively “– put out. Still, I guess I better go down and see what's eating her.” She squared her shoulders and lithely leaped over the rail, her wings flapping to slow her fall with the practiced ease of a trained athlete. By the time she made contact with the ground a hundred feet below, it was on silent, graceful hooves. Without pause, she trotted into the open doorway that led to her office.

Closing the office door with a deft movement of her left hind leg, Rainbow Dash took a moment to assess the state of her little “fiefdom,” as her predecessor, Blazing Glory, liked to refer to it. It was a fairly impressive layout. From the dusty credenza on the eastern wall that currently housed Dash's stash of inappropriate Daring Do fanfiction, to the water cooler in the corner (the contents of which were currently literally indispensable because Dash had forgotten to purchase more disposable drinking cups), to the row of half-full filing cabinets in the back of the office, everything about the room screamed, “THIS IS WHERE IMPORTANT STUFF GETS DONE.”

In the center of it all was Dash's desk, currently buried beneath an aeronautical chart of Ponyville proper and a pile of paperwork that she still needed to sort through – some of which was more than a week old. I really should get Cloud Kicker to help me with this stuff, she thought. Overall, the office was still in good working order, which was to be expected, despite the grouchy disposition of the room's other occupant. Even at her most livid state, Raindrops preferred to buck random unoffending trees into the ground on the outskirts of town than go on a table-flipping rampage in the office.

Nevertheless, Rainbow finished her inspection in less than a second and turned her attention to the mare in question just as Raindrops was focusing her ire on her tardy boss. The jasmine-coated pegasus sat stonily in the guest chair in front of Dash's desk, ears flattened, eyes narrowed, and wings aggressively flared. Visibly restraining herself, Raindrops growled, “Took you long enough, Boss.”

Dash rolled her eyes as she took her own seat at her desk. “Well, good morning to you, too, sunshine,” was her flippant reply. “Now, what burr's gotten under your saddle?”

Releasing a heavy sigh, Raindrops fought to regain her composure. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. After a moment of concentration, the meditation techniques she'd been taught began to kick in. In her mind's eye, she was flying through a gentle rainstorm, letting the rain wash away her stress. Her efforts paid off, and when she opened her eyes, she was much calmer than when she had first entered Dash's office.

Letting a devilish grin settle on her muzzle, Raindrops replied, “Well, as fun as it is fantasizing about getting your job via the ancient griffon promotion system, I'd much rather do it the old-fashioned way and earn it.”

Rainbow glared at Raindrops. “Don't get cute with me. Besides, I'm no closer to understanding why you're upset than when I got here.”

Sighing again, Raindrops gave her boss a flat stare. “Cloud Kicker went AWOL this morning. Again. So, in addition to having to do both my job and yours, I also had to do hers.” She shook her head in disappointment. “I swear to Celestia, sometimes it feels like I'm the only thing standing between Ponyville and meteorological catastrophe. You'd think I'd at least get pay and benefits commensurate with the responsibility.”

Dash couldn't help chuckling a bit at her subordinate's attempt at humor, even if her anger was misplaced this time. “So, am I correct in assuming that you think she overdid it on the partying again?” At Raindrops' affirmative grunt, she nodded in acknowledgment and continued, “Well, as much as I'd like to do something about that, I can't for two reasons. One, you and I both know that she's been doing much better about not letting her 'playtime' interfere with her work. She hasn't reported in hungover in over a year.”

“And the second reason?” Raindrops asked.

“The second reason is that this time CK actually has a legit reason for her absence.” Raindrops quizzically raised an eyebrow at this and opened her mouth to respond, but Dash raised a hoof to forestall the incoming objection. “She got called out of town on a family emergency. She'll be in Cloudsdale for at least a week.”

Raindrops buried her face in a hoof and let out a loud groan of frustration. “Why doesn't anypony ever tell me these things?” she seethed.

Rainbow Dash sighed. “That's my fault, actually. I meant to tell you yesterday, but by the time I remembered, you had already finished your shift and gone home for the day. Sorry.” Judging by the resigned expression she was wearing, Raindrops seemed satisfied by this. Nevertheless, Dash decided to go one step further in repairing the breach. She walked around her desk and draped a comforting wing across Raindrops' withers. “If anything, Raindrops, I'm glad I have somepony as reliable as you to pick up the pieces if need be.”

And in that moment, the atmospheric tension fled the room with the alacrity of the Flim Flam Brothers upon finding themselves at a business ethics seminar. A genuine smile formed on her lips as Raindrops replied, “Thanks, Boss.” She paused for a moment, then started upon remembering the other reason she was here. “Almost forgot. The morning team is slightly ahead of schedule on today's weather. Star Hunter and Medley are bringing in the last of the nimbostratus pannus clouds as we speak. We should be ready for the reinforcing snowfall by the time the afternoon shift takes over.”

“Awesome. I'll let Thunderlane know so that he can prepare his team to let it snow later this afternoon.” Rainbow spared a questioning glance at Raindrops. “Is there anything else you wish to tell me?” When Raindrops shook her head, Dash continued, “Okay, then. I'll let you get back to leading your team.”

Raindrops nodded and got up to walk to the door. She had one hoof out the door when Dash's voice stopped her in her tracks.

“One last thing before you leave. Seeing as how the Wonderbolts are gearing up to expand their numbers, I was thinking about starting a training class for anypony who's considering trying out. I figured that since we're both fans, and you're a halfway decent flier –” Raindrops adopted an outraged expression, to which Dash responded with a smug grin “– I figured I'd let you be the first to know. I want Ponyville's pegasi to dominate that first recruiting class, and you could certainly help me do it. Are you game?”

If Raindrops' wide grin and wider eyes could be harnessed for electric power, it would light up Manehatten, Las Pegasus, Baltimare, and Fillydelphia for a whole year. “A chance to make sure I'm as ready as I can be for the opportunity of a lifetime? You bet I'm game, Boss!” She punctuated this by giving Rainbow Dash a friendly hip check that staggered her momentarily.

Smirking, Dash returned the favor, though her efforts were noticeably less effective against the slightly larger, more powerfully built mare. “Good. You're dismissed. Go help your team finish up, and then you can clock out early if you wish.”

“Thanks, Boss!” Raindrops called as she practically flew out of the office.

Still smiling, Rainbow returned to her backlog of paperwork. It only took a few minutes of approving reports and signing payroll forms for her to start fidgeting restlessly in her seat. She went over to the credenza and shuffled through her attempts at literature, a lazy smile playing across her muzzle as images of some of the more smutty scenes danced through her mind. Then she frowned, remembering that she couldn't be caught with such illicit material – most of her co-workers would laugh at her for her choice of porn, while the more literary-minded among them would shudder at the atrociously bad wish fulfillment contained within.

Putting the parchment back in a hidden compartment, she wandered over to the water cooler, only to bury her face in her hoof as she remembered why the water had been at the same level for the last two days. Denied any further opportunities for procrastination, she returned to her desk and started aimlessly pushing paper around. She managed to fill out one more cloud requisition form for dispatch to the central weather factory in Cloudsdale before restlessness set in again. Ugh. I'll bet Spitfire never has to bother with mindless busywork.

The more she thought about it, the more restless she became, until she finally reached her breaking point. Screw it, she thought, if I don't get out of here right now, I'm going to die of boredom!

And so, with gritted teeth and a loud groan, she pointedly dropped the quill onto her desk and stomped out into the foyer, telling the receptionist that she was going to be out of the office for a few hours. She then winged her way back up to the observation dome that she'd crashed into earlier. Once she was back on the balcony outside, she bent her legs, gave her wings a few test flaps, and zoomed off into the sky with a rainbow trail flowing behind her. Settling into a comfortable cruising altitude and speed, she began her patrol, determined to ensure that nothing unusual would happen that day. (And even if something unusual did happen, she was confident that she could whoop its rump in a totally awesome manner.)

The Ponyville Day Spa, despite being situated on the northern edge of the marketplace, was nearly dead that morning. The owners, a pair of earth ponies named Aloe and Lotus, were not surprised by that fact, however. It was a Monday morning, after all. Despite their mild disappointment at the loss of revenue the slow business day implied, they couldn't complain too much: they still managed to make ends meet on such days, and the idle time gave them a chance to catch up on their account books and take stock of inventory.

Presently, the only ponies patronizing the place were Aloe and Lotus's favorite regular customers: a pegasus with a butter yellow coat and pink mane and tail, and her friend – an alabaster unicorn whose royal purple mane and tail were coiffed in luxurious curls. The two mares were in the midst of the final portion of their usual spa treatment – a hooficure for both, and a horn-filing for the unicorn.

Rarity closed her eyes and sighed in contentment as Lotus expertly sanded away the rough spots on her horn, the rhythmic sawing of the specially-designed rasp lulling her into near catatonia. These weekly spa treatments were just the thing she needed to give her the clarity of mind to create the stunning works of art that ponies from all walks of life would die for the chance to wear. An added benefit of the treatment, of course, was that it always managed to melt away whatever stress the weekend's rest had failed to ameliorate. As a result, Rarity almost never came back to her boutique with “a case of the Mondays,” as Pinkie Pie liked to refer to it.

For her part, Fluttershy had been having second thoughts about the hooficure. She had always demurred on that part of her spa package on their previous visits – the grating sound of file-on-keratin always unnerved her, and she lived in stark terror that the rasp might slip and take off way too much. It was an admittedly ridiculous worry, but one that still haunted her mind every time she set hoof inside the building. Her unicorn friend, however, had managed to be extra persuasive this time. Before entering the spa an hour earlier, Rarity had Pinkie Promised that Fluttershy had nothing to worry about, even going so far as to offer to make a series of outfits for the animals that she cared for in an effort to seal the deal. Reflecting upon this, Fluttershy ultimately decided to just lay down and think of Equestria during the ordeal.

It turned out to be not nearly as painful as she had feared, for Aloe was just as masterful as her twin sister at the art of spa treatments. In fact, in an odd sort of way, she was actually beginning to enjoy the peculiar sensations as her hooves were filed to a level that enhanced her natural beauty.

Rarity chose this moment to open one eye to see how her friend was doing. A sly smirk slipped onto her lips when she caught a glimpse of the tentative expression of happiness adorning the other mare's muzzle. “See, darling? I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

Fluttershy's wings fluttered briefly as she was startled from her reverie, then her lips curled in a sheepish grin. “I suppose you're right, Rarity. I'm sorry I doubted you.”

Rarity waved a dismissive hoof. “It's quite alright, dear. Now wouldn't you agree that this has been a lovely outing at the spa this morning?”

“Oh, yes. Quite.” Whatever else Fluttershy was going to say died out as a barely-stifled yawn escaped her maw.

Said yawn failed to escape the fashionista's notice, however. “Goodness, Fluttershy. Have you been getting enough sleep lately?”

Fluttershy paused for a few moments, furrowing her eyebrows as an uncertain frown formed on her face. She still wasn't entirely sure that what she'd seen was real, despite the same events happening the same way over the last few nights. Who'd believe her anyway? She was the timid one, so folks would just assume she was hiding from her own shadow again.

But then she noticed the concerned look her friend was giving her. She sighed. If there was one pony she could confide in, it'd be Rarity. She'd never known the mare to judge her harshly, even if she sometimes felt that her fears were unfounded. It was one of the things that made her glad to have Rarity as one of her best friends. As much as she liked Rainbow Dash, her fellow pegasus could be a bit lacking in the patience and tolerance department, to put it mildly.

With this in mind, Fluttershy gave her reply. “Not really. You see, it all started the day after Hearth's Warming Eve. I was feeding my chickens their midnight snack wh-”

“You feed your chickens at midnight?” Rarity couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at this.

“Well, yes. I just couldn't stand to let the poor things starve, now could I?”

Rarity fixed her friend with a level stare. As much as she wanted to call Fluttershy out on this, she knew she was hardly in a position to do so. After all, she fed Opalescence quite frequently – perhaps a bit too frequently, now that she thought about it. The finicky feline could probably stand to go on a bit of a diet. She shook her head to wipe away the thought. It was a distraction from the main thrust of the conversation. Waving a hoof, she urged Fluttershy to continue.

“Anyway, I was feeding my chickens when I happened to look up, and saw something flying through the air towards the Everfree Forest. It was dark, so I couldn't be sure, but I think it was Princess Luna.”

“Princess Luna? Are you sure?” was Rarity's skeptical response.

“Pretty sure. Unless you happen to know any other dark blue alicorns with ethereal manes and tails, that is.”

Rarity blinked owlishly. Did Fluttershy just... snark at me? She shook her head, dismissing the notion as preposterous. Before she could think further on it, though, Aloe and Lotus stepped back and gestured for the two to come down from the hooficure station. As the four ponies walked back up to the front desk, Rarity prompted Fluttershy to continue her tale.

“So, what happened next?”

“I didn't think much of it at the time. I just figured that she was doing it as part of her duties as guardian of the night. But then it happened again the next night, and the next as well.” Fluttershy frowned as she remembered the details. “Once I noticed a pattern, I started staying up to see if I could tell if there was a purpose to her nightly visits. Last night was the fifth time in three days that I'd seen her go into the forest, and each time she seemed to be heading in the same direction – towards the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.”

“You really mean that?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I do. In fact, I think something may have happened there, because when she left the forest at about four this morning, she was levitating something in a minotaur-sized bodybag.”

Now it was Rarity's turn to frown. “Well, as unusual a circumstance as that seems, I'm sure Princess Luna has her reasons for trying to be secretive about it.” She gave Fluttershy a reassuring pat on the shoulder before levitating a small pile of bits – enough to cover both her and Fluttershy's expenses – over to Aloe and Lotus, who gratefully took it and placed it in the till.

As they walked out into the late morning sunshine, Fluttershy yawned again. “Well, I just hope that the princesses will let Twilight tell us what's going on. As much as I fear what it means, I'd hate to be left in the dark.”

Rarity smiled. “Me too, Fluttershy. Now, why don't you go home and get some rest, dear? You've certainly earned it.”

The two mares exchanged a friendly nuzzle before going their separate ways. One was still cautiously optimistic that her friend had been wrong, and nothing unusual was going to happen that day. The other, however, feared that something unusual had indeed happened that day.

The morning rush at Sugarcube Corner had just ended, and the din of the crowd of ponies who had availed themselves of the bakery's breakfast options was beginning to die down as customers finished their meals and departed. The only table in use at the moment was occupied by a trio of earth ponies wearing hard hats and bright orange reflective vests who were lingering over the dregs staining the bottom of their coffee mugs and engaged in idle conversation. A solid blue earth pony mare busied herself with busing the nearby tables, waiting patiently for the construction crew to finish up and follow their fellows out the door.

Eventually, the three stallions excused themselves with a polite tip of their hats to the mare, who gave them a genuine smile as she thanked them for their patronage. With a sigh of relief, she cleaned their table as well before returning to the front counter to await the next customer.

Although the proprietors relished the lull as an opportunity to start on various catering orders and prepare for the lunch rush, their sole employee felt otherwise. To be sure, Pinkie Pie loved baking. However, she loved interacting with the customers much more. As Ponyville's premier party pony, being a social butterfly came naturally to Pinkie – it was how she'd gotten her cutie mark, after all.

Nevertheless, baking was Pinkie's second love, and it was because of this that she was engaged in an epic enterprise deep in the bowels of the kitchen: baking her fourth batch of cupcakes for the morning. Or at least, it would've been her fourth batch of cupcakes: two of the batches mysteriously found themselves on a trip through her digestive system – the victims of the pink mare's “quality control” methods. She had just finished pulling the latest batch out of the oven and placing it on the nearby countertop when she found herself in the grips of a massive shock to her Pinkie Sense.

The average outsider would be forgiven for galloping off in search of a doctor under the impression that Pinkie was suffering from a grand mal seizure. After all, they didn't know how the Pinkie Sense worked. Pinkie herself was sometimes puzzled by her gift: the seeming random twinges and shudders had first started about a week prior to her first estrus, and it had taken her a whole month just to figure out the basics.

It worked as an odd sort of vague precognition – the various bodily tics each corresponded to a particular category of impending event. For instance, a twitchy tail meant that something was about to fall in the immediate vicinity. The more important the event, the more parts of her body would be involved, up to and including a full body shudder that indicated a major event was about to happen – those were termed as “doozies.”

The last time Pinkie had been subjected to a doozy was a few months ago as she was walking out the front door of Sugarcube Corner to have a picnic with her fellow Element Bearers. It happened to be the morning that Twilight found out that her brother, Shining Armor, was getting married. Not coincidentally, this happened to be the maximum amount of time lag between prediction and actuality: about two hours.

There was one last oddity about the Pinkie Sense. Any precognitive tremor of sufficient planet-shattering severity also carried with it information about said event's predicted location. Naturally, such events didn't come along all that often. In all the time since Pinkie had first realized her gift, a precognitive flash of this magnitude had only happened a handful of times, and those events had been separated by months, if not years.

And yet, she had been seized by no less than three such tremors in as many days, effectively doubling her count. The first had jolted her out of bed in the early morning hours of the day after Hearth's Warming Eve, and was centered on Canterlot. Later that evening, another one had triggered about an hour after she had put the twins to bed for the evening. That one seemed to be coming from the Everfree Forest.

And now this. Could something so unusual that it had triggered no less than three Super-Duper-Ultra-Mega-Salmon-Level Doozies in less than a week really be happening? What did it all mean? While Pinkie thrived on the strange and unusual – it could be a lot of fun with the right mindset and careful planning – this kind of weirdness worried her a little.

Another shudder rocked Pinkie's body as her Pinkie Sense brought in more information. It was definitely coming from Canterlot this time. Pinkie frowned – something she almost never did. This doozy was perhaps the dooziest of all doozies, and that included the time at Froggy Bottom Bog when Twilight had transformed into a character from one of those JoyBoy games that a certain propeller beanie-wearing colt was always messing around with.

Pinkie snorted with amusement as she remembered the character's name. It was one of those inherently funny words that never failed to make her laugh. She had a whole list of them: begonias, pickle barrel, kumquat, and ramshorn were some of the other words that immediately sprang to mind. The last one was particularly interesting – was ramshorn one word or two? If it was one word, did you pronounce it like ram's horn, or ram shorn? Was it even a word at all, or was it an oddity she'd picked up from a fantasy novel? If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hooves with soap? Why do they call it a hacksaw when hacking is something you do with a knife?

A stallion's voice brought her back to Equis from the stream of consciousness in which her mind had been frolicking. “Goodness, Pinkie.” Carrot Cake's tone was heavily laced with concern. “You've been getting the shudders a lot lately. What sort of imminent disaster should we start preparing for?”

Pinkie blinked owlishly for a moment before an obliviously peppy smile slipped onto her muzzle. “Oh no, it's nothing like that, Mr. Cake. I can't say for sure, but I know it's important, and not at all disastrous. By the way,” she said offhandedly, as if what she had to say next was totally unrelated, “Twilight will be by in about an hour to tell me and the girls about important Element Bearer business in Canterlot tomorrow, so if I could take my lunch then, that'd be superrific!”

Cup Cake chose that moment to walk in from tending the storefront. “Oh, of course, Dearie. We wouldn't dream of getting in between you and important errands for the Princesses!”

Pinkie's eyes shot open even wider than usual as another thought struck her. “Oh, and I suppose I'll need to have tomorrow off as well.”

“O-of course, Pinkie,” Carrot Cake stammered in reply.

“Thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Cake! You're the best!” And with that, Pinkie zoomed off to the kitchen again, leaving a pink-tinged wake that almost seemed solid.

After spending several seconds trying and failing to get coherent words to come out of his mouth, Carrot Cake shook his head and sighed. “I swear, Honey Bun, she's been like family for years, and I still can't wrap my head around that Pinkie Sense of hers.”

Cup Cake smiled and nuzzled her husband. “I know what you mean, Dear.” She put a hoof to her chin in thought. “Still, you can't say that our lives aren't enriched by her presence.”

Carrot Cake nodded in silent, grudging agreement.

Once more firmly ensconced in the kitchen, and heedless of the fact that she was the subject of their exasperated conversation, Pinkie Pie lovingly slathered frosting onto the last batch of cupcakes. As she did so, one thing was exceedingly clear in her mind: something unusual was indeed about to happen that day.

Despite the chilly temperature and the looming prospect of more snow in the clouds being brought in by the weather team, the marketplace was in full swing by the time Lyra reached it – a warm cup of hot chocolate held close in her levitation aura. It wasn't her favorite hay smoothie, but in the bitter chill of the morning, it suited her perfectly. The mint-green unicorn couldn't help but be enthralled by the activity around her. The cacophonous haggling between stall owners and customers blended beautifully with the amazing sights and enticing smells to weave a wondrous melody that thrummed and pulsed with a life of its own.

Lyra closed her eyes as she drank in the ambiance, a gentle smile tugging at her lips. There's an order to all things – even chaos. It was one of the first bits of wisdom that her Still Way instructor had imparted to her, and it had stuck with her ever since.

She spared a moment to reflect on the bittersweet memory. She had been a very different mare back then. The psychological scars of her last failed relationship were still fresh at the time, leaving her bitter, angry, and not particularly receptive to enlightenment. Following a particularly hard night of drowning her sorrows in drinking and debauchery that had landed her in the drunk tank, a veteran guardsmare had taken pity on her, gently but pointedly directing her to the Still Way dojo in Canterlot.

With heavy reluctance, she had found herself standing with trembling hooves before Grandmaster Quiet Thunder. Upon hearing her story, Quiet Thunder had eagerly taken her under his (metaphorical) wing. Lyra gave a soft chuckle and rueful smile at this, for he had done more than merely teach her arcane self-defense. Slowly, gently, he had helped her find her self-worth amidst the rubble of her past and rebuild it to be stronger than before. Though she'd never harbored any romantic intentions for him – as her teacher and as a happily married stallion, it would've been wrong on two levels for her to try – she still held a deep respect for him.

For this reason, she always made a special effort to take each of his teachings to heart, from the last to the first. It had taken several hours of focused meditation to fully understand the one about chaos having its own order, and the implications of such. As it turned out, the saying worked in two ways. One, naturally, applied to combat: even in the heat of battle, one could find exploitable patterns in an opponent's maneuvers. That much even a foal could discern, given enough time. What was truly revolutionary about the aphorism was that it was also relevant to everyday life. With practice and patience, one could effectively cut through the fog that obscures one's goal. It was a central tenet of Still Way philosophy: open your mind to all possibilities; let the stream of time flow over, around, and with you, and the shortest path to where the universe needs you to be will open.

Such as now.

Taking advantage of the gap formed by two ponies completing a transaction and parting company, Lyra pressed forward. One opening became another, and then another, and another one after that. With a cat's effortless grace, she weaved her way through each gap, emerging on the other side of the market less than a minute later. Not a single drop of her hot chocolate had met an unfortunate end on the snowy ground below.

Once she was far from the madding crowd, Lyra turned her attention further up the street, in the direction of Quills & Sofas. She watched and waited, hopeful that the local librarian would be headed down the path towards her at any moment. Sure enough, a moment later the door to Quills & Sofas opened to reveal a lavender unicorn mare bound for the marketplace, excessively long list-toting baby dragon in tow.

Just as predicted, Lyra silently exulted while casually sipping on her warm beverage. My Grandmaster Sense strikes again! She chuckled at the implied comparison to a certain party planner before affixing a coy smile to her face and waving as her friend approached.

“Hey, Lyra,” Twilight said with a smile of her own. “How did you know I was going to the market?”

Lyra adopted a mock sagely expression. “Well, I could get all mystical and give you some song and dance about the winds of fate driving us to where we need to be, but really, it was just a hunch.”

Twilight giggled at that. Her companion, on the other hand, was less than amused. “Whatever,” Spike grumbled from his perch on Twilight's back. “I'm still not convinced that you aren't spying on us.”

“Spike!” Twilight fixed her companion with a glare that could melt iron. “That was rude. Besides, you know Lyra's not that kind of mare.”

Sighing heavily, Spike muttered a decidedly insincere apology under his breath. Twilight again stared him into submission. “Sorry, Lyra,” he said, just managing to fake enough authenticity in his voice to get his caretaker off his back.

“And I'm sorry too, Lyra. Spike's been feeling a bit neglected lately. I've been having to work him harder than he's used to because Owlowiscious is being boarded at the vet's office while his wing heals.”

Concern marred Lyra's features. “Oh, dear. I hope he feels better soon. For Spike's sake, if nothing else.”

Twilight gently smiled at her friend. “Thanks for your concern. The vet says he'll be fine. In fact, he'll probably be ready to come home on Friday.”

“That's wonderful news!” Lyra replied with a happy smile. Her ears twitched a few times as she remembered something important. “Oh, by the way, Twilight – Raindrops and I are getting together next Tuesday for our usual weekly lunch. I realize that that's New Year's Day, but I know of one or two places that will be open that day. Do you want to join us?”

Twilight frowned as she lit her horn and a heavy tome floated out of her saddlebags, wrapped in her signature magenta aura. “Let me check my schedule really quickly,” she replied. After a few moments of poring over the monumental text, using a forehoof as a guide, her countenance brightened and her ears perked up. “Aha! It looks like I'm definitely free next Tuesday between noon and one o'clock. Will that work for you?”

“That's perfect, Twilight. I'll let Rainy know that you'll be joining us.”

After that, the conversation turned to idle chatter and gossip. Clearly bored of the subject matter, Spike hopped off of Twilight's back and started looking for something to do. The two mares were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn't notice Spike suddenly turn in their direction, cheeks bulging in the telltale sign that he was about to burp up a letter. Twilight and Lyra were therefore momentarily startled when said missive spontaneously materialized between them in a crackle of green flame that preceded a flash of white light. For her part, Lyra's reflexes were just fast enough to narrowly avoid getting whacked in the face with the inbound epistle that shot forth like a literary missile.

Twilight, on the other hand, was not so lucky. After tenderly massaging her abused cheek, she seized the offending parchment in her levitation aura and began to peruse the contents. The bright smile she'd had upon seeing that it was from Princess Celestia faded as she read the message, ultimately settling into a worried frown. Lyra developed a frown of her own as she sensed her lavender friend fighting a growing panic.

“Something the matter, Twilight?” she asked in a sympathetic tone.

Twilight had a crestfallen expression as she looked at her friend. “Sorry, Lyra. This letter just arrived from Princess Celestia. She's asking the girls and me to come to Canterlot at our earliest convenience to consult on a sensitive matter.” An apologetic expression settled onto Twilight's muzzle. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut our conversation short, Lyra, but I should go give the girls the news.”

“Don't worry about it, Twilight,” Lyra said with a sweet smile. “I know what it's like to have your life interrupted by the occasional duty to the Crown.”

Twilight returned the smile with an equally saccharine one of her own. “Thanks for your understanding, Lyra. I'll see you and Raindrops on Tuesday.”

“We'll be looking forward to it,” Lyra replied as the two mares shared a friendly nuzzle before Twilight ran back the way she came. Once Twilight disappeared past Quills & Sofas, Lyra resumed sipping her beverage. A moment later, she also left the market, walking off to see if Bon Bon needed her to pick up anything for the store. She could've sworn the oven needed a new temperature knob... again...

Meanwhile, as Twilight galloped off to gather her friends – a loudly protesting Spike desperately clinging to her back with all his might – one thought ran through her mind on an endless loop: something unusual had happened that day.

The next morning found Twilight sighing in exasperation halfway to Equestria's capital city. As much as she dearly loved Pinkie Pie and valued her friendship, the pink mare's enthusiasm – and yes, randomness – could be a bit much to handle at times. From the moment Twilight and her friends had boarded the carriage that was being pulled by a pair of pegasus royal guards and departed for Canterlot, Pinkie had been jabbering her ear off with one wild guess after another about the nature of Princess Celestia's summons: everything from finding out who stole the last slice of Princess Luna's birthday cake to a creepy magic-stealing villain who'd escaped from Tartarus when Cerberus was distracted in Ponyville last spring.

The poor mare found herself pushed past her wit's end with the current gnat at which Pinkie was straining, however.

“Pinkie,” she said in a calm, restrained tone, “I'm pretty sure Princess Celestia's summons has nothing to do with a sapient tailless primate from another universe in need of a friend running around Equestria.” Candidly, there may have been a slight edge in Twilight's voice at that moment, and her right eye and left ear may have both been twitching erratically. If Pinkie had noticed any of these warning signs, however, she gave no indication of it, preferring instead to continue to tilt at the surreal windmills that her mind had conjured up.

To the great relief of all, Pinkie's imaginative ramblings were cut short as the carriage bounced roughly off the ground twice before finally settling down solidly on terra firma. One of the stallions pulling the carriage quickly unhooked himself before trotting over and opening the door for the occupants.

Rainbow Dash groaned in relief as she began to hover about the courtyard that they had landed in. “Finally, we're here! I don't think I could take another minute crammed in there with Pinkie.” She grimaced and then looked at her friend with a sheepish smile. “No offense, Pinks.”

Pinkie returned it with a gigawatt smile of her own. “None taken, Dashie!” She leaped from the carriage with a shower of confetti and – strangely, since no trumpeters were around – the blaring of a three-note trumpet trill, resulting in some strange looks from her fellow Element Bearers. The nearby guards were, of course, stoic as always.

For her part, Rarity gave a disgruntled huff. “You'd think that the Royal Guard would know how to land one of these things gently. My mane is all mussed,” she groused as she gingerly stepped out of the carriage.

“No time to worry about that now, Rares,” Applejack replied, pointing a hoof at two familiar ponies who were approaching. “We've got company.”

The couple – a white unicorn stallion with two-tone blue mane and tail, and a pink alicorn whose mane and tail had purple, cream, and rose streaks – stopped about a bodylength away from Twilight and her friends. Twilight was already rushing over to the stallion before he had finished giving an excited shout of “Twily!”

Shining Armor staggered backwards slightly as his little sister glommed onto him in an affectionate embrace. He chuckled heartily before returning the hug. “Glad you could make it, kiddo,” he said, smiling sweetly at her.

“You too, BBBFF,” Twilight replied, “I haven't seen you since you got back from your honeymoon. I'm still kind of jealous that you two got to go to Haywaii. It must have been nice.”

“It was. You would've loved it,” Princess Cadance said, drawing Twilight's attention.

“Oh, Cadance! I almost forgot you were there. I'm sorry.”

Cadance smiled. “Don't worry about it, Twilight.” With all the heady exuberance of a foal who had just earned her cutie mark, the two mares then cavorted in place as they began the song-and-dance routine that had served as their special greeting ever since Twilight was a filly.

“Sunshine, sunshine ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!” They giggled giddily as they came down from the high that the performance always induced. One could easily tell that they were as close as sisters, in spite of the “sisterhood” being modified by the phrase “in-law.”

Twilight turned back to her brother. “As much as I'd love to spend the morning catching up with you two, is there a particular reason you're here? As far as I know, Celestia just sent for me and the girls.” She couldn't help the curious tone in her voice and the uncertain flattening of her ears.

Shining Armor shook his head. “She wouldn't say. All she told us is that we were to escort you and your Ponyville friends to the medical wing of the palace. I can only assume that she and Princess Luna will explain everything there.”

Twilight looked back to her friends. All of them were wearing hesitant, uncertain expressions on their faces. They knew full well that if the princesses insisted on delivering a message in person, it must be deathly important. Nevertheless, determination rapidly replaced fear and doubt – they were the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, after all. Honor compelled them to heed the princesses' call, no matter where it might lead. And the princesses had yet to steer them wrong. Exchanging a brief nod to one another, they turned back to their escort.

“Alright, then,” Twilight declared to her brother. “Lead the way.”

Wordlessly, Shining Armor and Princess Cadance turned and trotted off into the castle, with Twilight and her friends following close behind them.

Located in a sheltered basement near the eastern wall of the castle, just above the entrance to the crystal caverns where Princess Cadance had been imprisoned by the changeling queen during the Royal Wedding fiasco, Canterlot Castle's medical ward was about as well-protected a location as could be expected in the capital city. It was flanked on each side by secondary guard barracks, and had one main entrance at the end of a short corridor that lead back up to ground level. Each barracks fed into this main foyer, so that in an emergency, the entrance could be heavily reinforced in short order. Behind the entryway, a decontamination ward helped ensure that the medical wing always maintained a sterile environment.

It was in this clean room that the Royal Sisters ultimately met with Twilight and her entourage. Princess Celestia was easily recognizable because she stood crest and withers above everypony else. Her long, slender legs supported a powerful frame, and in the right light, her perfect white coat gleamed with an almost divine glow. The large golden crown and gold-plated peytral she wore were adorned with matching amethyst jewels, while her mane and tail – a veritable rainbow of pastel shades – flowed in an ethereal wind.

In stark contrast to her sister, Princess Luna embodied the night in her almost sensual physicality. She was smaller than the Steward of the Day – much closer to Princess Cadance in stature, and her coat was a deep bluish-purple hue. Likewise, her smaller obsidian crown and peytral were less ornate – the ghostly crescent moon of her cutie mark on the latter item being the only embellishment she allowed herself. Her mane and tail flowed in the same nonexistent wind as her sister's, and it seemed as though the night sky was contained within.

“I'm so glad you could make it on such short notice, my most faithful student,” Princess Celestia said as Twilight rushed up to embrace her and the others bowed respectfully.

“It's nothing, Your Highness. My friends and I are glad to be of service to you and to Equestria,” Twilight happily replied. She then pinned her ears back as her earlier confusion returned. In a tremulous voice, she continued: “However, I'm still a little uncertain as to why you asked us to come.”

“We will explain to you on the way,” Princess Luna replied. The diarchs turned and led the group to a winding ramp leading down into the bowels of the facility. Upon reaching the bottom, their path took them through a maze of nearly identical hallways.

As they walked, Luna glanced back over her shoulder to address them. “A few days ago, I was on a... diplomatic mission of sorts. My sister and I had discovered a new sapient species a few months after my return from lunar exile. We studied them covertly for a while, and after much careful consideration, I was sent to their lands to make a final assessment of their readiness for official contact.

“Not long after entering their territory, however, I came upon a severely injured member of the species in question. He had been brutally attacked, and there was no one in the immediate vicinity to help him. When his attackers found me, I was attempting first aid to stabilize him for transport. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to bring him back here for treatment.”

They had just passed through a stronger version of the decontamination ward from the entrance. In contrast to the upper parts of the facility, only a few ponies were making the rounds here. Twilight started in recognition when they passed through. “So, why are we in Isolation Ward Number One? Isn't this the ICU ward for minotaur patients?”

Celestia nodded. “Indeed. Although this patient is similar in some ways to a minotaur, he's also quite unique. And as Luna said, his injuries were very severe. He probably would've died if Luna hadn't brought him back here. Given the situation, this was the only facility with the equipment and personnel needed to treat a special case like this. Even as it was, it took the team three whole days of round-the-clock care and several trips by Luna to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters for him to recover enough to be released into your care.”

At this, the Element Bearers glanced at one another with worried expressions all around. Applejack took the opportunity to speak up. “Pardon me for asking, Yer Highness, but why us?”

“The land he hails from is inaccessible for the immediate future,” Luna replied, “so he's cut off from all that is familiar to him, at least temporarily. He is going to need friends to support him and help him acclimate to Equestria until such time as he can be returned to his people.”

“So, let me get this straight: you brought a freaky alien who's sort-of-a-minotaur-but-not back from his homeland, who may react badly to finding out that he can't go home again for quite some time? And you want us to be his friends?” Rainbow Dash replied with a skeptically raised eyebrow.

“That's the idea, Miss Dash,” Celestia said calmly.

“You do realize how tall of an order this is, right, Princess?” Dash countered, her dubious tone practically dripping from every word.

“As the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, you girls have become used to dealing with the unexpected – from the return of Nightmare Moon and Discord to the changeling invasion – and handled each challenge with grace and poise.” Celestia looked to each mare in turn as she spoke, a warm smile on her muzzle. “Furthermore, it was you girls that encouraged your friends and neighbors in Ponyville to see past their prejudices and accept the zebra apothecary named Zecora as a welcome addition to the community. Luna and I feel that these experiences will serve you well in helping our guest adapt to life in Equestria, especially should the portal to his homeland remain closed to us for the indefinite future.”

“You are, of course, free to decline our request for assistance,” Luna said. “No negative judgment will fall on you if you do so.”

“Oh c'mon, Dashie! I think this will be fun! Besides, I'll bet he's never seen a Sonic Rainboom before. You could totally wow him with your amazingly awesome moves!” Pinkie replied.

Dash shrugged. “Worth a shot, I suppose.” She found herself fighting, and failing, to contain the tentative grin that formed on her muzzle.

“That's the spirit!” the pink mare enthused, clapping a hoof heartily against Rainbow's back, staggering the prismatic mare.

One by one, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy joined Dash and Pinkie in accepting the diarchs' request. Shining Armor, who had remained quiet throughout the briefing, chose that moment to speak up.

“As heartening as it is to see my sister and her friends show their support for someone they've never met,” he said, “I'd like to assign some additional protection for this newcomer.” He raised his hoof to forestall any objections. “It's not that I don't trust Twily and her friends to keep him out of trouble. They just can't be everywhere at once. It couldn't hurt to have another set of eyes and ears to look out for him.”

Celestia nodded her assent. “That would be a wise idea, Captain. As Sergeant Heartstrings is the resident guardsmare in Ponyville, that duty would fall on her withers.”

Shining returned the nod. “I'll see to it that the appropriate orders are cut for her. Her commanding officer will summon her in a week's time to brief her.”

Luna nodded sagely. “That will also give us some time to get our 'guest' here acclimated before setting him loose in Ponyville. If there is nothing else, I believe it is time to introduce you to our guest.”

“Just one more thing, Princess,” Twilight answered. “You mentioned the patient's resemblance to a minotaur, yet you were also quite clear that he's not one.” Her ears were pinned back in uncertainty yet again, even as her eyes were filled with curiosity. “What exactly is he?”

Luna gave a coy smile. “Perhaps it is best that you see for yourself. However, I will tell you the name of his species. His people call themselves 'human.'”

Several different varieties of befuddled expressions settled upon the muzzles of the princesses' audience. Pinkie Pie gave voice to their confusion with three words: “What's a 'houyhnhnm?'”

Author's Note

Well, here it is: the prologue to my HiPE fic. There's more to ~~cum~~ come, as soon as I finish planning the next chapter.

And yes, Rainbow Dash does consider her horribly written self-insert Daring Do pr0n to be important business. You got a problem with that? :trollestia: :rainbowlaugh:

Fun fact about this universe: Pinkie Pie's first "doozy" occurred about an hour before the start of her first estrus cycle. :pinkiecrazy: :pinkiegasp: :rainbowlaugh:

5/17/2015: Revised to improve narrative and address complaints about certain plot points.

Chapter One - Wakey, Wakey, Hands Off Snakey!

Fading away like the stars in the morning
Losing their light in the glorious sun
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling
Only remembered for what we have done

Half-remembered lyrics to a half-remembered hymn. It was not the way I expected to wake up on this particular morning. Or any given morning, for that matter. After all, I’ve never been much of a spiritual man – “debates” with my parents over why I should go to church on many a Sunday morning when I was growing up served as a testament to that. Then again, it may not have been a hymn at all – perhaps something from the last play I’d seen with my folks.

Either way, the song’s origin was a mystery to me. Moreover, something about the way this song came to me struck me as strange. While I have occasionally woken up with at least part of a song in my heart – or head, as the case may be – this felt very different. It was a very odd sensation – if I had to describe it, I’d say that it was as if someone had suddenly turned on a radio inside my head.

And that wasn’t the most confusing thing about it, either. It had an unearthly, ethereal quality to it that defied explanation. The closest I could come to defining it was the word “supernatural” – a notion that I quickly rejected out of both sheer skepticism and a complete lack of experience with such matters.

The conundrum would have to be pushed to the back burner, however, as reality began to reassert itself via a steady, rhythmic beeping noise that had just invaded the edge of my consciousness. Apparently, my body had decided that I’d been out long enough and had reached for the proverbial smelling salts.

With a decidedly groggy groan of protest, I slowly opened my eyes to the waking world. It didn’t take long to discover what that infernal beeping noise was: I was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to a bunch of medical monitors. And while the heart monitor was the only machine in the room that was going “bing,” there was one other device in the cluster of equipment on the left side of the bed that drew my attention. I couldn’t discern its purpose – especially since I was without my glasses – but I was fairly certain that it was the most expensive machine in the hospital.

I idly wondered if a visit from the hospital administrator was next on the agenda.

Shaking the thought off, I tried to think of how I could have possibly ended up in the hospital. Images swam in my head – dinner; cake and ice cream; a sign on the stairs to the upper level of my parents’ home that read, “Party Like There’s No To-Maya.” A feminine face with auburn hair and blonde highlights that lit like fire in the morning sun.

It was all a jumble, and when I tried to piece together a coherent recollection of the last time I was fully conscious, a sudden wave of nausea swept over me. Clutching around desperately for the bedpan on the nearby nightstand, I barely had enough time to grab it and raise it to my chin before my body violently voided itself of whatever I’d had to eat in the last day or so.

With ragged breaths, I placed the bedpan back where I’d found it. I tried again to focus on my last memories, and again the nausea returned. This time, however, I paused my recollection before I could fill the bedpan any further.

As my breathing returned to normal and my stomach settled down, an oddly-cadenced pair of footfalls drew my attention to the door. I cursed myself for tempting fate. Apparently, the aforementioned stuffy bureaucrat really was coming to see me – presumably alongside either the doctor or the nurse. At the click of the door handle turning, I braced myself for a tete-a-tete with an easily impressed, functionally illiterate drone – even as the more rational part of my brain screamed at me that I wasn’t important enough to merit the attention of someone who was probably buddy-buddy with one of those Cigna bean counters who presumes to know better than my doctor what treatment I need.

Nothing on Earth could have adequately prepared me for what actually walked through the door, however.

The lone figure that crossed the threshold was definitely not human – that much was clear, despite my astigmatism-dulled vision. Judging from its quadrupedal stance, hooved feet, mane, and tail, there was no doubt in my mind that some sort of horse-like being stood before me – though this was quite unlike any equine I’d ever seen. Even though the chestnut roan coat and scraggly, dirty blonde mane and tail might have been more at home on the horses I was familiar with, the facial features were much more human-like than I was expecting.

Two other things stood out about the creature before me: the first was that it was wearing clothing – specifically, a nurse’s cap. The other was that it had a rather unusual marking on its flank. I’d been around a few horses in my day, and for the life of me, I can’t recall one that had a flank brand of a red cross with a particularly murderous-looking axe layered on top of it like I noticed on this one when it came close enough for me to make out fine details.

And in that moment, these fatal words slipped out of my mouth before my brain-to-mouth filter could register them: “Well, that’s unexpected.”

My mysterious visitor looked at me as if sizing me up before blandly stating, “I see you've finally decided to make our toil worthwhile.” It eyed the bedpan and the acrid contents therein. “And it looks like you’ve had a bit of a rough start, as well,” it said with clinical detachment.

It took me a few moments to process what the… horse had said. The task was made harder by the fact that the words were spoken in an Irish dialect so thick that it was practically a foreign language. In the time that it had taken to do the mental translation, my brain finally caught up to the fact that a horse-like being had spoken to me.

“Am I high, or something?” Incredulity permeated every word I spoke. “I’m pretty sure that horses aren’t supposed to be able to talk.”

This earned me a snort from the “nurse” that sounded strangely derisive. “Well, I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to exist, Sasquatch.” As the alien equine spoke, I noticed a lilting, feminine quality to the voice. Presumably, this was a female of the species, then. “And I’d keep that ‘horse’ talk to yourself, if I were you. That’ll earn you a buck in the face. I’m a pony.”

I stared flatly at her. “That’s kind of a distinction without a difference, isn’t it?”

“Only if you’re a stark-raving bigot,” she replied flatly, ears pinned back in cat-like agitation.

Ouch. That hit me personally. If there was one thing I prided myself on, it’s not being a stark-raving bigot.

Taking my silence as an expression of remorse, the pony continued, “Now that that’s out of the way, we can get to why I’m here. I’m Nurse Faran, and I’m going to be taking your vitals one last time before the Princesses meet with you.”

“Do what now?” I replied, eyes bulging in shock at the double whammy. If I’d been drinking right then, I would’ve spit it out. If I’m not on drugs, in a coma, or dreaming, then where the hell am I?

“I said that the Princesses are coming to meet you. Got wax in those pie tins you call ears, have ya?”

“N-no!” I was clearly on the defensive here, and this nurse seemed intent on keeping me off balance. Desperately seeking some sort of counter in this verbal fencing match, I decided to divert her attention by bringing up something that had been bothering me.

“You said your name was Nurse Faran, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “I did. It’s a good, solid Saddle Arabian name.”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Yeah, sure. Saddle Arabia. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that there’s a –” I waved my right hand in a figure-eight as I desperately cast about for a suitably punny name, “– Canterlot around here, or something.”

“I wasn’t aware that you’d been told where we are.”

I buried my head in the palm of my hand. “I just had to open my piehole and stick my foot in it, didn’t I?”

Sadly, my muttering didn’t go unnoticed by the mare, who was rapidly establishing herself as the pony version of Nurse Ratched. Directing a sly smile at me, she replied, “You do seem to have a special talent for it.”

Something about the way she said “special talent” bugged me, even beyond its use in impugning my character. Choosing to ignore it for the moment – it was one more item on the “press for information later” agenda – I tried to get back to my original question.

“Anyway, Nurse Faran, I do have one more thing I’d like to ask.” She waved a hoof for me to continue – despite the different equipment, the motion was oddly familiar. “No offense, but do you bite people?”

Nurse Faran’s evil smirk returned. “Only if I think you deserve it.” She punctuated this by rapidly chomping at the air in front of me a few times.

I leaned back in bed as far as I could without rolling off the other side. “Okay, I get the picture.”

This pony seriously unnerved me. I mean, she had an uncomfortably familiar name, all the bedside manner of Gregory House, and sounded so stereotypically Irish that she was practically farting shamrocks?

I was beginning to wish that I was dealing with the empty suit running the place.

“Now then,” the nurse said primly, as if she hadn’t just threatened me with bodily harm, “I do believe we’ve faffed about long enough, Mister…” she trailed off, gazing at me expectantly.

“Knox. Derren Knox,” I said sullenly. “So, what do you need me to do?”

With an air of nonchalance, Faran fully resumed her professional demeanor. “Well, the first thing I need for you to do is get out of that bed and go to the bathroom. You’ve been lazing about for three days, and we need to make sure your excretory functions are working properly.”

If Bill Cosby were here, he’d be having a laugh at this, I’m sure. Still, I figured it’d be safer to humor her. Lifting the sheets, I immediately noticed a problem: although the hospital gown I’d been given fit just fine in the torso area, it was severely lacking in the length department. If I got out of bed, I’d be letting my freak flag fly. “Umm,” I muttered, face flaming as I pointedly directed my gaze southward.

The nurse followed the trail my eyes made with her own, her face quickly lighting up in recognition. I had to give her credit – she was quick on the uptake. Unfortunately, this worked to my disadvantage.

“What?” she asked, nonplussed. “Do you have a problem with being naked? Ponies go around au naturel all the time. One’s body is nothing to be ashamed of –” the evil grin returned with reinforcements this time “– unless you have insecurities, Tiny.”

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, fuzzball,” I said with gritted teeth. “Let’s just get this over with.” Bracing myself mentally, I threw the sheets off and covered myself as best I could with the diminutive hospital gown. I then planted my feet firmly on the ground to the right of the bed and raised myself to my full height… only to fall on my face moments later.

Cursing my legs for their sudden but inevitable betrayal, I turned to the nurse for assistance – only to find that she was no assistance at all, as she was too busy laughing her ass off at my plight. It was as she was rolling around in mirth that her tail flopped limply to the ground, giving me very stark visual confirmation that she was indeed all mare. Quickly averting my eyes in an effort to keep any disturbing images from sticking, I pointedly cleared my throat. “A little help here, please?”

With a sigh, my torturer stood up and walked over to me, offering a hoof to help me up. Reluctantly, I took her up on her offer, only to regret it moments later as she nearly yanked my arm out of its socket in the process of pulling me to my feet.

“Apparently, this is going to be one of those days,” I growled as Nurse Faran led me to the bathroom, a very smug smirk on her lips.

Surely, Murphy was done kicking me in the balls by now, right?

Two hours later, I was lying in bed once more. Physically, I was fine, but mentally, my head was still spinning from all that I had been exposed to in that time. I still had a few minutes before the Princesses were due to arrive, so I decided to take advantage of the momentary respite to engage in some (hopefully) productive navel-gazing.

Thanks to the pain from my earlier faceplant, I could pretty well infer that what was going on around me was real – for the most part. The battery of tests I underwent served as final confirmation that I could trust my five senses to give me an accurate representation of the world around me. This was a bit of a mixed blessing, for although it meant that I wasn’t going nuts, some of the things I saw and heard kind of made me wish I was bound for the Funny Farm.

It had started with Nurse Faran’s lament – muffled by the bathroom door as I was taking my pee test – about being denied the amusement that would’ve likely come from my having to attempt to use pony-style toilets. Apparently, the hospital ward I’d awoken in had been designed with minotaurs in mind, which was why the proportions of the bedroom and the amenities in the bathroom were so familiar.

My loud skepticism regarding the existence of such creatures that had long been relegated to mythology back home had been met with derisive laughter. Further insult was added to injury a few minutes later when a guard arrived in the middle of Nurse Faran’s final checkup. In a deep, rumbling basso, he announced that he was there to escort me to the main medical lab once I was ready. However, it wasn’t his voice, nor was it the gold-plated armor that were remarkable. It was the fact that he had wings. Snow white, feathery wings.

I’d found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the wings. I suppressed mirthless laughter at the thought I’d had at the time. Oh, joy. An honest-to-zombie-Jesus pegasus. And for his next trick, Wings here will be taking me to see a real, live unicorn!

Sure enough, once the guard had finished escorting me to the lab, I walked in to find myself face-to-furry-face with not one, but three unicorns. I was beginning to wonder if Mr. Murphy took a sadistic pleasure in feeding me my own foot.

It was rapidly becoming clear to me that I’d found myself in a first contact situation. Despite being a sci-fi geek, I always figured that this sort of thing would happen to others. I don’t have the training, and I’m just not that lucky.

Despite the difficulty, I did my best to take it in stride. After all, I’d been in and out of hospitals enough in my youth that I’d become pretty inured to being poked and prodded. The fact that the ones doing the poking and prodding were ungulate quadrupeds wasn’t going to make that much of a difference, in my mind.

Of course, had it been happening to anyone else, I probably would’ve laughed at the role reversal involved in the visiting ET being the one getting probed.

My ruminations were brought up short as the sound of two sets of hooves approached the door to my room. Perhaps the royals have finally decided to put in an appearance, as Nurse Faran promised, I thought as the door handle took on an almost divine golden glow. I was still struggling to accept the existence of magic, even though the three unicorns I’d met earlier were blatantly using it in front of me to telekinetically scribble down notes during my examination. With all I’d seen in the scant hours since I’d woken up, I decided it was safer for my sanity if I just went with the flow and accepted any new information at face value until proven otherwise.

Scrambling to adopt the best ambassadorial pose I could for a bedridden alien biped, I watched the door open on its own, followed shortly by two rather tall unicorns walking in at a regal pace. Despite the fuzziness of my vision, I could tell that they also had wings because said appendages were flared like a peacock’s tail. I couldn’t resist staring in surprise, since none of the human legends I could recall mentioned anything about winged unicorns.

The two stood as stoically before me as the pegasus guard had earlier, sizing me up with eyes that may have seen far too many things in their lifetimes. I noticed two things at this point. One was that the white one seemed to be about a head and a half taller than the dark blue one. Granted, I’ve never been very good at estimating things like height and weight, but I’m fairly sure that the midnight-colored pony before me could easily look me in the eyes – if not look down her muzzle a little at me.

The other thing I noticed was that their manes and tails seemed to flow as if being blown by a breeze, even though we were indoors… and I certainly didn’t see any windows in the room. I’d blame magic, but that would be too easy an answer, even if it was a logical one here.

Just as the silent staredown was starting to get awkward, the white one spoke in a calm, motherly tone. “Greetings, human. I am Princess Celestia, and this” – she turned her head to indicate the smaller winged unicorn next to her – “is my dear sister, Princess Luna. As co-rulers of Equestria, we wanted to personally welcome you to our humble nation. I hope your awakening wasn’t too traumatic.”

I shook myself from my reverie as I realized they were waiting for me to respond. “Sorry about that. Where I’m from, half the things I’ve seen in the last hour or so are mere myths.”

Celestia and Luna exchanged a meaningful glance at that. When they returned their attention to me, I gave them as respectful a bow as I could, given my condition, and with a wan smile, I continued.

“I think my brain’s still a bit fried from all the information that’s been thrown at me in such a short time, Your Majesty, but I’ll manage. My name is Derren Knox.” I glanced downward and then looked back at the princesses. “I apologize for being a bit lax on protocol. I’ve never really had the opportunity to meet with a foreign head-of-state, and given my current state of dress, if I tried for a more formal bow, I’d be trading one faux pas for another.”

Princess Celestia blinked owlishly for a moment in response, a rather nonplussed expression settling onto her muzzle. Princess Luna cleared her throat before explaining.

“I believe that he is referring to his species’ taboo against public nudity, sister.”

The white princess gave a start in sudden realization, cheeks tingeing red even through her fur. “Ah, I see,” she replied, conspicuously regaining control of her composure. “Well, just be aware that ponies don’t share in that taboo. Try not to be too shocked if you accidentally catch a glimpse of something… unexpected.”

I rolled my eyes. “Believe me, Your Highness, I’m well aware. A certain highly unprofessional nurse took much glee in informing me of that.” I pointedly avoided mentioning that said unprofessional nurse had also given me that accidental glimpse. Despite my best efforts, it had been enough to last a lifetime.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what I had been expecting alien pony vaginas to look like – presumably something that H. R. Giger would’ve made out of Play-Doh and bacon. My relief that my presumption had been way off was muted by the fact that Faran’s genitals were distinctly equine in structure – a fact that I only recognized because of my one (very brief) foray into the weirder parts of the Internet.

Thankfully, I didn’t have the chance to reflect on the discovery further, as Celestia dragged me back to reality with a sigh and a long-suffering smile. “Ah, I believe you are referring to Nurse Faran. She’s quite skilled in nursing non-pony patients back to health, though her bedside manner leaves much to be desired. I apologize if anything she’s said or done has ruffled any feathers.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t trouble yourself on my account, Princess. I’ll probably be out of her hair before too much longer, anyways.” A polite chuckle escaped me at that point – a cover for my true feelings. Once I am free to leave, it might be a good idea to look into a restraining order: she seemed to enjoy that hammer-to-the-knee reflex test a little too much, I mentally groused.

Celestia gave a polite nod in return. “I am glad to hear that there are no hard feelings between the two of you. Now then –” her tone turned slightly more serious at this point “– I’m sure you have many questions about your circumstances. Luna and I would be more than happy to answer anything you might wish to ask.”

I thought about that for a moment. “In that case,” I said, “let’s start with the two biggest ones. Firstly, why am I here instead of back in the States where I belong? And secondly – pardon my French – how the hell are any of you speaking English?”

Princess Luna looked at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “You’ve spoken nothing but Standard Equestrian since we walked in here,” she replied. “Why would you need to apologize for using another language?”

I slapped a palm to my forehead at that. “It’s a human expression, Your Highness,” I said in an exasperated tone. “I was apologizing in advance for using vulgar language.”

Luna at least had the decency to look sheepish about her remark. “Oh,” she said. “That’s different, then. Never mind.”

“Perhaps you should get back to answering his question, Luna,” Celestia interjected with a small smile.

“O-of course, sister.” Suitably chastened, Luna returned her attention to me. “I’ll start with the language similarities, then, since the answer is –” her brow furrowed in concentration, as if she were casting about for suitable words “– more straightforward. Have you ever heard of Clover the Clever’s theory of the multiverse?”

Placing a hand on my chin, I adopted a contemplative expression of my own. “Can’t say that I’ve heard of any scientifically rigorous theories of the sort, but the concept has cropped up from time to time in science fiction.” I frowned, realizing a problem with this. “Even so, the odds of two parallel civilizations developing nearly identical languages has got to be astronomically small.”

“Perhaps,” Celestia politely retorted, “but I’m afraid you’ve forgotten one important implication of the theory – the number of parallel worlds that exist is potentially limitless.”

“And with an infinite sample size, you’re bound to get plenty of hits sooner or later,” I added.

“Exactly,” Celestia said with a smile and a nod. “I see you’re no slouch when it comes to statistics.”

I chuckled a bit at that. “I may have taken a class or two when I was in college, but I really only know enough to be dangerous to myself. Besides, I’ve probably forgotten most of what I learned.”

Celestia’s smile lost none of its warmth. “Nevertheless, I can tell you have a keen mind. It reminds me a bit of one of my students.”

I blanched at that. “You’re not only the head of government here, but a teacher as well?”

She nodded. “There’s a school for gifted unicorns here in Canterlot. Technically, I’m the headmistress of the school, but with all of my other duties, I have to delegate a lot of the actual day-to-day operations to my assistant there – a wonderful mare named Star Riser.”

Princess Luna pointedly cleared her throat at that moment. “Oh, my apologies, dear sister,” Princess Celestia said, an embarrassed chuckle accompanying her words. “Please, continue.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course. Anyway, Mister Knox, as far as why you are here, that requires a longer explanation, and a bit of a… ‘field trip,’ as I believe you call it. When you’re ready, we can summon the doctor to disconnect you from the monitoring equipment for a little while.”

“Umm… okay,” I said, a raised eyebrow matching the uncertain tone in my voice. “Can you at least get me something to cover up with, as well? I wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on everyone on my first day here by mentally scarring them with images of my dangly bits.”

Luna buried her face in her hoof at my remark and shuddered briefly, while Celestia presented me with the slightest of smiles. Luna turned to look at the door, which suddenly started glowing a deep shade of blue that was almost purple, matching the glow around her horn. Only a few seconds passed before said door disgorged a rather large towel, by human standards.

“There,” Luna huffed imperiously. “Put that on while my sister and I go fetch the doctor.”

Nodding, I grabbed the towel out of mid-air when Luna’s telekinesis brought it within range. The princesses gave me a polite bow, which I returned as best I could from my bed before turning to contemplate how best to make myself decent with just a hospital gown and minotaur-sized towel.

My attention was drawn back to the door by Luna’s voice. “Oh, and one more thing,” she said as her horn lit up. Less than a second later, the air cracked as if a vacuum had been spontaneously created and filled in that fraction of a second. When it was over, a pair of glasses floated in the air in front of me, glowing with the deep blue that I was beginning to recognize as Luna’s magical aura.

“I believe these are yours,” she said, letting the spectacles drop into my waiting hands. Without waiting for a reply, she and Celestia trotted through the hospital door, leaving me to my thoughts.

The lenses were scratched in places, and the frames had obviously been through a somewhat hasty repair job, but they still seemed to be serviceable. I put them on, and my world suddenly became a lot clearer – for the most part.

Seeing the glasses triggered a memory – or at least, it seemed like a memory. It flashed by too quickly for me to consciously register, but it was enough to set my stomach churning. Barely managing to avoid eating breakfast in reverse again, I stared incredulously at the open door.

What in the name of all that’s holy is going on here?

Ten minutes later, I was free of the prison of electrodes and sensors and unchained from the IV pump – at least for the moment. I had only been wearing the towel for a few minutes when the two princesses returned with Doctor Silverclaw – a middle-aged griffon who I was told was working at the castle under the auspices of some sort of interspecies medical exchange program. The good doctor’s silver coat and brown head feathers had taken on a grayish tinge from age, and while his eyes had the beginnings of crow’s feet, they still shone brightly with a youthful fire and fierce intelligence. All in all, he made for an impressive, if somewhat intimidating, presence to be around.

As soon as he had set me loose – a process that took all of two minutes – I found myself in need of readjusting my towel, as it had come loose in the flurry of taloned activity that showed no regard for my personal space. The princesses politely, but hurriedly, excused themselves to let me recover my dignity. Having wrapped myself in the towel once more as if it were an American flag, I carefully tied it off so that it wouldn’t slip or come apart – if I’d ever bothered to learn, I would’ve done it toga-style.

Once I was no longer in danger of experiencing a wardrobe malfunction, I turned to my caretaker. “So, Doc,” I said, “When can I expect to get out of here?”

“Doc” smiled before draping a talon over my shoulder while gesturing grandly towards the top of the bedroom wall with the other.

“Ah, my good little human patient,” he said in an extravagant tone, “I have good news for you. We should be able to release you tomorrow morning. You’ll have to stay in the castle for the rest of the week for physical therapy and general observation, but after that, you can go wherever the wind takes you. Just try not to wind up back here so soon. One predator to another, these ponies can be pretty crazy, yes?”

He spoke in a ridiculous-sounding Eastern European accent that made me think he was going to regale me with tales of the grand old days of the Griffon Republic, when hundreds of servants would change thousands of light bulbs at their slightest whim. Although I seriously feared getting trapped in an elevator with him, I found him to be likable enough. He might make for an interesting drinking buddy.

“I take it you know Nurse Faran, then?” I quipped, earning me a knowing guffaw and a hearty clap on the shoulder from the slightly crazy griffon.

“I’m not saying anything, Mister Knox,” Doctor Silverclaw replied with a conspiratorial wink. “I didn’t say anything then, and I’m not saying anything now.” He took a few steps towards the heavy mahogany door, then turned to look back over his shoulder at me. “Come, the princesses are waiting for us.”

With an uncertain smile, I followed him out into the hallway, and this time, I gave a proper bow to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, which they returned with a brief nod of their heads. Wordlessly, they turned and led the way through the maze of corridors that made up the medical facility I was being held in. At some point along the way, a small cadre of unicorn guards joined us (a good half dozen by my count), pouring out of two antechambers – one on each side of the room we were in.

Our numbers thus bolstered, we moved through the remaining door towards our destination. As we walked in silence, I took the opportunity to glance around at my surroundings. The plush burgundy carpet was bordered by dark marble tiles, while white Corinthian columns buttressed the similarly-tiled walls. Every so often, a marble statue of an armored pony filled the space between the columns.

After a few moments, it dawned on me that we were no longer in the hospital. In fact, I hadn’t been convalescing in a hospital at all – up until now, we’d merely been in the medical wing of the royal palace. For a mere “medical wing,” however, it was about as well-equipped as any research hospital back home.

I’m no slouch when it comes to navigation. Given enough time to familiarize myself with an area, I can get from Point A to Point B ninety-nine times out of one-hundred. In unfamiliar areas, I’d need at least a map to get around reliably. But even with a compass, a map, and a Boy Scout manual, I’m not sure I could’ve recreated the convoluted path we followed without needing to ask for directions from one of the castle staff we passed by every so often. Hell, I’m pretty sure that my brother, the nearest thing to a human GPS that I know of, would’ve fared about as well as Ryoga Hibiki. I was starting to get a little restless from frustration and boredom.

Silverclaw must’ve noticed my increasingly agitated state, as he decided to engage me in conversation. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mister Knox: what did you think of the xeno-psychological field study you went through earlier?”

With a confused frown, I said, “Xeno-what now?”

He pulled his head back, and a skeptical look crossed his features. “You know, that meeting you had with Doctor Hozho, Doctor Saddleton, and Doctor Strangehooves earlier today.”

“Ah, that.” I thought back to my “interview” with the unicorn trio I’d met after finishing up with Nurse Faran. “To be honest, Doctor, it felt like a cross between a medical exam and a pretrial competency hearing,” I grumbled.

This earned a knowing laugh from my companion. “Ahhh, yeeees,” he drawled. “You know, I had to undergo one of those myself when I applied for the Medical Exchange Program four years ago. I felt much the same way as you.”

My eyebrow started crawling up my forehead at that. “Wow. Four years?”

He nodded as the hoofbeats of our escort echoed along the corridor, along with my footfalls. “It wasn’t easy, though. It took two whole years for my application to be approved.” He leaned in uncomfortably close and whispered, “I can’t say for certain, but I have a feeling that it was one of those thrice-damned pegasi on the committee that was responsible for my approval being held up for so long. For all the princesses’ talk of ‘improving pony-griffon relations’ with this exchange program, their subjects haven’t exactly been forthcoming on the execution.”

My brow furrowed in confusion. “Why would you suspect the pegasi?”

Silverclaw made a rude noise. “Please, Mister Knox. Ponies and griffons have always had – how you say – an uneasy relationship. And even though we lost contact with them around the time that the three tribes unified and founded Equestria, the pegasi have long memories. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them thought my ultimate grandfather farted in their ancestor’s general direction, and the intervening years inflated the incident into a full-on atrocity in their minds. So, yes, forgive me if I am not particularly sanguine about the program.”

Something about that made even less sense. “Then why join the program if you have such doubts about it?”

He waved with a talon as if wafting away a bad smell. “The griffon ambassador owed me a favor, and he figured this would allow him to fulfill the debt and get me out of his feathers.” A harsh laugh followed. “Imagine his surprise when he ran into me here in Canterlot not two months later.”

His laughter turned slightly maniacal as he savored the memory. Taking a moment to settle himself, he continued, “As for why I’m still here? Who knows? Maybe some part of me still believes that I can change some minds.” He chuckled again, but this time, there was no humor in it. “Perhaps my mind is the one that needs changing.”

“Well, given all the troubles you’ve had, do you think you’ll continue with the program?”

He smirked. “Maybe if I come across something worth staying in the program for.”

I bleated out a flustered laugh at that as a sudden warmth flooded my cheeks. “I’m flattered, but no. I don’t swing that way, and I’m too new here to even consider that kind of interspecies relations even if I did.”

Another hearty laugh answered me. “Please, Mister Knox. I wouldn’t be interested in you if you were the last sapient being in the multiverse. Besides, I’ve got a wife and fledglings back home. I’m pretty sure Giselle would tan my hide if she found out my talons had been wandering in places they shouldn’t be.”

The dark marble tiles on the floor and walls were gradually giving way to grayer hues at this point. Silverclaw gazed at me out of the corner of his eye as the ensuing silence stretched on. After a long moment, he spoke.

“Is it true what Doctor Saddleton was telling me earlier about your species’ lack of magical ability?”

Frowning, I gave a disappointed grunt. “Unfortunately. Beyond garden-variety parlor tricks involving smoke and mirrors or sleight-of-hand, humans don’t have a drop of magic in them. Probably explains why I reacted the way I did the first time I saw one of them using their telekinesis.”

Silverclaw raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And how did you react, if you don’t mind me asking?”

My mouth scrunched up sheepishly, and I looked at him from beneath my eyebrows. “About as well as Locke Cole and Edgar Figaro upon seeing Terra Branford set magitek armor on fire.”

“What?”

I shook my head. “Never mind. Human cultural thing. Let’s just say that I reacted… poorly.”

Despite nodding in understanding, he looked at me as if I’d sprouted a second head for a moment. I waved my hand as if to dismiss the tangent like an annoying insect.

“Anyway, they then hooked me up to that expensive-looking paperweight-”

“It’s called an arcano-psychrometer,” one of the normally-stoic guards supplied.

I nodded at the guard, absently noting the continued lightening of the tiles as we walked. “Right. That thing,” I replied.

Turning back to Silverclaw as if I hadn’t been interrupted, I continued, “They even told me to ‘perform any spell I desired.’ So, I turned to the damn thing and shouted, ‘STRUN BAH QO!’ at it. Surprise, surprise, nothing happened. Didn’t even move the needle.” A small pocket of air left my lungs in a surprisingly equine chuffing noise, and I smiled ruefully. “On the upside, if I’d tried to cast Dragon Slave, the only thing that would’ve been destroyed would’ve been my dignity.”

“A fortuitous turn of events, indeed,” Silverclaw murmured skeptically.

“Doctor Strangehooves didn’t seem to share your sentiment,” I retorted with a mirthless chuckle. “He seemed to be ready to leap to his hooves, only I doubt it was to say, ‘Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!’”

Silverclaw responded with another rude noise. “I’m going to assume that’s another reference to something from your world.” At my nod, he continued, “A word of advice, Mister Knox. Try to tone down those references around these ponies. They won’t understand the vast majority of them, and you’ll only make yourself look even more alien than you already are, even to an oddball like Strangehooves. Trust me, these ponies have a habit of rejecting anything too strange, and you want to fit in, yes?”

I glared sullenly at him. “Well, that’s unfair, don’t you think? They’ll be making references I don’t understand all over the place, and I can’t do the same?” Seeing his austere, unwavering expression, I sighed heavily. “I suppose you’re right. There’s a saying from my world: ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ It basically means that if you find yourself in a foreign land, you should do your best to fit in, no matter how strange the local customs may seem.”

Silverclaw smiled at that. “Sounds like sage advice to me.”

Appropriately enough for a walk-and-talk worthy of Aaron Sorkin, our journey ended in an expansive hallway worthy of the royals who resided here. The walls were bordered with lavish gold finery, and adorned by rather expensive-looking tapestries. The burgundy carpet we’d been walking on joined another one that ascended a grand staircase leading off into another part of the castle. An expertly-embroidered golden star marked the intersection of the two carpets. About the only concession to plainness that I could see was that the tiles had changed from the varying marble patterns of the corridors that provided access to this room to a simple purple-and-white checkerboard array.

Between taking in the scenery and my conversation with the griffon doctor, I almost didn’t notice that we’d stopped, narrowly avoiding walking into the princesses by mere millimeters. With everything else I’d already been through, I didn’t need a night in the hoosgow for molesting the royal rumps added to the list.

I figured I was getting off light with the hair’s breadth by which I missed seeing what was beneath their tails.

Our ultimate destination was a rather large set of double doors at the top of the stairs. Upon reaching the landing, those doors lit up in the charcoal gray hues of our escorts’ telekinetic fields and opened automatically. What was behind those doors nearly floored me.

Beyond the doors lay a lavish throne room that would’ve put Buckingham Palace to shame. The burgundy carpet from earlier now covered every inch of the floor, with the exception of a small, inset series of sluices leading away from a moderate-sized, moat-like fountain surrounding the dual thrones in the back of the room. Many of the decorative objects in the room were gold plated, and exquisite crystalline chandeliers hung from the ceiling at regular intervals.

All in all, the decor managed to project a veneer of artistically ostentatious opulence without tipping over into being merely gaudy.

Princess Celestia chuckled as she noticed me struggling to pick my jaw up off the floor. “Impressive, isn’t it?” she murmured in my ear.

It took me a moment to find my voice. “Indeed.”

“However, that’s not the reason we’re here,” Luna stated in a businesslike manner. And so, with the dark princess leading the way, we soon stood before a mirror hidden in a back corner of the throne room. The reflective portion had to be at least as tall as Princess Celestia (who, indeed, was about half a foot taller than me), with a somewhat narrow, horseshoe-shaped purple rim studded with pink gems at regular intervals. The top flared upward into a decorative seal bearing a stylized silhouette of a pony rearing up on its hind legs.

“This is no ordinary mirror,” Luna portentously intoned as I came to a stop next to her. “It is a gateway to another world.” She gazed pointedly at me. “Your world.”

Tentatively, I reached out and tapped the glass a couple of times. As expected, nothing happened. “You sure about that, Your Majesty?” I asked.

Luna rolled her eyes. “It is not active right now. And unfortunately, it’s activation cycles are… rather unpredictable. We do not know when it will open again.”

I blanched at that. “You mean I’m stuck here?” I shouted incredulously.

Luna nodded sadly. “I am afraid so, at least for the immediate future.”

I stared at her, shock clearly written on my face. Several attempts to speak only resulted in my jaw flapping uselessly. Finally, after several long moments, I found my voice. It all came out in a tumble of words.

“Then why? What about my home? What about the life I had back there? What about my friends, my family? They must be worried sick about me! How did I get here? Why am I even here?”

Luna sighed. “To answer your last question, it was necessary to save your life.”

“Come again?”

The princess fixed me with a level stare, her blue eyes tempered steel. “I said that it was necessary to save your life.”

To save your life…

To save your life…

To save your life…

As if being run through a film reel at extremely fast speeds, a long montage of images flashed before my eyes, too quickly to make any sense of. In the split second it took to run through them all, I found myself hit with a double dose of pain – the first was a headache that had the force of a sledgehammer, driving me to my knees. The second was a familiar churning in my abdomen, this time with the force of a xenomorph hatchling trying to burst out of a different part of my body.

The last thing I could recall before losing consciousness was violently retching into the nearby fountain.

–n hear m–… –ter Knox, please sq–… –oof.

If you ca–… –Mister Kn–… –ueeze my h–

If you can hear me, Mister Knox, please squeeze my hoof.

Sure enough, I could sense a warmth about where my right hand was. With a concerted effort, I willed the hand to clamp down on the warmth.

He’s coming around.

My eyes fluttered open, and the first thing I noticed was that I was back in the cold, sterile confines of my hospital room. A familiar group of three ponies and one griffon surrounded my bed. While Doctor Silverclaw and the princesses were welcome sights, the last pony in question was not.

And here I was, squeezing her hoof like my life depended on it.

I let loose with an exasperated sigh as I sharply withdrew my hand from Nurse Faran’s hoof. “Where’s Randle Patrick McMurphy when you need him?”

A cluster of bemused expressions met my outburst, though Silverclaw’s changed to an admonishing stare after a few moments. It was surprising how quickly he picked up on the fact that I had made another reference to human pop culture. Surprising... and a bit unnerving.

Forestalling the inevitable questions, I waved the non sequitur away with a sweeping hand gesture. “Never mind. It’s a human thing.”

“Anyway,” Celestia interjected, “Luna and I would like to apologize for what happened in the throne room. We weren’t expecting you to have a reaction like that.”

I grimaced. “Neither was I, Your Majesty. However...” I paused. Should I tell them?

“However…” Luna parroted, giving the word an interrogative lilt as a similarly quizzical expression settled on her muzzle.

I suppose they have a right to know, I thought. Especially the medical staff. It wouldn’t be fair to leave them in the dark and suddenly drop dead from some sort of magic radiation sickness, or something.

“Well…” I hesitated, searching for the right words. “This wouldn’t be the first time I’d… reacted poorly to something related to my arrival here.”

“Go on,” Luna said.

“When I first woke up, I tried to recall how I ended up in the hospital.” I gave Nurse Faran a meaningful look. “It didn’t end well.”

“Ah,” Nurse Faran said blandly. “That explains the mess in the bedpan earlier.” She smiled knowingly.

The two princesses shared what seemed to be a meaningful look before turning back to me.

“That’s… interesting, Derren,” Celestia said, “Luna and I will have to consult privately on the matter, but for now, it’s probably safest for you if we simply explain to you what happened to the best of our knowledge.”

“Please, do so,” I said with a grateful nod.

“Before I do,” Luna stated, fixing everyone with a deadly serious gaze, “I must advise you that what I am about to tell you must not leave this room, for reasons that will become obvious shortly.”

“O-okay,” I replied after taking a long moment to process her warning. Silverclaw and Faran quickly followed suit with nods of assent.

Princess Luna drew a deep breath and began her explanation. It turned out that she and Princess Celestia had been aware of humanity for some time, but it had only been in the last couple of years that they decided to study us and see if we were ready for official first contact with another world. When I’d asked her how she managed to stay off of the NSA’s radar, she’d slyly smiled and lit her horn, saying that she had ways of making herself undetectable by any means.

On her most recent trip through the portal, she’d quite literally stumbled upon me, or rather, my body. I had been attacked, and was pretty much clinically dead when she found me. My soul had already started to leave my body for the journey to “the realm that lies beyond the veil of death,” as she’d put it. Saving me had turned out to be difficult, due to the need to put my soul in stasis for a while. It was also an ethically murky issue, as the process required the use of forbidden magic to generate a new body for me using a small DNA sample from my corpse.

It was more than a little unnerving to think of my body in terms more suitable for a police procedural show, but I had to force myself to shunt that aside for the moment. I needed a fuller picture of what was going on before I could begin to deal with the grisly details. Frustratingly, there wasn’t much left for the princesses to tell.

Ultimately, it was Princess Celestia herself who had granted permission to “rebuild my body,” citing “special circumstances.” Unfortunately for me, both princesses were being very tight-lipped about what those circumstances were.

All of it raised a few questions about my status. Was I a clone? No, they had definitively told me. A clone was highly flawed, and those flaws most clearly came out in the personality expressed. If I had to summarize their explanation in my own words, it would be this: in a clone, the original soul was Flanderized to the point of not really being a soul at all.

Was I a zombie, or some other form of undead? Once more, the answer was a decisive no. In the undead, the soul was completely gone, and there was something else animating the corpse – something much darker.

In every way that mattered, I was still me. The only thing that was new was the body. In short, I was living a transhumanist’s dream.

Perhaps most conveniently, Luna had been able to grab my glasses and a sample of my clothes to bring back as well before the portal had closed. The clothes had gone to the royal seamstress so that she could work up some replicas that would fit my new body. That process would take about a day, so until then, I was limited to the hospital gown, my clothes, and the glasses that I’d been fidgeting with every fifteen seconds in a vain attempt to buff out the scratches.

I sat in sober contemplation for a minute once the princesses had finished their explanation. I could easily forgive the princesses, as they hadn’t planned on, nor had they intended to leave me stranded on this side of a now-closed Einstein-Rosen Bridge. And they did save my life – that kind of thing tends to elevate one’s opinion of a person… or pony, in this case.

Then, the rather unfortunate implications of my situation hit me: if what Luna said was true, then my corpse was still somewhere back on Earth, waiting to be found and reported to the authorities. Once that happened, it was just a matter of time before my family and friends were notified of my “death,” and here I was, with no way to tell them that I was indeed still alive.

At that moment, it was as if a dam had burst inside me, and all of the sorrow I had unknowingly been holding back spilled over in a torrential deluge. I couldn’t say how long I cried, or even if I managed to get all the grief out in one burst, but for the entire duration, I was fully aware of four warm bodies pressed tightly against me. Three sets of wings enveloped me, as well as three hooves and a talon.

As we broke the five-way hug, I sniffled a few times, clearing away the last of the mucus from my nostrils as I gazed upon my companions with a much calmer expression. Even Nurse Faran’s usual brusque demeanor was in abeyance as she looked back at me.

I may be stuck on an alien world in a parallel universe, with my loved ones erroneously thinking me dead, but at least I’m not completely alone here. I’m not some stranger in a strange land. Some of the locals have accepted me as a friend, and will support me when I’m at my lowest. Perhaps I can build upon this, at least until the portal opens again...

“Now then,” Luna said, bringing me back to the present, “you’ve had a long day, Mister Knox. Perhaps it is best if you sleep for now.”

I nodded in response, absently noting a tugging sensation in my left arm. I glanced at the appendage in question in time to see Doctor Silverclaw pulling the last of the medical probes out of my arm and bandaging the affected area.

“You won’t be needing these any more,” he said with a sad smile. “As I said, we’re releasing you tomorrow.”

I nodded a wordless thanks to him and settled back down in bed. After a minute, my eyelids grew heavy, and sleep was not far away. Before unconsciousness claimed me, however, I heard Princess Celestia beginning to dictate a letter.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student…”

I was much calmer the next morning. My grief at being stranded in Equestria had mostly abated for the moment. Granted, little things would remind me of what I had lost – overheard conversations about family and home, mostly. When it happened, I would always feel my throat constricting and my eyes watering, but I fought back the feelings each time.

Such considerations would have to be put aside for the moment, since I had awakened (with “help” from Doctor Silverclaw, Nurse Faran, and a bucket of water) to find a note from the princesses informing me that I was due to have some special visitors later that morning, and that I would be officially discharged after meeting with them.

According to the clock on the wall, I had been roused from my bed at about nine in the morning. By the time Silverclaw was done with me, it was a quarter past nine. My “guests” were due to arrive at nine-thirty, so I had about fifteen minutes to shower and get ready. A fast shower left me with about ten minutes to spare, so as I went about my morning hygiene routine, I took the opportunity to examine my new body more closely in the bathroom mirror.

I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the Mirror Portal the previous day, but this was the first time I’d gotten a chance to really look at myself. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked at my appearance. The last thing I was able to safely recall of my life on Earth was celebrating my thirty-third birthday with my parents and my brother. We’d had it a day early because my grandfather had died the week before, and the funeral was scheduled for that Saturday. I couldn’t go because I’d had work obligations. Thus, the early birthday.

Now, when I looked at myself, it was as if I was looking into the past. Eleven years of aging had melted away in an instant. I had a full head of light brown hair again, the bags under my eyes had mostly disappeared, and I looked more svelte than I had in years. As flattering as all this was, it was also rather disconcerting. I was not looking forward to going partially bald again.

Shaking myself from my reverie, I quickly left the bathroom. Glancing at the clock again, I still had two minutes left on the countdown. Unfortunately, my new clothes hadn’t arrived yet, so I decided to forego putting on the towel and just get straight into bed.

A few moments before the appointed time, I heard voices outside my door. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it sounded like serious business. Bracing myself for whatever was to come, I watched as the clock turned round once more.

Sure enough, right as nine-thirty arrived, the handle of the door began to glow again – this time, it was a bright magenta. I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that this meant one of the new ponies was a unicorn.

The door opened to admit eight ponies and a strange, bipedal reptile. They all wore curious expressions as they looked me over, and I got the distinct impression that they’d never seen a human before. The party consisted of three unicorns, two pegasi, and two of the ponies that – like Nurse Faran – possessed neither horn nor wings, which Silverclaw had informed me were called “earth ponies.” The last pony, however, had both wings and a horn, like the princesses. Silverclaw referred to them as “alicorns.”

This particular alicorn had a pink coat, with a mane and tail that consisted of three colors – pink, purple and cream. She – I was running on assumptions here, as I still had no earthly idea how to tell mares and stallions apart without looking like a pervert – was wearing a crown and chestpiece, much like the princesses. I idly wondered if all alicorns were considered royalty by default, ultimately deciding to file it in the “Ask Silverclaw Later” folder.

As the ponies crowded around my bed, I worried that the room might not be big enough to hold my guests. Once everyone was inside, however, it was readily apparent that I needn’t have worried.

I looked around to take stock of who was where. The alicorn and a white unicorn with a two-tone blue mane and tail were hanging back behind the rest. A pink earth pony with an even pinker mane and tail was to my immediate left, forelegs on the bed and already blatantly disregarding my personal space. The more I pulled away from “her,” the more “she” moved to keep up with me, the manic grin never leaving her face.

I could tell already that this one would be trouble.

Next to the borderline insane pink pony was another white unicorn with a royal purple mane and tail that were done up in voluminous curls. “She” exuded both refined elegance and carnal sensuality. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of “her,” and judging from her expression, she was just as unsure about me. She hid it well, though, what with the way she was projecting an aura that said, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”

Further towards the foot of my bed, both pegasi were eyeing me warily. The nearer one had a sky blue coat and unruly rainbow-colored mane, and was sizing me up the way a dog sizes up a rattlesnake. “She” would likely be trouble as well, though not in the same way as the pink one.

The other pegasus had a butter yellow coat and long, flowing pink mane and tail. Unlike “her” cerulean counterpart, “she” seemed deathly afraid of me, preferring to hide behind a lock of “her” mane.

On the other side of the bed stood the two remaining ponies – a lavender unicorn with a dark blue mane and tail that each had a bright pink “skunk stripe” running down the middle who was eyeing me with barely restrained curiosity, and an orange earth pony with a blonde mane and tail whose expression was neutral, if somewhat guarded. Interestingly enough for a species with no nudity taboo, the orange one seemed to be wearing a Stetson hat.

One other thing I noticed was that, like the princesses and Nurse Faran, each pony seemed to have some sort of marking on his or her flank – a trio of balloons for the pink one, three diamonds for the intimidatingly sultry unicorn, a tricolor lightning bolt emerging from a cloud for the cyan pegasus, and three butterflies for the timid pegasus. The purple pony had a large magenta star surrounded by five smaller white stars on her flank, while the orange pony in the Stetson was sporting a trio of apples as her “personal brand.” I couldn’t make out the flank markings of the remaining two ponies due to the herd currently surrounding my bed. I would have to ask about it later – politely, of course, in case it was a sensitive subject.

It was at this point that the pink pony decided to break the ice in the most outlandish manner. “Ooooooh,” she cried, “So that’s a houyhnhnm!”

“Pinkie” – the lavender pony groused – “It’s pronounced, ‘human.’” She turned to me with a rueful grin on her muzzle. “I’m sorry about that. Pinkie Pie can be a bit… excitable.”

“I noticed,” I deadpanned, earning me a giggle from the lavender mare. My face crumpled into a frown as a thought occurred to me. “I wasn’t aware you’d been told about what I was.”

“Princess Celestia briefed us right before we came in. She didn’t have much to say beyond your species’ name, that you were vaguely similar to a minotaur, and that Princess Luna had saved your life.”

“I see,” I said dubiously.

“Well then,” she said in an attempt to lighten the mood, “why don’t we get the introductions out of the way? I’m Twilight Sparkle.” She indicated the pink pony with a hoof. “You’ve already met Pinkie Pie.” She then pointed at the unicorn next to Pinkie Pie. “That’s Rarity.” She continued on around the bed. “Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and to my left is Applejack.”

“What about the ponies in the back row?” I asked.

“Well,” Twilight said, “the white stallion is my brother, Shining Armor. He’s the Captain of the Royal Guard.”

I snapped a jaunty salute at the unicorn in question. “Honor to meet you, sir.”

He returned the salute with a bemused expression, which made me wonder how often he’d been saluted by a civilian. “Likewise,” he replied.

I let my gaze settle on the alicorn. “And who might you be, Your Highness?”

Said alicorn blinked a few times, clearly not expecting to be addressed. “Oh, well, I am Twilight’s sister-in-law by virtue of my marriage to Shining Armor. My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but you can call me Cadance. I’m pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure,” I replied. “I suppose it’s my turn now. I’m Derren Knox, and I’m a human from a planet called Earth.”

Pinkie Pie responded first, getting even more in my face than before – if that were possible. “Hi Derren, I’m Pinkie Pie, but Twilight already told you about me, didn’t she? I’m Ponyville’s number one party planner, but I also work at Sugarcube Corner with Mr. and Mrs. Cake. Say, maybe when you get out of here I can throw you a party? Would you like that? Huh? Huh? Huh?” Somehow, she said all of that in one breath, at a rate that would make a veteran auctioneer turn green with envy.

“Umm, sure, Pinkie.” I scratched the back of my neck nervously. “I guess a party’s fine, assuming I end up staying in Ponyville a while.” I turned back to the others, only to be interrupted by someone pointedly clearing their throat. It took a moment to discern the source of the noise – the bipedal reptile.

“Forget somepony?” it asked in a long-suffering tone.

Twilight chuckled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Spike. I guess we kind of did forget about you.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” came the disgruntled response.

“So, yeah,” Twilight said, awkwardly trying to defuse the situation. She pointed a hoof at the complaining reptile. “This is Spike, my number one assistant. He’s a baby dragon.”

I looked critically at the little guy. He had purple scales over most of his body, and green spines atop his head and down his back. “Huh,” I muttered, “No offense, Spike, but you don’t look anything like what I’d expect from a dragon.”

Spike folded his arms across his chest. “And just what were you expecting from a dragon?” he demanded sullenly.

Seeing that I had dug myself a bit of a hole, I rubbed the back of my head and chuckled nervously. “Oh, I don’t know. Skyscraper-sized; huge, leathery wings; breathes fire. And in one legend, their language, when shouted, can produce magical effects.”

“I don’t know about that last bit,” Twilight said sheepishly, “but large, winged dragons like you describe have been seen from time to time here in Equestria. We don’t know much about them because they’re not exactly what you’d call ‘neighborly.’”

“I can imagine,” I said blandly, before giving her a pointed look. “So, how did the two of you wind up together, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Twilight and Spike shared a look. At the mare’s nod, Spike answered, “I was hatched as an egg by Twilight.”

I shot Twilight a quizzical look. “It was part of my entrance exam for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns,” she replied.

“That’s not an ordinary entrance exam,” I deadpanned.

“It’s not an ordinary school,” she shot back with a smile.

Letting out an amused grunt, I looked at Spike. “Look, Spike –” I fidgeted with my glasses nervously “– I’m sorry about my comments earlier. I didn’t mean to patronize you.”

Spike swept the apology away with a wave of his claw. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, before rolling his eyes and muttering, “I’m getting used to it.”

“Nevertheless,” I said, “You don’t deserve it, and for that, I’m sorry.”

Spike smiled, a new respect for me dancing in his reptilian eyes. “I appreciate it,” he said.

With that crisis averted, I turned back to the ponies. “So, what do the rest of you do for a living?”

Twilight spoke up first. “Well, primarily, I’m Princess Celestia’s protege, but I also run the library in Ponyville.”

“Ah,” I replied with a knowing nod. “So, you’re the one she spoke of when we were discussing statistics in regards to the multiverse.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up at that. “She told you about Clover’s theory?” When I nodded, she smiled, and her voice took on a conspiratorial tone. “You know, Clover’s not the one who actually came up with the theory. Her mentor, Starswirl the Bearded, actually developed it. She just got credit for it due to the prevailing attitudes of the times. She fought hard for him to get his rightful place in the academic journals of the day, but she was constantly overruled.”

I frowned at that. “Wow. Sexism exists here, too, huh?”

Twilight also looked crestfallen. “Yes, but it’s not as bad now as it was back then.”

Rainbow Dash stepped in at this point. “Okay, you two eggheads can geek out later. Let’s get to the important stuff.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, Miss Dash. I’m probably going to regret this, but what do you consider to be ‘important stuff?’”

Obviously relishing the opportunity, Dash took to the air and went into hover mode, puffing up her chest in pride. “Why, me, of course!”

Twilight and I shared a glance. Worryingly, the expression on her face told me everything I needed to know: I had sown the wind, and all that was left was to reap the whirlwind. Reluctantly, I locked eyes with the sky blue mare and proceeded to indulge her ego. “Okay, Miss Dash,” I said, “tell me what’s so special about you?”

“Who, little ol’ me?” Dash asked with false modesty. “Why I’m only Equestria’s fastest flyer, captain of Ponyville’s weather team, future Wonderbolt, and the only pony ever to perform the Sonic Rainboom!”

“Hold it!” I interjected, fighting the urge to epically point a finger filled with righteous justice at the mare. “There’s at least two things wrong with that statement. Firstly, ‘fastest flyer in Equestria?’ Sounds like unproven boasting to me. Secondly, when you say ‘Ponyville’s weather team,’ are you talking about controlling the weather? As in, actual weather control?”

“You got a problem with pegasi being able to control the weather?” Rainbow Dash demanded, looking as if I’d just questioned her… manliness, as it were.

“Not really,” I replied, raising my hands in a placating gesture. “I just find it hard to believe.” I would’ve said that I thought it was impossible, but the last twenty-four hours have shown me that this place has a looser definition of what’s impossible than I’m used to.

“It’s true,” Twilight replied. “Although the other two tribes can’t directly channel magic the way unicorns can, they have their own passive abilities. For instance, pegasi have the ability to fly and control the weather, while earth ponies have enhanced strength and a natural affinity for tending the land and taking care of animals.” She pointed at Fluttershy, who cringed and ducked behind Rainbow Dash for comfort – much to the tomboyish mare’s obvious annoyance. “Fluttershy’s kind of an exception, since her special talent involves caring for animals.”

There was that phrase again – “special talent.” It seemed like an important part of pony culture, but I also sensed I was missing some vital information on what that was. I decided to file it away until after I’d gotten acquainted with everyone in the room.

“Huh. That’s interesting,” I mused. “Where I’m from, the weather controls itself. The kind of thing you’re talking about only exists in science fiction novels there.”

“Kind of like the Everfree Forest?” Applejack supplied. Judging by her accent, if she’d been born in another time and place, she’d be literally whistling “Dixie.”

“What’s the Everfree Forest?”

“It’s a dangerous forest outside of Ponyville,” Twilight answered. “Most ponies don’t go in there because of all the horrific monsters that live there. It’s also an area where normal things don’t happen very often.”

“Maybe for your definition of normal, Twilight,” I replied. “Sounds kind of like home to me.”

Twilight rolled her eyes at that. “Anyway,” she said, “Applejack and her family run an apple orchard, Fluttershy runs an animal adoption shelter out of her home and sometimes assists the local veterinarian, and Rarity is a seamstress.”

I looked at Rarity. “Is that so?”

Rarity nodded. “Oh yes, darling. I do so enjoy coming up with ideas for dresses.” She looked up wistfully. “Not all of them get made, though.”

“Think you’d be up to designing something for someone like me? I mean, I know the princesses have the royal seamstress making me at least one set of clothes, but I’m going to need more to get through the week.”

Rarity’s demeanor took on a mixture of interest and confusion at that. “Whatever do you mean, darling?”

Applejack also piped up in response. “She’s got a point, sugarcube. We don’t normally wear clothes. Why should you?”

I stared flatly at Applejack. “Unlike ponies, humans don’t exactly have a fur coat to protect us from the elements. Furthermore, we don’t like to be naked for reasons of modesty.”

“Um, why is that?” Twilight asked.

Something about the unexpected opportunity struck a chord in me, and I felt inspired to dredge up a memory from church camp that I’d long forgotten. “Well, here’s how it is,” I said. And with that, I began to sing:

Zip up your doo-dah!
Don’t be risque!
My, oh my what a thing to display!
Plenty of people looking your way!
Zip up your doo-dah,
It’s cold out today!

If the reactions I was getting were anything to go by, the simple song had somehow managed to transcend cultural barriers.

Twilight had pressed a forehoof to her head, and was muttering, “Sorry I asked.”

Fluttershy, who had started to come out of hiding from behind Rainbow Dash, blushed, and with an uttered “Oh my” worthy of George Takei, went back into hiding.

Rarity settled for rolling her eyes.

Rainbow Dash and Princess Cadance both had their muzzles scrunched up and eyes widened in a mixture of shock and amusement. In the princess’s case, it was more amusement than shock, whereas the opposite was true of Dash. Furthermore, for some strange reason, Rainbow’s wings started standing stiffly erect about halfway through.

Though Shining Armor, like Twilight, had his head buried in a forehoof, he was shaking his head and giving me a somewhat goofy smile. If I had to guess, I’d say that while his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard required him to disapprove of my behavior, especially around minors and his sister, he was secretly wishing that he’d thought of it first.

Speaking of minors, if his bemused expression was anything to go by, the song seemed to have gone over Spike’s head, and for that, I was grateful.

Then there was Pinkie Pie, who, after a mighty struggle, simply burst out laughing as she dropped to the floor and rolled around. As with Nurse Faran the previous day, thanks to Pinkie’s mirthful outburst, I was able to see everything. I could feel a headache coming on, and I promptly massaged my temples in a vain effort to stave off the dull throbbing that had already begun.

Relative to Twilight and Rarity, Applejack was the only one who seemed to have a particularly negative reaction to my antics. Even so, she limited herself to giving me a highly unamused glare.

Fortunately, the awkward moment was interrupted by a knock at the door. The ponies moved aside to make room for the newcomer – a yellow unicorn bearing a lime green mane and tail, with the image of a spool of rainbow thread tied to a needle adorning her flanks. Her horn was lit in an orange glow that matched her eyes, a glow which also extended to the telekinetic field being used to levitate several articles of clothing.

“Good morning, Mister Knox,” she said cheerfully, “I’m Ruby Weave, the royal seamstress. I’ve got your first round of new clothes here for you.”

I looked through the assorted items as Ruby Weave dropped them into my lap. On the surface, at least, they appeared to be fairly good quality – better than the finest Cambodian sweatshop products ever to grace Wal-Mart’s shelves, at least. There was one thing wrong, however. “No shoes?”

Ruby shook her head with a regretful expression that included pinned back ears. “I’m sorry, sir. Those are going to take a bit longer. I’ll bring them by the guest room that’s being prepared for you when I’m done, though.”

I sighed, chafing slightly at the lack of footwear. Realizing that there was no help for it, I replied, “I suppose that’ll have to do for now, then.”

Ruby chewed her lip in thought for a moment. “I am done with shoes I used as a template, though. They still seem to be wearable, so I can run back and get them right now, if you wish.”

Smiling, I nodded at her. “That would be great, thanks.” And with that, she was off like a shot. Once we were alone again, Rarity cleared her throat to get my attention.

“So, let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” she said. “If that ridiculous song you sang was any indication, human males don’t have a sheath?”

I nodded. “Yep. It all just dangles, even when we’re not looking for a good time.” Noticing the flurry of reddened cheeks, I couldn’t help but smirk – especially when I saw Twilight covering up Spike’s head, presumably the part where his ears were. “There’s one other major difference between humans and ponies in that regard, as well. Human females have their mammaries up here.” On the word “here,” I cupped my hands over my chest.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why is that?”

“We’re primates,” I replied simply. “From an evolutionary perspective, our closest cousins are apes, gorillas, and chimpanzees.”

“Primates?” Twilight parroted, surprise and curiosity marking her tone. She looked at me again, excitement playing about her face – an excitement that left me visibly uncomfortable. “Well, now I have a whole bunch of other questions I should ask you.” She levitated a prodigiously long scroll out of a saddlebag that she had laid in a corner when she came in.

Sitting on her haunches, she cleared her throat and began. “Question number one: Do y–”

“Perhaps another time, Twilight,” I interrupted. While I couldn’t help but chuckle when she pouted in response, I was also shocked to find myself regarding the expression as adorable on her equine features. I’d never been particularly interested in horses – the ones back home were remarkably unattractive brutes – but these ponies were something else entirely. Just how alien were they?

It was something I would have to ponder when I got a free moment. In the meantime, I clamped down on my confused emotions and buried them as deeply as possible for the time being.

Regaining my composure, I continued, “I’m not exactly in the right frame of mind to answer any questions right now, especially when I’m not fully dressed.”

“Oh,” Twilight replied. She had her ears swept back and head lowered with a nervous smile, as if chagrined. “I suppose you would like to put on your new clothes, wouldn’t you? I can just send Spike out and then you can change.”

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity interjected, “perhaps Derren didn’t make himself clear. His nudity taboo applies to adults like us, as well. The least we can do is give him some privacy.”

Throwing an appreciative glance at Rarity, I added, “Don’t worry. I’ll meet you in the lobby once I’m discharged. It shouldn’t take too long for me to get dressed and fill out the paperwork.”

Reluctantly, they all got up and started to leave. They stopped in their tracks when I called out again. “Pinkie, I’d like my pants back.”

They all looked over to see that Pinkie was wearing my new pants on her head.

“Aww,” she moaned, clearly disappointed at having her fun ruined. Nevertheless, she complied with my request, and they all exited the room.

Author's Note

So, yeah. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, this chapter's changed slightly in its structure from what I originally had planned.

The opening bit of this chapter has a bit of an interesting history. Last year, the day the Season 4 finale aired was also the day I went to see War Horse with my father and a couple of friends of the family. I ran with the inspiration that came from an equine fiction-filled day, and this was the result.

Also, the "particularly murderous-looking axe" that forms part of Nurse Faran's cutie mark:

And another thing: the Play-Doh and bacon bit came from a right-wing blogger's description of human vaginas that was thoroughly mocked around the Intertrons at the time, so take that for what you will.

As for Doctor Silverclaw, imagine the griffon version of this fine fellow:

Here's a question: will anyone notice that I "borrowed" an example sentence from Ezn's guide to ponyfiction? :ajsmug: :rainbowlaugh:

Finally, you kind of have to wonder what kind of church camp our protagonist attended to come up with a song like that... :rainbowlaugh:

5/17/2015: Revised to improve narrative flow, and to address complaints about characterization. I've done my best to hammer any perceived Gary Stu-ness out of the MC.

Derren (dazed and confused): Ow. Did someone get the license number of that hammer?

Chapter Two - Castle Tourgasm

My discharge from the hospital was, for the most part, an orderly, anticlimactic affair. There were, however, three oddities about the situation that stood out in my mind. The first of which was the cost of my hospitalization. There were no bills to pay ‒ fortunate for me, since I was decidedly lacking in the local currency, and I doubted I’d be able to exchange dollars for said currency anytime soon. There also was a distinct lack of drama over copays, pre-existing conditions, and general insurance company shenanigans. All of it suggested that Equestria had some sort of universal health care system, most likely paid for by taxes.

It also summoned an amusing image of a pony Rush Limbaugh spinning Oxycontin-fueled conspiracy theories about the tax dollars being “wasted” on an “undocumented immigrant” like me.

Speaking of which, it seemed as though the princesses had anticipated the issue of my immigration status being raised, as a form to start the process of applying for Equestrian citizenship had been included among the hospital discharge papers that I had to sign. While I found it somewhat disconcerting that the princesses were already pushing Equestrian citizenship on me, I ultimately wrote it off as them covering their bases in case the portal never opened again in my lifetime.

The final oddity involved the forms themselves. Even though the spoken variety of Standard Equestrian was virtually identical to spoken English (as far as I knew), the written version may as well have been Hindi, for all that I could read of it. But that wasn’t the truly weird part.

Upon plucking the first document from the telekinetic “grasp” of the unicorn working the front desk, the seemingly random collection of squiggles and glyphs gradually contorted themselves into more familiar A’s, P’s, Q’s, and suchlike. My bug-eyed stare at the trippy dance of the ink before me must have been rather comical to the mare at the desk, for she giggled demurely for a moment before explaining that the forms were printed on enchanted paper with special ink, the combination of which allowed it to be read and understood by anyone, no matter the language barrier.

With a skeptical grunt of acknowledgement, I plowed into the pile of papers before me. As I worked, the novelty of the “psychic paper” ‒ for lack of a better term ‒ and the shape-shifting ink gradually wore off. By the time I was finishing the last form a half-hour later, Silverclaw had arrived to see me off, handing me a schedule of my checkups for the rest of the week, which I promptly pocketed.

Twilight and her friends were waiting for me in the foyer when I emerged moments later, fully clothed in my new winter apparel. The moment they heard the doors open, they rose to their hooves and turned to face me with warm, friendly smiles adorning their muzzles. Spike had climbed onto Twilight’s back as she got up, and was now looking at me with slight awe. A moment’s reflection reminded me why: while both Celestia and Luna were taller than me, the average non-alicorn only came up to about my sternum. To a little guy like Spike, I must have seemed like a giant in the playground.

Rarity, meanwhile, was appraising me with a critical eye ‒ or rather, she was appraising my clothes with a critical eye. After a minute of careful study, her expression suddenly brightened, and she looked me in the eye.

“Well, Derren,” she gushed, “I must say that Ruby Weave did an excellent job of replicating your old attire. I’d have expected nothing less from the royal seamstress.” She pulled her head back slightly and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I must confess, however, that I’m not entirely sure why you would choose to dress so ‒” she grimaced “‒ plainly. No offense.”

I gave her a wry smile. “None taken. This” ‒ I waved my right hand over my clothes ‒ “is a more casual, everyday set of clothes. If I were going somewhere fancy, then of course I’d wear a suit and tie ‒ perhaps even a tuxedo, if the occasion demanded it. But all things being equal, I much prefer functional over flashy. No offense.”

Rarity tittered into her left forehoof. “None taken, darling.”

“Well,” Twilight said, drawing everyone’s attention, “I hope you’re up for a little walking. Princess Celestia said that she and Princess Luna wanted to meet with all of us at two this afternoon to discuss living arrangements for the duration of your stay in Equestria. We have a few hours to kill before then, so I thought you might like to get an insider’s tour of the castle.”

With a nonchalant shrug and shit-eating grin, I said, “Sure, why not? I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Pinkie giggled at this. “I like him!” she declared gaily. “He’s silly!”

That… was the sort of endorsement that I wasn’t quite sure I wanted. Though Pinkie was likeable enough, I was quickly learning that she could start to grate on one’s nerves after a while. In an effort to stave off the oncoming Pinkie-induced headache, I returned my attention to Twilight.

“So, Twilight” ‒ I could just make out my reflection in her purple irises ‒ “how about we get this show on the road?”

Twilight’s smile was that of a cat that had cornered a mouse. “Eager to get started, are we?”

I gave her a wan smile in reply. “No comment.”

Rainbow Dash snorted derisively at that. “Oh please, Derren,” she grumbled, “You sound like Mayor Mare when you say that.”

A knowing chuckle escaped my mouth as we left the medical wing. “Politicians are all the same, no matter the world, eh?”

“You can say that again,” Dash groaned as she took to the air not far from me. The downdrafts from her wingbeats caused my shirt to undulate in azure waves across my right shoulder.

I smirked evilly at Dash. “Politic‒” the joke died aborning as I suddenly found my mouth clogged by a sky blue hoof.

“Not. Funny.” The unamused glare that Rainbow Dash was aiming at me could’ve depopulated Waco, Texas if weaponized.

I was undeterred by the threat posed in that heated gaze, mainly because I wanted to dislodge her hoof from my mouth. After all, that sort of thing can spread disease.

My evil smirk returned moments before I put my plan in motion. Though the base of my tongue protested mightily at what was being asked of it, I had just enough reach to run my tongue slowly along the softer underside of Dash’s hoof.

She jerked her hoof back as if stung, then began vigorously wiping the offended appendage off on my shirt. “Eww,” she said, her scratchy voice taking on a whiny undertone, “Why’d you go and lick my hoof? I don’t like ponies ‒ or humans ‒ touching my hooves. And I especially don’t want them licking my hooves!”

“Really, Rainbow Dash? Do tell,” Rarity snarked, aiming an arch look at the pegasus in question. “Could you possibly be… sensitive in that area?”

Dash sputtered incoherently in response, and we all paused as she raced over to confront the unicorn, nearly bowling me over with the wake that her wings kicked up.

“Th-That’s none of your business, Rarity,” Rainbow Dash said in an ominous tone, cheeks flushed.

In that moment, I found myself happy beyond belief that I was not the target of Rainbow’s ire. The moment passed, and my happiness was shattered by the polychromatic mare rounding on me, rose-colored eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Anyway, Derren,” she said, “you never answered my question. Why did you lick my hoof?”

“I figured it was the fastest way to get you to withdraw it from my mouth,” I retorted, my expression equally as hard as hers. I held it for a few seconds before my face softened, and I adopted a sheepish grin. “Besides, I figured it might be funny to see your reaction.”

Rainbow sputtered indignantly for a moment. “A-a prank?" she squawked. "You played a prank on me?”

I nodded, my smile faltering a little.

A malicious grin grew on Dash’s muzzle as she flew up next to me ‒ invading my personal space much as Pinkie had done back in the hospital ward. “Well, Derren,” she intoned ominously, her warm breath dancing across my ear, “I don’t think you quite realize who you’re dealing with. Pinkie and I just happen to be Ponyville’s resident master pranksters, and believe me: nopony, and no human, pranks Rainbow Dash and gets away with it. You’ve just called down the thunder, big guy. Better hope you can handle it!”

A cold weight settled into my gut at Rainbow’s pronouncement. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the earlier whirlwind I’d reaped in stroking her ego was but a gentle breeze compared to what was coming: a full-on F5 in the middle of an Arkansas trailer park... and that was before one factored in the added threat of Dash bringing Pinkie in on the pranking “fun.”

“Um,” Fluttershy’s soft, demure voice was just as timid as the rest of her demeanor, “I hate to interrupt you two, but perhaps it would be best if we got back to the tour.”

“I’m with Fluttershy,” Applejack drawled, her emerald eyes gazing meaningfully at the group’s de facto lavender leader, “We’d best be moseyin’ along if we wanna hit everything on your list before we meet with the princesses, Twi.”

“You have a checklist for this tour?” I inquired of Twilight.

“Are you kidding?” Spike grumbled, “Twilight makes checklists for everything ‒ even for making checklists.”

I stared at him incredulously. “Really?”

At his nod of confirmation, a rictus of absolute terror dawned on my face. I’d heard about people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, of course. But if what Spike had just told me was true, Twilight’s condition was to a level where she would prefer to call it “CDO,” because the letters were in proper alphabetical order.

Great, I thought, I’m doing armchair psychological diagnosis of an alien mare I only met a couple of hours ago. I must be going crazy.

Twilight chuckled sheepishly. “I’m not that bad.”

Spike stared at her skeptically. “Most of the time, anyway,” she hastily amended. Spike merely raised his eyebrow further.

Twilight lifted her eyes heavenward, grumbling what were likely very impolite things about her draconic assistant under her breath as she levitated him onto her back. As soon as he was secure, we set off down the castle corridor once more. Twilight and I were up front, flanked by Fluttershy to Twilight’s left, and Rainbow Dash to my right, with Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity bringing up the rear. Both pegasi were airborne, and while most of the earthbound ponies were content with the steady walking pace that Twilight had set, Pinkie’s preferred form of locomotion seemed to be excessively energetic bouncing.

Twilight eagerly took up the role of tour guide, explaining that the dark colored tiles were both an aesthetic choice and an informal guide ‒ this was the part of the castle where Princess Luna resided. Twilight also took great delight in discussing each of the busts we passed in excruciating detail.

Unfortunately, at this early stage in my education about pony society, the information was just a jumble of names and dates with no context ‒ in an entirely different calendar system, no less, if all the mentions of AC, AEC, and STG were anything to go by ‒ so it was all just meaningless white noise to me.

I wasn’t the only one demonstrating pointed disinterest, either. Rainbow Dash was practically sleep-flying. Somehow, it was hardly a surprise to see her in that state, given how loudly she had been complaining about Twilight’s “egghead” tendencies earlier.

Applejack was resolutely focused on the corridor ahead. Both of her ears were pointed in Twilight’s direction, but the expression on her face told me that she’d much rather be back on her farm doing chores. Any chores. I caught her staring at me in my peripheral vision a couple of times: in both instances, she quickly looked away and tried to pretend that she’d been listening intently to Twilight’s lecture.

She wasn’t fooling anyone, not even the freaky bipedal alien who just found himself here less than twenty-four hours ago.

Pinkie, meanwhile, seemed content to be bouncing obliviously along to the beat of her own drummer. The mare was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: half of me desperately wanted to know what color the sky was in her world, and the other half of me was deathly afraid to find out.

The only ones who seemed to be even pretending to politely listen to our self-appointed tour guide were Fluttershy and Rarity.

When I looked back at Twilight, I saw that she had stopped playing museum docent, and was glaring at most of the group, though it seemed that I was being singled out as the primary target of her disgruntlement. I had seen enough of Twilight’s professorial tendencies to surmise where this was going, so in order to forestall a lecture about the importance of listening to her lectures, I decided to ask a question of my own.

“I’m sure this is all very interesting to you, Twilight,” I said, holding my hands up in a placating gesture, “but I’m still a newbie when it comes to a lot of things in this world.”

“What do you suggest?” Her tone was curious, with a hint of hidden warning.

I cringed, both mentally and physically, at what I was about to propose. “Well, in terms of general knowledge of this place, I’m more like a child, so why don’t we start with the basics?”

“I’m assuming you have a subject in mind already,” she said with a neutral expression as we resumed our previous course.

I nodded. “Well, judging from your voices, I can be reasonably sure that the six of you are mares. Unfortunately, it’s not a completely foolproof method, and I’m pretty sure that the only reliable means I know of for telling mares apart from stallions would ‘earn me a buck in the face,’ as Nurse Faran put it.” I openly ogled her flank to make sure she got my meaning. A deliberate slowing of her gait coupled with a slight hardening of her gaze showed me that she’d understood all too well.

“Yeah, it would,” she deadpanned.

“All the more reason for me to learn a better way,” I replied.

Two maids who had obviously overheard our conversation passed by us to our left. I returned their shocked expressions with a sheepish one of my own as I waved a greeting to them. When I returned my attention to Twilight, I could feel their eyes boring into the back of my head. I couldn’t tell if they were surprised by my appearance, or judging me for my apparent perversion.

“So, anyway,” I said, nervously scratching the back of my neck, “how can I reliably distinguish mares from stallions at a glance, without committing a major party foul?”

Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by a shrill whistle right in my ear. Wincing in pain, and vigorously rubbing my ear as if that would return sensation, I angrily rounded on the source, only to falter at what I saw ‒ Pinkie Pie, looking every inch like a NFL referee, down to the zebra-striped uniform shirt, with a whistle of ear destruction attached to a lanyard slung around her neck.

My irritation dissipated in a whirlwind of confusion. Where on Earth could she have possibly gotten that outfit? I thought. And how in the name of zombie Jesus did she put it on without anyone noticing?

These questions would remain unanswered, as Pinkie was doing a good job of distracting me with even more zaniness worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon ‒ striking a pose that probably had some sort of meaning in whatever sports ponies played as she shouted, “Party foul! Bad touch! Fifteen bodylength penalty! Do not pass ‘Go!’ Do not collect two-hundred bits!”

My face fell, and I had trouble finding the words to express just how flabbergasted I was at Pinkie’s antics. Ultimately, my only recourse was to simply bury my forehead in the palm of my hand and shake my head in utter disbelief.

Thankfully, the whistle-induced tinnitus was only temporary, and my hearing had fully returned by the time Twilight had finished admonishing Pinkie for her outburst. The pink mare looked disheartened briefly before flashing back to her normal abnormally chipper self.

“Anyway,” Twilight said, casting a suspicious glance at Pinkie, “There is one way I can think of that’s reliable enough for your purposes. A lot of it has to do with the shape of the muzzle.”

She traced her jawline with a hoof in demonstration as she spoke. “A mare’s muzzle tends to be shorter and the lower jawline tends to have more of a curve to it, while stallions tend to be more square-jawed. Also, stallions tend to be a bit larger than mares. It’s not perfect, but it should help you avoid… unfortunate misunderstandings. I don’t know if you got a good look at him earlier, but my brother would be a reasonable basis for comparison.”

“The guards as well, I’d imagine,” I said, rubbing my chin in a contemplative manner. I dug through my memories of the guards ‒ especially the one who had identified the device used to measure my (very nonexistent) magical output. That one had both the deeper voice of a stallion and the square-jawed muzzle that Twilight had pointed out.

A shock of realization hit me, and my eyes widened momentarily. Sweet Zombie Jesus, she’s right!

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I muttered, before suddenly feeling a tingling sensation in my left earlobe and being yanked rather painfully to the ground by an invisible force acting on said earlobe.

“For Celestia’s sake, Derren!” Twilight hissed in my ear. “Watch your language around Spike.”

“Alright! I get it, Twilight!” I replied equally sharply. “No need to telekinetically manhandle me! Yeesh!”

Pushing off with my hands, I rose to my full height once more. As I was dusting myself off, I noticed Twilight out of the corner of my eye, looking curiously at me, as if seeing me for the first time. Mentally tracing her line of sight, I realized what had so enraptured her attention: my butt.

Frowning, I cleared my throat to get her attention. “What, do these jeans make my butt look fat, or something?” I deadpanned.

Twilight’s cheeks lit up with a rosy hue, and Rainbow Dash burst into raucous laughter. “Oooh, Twilight,” Rainbow cooed teasingly, “He caught you checking out his goods!”

Twilight glared at her friend. “I’ll have you know, I was actually conducting important research,” she said primly.

This only seemed to set Dash off further. “Yeah, sure you were, Twi,” she said between nasty cackles, “I’m sure seeing how his rump compares to stallions is so vitally important.” With those words and a couple of knowing nudges of Twilight’s side, the pegasus lost herself in laughter at our expense once more.

After a few moments of imitating a fish, Twilight finally settled on leveling her friend with a glare deadly enough to decimate the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Sadly for the bookish mare, the only response from Miss Dash to her look of opprobrium was a few bars of decidedly not-innocent whistling.

Once again, Applejack proved to be the group’s voice of reason, pointedly clearing her throat and gesturing down the corridor with her head. After about a minute of walking, we turned a corner, and emerged once more into the grand hallway that lead to the throne room at one end.

“Huh,” I muttered, hands resting lightly on my hips, “I could’ve sworn it took twice as long to get here from the medical lab yesterday.” With a sidelong glance at Twilight, a sly smile slid across my lips, and I added, “I credit our amazingly astute leader with her superior orienteering skills.”

The target of my comment chuffed derisively, ears swinging back and forth somewhat chaotically. “Please,” she moaned, looking askance at me, “Princess Celestia’s lived here longer than I’ve been alive. I’m pretty sure she knows this castle like the underside of her hoof. In all the time I studied under her metaphorical wing, I never once beat her to one of our meeting places, and most of those times, I had the shorter distance to go.”

Maybe she cheated. Thankfully, the snarky retort failed to make it past my brain-to-mouth filter. “I suppose you’re right,” I replied instead. “Perhaps my memory of it from yesterday is faulty ‒ I had a lot going on then, after all.”

“I can imagine.” Surprise marked my features as I looked in the direction of the unexpected voice. Fluttershy was just as quiet as the previous time she’d spoken up, and she cringed at my sudden movement, but her tone ‒ once she had regained her composure ‒ was strangely sympathetic. “It must be horrible to not be able to remember certain events without your body rebelling against you like that.”

“I pray that you never find out, Fluttershy,” I replied with a wan smile.

With a dainty whooshing of air, the butter-yellow mare flew over and gently rested a hoof on my shoulder, softly smiling. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but Fluttershy seemed to exude a very calming presence. I couldn’t help but wonder if this influence extended to animals, as well. It would certainly be a useful talent, given that she works in animal care, according to Twilight.

Thinking of the word “talent” made me realize something. The phrase “special talent” had been thrown around casually several times by now. It was time to find out if it had a special meaning in pony society.

“Umm, Twilight?” My voice had an uncertain quality to it, and I was messing with my glasses again. She’d been about to lead us away from the throne room, but she paused when she heard me address her. She turned about, ears perked up expectantly.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, and I suppose now’s as good a time as any.”

She smiled gently. “Go ahead, Derren. I’m always happy to impart knowledge to those willing to learn.”

Drawing a deep breath to calm myself, I replied, “I’ve heard the phrase ‘special talent’ bandied about a number of times in the last twenty-four hours like it has some sort of special meaning. Is it true, or am I just blowing smoke out of my butt?”

Twilight looked at my lower cheeks momentarily as if expecting to see some sort of reaction, which prompted another snigger from a certain sky blue mare who was turning out to be quite the pervert. I was tempted to ask Twilight if I’d farted, but it was all too likely that the joke would go over like a lead balloon.

“Never mind, Twilight. It’s a human expression,” I sighed with a hand on my face. She was rapidly demonstrating a tendency to be frustratingly literal-minded. I could relate, since I knew that I had a similar problem. Some past memories fluttered to mind at the thought, and with a grimace, I resolutely buried the regret that surfaced at the recollections before focusing on Twilight’s voice.

“It just so happens that you are absolutely correct. We use the phrase to refer to an area of endeavor that a pony excels at, sometimes to the point that it uniquely identifies the pony. When a pony discovers that talent, he or she earns what is known as a ‘cutie mark,’ a brand that magically appears on the pony’s flank at that time.” She punctuated this by wiggling her rump, emphasizing the magenta and white stars on her flank.

Intentional or not, the way she was shaking her backside had a very sensual ‒ if rather awkward and uncoordinated ‒ quality to it, and I had to fight down a lump that had formed in my throat. My reaction was not lost on her friends, as Rarity and Fluttershy quickly moved to stop her, and Pinkie and Rainbow both fell into peals of uncontrollable laughter at our expense.

I gave off a surprised and outraged grunt as Applejack shoved her Stetson in my face to blind me from the scene in front of me.

“It’s fer yer own good, sugarcube,” Applejack drawled in a deadpan tone.

“Are you quite done with the unseemly display, Twilight?” Rarity inquired somewhat sharply.

Twilight made some affirmative noise that I couldn’t quite make out from behind my makeshift blindfold, which smelled of hay and long-dried sweat, as well as an odor that I couldn’t quite place, but could reasonably assume was Applejack’s unique scent.

“I’ll grant that you smell nice, Applejack,” I said, “but I think it’s safe for me to have full use of my eyes now.”

Said accessory was quickly removed from my face at that point. The farm pony’s face had a salmon tint to it as she returned the hat to its proper place on her head.

I continued in a droll tone, “Well, that’s one bit of knowledge I’ll never be able to forget, no matter how hard I try.”

“I’m sure it is,” Twilight replied, cheeks flaming.

“Perhaps it’s best if we continued the tour,” Applejack suggested in an urgent tone.

As if we hadn’t just veered off into a wildly embarrassing tangent, we resumed our course away from the throne room. The sound of our steps echoing off the walls was the only ambient noise. Finally, after about two minutes, we reached the heavily guarded front gate. I gave as crisp a salute as I could manage to the guards, who stood stock still as they let us pass by without incident.

If only they’d warned me about what was waiting on the other side of the gate...

Beyond the castle gates lay my first true glimpse at the wonders this new world had to offer. I followed the girls listlessly, my eyes drinking in every detail of the scene before me, which managed to be strangely familiar and utterly alien at the same time.

Sunlight glinted off of the snow-covered ground, and I silently thanked Ruby Weave for her foresight in providing me with weather-appropriate clothing (for the most part – a stiff breeze could still penetrate my modest cotton “armor” like a snot rocket through tissue paper). The sun had not quite reached its zenith in the winter sky and was just peeking out over the mountains to my left, peeking through a hole in the gunmetal gray fluffy curtain obscuring the vault of heaven – though that wasn’t going to last long, as a whooshing noise overhead alerted me to a low-flying pegasus.

The pony passed almost directly above me, seafoam green mane streaming behind her as she flew by close enough that I could make out the lather of sweat on her teal coat. She was clearly directing a cloud; her hooves dug solidly into the allegedly insubstantial collection of water vapor as she pushed it on toward its destination, so engrossed in her task that she didn’t notice the strange biped below her.

Some things are more important than meeting the new alien, after all.

Still, I couldn’t help but be glued to the spot, mesmerized by what I was seeing. Rainbow and Twilight had mentioned that pegasi could manipulate the weather, but to actually see it with my own eyes was something else, entirely.

Eventually, I found my voice. “Well, I’ll be d–” I noticed Twilight glaring at me, horn lighting up preemptively, and decided to change my tune “–a monkey’s uncle.”

Twilight’s expression changed to a satisfied smile and she extinguished her horn, while I breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing I needed at that moment was for Miss Magic Pants to turn me into a newt. After all, I couldn’t exactly pull off a spontaneous recovery like John Cleese.

My attention was then drawn once more to the skies by multicolored blurs at the edges of my vision. More pegasi followed a similar path to the first, each carrying their own nubiferous burdens like hay-trussers going to market.

I stood there watching them for several more long moments, lamely wallowing in slack-jawed stupefaction. As I did so, the words of The Bard came unbidden to my lips (with some modification):

O wonder!
How many godly creatures are there here!
How beauteous ponykind is! O brave new world,
That has such ponies in’t!

The others gave me strange looks. “Sorry,” I replied, “I didn’t mean to suddenly quote a famous play from my world. I’m honestly not even sure why I remembered those lines, other than the fact that they were referenced in the title of a famous dystopian novel.”

After taking a moment to regain her composure, Twilight flashed an impressed smile. “Educated and cultured, are we? Well, then you might like the place I have listed next on our itinerary.” She looked into her saddlebag, and a clipboard bathed in the light of her signature telekinetic field floated up into position in front of her as we started walking again. “We’re headed for the Canterlot Archives, see?”

She thrust the clipboard in my face. Sure enough, the gibberish before me was organized in a way that resembled a list, but a fundamental problem remained.

“Twilight,” I sighed, pushing the clipboard back to her, “I hate to admit it, but even though I can speak Standard Equestrian, against all odds, I can’t read it. We seem to have developed a very different writing system from you ponies.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, crestfallen. Her mood didn’t last, though. “Maybe I can teach you sometime,” she said with a bashful smile.

Returning her smile, I replied, “I’d appreciate that.”

“Geez, get a room, you two,” Rainbow Dash groused. It was very hard to resist rolling our eyes at that, but somehow, Twilight and I managed, settling for shooting the intrusive pegasus a “shut up” glare.

We fell into a somewhat awkward silence after Dash’s outburst, and I took the opportunity to do a little sightseeing. The palace seemed to be constructed of sturdy bricks that looked to have been polished to a gleaming white sheen. Several buildings were strewn about the palace grounds in seemingly haphazard configurations, many of which had tall towers topped with gold-and-purple onion domes, as if such gilded accoutrements had been the order of the day when the palace was designed. All in all, Canterlot Palace wouldn’t have been entirely out of place if it had suddenly been dropped down next to Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square.

This architectural theme naturally extended to the pair of buildings we were approaching. One – which Twilight had indicated was the main archive building – was built around a formidable edifice, seeming more like a guard barracks than a repository of pony knowledge. The other building lay across an irrigation ditch that fed a koi pond in the distance, not far from the Fortress of Books. This second building was little more than a simple ivory tower with a spiral staircase crawling up the sides like a boa constrictor, leading to a balcony high above the ground.

As if to complete the aesthetic theme of weaponized literature, two unicorn guards were stationed outside the main entrance to the Archives. Noticing that they were the same gray color as all the other unicorn guards I’d seen thus far, I pulled Twilight aside while we were still out of earshot.

“Twilight,” I whispered, “is it just me, or do all the guards look alike?”

“Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, if that’s what you’re asking,” she whispered back. “The reason they look alike is a special enchantment placed on the armor. For ponies with darker coats, it turns their coats gray, while those with lighter colored coats turn white.”

“Why?”

Twilight shrugged. “I think it serves the purpose of a uniform. You’d have to ask Shining Armor for a better explanation.”

I let loose an amused grunt. “Your brother would know, wouldn’t he?” I said with a wry smile.

“Maybe you can ask him if you see him again,” Twilight helpfully suggested.

“No, thanks. I’m not that curious about it. I just wanted to make sure the princesses weren’t employing clone troopers. That never ends well in the stories I’ve read.”

Twilight gave me a strange look, then shook her head in disbelief before leading us over to the stoic-looking guards. One of them seemed to recognize her, as he perked up immediately upon seeing us approach.

“Oh, hey there, Twilight,” he said in a genial tone, “Your brother said you might be by some time today with the princesses’ guest.” He turned to me. Though his gaze was professional and polite, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was sizing me up the way a cop looks over a drunk driver that he’s pulled over. “Are you him?”

At my nod, he looked back at Twilight. “Well, go on ahead. Just be aware that we’ve beefed up security around the Starswirl the Bearded wing. Only the resident archivist has access, and even then, only with express written permission from the princesses.” His horn lit up, and the door, glowing in a matching shade, swung open automatically.

“I’ll… keep that in mind. Thanks, Bruised Bulwark,” Twilight said sheepishly, looking down at the ground with her ears folded back, as if in shame. Seemingly oblivious to Twilight’s anguish, the stallion politely inclined his head.

“Glad to have helped,” he replied helpfully.

As if eager to keep embarrassing history secret, Twilight hurriedly led us inside the archive. Once the guards had shut the door, however, Spike chose that moment to pipe up.

“Well, Twilight, I guess you won’t be sneaking into the Archives looking for a time-stopping spell to stop a non-existent disaster anytime soon.” Smugness was dripping from every word the infant dragon spoke.

“Umm, time-stopping spell?” Clearly, I was missing something here.

“Long story,” Twilight replied with a heavy sigh and a glare at the pint-sized creature on her back. He let loose with a sheepish smile of his own, which somehow managed to be cute in a way that only a child could manage, despite revealing a full set of reptilian teeth.

With that, we began our tour of the Archives in earnest. Between my inability to read the ponies’ written language, and the restrictions on our movement – the latter apparently the result of some shenanigans on Twilight’s part that predated my arrival – the tour was necessarily brief. I did learn that the building in question mostly housed important historical documents, along with the collected academic and personal papers of just about every major pony scholar, mystic, scribe, and hero of note. And even though we weren’t allowed in, what I could see of the Starswirl the Bearded wing suggested this his works were far and away the most impressive – an impression further cemented by the giant hourglass that dominated the center of the archive.

If it weren’t for the fact that I had yet to see anything resembling modern electronics outside of the medical lab, it would’ve reminded me of the time I went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with my family when I was about ten years old. It was an odd sensation: the same childlike wonder I’d felt at seeing exhibits of America’s past and promised future aerospace glories filled me at seeing pony history on display, even if I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Nevertheless, I made a mental note to ask Twilight if we could come back once I’d learned to read the local variant of English.

In the meantime, I would settle for a primer from Twilight about how Equestrian magic worked, once my living situation was settled. If the little bit that Spike had let slip was any indication, I was willing to bet that her time as Princess Celestia’s protege was filled with both astounding tales of her triumphs and amusing anecdotes of her pratfalls.

Emerging into the bitter cold once more, we moved quickly across the bridge towards the tower that Twilight had indicated earlier – which she called the “Clover the Clever Annex.”

“So, Starswirl only merited a wing of the archives, and Clover got an entire annex named for her? Seems legit,” I quipped.

Twilight clearly heard the sarcasm in my tone, judging by the wry smile on her muzzle. “I didn’t decide what part of the archives would be dedicated to whom. I was just the resident archivist until I moved to Ponyville almost two years ago.”

Pinkie Pie let loose with an almost comedic gasp at that. “Has it been that long already?” At Twilight’s nod, she gasped again. “Ohmigosh! We should totally have an anniversary party for you, Twilight! I gotta get back to Ponyville to make preparations!”

She started to dash off, but Twilight quickly nabbed her in a telekinetic snare. “It won’t be until this summer, Pinkie,” Twilight said blandly. “You’ve got plenty of time to prepare.”

Twilight looked back at all of us as we ascended the tower. “Even though I’m no longer the resident archivist, I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite views in all of Canterlot.”

It didn’t take long to reach the balcony we’d seen from the ground. With the exception of the landing, it encircled the entirety of the tower. A chest-high railing was there to ensure that non-pegasi didn’t suddenly fall to a rather ignominious end, whether by accident or by design. A highly decorative door from the annex proper opened out onto the balcony, presumably to allow access to the balcony from the inside.

“So, where does the door lead?” I asked.

“The archivist’s private residence. Spike and I lived here before we moved to Ponyville. I used to love coming out onto this balcony because it had such an incredible view.”

“Um, Twi?” Applejack interjected, “Are you sure it’s okay for us to be up here? You ain’t exactly the ‘resident archivist’ anymore, sugarcube.”

Twilight smiled gently. “It’s alright, Applejack. I cleared it with Rose Window, the current archivist, while we were waiting for Derren to get discharged from the medical ward.” She turned to me and said, “Go ahead, Derren. Have a look.”

And so I walked out to the railing and got my first full glimpse of this brave new world. If I were honest with myself, it was quite a magnificent view, as Twilight had hinted. The protective railing did little to obstruct the view, at least from my height. As a chill wind blew past, reminding us all that the land was still firmly ensconced in winter’s icy embrace, I gazed across the panorama before me.

Judging from the scene before me, Canterlot was situated at or near the top of a mountain. From where I stood, I had a clear view of the valley below. At the foot of the mountain sat a small village. A line of trees spread past the village towards the horizon, beyond which another, somewhat larger village lay in all its bucolic glory. I couldn’t make out too many details, but what I could see led me to believe that this more distant village was relatively prosperous for its size. At the edge of visual range, not far from the second settlement, a dense forest stood. Even from this distance, it seemed unusually dark and foreboding.

Looking a little closer to “home,” I beheld a particularly ritzy district of Canterlot, which was dominated by the same gold-and-purple minarets as the castle proper.

“Hey, Twilight,” I called out, indicating the gaudy facsimile of the castle’s opulence with a wave of my hand, “What’s with the overly-fancy buildings?”

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle in obvious distaste, though whether it was at my words or the architectural plagiarism before me was an unanswerable question. “Oh,” she said, “That’s the Platinum District. Most of the nobles have a summer home there.”

“Ah. That explains the copycat nature of the buildings, then. Do they have someone from the ministry of tourism standing out in front to greet ponies in a suitably over-the-top manner?”

Twilight frowned. “No, why would they? And what would such a pony say, anyway?”

A ferret-like grin tugged at my lips as I cleared my throat. "Behold!" I intoned quite formally in a near-perfect parody of a minor protagonist from my favorite fantasy series as a teenager. "Behold the seat of beauty and truth! Behold the home of wisdom and power! Behold gilt-domed Canterlot, the center of the world!"

Sadly, the reference seemed to have gone over everyone’s head, if the variety of bemused expressions I was seeing were any indication. The only hint that I’d been understood came from Twilight herself, and she was once more pressing a forehoof to her head.

“Please tell me that didn’t come from a cheesy young adult fantasy novel,” she pleaded with an exasperated groan.

“Hey! David Eddings didn’t write cheesy young adult fantasy novels,” I replied, putting as much semi-serious outrage as I could muster into the sentence. When Twilight raised a skeptical eyebrow, I added in a mock-haughty tone, “He wrote awesome cheesy young adult fantasy novels.”

A round of hooves – and one clawed hand – smacking foreheads greeted my statement, with the notable exception of a butter yellow hoof and a bright pink hoof. Fluttershy was blinking owlishly at me, while Pinkie, after a few brief chuckles, settled for smiling politely at my attempt at humor.

We were struck by another arctic blast of air, which allowed Applejack to recover her wits. “Do y’all think we could move it along with the tour, now?” she asked. “It’s gettin’ a might chilly for civilized folks to be out ‘n about.”

She was right, of course. Even with the denim jeans and long-sleeved blue cotton sweater that Ruby Weave had provided, I only had limited protection from the frigid air. “I’m with Applejack,” I said. “Let’s get back inside before I turn into a human popsicle.”

And with those words, we began our descent back down the tower. Amusingly, like the Magi of the Epiphany story, we returned to the castle by another route.

The walk back to the castle was lively and full of conversation. Twilight’s friends had started to open up to me more – especially Fluttershy, once I mentioned my love of cats. The normally-timid mare brightened considerably, and started babbling on about how she could help me find a suitable pet if I ever found myself in Ponyville. Her sudden change in attitude made me worry that I’d said something wrong, but I was assured – by Rainbow Dash, of all ponies – that it was just Fluttershy being Fluttershy.

Speaking of Dash…

“How could you not know who the Wonderbolts are?” she squawked indignantly as we made our way through a hedge garden lined with various statues. She’d been gushing about her aspirations to join them for the last minute. From the way she was gesticulating wildly in midair, one would think that I’d just told her Santa Claus wasn’t real.

“I only just woke up here for the first time yesterday, Rainbow, so forgive me for not instantly knowing everything about this place.” My reply was filled with an exasperation equal to that of the rainbow-maned pegasus. It seemed that my earlier prediction of her being a thorn in my side was proving frighteningly prescient.

Though Dash was already establishing a pattern of impulsiveness, she thankfully managed to rein it in long enough to think about what I’d said. When she realized I had a point, she buried her face in a hoof, letting out horse noises that even an untrained ear like mine could tell carried a distinct note of frustration. The gesture had such obvious parallels to a human “facepalm” that I was kicking myself for not seeing it earlier. Fortunately for me, this particular “facehoof” seemed more directed at Dash herself than at me.

“Alright then, Derren,” Dash said in the same tone one would use to explain simple arithmetic to a slow child, “Here’s how it is: the Wonderbolts Equestria’s premiere aerobatics squadron.” As she spoke, an air of fangirlish excitement crept into her voice. “They perform in shows all around Equestria – and sometimes even outside of Equestria – doing all kinds of awesome stunts and maneuvers. They’re also supposed to be part of Equestria’s guards, or something.”

“The Protective Pony Platoons, Rainbow,” Twilight replied, seemingly nursing a growing headache. “They’re a special unit of Equestria’s military.”

More horse noises issued forth from Dash, these somehow sounding more irritated than frustrated. “Whatever. Doesn’t stop them from being the most awesome flying group in the history of Equestria.”

“Actually, Rainbow, th–” Twilight started to say, but was interrupted by an orange hoof jamming her mouth.

“Twilight, I think it’s best not to start anythin’ along that line of thinkin’ when it comes to Rainbow,” Applejack interjected.

“Ah,” I added lamely, “So, they’re kind of like the Navy’s Blue Angels or the Air Force’s Thunderbirds back home.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at that. “Are you saying there are humans with wings?”

I stared at her flatly. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous.” Looking at the whole group, I continued, “Humans can’t fly naturally, nor do they have magic. We’ve had to… improvise a bit with the help of technology.”

“You mean like that ‘aerial screw’ thing that Cherry Berry’s been working on for the last year or so, or that crazy contraption Pinkie was using when Gilda came to town?” Dash replied.

“I guess,” I replied dubiously. “I’d have to have a look at the ‘contraptions’ you’re talking about to be sure, though.”

Something about the names Dash mentioned struck me at that point. I had a feeling that this “Cherry Berry” was another pony that Rainbow knew, but that left me with one unanswered question: “Who’s Gilda?”

Dash lowered her head and her ears travelled downwards of their own accord, giving me the impression that it wasn’t a pleasant memory. “She’s a griffon that I was friends with back when I was a filly at the Junior Speedsters Summer Flight Camp,” she said in a disheartened tone.

“I take it this story doesn’t end well,” I said, sympathetically.

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. She came to Ponyville last year, and I thought we’d be able to pick up where we left off. Unfortunately, she’d changed for the worst in the years since I last saw her.” Rainbow’s expression hardened. “She was a total bully to Fluttershy, and nearly ruined the party Pinkie had thrown for her in an attempt to get her to change her attitude.”

I winced at that. “I’m sorry to hear that, Rainbow. I know all too well what that can be like.” I placed a comforting hand on the joint where her foreleg met the rest of her body. To my surprise and consternation, she actually leaned into the contact for the briefest of moments.

Thankfully, the awkward moment didn’t last, as she suddenly jolted away slightly, struck by a thought. “But enough about the past,” she declared emphatically, “Let’s talk about my future and how awesome it’s going to be once I join the ‘Bolts!”

Dash’s display of bravado prompted a round of facehoofing from Twilight and Applejack, and a facepalm from me. “So, how do you plan on joining these ‘Wonderbolts,’ Rainbow?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve met their captain, a mare named Spitfire, a few times – I even saved her and Rarity’s life at the Best Young Flyer Competition about four months after Twilight arrived in Ponyville. I still think it was the best day ever, because that was the second time I’d managed to pull off a Sonic Rainboom.”

“Sonic Rainboom?”

Pinkie intervened at that point. “Oh, the Sonic Rainboom is legendary! I’ve only actually seen it twice, but it’s like, the most coolest thing ever! When a pegasus like Rainbow Dash gets going super-duper fast, BOOM! A sonic boom and a rainbow can happen all at once!”

I turned to Dash, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “So, if what you and Pinkie are saying is true, you can create a sonic boom that somehow breaks the light spectrum as well?”

When Rainbow nodded in confirmation, quite pleased with herself, I spluttered in near apoplectic incredulity, “B- Wh- But, that’s impossible! Even Hollywood would laugh it off as unrealistic!”

Dash’s face darkened like a thundercloud for a moment before settling into a challenging, almost smug, grin. “Oh, really?” she demanded, “Well, just watch me!”

So saying, with a brief pause to stretch her legs and wings, Rainbow Dash zoomed off into the wild blue yonder, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. Moments later, an explosion rocked the sky, and a circular plane of rainbow light rapidly spread outward from the point where the boastful pegasus had indeed broken Mach one.

“Still think it’s impossible, Derren?” Smugness dripped from every silken word she whispered in my ear upon her return. She'd barely even broken a sweat from the effort.

“Not really,” I deadpanned. “Still, I can’t help but wonder how you managed to pull it off, even with pegasus magic.” I gently poked at a wing joint on the end of said wing’s upswing. She seemed to tremble at the touch. Curious, I decided to test the reaction, running my hand through the feathers along the appendage and associated joint. “I wouldn’t expect such soft, gentle-looking things to have such power behind the–”

Whatever else I was going to say died in my throat the next instant. I staggered back with a grunt as the air whooshed from my lungs, courtesy of a pair of cyan hooves solidly striking me in the solar plexus. Once I stopped coughing my lungs out, I looked up to see everyone glaring at me with matching blushes… Everyone except Pinkie, that is. She was still giving me the blindly cheerful grin she always seemed to wear.

Under the withering glare of five mares, all of whom were currently grounded, a moment of revelation struck me, and I facepalmed in response. “I just committed a party foul, didn’t I?”

“YES!” came the outraged clarion call of five female voices in unison.

I was getting tired of metaphorically tasting my own feet at this point. “Ugh. Sorry. I was just curious. I didn’t realize that pegasus wings were… sensitive.”

“Y-yeah, well, d-don’t do that ever again. At least, not without getting my permission, first!” Rainbow Dash said, her words trembling with a mix of outrage and… desire?

Applejack raised an eyebrow at that. “First?” A smug smirk crawled onto her muzzle. “You really liked it that much, eh, Dash?”

Rainbow rounded on Applejack, her face the color of a ripened tomato and wings stiffly erect for the first time since my silly song back in the medical ward. “That’s none of your business, AJ!”

“Never mind,” Applejack replied, her smug expression deepening, “I think your wings answered for me.”

I took Dash’s incoherent, indignant sputtering as an opportunity for introspection. Did I just… trigger an arousal response in Rainbow Dash?

Pinkie chose that moment to chime in. “Oh! Oh! That looked like fun! Me next! Me next!”

I stared at Pinkie for a few moments, dumbstruck. Once my brain rebooted, I buried my face in my palm as my cheeks heated up.

“Goddammit, Pinkie Pie,” I muttered at a volume that I hoped neither Twilight nor Spike could hear.

For her part, Twilight pointedly cleared her throat as if I hadn’t said anything. When I looked over at her, she was just as red-faced as me. “Perhaps we should just continue the tour,” she said primly.

I was grateful for the change of subject. “Yes, let’s.”

Returning to the castle from the courtyard, I noticed a peculiar statue overlooking the whole scene. The creature depicted in stone – in startlingly lifelike detail – consisted of a hodgepodge of various animal parts as if it were an escapee from the island of Doctor Moreau. When I inquired what that statue was supposed to represent, Twilight merely said, “Discord,” with such distaste that she practically spat the word out. Witnessing her reaction, I decided not to press her any further on the matter.

On our way inside, the guards cheerfully greeted Twilight and her friends, and after a moment of running their searching eyes over me, gave me a polite nod. The extra scrutiny was unfortunate, but not unexpected. After all, I was still an unknown quantity, even to the castle staff who presumably would’ve had more exposure to me.

“So, Twilight, where are we going next?” I asked.

“Since you so astutely pointed out that you are new here,” Twilight said, “I figured a good place to start getting you up to speed would be a brief look at Equestria’s history. And there are few better places for a more visual primer than Canterlot Tower. It’s just up the hallway here.”

With that, we set out once more for greener pastures. I was following behind Twilight, resolutely keeping my head pointed anywhere but at her rump. During our journey, I looked back on several occasions and caught Rainbow Dash stealing glances at my hands. Even more mysteriously, unlike much of the past hour or so, she’d been walking along with the rest of us, wings still spread wide. I shook my head in disbelief at the notion that my hands had had such an effect on her. And judging from the way she was looking at me, she couldn’t believe it, either.

We eventually reached a long hallway filled with large stained glass murals. At the far end was a decorative door studded with gemstones that gleamed even in the wan winter sunlight streaming in from beyond the windows. Judging from the seam in the door itself, it was apparent that the door opened in a manner reminiscent of an elevator.

Beneath each window, a commemorative plaque etched in bronze was set into the wall, containing what I could only assume was a brief description and a date. The latter I could work out because, surprisingly, the dates were written in Latin script instead of Standard Equestrian. As I looked along the wall, I noticed that all the dates had either the AC or AEC designations, two numbers, and in most cases, an even briefer burst of Equestrian text. My earlier suspicions that ponies used a different calendar system had just been confirmed in solid metal before my eyes.

“Twilight?” I was unable to keep the nervous quaver out of my voice. “It seems I can understand some of your writing system after all.”

I pointed at the relevant text, and Twilight followed with her eyes. “You mean the calendar dates?” At my nod, she frowned in concentration. “But those dates are in Ancient Equestrian. How could you read that, but not Standard Equestrian?”

I leveled her with a serious gaze. “I think Ancient Equestrian may have a parallel in my world ‒ an ancient language known as Latin. Hell, modern English ‒ my world’s version of Standard Equestrian ‒ is based on Latin, at least in terms of the written language.” She looked at me with a stunned expression, as if having trouble accepting the coincidence. Truth be told, I was having a hard time with it as well.

And yet, there it was, staring us both in the face.

“Twilight, what do AC and AEC stand for?”

Twilight’s muzzle scrunched up in concentration for a moment and she started chewing her mane. If it weren’t for the fact that I was weirded out by recent revelations, I would’ve found it adorable.

“They stand for Anno Coniunctionis and Ab Equestria Condita, respectively.”

I frowned, furrowing my brow in thought. “The second one ‒ ‘From the Founding of Equestria’ ‒ is easy, because it’s nearly a perfect match for an ancient calendar system back home.” At Twilight’s surprised look, I replied, “I studied Latin for a few years near the end of my compulsory education period. It’s been a while, so I’m rather rusty, but I still remember some of it.”

“Ah,” she said with a smile. “So, how about Anno Coniunctionis then, Mr. Ancient Language Expert?”

“‘In the Year of… Conjunction?’”

Her smile took on a triumphant undertone. “Close. It’s ‘In the Year of Unification.’”

“What about that STG designation you were using earlier?”

Twilight’s smile turned smug. “You sure you’re up to that one? It’s a bit trickier.”

I stared flatly at her. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, “I was just teasing you. STG stands for Saeclum Trium Gentium.”

Scratching the back of my head, I grimaced. “And here’s where my rustiness starts to show. Saeclum… I think that one means… ‘Era?’” She nodded, and I smiled weakly before continuing, “Trium obviously either means or is related to ‘three,’ but…” A long pause and my frown returned with reinforcements. “I’m drawing a blank on Gentium.”

“Tribes,” Twilight supplied.

Putting it all together, I frowned once more. “‘Era of the Three Tribes?’”

Twilight nodded. “There was once a time when ponykind was not united, and the three tribes ‒ earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns ‒ fought amongst one another for supremacy. Granted there were periods of peace, but they didn’t last long. The strife among the tribes came to a head about twelve-hundred years ago.”

“What happened?”

Twilight gestured to the first window’s image with a hoof. Six ponies appeared to be singing before a heart-shaped flame, while a trio of ethereal equines cowered in fear above the flame.

“The conflict got so bad that an unnatural winter set in. All three tribes had to leave their homes in Dream Valley. Though they set out in different directions during their exodus, all three ended up in the land we now know as Equestria at about the same time. It wasn’t until the strange winter caught up to them, forcing them to take shelter in a cave, that the true source of the problem was discovered.”

“Does it have something to do with those… distinguished gentlemen in the top part of the picture there?” I asked, pointing at the ethereal equines in question.

“I believe you mean ‘gentlecolts,’ dear,” Rarity supplied helpfully. “But yes, those beastly creatures are known as windigos.”

“Windigos? I’ve heard references to them in human legends, but I never bothered to learn any of the details. I’m guessing they actually exist here.” Twilight’s confirming nod prompted my next question: “What are they?”

“They’re evil creatures that feed off of negativity and distrust,” said Fluttershy, with no small amount of trepidation. “They sowed hatred and discord among our three tribes, until the leaders of each tribe – Princess Platinum of the unicorns, Commander Hurricane of the pegasi, and Chancellor Puddinghead of the earth ponies – along with their trusted assistants – Clover the Clever, Private Pansy, and Smart Cookie – set aside their differences and came together in friendship.”

“They totally kicked the windigos’ sorry flanks with the power of their friendship, and saved Equestria!” Rainbow Dash added, punching the air with her forehooves to emphasize her point.

“In fact,” Twilight said, bringing my gaze back to her, “The event is so central to Equestria’s history that we’ve not only made it a national holiday complete with pageants, carols, and gift-giving, but we’ve also made it the index year of our calendar.”

“Hence, Anno Coniunctionis, am I right?” I asked.

Twilight smiled warmly. “You’re catching on quickly.”

“Great, the two eggheads are geeking out again,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, before receiving a “shut-up” nudge from Applejack.

“Which would you prefer, Rainbow,” I inquired, not bothering to look in her direction, “the geeking out, or the handling you got earlier?”

That shut her up.

“Anyway,” Twilight continued, as if she hadn’t been rudely interrupted, “Before the ice and snow had finished thawing, the Equestrian Accords were drafted and signed, uniting the three tribes into one country, technically known as the Commonwealth of Equestrian States, or Equestria, for short.”

“All of ponykind united under one banner,” I noted. “That’s impressive. In our six-thousand years of recorded history, not once have humans managed such a feat.”

“Yes, well, having an existential threat will tend to do that,” Twilight said slyly.

I grunted in wry amusement. “So it does.”

Twilight’s smile quickly melted into a frown as she led us to the next window in the sequence. This one showed the strange chimera from out in the courtyard, apparently lording it over stylized images of an earth pony, a pegasus, and a unicorn – much in the way a marionettist lords it over his puppets.

“Unfortunately,” she said in a somber tone, “good intentions and words on paper only go so far, for old hatreds die hard. In 35 AEC, Discord, a nearly-omnipotent entity wielding chaos-based magic, took advantage of a historically low point in inter-tribal relations, and overthrew the government, instituting a fifteen-year reign of chaos.”

“Why fifteen years?”

“Nopony was powerful enough to challenge him, and the situation kept getting worse the longer it went on,” Twilight intoned ominously. “Even when the princesses appeared in 50 AEC – out of nowhere, according to the legends – they were no match for him. They had to discover for themselves the most powerful magical artifacts known to ponykind – the Elements of Harmony.”

“And these ‘Elements of Armory’ w–”

“Harmony,” Twilight corrected automatically.

“Right, sorry. I meant ‘Harmony,’ but somehow it came out as ‘Armory.’”

“Sure you did,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Anyway, these ‘Elements of Harmony’ were powerful enough to stop this ‘Discord?’”

“Take a look for yourself,” Twilight said smugly, pointing to the next bit of window art, depicting two alicorns – one white, the other a blue so dark as to be almost black – surrounding the petrified chimera.

“Jesus,” I breathed, “they turned him to stone?”

Twilight nodded.

“Boy, talk about being taken for granite,” I quipped. Almost everyone found the pun to be incredibly lame, judging from the near-unanimous round of facehoofing. Only Fluttershy managed to crack a slight smile at my attempt at humor. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” I added with an evil smirk.

My smirk faltered suddenly as I remembered the statue in the courtyard. Wait a minute…

“So, Twilight…” I trailed off, struggling to frame my question.

“Something wrong, Derren?”

“Yeah. That statue out in the courtyard that you said was Discord?” She nodded in response, and I continued, “That really was him, in the flesh – so to speak – wasn’t it?”

When she nodded again, I stood numbly in mute horror. The first word that eventually came to mind was most definitely not clean. With Spike still perched on Twilight’s back, I didn’t want to suffer the repercussions of dropping the f-bomb on his poor virgin ears, so I settled for the nearest family-friendly equivalent that came to mind.

“Fahrvergnügen.”

Everyone looked at me strangely, though Twilight’s gaze was more suspicious than merely befuddled.

“Never mind,” I replied with a wave of my hand. “Please, continue.”

Twilight adopted the expression of one delivering unsettling news to someone who may not take it well. “I need to preface this next bit with a bit of background about the princesses – and seeing as how you’ve said that humans don’t have magic, you may find this hard to believe.”

“Well, I’ve already heard you talk about them casually turning a god of chaos into stone, so I’m prepared to keep an open mind – if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity,” I replied.

“I appreciate your vote of confidence,” Twilight deadpanned, ears folded flat against her head. “For the longest time, we’ve had to use magic to raise the sun and moon. At first, the spell to do so was so mana-intensive that it required teams of up to five-hundred unicorns combining their efforts to cast. Once the princesses appeared, they were able to handle it on their own, since the relevant spells are within the purview of their special talents as stewards of the day and night, respectively.”

“You’re right. That does sound a bit hard to believe.”

“Perhaps this will make it easier to digest. When we invented telescopes, we were able to take a closer look at the night sky, and we discovered why this was so. Something – to this day, we still aren’t sure exactly what – was affecting the orbit of our world, which we call Equis, requiring daily corrections to the orbital path and rotation of both the planet and its moon. That’s what the spells were designed for.”

I let out a low whistle. The things pony magic could do… adjusting the orbit of a planet and its attendant moon – and on a daily basis, no less. Niven and Pournelle would eat their hearts out in jealousy – if they didn’t tear their hair out at the flagrant disregard for physics first.

“Well, somepony’s impressed,” Applejack said with a chortle as we continued our walk down Equestria’s history lane.

Our little tour group stopped in front of another window, this one showing the white alicorn – presumably, Princess Celestia – wearing a tiara and firing a conic beam of pastel rainbow at a jet black alicorn with feline eyes that was rearing up in an aggressive posture.

“For a century and a half,” Twilight said, resuming her narration, “Princess Celestia would ‘raise the sun’ at dawn and ‘lower’ it at dusk, when Princess Luna would take over and do the same for the moon. But as time went on, Princess Luna noticed that ponies weren’t as appreciative of the night as she felt they should be. Disgruntlement eventually led to jealousy, then to bitterness and hatred. The hatred consumed her, and she was transformed by it into a wicked mare of darkness named Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight’s demeanor turned melancholy as she continued the tale. “Princess Celestia had long suspected that something might be wrong, but ultimately dismissed it as the product of an overactive imagination. When she finally decided to take Princess Luna’s concerns seriously, it was already too late.

“Princess Luna was beyond reason, and attacked Princess Celestia. The two fought to a standstill, and in desperation, Princess Celestia used the Elements of Harmony against her own sister, banishing her to the moon for a thousand years.”

I shuddered at the implications. It seemed that the Elements of Harmony were a sort of “instant win button” that, when pressed, made problems go away in a puff of rainbow smoke. Still, to turn Discord to stone and banish Luna to the moon… That implied things about the Elements – things that I didn’t want to think about, especially not when I’d only been here for little more than a day.

Twilight looked up at me then, sadness and empathy for her mentor radiating off of her in waves. “Princess Celestia once told me that ignoring Luna’s plight was one of her deepest regrets in her thousand-plus years of ruling Equestria, and that if she had to do it all over again, she would’ve intervened sooner.”

“Nobody’s perfect, Twilight,” I replied with a rueful smile, “Not even inexplicably long-lived pony princesses.”

“I never suggested they were,” Twilight said with a slight scowl. She then led us across the hall, where Nightmare Moon dominated the center of another scene, this one containing some very familiar ponies.

“I’m afraid to say that the intervening millennium was relatively quiet,” Twilight said. “The only other event of major import was the re-establishment of contact with the Griffon Kingdom in 1123 AEC.” She suddenly brightened as a thought struck her. “I’m not quite done with it yet, but I’ve got a book on griffon history I’d be willing to let you borrow once you learn how to read Standard Equestrian, if you’d like.”

I thought about it for a moment. “That might be interesting,” I said with a smile. “Sure.”

“I just hope for Derren’s sake that it’s not as boring as you’re making our history sound, Twi,” Dash grumbled.

“Hey!”

Unperturbed, Dash continued, “What? I’m just saying you could make jousting sound as exciting as watching paint dry.”

Pausing only to fix Rainbow with a glare that could’ve wiped out all of Texas, Twilight continued, “Anyway, an old prophecy predicted that Nightmare Moon’s banishment was not as permanent as everypony was led to believe, and that it would only last a thousand years. When I read about it in a book I’d found in the depths of the Canterlot Archives, I did my due diligence, and immediately reported it to Princess Celestia.”

“I’m not questioning your judgement or your commitment to doing what’s right,” I replied, “but a wise woman once said that prophecy is a poor guide to the future. You only understand it when the events are already upon you.”

Twilight couldn’t resist a giggle at that. “You know, that’s what I thought Princess Celestia was telling me when she sent me to Ponyville in response to my report. But it turned out that I was at least partially right – Nightmare Moon was indeed returning, but in order to defeat her, I had to make friends.”

Twilight’s expression turned deadly serious. “You have to understand, Derren. Before Princess Celestia sent me to Ponyville to make friends, the only ponies I allowed to get close to me were Spike and my brother.”

She choked up a bit, and her next words came out in a rush. “I didn’t know where to begin, and my books could only tell me so much. I was fighting back nausea the whole way when Spike and I left Canterlot, and all I wanted to do was just get through the Summer Sun Celebration as quickly as possible and go back to Canterlot.”

Twilight was near tears at this point, as she recalled how terrified she had been at the prospect of getting out and socializing. It was kind of awkward watching her so close to a breakdown, so I stood there like an idiot for a few seconds. Once my brain rebooted, an odd compulsion took hold of me, and I dropped into a squatting position next to her, gently reaching out with what I hoped would be considered a comforting hand.

To my eternal surprise, Twilight accepted the proffered hand, sagging against me like a sack of potatoes as her friends and I gathered around for a spontaneous group hug. Like Nurse Faran and the princesses, her fur felt like very soft velvet, while the warmth of her body was amazingly comfortable.

I wasn’t sure how long the eight of us stayed in that pile of human, dragon, and pony flesh, my shirt dampening with Twilight’s tears, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute. When the moment passed, Twilight pulled away, her purple eyes red-rimmed and puffy.

“Thanks, Derren,” she said as she sniffed away the last of her liquid sadness. “I’m not sure why I felt compelled to share that with you, since we’ve only known each other a few hours ‒ no offense.”

“None taken,” I replied with a small smile.

“Nevertheless, it felt… good to share it with you, for some reason.” She turned to the others. “And thank you, girls. I can’t express just how lucky I am to have you five as my friends.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way, darling,” Rarity replied with a warm smile. Her mascara had smudged a little during the group hug, leading me to suspect that Twilight wasn’t the only one who’d gotten emotional just then.

Seeing Twilight with her friends like that sent a wave of nostalgia through me. I found myself looking at a particularly interesting point on the ceiling as I reflected on the twists and turns my life had taken, and the folks that had shared parts of my journey with me.

An orange hoof on my shoulder drew me from my reverie. “You okay there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked as I blinked owlishly at her. “You looked like you were on another world just then.” Despite her soft smile, her emerald eyes radiated concern for my well being.

I shook my head. “I’m fine, Applejack. I was just thinking about things.” I turned to Twilight. “You really are lucky, you know that, Twilight? Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had plenty of friends until now. But I’ve always had a bit of a problem with… keeping them.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, one brow raised in confusion.

I sighed. It seemed today was going to be a day of tough revelations for everyone. “Thankfully, most of the friends I lost were due to the natural decay that happens when two people’s lives take different paths. Friends would move away because their parents got a job in a different city, or we’d find ourselves with two completely different circles of friends with no overlap except each other. That sort of thing. Ultimately, we’d lose touch with one another, and that’d be the end of it.

“One of my closest friendships actually ended up meeting that fate, unfortunately. His family and mine had been friends since before either of us were born, so it was only natural that the two of us became as thick as thieves in a very short time. I have many fond memories of our time together.”

I couldn’t help but lower my head as sadness wrote itself on my features. “This time, it was I who did the leaving. Around the time I turned eleven, my father got a new job in another city. I did my best to keep in touch at first, but as time went on, I kind of resigned myself to the long-distance nature of our friendship, and the correspondence became less and less frequent.

“Ironically, we moved back to my hometown after only two and a half years. My friend and I tried to pick up where we left off, but it just wasn’t the same. Anyone could see that our lives were already headed in different directions. We even ended up going to different colleges later on.”

I sighed again. “In hindsight, I suppose I could see the end coming as easily as anyone else, but when I was in the thick of it, I just didn’t want to believe it. The last time I saw him was a couple of months before his first child was born. He and his wife had successful careers ahead of them, and I was struggling in a dead-end job with few prospects.”

I turned to Twilight, gazing deeply into her purple irises. “But that was the tail end of a long journey, and in the meantime, I had not one, but two people I called ‘friends’ turn out to be unworthy of the name. They betrayed me and used me, and the worst thing about it was that their betrayals came at a particularly bad time in my life.”

Looking around at all of them, I realized I’d gotten a bit emotional, as they were all looking at me funny. I took a moment to calm myself, then concluded my tale: “So, you can kind of see why I got to be rather cynical about friendship. I felt like it just wasn’t worth the effort I had put into it.” With a mirthless laugh, I added, “Cherish what you have. There’s no telling how long it’ll last.”

Rainbow Dash let loose with a barrage of horse noises that sounded flatly dismissive of what I’d just said. “Puh-lease, Derren,” she retorted, “you sound like my Aunt Prism Flash. I’d never let anything come between me and my friends, and becoming a Wonderbolt won’t change that one bit!”

With a sad smile, I replied, “I wish I had your confidence in that regard, Rainbow.”

“Well,” Twilight chimed in with a hopeful smile on her muzzle, “then perhaps you just need new friends who will never desert you, no matter what happens.”

“Maybe,” I said, unable to keep the dubious tone out of my voice.

Suddenly, Twilight’s eyes snapped wide open, as if she’d just realized something. She muttered to herself, “Tailless… primate… needs friends…” A few hairs suddenly sprung out of place on her carefully groomed mane and tail, and her left eyelid developed a dangerous tic as she glared at Pinkie, who was obliviously admiring the image of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor bent into a heart-shaped formation that looked like it should’ve been very uncomfortable on their equine bodies.

“Something wrong, Twilight?” I asked, concerned.

Twilight shook her head, somehow straightening her mane and tail in the process. “Never mind,” she said. “It’s not important.”

I could feel my eyebrow climbing my forehead. “Okay. If you say so.”

In the wake of all the expended emotion, Twilight didn’t seem to feel the need to explicate either of the newest additions to the “Hall of History,” as I’d come to call it. Not that I particularly needed it at this point. One of the recent bits of glasswork showed Twilight and her friends battling Discord, much as they had done with Nightmare Moon. What I could read of the date on the plaque ‒ 1201 AEC ‒ indicated that the incident took place about a year after Twilight moved to Ponyville.

The one with Princess Cadance and Shining Armor in what appeared to be a protective bubble above a silhouetted Canterlot was even more recent. On our way back from the archives, Twilight had mentioned that her brother and the princess had gotten married a few months before I arrived, and that there had been a few… complications. She’d avoided mentioning what those complications were, and I’d assumed she didn’t want to talk about it.

What little I’d learned of the story, coupled with the presence of the stained glass window, suggested that hearing it might be important, but for the moment, I decided to let it go in favor of something else that the three images brought to mind. I figured that even if Twilight wouldn’t tell me, I could always drag it out of one of her friends later.

“So, if these commemorative windows are any indication,” I said, addressing the group, “you girls are national heroes at least twice over.”

Twilight smiled. “You’re right about that.”

“Indeed,” Applejack chimed in, “but we don’t like to brag about it ‒” she glared pointedly at a certain cerulean mare “‒do we, Rainbow Dash?”

Dash snorted derisively at that. “As if we’d ever get any recognition for it, anyway. You remember that one time when we moved Twilight’s birthday party here because Rarity was trying to kiss up to those snooty upper crust ponies?”

Rarity, face like a thundercloud, looked like she was about to interject, but I held up a hand to stop her. “Fortune and glory ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, Rainbow. That’s why a real hero is humble about their accomplishments.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Dash groaned. “Believe me, I’ve had that lesson drilled into me once already.”

“Anyway, if I could get back to my original point,” I said, “in addition to being national heroes, I’m sure you girls have your own lives that keep you busy in this ‘Ponyville’ you’ve mentioned a few times. Why would the princesses take you away from that to shepherd some freaky alien?”

“Well,” Twilight replied in mock-seriousness, pointing a lavender hoof at the window art in front of me, “as you can see, we’ve managed to defeat some mighty foes with the power of our friendship. The princesses felt that our ‘friendship resume,’ as it were, more than qualified us for ‘shepherding some freaky alien’ and helping him adjust to life in Equestria.”

Life in Equestria…

In that moment, a sudden rush of confusing emotions consumed me. Fear. Grief. Emptiness. Loneliness. Alienation. There was a sudden tightness in my throat, strangely coupled with a throbbing headache as my vision blurred.

Fighting to reclaim my voice, I managed to croak out, “Excuse me, girls. I think I need a moment alone…”

With that, I rushed out of the room, leaving a gaggle of confused mares in my wake.

Departing from my new “friends,” I blindly roamed the halls of Canterlot Castle, not really paying attention to anything. As I walked, I thought about the strange sideways spiral my life had taken lately, and what it meant for me. The determination I’d had to make a new life here had waned upon recalling the life I’d led up to now. It was one thing to say you were going to change ‒ following through was another thing entirely, and all too often, I’d fallen down in that regard.

That, coupled with all the recent craziness, had finally driven home just how drastically my life had changed in so short a time. Even with the support of the princesses, Dr. Silverclaw, Twilight and her friends, and even Nurse Faran, I still had to face the fact that I was the only one of my kind in a world filled with beings that I’d thought were mere legend until now. Worse, I had to do it while confronted with the very real possibility of never being able to go home again in my lifetime.

It was a sobering thought. So, to clear my head, I did what I’d always do in such situations: wander aimlessly, thinking of nothing at all.

That was how I found myself seated at a grand piano on the stage of an even grander ballroom some indeterminate amount of time later. I wasn’t in the mood to question this bit of multiversal parallelism, so I just chalked it up to being an instrument that unicorns played ‒ presumably via telekinesis.

Nevertheless, it was here in all its exquisite mahogany glory, and I was here in all my exquisite humanly glory, so I did what I do best when sitting at a piano in a peculiar mood.

I started randomly mashing keys.

It didn’t take long for me to get bored of banging out a cacophonic racket, however. Between that and a desire to avoid a citation for violating local noise ordinances, I moved on to playing actual music. I started out with the most classic of pieces: Chopsticks.

It didn’t help my mood, so I moved on to other pieces. I must have tried at least a good half dozen songs and scads more bits and pieces of music scattered about the recesses of my memory, including two variants on the Final Fantasy victory fanfare. None of it worked.

Finally, in a fit of mad desperation, my mind seized on a ridiculous gag from an old point-and-click adventure game about a hard-boiled detective eking out a meager existence on the mean streets of post-World War Three San Francisco. After an impromptu arpeggio riff, my hands sought the familiar rhythm of the bass line for Heart and Soul of their own accord, and I began to sing:

Hot and cold,
It’s what it does to me
Hot and cold,
The shower sprays on me

La-la, hey, dah-dah…

Oh, the hell with it… Even the piano isn’t helping my mood.

And so, with a discordant glissando, I yanked my hands from the keys. Fuming, I thought about what was wrong. Playing the piano had quite frequently helped lift my spirits in the past. It was one of the reasons why I had even bothered to take lessons. Why wasn’t it working now?

Just when I thought my mood couldn’t sink any lower, inspiration struck once more, and I decided that I needed to play something that was more fitting to what I was actually feeling: a slight undertone of sadness, but mostly confusion and uncertainty about the world I’d awakened to.

Awakened… That’s it!

I’d be the first to admit that I had never fully mastered the piece before suddenly finding myself flung across the multiverse, and it showed. I’d had to restart it several times because of how badly I botched the intro.

Eventually, though, I got it right, and managed to get through a couple of loops with only a half dozen minor finger slips and rhythm issues that could easily be hidden from the untrained ear. Pulling my hands from the keys once more, I turned from the bench to find that I had a rather familiar audience of seven. Strangely, with the exception of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

“Uh… Hey, girls,” I said, running a hand along the back of my head nervously. “What’re–”

The rest of my sentence died a lonely death in my throat as for the second time that day, I was buried in a rather substantial pony pile. It seemed that despite myself, I had earned the trust of these mares – enough for them to casually disregard my personal space, I noted with some trepidation. I would’ve figured that beings evolved from a prey species would be a bit more… cautious, but either these mares truly were special, or Equestria’s ponies in general tended to extend trust more easily than humans.

Whatever the case, the press of warm, furry bodies against me had an unusually palliative effect, and for the first time since my arrival in Equestria, nearly all of my inner turmoil had left me. Though I wasn’t fully ready to place any significant amount of trust in them, it seemed that I had finally found a group of folks that were worth the effort friendship required.

“I must say, Derren,” Rarity spoke up as our group hug broke apart, “that was a lovely song you were playing just now, but it was kind of sad in a way, too.”

I shrugged. “It seemed fitting at the time.”

“Do you, by any chance, happen to know some more –” Rarity cleared her throat in a show of excessive politeness “– uplifting music?”

Sitting back at the bench, I shot her an amused grin. “Sure, I guess. Mind you, my repertoire is currently limited to what I can remember, and most of that is music from various video games. But I might be able to whip up some classical music, as well.”

“I’m not sure about these ‘video games,’ so why not something classical?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Alright. I think I can accommodate you. This one’s pretty famous where I’m from, mostly because the chord progression gets reused in just about everything. It’s by a guy named Johann Pachelbel.” And with that, I set my hands and began to play.

Minutes later, I had exhausted my musical bag of tricks, and stepped away from the piano to the enthusiastic stomping of hooves from Twilight and her friends. It amazed me that even Applejack and Rainbow Dash were impressed by my performance – they didn’t seem like the types to enjoy that kind of music. Perhaps they were just being polite, I thought.

“Oh my,” Rarity gushed, looking at me admiringly, “I must say, that was quite the masterful performance. By any chance, are you a professional?”

I snorted derisively. “Hardly. More like a hobbyist. Those were the pieces that I practiced the most, just because I liked them so much.”

At that moment, my stomach took the opportunity to issue forth a rather loud gurgle of protest at the lack of attention it had received in the last few hours.

“Umm, perhaps now would be a good time for lunch,” Twilight said, embarrassment on my behalf causing the fur of her cheeks to inexplicably shift in hue to a pinker tone.

We were all of one accord on the matter of food, and thus exited the ballroom, bound for the castle’s dining facilities with the eagerness of schoolchildren.

The brisk pace we set ‒ a fast trot for the girls that bordered on a canter ‒ had me on the verge of running just to keep up. Canterlot’s apparent altitude wasn’t helping matters, either. By the time we reached the mess hall, I was gasping for breath.

“What’s the matter, big guy,” Rainbow Dash teased, sharing a devilish grin with Applejack, “out of shape?”

Once I managed to stop sounding like overworked bellows, I gave Dash and Applejack a look that clearly communicated just how unamused I was at their schadenfreude.

“Well, round is a shape, Dash,” I deadpanned, which just further added to the duo’s amusement. “Anyway, I blame the altitude. I spent most of my life below ten thousand feet, so forgive me if I get winded easily up here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dash replied with a hint of smug superiority, “All I’m hearing is a lot of excuses from some egghead who probably hasn’t set hoof on a racetrack in his whole life.”

The note of challenge in her statement was a little too blatant there. “Yeah, not happening, Dash,” I replied. “That had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Face it, you’re not a master baiter.”

There were varying responses to my quip. Despite all of her resistance, Applejack couldn’t keep a snicker and an accompanying whinny from slipping out of her muzzle. Pinkie didn’t even bother with resisting. Twilight and Rarity had their faces buried in their hooves, while Fluttershy and Spike were staring blankly at me.

As for the target of the joke, Rainbow looked torn between Applejack and Twilight as her models for reaction. After several long moments of indecision, she took a third option. Her eyelids lowered partially in a smoldering sideways glance at me, while a sly smile wormed its way onto her muzzle.

“Don’t be so sure about that, big guy,” Dash said in a husky, heavily flirtatious tone that I wasn’t expecting from her. “You only met me this morning, after all.”

With that, she turned so that her backside was facing me, and after flashing a shit-eating grin at me, wiggled her rump in a far more seductive manner than Twilight had managed earlier.

She finished with a decidedly unladylike flick of her tail, and for the third time in two days, I got a full-on view of what makes a mare… well… a mare.

“Good Jesus, Rainbow,” I cried, throwing my arms up defensively and averting my eyes from the unseemly display, “I didn’t need to see that right before lunch!”

“Why? Is the Dash too much for you, big guy?” she demanded, her voice dripping with sensuality and excessive self-satisfaction at the same time. Even if I were emotionally ready to date a pony, she seemed to be pushing all the wrong buttons with her attitude.

“Let’s just go get our food,” I grumbled.

Rainbow led the way with a triumphant grin firmly ensconced on her lips, wings flared out, and a deliberate sway in her hips.

Shaking my head, I leaned in to whisper to Twilight, “Is she always like this?”

With a giggle, Twilight replied in equally hushed tones, “Most of the time. But she’s a good pony at heart. I’m sure she’ll grow on you.”

“If so, it won’t be anytime soon,” I muttered, to which Twilight’s only reply was a knowing smile. Rainbow’s ears twitched, and the swaying of her hips ground to a deliberate halt as she fixed me with a weird look.

The rest of us caught up to Rainbow, and we all entered the dining hall together. The moment we set foot (and hoof) into the room, our eyes widened in surprise to see the room already occupied by a lone figure ‒ one with whom I was already acquainted.

“Great,” Rainbow grumped, “A griffon. Just what I don’t need.”

The griffon stood from his seat. “I was unaware of any signs saying that this dining hall was for ponies and humans only. I thought Equestria was more enlightened than that, but I guess I was wrong. My apologies, I’ll be leaving now.” Thus, he made to push past me, only to be stopped by my outstretched hand.

I sighed. It seemed my griffon friend hadn’t been kidding when he’d mentioned bad blood between pegasi and griffons. Dash’s history with Gilda couldn’t entirely explain her reaction to the doctor. Even Fluttershy seemed a little wary of him. Then again, from what I’d seen and had been told, Fluttershy was wary of everyone.

“No, Dr. Silverclaw,” I said, “You may stay. You’re obviously here for a reason.” With a sideways glance to my left, I murmured, “Dash, play nice.”

“You’re not the boss of me, you know,” Dash hissed at me.

“Even so, for the sake of pony-griffon relations, just try to be civil.”

Dash made a series of rude-sounding horse noises, but ultimately acquiesced to my request. With a gesture from Twilight, we all took our places at the long table which dominated the center of the room. While most of the seats seemed designed with equine ergonomics in mind, there was one chair that I figured I could use without trouble, so I took it.

Twilight and Rarity sat on either side of me, with Spike on Twilight’s left and Fluttershy on Rarity’s right. Across the table, Silverclaw sat in the middle with a one-seat buffer on either side between him and Applejack on one side and Pinkie Pie on the other. As for the problematic prismatic pegasus, she was seated to Applejack’s left ‒ as far from Silverclaw as physically possible while still maintaining some of her tomboyish dignity.

After a few moments of awkward silence, one of the palace staff came in to take our orders. When the mare got to me, Silverclaw spoke up.

“Don’t worry about him,” he said, “I’ve got our orders taken care of.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Silverclaw massaged his temples with a talon. “While we were waiting for you to wake up yesterday, I took the liberty of getting some tissue samples and ran some tests on them, in order to learn a bit about your biology.”

“Makes sense,” I replied evenly, “I’m a virtual unknown.”

Silverclaw nodded. “We couldn’t feed you intravenously forever, so we had to know about your diet. Thankfully, between an examination of your teeth, analysis of the tissue samples, and what information Princess Luna was generous enough to provide” ‒ he practically spat the word “generous,” as if he’d had to pull teeth to get the information ‒ “we were able to confirm what you told the doctors in the xeno-psychological field study yesterday – that you are indeed an omnivore.”

“Brilliant deduction, Einstein,” I said, loading as much sarcasm as I could into the sentence.

Silverclaw gave me a hard stare, both because he recognized my tone, and because of the reference to my world. He opened his beak to retort, when Rainbow Dash interjected.

“What do you mean, ‘omnivore?’”

“It means he doesn’t just eat plants, Rainbow,” Twilight responded in a deadpan tone. She raised a hoof to her chin in thought. “It’s not too surprising, I suppose. Some primates have been known to feed on insects.”

“Except that the development of brains sophisticated enough to use tools and create civilized society came with increased energy requirements,” I added. “We can’t rely on just insects for the animal proteins we need for optimal health.”

“You’re like us griffons in that regard,” Silverclaw added. “Capable of eating both plants and animals, but mostly relying on meat for the nutrients needed.” He turned to face me. “That is why I took the liberty of ordering for you earlier.”

The silence around the table was palpable. At first, I was worried that Silverclaw’s revelation would alienate me from my new friends, but after a moment, the friendly smiles came back, if a bit forced.

“Well, I s’pose it’s no different from Winona,” Applejack said.

“Or Opalescence,” Rarity said, her smile starting to become more genuine.

“Or Harry the bear and many of my animal friends,” Fluttershy intoned quietly.

“Or Gummy!” Pinkie enthused. I was beginning to suspect that very little could keep her down for long.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Twilight asked curiously, but with a hint of worry, “what kinds of meat do humans eat?”

I sighed. This could be a bit touchy, seeing as how my hosts evolved from a prey species. “Well, we basically stick to four sources of meat: pigs, chickens, fish, and… cows.”

The ponies at the table winced. “Fish are perfectly fine, since pegasi consume them on a fairly regular basis ‒ especially those who work on the various weather teams around Equestria,” Twilight noted, pointing at Rainbow Dash. “Pigs and chickens generally aren’t too objectionable ‒ especially since we use chicken eggs for the dough used in our baked goods. That said, you may get the occasional pony who will take offense to you eating it in their presence. That last one might be a bit of trouble, however, since cows are also sapient here.”

“Duly noted,” I replied, chastened. “I’ll stick to fish as much as possible, then.” A thought struck me, and I grimaced in response. “It’s not my first choice, but for the sake of human-pony relations, I suppose I could get used to it.”

At that point, our meals arrived. Most of the girls had ordered various salads ‒ some with flowers, and even a couple with hay. When Spike’s meal was placed before him, I couldn’t contain my surprise at the realization that Twilight hadn’t been joking when she’d ordered a plate of turquoise gemstones for him. I couldn’t help being a bit jealous of Spike: though his dietary needs were unconventional, at least they weren’t potentially controversial.

At last, my plate arrived: a mixed green salad with seared ahi tuna drenched in a wasabi vinaigrette dressing. As enticing as it looked, the meal appeared to reinforce the earlier conversation, and I could see the girls giving me more than a few awkward looks, completely ignoring Silverclaw as he dug into his fish tacos.

“Well,” I declared with false joviality, “who’s hungry?”

“He is,” Rainbow said, pointing a hoof at Silverclaw.

Lunch was a fairly quiet, sober affair. Everyone was too intently focused on their own meals for words. By the time we had finished eating, however, it was as if the last fifteen minutes hadn’t even happened. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be on the back of the girls’ minds every time we sat down to eat together.

Such considerations probably explained why I grabbed as many breath mints as I could reasonably hold when offered.

Silverclaw had excused himself, citing a previously scheduled meeting with the princesses. With the dining hall to ourselves, we filled the time with idle chatter. I regaled the girls and Spike with tales from what I remembered of human history. I was a little worried that some of the darker parts would make humans look bad in the ponies’ eyes. However, Twilight reassured me that pre-unification history wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows, either ‒ an assessment that was confirmed by her friends, though they were also quick to point out that Twilight had studied history more in-depth than the rest of them.

In return for learning a little bit about Earth, Twilight and her friends told me a little bit more about the Elements of Harmony. It was pretty enlightening. Five of the elements represented the virtues associated with strong, lasting friendships: Honesty ‒ held by Applejack; Loyalty ‒ held by Rainbow Dash; Kindness ‒ held by Fluttershy; Laughter ‒ held by Pinkie Pie; and Generosity ‒ held by Rarity. From what I’d seen of their interactions so far, each pony seemed a near perfect match to her Element.

Twilight’s Element ‒ Magic ‒ was a more interesting case. From what she told me, it seemed that her Element worked mostly as a sort of magical focus for the Elements’ power. Meanwhile, Twilight herself, in addition to being the group’s de facto leader, also seemed to exhibit elements of the five virtues of friendship ‒ though not to nearly the same degree as her friends. The whole thing seemed to suggest that there was some sort of equivalency between friendship and magic, but how exactly it worked was beyond me.

The Elements weren’t the only things Twilight and her friends mentioned during our downtime. They also took the time to tell me about some of the adventures they’d had.

Some seemed facepalm-worthy, such as the time Dash got an even bigger head than usual about her heroism, and had to be brought back down to earth by her friends. It certainly explained her comment in response to my “fortune and glory” speech.

Other tales were more heartwarming. I’m pretty sure I was risking an attack of diabetes when Rarity told me about the time she’d conspired with Applejack to get back into her younger sister’s good graces after a “particularly difficult week,” as she’d put it. The fact that Rarity ‒ who had a reputation for fastidiousness, according to her friends ‒ was willing to get dirty for the sake of sibling relations made the tale all the more saccharine.

And some of their recollections just flat out defied logic and stretched credulity beyond even this world’s rather generous limits. I mean, what were the odds that all six of them would earn their cutie marks from the same event ‒ Dash’s first Sonic Rainboom?

The tales went on for nearly an hour. At that point, we had just gotten to the circumstances surrounding Princess Cadance and Shining Armor’s wedding. To hear her tell it, it was pretty easy to see why she was reluctant to discuss the matter.

Nevertheless, she talked about it anyway.

“It was the first time that Shining Armor and I had had a serious argument, and it nearly tore the two of us apart,” Twilight said mournfully. “He basically disinvited me from the wedding, and I hadn’t gotten any support from my friends when I was accusing ‘Cadance’ of being evil.”

“To be fair to your friends, Twilight,” I said, “You hadn’t exactly given them anything more solid than circumstantial evidence.”

“I know,” Twilight moped, “but it didn’t stop me from feeling more alone than I’d ever been, even before I moved to Ponyville. It hurt not to have their support when I needed it. When it turned out that I was right all along – though not in the way I thought – they were more than willing to apologize and make amends once the crisis had passed.”

“Sounds like you have some wonderful friends,” I replied with a smile.

Twilight’s smile was tinged with sadness. “They are.” Her expression brightened suddenly. “But as much as we might like to take credit for saving Canterlot from the changeling invasion, I’m afraid that honor goes to Cadance and my brother.”

“Hence the commemorative window art back in the Hall of History, eh?” I replied.

Despite her obvious disgruntlement at my casual term for the place, Twilight nodded. “We tried to get to the Elements of Harmony, but we were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the changeling raiding party. Despite being recaptured, I was able to take advantage of a distraction and free the two of them.”

A sly smirk slid onto my face. “I’m guessing that the ‘distraction’ was the changeling queen monologuing in a really hammy manner.”

Applejack gave a hearty chuckle. “As corny as it sounds, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Princess Cadance and Shining Armor took care of the rest.” Rarity added. “Oh, it was simply amazing the way the power of their love expelled those dreadful changelings from Equestria! I’ve never seen its like in my entire life!”

The way Rarity was gushing over the tale’s climax, it seemed she really had a flair for the dramatic that was rather infectious. I couldn’t help but chuckle at her antics. Still, one thing about the story worried me…

“I can’t help but wonder about that changeling queen, though,” I said. “Just how powerful is she? And what happens to the emotions that are drained? Are they permanently gone?”

Twilight gave a soft hum as she seemed to consider how to phrase her reply. “Well, she had been draining Shining Armor for nearly a week at the time, and as much as I hate to admit it, it gave her enough power to defeat Princess Celestia in a one-on-one duel.” Twilight made a sour face at recalling her mentor – a pony she obviously admired greatly – so humbled by a hostile force.

She quickly recovered, however, and continued her explanation. “As for your other point, emotions don’t work that way. Strong emotions – such as love, or the warm feelings engendered by a strong friendship – serve to enhance our magical abilities, making any spells cast in that manner much more powerful than they would otherwise be. Changelings can apparently tap those emotions both to feed, and to enhance their own magical abilities. However, the emotions don’t go away.”

“And it’s a good thing, too,” a new, masculine voice said – a voice that was very familiar and welcome, judging from Twilight’s reaction. “Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a redo on the wedding.”

Shining Armor and Princess Cadance had appeared in the dining hall’s doorway at some point during our discussion, and the stallion had chosen precisely that moment to speak up. He braced himself as Twilight raced over to consume him as enthusiastic a hug as she could muster. A slight grunt escaped his lips as the adoring mare slammed into him, wrapping her forelegs around his barrel with a force that could shatter stone.

“Well, hello again, Twily,” Shining Armor said, favoring his sister with a good-humored smile. “You and the girls getting along well enough with our guest?”

“For the most part,” Twilight replied happily as she separated from her brother.

“For the most part?” Shining Armor’s eyebrow rose and a bemused expression settled on his muzzle.

“That’s a long story, filled with embarrassing pratfalls on my part, Captain,” I replied, wiping specks from my glasses that only I could see. For his part, Shining favored me with a knowing smile while his wife shook her head and let loose with a long-suffering sigh before a slight smile wormed its way onto her lips. “So, what brings you here?” I asked.

“Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are ready to see you and the girls about your living arrangements,” Princess Cadance replied. “They asked us to escort you to the throne room.”

“Wow,” I muttered dryly, “What did I ever do to merit having a Princess and the Captain of the Royal Guard usher me around?”

The royal couple chuckled at my response. “Well,” Princess Cadance said, “As the first of your kind here in Equestria, you’ve been accorded a sort of VIP status on par with foreign ambassadors. Essentially, you’re to be extended every courtesy as a sign of goodwill and hope for peaceful relations between our cultures. That includes having my dear husband, his sister and her friends, and myself accompany you around the palace.”

“Really? I’m basically an ambassador in everything but name?” I asked. When Princess Cadance nodded, I added with a nervous chuckle, “Wow, no pressure, eh?”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” the pink alicorn said, putting comforting gold-shod hoof on my arm.

“We’ll be right beside you to support you,” Twilight added cheerfully.

If you say so… I thought with an uncertain, but hopeful, glance at her.

“For the moment, though,” Shining added, “the princesses are requesting your presence in the throne room, so that’s where we’re headed next.”

So saying, we left the dining hall. Shining Armor proved to be as capable a navigator as Twilight, seeming to have a sixth sense about which corridors were least populated while still getting us to the throne room efficiently. As we walked, I wound up getting some background on the good Captain. As could be expected of a high-ranking military officer, he’d had dreams of joining the Guard from an early age. He even got his cutie mark from an incident where he saved his fellow Colt Scouts from a manticore attack with one of the force field spells for which he became known.

Of course, Twilight and Princess Cadance were both more than happy to let me know what a totally awkward dork he’d been as a colt. Granted, Cadance had found his goofball nature to be rather endearing, and the two had started dating shortly after she became Twilight’s foalsitter. Interestingly, the lovable goofiness had never fully left him, even during his rapid rise through the ranks of the Royal Guard.

Ultimately, this led to the events of the wedding. After an anonymous threat against the wedding caused Shining Armor to spend more and more time stepping up security, Cadance suddenly found herself forced to shoulder most of the burden of planning the wedding, which naturally resulted in increased stress. A trip to the local spa for relaxation turned out to be a trap set up by the changeling queen, who imprisoned her in an abandoned gem mine beneath Canterlot. At that point, the queen was free to replace Cadance and feast on Shining Armor’s love for the princess.

Talk about identity theft…

“If you don’t mind me asking,” I said, interrupting Cadance’s narration, “how exactly do changelings ‘feed on emotion?’”

I almost immediately regretted asking the question, based on the reactions it was generating in the royal couple. Shining Armor’s ears sagged as guilt mixed with shame on his muzzle, while Cadance’s expression became highly outraged. Strangely enough, it seemed as though her ire was not directed at her husband, but something else. The implications set my stomach churning.

“Well,” Cadance replied with a deadly calm tone, “according to what the queen told me when she first imprisoned me, it’s not the only, or even the most effective means of draining a pony’s love.” Here, her resolve started to break down. “She would drain poor Shiny by–”

“No need to explain,” I interjected, holding a hand up defensively, “I think I can see where this is going.” I shuddered. Rape by deception is a very ugly thing. Even worse, it was not done just to fulfill a biological function, but more as an act of dominance and intimidation. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the psychological trauma that the two were likely still dealing with as a result. If they were willing to go through with a wedding and the attendant honeymoon after all of that, their love must truly be strong.

It was a little disconcerting to discover that I envied them for it.

I was pulled from my ruminations by Shining Armor announcing that we had arrived at the throne room. The captain himself opened the door with his telekinesis, which I noted was marked by a magenta glow that was similar to his sister’s. Come to think of it, every unicorn that I’d seen using magic so far had their own telltale signature color. I’d have to ask Twilight about it later, as we crossed the threshold and once more entered the domain of the two most powerful ponies in the world.

A surprise was waiting for us inside the gilded expanse of the throne room. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were not alone – they were flanked by Doctor Silverclaw on Celestia’s right and Nurse Faran on Luna’s left.

“Good morning, Derren.” Princess Celestia’s warm, motherly voice projected easily in the wide open space of the throne room. “I trust you slept well?”

With as respectful a bow as I could manage, I said, “About as well as could be expected, Your Majesty.” A rueful chuckle left me at the memory. “Yesterday was pretty eventful, after all.”

“As eventful as today, I’d presume,” Celestia murmured with a knowing smile.

“You could say that,” I replied with a weak smile.

Princess Luna cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “While it is heartening to hear that you seem to be adjusting to your situation remarkably well,” she said, “that is not the reason we asked you to come here today.”

She paused to collect her thoughts, looking me straight in the eyes. “We summoned you because we would like to discuss your living arrangements for the duration of your stay in our fair land.”

With a solemn nod, I said, “Makes sense. Can’t exactly have the only human in Equestria living on the streets like a bum, can you?”

Luna’s gaze hardened slightly, before apparently deciding that I hadn’t meant any slight against her or her sister by it. “Indeed,” she intoned formally.

Celestia picked up the conversation from there. “Since you seem to be getting along with Twilight and her friends, we have decided that the best thing for you to do is to live with them in Ponyville.”

“Ponyville?” I parroted skeptically. “With all due respect, Your Highness, is that wise? Twilight told me about the incident with that zebra.”

“Zecora,” Twilight prompted, “And the town’s actually gotten to be more cosmopolitan since then. You shouldn’t have too many problems fitting in.”

“All the same,” Celestia added, “we’re going to take some precautions in that regard. Luna and I are coordinating with Ponyville’s mayor to make arrangements for a special arrival ceremony to introduce you to the town. Twilight and her friends will be returning to Ponyville tomorrow to help get everything organized, but they’ll come back to Canterlot once everything’s ready, so that they can accompany you to your new home.”

“Okay, but who’s going to be hosting me?” I asked.

Nobody spoke up for a moment. Finally, Twilight said, “I will. We’ve got a spare bedroom in the library, and it has the resources necessary to help you learn everything you need to know in order to function in Equestria.”

“Besides,” she added with a coy smile, “it’d give me a great opportunity to learn about you and where you come from.”

“Just as long as you’re genuinely interested in learning about me as a person, and not as some science experiment,” I replied.

“O-of course!” Twilight sputtered, eyes going wide and ears folding back defensively. “I wouldn’t dream of treating you with anything less than the dignity you deserve.”

“Besides,” Dash added with an arch look, “With the way you two have been geeking out over each other, I don’t think Twilight could ‘study’ you for long without becoming unprofessional.”

“Says the mare who lifted her tail for me in the presence of a minor,” I whispered so that only she could hear. She visibly cringed in response.

“As amusing as this conversation is,” Doctor Silverclaw said, cutting into the awkward atmosphere, “we have business to attend to. Namely, why Nurse Faran and I are here.”

“Indeed,” Princess Luna said. “Nurse Faran will be joining the staff at Ponyville General Hospital as your primary care nurse practitioner. She will be your main point of contact for any medical care you need, while Doctor Silverclaw will come to Ponyville on occasion for periodic checkups and any additional care you might need.”

“Great,” I muttered, “just what I didn’t need.”

“I’ve been completely professional the whole time, Mr. Knox,” Nurse Faran said primly. “It’s not my fault the princesses stuck me with such a troublesome patient.”

“Yeah, right,” I countered. “And I’m Discord’s uncle.”

“Really?” she sneered. “That would explain a lot.”

The other ponies – especially the princesses – stared at us with bemused expressions throughout our spat. Finally, Princess Celestia spoke up. “I would hope that the two of you would take this as an opportunity: if you can’t be friends, at the very least you could learn to be civil to one another.”

“Unless this is foreplay for them,” Dash replied snidely with just a hint of amusement. She was hovering with her forelegs crossed over her chest and had a strange expression on her muzzle.

Her remark had the expected effect on both Nurse Faran and I. We immediately stopped our petty bickering as her face developed a rosy tint, and my cheeks suddenly felt several degrees warmer than they were moments ago.

“Perhaps it would be best if we got back on topic,” Luna chided.

“What’s left to discuss?” I asked. “I know that I’m going to be moving to Ponyville to live with Twilight and Spike – at least until I can get on my feet again, as it were. I also know I’m going to be talking about myself – something I should point out I don’t do particularly well – to a bunch of ponies who have never seen a human before. That’s going to go well.” I looked at Twilight. “Not to discount your organization and leadership skills.”

“Of course not,” she muttered dryly with a roll of her eyes.

“So, what else is there?” I repeated.

“There is the date that you will be moving to Ponyville,” Celestia replied. “We’ve already exchanged some correspondence with the mayor, and the earliest we could manage is the thirty-first of Last Light, which is next Monday.”

“Why then?”

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Twilight replied. “Most ponies get at least half the day off to prepare for the giant end-of-year parties that take place that evening. That way, we can be sure the most ponies possible know who and what you are.”

“Not everypony gets the day off, though,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, prompting a knowing, if somewhat sympathetic, smile from Twilight and her friends.

“If you think it would help you prepare,” Celestia said, getting things back on track, “I can see about scheduling some time to meet with Equestria’s leading lights in various academic fields. Maybe you can find some common ground with them.”

I thought about it for a moment. “It couldn’t hurt, I suppose,” I said with some uncertainty.

“Excellent,” Celestia said. “I’ll make the arrangements and let you know later today.” She and Luna began to lead the rest of us to the massive throne room doors. “As always, my door is open if you need anything else.”

And with that we were summarily dismissed. After saying our goodbyes to one another, Twilight and her friends left to make arrangements for their return to Ponyville, while Shining Armor and Princess Cadance escorted me to the room that I’d be staying in for the remainder of the week.

Once I was alone with my thoughts, several questions arose. What did the future hold for me? Would these ponies truly accept me for who and what I was? What sort of surprises awaited for me once I truly settled in?

These questions and many others would be answered in due time, and it was almost certain that I wouldn’t like some of those answers. I could only hope that I had it within me to do what humans do best.

Adapt.

Author's Note

I know I promised that this chapter by the time episode 100 came out, and then again by last Wednesday. It's now here, nearly two weeks late. I'm sorry. :ajsleepy:

If anyone's interested, here are the scene titles:
1) Starting Off With a Gaffe (Start of chapter - covers Derren's release from the hospital through the discussion about cutie marks)
2) Mirabile Visu (covers most of the tour of the exterior castle grounds)
3) Goosed Rainbows (I think you can guess what happens here. :ajsmug: :rainbowlaugh: )
4) History 101 (covers Twilight's history lecture)
5) Piano Man (covers Derren moping at the piano and entertaining the girls)
6) It's Not Salisbury Steak Day, Children! (covers the discussion about human and pony diets)
7) Laying the Ground Rules (End of chapter - covers discussion of Cadance's marriage to Shining Armor through meeting with diarchs about living arrangements for Derren)

7/6/15: Revised to address a couple of complaints about narrative and plot points.

Chapter Three-A - Brave New World (Part One)

The rest of the week passed in fits and starts ‒ hours of mind-numbing boredom interrupted by wild spurts of activity. The boredom was to be expected, given apparently schizophrenic nature of Equestria’s technology compared to human norms. On the one hand, their medical science was on par with the best humanity has to offer. On the other hand, there was no internet to save me from sheer boredom. My main non-electronic means of escapism ‒ books ‒ could offer no solace, either, since I still couldn’t read Standard Equestrian.

That meant that socializing with the locals was my sole means of enduring the idle time between my first meeting with Twilight and her friends and my impending move to Ponyville. The castle staff weren’t much help in this regard, unfortunately ‒ the guards were too busy with their duties to be good conversationalists, and the servants were too unsure of me to do more than exchange awkward glances.

The more well-heeled ponies were even worse. The ones who weren’t cowed by my relative size and unusual physique would gaze at me with open condescension upon seeing how plainly I was dressed compared to them.

One stallion stood out for other reasons. I had the dubious fortune of meeting him one morning as I was heading to the medical wing for another round of tests and inoculations against local diseases. His salmon coat and silver mane were both as meticulously groomed as any politician back on Earth. He also seemed to exude a natural sort of charisma that said politicians would start wars to possess. I supposed that some mares might find him attractive.

Thankfully, I’m not a mare.

The strangest thing about the unicorn was his cutie mark. It was if someone had taken clipart of a scroll and changed it to look like the scroll had been made of green silk instead of parchment.

Our meeting was sheer chance ‒ he had just rounded the corner, and the both of us barely pulled up in time. I had been focused on a few inches of carpet directly in front of me, and he’d had his snout buried in a carefully organized stack of note cards held in a seafoam green aura that matched his eyes. His surprise at both nearly bumping into someone and at seeing a human for the first time was only momentary, and he maneuvered around me as if nothing had happened. Before he disappeared down the corridor, however, he turned his head and favored me with the same superior simper as others of his apparent financial and political status.

I was so caught up in rolling my eyes at yet another upper class twit thinking that their money makes them morally superior to everyone else that I almost missed the slightest hint of something… off about his smile. While I’m not normally one to run on first impressions and gut instinct, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d be meeting this stallion again.

At any rate, trying to hobnob with Equestria’s hoi oligoi promised to be a waste of time. I decided that I would have to find other ways to occupy my mind and my time.

In the end, I was forced to rely on my healers ‒ Dr. Silverclaw and Nurse Faran ‒ for mental stimulation. Silverclaw was all too ready to provide it. At the end of each day, he’d lead me to one of the local bars ‒ the kind that apparently didn’t ask too many questions about its patrons ‒ to engage in that most universal of pastimes: drinking and shooting the shit. As expected, he turned out to be an entertaining drinking buddy, despite occasionally overdoing it and having to be carried back to the castle. Well, that and trying to sneak off and stick me with the bill a couple of times. Other than those two gripes, however, I couldn’t complain about his means of entertaining me.

Strangely enough, he always managed to be completely sober when I saw him the next day, no matter how much he’d had the night before.

Even more amazingly, Princess Celestia had allowed our nightly excursions, though she insisted that we use the utmost caution in moving about to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Silverclaw knew of an abandoned tunnel used in constructing the castle and securing it to the side of the mountain. Said tunnel just happened to exit into one of the red light districts in Lower Canterlot, which suited our purposes just fine.

After all, I’d been given a second chance at life. I doubted I’d get a third. It couldn’t hurt to live it up a little, especially with the encouragement of Silverclaw.

Nurse Faran, on the other hand, was more of an enigma. Most of the time, she and I spent our visits sniping at one another. Because she initiated most of the arguments, I was pretty sure she was looking for things to argue about, even if she had to invent a reason. One time, we’d even argued over who had the most stressful life.

She won that one, somehow.

On rare occasions, though, the mask would slip, and for a few brief moments, she’d almost manage to be nice to me.

“You seem to be holding up just fine under all of this poking and prodding,” Faran said with clinical detachment as she carefully measured the dosage in a needle. It was the Friday before I was scheduled to move to Ponyville, and I was enduring the last battery of immunizations I needed to be fully protected from the most serious illnesses that ponykind had encountered and developed vaccines for.

“I had a few birth defects that required surgery to fix, so I’ve seen the inside of a hospital more times than the average child. I’m used to getting jabbed with sharp objects,” I replied blandly.

“Hmph. Pity.”

“Is that disappointment I detect in your voice? Hardly professional behavior from a health care provider,” I quipped, watching with detached interest as she used a ball of cotton held carefully in a latex-shod hoof to swab my left arm with alcohol. It still boggled my mind the way ponies could use various items with only their hooves ‒ or in some cases, their mouths, which struck me as highly unsanitary.

My remark prompted an unamused glare from the acerbic nurse. A sharp sting emanated from the area she’d cleaned as the needle was injected a bit harder than necessary.

“I suppose you think I deserved that,” I grumped, wincing almost imperceptibly.

“Sorry. This is a delicate procedure, and you broke my concentration,” she said. I gave a derisive snort in response. I barely heard her mumbled retort: “Ar a laghad Fuair mé imoibriú as duit.”

“What was that last bit?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just making mental notes for later,” she replied with a bad poker face.

“Right,” I said, drawing out the “I” sound to make my skepticism clear.

Nurse Faran ignored the bait, preferring to concentrate on the needle sticking out of my arm. She carefully pushed the plunger, injecting the fluid containing the weakened germs into my bloodstream. With the speed and accuracy acquired from years of practice, she gingerly removed the needle from the injection site and pressed a small piece of gauze against it to keep any blood from oozing out.

She turned to the table that held her supplies and reached for the bandage that was laying there. Unfortunately, she had to bend at a rather awkward angle to get at it and wasn’t having much luck. Realizing her predicament, she facehoofed and muttered something in her native tongue that sounded highly rude.

“A little help, please?” she demanded irritably. Seeing my unamused glare, she huffed irritably and said, “What? I said, please.”

“Yeah, but it’s the imperious tone you used that rubbed me the wrong way.”

“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth. She then took a deep breath, and in a softer tone, asked, “Could you please get that bandage for me so I can place it over the injection site?”

“That’s better,” I said with a smile as I handed her the requested item. She applied the bandage with a delicate, caring touch that I wasn’t expecting from her.

I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating, but I could’ve sworn I caught a ghost of a smile on her face as she thanked me for my help. For a moment, it almost seemed like we might be connecting as more than acquaintances, or at least burying the hatchet.

Then she turned away ‒ pen in mouth, busily scribbling notes as if I wasn’t even there ‒ and the moment passed. I shook my head, chastising myself for thinking that she’d ever give me more than the time of day. It felt strange, but I had to admit to myself that for the first time in forever, I was actually starting to care about how those around me felt about me.

I wanted to close myself off from the rest of the world and continue the life of solitude I’d had before, but events just weren’t letting that happen. For better or worse, I was being forced to discard my defenses and risk trusting others again.

Even if that weren’t the case, simple pragmatism dictated how I ought to react to this new environment. I was the alien here, after all. Even if I could adjust to that, I still had to face the fact that most of the locals might never do better than grudgingly accept my presence here. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do to change that except to be as nice a person as I could be.

As I hopped down from the lukewarm examination table that I’d been sitting on for the past ten minutes, I took a moment to truly contemplate Faran as a fellow sapient being. She was fairly tall for a mare ‒ almost as tall as some of the stallions I’d seen. However, she also seemed to have the same lithe build as the average Equestrian mare.

In the interest of candor, even my alien eyes could see that ponies might find a certain exotic beauty in her. She could very well have had a career in modeling had fate not called her to a life of healing others. I didn’t understand the attraction myself, especially since her mane and tail fell into some strange Uncanny Valley when compared to horses back home.

At most, like every other pony, she’d be a friend someday. Or at least she could, if she’d quit being such a bitch to me.

My thoughts were interrupted by a seemingly random sideways twitch of Faran’s tail ‒ a twitch that once more offered a glimpse of intimate pony flesh beneath. With a strangled noise, I immediately attempted to avert my eyes. Sadly, I’d lingered on the furry expanse of her backside a little too long, and the damage was already done.

For the second time in nearly a week, the image of Faran’s thin, pouting outer labia was permanently seared into my mind. And while it’s entirely possible that I was imagining things, I could’ve sworn those nether lips parted for just a moment, unveiling the pink, fleshy passage within ever so slightly. The sight certainly would’ve been arousing, had Faran been human. As it was, it just produced a disturbed shudder.

I had to put the thought out of my mind, however, since I had bigger problems to deal with at the moment. Namely, the fact that my reaction to the involuntary twinge alerted her to what I’d been doing.

“The first look’s for free, y’know,” she said without looking up from her paperwork. After a moment, she turned towards me and jabbed me with a hoof as she continued. “If I catch you looking lustfully at my nethers without my permission again, I’ll buck you into the middle of next week.”

“Kinky,” I murmured.

Faran buried her face in her hoof at this, though I couldn’t help but notice a slight blush as well. Taking a moment to compose herself, she gazed at me with her head tilted quizzically. I thought I detected a suspicious cast to her gaze, but even if I couldn’t see it, it certainly came out in her next words: “I didn’t exactly hear you deny ogling my backside, you know.”

I snorted derisively. “Like you’d have believed me if I denied it.” I held up a finger to forestall any objections. “And for the record, I do deny looking at your ass with lustful intent.”

“I don’t own a donkey. Slavery has been illegal in Equestria since its founding.”

“What?”

“You said you denied looking at my ass with lu‒”

“Yes, I know what I said,” I groaned. “I meant that I wasn’t looking at your rump with lustful intent. Excuse me for not being clearer.”

“Humans use the word ‘ass’ to refer to the rump?” Faran shook her head as if disappointed. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand your species.”

“Sometimes, I wonder if I’ll understand them,” I muttered, which resulted in Nurse Faran issuing a derisive snort of her own. “But let’s get back to the issue at hand.”

“Okay, but that means you’re going to have to explain why you were looking under my tail,” she said with an icy smile.

“I wasn’t look… I-I didn’t mean…” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. I was trying to figure out what makes you tick.”

“And you thought you’d find it between my haunches?” Faran’s eyebrow raised at that.

I stared flatly at her. “Well, there was such a big stick up your ass‒”

“Tailhole,” she corrected automatically.

“Are we seriously having this conversation?” I demanded waspishly. Faran gave me a look that said you tell me.

“Anyway,” I said, “there was such a big stick up your poop chute that I couldn’t help but wonder who put it there.”

“What, were you hoping to put your own stick in my other hole and screw it out of me?”

“As much as I’d enjoy the moment of silence from you, I’m not desperate enough for that kind of interspecies relations,” I said. “Even if I were, I have better options available.”

“What? You mean that blue pegasus who presented herself to you like a cheap floozy?” Faran replied with a smug smirk.

“One: How did you hear about that? Two: Rainbow Dash is at best a friend, nothing more. Why should you care about how she behaves around me?”

“Doctor Silverclaw filled me in on the incident with Miss Dash. He saw the whole thing, as he was sitting down in the dining hall. And as for your second question ‒” here she paused for a moment and visibly composed herself “‒ I would be remiss in my duties as your primary health care provider if I let you rut random mares in dingy back alleys, only to find out at your next appointment that you’ve contracted the clop.”

“The… clop?”

“It’s a venereal disease. It mostly affects ponies, but other sapient species can be carriers. Symptoms in ponies include a burning sensation when urinating, a milky white or green discharge from the genitals, conjunctivitis, and lower abdominal or pelvic pain.”

“Oh,” I said, crestfallen. I’d heard unusual euphemisms for STDs before, but that was a new one on me. The symptoms sounded oddly familiar, too ‒ as if there were a terrestrial counterpart to the disease. It seemed that the list of eerie parallels between Equis and Earth kept growing the longer I stayed here.

“Now, if there’s nothing else, I believe our visit is concluded for today.” She peremptorily pointed a hoof at the door. I took that as my cue to leave, numbly shaking my head at what had just transpired.

“Crazy fucking ponies,” I muttered to myself as I walked out the door and moved on with my life.

Even though the week had passed slowly, the weekend was a blur of activity. On Saturday, Twilight and her friends visited me once more. Unlike Silverclaw, Twilight was more reluctant to expose me to the general public. Thus, we spent the day on the castle grounds. In the course of the visit, Twilight drilled me on Equestria’s calendar system, system of government, and even had time to at least get me started on learning to read and write in Standard Equestrian.

Most of Twilight’s friends managed to contribute something to the lessons, even if it was little more than a personal anecdote (or in Pinkie’s case, some seemingly random factoid that later proved invaluable in answering some of the more fiendishly difficult review questions Twilight had come up with ‒ the less said about Pinkie’s comment about the price of “personal lubricant” and the scandal that ended First Councillor Coco Drop’s political career a few years prior to my arrival, the better).

Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, seemed little interested in educational pursuits, and mostly contributed various pranks or teasing comments. As far as the latter was concerned, I was much better prepared mentally than when we first met ‒ I had missed several easy opportunities for good comebacks or ways to up the ante during the castle tour, and I hadn’t felt right about myself since for doing so. I wasn’t about to let those opportunities slip by again…

Within reason, of course. While I was certain that she had a thick skin and could take anything I threw at her, I was going to have to be careful with the sexual teasing. That could easily get out of hand, and I didn’t want to slip up and do something offensive… or worse, turn her on.

Ruby Weave had been busy during the week of preparations, and by Thursday, the 27th of Last Light ‒ which happened to coincide with Thursday, December 27th on the human calendar ‒ I had accumulated about a week’s worth of clothes thanks to her diligent efforts. Naturally, that meant that I’d just about worn all of my clothes by Sunday. I would’ve done my own laundry, but the castle staff insisted on doing it for me, since I was a guest of the princesses. That would’ve meant a whole day of boredom, but Twilight had insisted that I use the day to review what she and the others had taught me while she and the girls went back to Ponyville to oversee the final preparations for my arrival.

Twilight had even made a schedule out for me that contained what I needed to study, and how long I was to spend studying each item. The only reason why I could even make out the schedule was because I’d transcribed it into written English with Twilight’s assistance. She’d also failed to account for the fact that while I was no slouch academically, I was far from being on her level. As a result, my studies ended up taking most of the day, instead of the six hours she’d planned for. By the end of it, my brain was more than a little fried, and I barely had enough time to pack my clothes before falling into an exhausted and dreamless slumber upon the plush silk sheets of the exquisitely-crafted minotaur-sized bed in the guest room that I’d been assigned to.

I awoke the next morning at a few minutes past seven, more rested than I had been at any time in recent memory. Not being a morning person, however, it still took me a good half hour to assemble enough coherent thought to rouse myself from bed, get a shower, and get dressed. As I emerged from the en-suite bathroom fresh as a daisy and ready to face the day, I glanced at the stout grandfather clock in the corner by the door. It read half-past eight, so I had some time to kill before my ten-thirty meeting with some of the faculty at the Canterlot Institute of Applied and Arcane Science ‒ a prestigious academy second only to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

I took my time getting dressed in an outfit appropriate for a day filled with meet-and-greets ‒ khaki slacks, a gray collared shirt, and a belt and dress shoes made of a material that Ruby had called “mageweave.” Mageweave was interesting in that it had all the properties of leather without actually being leather. Once I was dressed, I looked back at the clock, only to slump in disappointment upon discovering that only fifteen minutes had passed. Deflated and defeated, I decided to spend the rest of the time before I had to leave reviewing my written Equestrian.

The biggest adjustment I had to make in learning the ponies’ written language was the fact that it was a phonetic alphabet rather than traditional English orthography. This meant a larger character set to learn ‒ something I didn’t exactly relish, even though I’d rarely had problems learning how to read and write in a foreign language. It also meant that while spelling would generally be more consistent, I’d be more reliant on context clues to distinguish things like homophones. That would come with time, however, and practice.

In the meantime, I still had a schedule to keep. Twilight and her friends would be arriving on the train from Ponyville while I was otherwise occupied, and we’d be leaving for my new place of residence shortly after lunch. At precisely ten o’clock, Princess Cadance and Shining Armor arrived to escort me to the courtyard, where a pegasus-drawn carriage was waiting to take me to meet ponykind’s top academics.

Despite my uncertainty about my first trip in a vehicle built by nonhuman sapients ‒ especially since it didn’t look particularly aerodynamic ‒ the trip was about as smooth as flying in a Cessna. Then again, the flight didn’t last more than five minutes, so it was a little difficult to judge.

Upon arrival, I was greeted by a small herd of ponies ‒ most of whose faces and names I would be very hard pressed to remember. They gave me a tour of the campus, pointing out various academic buildings and explaining the research that went on therein. Our tour’s final destination was a lab deep in the bowels of the “Modern Computational Mechanics” building ‒ a gothic-style monolith made from the same polished white stone as the palace.

But it was the device inside the lab that merited mention. From a sturdy wooden base arose a series of metal spires, each filled with a collection of interlocking gears. The unusual contraption was connected to a crank handle on one end, and something resembling the unholy mating of a printing press and a generator exhaust fan on the other. It took a couple of minutes for me to recognize what I was looking at.

A difference engine… These ponies have actually managed to build a working difference engine. I chuckled softly to myself. If Charles Babbage could see what I’m seeing…

One of the pegasi in the group must’ve noticed my reaction, because he smugly asked if I was impressed. I gave him my honest opinion. Looking back on it as I returned to the castle following a (necessarily vegetarian) catered lunch, I couldn’t be certain which emotion dominated his features: curiosity, or vexation at being brought down a peg.

I was pulled from my reverie with a slight jolt as the carriage touched down in the same courtyard we’d departed from. A trio of familiar ponies were waiting for me as I emerged from the carriage into the blindingly bright sunlight.

“Welcome back!” Princess Cadance greeted me cheerfully. “How was the Institute?”

“Interesting. It made me realize that living here’s going to be like going back in time about a hundred years or so.”

“How so?” Shining Armor asked.

“Well, with the exception of medicine, which I’m guessing is accounted for by magic, Equestria’s average technology level seems to be roughly equivalent to that of the Victorian Era on Earth, about one-hundred fifty years ago.” I looked at the ground glumly. “I guess I’m going to have to get used to going without certain… modern conveniences.”

“I… see…” Shining replied, nonplussed.

“Anyway,” Princess Cadance said, in an attempt to break up the awkward atmosphere, “We should get going. Everyone’s waiting for us in the throne room.” With that, the royal couple turned and led the way inside.

“Everyone?” I inquired as we passed through the door into the slightly warmer interior of the castle.

“Well, not quite everyone,” Nurse Faran, our other companion, supplied. “Doctor Silverclaw’s running a little late. He was giving a lecture at the Institute about hereditary diseases in griffons.”

“I… see…” I said, echoing Shining Armor’s earlier bemusement. “So he’s qualified to teach about medicine as well as practice it?”

Faran nodded. “Though I think he does it more for the speaking fees than out of any love for teaching.”

“I… see…”

“I… see…” a disturbingly familiar voice to my left echoed my sentiment, then paused briefly. “Wait… What am I supposed to be seeing again?”

I did a quick heel turn to my left to get a good look at the interloper, and jumped back in surprise at seeing Pinkie Pie ‒ who had somehow managed to mimic my bipedal stance amazingly well for a quadrupedal being.

The only coherent response I could come up with was to slap my hand to my forehead. “Goddammit, Pinkie Pie!” I hissed.

“How did you even get here so fast?” Faran demanded, one eyebrow raised, “None of us saw you coming.”

“Oh, I just got here with a hop, skip, and a jump! Easy peasy,” Pinkie chirped.

“Wh‒? Bu‒?” Faran sputtered, struggling to find words for the mind screw that the electric pink mare had just pulled off.

“I’m starting to think that logic doesn’t work with her,” I murmured in Faran’s ear.

Faran blinked owlishly a few times before shaking her head. “You certainly have some interesting friends, Mister Knox,” she replied in a low tone so as not to be heard by a certain party pony.

I rolled my eyes at that. “Don’t remind me.”

We continued walking in relative silence for a few minutes. The only sounds we heard were my relatively soft footfalls, the rhythmic plodding of Princess Cadance, Shining Armor and Faran, and Pinkie’s overly-enthusiastic bouncing. We passed by several guards and members of the castle staff, but few spared us more than a cursory glance. Most were too busy with their duties to care, and the rest had had plenty of opportunity to get used to my presence in the castle over the past week.

As we neared the throne room, I sidled up to Faran for a private consultation. “There’s something that’s been bothering me about the… incident last Friday.”

Faran looked askance at me. “What about it?”

“When we first met, you told me that ponies don’t have a nudity taboo, yet you upbraided me for… y’know…”

“Getting a glance at my mare bits?” she muttered with a sour expression on her muzzle. The effect was slightly ruined by a ghost of a sly smile.

“I wouldn’t put it that way…”

“Then, how would you put it?” she asked, a challenging note in her voice as the sly smile became more real.

“A reason for me to invent brain bleach,” I said in a deadpan tone, “because no amount of alcohol’s gonna get that mental image out of my head.”

A starburst of pain erupted from my ribcage as Faran jabbed me with a hoof in retaliation. I leveled her with an outraged glare. “What the hell was that for?”

She buried her face in a hoof in response. “Trócaireach Luna, tá tú ar leathcheann uaireanta.”

I frowned and furrowed my brow in irritation. “I don’t speak… whatever the weird parallel version of Gaelic is here.”

“Capallian.”

“Yeah, that.” I waved my hand dismissively. “There’s a place back on Earth called Ireland where the language is still spoken, to a degree. Some of my ancestors came from there, but I never really bothered to learn the language.”

“Well, perhaps you should rectify that oversight sometime,” Faran replied with a smile that seemed almost genuine. “It is a beautiful language ‒ in the right hooves.”

“No time like the present,” I retorted. “We can start with what you said just now.” I repeated the sentence as best I could, but with the way she was looking at me like I’d just farted, I knew I’d screwed up.

“That was the worst pile of gibberish I’d ever heard,” she intoned critically. She then repeated the sentence, much slower this time. “It means, ‘Merciful Luna, you are an idiot sometimes.’” She paused, a reflective cast to her features. “Which you are, sometimes.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

Faran gave a derisive snort at that. “Says the ‘man’ whose species apparently requires a nudity taboo to tell them not to gawk at somepony’s genitals.”

“Bite me.”

“Are you really offering me that?” she asked with an evil grin. I was about to reply when we were rudely interrupted.

“Geez, get a room, you two!” a tomboyish voice called out to us.

“I thought you liked to watch, Dash,” I retorted with a smirk, not even bothering to look in her direction. The smirk quickly died when I looked at her to see her reaction. Faran and I had been so caught up in our mutual sniping that we didn’t notice that we had arrived at the throne room, and had been making a scene in front of Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Twilight and her friends.

I slapped a hand to my forehead with an exasperated groan as Faran jabbed me in the side reproachfully. We then took a moment to compose ourselves before addressing our audience.

“Our sincerest apologies, Your Majesties,” Faran replied with the pony version of a deep bow. “We didn’t mean to make a spectacle of ourselves.”

Princess Celestia waved a hoof dismissively. “I’m not worried about the occasional outburst, so long as you two are actually getting along better.” She leaned in to look over us with a penetrating gaze. “Are you?”

Faran and I glanced at each other uncertainly. “I guess?” I replied, turning back to Princess Celestia with a raised eyebrow.

Faran was less hesitant in her reply. “I suppose we are,” she huffed. “There have been some… difficulties, but they should be behind us now.” I regarded her with a skeptical glance. “Trust me,” she replied in hushed tones, “it’s better this way.”

“If you say so,” I replied back, the dubious tone impossible to miss. Princess Celestia probably noticed our little tête–à–tête, but chose not to comment on it for some reason.

Rarity tittered daintily. “Well, Derren, you sure move fast. We leave you two alone for a week, and you’re already bickering like an old married couple. Perhaps there’s something you’d like to share with the class?” she said in an arch tone that matched her expression.

“It’s not like that!” Faran and I replied in unison, cheeks flaming.

“Really? Do tell. What is it like, then?”

Thankfully, Princess Cadance was there to save our bacon. “Rarity, you know it’s not nice to tease,” she gently chided the white unicorn. Cadance then put a hoof to her chin in a contemplative expression. “I must admit, though, that this situation certainly has interesting potential,” she added, a devastating smile worming its way onto her lips, her horn softly glowing a pale blue shade.

“Sweet Zombie Jesus, you two are insufferable,” I muttered, slapping my forehead with a palm.

“As amusing as this little diversion is,” Princess Luna said, bearing a smirk of her own, “it is time to depart for Ponyville.”

I almost didn’t hear that last part in my irritated brooding. The light tap of a hoof on my right arm brought me back to reality.

“Something wrong?” Twilight asked in concerned sympathy.

“Just wondering why everyone seems to find nearly limitless comedic value in insinuating things about my relationship with Nurse Faran that aren’t true,” I grumbled.

Twilight giggled at that as our group left the throne room. “You’ll have to forgive Rarity and Cadance. Rarity’s a bit of a romantic at heart, and she just relishes stories about ponies starting off at odds with each other and eventually realizing their true feelings. Perhaps she sees some of that in the way your nurse has been acting around you.”

“Really?” I demanded.

Twilight nodded, and I let out a disgruntled noise in response before continuing. “The tsundere archetype really annoys me. I don’t understand how anyone can find such a character sympathetic.”

Twilight smiled. “You’d have to ask Rarity about that. I’ve never understood the appeal myself. Then again, I’m more into stories with a doggedly nice mare who gradually wins the stallion’s heart with her kindness. Either that, or a good adventure story.”

“I never took you for the romantic type, Twilight.”

“There’s a lot about me that you don’t know,” she said with a knowing smile.

All I could respond with was a lame, “Yes, I’m sure.” I then pointedly cleared my throat. “Anyway, what’s Princess Cadance’s excuse for jumping on the ‘mercilessly tease the alien with salacious slander’ bandwagon?”

Twilight gave a light, good-humored chuckle before explaining, “Cadance is the Princess of Love. Her special talent relates to love in all its forms, but especially romantic love. That sort of literature naturally falls within her purview.”

“Wouldn’t that sort of be like taking your work home with you?” I replied.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Twilight said, playfully sticking her tongue out at me.

I rolled my eyes at the display, but laughed despite myself. A minute later, we emerged into the sunlight that danced in the courtyard near the South Gate.

Twilight and I had lagged behind the others during our conversation. Although most of my attention was focused on her, I couldn’t help but notice one thing that bothered me: Rarity’s tail did a really poor job of hiding her “feminine charms” from view. It may have simply been a consequence of her preferred tail style, but it made me realize two things.

One: I would have to make a conscious effort to avoid even the appearance of looking at a mare’s backside in an offensive manner. Secondly, even with my best efforts, there was no way that I could completely avoid catching an accidental glimpse of what lay under a mare’s tail ‒ especially with all those pegasi flying around. Like it or not, I was eventually going to become desensitised to seeing random “mare bits,” as Faran had put it.

In the courtyard, there were two large carriages waiting for our party. Each had a team of pegasus Royal Guards making final safety checks before hitching themselves up to their assigned transport. One was a mud-colored stagecoach that looked like it belonged on the set of a Spaghetti Western, while the other vehicle ‒ a gleaming white open-air chariot with gold trim and studded with jewels ‒ was much more ornate, as if it was made for royalty. I had a feeling that the latter served as the pony version of Air Force One, and that those of us without royal status were expected to occupy the former.

As we approached our rides, the sound of powerful wings beating the air reached our ears. Craning our eyes to the skies, we eventually caught sight of a familiar griffon approaching from a southwesterly direction. Less than two minutes later, Doctor Silverclaw touched down in a flurry of brown feathers. He caught sight of me, and a joyful gleam lit his eyes that set me at ease, due to the rapport I had built up with him over the last week.

“Ahh, my dear friend, Meeester Knox!” he said grandly, draping a talon across my shoulders in an exaggerated display of gregariousness. “I was hoping I’d get to see you before you left for Ponyville.”

“Good to see you, too, Doc. I was told you’d gone to the Institute, as well,” I replied, nearly matching his infectious enthusiasm with my own. “Too bad I didn’t know about it until I got back. We could’ve had lunch or something.”

“Yes, most unfortunate,” he said. “I was in the middle of my lecture at the time, and didn’t find out you were ever even there until after you’d left.” He descended into a brief fit of chuckles before continuing. “From what I hear, you had a most interesting time at the Institute, yes?”

“Sure,” I groused, “Interesting in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse. May you live in interesting times, indeed.”

“Yes, but hardly surprising, given your rather… unique approach to interspecies diplomacy. From what I hear, you really lit a fire under the tails of the faculty there. That’s why I always say, ‘leave diplomacy to the diplomats.’” He shook his head sadly before losing himself in mirth once more.

Meanwhile, I found myself facing the withering assault of Twilight and Faran’s dual glares. “What did you do?” Twilight demanded, audibly punctuating each word for emphasis.

I reached up and began to massage my temples with my fingers, already feeling the oncoming headache. I could tell that this would not end well. “They showed me the most advanced purely technological computing device available to ponykind ‒ a difference engine.”

“And?” Nurse Faran asked, clearly missing the point.

“And back on Earth, the difference engine was obsolete before the first prototype was even finished,” I replied, continuing to seek tactile relief for the throbbing in my head. “So if they were trying to impress me, they failed horribly.” I paused, then mumbled, “And I may have told them as such.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight replied, “what was that?”

I collapsed against the stagecoach and slid down until I was sitting with my heels against my butt, resting my chin on my knees. “I told them that human children play with more sophisticated toys.”

Faran promptly buried her face in a hoof, presumably muttering about what an idiot I was in “Capallian” once more.

Twilight had a hoof pressed to her muzzle, as well. “Didn’t they tell you that they’re trying to develop purely technological means of producing many of the items we use in order to make up for the relative rarity of unicorns with the talents required to maintain our arcane technology?”

“Sure, they did ‒ after the damage was done,” I said huffily. “I certainly would’ve been much more understanding if they’d thought to mention it at the outset. But no, they just had to ‘wow the barbarian’ with their technological wizardry.” The sarcasm with which I’d said the last sentence was acidic enough to instantly corrode titanium.

“Derren,” Twilight said in a carefully controlled voice that made the hair on my neck stand on end, “I realize that you may not be trained in the art of diplomacy, but for Celestia’s sake, could you please try to exercise some degree of tact?”

“For Celestia’s sake? What is she, some sort of goddess to you, or something?”

“No, she ‒” Twilight blinked a couple of times, then vigorously shook her head “‒ That’s not important!” She punctuated the statement with a powerful stomp of her hoof, causing Fluttershy to shrink back with an adorable-sounding terrified squeak. “What’s important is that you can’t go around insulting everyone who irritates you. You’re not going to get very far here if my friends and I are the only ones who will tolerate you because you’ve burned all your bridges!”

I jerked my head up and looked her in the eye. She had a point, of course. I took a deep breath to compose myself, then let it out in a long, low sigh. “You’re right, Twilight. I guess all the stress of the sudden change in my circumstances finally got to me, and I took it out on… mostly innocent bystanders. I should apologize to them.”

“There’s no time for that,” Luna stated matter-of-factly. “You still have an appointment with the citizens of Ponyville. I’ll go to the Institute and smooth over any ruffled feathers on your behalf.” Her eyes settled on me and her face took on that expression mothers always get that never fails to get a recalcitrant child to own up to what they did wrong. “However, once things cool down, an apology will be most welcome. Hoof-written would be fine, but in-person is preferable. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I squeaked out.

“Good. Now, if there is nothing else, I believe we all have places to be.”

With that, those who were leaving exchanged heartfelt goodbyes with those remaining behind. Shining Armor and I shared an earnest hand-/hoof-shake, while his wife gave me a warm, if chaste, hug as she whispered in my ear. I shuddered as we disengaged from the hug, and it wasn’t from the chilly winter air.

Silverclaw and I bumped fists as we parted, exchanging somewhat sincere promises to meet up again when I came back to make amends to those whom I had offended. The week I’d spent with him had been a real eye-opener, and while I wasn’t quite ready to call him a good friend, we’d made a fairly promising start in that direction.

We promptly boarded the aircraft ‒ though to be honest, calling it an “aircraft” still seemed like a bit of a stretch, even after having just taken one to and from the Institute like an airborne taxi. I was in the middle, facing forward, with Twilight on my left, Applejack on my right, and Rarity to Applejack’s right. Sitting across from me, from left to right, sat Rainbow, Faran, Pinkie, and Fluttershy.

“So,” Dash said, a devious glint in her rose-colored eyes as we all settled into our seats, “I saw that you were getting pretty chummy with Princess Cadance just now. Care to tell us what she said to you?” She added a lewd waggle of her eyebrows for emphasis.

I was ready for her this time, though. “Just a caution not to introduce you to the magic of fingers too soon,” I replied with a smirk of my own. “After all, I don’t know what your… pleasure threshold is. In fact, I may not introduce you to them at all, given how devastatingly effective they were last time.” I playfully stuck my tongue out at her.

Faran looked around at the reactions ‒ eye-rolling from Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack; barely suppressed mirth from Pinkie; and flustered blushing from the two pegasi. She stared intently at me with her emerald eyes. “I’m assuming there was more to your little tour of the castle than meets the eye,” she said.

“There was,” I replied neutrally, “but I’d rather not get into detail about it, except to say that it was one of a growing list of foot-in-mouth moments on my part.”

“And if I had to guess, it was more like the incident last Thursday than your exploits at the Institute,” she groaned.

“No comment,” I replied dourly.

"Wait, what incident?" Twilight asked curiously.

"I said, 'no comment,'" I repeated in perhaps a harsher tone than intended, judging from the shocked expressions around the cabin. "Sorry about that. I just don't want to talk about it right now."

"O-okay, then," Twilight replied.

As the doors to the carriage were securely shut, I felt a hoof nudge my right shoulder, and turned to see Applejack beckoning me closer. “So, what did Princess Cadance really say to you?” she whispered.

“All she said was that interspecies romance, while uncommon, was perfectly acceptable here.” My expression soured, and I whispered in her ear. “I think she’s trying to push Faran and I together.”

Applejack gave a dismissive, but friendly chuckle at that. “Twilight says that she doesn’t have that kind of power, and even if she did, I know for a fact that she wouldn’t force two ponies ‒ or a pony and a hoomin in your case ‒ to be together,” she whispered back.

“‘Sides,” she added, “there ain’t nothin’ romantic about mind control, if you ask me.”

“All the same,” I amended, “I think she’s rooting for us to get together, if you catch my drift. Her and Rarity.” My sour expression grew even more sour at that. At the same time, a strangled whicker came from across the vehicle’s cabin, and out of the corner of my eye, I barely caught sight of Faran’s roan coat blooming a bright pink. I couldn’t be certain if that pink indicated embarrassment or inchoate rage.

The farm pony and I offered a nervous smile to Faran, who harrumphed loudly and pointedly found something interesting to look at outside of our ride. Applejack chuckled again, gently patting my shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, sugarcube. You’ll have plenty of time to decide for yourself if you want to get involved with a pony like that. Just relax and give yourself a chance to settle in before you decide anything.”

With that, Applejack turned away, drawn into a hushed conversation with Rarity. Through the right-side windows, I watched as the chariot bearing Princess Celestia surged forward and gained altitude. In a strange way, it was like a commercial airliner having its takeoff delayed by the arrival or departure of the president’s official aircraft.

The parallel struck me as oddly amusing, and it reminded me of one other familiar aspect of air travel back home ‒ one that the late, great George Carlin once took enormous pleasure in parodying.

Faran must have noticed the goofy expression on my face, because she asked, “Something funny, Mister Knox?”

“You could say that. I just realized that this will probably be my first long distance flight in Equestria. In an odd sort of way, it’s not too different from back home. The only thing really missing ‒ aside from excessive and laughably ineffective security procedures ‒ is ‘uniformed crewmembers’ droning on about in-flight safety.”

“Boring?”

I nodded. “Especially if you regularly travel by air.” I stroked my chin in thought. “There was one airline company that at least tried to make the safety lecture more bearable by injecting humor into it.”

“Really?” Twilight replied with a slight smile. “Perhaps you might like to enliven our trip with a little demonstration?”

I glanced over at Pinkie, who seemed to be positively vibrating with excitement at the prospect of something funny happening. “Well,” I said, “I’m no comedian, but I suppose I could give it a shot.”

Suddenly, a loud bang shook the carriage, and five of my companions glared in the direction of the sound. Following their highly unamused gazes, Faran and I saw Pinkie sheepishly grinning, an expended party popper held gently in her hooves. Confetti and streamers littered the cabin with all the order of a blender filled with peanut butter and set to frappé.

“What?” she cried innocently. “He said he’d give it a shot. I just thought I’d help!”

Even if Twilight and the rest of her friends were used to Pinkie’s antics, I sure as hell wasn’t. I shook my head in disbelief. Where did she even get a party popper that size? For that matter, where was she hiding it? On second thought, do I even want to know where she was hiding it?

My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden jostling as the carriage got underway. The pegasi pulling it were steadily building up to takeoff speed, so I figured that was as good a time as any to get underway myself.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, I’m Derren Knox, your chief flight attendant. On behalf of our intrepid captain and the rest of our flight crew, I’d like to welcome you aboard Equestria Airlines’ Flight Forty-Two. Our one scheduled stop is in Ponyville, at the end of our trip, since unscheduled apple orchard stops do tend to disrupt the flow of one’s day.”

“They do, indeed,” Applejack chuckled, pointedly staring at Rainbow Dash, who in turn let out an annoyed huff.

I continued with my improvised spiel. “Our estimated flight time is thirty minutes, assuming we don’t get caught in any temporal loops. We will also be flying at an altitude of only five thousand feet, so if any of you were hoping to join the mile-high club on this flight, you’re simply out of luck.”

“Oh, darn,” Rainbow Dash groaned in mock disappointment.

“At this time, we would like to ask that you make sure your seat backs are forward, and if you can maintain that position for the duration of our flight, I’m sure the Equestrian Pornography Industry Coalition would be very interested in speaking with you about a possible career change.” I took the opportunity to aim my own pointed gaze at Dash.

This quip was mostly met with hooves striking faces, but I also noticed most of the bodies connected to those faces were quaking with barely-suppressed mirth. Most tellingly, the only one who openly approved of it was a certain sky-blue pegasus who had already demonstrated an appreciation for dirty jokes.

A jolt and the brief feeling of my gut trying to exit via my ass told me that we were airborne. With a flight back on Earth, the safety demonstration would already be done at this point, but I was on a roll, so I decided to keep going. I took a moment to consider my next move. I needed an assistant for this part, and the only one who might be capable of pulling it off was Pinkie Pie. As much as I hated to admit it, the mare was quite adept at pulling random junk out of nowhere.

I gave her a questioning glance that served as a silent plea for help, and she nodded enthusiastically. And so, with a relieved smile, I picked up where I left off:

“My fellow flight attendant, Pinkie Pie, who I’m told moonlights as a living antidepressant, will now help me demonstrate the safety features of this Type Sixty-Nine Rickshaw ‒” Rainbow Dash snorted a laugh at the number “‒ which are also listed in the safety information card located in the pocket by the door, along with used diapers, old chewing gum, four days concentrated rations, one issue of prophylactics, three sticks of lipstick, and three pairs of nylon stockings. Let me tell you, someone could have a pretty good weekend in Las Pegasus with all of that stuff.”

I was pretty sure Pinkie got more of a laugh out of our audience on that one with all the random crap she was pulling out of hammerspace, but they can’t all be winners.

“The safety information card is written with simple-to-understand graphics so that even an illiterate fool like me can understand it. And if I can understand it, you can too, so please, for the love of Celestia, at least give it a once-over after I’m done talking at you.”

My self-deprecating humor was met with good-natured chuckles, some of which came from a surprising source ‒ Faran.

“For your safety, we recommend that your seat belt be worn at all times. The seatbelts on this aircraft are so easy to use, a caveman could do it. All you have to do is ‒” I looked over to see that Pinkie had managed to tie herself in knots with the demonstration seat belt “‒ the exact opposite of what Pinkie just did.”

In the blink of an eye, Pinkie had managed to disentangle herself and get the demo belt buckled properly. “That’s better, Pinkie,” I said.

The pink mare bowed, and our audience laughed and clapped their forehooves together, which was the best they could do in the cramped quarters.

I continued with the safety lecture. “In the event of an emergency, the doors on either side of the aircraft will allow you to exit in as much of a panic as comes naturally with such a situation. I would say that we also have two exits over the wings, but I’m sure that our pilot and co-pilot would have objections to their use.”

Everyone groaned at the horrible joke, but Dash and Fluttershy in particular shuddered at the implications. Undeterred, I pressed on.

“As this aircraft is not designed for travel above ten thousand feet, it does not come with a pressurized cabin. However, in the unlikely event that Discord breaks free of his stone prison and teleports us into low orbit, we are equipped with oxygen masks that will drop from an overhead compartment. Once you have finished screaming your lungs out, you may start the flow of oxygen through the mask by pulling it towards you.

“Place the mask firmly over your muzzle and secure it to your head with the elastic straps first before assisting any children, or any adults acting like children. Please note that while the plastic bag does not inflate, you are receiving the Surgeon General’s Recommended Daily Allowance of oxygen, so continue to breathe as normally as possible while enduring an uncontrolled dive at terminal velocity.”

For some reason, this section of my routine got the biggest laughs of all. If I had to guess, however, I’d say it was due to the sheer absurdity of what I was saying.

But all good things must come to an end, and so I brought the safety lecture to a close.

“Thank you for at least trying to stay awake during this safety demonstration. If there’s anything we can do to make your flight more enjoyable, please let us know at the end of the flight. If there’s anything you can do to make our flight more enjoyable, we’ll let you know immediately. We hope you have a pleasant flight, and as always, we want to thank you for choosing Equestria Airlines. Our wallets thank you for choosing Equestria Airlines, as well.”

Raucous laughter and hearty applause met the conclusion of my routine. Pinkie and I bowed graciously in acceptance of the adulation of our fellow passengers, then sat back in our seats.

“That was certainly… interesting,” Twilight said with an amused smile.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Air travel wouldn’t be as dull if more airlines let their employees do that sort of thing.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she said with a demure smile. She looked out the window for a moment before turning back to me. “We’ve got some time before we arrive in Ponyville. I’d like to review your progress on learning written Equestrian, if you don’t mind.”

“Well,” I said facetiously, with an air of one who is put-upon by the demands of social interaction, “I was going to read my copy of Moby Dick, but seeing as how that’s on the other side of the portal, I suppose I can make time for you.”

“Yes, it’s such a horrible inconvenience to let learning get in the way of low-brow entertainment,” Twilight deadpanned.

“Hey! Moby Dick’s a classic!”

We mock-glared at each other for a few moments before the tension was broken by the peals of laughter erupting from our mouths. We ignored the bemused stares of the other passengers even after the laughter had petered out.

“Seriously, though,” Twilight said, holding up a stack of cards in her telekinetic aura. “It wouldn’t hurt to review what you know so that I know how best to help you become literate again.”

I let out a resigned sigh. “Okay, Twilight, you win.”

“Excellent! Now, let’s begin…”

“Okay, try this one.” Yet another card bearing a glyph from the Equestrian alphabet floated in front of me, glowing magenta in Twilight’s telekinetic aura. We had been doing this almost nonstop the whole trip, with the notable exception of a five minute break so that I could look out the window and take in the scenery as it flashed by around us. A fog had invaded my brain, turning it into mush as I tried to make sense of the symbol in front of me.

“Umm… sh as in sure?” I guessed, adjusting my glasses nervously with one hand and massaging my forehead with the other.

“No, that would be if it looked like this.” Twilight rotated the card a half turn. “When it’s like this ‒” she flipped the card back to its original orientation “‒ it represents the sound zh, as in measure.”

A mixture of fatigue and frustration left me in a hiss of escaping air. “I can already see that this is going to take much longer than I’d like.” My right hand reached up under my glasses, and my fingers gently worked the tension out of my forehead. “While it may be logical to make the symbol for a hard consonant look similar to its soft counterpart, it sure makes the learning curve that much steeper.”

“Well, you’ve only been at this for two days,” Twilight replied. “You can’t expect to be an instant expert.”

“No, but I also didn’t have this much trouble starting off, either. I think I need a break to clear my head.”

Twilight fixed me with a dubious stare. “But you just had a break ten minutes ago. Surely your head’s clear enough.”

“Perhaps it’s best that you leave him be, Miss Sparkle,” Faran’s steady voice broke in. She still had her muzzle buried in the book she was reading. “I can tell he’s getting agitated. Pressing him further on this matter won’t help you.”

“Besides,” she added, looking up from her book at last and fixing me with a penetrating gaze, “I do not think that a literacy issue is behind your anxiety, is it, Mister Knox?”

I looked at Faran strangely for a moment. Questions raced through my brain. How did she know what I was feeling? I mean, sure, we’ve been around one another on a regular basis since I got here, but that was only a week ago! That couldn’t be enough time for her to be able to read me that well, could it?

I let out a heavy sigh. “No, it’s not. I’ve been thinking about what happened at the Institute ever since this morning. It’s one thing to insult academics who I’ll probably never see again, but I’m going to be facing ponies who are going to be my neighbors for the foreseeable future. I’d rather not give them cause to hate me if I can help it.”

That, and I’m not sure I could save myself by taking myself hostage if things go badly, I thought.

“I kind of know how you feel,” Fluttershy said with a sympathetic smile. “I get really nervous around new ponies, too.”

“But as long as you act the same way around them as you do around us, you’ve got nothin’ to worry about,” Applejack added, giving me a friendly jab with her hoof.

“I suppose,” I said dubiously.

Twilight looked like she was going to say something, but then a familiar gut-wrenching lurch of the carriage brought everyone’s attention to the windows. “We’re almost there,” she said finally. “Looks like we’re starting final approach to Ponyville.”

Leaning past Twilight, I gazed out the window at the landscape before us. The small, but substantial rural village I’d seen from the archivist’s private residence now loomed large before me. The center of the town was dominated by a large, circular wooden building in the middle of a wide-open field. Most of the buildings that we were flying over were relatively nondescript residential homes.

Beyond the central building, a stream ran through the middle of town, crossed by several bridges that led to a modest commercial district, judging from the looks of the buildings. Several large parks, along with another, less substantial residential district stood watch over the marketplace in an uneasy truce. To our left, another large tower stood at the edge of the open area ‒ a veritable hive of activity with many pegasi flying to and from it on their appointed rounds.

“That’s the main weather patrol station in Ponyville,” Rainbow Dash said, following my gaze.

Twilight then pointed at the other building dominating Ponyville’s skyline. “And that’s Town Hall, where we’ll be introducing you to the citizens of Ponyville. They’ll also be hosting the New Year’s Eve party later tonight.”

We began a lazy circle around the central edifice during our descent. As we got closer, I could see some of the signs of a government building in the architecture ‒ bland, but expensive-looking marble artwork along the outer walls; flags depicting two rearing ponies in silhouette surrounding a pink heart on a yellow background hung at regular intervals; well-dressed ponies wearing the bored gazes of world-weary bureaucrats coming and going in a trance-like state. Even with the brightly painted woodwork, the place practically screamed, “Official officiousness inside: abandon all hope, ye who enter.”

Our carriage glided to a smooth stop in front of what appeared to be a back entrance to the building. The chariot that had borne Princess Celestia was parked nearby, empty. I could only assume that this meant she was already inside.

Barely a minute passed before the carriage doors opened to reveal our pilot and co-pilot urging us to exit in an orderly fashion.

“We’re here,” was all Twilight said before complying with the guard’s request.

Ducking my head to avoid getting a concussion from the doorframe, I exited the carriage and joined the others by the service entrance to Town Hall, where the doors lit up in gray hues and opened automatically to reveal two unicorn guards whose horns were similarly glowing. With an appreciative nod to the guards, I followed everyone else inside.

The interior of Town Hall was lit by gas lanterns that gave off a bright yellow glow, creating a surprisingly warm and inviting atmosphere for a government building. The atmosphere wasn’t doing much for my mood, however, as my mind was still running worst case scenarios as we turned down a hall into a backstage area. I barely heard Twilight mentioning something about how Town Hall doubled as a performing arts venue from time to time, especially on national holidays like Hearth’s Warming Eve.

We had just entered the backstage area when a loud rumbling that sounded like a herd of elephants rampaging through a forest burst forth. Moments later, I could hear Princess Celestia’s muffled voice raining what were no doubt well-rehearsed platitudes on the audience.

As she continued to speak ‒ and get enthusiastic applause from the audience ‒ a thought occurred to me. The moment of truth had just arrived, and I hadn’t even had the opportunity to work up a good stomachache. These ponies had managed to keep me distracted long enough that I didn’t have a plausible excuse to get out of this. I had no choice but to get out there and face the music.

Princess Celestia’s voice rang out like a church bell as she reached the end of her introduction, and the crowd once more fell into enthusiastic applause as the wing curtain parted in a golden glow. The ruler of Equestria was now looking at me expectantly. I knew what I needed to do, but for some reason the signal my brain was sending to move my feet wasn’t reaching its intended destination ‒ I was immobilized by panic. My heart raced, and I was sweating bullets.

A few moments passed, and I suddenly felt a tingling sensation all over my body as my vision took on a magenta tint. Before I could even brace myself for impact, I found myself being shoved forward by an intangible force. I stumbled forward several steps, pinwheeling my arms in a desperate attempt to regain my balance.

I ultimately failed near center stage: my right shoe stopped, but the rest of me didn’t. Somehow, I managed to summon up enough presence of mind to perform a judo-style breakfall, landing on my forearms and toes.

Some in the crowd had gasped in concern when I fell, but this turned into a smattering of polite applause as I pulled myself to my feet, undamaged.

I let out a slightly embarrassed huff. “I meant to do that,” I said, which earned a laugh from the audience. The theater was packed with ponies, to the point that many pegasi were hovering in place above the crowd.

As I looked over the audience, a microphone floated to me in a golden aura that matched the glow from Princess Celestia’s horn. If nothing else, the wingbeats of these pegasi might serve as a passable substitute for air conditioning, I thought as I plucked the microphone from the telekinetic field that had delivered it to me.

After a brief mic test, and briefly wincing at one instance of feedback, I picked up where I left off. “Well, I suppose if all else fails, I could do standup comedy. I’d call my first tour Pratfalls Across Equestria.”

Light, sympathetic laughter bubbled forth in response.

“Unfortunately,” I said in an attempt to get back on track, “I don’t have a prepared statement or anything like that to bore you with. I mean, I didn’t exactly expect to suddenly find myself on an alien world when I went to bed about eleven nights ago. If you’ll pardon the expression, I’m just going to have to wing it.”

I got a few polite chuckles from the assembled unicorns and earth ponies, and more than a few groans and facehoofs from the pegasi for that.

“Anyway, as you probably know, my name is Derren Knox, and I’m basically going to be your new neighbor. I’m a human who comes from a planet called Earth ‒ specifically, a country known to my people as the United States of America.” I was uncertain of what to say next, and looked to Princess Celestia for advice.

“I’ve already told them most of what we know about you,” she said.

“Oh,” I said lamely. “Well, umm, I can’t really think of too much else to add, so I guess we can move on the next order of business.”

The next order of business turned out to be a Q & A session. Two microphone stands had been set up in the aisles for ponies to line up behind. There were two important stipulations presented to the audience. The first was that no question would be off limits, unless I declined to answer. The other was that in order to help me assimilate into the community, each pony who wanted to ask a question had to introduce themselves first.

A trio of fillies ‒ a unicorn with a white coat and two-tone purple and pink mane and tail, an orange pegasus with a windblown purple mane and tail, and a yellow earth pony with a red mane decorated with an almost equally red bow ‒ had somehow managed to muscle their way to the front of the line to ask the first question. Their earnest excitement at getting to ask a question was almost diabetes-inducing in its adorableness.

“Wow, someone’s eager,” I quipped, garnering amused chuckles from the audience. “What are your names, girls?”

One of the ushers ‒ a gray unicorn stallion whose purple mane and tail were both cropped short ‒ seized the nearby audience mic in a green telekinetic field and moved it so that it was floating in front of the fillies.

The earth pony spoke first, in an accent similar to Applejack’s. “I’m Apple Bloom.”

The unicorn followed up next. “I’m Sweetie Belle.”

Finally, it was the pegasus’s turn. “And I’m Scootaloo.”

Just when I thought they were done with their little introduction, they turned the volume up to eleven.

“AND WE’RE THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!” they shouted into the microphone, causing ear-piercing feedback that I was sure came close to shorting it out. They also managed to shatter some of the glass near the ceiling (which, thankfully, failed to hit anyone). If car alarms existed in Equestria, they probably would’ve set a few of them off, as well.

It took slightly longer to recover from the girls’ rather enthusiastic outburst than it did from Pinkie’s “hoofball referee” antics the week before. Once I was certain that I wasn’t about to go permanently deaf, I gave them a gentle smile.

Based on the trio’s (most likely self-given) nickname and flanks that were vacant of any magical tramp stamps, it was fairly easy to see where this line of questioning was going. Despite that, I didn’t have it in me to deny the earnest inquiries of innocent minds. I decided to bite.

“So, what’s your question, girls?”

The yellow filly, Apple Bloom, seemed to be the group’s spokesperson, as she took the microphone in hoof and squared her withers. “Do hoomins get cutie marks as well?”

A ripple of polite chuckles washed over the audience. I couldn’t help but join in on the chuckles and give a slightly amused shake of my head.

“No, I’m afraid that humans don’t get cutie marks. Unfortunately for some of us, Earth lacks the kind of magic that exists here in Equestria. We usually learn what we’re good at by trial and error.”

Belatedly, I recalled that Rarity had said that her sister was named Sweetie Belle. Could these three be the fillies that Rarity and Applejack mentioned with a mixture of sisterly love and aggravation? Simple curiosity dictated the next words out of my mouth.

“Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle ‒ I take it you two are the little sisters Rarity and Applejack have told me so much about?”

The two ponies ducked their heads and flattened their ears in a crestfallen expression as a blush stained their respective cheeks. Between that and a smattering of rueful smiles and rolled eyes in the audience, it was easy to see that not only were my suspicions about the fillies’ familial relations correct, but also that the trio had gained no small amount of notoriety in town for their antics.

Kids will be kids, no matter the world, I guess.

I favored them with a sympathetic smile. “I realize I’m new in town, and I’m probably the last person to go to for advice, since as I said, humans don’t get cutie marks. But if I could offer a suggestion, it would be this: think of maybe five or ten things that you love to do most ‒ things you have a passion for. Then, figure out which of those five or ten things you are really good at. I can’t guarantee that it will work, but it’ll probably at least put you on the right path to getting your cutie mark.”

The three fillies mulled my words over for a bit. “Worth a shot, I suppose,” Apple Bloom replied in a slightly deflated, yet determined tone. She turned around and began to walk back to her seat, her friends following close behind.

At the other microphone stand, a hot pink mare stood waiting for our attention to turn to her. Her honey blonde mane and tail cascaded down her body in curly waves, while her flank bore an image of a pair of ripe cherries.

When prompted, the mare introduced herself. “Um, yes. I’m Cherry Berry. I mostly run a small cherry orchard, but I also like to do some tinkering in my spare time. I was wondering if you’ve done any tinkering of your own, and if you have, what sort of gadgets you’ve created.”

I took a deep breath to think about it and ran my hand through my hair. On the one hand, a completely truthful answer would be a bit of a letdown, and on the other, it would be hypocritical of me to play Wow The Primitive Local With My Technological Wizardry ‒ especially after what happened at the Institute. I was going to have to thread a very thin needle if I wanted to answer her question adequately.

“Well,” I said, voice slightly trembling with hesitation and uncertainty, “I personally haven’t done any particular tinkering ‒ I’m not creative enough, unfortunately. However, I can tell you a little bit about what my species has managed to accomplish, if you wish.”

“Sure, why not?” she replied with a gentle smile.

I cleared my throat to buy a few more precious milliseconds with which to organize my thoughts. “While humans don’t have magic the way ponies do, one of our defining characteristics is an almost insatiable curiosity ‒ whether it’s figuring out how something works, or just finding out what’s over the next hill. Because of that curiosity, we’ve been able to compensate for our lack of magic with advanced technology that at times can almost seem magical. During the week I spent in Canterlot, I learned that you’ve started to use electricity to light up homes in larger cities like Manehatten. We’ve gone quite a bit further than that ‒ we’ve used it to create devices the size of a clipboard that can store every word written in the Canterlot Archives with room to spare, and to develop communications networks capable of letting you talk to someone on the other side of the world as if they were in the same room.”

I smiled slightly to myself as I unloaded the biggest bombshell. “We even sent people to the moon ‒ not as punishment, but out of that simple curiosity that drives much of what we do.”

Looking out over the crowd, I could tell from the sea of slack-jawed faces that I may have overdone it a little. It was time to dial things back a bit.

“But for all of our technological wizardry, I’ve seen ponies do things in the last week that would be either outright impossible, or horrendously infeasible back home. I guess some things are more easily done with magic, while others are more easily done with my world’s technology. When I look at the wonders your world has to offer, I can’t help but be struck with awe. And while my meager words and thoughts couldn’t do it justice, the things we could do if we combined the best of both worlds would stagger the minds of even the most imaginative.”

A moment of silence reigned before the rumbling of hundreds of sets of hooves stomping the floor rattled the theater like an earthquake. If this is what a standing ovation is like for ponies, I thought, then I did an adequate job with my answer.

At the microphone stand that Apple Bloom and her friends had occupied earlier, the next pony was already in position and waiting to ask me a question. The mare’s cream coat shone dully in the afternoon light pouring through the windows near the ceiling, highlighting her cutie mark ‒ a trio of wrapped candies. Her voluminous, curly mane and tail came in two colors: a deep blue that was within a few shades of Princess Luna’s coat, and a bright fuchsia. A flame-colored flower that was perched neatly in her mane near her right ear set off her ice blue eyes that looked at me expectantly.

A shaft of sunlight caught hold of the flower, causing it to glimmer like a warm flame, and for a moment, I thought that her mane had actually caught fire. She then stepped out of the sunbeam, showing that the flower was still there and that her mane was fully intact.

She also appeared to be somewhat apprehensive when I locked eyes with her. I attributed it to millions of years of prey instincts about not catching the attention of a predator, and shifted my gaze slightly to try to ease her mind.

“Yes? I believe you had a question, Miss…?”

“Bon Bon,” the mare replied. “And I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about your world.”

“My world, eh?” I parroted. She gave a hesitant nod, and I couldn’t help but crack a small grin. “Any particular reason? Not that I mind you asking ‒ just curious is all.”

“Oh, no particular reason,” Bon Bon replied, biting her lower lip and flattening her ears with a touch of nervousness. “Just curious is all.”

I chuckled and gave a rueful shake of my head at having my words thrown back at me. “Fair enough. Is there anything in particular you’d like to know? I mean, I could tell you that about seventy-one percent of the planet’s surface is covered by water, or that there are seven continents, but I get the feeling that you don’t want bland statistics.”

“Just everyday life would be fine.”

“Ah. Well, I suppose I could tell you about my life back home to give you some small idea of what it’s like to live on Earth.”

“That would be nice,” Bon Bon said with a shy smile.

“I had the fortune of being born in one of the richest, most powerful countries on the planet, so my experience may not be representative of the average human’s lifestyle. Even when times got a little hard, we never really went without. I grew up in one of the warmer parts of the country, so having snow every winter is a relatively new experience for me.” I received a few polite chuckles from the audience in response.

“I grew up in one of the smaller cities on Earth. If you included all the suburbs and outlying residential areas, it probably had a little over one million people.”

Gasps arose at that. “Wow,” Bon Bon replied, “That’s quite a lot. How many humans are there altogether?”

“At last count, about seven billion.”

It may be cliche, but one could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.

“As you might imagine,” I said in attempt to disperse the awkward atmosphere, “it can be pretty challenging to have that many people living together on one tiny mudball in the infinite void of space. I won’t lie to you: we’ve had more than our fair share of internecine conflict, much like the three pony tribes prior to Unification. But I still fervently believe that at the end of the day, all of us ‒ pony and human alike ‒ want the same thing: to have a little space for ourselves where we can safely raise a family; to have a good job that we love doing; and the freedom to pursue our own happiness ‒ however we define it.”

Again, the speech was received to thunderous applause. I looked back at Princess Celestia, and we locked eyes for a moment before she gave a satisfied nod.

The rest of the audience participation portion of the program proceeded in a similar fashion. Among the questions that stood out were one from a purple earth pony mare named Cheerilee, who introduced herself as the local school teacher and asked about education on Earth, and a respectful, but concerned inquiry from a caramel-colored, bespectacled unicorn stallion named Doctor Stable about whether or not the doctors in Canterlot had detected any diseases that I might have accidentally imported from Earth.

For Cheerilee, I gave a basic outline of what good old-fashioned American education was like, interspersed with a few amusing anecdotes. I didn’t have time to tell her all the crazy stories of my formative years, unfortunately, but she seemed more than happy to hear the ones that I did tell.

Doctor Stable’s question was a bit trickier to answer. At Celestia and Luna’s request, I couldn’t tell him every detail of my arrival, as only Faran and Silverclaw ‒ my physicians of record ‒ had the appropriate security clearances to know the full story. I kept my answer intentionally vague, saying that due to “special circumstances,” I could guarantee that nothing harmful had made it through the portal from Earth. Judging from his slightly sour expression, it seemed that he wasn’t fully satisfied with my answer, but with assurances from Princess Celestia that there wouldn’t be any sudden outbreaks of “monkey flu” ‒ my words, not hers ‒ he was willing to leave it at that.

The only other part of the question and answer session worth noting was a discussion about food ‒ specifically, my favorite foods. I listed off a few items, but when I got to quesadillas, a nervous-sounding whicker drew my attention offstage, and I caught a glimpse of Twilight shuddering and then trying to make herself as small as possible.

Only sparing a moment to give her a concerned look and a disbelieving shake of my head, I put Twilight’s unusual behavior out of my mind and focused once more on answering questions.

By the time the whole welcome ceremony was over, it was half-past two in the afternoon. Twilight and her friends came on stage for a few minutes to talk about what they would be doing to help me get settled, and Princess Celestia and the mayor gave a few closing remarks. The theater was rocked once more by a 0.4 magnitude quake ‒ by my rough estimation ‒ as the ponies once more broke into a standing ovation. Other than a brief photo op with the local newspaper, my official welcome to Equestria was finally over.

All that remained was the “unofficial welcome” in the form of the New Year’s Eve party in the evening.

Author's Note

There is one major thing I wanted to discuss about this chapter. You may have noticed Nurse Faran occasionally speaking in a foreign language. This is a conscious choice on my part: Faran is from Capallia, the pony version of Ireland. As such, she tends to revert to "Pony Gaelic" in certain stressful situations, which Derren has a habit of creating through no fault of his own (mostly :twilightsmile: ), which should become evident in future chapters.

I've resorted to using Google Translate (despite its limitations) to write Faran's "Capallian" dialogue, but if anyone who actually knows Gaelic (especially the Irish variety) and wants to help me improve my translations, feel free to send me a PM with suggestions.

That said, here were the English versions of the lines before and after they went through the sausage factory that is Google Translate:

1) "At least I got a reaction out of you." = “Ar a laghad Fuair mé imoibriú as duit.”
2) "Merciful Luna, you are an idiot sometimes." = “Trócaireach Luna, tá tú ar leathcheann uaireanta.”

One last thing. During early development of this chapter, Pusspuss and I were talking on Skype when I noticed that Derren's name rhymes with Faran's. Upon pointing it out, the two of us quickly developed the following little poem, which he dared me to put in the Author's Notes here:

Faran rhymes with Derren
And all the pussy he’ll be tearin’.
He’d better hope those pussies are barren,
Or it’s his foals they’ll be bearin’.
Talk about “sharin’ and carin’.”

Chapter Three-B - Brave New World (Part Two)

It took us a bit longer than anticipated to exit Town Hall once the formalities were over, as we were periodically waylaid by small clusters of ponies. Most of them stopped us to have a few words with Twilight and her friends, but every now and then, one would come up to talk to me ‒ especially those who had wanted to ask a question but didn’t get a chance to during the performance.

Ten minutes had passed before we were able to extricate ourselves from the final group and emerge from Town Hall, blinking rapidly as our eyes adjusted to seeing natural light once more. Princess Celestia’s escort and the carriage that had brought us here were already taking off for the return flight to Canterlot. Thankfully, our pilot and co-pilot had been generous enough to unload our luggage while I was faffing about on stage. Everyone else had errands to run before the party, so we parted ways after agreeing to meet up at the library a half hour before the party was scheduled to begin.

Celestia had arranged for Faran to stay in a rental home on the northeast side of town, not far from the hospital where she’d be working when not tending to my medical needs. Most of her personal belongings had already been moved into the house, while the remaining items were in the process of being shipped to her new home. Twilight had “volunteered” the two of us to escort Faran ‒ over the nurse’s objections ‒ to her place before swinging back towards the library that I’d be calling “home” for the time being.

Before we set out, I picked up the suitcase containing all my worldly possessions ‒ a week’s supply of clothes. The three of us walked in silence ‒ or rather, I walked in silence a few feet behind Twilight and Faran, who were engaged in idle conversation as we traversed one of the dirt roads leading away from downtown Ponyville.

During the journey, I retreated into my own thoughts, barely paying any attention to what was going on around me. While the citizens of Ponyville had certainly given me a warmer welcome than I had any right to expect, just seeing so many alien equines in one place brought back the same depressing feeling of “being on the outside looking in” that had caused me to run out on Twilight and her friends during the castle tour. In a very real sense, I thought, I kind of feel like a cosmic castaway.

As if the multiverse had a sick sense of comedic timing, I was suddenly reminded of a song from the soundtrack of an exceedingly average animated science fiction movie starring Prince Lone Starr, Jason Bourne, Luigi Mario, and Gertie from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Even more oddly, the song itself started playing in my head on that same obscurely peculiar psychic radio station that had been playing when I first regained consciousness about a week ago.

Lose my head to the chemical freeway
Comin’ up on overload
In a mystic new dimension
Purify and sanctify me
What, so I’m in no endgame
Move my piece right off the board
Losing sure is easy
So I am no more

But I’m not broken
In my dream I win
In here I’m nothing
A cosmic castaway

I began to lose myself in the song, no longer caring where we were going, or even if I was still with Twilight and Faran. The only thing that I was certain of was that I was still walking forward ‒ a task that was made more difficult by the strange images that began appearing before my eyes.

Some of them were eerily familiar, such as the time I narrowly avoided setting a neighbor’s car on fire with a misaimed Roman candle one Fourth of July with my high school buddies. Others ‒ a red and yellow sun sigil with the core done in the style of a yin-yang, for instance ‒ seemed like they should’ve been familiar, but for the life of me, I couldn’t quite place them.

And as the song progressed, the images got more and more ridiculous. I mean, Twilight gaining wings and becoming a princess like Celestia, Luna, and Cadance? In what universe is that even possible?

But before the images could get any more ridiculous ‒ or disturbing, given some of the visuals that played across my mental movie screen ‒ I suddenly found myself confronted by a veritable wall of outstretched hooves. Two of those hooves ‒ one lavender, and one a mixture of brown and white ‒ turned out to be all too real.

Reality reasserted itself with a pair of solid thwacks ‒ one in the solar plexus, and one in the sternum ‒ as I ran into Twilight and Faran’s forelegs. Blinking, I shook my head to clear it of the unusual hallucination. It was then that I noticed my companions giving me concerned looks.

“What?” I asked out of sheer stupefaction.

“Are you alright?” Twilight asked in a concerned tone.

“Umm, maybe?” was the only reply I could think of.

Faran frowned, her expression and tone of voice morphing into something resembling genuine concern for my wellbeing. “You certainly didn’t act alright. Miss Sparkle had to use her magic at least three times to keep you from unwittingly bumping into anypony. It was like you were off in your own little world.”

“Maybe I was,” I murmured uncertainly. “I kind of got lost in my own thoughts and started… seeing things.”

“Seeing things?” Faran parroted skeptically. “Like somepony slipped you a Whickering Stallion?”

“If that’s pony slang for drugging me, then yeah. Only thing is, most of the hallucinations seemed at least somewhat grounded in reality. And I doubt anyone drugged me. I don’t think I’ve honked anyone off that badly yet.”

“Hmm,” Twilight said, puzzlement written on her face and a hoof touching her chin in a contemplative manner.

“Did anything unusual happen while I was being a space case?” I asked.

“Well, you were… singing,” Twilight said.

“Singing?”

The two mares nodded in unison. “Something about the fifth dimension and not being a loser. I couldn’t make much sense of it,” Faran said, a ferret-like grin working its way onto her muzzle.

“That’s about as far as you got before we stopped you,” Twilight added, casting an unreadable gaze at Faran. “What was it about?”

“Oh, that,” I said blandly. “It’s from a movie back home.” From what they’d said, I hadn’t gotten to the part about “beating the alien,” and for that, I was eternally grateful.

“I see. Must be one of those artsy films that nopony can figure out,” Faran said in a deadpan tone.

“Be nice,” Twilight murmured.

I simply rolled my eyes in response. “So, are you two going to figure out what happened to me, or would you prefer to continue wallowing in Schadenfreude?”

“Schadenfreude, Mister Knox?” Faran replied, “I’ll have you know that I don’t wallow in Schadenfreude.”

“Now that I think about it, that’s true.”

Faran smirked.

“You actually revel in it.”

Faran’s eyes widened in shock and outrage. She opened her mouth as if to retort, but was cut off by a sharp shout from the other member of our group.

“Hold it!” Twilight interjected, burying her face in a hoof. “Do you two always go at it like this?” she groaned, “Just start yowling and sort of make it up as you go along?”

“Yowling?” Faran yowled indignantly, her voice climbing an octave as she did so.

“It’s not always yowling,” I helpfully added, flashing Faran an evil smile, “Sometimes it’s screeching. I much prefer that. I can work with screeching, at least.”

This time, it was Faran’s turn to press a hoof to her forehead. “Trócaireach Luna, ach amháin dom ó greannú seo,” she muttered in a barely audible tone. She then fixed me with a cold stare. “So, do you want a diagnosis, or would you rather sit around making smart remarks?”

“Sit around making smart remarks,” I quipped, sticking my tongue out at her. She let out an irritated-sounding whicker in response, and I held up my hands in a placating gesture. “I was just kidding, Faran. Geez. No need to make a Capallian spectacle of yourself.”

Faran visibly struggled to regain her composure, letting out a heavy sigh and massaging her temples with a hoof. “Fine,” she said primly, “but you’re going to need to provide more information. Miss Sparkle and I still don’t have enough to go on in order to figure out what might be happening.”

I thought back to my trippy mental vacation for a moment. “Well, there was one other thing that struck me as odd,” I said. I then balked slightly upon noticing Twilight holding her ever-present clipboard and quill in her telekinetic aura.

Blinking rapidly, I did a brief shake of my head to reboot my brain. “What’s odd ‒ and this isn’t the first time this has happened, by the way… What’s odd is that while I was off in lala land, I heard the music of the song. I still don’t know how I could tell this, but it didn’t seem to be coming from my own thoughts and memories. More like it was coming in on some sort of otherworldly radio receiver in my head.”

“Radio receiver?” Twilight asked with a quizzical tilt of her head and an equally quizzical expression on her face ‒ one that Faran seemed to be matching.

“Human communications technology,” I stated simply. “We can use radio waves to transmit sound over long distances to specialized electronic devices that then play back the sound waves. I’m probably over-simplifying a bit, but that’s the basic idea.”

“Oh,” Twilight said blandly. She and Faran then shared a look. “When was the first time you experienced this phenomenon?” Faran asked.

“About a week ago, right before I first regained consciousness.”

The two mares took a few steps back and started conferring in heated whispers, with Twilight’s hoof blocking me from reading their lip movements. After a few moments, they shared a nod and approached me once more.

“Well, Derren,” Twilight said, “We think we know what’s going on, but there are a few things about what you’ve told us that don’t quite make sense, so we can’t say for certain without more information. If it happens again, be sure to let us know.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Is there anything useful you can tell me?”

“Well,” Twilight said, somewhat hesitantly, “while it’s probably vastly different from anything you’ve ever experienced, I can assure you that it’s a perfectly normal part of life in Equestria.”

“Why does that not reassure me?”

Faran gave me a weak smile. “I know it can be hard to believe, especially in a case like this.” Her ears folded back, and her smile faltered. “There’s no easy way but to just give it to you straight. We think that you may have had your first experience ‒ or rather, your first conscious experience ‒ with the Music of Harmony.”

“The Music of Harmony?” I parroted irritably. “What the hell is that?”

“It means that harmony isn’t just an abstract concept here in Equestria,” Twilight supplied. “In addition to the planet’s primary thaumic field ‒ which unicorns can access for their magical abilities ‒ there’s a secondary field as well. This one seems to have a will of its own, perhaps even a consciousness ‒ but if it is conscious, it’s on a level beyond that of mere mortals.”

I tried to ignore the part about thaumic fields, as the technical details were most likely way above my pay grade. Instead, I focused my skepticism on the implications of Twilight’s statement. “You mean the planet is alive?”

“Not in the same way you or I would perceive it. In fact, we don’t really know a whole lot about it, other than it seems to have a will of its own.”

“So, now you’re saying this planetary will, as it were, is divine, like a god or goddess,” I said, nonplussed.

“Again, not in the normal way you or I would define it ‒ though some pre-Unification pony cultures did worship it as such.” Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof as a thoughtful expression descended upon her facial features, evidently trying to find a good way to word her explanation.

Eventually, she found the words she was looking for, and faced me with that professorial stance she tended to use when sharing her knowledge. “What little we know about it comes from the notes of Starswirl the Bearded. In addition to having a connection to the Elements of Harmony of some sort, this secondary thaumic field ‒ which is known as the Harmonic Magic Field ‒ is also responsible for what we call the Music of Harmony. This latter phenomenon is the reason why ponies spontaneously break out into song and dance routines seemingly at random.”

“You’re… kidding, right?”

Twilight shook her head.

I stared bug-eyed at Twilight and Faran for a few moments on the verge of hyperventilating before carefully bringing my breathing under control. “Of all the weird planets in all the universes in all the multiverse, why did I have to land on the one that operates like a goddamned musical?” I shouted, throwing my arms in the air in an overly-dramatic fashion that I was sure Rarity would approve of.

Exchanging another look, Twilight and Faran both approached me carefully, only to be forced to take a partial step back, forelegs poised in midair as my rant continued.

“I mean, what’s next? Are ponies suddenly going to start singing about my problems?”

Sure enough, as if on cue, the psychic radio station in my brain crackled to life again, this time with a tune I didn’t recognize. I stood there in mute horror as the disconcertingly upbeat melody continued. To top it all off, random ponies passing by were indeed singing about the trials and tribulations I’d endured in the past week.

At the climax of the song, a lilac pegasus mare with a purple bow adorning her teal-gray mane pirouetted gracefully through the sky as she sang, “And now he’s citing Casablanca!”

Rainbow Dash, in a display of uncanny timing, flew through a cloud at that moment, bursting it into rapidly-dissipating vaporous chunks as she replied with a half-spoken, half-sung, “What the hay is Casablanca?”

From among the chorus of gathered ponies, all the mares sang as one: “He thinks this world is crazy!”

The stallions in the group followed suit: “He thinks he’s going mad!”

The entire group then finished as one with a flourish:

But it’s really (Really!)
Really! (Really!)
Not thaaat baaaaaad!

The instant ethereal music cut off, I finished my recovery from my mental blue screen of death, and was finally able to form coherent thoughts again. The first thing I did was to slap a palm to my forehead so hard that the sound echoed over the semi-crowded street.

“I just had to go and open my piehole, didn’t I?” I groused.

“Well, maybe you should avoid tempting fate like that, Mister Knox,” Faran said. Her muzzle crinkled almost adorably, and her emerald eyes were twinkling with barely-suppressed mirth. I gritted my teeth and groaned at the acidic sniping. It was one aspect of Faran’s personality that I was quickly getting fed up with.

“So, umm, yeah… That’s the Music of Harmony in action,” Twilight said lamely, making an already awkward situation even more awkward. After a moment, she looked me up and down, as if searching for something.

I smiled weakly at her. “I believe this is the part where I ask if you’re seeing anything you like.”

“Ha. Funny,” she said flatly. “Actually, there’s a couple of things that puzzle me about your experiences with the Music of Harmony.”

“Yeah, well that makes two of us.”

“This is serious, Mister Knox,” Faran interjected, the expression on her face deadly serious. “I’d suggest you pay attention to what Miss Sparkle has to say.”

I made a rude noise with my mouth before letting out a long breath to steady myself. “Fine. Lay it on me, Twilight.”

“Well, the fact that you were having hallucinations seems fairly anomalous, since there’s never been a case of that sort of thing happening in any of the thousands of events involving the Music of Harmony in all the time that the phenomenon has been studied. Even when griffons and minotaurs got caught up in the event, not once did they ever report the sort of hallucinations that you did.”

“Huh, wonder why that might be...” I muttered, a slight heat rising in my face. Some of the hallucinations had been… decidedly risque…

“However,” Twilight said, ignoring ‒ or perhaps oblivious to ‒ my utterance, “That could be because you’re not from Equis, and thus, your connection to the Harmonic Magic Field may be a little…” She paused as her face fell into a troubled frown, seeming to have trouble finding the right word.

“Glitchy? Buggy?” I was spitballing. I didn’t even know if she understood the terms.

“I’m sorry, I’m not following what you’re trying to say.”

Figures, I thought. “Human technical jargon, Twilight. Put bluntly, it refers to unexpected ‒ and often undesirable ‒ behavior from our electronic devices, usually due to a logic error on the creator’s part.”

Twilight’s eyes brightened in a sudden epiphany. “Oh, kind of like that one time when Spike and I were trying to get away from a crowd that Pinkie had told about my tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, and due to pressure we were under, I inadvertently reversed the sign of the trans-spatial displacement matrix. We ended up back at the library like I’d intended, but Spike… got a little singed.”

A long pause followed. “What,” I said flatly.

Faran chuckled as she watched me scramble to reassemble my mind from the debris left by the nuclear blast of magical technobabble Twilight had dropped on me. “I think what Miss Sparkle means is that she miscalculated during a teleport due to being rushed, and Spike suffered the consequences for it.”

Twilight and I both stared at her in shock. “How did you figure that out?” Twilight asked.

The nurse gave Twilight a sly smile. “During my residency, one of my supervisors was a unicorn with a knack for explaining magical maladies in terms non-unicorns could understand. It came in handy when I got my first job at one of the most prestigious unicorn finishing schools in Capallia. Some of the more precocious fillies would try to teleport without doing the proper math.”

She chuckled again at what were likely some highly amusing memories. “Teleportation-induced first-degree burns were the least of our headaches some days. Thankfully, the mishaps tended to be more absurd than life-threatening. Never did find out where some of those socks wandered off to...”

“Sounds like you’ve had quite the storied career as a nurse,” I said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Faran replied with a knowing smile.

In the back of my mind, I was wondering why a school for unicorns would be willing to hire an earth pony as a nurse. The only thing I could come up with was that there weren’t enough unicorn nurses to go around, and Faran just happened to have the experience and skills they needed.

Twilight, meanwhile, shook her head as if denying the reality before her. “I don’t know how you two can go from sniping at each other one minute to being so friendly the next, especially since you’ve only known each other for a week.”

“I wonder that myself, sometimes,” I quipped, aiming a look at Faran. She merely rolled her eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh.

Twilight’s flat stare told us that she was nearing the limit of her tolerance for our shenanigans. “Anyway,” she said, falling back on her haunches as she looked towards me, not focusing on anything in particular, “I’m still curious about one thing. If you’re from a world that has no magic, how in Equestria were you able to connect with this planet’s Harmonic Magic Field?”

“Why are you asking me?” I demanded. “Of the three of us, I’m probably the most in the dark about how magic works.”

“I was mostly asking myself,” Twilight corrected, unable to keep a slight tenseness out of her voice. She took a breath, held it, then let it out before continuing. “I’d like to perform a few scans on you sometime, if you’d allow it.”

“Will it hurt?” I asked in a small voice, half-serious.

“Oh, good gracious, no. It won’t hurt at all!” Twilight’s hasty reply was accompanied by her ears folding back and her eyes snapping open wide. “I would never do anything to harm you. Honest!”

She spluttered out a few more panicked reassurances before getting a good look at the teasing smile on my face. “Oh, you are quite the comedian, aren’t you?” she grumbled, her tone as sour as the look Faran was shooting at me.

I merely stuck my tongue out at her playfully. “I try.”

“Anyway, would you mind if I took the scans?” Twilight was using the most devastating argument in her arsenal: puppy dog eyes that somehow looked even more adorable than they should’ve been on her equine features.

I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“I, however, would advise against it.” Faran’s pursed lips emphasized her disapproval. “At least, not by yourself.”

“I know what I’m doing, Nurse Faran,” Twilight protested, holding a foreleg up in a defensive gesture.

“That may be so,” Faran countered, “but you are not a licensed medical professional, Miss Sparkle. And I cannot in good conscience recommend this course of action without the supervision of at least one doctor and one nurse.”

“So, what do you recommend?” Twilight asked.

Faran took a deep breath of her own to gather her wits about her. “Princess Luna wants Mister Knox to come back to Canterlot at his earliest convenience to make amends with the academics that he offended earlier today. I suggest that we accompany him when he goes, and meet with Doctor Silverclaw. You can perform your scans then.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” I replied. “How about it, Twilight? Does that work for you?”

Twilight muttered inaudibly to herself for a moment before nodding. “I suppose it will have to do. It’s just that I was kind of looking forward to learning more about you, Derren. I guess I got a little carried away, huh?” She flashed a sheepish smile at me.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Twilight. I know I’d be curious if I were in your shoes. But if Nurse Faran’s asserting her authority as my health care provider in this matter, then I’d recommend heeding her advice.” I leaned in close to Twilight’s ears before adding in a hushed tone, “Trust me. It’s much less painful that way.”

Apparently, my tone wasn’t hushed enough, as Faran’s ears perked up. “And just what in the hay is that supposed to mean?” she demanded harshly.

“Umm, that you’re very convincing when you want to be?”

Faran’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Uh huh,” was all she said, in a tone that left no doubt that she didn’t believe me for a second. “Well, if there’s nothing else, I’m going inside.”

“Inside?”

“Yes,” Faran stated simply. “This is where I’m going to be staying in Ponyville.” She waved a hoof to indicate the residence in front of us.

The building in question was a sturdy two-story affair made of roughly weathered limestone and topped with a thatched roof. Though the thatching looked like it might need to be replaced once spring rolled around, the house appeared to be well-maintained to my untrained eye. The design must have been fairly uniform for this part of Equestria, as the only things distinguishing it from the rows upon rows of other nearly identical houses was a white picket fence surrounding a small vegetable garden and the number above the door: 242.

“Ah,” I said blandly.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get settled in,” Faran declared matter-of-factly. “I’ll see you both at the party tonight.”

She turned and practically marched inside. As she did so, I decided to make an attempt to end the conversation on a positive note.

“Okay, then. See you ‒” the door shut gently, but firmly, in my face “‒ later.”

Twilight and I shared a look. “Well, that went swimmingly,” I deadpanned.

Twilight merely rolled her eyes before turning and leading me back towards the center of town. Pausing just long enough to take once last glance at the front door ‒ and catching a glimpse of a roan coated flank attached to a dirty blonde tail rapidly receding from the large, curtained bay window near the front door ‒ I tightened the belt strap on the khaki trench coat that Ruby Weave had provided for me, and followed after Twilight.

The cookie-cutter houses began to give way to the more varied edifices bordering Town Square as Twilight and I walked through the streets of Ponyville side-by-side. Neither of us had been able to break the somewhat tense silence that had hung over our heads since leaving Faran’s house, and after a while, neither of us cared to try as we walked through the late December afternoon.

Late December, of course, by the human calendar. Twilight had taken great pains to teach me the Equestrian method of marking time when she and her friends visited me in Canterlot a few days previously. Aside from the index year, the only other significant difference between our two calendar systems were the names of the months.

To be fair, Twilight’s diligence made sense. After all, I’d get nothing but bemused tilts of the head from my neighbors if I referred to “Sun’s Glory” as June, for instance.

As we walked, I took in the sights around me. Here and there, pegasi flitted about, some handling clouds much like their brethren in Canterlot had, and others just enjoying the bright, sunny afternoon. The snow had been swept off the streets to provide clear, safe travel for pedestrians.

All around, the town was buzzing with a lively holiday atmosphere. Parents watched as their foals played in the snow, while the “downtown” area containing Town Square and Town Hall was awash with busy activity as ponies of all sorts were setting up an outdoor performance venue, arranging picnic tables and additional seating along the periphery, and stringing up festive decorations suitable for ringing in the new year to come.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity were directing the organized chaos ‒ or rather, Rarity was leading the decorating. Pinkie was near the stage and seemed to be lining up several identical blue cannons, each mounted on pink-rimmed wheels that had hubcaps decorated with a painting of a flower on a purple background. The two mares were able to stop long enough to give a friendly wave to Twilight and me before returning to their work.

“What’s with the cannons?” I asked.

Twilight blinked for a moment and looked back at the scene in Town Square. “Oh,” she said in a tone that suggested this sort of thing was normal, “those are Pinkie’s party cannons. Pinkie usually uses them when she needs to decorate for a party in a hurry, but for tonight, they’re going to be used to launch the traditional New Year’s fireworks display. She also used them to incapacitate several changelings during the assault on Canterlot.”

My jaw dropped at that. “She weaponized… partying?”

Twilight gave me a strange look. “I suppose you could put it that way,” she said, an uncertain waver in her voice.

I turned and looked blankly at the pink mare that was zipping around Town Square like a caffeinated hummingbird. Once my brain rebooted, I shook my head and let out a long sigh. “Is there anything that mare does that doesn’t defy logic, common sense, or basic physics?”

Twilight giggled. “I still wonder that myself sometimes. I’ve come to see it as sort of being part of her charm.” She then gave me a long look, eyes shimmering with emotion as she continued, “When I first moved to Ponyville, Pinkie was one of the last ponies I would’ve wanted to spend time with. Now, I can’t imagine my life without her ‒ or any of my friends, really.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I replied, “I’ve seen how you six are with one another.” A wistful smile came upon my face unbidden. “To be perfectly honest, I envy you a little for it.”

“Maybe this party will help you to come out of your shell a little,” Twilight said with a hopeful smile.

“Maybe,” I said dubiously.

Twilight’s face lost none of its confident expression, however. “Well, if there’s one pony I can count on to make this party worth your while, it’s Pinkie. I know she can be a little much to handle at times, but if there’s one thing she’s really good at, it’s making ponies ‒ or humans, in your case ‒ smile.”

“I wish her all the best of luck, then,” I said as we resumed our journey.

Our route took us on the westbound road away from downtown Ponyville, past an odd building shaped like a gingerbread house with a cupcake on top, which Twilight identified as Sugarcube Corner ‒ a bakery that served as both Pinkie Pie’s residence and place of employment. She also noted that Mr. and Mrs. Cake, the bakery’s owners, shared the living space with Pinkie ‒ effectively doing double duty as her landlord and employer.

As we walked past the brightly decorated bakery, a trio of unicorn foals burst forth from the entrance, followed closely by a unicorn couple ‒ a stallion and a mare. The adults ‒ presumably the parents ‒ were quick to reprimand the foals for nearly bowling us over, offering a polite, if hurried, apology to us as they passed.

Watching the foals disappear around the corner ‒ each one zealously holding a cupcake close in a brightly glowing telekinetic field ‒ I turned to Twilight.

“You know, Twilight,” I said as we resumed our previous course, “If I’m going to be living here for an extended period of time, it might be helpful if I got a bit of a crash course on how magic works here.”

Twilight’s head reared back slightly and developed a quizzical tilt to it as a curious expression descended upon her face. “Shouldn’t you have gotten this explanation when you went to the Institute?”

I shrugged. “They couldn’t get anyone from the Arcane Sciences department on that short of notice. The faculty members were all either teaching a class, giving a lecture at some other academic institution, or ‘at a critical point in their research and couldn’t be pulled away from it’ to meet the visiting alien.”

“Ah,” Twilight said.

I looked around for a bit, taking in the surroundings. The claustrophobic commercial edifices were already starting to give way to the more sedate architecture of the outlying residential areas. Occasionally, we’d spot small clusters of ponies as we walked. I’d wave at them in greeting as we passed, and my greetings were always politely returned, and though some were more friendly than others, the worst reaction I got was mere neutrality.

“Besides,” I added, breaking the silence that had lasted no more than a minute, “I figured it would be better to fill the air with something other than awkward silence.”

“Yes, it is,” Twilight replied with a giggle. “At any rate, I’m happy to help you learn more about magic. What would you like to know?”

“Well, looking around, I think it’s fairly safe to assume that telekinesis is a common spell, right?”

Twilight nodded. “It’s one of the most basic spells that unicorn foals learn once they manage to gain control of their magic.”

“Wait, what do you mean, gain control of their magic? They just fire off spells at random before then?”

Again Twilight nodded, and I shuddered in response. “I’d hate to be the insurance adjustor dealing with a claim involving a foal accidentally setting their house on fire.”

“I’ve… actually done something like that,” Twilight hesitantly admitted, sporting a blush and a sheepish expression.

“You set your house on fire?”

“Well, I didn’t set it on fire, per se. But I did accidentally flood the house when one of my magical flare-ups caused the refill cutoff valve on the upstairs toilet to stop working. It also clogged the drain and activated the flush mechanism.”

Twilight stepped back a couple of paces at my stunned expression, concern dawning on her muzzle. “What?” she asked, “I was only a month old at the time. I couldn’t have done anything about it! For Celestia’s sake” ‒ here she stamped a hoof on the ground, her face flushing even harder ‒ “I was too young to even remember it. I only know about it because my parents keep jokingly threatening to mention it to the first stallion I bring home to meet them.”

I burst out laughing at that. “Well, it’s nice to know that ‘embarrassing your offspring in front of potential suitors’ is one thing our two species have in common.”

Shaking her head, Twilight couldn’t resist a chuckle of her own. “I guess we’re not nearly as different as surface appearance would suggest,” she said, settling into a winsome smile as the wind ruffled her mane.

For some reason, seeing her like that made the atmosphere grow slightly awkward. We both looked away for an uncomfortable moment, and I took the opportunity to clean my glasses for the fourteenth time that day.

A deliberate clearing of the throat drew my attention back to Twilight. “I believe you were wanting to learn some more about Equestrian magic,” she said, smiling shyly.

“Indeed,” I replied, gesturing with a hand for her to take the lead again as we set off once more along the slightly moist, chilly dirt road. “What other spells do foals typically learn growing up?”

Twilight pursed her lips in thought. “There’s about a dozen spells that are part of the standard unicorn curriculum, including a basic force beam spell that’s used for self-defense purposes.” I suddenly found myself having to fight back a very strong urge to complain to imaginary subordinates about their inability to provide me with ponies with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads at hearing her say that.

”However,” Twilight continued, thankfully oblivious to my struggle to maintain my composure and pay attention to her lesson, “the ones that are most commonly utilized in daily life are levitation ‒ or telekinesis, as you like to call it ‒ a few minor first aid spells, and a magelight spell.”

“Magelight?”

“We use our magic to produce light to see by.”

“Ah. Like a magical flashlight of sorts.”

Twilight smiled again. “That’s the basic idea, yes.” Her demeanor turned professorial again. “After that, though, learning spells gets a bit trickier. All spells require energy to cast.”

“Sure, it probably would take a fair bit of energy to break the laws of physics,” I retorted cheekily.

“I’m being serious here, Derren,” Twilight said flatly. “You asked for this lesson, and I’m not going to continue it if you don’t take it as seriously as I do.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, holding my hands out in a placating gesture. “I get it, Twilight. This is important, and I shouldn’t be trivializing it with snarky comments. Sorry. Please, continue.”

Twilight muttered something that resembled a “Thank you” under her breath before perking up and resuming the lecture where she left off. “Anyway, a lot of why not every unicorn has the same spell repertoire has to do with three things: thaumic energy reserves, casting skill, and the spell’s relation to a pony’s special talent.”

“Those first two seem fairly straightforward. Such concepts are frequently found in the games I used to play as a kid. But what does a pony’s special talent have to do with the types of spells that can be cast?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” Twilight answered. “In addition to being naturally inclined towards learning and understanding the concepts behind spells related to one’s special talent, such spells are also easier to cast, requiring less energy to do so than if cast by a unicorn whose special talent doesn’t cover the spell in question.”

“This sort of thing is testable?”

“Indeed,” Twilight replied. “In every way that matters, magic is simply another field of science here in Equestria, much like physics or biology.” Her eyes fell to a half-lidded state as a sly smirk slithered onto her lips. “Hence, the Arcane Sciences department at the Canterlot Institute of Applied and Arcane Science.”

“Okay, I get the point,” I muttered, “No need to be smug about it.”

“No, I suppose not,” Twilight said, and though the smile never left her face, it transformed into a friendlier one as she continued. “Perhaps it would help you if I gave a more concrete example. Do you recall what Rarity and I told you about our special talents?”

“Rarity’s is ‘bringing out the natural beauty in things,’ to hear her tell it. And you said that yours is magic in general.”

“Correct,” Twilight replied. “And as a consequence of that, any spell that relates to ‘bringing out that natural beauty’ is easy for her to cast ‒ even easier than it would be for me. For instance, Rarity knows a spell for finding gems buried underground. She once taught it to me, and it came in handy when she was captured by diamond dogs.”

I nodded in understanding. “I remember you telling me that story the last time you girls came to visit me in Canterlot. I assume you have a reason for mentioning the incident.”

Twilight’s smile never faltered for a second. “When Spike reminded me that I also knew Rarity’s gem-finding spell, I was able to improve it so that it covered a wider area. However, it still required a small, but noticeable effort on my part. Even when I showed her how to improve it later, she was still able to cast it almost as effortlessly as she uses basic levitation.”

I let out a low whistle at that. “That’s… quite the feat.”

My lavender companion giggled once more. As much as I might have wanted to deny it, the sound was growing on me the more often I heard it.

“Indeed,” she said. “But, as I said, there’s more to it than just having a special talent for certain spells. Some spells are either so complex, or so draining on a unicorn’s thaumic energy reserves, that they can only be cast by the most powerful of unicorns.”

“Would teleportation happen to be one of those higher-level spells?”

Twilight nodded with a sheepish grin, likely recalling the mishap with Spike that she mentioned during our conversation with Faran. “It is, because it’s both complex to cast, and somewhat energy intensive. I’m probably one of a hoof-full of unicorns that can cast it at all, much less cast it consistently.”

“You must be pretty powerful to be able to do that.”

She stopped walking for a moment and dropped to her haunches, rubbing the back of her head with her right hoof as her ears drooped and a rosy tint invaded her cheeks again.

“You could say that,” she said sheepishly. “I don’t like to brag about my abilities, but shortly after I was accepted to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, the teachers there did a more thorough test of my magical abilities. In terms of both overall casting ability and magical capacity, I’m one of the most powerful unicorns in a generation ‒ probably even the most powerful since Starswirl the Bearded himself.”

“You mean the unicorn you were telling me about that lived during the founding of Equestria?”

“That’s the one.”

I let out another low whistle. “Damn…” I said, ignoring Twilight’s glare in response to what I felt was a very mild curse, “I don’t know whether to be impressed or intimidated.”

Twilight gazed back at me, downtown Ponyville receding in the distance behind us as we walked. Her expression became difficult to read, but I thought I caught sight of a slight smile worming its way forth. “I’d rather not have to choose between the two if at all possible, but if those were my only options, I’d rather have you impressed than intimidated.”

“Better to be loved than feared, eh?” I said with a sly smirk, earning a girlish giggle from Twilight.

“I suppose so, even if Marechiavelli would disagree,” she replied, cheeks creased in mirth.

“I suppose so. But even he would stop at becoming so feared that that fear turns to hate,” I pointed out.

“She, actually,” Twilight corrected. She then tilted her head downward and looked up at me through her bangs, a frown darkening her features. “Still, it seems kind of odd that you’d be able to refer to the original text as if you’d read it, when we both know that isn’t possible, due to the fact that you’re still learning how to read Equestrian. Is this another one of those weird parallels you mentioned the other day?”

I stroked my chin in contemplation. “I can only assume so.” My demeanor then turned from thoughtful to that of one who has stepped in cat vomit in the middle of the night. “I wish I’d quit running into them everywhere I turn, though.”

“It does seem kind of creepy, now that you mention it,” Twilight said. “I wish I had better advice to offer you than empty platitudes like ‘you’ll get used to it,’ but I don’t.”

“Not to mention the fact that I don’t want to ‘get used to it,’” I replied in a sour tone.

Twilight seemed to have noticed the darkening of my mood, and decided to get my attention by tapping my arm with her hoof. “Derren, do you think you’d like a little demonstration, since you seem to be so interested in my magical abilities?”

I smiled, my spirits already lifting at the prospect of getting to see Twilight showing off a little, despite herself. “Sure, why not?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Twilight snarked with a roll of her eyes. I did notice that she was smiling as she did so, however. She then adopted a tone of friendly concern as she said, “You might want to step back a bit.”

“Oh. Uh, okay.”

I did as she asked, and her horn started glowing a bit more brightly than usual. Shortly thereafter, a bright purple flash engulfed Twilight, and the modest snap-crack of a vacuum being created and then filled in an instant quickly reached my ears.

When the flash cleared, the space she had occupied was noticeably vacant. Dimly, I perceived a familiar female voice calling me from somewhere off to my left, and I turned to find that Twilight had spontaneously appeared on the other side of the wide avenue we had been walking on.

Seconds later, Twilight repeated the process, surprising me slightly when she suddenly reappeared less than a foot away from me in a similar bright purple flash.

“Oops, sorry,” she said with a sheepish grin and flattened ears. “I didn’t mean to startle you with that one.”

“Nah, that’s alright, Twilight,” I replied. “It’s not every day that a powerful magic user suddenly pops into existence in front of me.” With a good-humored roll of her eyes, Twilight jabbed me in the hip with her hoof just hard enough to get my attention, but not hard enough to cause significant pain. I felt the urge to muss her mane in retaliation, but somehow managed to keep said urge at bay out of fear of giving offense.

As we resumed our frequently-interrupted trek to the library that Twilight called home, I repeatedly caught her glancing back at me out of the corner of her eyes. “You know, Derren,” she eventually said, “If you want, I could try teleporting both of us to the library. I’d have to compensate for your body type, but I think I could pull it off.”

A nervous chuckle escaped me in response. “If it’s all the same to you, Twilight, I’d rather not.” I then attempted to put on my best British accent, adding, “I don’t think I’m quite ready to have my molecules compressed into a datastream.”

Unfortunately, my best British accent sounded more like a Canadian actor playing an Australian who was trying to speak in a Welsh accent. Worse, even if I had gotten the accent right, the effect was lost on Twilight, who merely responded with a confused, “Huh?”

I pressed my palm to my face with a sigh. “Never mind, Twilight. Let’s just get to the library as soon as possible.”

“Um, s-sure,” Twilight stammered. “It’s not much further.”

As we crested the next rise, a giant oak tree slowly came into view. It was immediately apparent that this was no ordinary tree. In addition to several windows built into the tree and a solid wooden door that was stained a ruddy color and whose frame curved gracefully to a tapered point, I spotted several balconies that, while obviously artificial, were designed to give the appearance of being natural outgrowths of the tree from which they sprung. To the left of the door was a sign bearing the image of an open book, with words in Equestrian script written below it. In the tallest branches of the tree, one balcony was equipped with a telescope that seemed pretty sophisticated for Equestria’s average technology level. Idly, I wondered if Twilight did any stargazing at night.

“Well, there it is,” Twilight said grandly, “The Golden Oak Library ‒ the place that I call home.” She looked back at me with a demure smile. “Of course, this is also the place that you’ll be calling home for the time being. Spike, Owlowiscious, and I have been busy the last few days getting everything ready for you to move in.”

“Owlowiscious?”

Twilight flashed a wan smile as her horn lit up and the front door of the library was encased in an identical magenta glow. “He’s my Junior Assistant, helping me with my studies at night after Spike goes to bed. He’s an owl.”

I blinked… owlishly. “Say what?”

“He’s an owl.”

“Are owls that intelligent here? ‘Cause that sounds like borderline sapient behavior, which is pretty rare where I’m from.” A thought occurred to me. “Is this why you said that some ponies might object to me eating chicken?”

A slightly worried look crossed Twilight’s features, and she chewed her mane for a moment before answering. “Basically, yeah,” was all she said before returning to the task at hand.

Once she regained her focus, both halves of the Dutch door yielded gently to Twilight’s magic, swinging inward to reveal the foyer. She looked back at me with a stern glare. “Remember, Derren. Watch your language around Spike. He’s just a baby, after all.”

“Yes, mother.” I grumbled under my breath.

Crossing the threshold, my jaw dropped in utter amazement ‒ not at the selection of books, impressive though it was, but at the sheer volume that had been hollowed out just to form the main part of the library. My eyes darted this way and that, never settling on any one thing for very long.

I walked over to one side of the library, carefully inspecting the wall. Several shelves had been built into the wooden walls of the tree’s interior. The walls themselves had been given a light coat of varnish. Even more strangely, though, they seemed remarkably healthy for a shell of a tree ‒ almost as if the tree itself were still alive somehow.

Twilight had patiently watched my stupefied traipsing about the main room for several minutes before clearing her throat to get my attention.

“Is there something I can help you with?” she asked that polite, professional tone librarians are known for.

“Sorry,” I said, sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck, “I guess I’m a little confused, or maybe I’m just not in the right mindset to fully appreciate all the things magic can do.” I paused to let my brain backtrack to the point that my logic had simply glided past. “Or at least, I assume magic is the reason why the tree this library is made of is still alive somehow.”

Twilight wore the proud smile of a teacher whose student had finally managed to master a particularly difficult concept. “You would be right in assuming so,” she said. “Or at least, mostly right ‒ as long as you don’t cut through the bark all the way around the tree’s circumference, it can still live.”

Her smile changed to a knowing smirk and her eyes became half-lidded as her voice dropped into a conspiratorial tone. “The enchantments on this tree are just added insurance. It could probably withstand anything up to a Class Five fireball spell.”

“Ah,” I replied blandly, “That would explain it.”

Twilight giggled. “Come on, I’ll show you around, and then you can get settled in your new room.”

The main library area ‒ a fairly open space dotted here and there by solid-looking tables and seats ‒ took up most of the ground floor, with a few meeting rooms located towards the very back next to some stairs that led down into a basement. Many of the bookshelves were built into the walls the main room, though there were three rows of free-standing shelves near the western wall of the main room. There were also two separate rooms with shelves built into the walls much like the main library area ‒ Twilight noted that one contained various periodicals, research journals, and other reference material, while the other was a special section of the library designed with foals in mind. The center of the library was dominated by another of the tables: this one circular, and bearing a wooden bust of a pony ‒ probably someone famous or important in Equestria’s history, perhaps even from pre-Unification days, for all I knew.

Of course, it could have just as easily been decorative art of a generic nondescript pony, kind of like those water fountains one sometimes sees at stores selling the sorts of knick knacks that would make an interior decorator have an orgasm… Or that just makes them facepalm and walk away, shaking their heads in shame…

Our tour of the library began in earnest with a trip to the basement. A door at the bottom of the basement stairs restricted access to the bowels of the library. Out of a desire to be a polite houseguest, I let Twilight open the door with her magic before following her inside.

Once past the threshold, bewilderment and wonder overtook me as I looked around the organized chaos of the basement room. Calling it a laboratory would be more accurate, and indeed, Twilight had described it as such. Various beakers, flasks, test tubes, and other equipment that would find a home in a well-stocked chemistry or biology lab were also present ‒ all meticulously arranged and seemingly well cared for. I also happened to notice a couple of large devices along the side walls of the room that strongly resembled the magitech equivalent of old vacuum tube computers from the Forties and Fifties. Less charitable people would say that it reminded them of a mad scientist’s lab from the B movies of the same era.

And let it not be said that I am an uncharitable person.

As we headed back up to the ground floor of the library, Twilight explained that though magic was her primary interest, she also occasionally dabbled in other endeavours ‒ everything from hard sciences like chemistry and astronomy (her second love after magic) to sociology and statistics, among other things. The mare seemed to have an insatiable thirst for knowledge ‒ one that readily extended into learning about species that ponies had never met before.

“You know, Derren,” Twilight said as we ascended the stairs to the upper levels of the library, “I realize that we’ve been mostly telling you about our lives to help you acclimate to life here, but I wouldn’t mind hearing a little bit more about the world you come from, especially since your answer to Bon Bon’s question seemed a little… lacking in detail.”

My brow furrowed and my lips creased into a frown as I considered Twilight’s request. A brief silence followed before I ultimately decided that no harm could come of her innocent inquiries ‒ no permanent harm, at least.

“Sure, Twilight,” I replied with a shrug, “why not? What would you like to know?”

Twilight paused at the top of the stairs as a contemplative expression descended upon her muzzle, and a distinctive hum resonated audibly in her throat. “Well, whatever you’re comfortable with, I suppose.”

“How about I start simply, then?” I replied as I reached the landing barely two seconds after Twilight. “I was the youngest of two children. Like you, I had an older brother.” I paused with a rueful smile as I recalled some of the memories of my childhood. “We had the sort of relationship one usually expects from siblings ‒ part of the time we ignored each other, part of the time one of us would go out of our way to drive the other one crazy, and part of the time we’d actually get along like we were friends. The neighborhood I grew up in was pretty closely knit, so a lot of the kids knew each other well. I think that’s one of the main reasons why I was able to get along with my brother’s friends about as well as I did with my own friends.”

“And it also explains why you were so close with that one friend of yours,” Twilight replied with a warm smile.

“Yeah,” I said, my good mood faltering. “And I suppose it’s why my bad luck with keeping friends didn’t catch up to me until later.” I let out a small huff of air. “No doubt I would’ve given up on friendship long before becoming an adult if that weren’t the case.”

“You’re in luck, then,” Twilight said with a warm smile as she gently touched my arm with a hoof, “because Ponyville is probably about as closely knit a community as the one you grew up in.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I replied, a world-weary sigh escaping my body.

Twilight’s smile turned sympathetic in response, and she laid a hoof on my arm in an attempt to keep me from spiraling downward into the darker recesses of my mind.

Unfortunately, she’d left the hoof on my arm a tad longer than intended, and what was meant to be a comforting gesture turned awkward. At the reproachful gaze I shot her, she yanked her hoof back as if scalded by hot water. “Sorry,” she said with a sheepish expression, “I forgot what you said about humans valuing their personal space for a moment.”

I knew she meant well, but one thing that became glaringly obvious during my week in Canterlot was that ponies tended to be more touchy-feely than humans. Even ponies who seemed to be little more than casual acquaintances tended to exchange hoof bumps at the minimum, if not friendly nuzzles and hugs.

Furthermore, despite some initial hesitancy due to not having seen my kind before, the castle staffers who I had regular contact with while I was a guest of the princesses had been more than happy to share those disconcertingly affectionate gestures with me when I departed for Ponyville earlier this morning.

Twilight’s friends, naturally, had also gotten in on the “fluster the human by innocently violating his personal space” act as well when they’d visited the other day. Applejack and Rainbow Dash had both showered me with knowing nudges whenever they’d make a joke, in addition to rearing up and draping a hoof across my back when they wanted to whisper something in confidence ‒ or in Rainbow’s case, make a lewd joke or two out of Twilight’s earshot. There were a couple of times when Rarity would paw at my cheeks with her forehooves ‒ for lack of fingers with which to pinch said cheeks ‒ when she thought I was being silly or “adorable,” in her words. Even the notoriously timid Fluttershy had given me an affectionate nuzzle when the girls said their goodbyes as they left for the train station that evening.

The less said about Pinkie Pie ‒ the mare with absolutely zero sense of personal space ‒ the better.

I let out a long, low sigh. “Don’t worry about it, Twilight,” I replied, making a sweeping gesture with my hands as if to clear the air of any tension, “I know you didn’t mean it. Besides, if I’m going to succeed here, I’m going to have to learn to not let it get to me.”

I had to resist the urge to scratch her ears in response to the adorable look she shot at me. Even though ponies seemed to have fewer boundaries with regard to personal contact, I didn’t want to risk giving offense like I had with Rainbow Dash during the castle tour.

At Twilight’s urging, we moved on with the tour of the library’s upper section. We walked past a closed door on the right, behind which was the master bedroom that Twilight shared with Spike. Further ahead lay additional rooms ‒ one of which was a study area that Twilight spent a good deal of her free time in, while the other two were used for storage. At the end of the hall, another staircase led up to the attic, and from there, to the upper balcony where I’d seen the telescope earlier.

From here, we turned left to find another room with its heavy wooden door closed. This time, however, there were muffled voices coming from behind the door ‒ or rather, one juvenile voice and a series of hoots, somehow seemingly directed at one another. Embedded in this strange “conversation” was the soft, yet distinct sound of bedsprings squeaking rhythmically.

Twilight opened the door with her telekinesis, revealing a modest bedroom dominated by what looked to be a queen-sized bed, in human terms. Like the rest of the library, the floor was little more than a cross-sectional slice of the trunk of the tree the library was made from, varnished to a dull shine. A large bay window was built into the far wall, looking out over the path that Twilight and I had taken from downtown Ponyville. Next to the window stood a rather hefty-looking chest of drawers made of stained cherrywood that looked brand new. Other than a pale blue throw rug at the foot of the bed, the room was sparsely decorated.

As I was taking this all in, I noticed that the bed was occupied at that moment by a certain baby dragon who was grinning sheepishly at Twilight and I. His companion, a moderate-sized owl with dark brown wings and lighter brown body plumage, was perched on a nearby bird stand with its face buried in a wing ‒ before coming to Equestria such an act by an owl would have left me blinking in bemusement, but I’d already had one big shock today. This was fairly trivial in comparison.

The reason for the owl’s consternation was obvious, as Spike had apparently managed to mess up the covers with overly-exuberant bouncing on the bed.

“Spike!” Twilight shouted from behind the forehoof jammed into her forehead, “What are you doing messing up Derren’s bed?”

“I was just testing it to make sure it was the right firmness for our new houseguest,” the little dragon replied defensively before adding in an officious tone, “and I give it my official Spike the Dragon Seal of Approval!”

Twilight and I shared a long look, not sure what to make of Spike’s antics. We decided not to press the matter further in favor of allowing me to get settled in.

“Fine, Spike,” Twilight replied neutrally, “But if you’re going to help mess up Derren’s bed, you’re also going to help him make it again.”

Spike grumbled under his breath at having his fun ruined, but complied anyway. As he did so, I took the initiative of addressing the elephant in the room ‒ or rather, the owl in the room.

“You must be Owlowiscious,” I said, receiving a hoot in response that somehow managed to sound affirmative. “I’m Derren Knox, and I’m going to be living here for a while.”

“Hoo,” came the owl’s stoic reply. Just to humor Fate, which seemed to get a massive kick out of trolling me, I replied in accordance with the time-honored Knox Family Tradition: make an obscure reference and quickly move on.

“No, he plays first base.” I turned to Twilight. “Can I go ahead and unpack and everything else?”

Twilight did some bemused blinking of her own before replying, “Umm, sure, go ahead.” She then addressed her companions, “Spike, Owlowiscious, I think it’s time we gave Derren some privacy.”

So saying, Twilight turned and walked out of the room, with Spike and Owlowiscious following close behind her. As soon as the door closed behind her, I set down my suitcase and shook out my arm, which had become decidedly numb in the process of hauling said suitcase from Town Hall all the way to the library.

Once sensation had finally returned to my arm, I set about unpacking my few worldly possessions, promising myself that I would take a few minutes to unwind and plan my next move when I was finished moving in.

Five minutes later, I emerged from my new bedroom, having unpacked and taken the opportunity to freshen up. My room had an en-suite bathroom, which Twilight had ‒ thankfully ‒ had the foresight to outfit with a minotaur-style toilet. Faran had taken great pleasure in describing pony-style facilities to me when we first met, and it wasn’t hard to understand why. I wasn’t looking forward to that particular learning process for the same reason that I tended to stick to the parts of Japan where Western-style toilets were common during a summer study abroad program I did while I was in college.

Not that toilets made for extra-large bovine-human hybrids were devoid of their own learning curve. Unlike most human facilities, where wiping one’s ass with toilet paper was a way of life, the toilets of Equis came equipped with a sort of built-in bidet to accomplish the same task. It took some getting used to, but by the time I arrived in Ponyville, I was an old pro at bracing myself for the sudden high-volume blast of water against my posterior.

If it is to be judged by what it chooses to record, then the human mind can sometimes be a very strange and alien environment…

During the unpacking process, I had decided that I needed to get a breath of fresh air to clear my head before the party. As I approached the landing at the top of the stairs, I heard Twilight and Spike’s voices filter up to me from the public section of the library. This made me pause to consider my options.

I wanted to get out of the library with as few hassles as possible, and in order to do that, I would have to sneak past both of my benefactors. That presented two problems. First, I had no idea how good pony senses were compared to their terrestrial counterparts ‒ much less compared to humans, and I had absolutely no basis for comparison with Spike, since dragons didn’t exist back home.

The other problem, to put it bluntly, was that even when I was trying, I was about as stealthy as a bus. I very much doubted my chances with sneaking, but maybe I’d get lucky and Twilight and Spike would be too absorbed in whatever they were doing to notice me quietly slipping out the front door.

And maybe hell is endothermic.

My only other option was to just be upfront with Twilight and tell her where I was going. The only problem was that since I’d only just arrived in Ponyville, she’d probably insist on tagging along, and that’s not what I needed at the moment. I had to hope that Twilight would at least let me go back to the town square and walk around a bit, since I already knew how to get there, more or less. All things considered, I probably had a better chance of talking Twilight into letting me go out on my own than sneaking past her and Spike.

I decided on a course of action, only to have it rendered moot when the light footfalls of someone small coming up the stairs reached my ears. I heard Spike call out for me just before the spines on his head became visible over the top of the stairs. It didn’t take long before the rest of him followed, and he caught sight of me in the midst of calling out to me a second time. His eyes blinked slowly a few times, then gave a start as his brain rebooted. “Oh, there you are, Derren. Twilight asked me to come up and see how you were settling in.”

“Well, I at least got the unpacking done,” I said, flashing a small smile. “I take it she’s downstairs?”

Spike nodded before fixing me with a surprisingly serious gaze for someone his age. “She’s kind of busy at the moment, though, so I wouldn’t disturb her.” He smirked knowingly. “Not that you could disturb her once she’s ‘in the zone,’ as Rarity would say.”

“She’s that focused?”

The juvenile drake suddenly burst out with a loud guffaw. “I don’t think Twilight would notice if aliens came down and started shooting up the place with death rays.” He blanched suddenly, as if realizing what he’d just said. “Umm, no offense, Derren.”

“None taken,” I replied with a chuckle of my own. As if to show him that I hadn’t taken it personally, I attempted to muss his spines like I would someone’s hair. While I didn’t get the result I wanted ‒ dragon spines are notoriously difficult to mess up ‒ I was also pleased to discover that Spike’s spines were not as sharp as I might have expected from his more mature kin.

“Hey, cut it out!” he whined, jumping back out of the reach of my hands. “I may still be a baby, but I am a dragon, and don’t you forget it!” He pointed a sharp claw aggressively at me for emphasis.

“Okay, okay,” I replied throwing my hands up in a placating gesture, though I couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped me. “I get it. You’re a tough, ferocious beast, and I shouldn’t provoke you.” I shrugged before adding, “I don’t know why, but something about you brings out the big brother in me, even though I was the baby in my family.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I got that from Shining Armor a lot when Twilight and I lived in Canterlot. You would know how quickly that can get old.” I gave him a sympathetic smile, which he acknowledged with a toothy grin of his own. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Radiance comic to read!”

The childlike excitement in his voice was at once endearing and strangely familiar, while the word comic drew my attention to the item he was holding in his claws. The cover was dominated by a picture of a yellow unicorn mare in diamond-studded spandex, whose purple mane and tail were oddly reminiscent of a certain fashionista of my acquaintance. Naturally, the text on the comic was rendered in the ponies’ strange writing system that I was still trying to get the hang of. All I could make out of the title was Pow- P-n-s Or-g-ns: Ra-n-.

I felt a swelling of pride in my chest over understanding even that much.

Spike quickly pushed past me, leaving me to my own devices. I shrugged, then headed downstairs to test my luck with Twilight. Sure enough, the lavender unicorn was seated at the main circulation desk, sorting books into piles. Judging from the pitiful state of some of the books, and dark utterances from the mare herself about the “casual disregard for the printed word,” I could tell that she was in the midst of weeding the library’s collection. I would have to approach this carefully if I didn’t want to draw her ire.

“Hey, Twilight,” I replied nervously, but loud enough to get a murmured acknowledgement of my presence. “I realize that I haven’t been in town all that long, but I think I need to go for a walk to clear my head. You shouldn’t have to worry, because I’m just going to head downtown. Might as well check out how the preparations for tonight’s party are coming. You know how it is.”

At this point, it was clear that Twilight was ignoring me, so I decided to try a different approach.

“Sure, you may be worried that I’ll run into someone who wishes me harm or something, but after my performance at Town Hall earlier, that seems about as unlikely as the Mayor of Cloudsdale coming down here and giving me a reason to punch him in the face. But even if that were so, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

I began to pace about and gesticulate dramatically as I continued. “Sure, you’ll occasionally get one who’s covering up evidence of abuse at one of the orphanages in his jurisdiction, but most politicians are content to drunkenly snort cocaine and go on incoherent, expletive-laced rants from their front lawns as they rudely push reporters around. You know, the sort of thing that provides fodder for stand-up comedians.”

Still nothing. I was going to have to really push my luck to get any reaction out of Twilight.

“Did I mention that my nose is on fire, and that I have fifteen wild badgers living in my pants?”

If looks could kill, the unamused glare Twilight shot me would’ve stripped the flesh from my bones.

“I’m sorry, would you prefer ferrets?”

With a roll of her eyes, Twilight returned to her work.

That did it, I mused internally.

After a full minute of Twilight pointedly ignoring me, I decided to quit while I was behind. “Right, then. I can see that you’re in the middle of fifteen things, all of them annoying, so I’ll leave you to it.”

And with that, I walked to the front door, opened it, and unceremoniously exited the library.

Once outside, I took a moment to get my bearings. The road leading from downtown dead-ended in front of the library, forming a T-intersection with another road running north and south. In the distance to the north, I spied the long, semi-open facade of a train station near the edge of town, while an unrelenting sea of houses lined the street to the south. Unlike the houses in the northeastern section of Ponyville, these residences seemed to show a fair degree of variety in their architecture.

However, my destination lay neither to the north, nor to the south. With that in mind, I proceeded straight down the east-west road towards downtown.

As I did so, I noticed the mid-afternoon sky seemed to be filled with pegasi. While a few were doing away with the remaining clouds, most were just out and about, enjoying the holiday atmosphere. I watched in awestruck wonder as they wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence, topping the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where-

Oh, hell.

Just as I’d started waxing faux poetic with words shamelessly stolen from a famous sonnet, I dimly registered the psychic radio in my mind crackling to life again, this time with a hauntingly mesmerizing tune.

Great, I’ve just triggered the Music of Harmony again, haven’t I?

Letting out a heavy sigh, I found myself gradually sinking into my role in the number, and at the appropriate moment, uttered the fatal words:

Hold your breath
Make a wish
Count to three

The main melody picked up, and I began singing in spite of myself:

Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you’ll see
Into your imagination

We’ll begin
With a spin
Traveling in the world of my creation
What we’ll see will defy
Explanation

As the song progressed, more and more pegasi joined in, dancing the skies on laughter-silvered wings. By the time we reached the climax, downtown Ponyville was in view, and I could see that even the nearby unicorns and earth ponies had joined in the chorus line. It was a sight that was simultaneously awe-inspiring and horrifying ‒ the latter was because I couldn’t tell how much of my rapturous ecstasy was truly my own, and how much was imposed upon me by the planet’s Harmonic Magic Field.

When the last note finally died away and I had regained full control of my faculties, I noticed that I was on the far side of Town Square, on the verge of venturing into what was for me unknown territory.

I shook my head as a mixture of wonder and worry settled on my face. “I think I need a time-out from this time-out,” I muttered.

Author's Note

So, yeah. More pony Gaelic fun with Nurse Faran. This time, we have the following:

"Merciful Luna, save me from this irritation." = "Trócaireach Luna, ach amháin dom ó greannú seo."

Or so Google Translate tells me. :twilightsheepish:

I should also note that the enchantments protecting the library that Twilight mentions were placed there before she moved to Ponyville.

And yes, that is a reference to Fleeting Flames there towards the end. I figured that it was only fair after the author of that fic made a reference to Nurse Faran in the most recent chapter. :ajsmug:

Next time on Greater Lights: Adaptation, Derren finally gets to meet a couple of mares that we haven't seen since the prologue. Should be interesting. :trollestia:

Chapter Four - Peas and Carrots Meeting Awkwardly

Author's Note

I would like to apologize in advance to Joseph Michael Straczynski and Winston Groom for certain aspects of the "Derren Meets Lyra" scene. :twilightblush:

Chapter Four - Peas and Carrots Meeting Awkwardly

A moderately-sized rock hurtled gracelessly in a low parabolic arc towards its inexorable meeting with the river that was gently passing under the bridge I was standing on. I was rewarded with a modest splash of water a little more than a second later.

The satisfying sound brought a slight smile to my face as I perused my small collection for the next sacrifice to join its brethren in sleeping with the fishes. My eyes lit up, spying a suitable candidate ‒ this one half again as large as the last. Without much conscious thought in the matter, I quickly grabbed the stone and let fly.

It was something of a habit of mine that whenever I needed to think and the opportunity presented itself, I would find the nearest large body of water, gather up a decent collection of rocks from the shore, and in the parlance of a certain comic strip six-year-old, go spelunking. The river on the southern outskirts of Ponyville had seemed opportune enough, and after having had three encounters with the Music of Harmony in the span of less than an hour, I needed the cathartic release that only doing lithic violence to water below me could provide.

I had done this sort of thing often enough in the past that I could reliably gauge my mental state by the accuracy and force of my throws. And if the stone I’d just thrown was any indication, I wasn’t doing so well. It had travelled maybe a foot in the direction I’d intended to throw it, skewing wildly to my right before landing in the rocky shallows of the shoreline with a flat splat.

Five of my last seven throws had ended in such a manner.

A red haze descended over my vision. I let loose with a string of vile curses caustic enough to strip the varnish from a foot locker before savagely swiping the next rock and chucking it with all of my strength straight downward. The resulting splash was big enough to cover my glasses, face, and part of my trench coat with a light spray of frigid water.

As one might expect, the sudden blast of cold liquid to the face pulled me out of my near-berserker rage. I quickly cast my gaze all about me, but it seemed that I was the only intelligent being within earshot. Letting out a relieved sigh, I wiped my glasses and face clear of water, then turned back to my steadily dwindling supply of stony missiles.

Taking more careful aim with my next throw, I watched the stone fly straight and true before landing in the middle of the river some thirty feet away. I let out a satisfied grunt. It had landed almost exactly where I had intended it to go, give or take a few degrees.

Buoyed by my most recent success, I paused a moment to reflect on everything that had happened since I had come here. Equestria had thrown me a lot of curveballs, and I was on the verge of being overwhelmed by it all. I was amazed that I was still functioning at all.

The biggest thing that weighed on my mind, however, was whether or not I would ever be able to go home again, and what awaited me back there on the off chance that I did make it back. Eleven days was plenty of time for the authorities to find my original body and have me declared dead. And even if that weren’t the case, I’d probably have to explain why I suddenly looked like I was twenty-two all over again.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that an answer of “magical technicolor talking horses did it” practically guaranteed me a lifetime stay in a padded room with a straitjacket. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that it might not be the issue I feared. I’d probably be tapped for the official delegation to make contact with Earth if the portal opened again, since the princesses would probably need someone who could be considered credible in the eyes of my fellow humans.

For certain definitions of “credible,” of course.

Another rock joined its brethren at the bottom of the river as my idle musings continued. All things considered, I got pretty lucky. With the notable exception of the upper echelons of society, most of the ponies I’d met had welcomed me with open hooves. If worse comes to worst, I thought, Equestria might not be such a bad place to settle down. I just need to avoid getting dragged into any more goddamned spontaneous musical numbers.

As if in answer to my unspoken challenge to the multiverse, I could sense the Music of Harmony start to kick in again. This time, however, a slight hiccup in the music at the beginning made it feel more like my “psychic radio receiver” had changed stations and come in on the middle of a song. Shortly thereafter, an unfamiliar female voice reached my ears as I silently berated myself for tempting fate.

I know there’s more that’s out there
Something to fill this hole inside
I know there’s more that’s out there
And I’m not afraid to try

Whoever this person was, she had an angelic singing voice. I had to pinch myself to make sure I hadn’t died again. I couldn’t see who the voice belonged to, even after a full three-sixty turn to check.

Without a body to match the voice to, I could almost pretend that it belonged to an equally beautiful human woman. Almost. And that verisimilitude was enough to entice me to let go and join the song, taking over on a new verse.

Nobody here knows who I am
I feel like a stranger in this strange land, woah-oh
I’ve walked a lonely path in life for so long
Sure, my routine did fit
But I’ve gotten so sick of it
The time has come to find somewhere to belong

The unknown voice interjected with some lines of her own:

Through all the trials I’ve emerged so much stronger, indeed
But there’s something left still missing, something that I need

At this point, I picked up the chorus, dramatically chucking a couple more rocks into the water as I did so.

I know there’s more that’s out there
And I’m tired of feeling old
I know there’s more that’s out there
Calling me to become bold

There’s only so much time to live one’s life
It passes by with just a glance
Yes, I know there’s more that’s out there
And I don’t want to waste this chance

After very brief dramatic instrumental buildup, I continued with the first part of the bridge. As I did so, my eyes were bombarded with more hallucinations, the most prominent of which was of me standing alongside Twilight and her friends, interposing ourselves between a menacing shadowy figure towering over us and a large city in the middle of frozen tundra that was inhabited by ponies that sparkled like gemstones.

In this new world, adventure calls
So much to learn, I can’t see it all

Immediately following on my lead, my enigmatic musical partner added more to the bridge:

This town is home; I’ll keep it safe
But how can I be home and still feel out of place?

The next two lines came instinctively from me, as if I’d practiced them a hundred times previously.

And I know there’s more that’s out there
Another world to explore

I could just barely make out a strange glimmer coming off of me as the focus passed to my duet partner for the next two lines.

And I know there’s more that’s out there
Am I wrong for wanting more?

Somehow, I could sense the song coming to an end, with the two of us joining in unison for the final stanzas.

And I can’t wait for it to happen
But what it is I cannot say
I just know there’s more that’s out there
And it’s calling out my name

And I’m searching for the answer
‘Cause I don’t wanna lose my way
I may not know what’s really out there
But I’ll find out someday!

I’ll find out someday…

The strange glimmer disappeared during the final part, punctuating my lines with gestures so overly dramatic as to make one wonder if I was trying to milk a giant invisible cow. As the song wound down, I was confronted by four silhouettes ‒ two of which were vaguely familiar.

The odd vision faded away with the last notes of the song, revealing a unicorn mare bearing a vibrant mint green coat. Her short-cropped, wavy mane and bushy tail consisted of a slightly darker shade of green, with a substantial white stripe running through each. The forelock and crest of her mane, however, were hidden beneath a gray Gatsby cap perched on her head just behind her horn. Her amber eyes glimmered with a friendliness matched by the gentle smile she wore. My eyes slid quickly over her lithe frame so as not to give offense, and I noticed that her flank was adorned with a lyre for a cutie mark.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this new arrival, but I didn’t want to be rude, either. It took a few moments before I could do better than imitate a fish, and even then, the best I could do was utter an awkward greeting.

This seemed to amuse the mare, whose silvery laughter tinkled in the air like wind chimes. Almost automatically, I assumed a standoffish posture ‒ arms folded across my chest with my weight shifted to my back leg. My suspicious gaze was accompanied by an involuntary raising of my eyebrow.

I must have made an impression on her, because she cut her mirth short and adopted an apologetic expression, waving a foreleg as if to dispel bad vibes. “Sorry,” she said with a slight smile, “Just some old memories.”

“Must have been some funny memories.”

The mare waved the same foreleg back and forth in an upside-down parabolic arc. I’d seen ponies do that on occasion, and Twilight had explained that it was analogous to a “so-so” hand gesture among humans.

“More like memories that are funnier in hindsight than when you’re in the moment,” the mare said, her smile unwavering. I would’ve sworn I saw a flash of either sadness or regret in her eyes when she said that, but I couldn’t be sure. The mare was proving hard to read, and having my basic senses screwed with by the Music of Harmony mere minutes earlier wasn’t helping matters.

“I see,” I replied, nonplussed. “So, did you come specifically to gawk at the freaky alien, or did you just happen to be in the area and wanted to say ‘hello?’”

“Mostly the latter,” she said, “though I did hear rumors that somepony new who wasn’t a pony had moved to Ponyville. I figured I’d check to see if the rumors were true, and if so, do the neighborly thing and introduce myself.” She extended a hoof at this point. “I’m Lyra Heartstrings, and I’d like to officially welcome you to Ponyville.”

“Well, thanks for the welcome, Lyra. I’m Derren Knox,” I said as I took her hoof in my hand and shook it, drawing a smile from the mare. For some reason, Lyra’s comment made me chuckle as a memory surfaced.

“You know,” I said in response to Lyra’s quizzical gaze, “it’s funny that you said something about verifying rumors. A wise man once said that the more vehemently a rumor is denied ‒ presumably by official sources ‒ the more often it tends to be true.”

Lyra’s eyes twinkled with mirth as her laughter once again played in the air. “Sounds like a wise pony, indeed.”

I barked a short laugh as a knowing smile grew on my face. “Yeah, well, to be perfectly honest, he was actually a fictional alien.”

My use of the word “alien” only served to remind me of my current situation. After a brief, but awkward silence, my expression turned troubled. Lyra must have noticed it, because she asked, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I mumbled, waving my hand dismissively.

Judging from her reaction, Lyra didn’t believe me for a minute. “You don’t look fine.”

My expression hardened. “I said I’m fine,” I intoned harshly, turning back to the wooden railing and chucking another stone into the river. It joined several of its predecessors in the shallows along the shore.

I heard the approaching clopping of Lyra’s hoofsteps, but resolutely chose to ignore them. A dull thunk sounded, indicating that she’d laid her forehooves on the railing and was standing on her hind legs. For a long time it seemed like she was just going to let me stew in the maelstrom of conflicting emotions surging through me.

At long last, she spoke up. “Look, I know it’s not my place to pry, since we just met. I do know, however, that if you don’t let out what you’re feeling to someone, even if it’s just the wind, it will eat away at you until you become like a hurricane, lashing out destructively at the world around you.”

I gazed at her out of the corner of my eye as I thought about what she said. She seemed content to just stand there looking out over the placid waters of the river, letting the chill winter wind sweep through her mane. A strange calm seemed to emanate from her. Somehow, I got the sense that it was a calm that wouldn’t dissipate, no matter how fierce the tempest raging around her. It was almost mesmerising in a way.

That eerie calm began to wash over me. My heart began to race as dark suspicions about mind control surfaced, only for such notions to be thoroughly quashed as a second glance revealed that her horn was not glowing. In its wake, shame took up residence in my mind as I realized just how ridiculous I was being. I took a long moment to settle my thoughts. An equally long sigh escaped me before I spoke again.

“I’m sorry,” I said at last.

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry for being short with you. You were just trying to help, and I was rude. I know it’s not an excuse, but it’s… been kind of a rough week-and-a-half for me.”

Another sigh left my lungs as I continued, “You know, I’ve been to some strange places in my day and never had a problem, and that includes the six weeks I spent in Japan on a study abroad program when I was in college. I guess I just figured that I was immune to culture shock. Coming here, however, has been a huge shock, and I haven’t had a moment’s rest to deal with it since I arrived here. And being the subject of four Harmony Songs” ‒ I punctuated the phrase with air quotes ‒ “in the space of as many hours proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.”

“I take it that the Music of Harmony doesn’t exist where you’re from,” Lyra replied.

“Nope.”

“Pity. I kind of enjoy it. It makes me feel somehow connected to everypony around me.”

“Well, I don’t,” I retorted. “All it does is remind me of just how alien I am to this world. And the worst part about it is that I feel like I’m surrendering my freedom every time it happens.”

Lyra raised a questioning eyebrow, but said nothing.

“I come from a society that values individual freedom ‒ some would say to the point of fetishizing it ‒ so anything that can take away that freedom, especially where it concerns free will, feels like a personal violation to me.”

“Even if it’s something innocuous like singing?”

I nodded. “All that does is make me realize that I’m vulnerable to more malicious forms of mental manipulation. And given what I’ve seen, I’d bet dollars to donuts that magic spells exist that would make even the most sophisticated brainwashing techniques developed by more repressive human governments ‒ fictional or actual ‒ look like child’s play.”

Lyra looked at me for a long moment, as if considering whether or not to mention something that would raise my hackles. “I see,” was all she said.

I let out a long, low noise that let the world know of my disgruntlement. “I suppose I don’t have much choice in the matter except to get used to it, seeing as how I’m stuck here for a while,” I said, lifting my glasses slightly as I massaged the bridge of my nose.

Turning to face Lyra, I met her hopeful expression with a defiant one of my own. “Make no mistake, though,” I said, “I may ultimately come to accept and appreciate it as much as you do, but this planet’s harmonic thaumic resonance field thingy’s going to have to drag me kicking and screaming into that acceptance.”

“It’s a start, I suppose,” Lyra replied with a cautiously optimistic note in her voice.

I rolled my eyes at her and shot her a stern look. I couldn’t hold it for long, however, and eventually we both broke out in tension-shattering laughter. When the laughter died down, we shared relieved smiles for a moment before turning back to gaze out over the river.

Silence descended once more, but this time, it was more of a comfortable silence than an awkward one. I took a moment to think back on our conversation. One aspect of it elicited a slightly amused chuckle from me that caused Lyra to incline her head towards me quizzically.

“It’s funny,” I said finally, “I never thought I’d be meeting actual aliens, much less being the actual alien. And that’s saying something, seeing as how my dad’s from Rachel, Nevada.”

“What’s so important about this Rachel Nevada?” Lyra asked, clearly not aware of the distinction between city and state.

“Not much, in all actuality. It’s a very small town in the western part of the country I came from. Only about fifty people live there, according to the last census, but it’s the closest settlement to a major military base that features prominently in UFO lore.”

“Yoo-eff-oh?” Lyra’s puzzled expression was almost comical as she sounded out the alien abbreviation.

“Short for ‘Unidentified Flying Object.’ Some people are convinced that my world has been visited by extraterrestrial civilizations, and that evidence of such visits is being covered up by the governments of the world.”

“That’s just silly,” Lyra said with a laugh.

I smirked. “Conspiracy theories sometimes are. Actually, the funniest thing about that one is that it ended up providing a bit of a tourism boost to the affected towns. There’s a little bar and restaurant in Rachel called the Little A’Le’Inn that does a decent amount of business. And just to prove how strange my dad’s side of the family is, my grandparents on that side eventually retired to a town called Roswell, New Mexico, which supposedly had it’s own little UFO incident about thirty-two years before I was born. The fiftieth anniversary of the ‘Roswell Incident’ really revitalized the town ‒ for a while, at least.”

Lyra’s silvery laughter rang in the air once more. “Wow. Humans sure are creative, huh?”

I looked at Lyra as if she’d suddenly sprouted another head. “That’s… not the first thing I would’ve thought of if I’d been in your shoes, but sure. Humans can be pretty creative. We wouldn’t have come up with all the technological marvels we did if we weren’t.”

My reaction must have been one that Lyra was used to receiving, because she merely smiled. “I’m an artist,” she said, indicating her flank with a jerk of her head as if that explained everything. “I’m kind of expected to have a little eccentricity.”

I opted to fix her with a flat stare and an unamused expression, which only caused her smile to widen. Shaking my head at her antics, I looked away with a slight smile of my own.

A barely audible tinkling of what sounded like ethereal wind chimes reached my ears, causing me to look back to my unicorn companion. Doing so revealed Lyra’s horn lit up in an amber glow as she telekinetically hefted one of my remaining rocks.

“So, what did the Zweibrucker River ever do to you to deserve having rocks thrown at it?” she asked after a short silence, setting the rock back down in the pitiful pile that remained.

“Nothing. It’s just something I do when I need to settle my thoughts and happen to have a river and rocks nearby.”

“Does it work?”

My grimace probably said it louder than words ever could, but I figured I’d say it anyway. “Sometimes. But not this time.”

“I see.”

I shrugged. “I’m a simple guy with simple pleasures. Sometimes push-pin is as good as poetry to me.”

“Push-pin?”

“An old game on my world from a time before devices such as computers and television existed. It was considered a low-brow form of entertainment in its day, and became sort of a touchstone for debate between two utilitarian philosophers at the time. One argued that apart from personal preference, low-brow entertainment can be just as valuable as higher forms of art.”

“In other words, ‘push-pin is as good as poetry,’ right?” Lyra inquired with a smile.

“Exactly,” I replied with a smile equal to her own, “though the other philosopher held that idea in contempt, arguing that art and science were of far more value than tabloid gossip and base pleasures.”

Lyra’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from the bristles, however.”

Though the response was hauntingly familiar, I couldn’t help but give an amused chuckle at Lyra’s Zen-like reply. “True, which is why this other philosopher ‒ a man named John Stuart Mill ‒ went on to declare that it’s ‘better to be a frustrated human than a satisfied pig.’ I think the point was that the effort exerted was what provided the value, even if the effort ended up being wasted. He was kind of big on people using their talents to better themselves.”

“Sounds like he’d fit in well here,” Lyra replied with a smile.

“Maybe. He’d have to deal with the feeling that he was living in a musical. That and the talking ponies. Unlike this world, humans are the only sapient species back home.”

Lyra looked at me with what appeared to be a mixture of sadness and compassion. “That’s too bad. Seems like you might have been better prepared for what awaited you here if that weren’t so.”

A bitter laugh flew from my lungs, my breath misting in the frigid air around me. “No kidding. There are many things here that you take for granted that would come straight out of science fiction back home.” I waved a hand at the sky around us, even though it was devoid of winged equines. “For instance, weather manipulation.”

Lyra opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off with an outstretched hand. “And yes, I know that makes my world sound like the Everfree Forest. Lord knows I’ve heard that comparison enough out of the mouths of Twilight and her friends.”

I would’ve continued my rant further, if not for the expression I spied on Lyra’s muzzle. Her eyes had gone a bit wider, her brow taking a crookedness that suggested puzzlement, and a slight frown marring her lips. “I was going to say that it seems a bit chaotic,” she said in a slightly hurt tone that instantly made me regret my pre-emptive strike.

“Sorry,” I replied. In an attempt to atone for my error, I thought harder about her words, and I couldn’t help but chuckle a little.

“I suppose it can be a bit chaotic,” I finally said. “I mean, hell, we even developed an entire branch of mathematics called ‘chaos theory’ partially in an attempt to decipher our world’s weather patterns. It turned out to have useful applications in areas beyond meteorology, but on average only seems to have marginally improved our ability to predict the weather. Go figure.”

Lyra smiled widely in response, ears twitching occasionally. “I’d imagine that makes living there a bit exciting at times.”

“It can,” I said with an amused huff of air, my voice taking on a wistful note as I continued. “One local meteorologist was kind of known for delivering predictions of unusual or severe weather with great gusto. There was one winter when there was a possibility of ‘thundersnow.’ He’d said the word like a ring announcer introducing a professional wrestling champion.”

It took Lyra a full fifteen seconds to recover from the laughing fit that statement provoked. When she’d regained her composure, she said, “It sounds like humans have been able to make the most of such an unusual world.”

My brow furrowed thoughtfully. “I guess. I mean, it’s not like our world is completely chaotic. Even the supposed chaos has a certain order to it. You just have to‒”

“‒find the balance between chaos and harmony,” Lyra finished for me.

I thought about what she said. After a moment, I realized that she had a point. Looking over at her, I noticed her sporting a particularly goofy grin, one that probably mirrored my own.

We both quickly found particularly interesting parts of the river to study. However, before the silence could stretch any further, Lyra plucked up a rock in her telekinetic aura once more.

“So,” she said casually, her smile turning from goofy to coy, “care to show me your own take on ‘push-pin?’”

My smile remained resolutely lopsided as I huffed out an amused chuckle. “Sure, why not?” I replied. “Just one rule: no magic. That’s cheating.”

“Fine,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me playfully. She then dropped the rock into her upturned hoof. “We’ll play it your way.” With that, she gazed calmly out over the river, took aim and hurled it as hard as she could over the placid waters before us.

It flew a few feet further than my best throw, and ultimately splashed down exactly in the middle of the river.

Lyra’s chuckle at my resulting dumbstruck expression quickly snapped me back to reality, and filled me with a desire to try to match her throw for throw. Unfortunately for me, Lyra proved to be my better nine times out of ten. Strangely, I didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps it was because Lyra was a pretty good conversationalist. As we chucked rocks, she told me about singing in the Ponyville Choir and performing with her namesake lyre (though she insisted on calling it a clàrsach, for some reason). I also learned that, like Twilight, she was originally from Canterlot. For my part, I divulged some of what I knew of Earth’s great philosophers, artists, and composers, and that I myself had been known to dabble in playing the piano on occasion. The latter bit seemed to interest her greatly.

I had just launched the last stony missile when one of Lyra’s ears pricked up, then swiveled back towards Town Square. The sound of galloping hooves reached me less than a second later. Sharing a look with my unicorn companion, we turned back towards the sound just as a vaguely familiar cream-coated earth pony mare came into view. She was still wearing the flame-colored flower from earlier in her two-tone pink and blue mane, and a look of rapturous joy dawned on her face as she spotted Lyra.

“LYRA!” she cried, sweeping the unicorn up in a bone-crushing hug. Said unicorn returned the favor, though with much less force as the two ponies nuzzled one another.

“Hey, Bonnie. It’s good to see you, too,” Lyra said with a good-humored laugh.

“I thought you weren’t going to get back from Canterlot until later?” her friend said in wonder.

Lyra smiled sagely in response. “I managed to catch the early train back. I just got back into town about an hour ago. It was very odd to see Ponyville empty like a ghost town. One would’ve thought they’d somehow gone back in time to when everypony was scared of Zecora.”

“I believe I’m responsible for that,” I said, seeing an opportunity to inject myself into the conversation.

“Don’t be so down on yourself,” Lyra replied absently. Her eyes then shot open wide in realization. “Oh, I’m sorry, Bonnie. I didn’t mean to be rude. Bon Bon, this is Derren Knox.”

“Actually, we’ve met already, Lyra,” Bon Bon replied with a patient smile.

“Yeah,” I added, “Princess Celestia wanted to make sure my move to Ponyville went as smoothly as possible, so she decided to have an official town meeting to introduce me to everyone. I seem to recall Bon Bon sharing your interest in Earth, to a degree.”

“Ah,” Lyra replied blandly, “That explains it.” She then turned back to Bon Bon. “I would’ve thought you’d be back home getting ready for the party by now.”

Bon Bon balked slightly, a blush rising on her face for some reason, “Yeah, well, apparently Scary and Frightening needed some alone time.”

“Oh,” Lyra replied lamely, developing a blush of her own. “I see.”

“Scary and Frightening?” I asked.

“My pet spiders,” Bon Bon replied simply.

“You have pet spiders?”

Bon Bon nodded. “They’re a special breed that make good pets and help keep more dangerous pests away from the house. Fluttershy recommended them to me.”

“Ah. That makes sense, I suppose,” I said, rubbing the back of my head nervously.

“You don’t have a problem with spiders do you?” Bon Bon asked with a quizzical cast to her expression.

I shook my head. “Not in general. Just with the dangerous ones like brown recluses and black widows.” A thought occurred to me. “Wait, they needed alone time? As in…” I trailed off lamely, making a lewd gesture with my hands.

Amazingly, for members of a species that lacked fingers, Lyra and Bon Bon seemed to catch on to the gesture quickly. For her part, Lyra merely nodded, a slight pinkish tinge marring her minty cheeks.

“Yes,” Bon Bon said primly, though with a hint of amusement, “That.”

“And I think I just learned more than I wanted to know about spider reproduction,” I said with the fervor of one who desperately wanted to change the subject. This had the unfortunate effect of prompting the two mares to giggle at my consternation.

Bon Bon then looked in the general direction of the sun, seeming to gauge how much time had passed by its movement across the sky. “Well,” she said, “I think Scary and Frightening should be done by now. You ready to go home, Lyra?”

“Sure,” Lyra chirped eagerly. She then turned to face me. “It’s been nice meeting you, Derren. Are you going to be at the party tonight?”

I nodded eagerly. “Definitely. Even if I weren’t willing to go, I’m sure Twilight would be dragging me there regardless.”

Lyra’s laughter sang in the air once more. “Oh, come on. She’s not that bad.”

I gave a wan smile at that. “I suppose not. You probably know her better than me, so I’ll defer to your judgement for now.”

“Wise move,” Bon Bon murmured, prompting a collective eye roll from Lyra and me. Lyra’s, however, seemed a bit more playful, as if she was used to this sort of thing from her friend.

“Anyway,” Lyra said, changing the subject slightly, “Am I safe in assuming that the princesses have already arranged for a place for you to stay here in Ponyville?”

I nodded in confirmation. “I’m staying with Twilight at the Golden Oak Library, at least until I can earn enough bits to move out on my own.”

“I see,” Lyra replied. She then held out a hoof. “Best of luck to you, then. I look forward to seeing you at the party.”

I shook her hoof, then repeated the gesture with Bon Bon, who gave a weak smile in response. “See you two later,” I said.

With a final wave, they turned and started to trot off, lost in conversation about whatever it is females of any species talk about when no males are watching. Watching them head back into town, my thoughts remained focused on the minty mare I had just met. I had only known her for less than an hour, but in that amount of time, she had managed to get me to open up more than I had for Twilight, who had been practically assigned the task of getting me to make friends with the locals.

Life can be funny sometimes. I may not be able to recall being born, what I got for my first Christmas, or even when I went on my first picnic, but I had a feeling that I would always be able to remember when I first met Lyra. There was something about that mare that evoked an obscurely peculiar fascination in me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. All I knew was that we were becoming fast friends, as if we went together like peas and carrots.

My confused state of mind was thrown for an even further loop as I watched Lyra and Bon Bon recede into the distance. The whole time, Lyra’s tail had been absently swishing like a pendulum, offering glimpses of a part of her anatomy that would normally be hidden from anyone who wasn’t either her lover or her gynecologist.

I shook my head and let out a disgruntled noise. “Fucking ponies and their fucking lack of a nudity taboo,” I muttered darkly once the duo were out of earshot.

Clearly, it was time for more aimless wandering with a blank mind.

My random walk ultimately brought me into a market area just south of the river that ran through Ponyville as the sun was starting to set. The market was mostly deserted, as the few ponies that had set up shop had long since closed down due to the welcoming ceremony earlier in the day.

Semi-permanent stalls dotted the area, suggesting that at least some of the market was only open seasonally. The businesses that were in it for the long haul were housed in more substantial structures along the edge of the open area, one of which was an odd building on the eastern end that was designed like a pastel-colored circus tent.

Even at this late hour, though, there were still ponies passing through the market square. Most seemed to be heading to the various residences nearby, and few seemed to have time to spare for the alien in their midst, whether to gawk awkwardly, or to say a word or two in greeting.

I assumed this to also be the case for one particular pegasus I happened to spot coming in for a landing a few feet away. The pony’s sullenly gold coat shimmered slightly in the waning sunlight. A teal mane and tail, slightly reminiscent of Rainbow Dash in style, rippled in the air behind the pony like a pennant snapping in a stiff breeze. As the pony grew closer, I noticed two things. One, this pony was a mare, like so many that I had met before. The second was the trio of water droplets adorning her flank.

A slight gust of wind kicked up as the mare touched down ‒ hind legs first, in the classic “rearing horse” pose. Watching her flare her wings to slow herself down as she completed the landing was perhaps the most majestic thing I had yet seen in my short time in Equestria. Even Rainbow Dash at her most graceful couldn’t compare, in my eyes.

I must have let an audibly appreciative murmur slip out of my mouth, as the mare jerked her head in my direction with eyes widened in surprise. She slowly adopted a bashful smile and waved at me with a hoof, which I returned.

Unfortunately, she had placed the the hoof she wasn’t waving with down on a loose stone, which made her take a mighty stumble before she could place the last hoof down. I rushed forward to catch her. As luck would have it, her errant movement had given her a forward momentum that was too much for me to handle when we collided a moment later. The air whooshed out of my lungs as my back struck the ground, and I was stunned for a moment.

When I recovered, the first thing I felt was a pair of warm, slightly fuzzy lips pressed softly against mine. At the same time, my nose was assaulted with the (not unpleasant) scent of fresh rainwater. My eyes snapped wide open to find the lips belonged on the muzzle of the mare that I had just crashed into. She had similarly recovered, and was looking at me with an equal amount of shock.

In the blink of an eye, we had managed to put about a foot of space between us. I was doing a passable impression of the seiza sitting position, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the mare sitting on her haunches. Disconcertingly, it seemed as if her wings were stiffly extended.

As I began to wonder if I’d accidentally triggered an arousal response in another pegasus, the mare slowly got to her hooves and trotted over. She was blushing madly, and her wings were still erect like a stalk of corn. Hesitantly, she extended a hoof to me. Judging from the uncertain, but hopeful expression on her face, she was offering to help me to my feet.

Placing my right hand in her proffered hoof, I graciously accepted her assistance in getting to my feet. Her hoof flexed slightly against my hand, and I clasped my fingers against the soft fur of her foreleg in response. Once she was certain she had as secure a grip on me as her fingerless appendage allowed, she hauled me into an upright position with a gentle, yet surprisingly firm tug.

It was only now that I noticed the blush that had darkened her complexion since the accidental “kiss” still remained, and that her wings were still doing a passable impression of the flag Neil Armstrong planted on the moon.

“Well,” I said in an attempt to break the ice, “I don’t think this could get any more awkward.”

“Indeed,” she replied blandly. She then turned to her side, reaching back with a forehoof in a vain attempt to get her wings under control. Amusingly ‒ or perhaps disturbingly ‒ the mare’s wings stubbornly refused to stand down.

“Ugh,” she groaned, “Damned inconvenient ‘wingies.’”

I could feel my eyebrow climbing my forehead in morbid fascination. “Wingies?”

The golden pegasus matched my quizzical eyebrow with one of her own. “Seriously?” she demanded. “You don’t know what wi‒” She trailed off suddenly, then buried her face in a hoof a moment later as if she’d just caught herself about to make an embarrassing admission.

“You know what? Never mind,” she said, her tone suggesting that she was decidedly perturbed by the whole situation. “It’s none of your business. Besides, you seem smart enough to figure it out for yourself.”

I called to mind my faux pas with Rainbow Dash nearly a week ago, and how her wings had been in a similar state for a while afterwards. It didn’t take long for my mind to reach the obvious conclusion that our “impactful meeting” had had the same effect on this pegasus that my earlier, largely-innocent groping had produced in Dash.

Glumly, my thoughts turned from the mare’s reaction to the collision to mine. The weirdest thing about it was that it was a lot less of an alien experience than I was expecting. Not that it was completely without… uncomfortable aspects.

For instance, the slightly sparser fur of her muzzle made it feel like I was kissing another guy. Even though my rational mind could point out that both mares and stallions were furry there, the baser part of my mind kept screaming, “Facial hair equals dude equals nope!”

The other problem was more logistical. Even though her shorter muzzle made the mare look a bit more human, the difference between pony facial structure and that of a human was fairly obvious with our lips pressed together. We just didn’t quite “fit” together as naturally as I might with another human.

Compared to how it could’ve gone, however, those were the only real differences. And strangely, it wasn’t nearly as off-putting as I had feared. If anything, it was strangely familiar ‒ almost as if I had kissed a citizen of Equestria before coming here. But that couldn’t be true. These were the first sapient ponies I’d met.

I decided it was best not to dwell on it for the time being. Thinking too hard on conundrums like that was bad for one’s sanity.

“Yeah, I probably can figure it out for myself,” I eventually replied, the neutrality of my voice audibly forced. “And to be honest, it makes this conversation a whole lot more awkward.”

The mare nodded ruefully, letting out a sheepish chuckle. “I suppose it does.”

“How about we make it less awkward, then?” I suggested.

“That would be a good idea,” the mare said blandly. “Let’s start with the basics.” She extended a hoof once more. “I’m Raindrops.”

I gave a hesitant smile, taking her hoof in my hand and giving it a gentle shake. “Derren. Derren Knox.”

“I know,” Raindrops replied, “I was at the assembly earlier. Should’ve known it’d be a flying-room only event.” A long-suffering expression settled on her muzzle during that last sentence.

“Guess I wasn’t the only one winging it,” I replied impishly.

The glare that Raindrops aimed at me could have leveled the mountain Canterlot resided upon. “That pun was bad, and you should feel bad.”

“Sorry,” I replied sheepishly, “it’s a bad habit of mine. I must’ve picked it up from my father. He and one of my uncles were terrible punsters. Every time they’d get together, the bad puns would fly fast and furious.”

Raindrops smirked. “It must be a terrible burden to live with such a curse.”

“You have no idea.”

We broke out into a brief bout of polite laughter at that, during which Raindrops’ wings finally returned to their normal tucked and fluffed position. Once the mirth had run its course, however, an awkward silence descended.

I coughed meaningfully. “Look, I wanted to apologize for how we met. I’m sure we’ll look back on it someday and laugh, but that day is obviously not today.”

Raindrops shook her head. “You don’t have to apologize for anything. If anything, I’m at fault for tripping on that stone.” She gave a wry smirk as she continued, “At least you didn’t molest my wings.”

I let out a brief burst of forced laughter at that. “Yeah. No, thanks. Been there. Done that. Got the hoof-shaped bruises from Dash to prove it.”

“Wait a minute. You groped the Boss’s wings, and she let you live?” Raindrops’ tone sounded a bit outraged.

“She was feeling charitable that day.”

Raindrops snorted in response. “Must’ve been.” She cocked an eyebrow quizzically at me. “You do realize that the flight muscles are sensitive, right?”

“I do now,” I replied blandly. “Not entirely clear on why, though.”

“It helps us when we fly. We can sense changes in the air around us better, and make appropriate adjustments in order to stay airborne. Touch those same muscles in the right way ‒ or the wrong way, depending on how you look at it ‒ and WHAM ‒” she flared her wings in demonstration “‒ instant wingies.”

“I see,” I said lamely.

“As long as you’re clear and promise to avoid it in the future, we’re good.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I got it. Wouldn’t want ponies believing that groping the no-no bits is a standard human greeting.” Good thing I wound up here instead of Tina Foster, was the first thought that came to my mind.

Raindrops fixed me with a cold stare. “Yeah, you wouldn’t want that.” She let out a hearty chuckle after a moment of silence, as if reminded of something funny. “Cloud Kicker probably wouldn’t mind, though.”

“Cloud Kicker?”

“She’s the assistant manager for Ponyville’s weather team,” Raindrops said by way of explanation. “She’s basically between me and Rainbow Dash in the chain of command. She’s also a real barrelwarmer.” The last sentence was practically grumbled out, with Raindrops’ voice taking on a long-suffering tone.

“Barrelwarmer?”

“It means she’ll lift her tail for just about anypony. I mean, she has her rules. She won’t force herself on anypony, for one. She’s also not a herdbreaker.”

The term was unusual, but the context suggested that it was the pony version of homewrecker. I was going to need further clarification on that point. Unfortunately, Raindrops wasn’t giving me a chance to ask, preferring instead to hammer home a particular point about her immediate supervisor’s personality.

“‒but don’t think that you’re safe from her advances just because you’re not a pony,” I heard her say. “She once had a fling with this minotaur who fancied himself some sort of self-help guru when he came to town several months ago.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I said in a deadpan tone. “I don’t know if it’ll do much good, unless I know what she looks like so that I can avoid her, if possible.”

“Good luck with that,” Raindrops replied with a roll of her eyes. “Ponyville’s a small town, so she’s gonna find out about you eventually, even if it’s just through the rumor mill.” She then gave me a peculiar look. “But if you’re dead set on trying, she has a pale purple coat and a dirty blonde mane and tail. Her cutie mark looks like a sun poking out from behind a cloud.”

“Ah,” I said simply, “good to know.”

“No problem,” Raindrops said evenly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head home and rest up a bit before the party tonight. I had to cover for the Boss today while she was escorting you down from Canterlot.”

“Wouldn’t this ‘Cloud Kicker’ have been the next in line to assume Dash’s responsibilities while she was otherwise occupied?”

“Normally, yes,” Raindrops said with a hint of annoyance. “Unfortunately, she’s been in Cloudsdale the last week or so dealing with a family emergency, so it falls on my withers as the morning shift manager.”

“I see,” I said lamely. “In that case, I’m sorry for putting an unexpected burden on you.”

Raindrops shook her head, one eye widening slightly as an unamused expression wrote itself onto her features. “Don’t apologize for things that aren’t your fault. There was no way you could’ve known, and even if you had, there was nothing you could do about it. Besides, it may not look it, but I love my job, and there’s nothing I’d rather be doing.” Raindrops suddenly developed a sheepish grin. “Except maybe getting into the Wonderbolts, but that’s more of a stretch goal than an actual ambition.”

I chuckled politely at that. “Well, if that’s how you want to play it, then I won’t quibble.”

A yawn escaped Raindrops’ muzzle at that moment. “Good. But for now, sleepy time calls.”

“Alright, then. Don’t let me keep you. See you at the party?”

Raindrops gave a genuine smile. “Wouldn’t miss it for all the scones in Griffonstone. It’s a New Year’s party, after all. Even by Pinkie’s usually high standards, those are the best!”

With that, she flapped her wings a few times experimentally, and waved a hoof at me before departing. I was still watching the northern sky long after she disappeared from sight, mesmerized by her ability to defy gravity with her wings.

As I watched her fly away, an odd feeling gripped me. It was the same peculiar sensation I had experienced the first time I met Lyra, Twilight, Nurse Faran, and one other pony ‒ that odd upper class stallion from my week in Canterlot. For better or worse, somehow I instinctively knew that I’d be seeing more of these ponies as time went on, as if my fate was intertwined with theirs.

I was never one to give much credence to notions of destiny, fate, or anything like that. To me, that had always been unscientific hokum that theocratically-inclined preachers used to scare their flocks into unthinking credulity. And yet, this sensation felt too real to cavalierly dismiss as Bronze Age authoritarian fearmongering, especially since it seemed to be coming from the same place in my mind that now housed the “psychic radio receiver” that was the Music of Harmony.

While I wasn’t sure about the stallion, the others didn’t seem so bad. If a thing like destiny really did exist here, and these ponies were guaranteed to be walking with me on the metaphorical road of life for a while, then perhaps I could take a chance and get to know them better.

Somewhere deep inside of me, a hardened piece of the metaphorical shell I had built up around myself over the years started to crumble away.

Chapter Five-A - Party Hardly (Part One)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Five-B - Party Hardly (Part Two)

“‒ and that’s how I ended up in the middle of the sanctuary with my pants around my ankles, huddling under the preacher’s robes to protect my modesty.” A sly smile slid onto my face as I unloaded the punchline: ”You could say that I gave a new meaning to the phrase ants in the pants.”

Raindrops, who had her face buried in a hoof, was the first to respond. “You do know that fire ants are rather aggressive when their mounds are disturbed, right?”

“Of course I do,” I retorted, my indignation only partly feigned. “But my parents were taking too long talking with their friends, and I was bored.”

“Boredom is no excuse for doing something that you know is stupid!” Raindrops countered, gesticulating wildly with a hoof.

“Hey, you wanted amusing and highly embarrassing stories from my world. Don’t complain to me when I give you what you asked for,” I finished with a huff.

A few hours had passed since I first sat down with Raindrops, Lyra, and their friends. I had long since polished off my plate of food, and was now well into a pint of regular cider. I noted with approval that the grumpy bear of a pegasus shared my preference for alcoholic beverages. Lyra’s choice of drink ‒ water ‒ seemed a bit unusual. However, I figured that either she wasn’t much of a drinker to begin with, or there was a particular reason why she chose to abstain from intoxicating beverages. Either way, I wasn’t inclined to pry.

One other interesting thing I noticed was the interaction between Bon Bon and Azure Dreams ‒ mostly of the nonverbal variety. The two seemed to be dancing around each other quite a bit. For his part, Azure kept glancing at Bon Bon in a manner that was half deathly fear, and half undisguised adoration. Whenever Bon Bon deigned to notice him, however, it was with a mixture of amusement and revulsion. I couldn’t put my finger on it for certain, but there seemed to be a certain amount of belligerent sexual tension between the two.

For some reason, the thought made me shudder in pained sympathy for poor Azure.

Thanks to the encouragement of my new “friends,” along with my steadily increasing state of inebriation, I had spent the last little while regaling them with tales of Earth. For some reason, they seemed to have a particular fascination with my more embarrassing moments from when I was a child. There didn’t seem to be any malice in the requests, though. If anything, they tended to regard such anecdotes as endearing, or as Lyra had referred to them: “cute.”

“There is one thing that I don’t understand, Derren,” Flitter said, defusing the tension between Raindrops and me. “Why do humans wear clothes all the time? I mean, you’re even wearing a different outfit to this party than you had on at the welcome ceremony. It just doesn’t seem all that practical to me.”

“Didn’t Princess Celestia explain it to you?” I asked. My speech was slightly slurred due to the heavy buzz I had carefully cultivated throughout the night.

Flitter shook her head. “All she said was that you had a nudity taboo for some reason, but she didn’t say why.”

I blinked a few times in a vain effort to clear my head and process what she’d said. “Ah,” I said at last. “Well, there’s two main reasons for it. The first is the fact that, unlike you ponies, evolution didn’t grace us with a fur coat to keep the weather at bay.”

“And the other reason?” Cloudchaser prompted.

I was about to respond when a heavy mass suddenly collapsed onto me, nearly crushing me between it and the table. From the way it had glommed onto my back, I could reasonably surmise that it was probably a pony ‒ a speculation that was confirmed moments later as the mass began to sing in Pinkie’s voice:

Zip up your doo-dah!
Don’t be risque!
My, oh my what a thing to display!
Plenty of ponies looking your way!
Zip up your doo-dah,
It’s cold out today!

A poofy pink mane descended into my view from above as Pinkie lowered herself to the floor. Her hooves still had me locked in their death grip, however.

I buried my face in a palm and let out an irritated groan before muttering, “Goddammit, Pinkie Pie!”

“Oh, hey there, Pinkie Pie,” Bon Bon said amicably, “What’re you doing here?”

Mercifully, Pinkie managed to let go of me to answer Bon Bon’s question. “Oh, just reminding you guys that it’s last call before everypony goes outside for karaoke and the countdown to midnight!”

“Thanks, Pinkie,” Flitter said with a slight smile. “We’ll be right there.”

“Okie dokie lokie,” Pinkie chirped. “Oh, and Der-bear, don’t forget your coat before you go out. It’s cold out there, after all.” With that, she handed me my trench coat. In the blink of an eye, she was gone again.

When I turned back to the other ponies at the table, Raindrops was wearing a smug smile. “Let me guess,” she said, her voice oozing an arch tone, “When Twilight and her friends asked you about your need to go around clothed all the time, you tried to be cute by responding with that song, and Pinkie picked up on it somehow?”

I let out an exasperated sigh before nodding. “Got it in one, Raindrops.”

This led the group to start laughing at my expense. I held up a hand to silence them.

“Let’s be fair about this,” I added defensively, “I’d only known Pinkie for all of about an hour at the time. I didn’t expect her to be so…” I trailed off, struggling to put Pinkie’s personality into words.

“...Pinkie Pie?” Bon Bon helpfully provided, a knowing smirk dawning on her muzzle as well.

I rolled my eyes. “For lack of a better term, yes.”

The laughter resumed once more, but it somehow felt more sympathetic than the previous round.

“Don’t fret, sug,” Sea Swirl replied, reaching across the table to offer a comforting hoof. “We’ve all been caught up in quite a fais do-do by Pinkie at some time or another. In a way, it’s part of her charm.”

“Sorta like a Maredi Gras favor among us Ponyvillians,” Azure added. “If ya haven’t died of embarrassment because of her antics, it don’ madda.”

Swayed by the bright faces and encouraging smiles, a wan smile willed its way onto my own features. “Thanks, everyone,” I said with a half-hearted chuckle, “That’s actually kind of reassuring, in an odd sort of way.”

My companions chimed in as one: “That’s Pinkie Pie for you!”

They then descended into hearty, companionable laughter, which I found myself helpless to resist joining in on. As we settled down, I noticed a disturbing emptiness in my pint glass.

“Well, as fun as this has been so far, I think I’m going to take advantage of last call here,” I said, waving the glass in the air for emphasis. Slipping on my trench coat, I rose to my feet with only a little wobbliness. My first step away from the table, however, had a bit more sway to it than anticipated, prompting Lyra to call out in concern.

“Are you sure you haven’t had enough to drink?” she asked.

I waved her off. “Being drinking buddies with a griffon tends to teach you your alcohol tolerance limits pretty quickly. I should be good for one more round.”

Looking back, I could see doubt clearly written on her muzzle. The others, however, were muttering amongst themselves about the revelation that I was on good terms with a griffon.

“Look, Lyra,” I said softly, “I’ll try to be careful. I don’t plan on getting rip-roaring drunk, but I’ve got friends who will take care of me if I do.” A warm feeling settled in my gut as I said that.

My response seemed to settle the mare enough to where she allowed a small smile to work its way onto her muzzle. After a long moment, she slowly nodded, as if giving me permission to cut loose.

One concession stand still seemed to be operational at this late hour, and it was manned by a rather substantial-looking red stallion. Like Nurse Faran, he seemed like he could just about look me straight in the eye. By the time I made my way over to him, I was pretty certain I could fake sobriety well enough to pass a field test, even one that was improvised to include ballet maneuvers.

At my approach, he regarded me with narrowed eyes, and I could feel my bravado beginning to falter. Somehow, I managed to gather up a second dose of courage to sidle up to his stand.

He took a long moment to size me up. I gazed right back into his sap green eyes. If this was a test of wills, I wasn’t going to back down. I was going to prove I was sober enough for one more round if it was the last thing I did.

Evidently, I passed his silent test, as his facial expression relaxed into a more genial one. “Alright then,” he said with a familiar drawl, “I suppose I can let ya have one more.”

I silently exulted.

He took the glass from me and poured the rainbow-hued libation into a smaller plastic “to-go” cup. “But it’ll have to be a small one. Applejack’d have my hide if you wound up in the drunk tank or worse on accounta me.”

I felt a twinge of disappointment, but merely nodded. “Fair enough.” After a long pause, I added, “So, Applejack’s your‒”

“‒Sister.”

“Ah. You must be the ‘Big Mac’ she was telling me about.”

“Eeyup,” was all he said.

I took a moment to appraise him critically. “You don’t say much, do you?”

“Eenope.”

“So, what? You like to listen to folks talk, so you can find out how full of shit they are?”

The knowing smile that lit his features was all the answer I needed.

I shook my head in disbelief as I grabbed my glass. “Crazy-ass ponies,” I muttered as I walked away from the stand. I now had a decision to make: do I go back to Raindrops and her friends, or do I try and find out what Twilight and the gang have been up to while I was schmoozing with the new neighbors?

Fortunately, I didn’t have to choose, as both sets of acquaintances came trotting towards me from different directions. Twilight and her friends were approaching from my left, while Raindrops and the others were coming from my right.

“Wow, I sure am popular tonight, eh?” I said with a nervous chuckle.

“Well, I don’t want to make your head swell up like the boss,” Raindrops began with a smug grin.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted indignantly.

Raindrops’ smile developed a shit-eating quality as she passed a sidelong glance over her boss. “You being the guest of honor… of sorts… at tonight’s party would have something to do with that,” she finished.

I merely shrugged at that. “I guess so.”

“So, who’s this griffon friend you mentioned?” Bon Bon asked, her muzzle scrunching up like she’d just tasted a particularly bitter candy.

I mentally cursed myself for letting that slip. In my somewhat inebriated state, I had forgotten that the only experience with griffons that Ponyville’s citizens had had was Dash’s former friend, Gilda. Of course they’d be a bit shocked and suspicious to find that I was friends with one. Worse, I wasn’t sure just how much of the way my friendship with Doctor Silverclaw came about was a national secret. I was going to have to find some way of carefully threading a tricky needle ‒ not an easy thing to do when one is not at their best mental faculties.

Thankfully, Faran was there to make the save. “He’s the doctor that treated Derren when he first regained consciousness in Equestria. The two hit it off somehow, and spent quite a bit of time carousing in various Lower Canterlot bars, much to my dismay.”

I glared at Faran. “Gee, when you put it that way, it makes it sound like I’m an alcoholic, or something.”

Faran merely stared pointedly at the cup I was holding.

I shot her a look that said, Are you really going there? In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting her empathic abilities to be active.

Evidently, they were, much to my chagrin. Science fiction must have spoiled me on what to expect from psychic communication, as I felt none of the invisible pressure of an invading mind that I was anticipating. Nevertheless, I was suddenly able to read Faran’s expression a hell of a lot clearer. The challenging stare she aimed at me replied, Give me a reason not to.

The slap of my palm against my forehead, followed by a hardened glare said it louder than any words: Because most alcoholic beverages taste like shit to me, so I can’t stomach them long enough to get drunk.

Faran’s muzzle scrunched up and one eyebrow raised quizzically, but the gleam in her eye suggested that she was mocking me. So, you know what shit tastes like?

I folded my arms across my chest and fixed her with a level stare. Yes, because most of our conversations revolve around you shoving a metaphorical load of it down my throat.

An impish grin alighted on Faran’s muzzle. So, when did you first realize that you were a metaphorical coprophage?

My stare only intensified. The very first moment we met in the hospital ward in Canterlot. And who are you to determine that anyway? You’re not a shr‒.

Faran’s stare suddenly became challenging again, breaking into my train of thought. I hold a license in xenopsychology from the Capallian Medical Certification Ministry.

I blinked at that for a moment before my face took on a more resigned expression. Touché.

Faran wordlessly pounced with a predatory grin that said, Over so soon? I was hoping for a good fight.

I recoiled as if struck. Hey, go easy on me. This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. An arch expression of my own slowly formed. Besides, I love a woman that can kick my ass, even if it’s just verbal sparring.

After a moment, the shock of realization hit both of us, and we both recoiled in shock. Our unison verbal response was quite vocal: “Wait, WHAT?”

“Did any of you just get the feeling that we were two steps behind these two in whatever silent conversation they were having?” Cloudchaser asked in a deadpan tone.

“I’m not even sure how they’re doing it,” Twilight added. “It makes even less sense than the Pinkie Sense.”

That was a new one on me. “Pinkie Sense?” was all I could come up with after a minute of trying to form words. I hated that for all my flirtations with eloquence, stress could sometimes rob me of my gift for gab. And Equestria seemed hell-bent on pushing all my buttons all at once ‒ preferably by way of a set of pink hooves.

I could tell that I was going to need every ounce of liquid courage I could get before the night was out, consequences to my body and reputation be damned.

“I’ll explain it later,” Twilight promised.

“I’m sure you will. Let’s just get going, shall we?” I grumbled at last.

“Now, now, Der-bear,” Pinkie chimed in, somehow managing to drape a hoof over my shoulder. “You Pinkie Promised that you’d have fun tonight! Let’s turn that frown upside-down! After all, it’s karaoke time!”

“Sure thing,” I said as politely as possible to the pink enigma, “after you.”

And so, we made our way out of Town Hall and into a magical, cold and windless night that served as the bridge from one year to the next. The stars were out in force as we trundled into the surrounding town square, each a glimmering diamond in the murky ocean of space above. Closer to ground level, however, the lanterns marking the border of the makeshift dance floor began to drown out all but the brightest stars with their warm orange-white glow. The white unicorn that Pinkie had referred to as Vinyl Scratch didn’t seem to have moved from her post at the DJ station at all in the last however long it had been since Rainbow Dash escorted me inside Town Hall, leaving me to wonder if she’d even taken a break to use the little fillies’ room while I was busy expanding my circle of friends.

On our way out, we happened to run into a few more ponies ‒ a pegasus and two earth ponies ‒ that Twilight, Lyra, and Raindrops knew personally. Two of the trio were already familiar to me. Raindrops had referred to the gray pegasus as Ditzy Doo, though I wasn’t sure if that was actually her name, or some nickname that had originally been applied in derision and was now worn as a badge of pride in some ironic twist. If it was a nickname, it seemed rather fitting, given her earlier demonstrated talent for accidentally setting rats alight.

Of the two earth ponies, I quickly recognized the maroon coat and two-tone pink and white mane and tail on one as belonging to Cheerilee, the teacher who had asked me about human education methods at the welcome ceremony earlier. For her part, Cheerilee seemed glad to see me again, as she cheerfully waved at me before offering a hoof to shake. I had to swap my drink cup to my left hand, but other than that, I was able to return the greeting without too much trouble.

The final addition to our greatly expanded party was a pale yellow earth pony mare whose carrot-colored mane and tail rivaled Pinkie’s in curliness. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me in the least that her cutie mark consisted of a trio of carrots, and that her name, according to Raindrops, was Carrot Top. As I was musing over how fitting her name was, she was looking me up and down. The troubled expression on her muzzle suggested that she wasn’t quite sure what to make of me, but for the time being, she meekly accepted Raindrops’ insistence that I was a trustworthy sort.

The area immediately in front of the stage was packed with ponies, even spilling out onto the dance floor a bit. A number of pegasi were hovering above the crowd in order to get a better vantage point. Despite the airborne obstructions, not to mention having to mentally block out the unintentional show a few pegasus mares were giving me, I was able to clearly see the stage.

Vinyl Scratch wasn’t alone up there. Accompanying her was an earth pony mare with a slate gray coat and elegantly styled charcoal black mane and tail. To my immense surprise ‒ both because of her treble clef cutie mark, and the fact that she was somehow managing to hold the bow in her hoof with the practiced ease of a professional ‒ the mare was playing a cello. The two were performing some odd fusion of classical and electronic music that was starting to sound like a musical duel towards the end, an impression that was only reinforced by the frantic movements of the duo.

When the piece came to an abrupt end, the square erupted in cheers and thunderous hoof-stomping. Even I was caught up in the excitement, doing my best to clap enthusiastically and not spill my drink.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Lyra appraising me with a sidelong glance. “See anything you like?” she asked with a sly smile.

I shook my head. “Just a bit awed. I would’ve thought that not having fingers would be a disadvantage when it comes to things requiring a certain amount of dexterity, but it seems Equis didn’t get the memo in that regard.”

“I think you’ll find this world to be full of surprises,” Lyra replied, her lips drawn up in an enigmatic smile. The rest of her expression was likewise unreadable, except for the hint of coy amusement dancing in her eyes.

“It’s not that surprising,” Twilight interjected. “Every sapient ungulate species also has the ability to consciously emit a weak telekinetic field from their hooves that allows them to grip objects as if they had the fingers and opposable thumbs of minotaurs.”

A teasing grin found a home on my lips. “Ah, so you’re cheating.”

“Be nice,” Twilight murmured.

Our attention was drawn back to the stage as Vinyl picked up a microphone in her telekinetic grasp, which turned out to be a magenta color similar to Twilight’s. “Goooooood evening, Ponyville! Is everypony, and every human, ready to rock their way into the new year?”

The crowd roared its approval.

“I can’t hear you!”

The roar grew louder.

“I still can’t hear you!”

The roar reached deafening levels.

“Alright! Now, that’s more like it!” Vinyl’s voice boomed out from the speakers. “Now, we’ve come to the part of tonight’s festivities where we invite anyone who wants to add a little… magic to the evening to come up here and sing some of their favorite tunes for the enjoyment of all!”

The crowd gave another rapturous cheer in response to Vinyl’s announcement. A silly notion wormed its way into my brain, and I had to fight back the urge to laugh: the mare could probably announce the impending end of the world, and the crowd would still cheer her on.

“But tonight’s a special night, as we have the distinct honor of welcoming a new neighbor to Ponyville in addition to welcoming the new year. So to celebrate our new arrival, I’d like to let the guest of honor start things off for us. Derren Knox, come on down!”

I suddenly found myself the center of attention as every pony around me turned to take a gander at me. Several were offering words of encouragement as I stood there stock still, trying to figure out how I’d been volunteered as the sacrificial lamb for this ritual. I could feel my heart rate rising again as the panic that had momentarily robbed me of my ability to move at the welcoming ceremony came back in force.

Once again, I was freed from my mental paralysis by my friends. An amber aura encased my drink cup as Lyra gently, but firmly, pried it from my left hand. At the same time, I could feel a draft coming from just above and behind me as a pair of hooves steadily pushed me in the direction of the stage. Looking back, I saw that the hooves belonged to a certain pegasus of my acquaintance who had a reputation for being a sourpuss.

“Thanks, but I think I can handle it from here,” I said.

Raindrops gave a small snort at that. “You’ve had enough booze to get you walking funny. Wouldn’t do for you to embarrass yourself by face-planting on your way up to the stage, now would it?” I could feel her breath wafting over me as she whispered harshly in my ear.

“Alright. Alright. Fine. Geez, you sound like my mother.”

“Except that your mother probably wasn’t a pony.”

“No, she was a hamster.” I looked at Raindrops with a straight face as her confusion and consternation deepened. Finally, I could take no more, and burst out laughing. “Geez, Raindrops. I’m just kidding. Don’t take it so personally.”

“Oh, yes. You are such a comedian,” she replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Now get up there and show us what you’ve got, you big dork!” With that, she gave me a solid whack between the shoulder blades with her hoof, propelling me towards the steps leading up to the stage where Vinyl had her DJ equipment.

I took care in climbing up onto the stage, where I was subsequently met by the mare herself as she slid right up next to me. “Derren! Knox!” she shouted, as if excessively excited to meet me. For some reason, it seemed as though she had put the microphone on a reverb setting, as her voice echoed from the speakers.

I received another shock to my system when Vinyl suddenly turned and started walking away, putting an exaggerated sway into her hips. “This stallion is fueled, like fire! So start melting, ladies!” She reached the opposite end of the stage and turned around, a predatory smirk dawning on her face as she noticed I had been mesmerized by the motion of her rump ‒ though it was more like looking at a train wreck from my perspective. “This boy is hotter than hot! He’s hot hot HOT!” I had to step back a bit, as Vinyl had gotten in my face with her antics.

The crazy mare continued unperturbed, practically singing her words. “And he’s got something to say to all of you Ponyvillians out there.” She suddenly thrust the mic in my face. “Pop it like it was my cherry when I was the tender age of fifteen, K-man!”

For a moment, I found myself robbed of the power of speech. After a whole week around more prudish mares like Twilight and Faran, I was more than a little caught off guard by Vinyl’s casual mention of her first sexual encounter ‒ not to mention more than a little weirded out by the mental images the statement had provoked. Eventually, I managed to get my mind settled enough to let out a stunned, “Uh, hi.”

A flash of annoyance passed quickly over Vinyl’s muzzle, but she resumed her spiel nonetheless. “Quiver, ladies, quiver. He’s about to set the world on fire. How’s he gonna do it, you ask? Well, let’s go to K-man for the word of the night. You happy to be up on this stage?”

I leveled the DJ with a deadpan stare. “Thrilled.”

With perhaps all of Ponyville watching the two of us, Vinyl visibly gathered her composure as she handed the microphone to one of the unicorn stagehands. The stallion let out a grunt when the microphone smacked him solidly in the chest, a sound that was amplified by the speakers. Vinyl reared up on her hind legs, and I braced myself for an equine frontal assault ‒ one that never came. Instead, Vinyl hooked a foreleg over my shoulder, and levitated her shades upwards to rest just below her horn.

The narrowing of her rose-colored eyes told me that despite the relatively friendly gesture, I was not going to like this conversation. “Look, Derren,” she said, suddenly dropping the outlandish speech patterns, “I realize that my stage persona may be a little… much for folks to deal with. But for Celestia’s sake, at least try to look like you’re having a good time. You’re killing me here, dude.”

I took several long, slow blinks, struggling to adjust to Vinyl’s abrupt change of demeanor. “Umm, sure.”

For her part, Vinyl pressed a hoof to her face. “Better than nothing, I suppose,” she muttered. And like a switch being flipped, Vinyl yanked the microphone back from the stagehand and dove back into her performance mode like nothing had happened.

“Mares and gentlecolts, prepare your nethers for an audioerotic experience like never before as the K-man drops his world’s sweet beats on your ears.” She surreptitiously aimed a penetrating glare at me. “You green to go, K-man?”

“I… guess?”

“There’s no such thing as guessing when you’re performing, K-man! You green or red?”

“I’m pretty green, but there’s just one thing.” I beckoned Vinyl over for a moment.

The mare let out a low growl as she trotted over. “What is it now?”

“Well, I don’t know any of the popular songs here, and unless that ‘WubMaster’ of yours can somehow channel the Mu‒”

“It can. You just have to invoke the Music of Harmony while holding the mic,” she said, waving the mic pointedly.

“Invoke the Music of Harmony?” I parroted.

Vinyl nodded. “Just sing from your soul. The rest should come naturally.”

“You make it sound so easy,” I said, leveling a deadpan stare at her. Sing from the soul, she says. As if I even know what the fuck that means.

“Now then,” Vinyl said matter-of-factly. “Are you ready to rock our world?”

Ponies were beginning to murmur impatiently. I had to think of something, and fast. Taking a moment to steady my breathing, I concentrated on finding a festive song from my mental database of human music. A sly smile spread across my lips as I thought of the perfect song to start off with. Who knows, I thought, maybe if I do this right, they’ll want an encore.

I nodded to Vinyl. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Vinyl lowered her shades back into place, covering her eyes as her muzzle split in a wide grin. “Now, that’s what I like to hear! Lemme see you blow our socks off!”

With that, her horn lit up as she used her telekinesis to casually sling the microphone in my direction. Despite bobbling it a bit as it bounced out of my hands, which stung a bit from the force she’d managed to impart to the mic, I managed to catch it at the edge of the stage. Once I was certain there was no danger of me accidentally falling into the crowd, I held the microphone up and said, “Hold onto your rumps.”

It was as much of a warning to the audience that they might be in for disappointment as it was a means of steeling myself for the next step. So far, I had been at the mercy of seemingly random intervention on the part of the planet’s own divine will, as it were. This would be a first for me, and to say that I was uncertain about what I was about to do was the understatement of the century.

It took a moment of visibly gathering my concentration and exerting my will on the part of my mind that housed my psychic connection to the planet’s harmonic magic field. I had my eyes closed, but I could imagine that I probably looked somewhat constipated as I did this. Nevertheless, the results spoke for themselves, as a familiar upbeat, almost princely instrumental intro blared out over the speakers. At the appropriate moment, I took my psychic cue and began to sing.

I thanked my lucky stars that the ponies didn’t seem to be paying too close attention to the lyrics, as I’m not sure that they’d approve of the apocalyptic visions being spun within. Of course, that assumed that they wouldn’t bother to think about them while raiding the fridge later that night.

At any rate, the audience seemed to be eating up my performance, and by the time I was done, a loud cheer erupted from the crowd of ponies before me.

“YES!” Vinyl erupted almost orgasmically into the microphone as she yanked it from my hands with her magic. “That is how it’s done, K-man! You ever wanna regale us with your awesome tunes tonight, you just mosey your sweet rump on over here and mount us again!” She proceeded to punctuate her statement with a series of rather lewd hip thrusts that had me turning my head away in embarrassment.

I was still shaking my head in bemusement when I caught up to my new friends, who burst into a cheer of their own upon seeing me. My mental state was not helped by Rainbow Dash adopting “K-man” as her new nickname for me, and using it to tease me at every opportunity.

“I think I preferred it when she called me ‘Der-bear,’” I muttered to no one in particular when Rainbow had addressed me by the embarrassing moniker for the umpteenth time. I then fixed Twilight with a serious look. “Is every pony in this town that crazy?”

Twilight burst into laughter in response. Upon seeing my highly unamused expression, she quickly sobered up. “Sorry. It’s just that I thought much the same thing when I first came to Ponyville.”

“I can see why,” I said blandly.

Twilight merely offered a sympathetic smile in response. Raindrops, on the other hand, had a more unconventional take on the psychology of Ponyville’s citizens.

“Probably comes with living on the edge of the Everfree,” she said with a crooked smile.

“That, and all the disasters we seem to attract because of it,” Bon Bon added, a disgruntled look etched on her face.

“Funny, I would’ve thought that was because of the fact that the only ponies capable of wielding Equestria’s most powerful means of defense live here, right Boss?” Raindrops’ smile turned teasing as she appraised Rainbow with a sidelong glance.

Rainbow gave a derisive snort in response. “You didn’t seem to mind so much when we were using our awesomeness to save your rump from Nightmare Moon and Discord, Rainy.” She shot a smug look back at Raindrops.

Raindrops merely rolled her eyes in response, and opened her mouth as if to deliver a devastating retort.

“You know, you guys really aren’t making a good case for me settling down here,” I said in an attempt to intervene diplomatically.

“No one said you had to live here,” Bon Bon replied with a sly smile.

“Oh, believe me. If I had my druthers, I’d be somewhere else. Unfortunately, I don’t have any bits to my name, and it’s only by the grace of Twilight’s generosity that I have anywhere to stay.”

Cloudchaser’s eyes twinkled with barely-suppressed mirth. “Oh, my. Living together with a mare you barely know? You sure move fast.”

“And that’s when my drinking problem began,” I muttered, letting out a rude noise in frustration.

“Began?” Faran snorted out a laugh.

I had to seriously fight to suppress the urge to facepalm. “You know what? I’m going back up to the stage for another number. Maybe I can find the remains of my dignity there.” I held out my drink cup abruptly, caring little that some of the rainbow-hued liquid within had sloshed out and spilled on the ground. “Could someone hold this for me, please?”

Twilight’s horn lit up as she took the cup from me in her telekinetic grasp. With a nod of thanks, I parted company with the group and made my way back towards the stage, joining the end of a somewhat lengthy line of ponies that also held aspirations of becoming Equestria’s next top idol.

As I waited in line, I took the opportunity to pay attention to the songs that Ponyville’s residents deemed good music. There seemed to be a wide range of styles, from ballads to rap to blues to country. One thing in particular that I noticed was that in spite of many of the ponies being “assisted” by the Music of Harmony as I was, the music all seemed to be completely heartfelt and organic, not the mass-produced, recycled crap that made up an ever-growing percentage of “music” back on Earth. The comparison prompted a realization that I was starting to sound like someone from my parents’ generation talking about the music my peers consumed.

Damn, I’m getting old, I thought.

About halfway through the line, I realized that I hadn’t seen Lyra when I came back from kicking off Karaoke Hour. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why: the next act was a duo with Lyra and the slate gray earth pony mare from before. Lyra had brought along a harp from somewhere and was holding it in her telekinetic aura. Despite using her hooves to do so, she was plucking the strings with all the grace of a professional harpist from Earth. The melody she and the unknown mare were weaving was heart-achingly beautiful and ‒ to my ear, at least ‒ bore a passing resemblance to a piece of background music from an old Japanese RPG involving giant mecha.

I must have been lost in my own thoughts for a moment, as I didn’t even register the music coming to an end. A familiar voice snapped me out of my reverie.

“I guess I can tug at the heartstrings of humans just as easily as ponies.”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts before gazing into the amber irises of the mare who had just spoken. Her instrument was stowed in a case that was barely sticking out of the saddlebags she was wearing ‒ saddlebags that just happened to be adorned with a clasp that matched her cutie mark.

“W-What do you mean, Lyra?” I asked in a surprisingly choked-up voice.

She pointed to my face with a hoof before using her telekinesis to offer me a handkerchief. I touched my fingertips to my eyes. They came away wet. Again.

“Dammit,” I muttered as I accepted the handkerchief from Lyra and used it to wipe my face clean. Even though it could be oddly cathartic at times, I really hated getting emotional like that ‒ especially in front of others.

Lyra seemed to understand this almost instinctively, as she beckoned me closer with a hoof. I dropped into a squat so that I was at eye level with her, and she gently placed a comforting hoof on my shoulder. She then leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

A warm feeling settled in my gut at that, and I couldn’t resist an equally warm smile tugging at my lips. “Thanks, Lyra,” I said, clasping her hoof in my hand, “I appreciate it. Just try not to reduce me to a blubbering mess too often. I don’t think my male pride could take it.”

The smile on her face was as brilliant as the sun as her silvery laughter tinkled in the air once more. “I’ll try not to,” she replied. I then felt an invisible force pointedly nudging me in the direction of the stage. “Now, go do what you need to do,” she said, punctuating the statement with one last telekinetic push.

I ascended the stage steps once more, only to be greeted by Vinyl and her overbearing stage persona once again. “Well, well, well. Fillies and gentlecolts, look who’s back for Round Two!”

The crowd erupted in cheers once more, but that was the furthest thing from my mind at the moment. My gorge began to rise as Vinyl stalked towards me, and in a brief moment of panic, I considered fleeing back the way I came. “K-man, did you miss me so much that you just couldn’t stay away? Perhaps you wanted to offer me a bit of your love of life?”

At this, Vinyl turned her back to me and proved herself the equal of Cloud Kicker’s reputation for perversion by flicking her tail upwards and swaying her hips, offering the briefest of glimpses of all she had to offer. A collective whinny of shock and surprise ran through the crowd, which I could only guess was the pony equivalent of leaning back and shouting, “DAAAAAAMN!”

A stagehand handed me a microphone with which to respond. “Um, no, Vinyl. I’m just here to sing.”

“I could make you sing,” she retorted with a predatory smirk and a teasing shake of her rump.

“I’m sure you could, but that’s not what I’m here for.”

“Pity,” she replied, turning back to face me. “Well, go ahead. May as well lay it on us, then.” A wicked grin crossed her muzzle. “And maybe later you can lay me on it.”

I spared her no more than a roll of my eyes before turning to face the audience. “This one’s going to be a little bit different from what I did before. It’s by a folk singer from my world named Eric Bogle. The song represents his impressions, thoughts, and feelings about three pivotal moments in recent human history ‒ two of which happened about a decade or so before I was born. The lyrics may not mean anything to you, but they mean a lot to me, especially with how radically my world has changed in the last week or so. I hope you get at least some small measure of enjoyment out of it.”

The audience fell into a respectful silence as the song began to play in everyone’s collective consciousness via the magic of the Music of Harmony. Once again, I waited until the appropriate moment to begin. As the song went on, I watched the reactions of the crowd. As expected, the first verse drew a lot of shocked looks. How were they to know that the “slavemaster” who assassinated MLK was metaphorical? Nevertheless, I could gradually see it replaced with curiosity, awe and sympathetic smiles by the end. Amazingly, there were even a couple of ponies who were tearing up at the impact the lyrics had on them.

As the last notes died away, I was met with a tepid applause that gradually grew louder. While I hadn’t received a standing ovation for my effort, it appeared to have met with general approval by the audience.

For her part, Vinyl seemed to have dropped the rampaging pervert act for the moment. When she came over, I could hear her sniffling a bit, but the biggest surprise came when she jumped up and latched onto me. In a slightly husky tone, she whispered, “That was simply beautiful, K-man. Don’t stop being awesome!”

With a hearty clap on the shoulder, she then let go of me and dropped down to all fours. I took it as my cue to yield the stage to the professionals. As I descended the stairs, I couldn’t help but feel as if the adulation was undeserved. After all, most of that was the work of the Music of Harmony. Could I really say that I’d put my all into the performance?

By the time I got back to my friends, who had nothing but praise for my performance, Vinyl seemed to have regained her composure. “Alright, Ponyville! I know you’ve had a great time tearing up my stage, and would like to continue to do so.”

A cheer erupted from the crowd once more, and I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d managed to avoid wearing out their voices with all the noise.

“Unfortunately,” Vinyl added, receiving a collective groan from the gathered ponies, “we’re going to have to put that on hold for a bit, since it’s almost time for the countdown to the new year!” The groan quickly turned into another cheer. At the same time, Vinyl’s horn lit up along with her “WubMaster,” which began to rapidly alter its form. Bits and pieces popped out, spun around, and flipped over, emitting sounds that seemed more like they belonged in a half hour-long commercial for children's toys. By the time she was done, the DJ station had turned into a large digital display ‒ or at least the arcane equivalent.

Every eye in town was glued to the display, which at the moment indicated that there were less than thirty seconds to midnight. A buzz of anticipatory excitement ran through the crowd as the countdown continued. Once the timer reached ten seconds to midnight, everyone began counting down in unison. As the last seconds ticked away, the counting got louder and louder.

Finally, the magic moment arrived, and a deafening celebratory roar erupted from the crowd with volcanic fury. At the same time, Pinkie’s party cannons went off, adding to the cacophony with flashes of brightly colored light and exceedingly loud explosions. All around me, I spied ponies engaged in a form of revelry that would’ve been right at home back on Earth: kissing one’s significant other. If it weren’t for one thing, this wouldn’t have been bothersome ‒ or at least as non-bothersome as witnessing public displays of affection between sapient aliens could be. It happened so quickly, and I wasn’t familiar enough with the ponies in question to be sure, but I could’ve sworn I saw a stallion kiss one mare before turning around and kissing a completely different mare. In the end, I wrote it off as the drink messing with my head, and decided that I would swear off of zap apple cider the next day.

Unfortunately, Equis had apparently decided to surprise me yet again. As the fireworks died down, the town broke into a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Figuring that the planet’s harmonic magic field was trolling me again, I concentrated on my psychic connection to the Music of Harmony.

The damn thing was maddeningly silent. Either this was a bit of true parallelism between our worlds, or something bad had happened to my connection. At that point, I decided that I’d had enough of Harmony’s shenanigans for one evening. I was going to drink myself into oblivion, and when I sobered up the next morning, I’d make a vow of abstinence. At least I didn’t have a wife to sell to a passing sailor for five guineas.

I shook my head to clear it of that line of thinking. Thomas Hardy was a rather depressing fellow, after all. I looked back to the stage as Vinyl’s apparatus transformed back into a mixing station and various other DJ equipment, and took a moment to reflect on the current state of affairs.

On the human calendar, it was now January First, 2013 AD.

On the Equestrian calendar, it was now the first day of First Light, 1203 AEC.

I took one more drink of my zap apple cider, and the rest of the night passed in a hazy, alcohol-soaked fog.

Author's Note

What's this? Two updates in one month? It's gotta be a sign of the apocalypse! :rainbowlaugh:

So yeah, Derrenverse Vinyl Scratch is basically a carbon copy of Chris Tucker's character from The Fifth Element. :facehoof:

That only applies when she's on stage, however. When not performing, however, she's an entirely different mare altogether.

Readers (in unison): She's an entirely different mare.

Speaking of Vinyl, her duet with Tavi should be pretty familiar to those of you who saw the 100th episode:

Derren's first karaoke bit:

Lyra and Tavi's duet:

What Lyra and Tavi's duet sounded like to Derren:

Derren's second karaoke bit:

Chapter Six - Hangover Cure

The first stirrings of consciousness came to me hours later, provoked by the morning sunlight vengefully stabbing at my eyes as if in punishment for the previous evening’s sins. Slowly, carefully so as not to aggravate what would likely be a raging hangover, I began to stir. The blanket that laid atop me to shield me from the cold was unusually warm and rather lumpy ‒ to say nothing of how heavy it was. I wasn’t in any danger of suffocating, thankfully, but it certainly wasn’t the most comfortable of positions to wake up in, either.

Sensing the presence of another being in my bedroom, I eked out a gravelly, “Mom? That you?”

A female voice that didn’t sound like my mother at all let out a few shushing tones before replying, “There, there, now. Just relax.”

“Relax?” I demanded, only maintaining the pretense of sleep because the slight nausea and raging hypersensitivity was keeping me pinned to bed. Not to mention the not-insubstantial weight on my chest. “I just had this terrible nightmare. I dreamed that I was nearly killed, only to be saved by some alien pony princess who brought me to a world that operates like a goddamned musical. And some of the ponies were hitting on me! It was awful.”

The voice grew disturbingly husky. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

That, more than anything, derailed the replay of a familiar running gag from my childhood. While part of my mind was relieved at the prospect, the implications in the words of the pony playing Lea Thompson to my Michael J. Fox snapped me to full wakefulness in an instant.

Only to find myself face-to-muzzle with a certain polychromatic pegasus, who was gazing at me with the most sensual bedroom eyes she could muster. Then she arched her back in a languid stretch, her wings slowly extending out from her sides as a certain part of her anatomy oh-so-casually grazed across my groin. I had to suppress a shudder, noting with some dread that her actions were causing a portion of my blood to take a detour towards my pelvic region.

Well, this is awkward, I thought. And it’s about to get even more uncomfortable.

And indeed, it did, as Dash noticed my discomfort, which only seemed to add fuel to her fire. “Oooh,” she cooed, “Morning wood, just for me? I would’ve thought I’d have to wait longer for round two with you like I would with a stallion.” Her smile turned predatory. “I’m liking you humans more and more as time goes on.”

I fixed her with a deadpan stare. “Thermal expansion, I assure you. Seriously, Rainbow, it could’ve happened with anything rubbing up against my junk like that. Doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly going to want to stick my dick in the first mare that makes a pass at me.”

Unfortunately for me, my protests fell on deaf ears. If anything, the devilish smirk on Rainbow’s muzzle grew more sinister. “Funny,” she replied, “that’s not what you said when you were mounting me like a comfort stallion last night.” She then adopted a mock contemplative expression. “Of course, you were pretty out of it last night, so I’m not surprised you don’t remember the way you held me in your arms as you rutted my brains out.”

It was then that my brain fully registered what she’d said earlier about “round two.” Rational thought rapidly fled out the window, and my brain-to-mouth filter wasn’t too far behind. “I-buh-duh-wha… We did what?” My one coherent sentence was shouted at the top of my lungs.

Once again, I tasted blue fur and keratin as Rainbow’s hoof plugged my mouth. “Not so loud, Derren,” she protested, a strained expression adorning her muzzle. “Twilight and that cranky nurse are both still asleep. It’d be rather awkward if you woke them up and caused them to walk in on us, wouldn’t it, Der-bear?”

I glared at her as she slowly withdrew her hoof. “Oh, so we’re back to Der-bear now, are we? And thanks for filling me in on this fiasco.”

“Well, you sure filled me,” she replied in a deadpan tone, though the effect was ruined by the fact that her eyes were glistening with unshed tears of mirth, and she would occasionally nibble on her lower lip as if she were having trouble holding in the biggest belly laugh of her life.

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Dash, I’m too hungover for this shi‒”

“Oh, sure. You’ll give a single mare in heat the ride of her life, and then when the time comes to take responsibility for your actions, you claim you were drunk.” The most miserable expression I’d yet seen on a pony blossomed on her face. “Was everything we shared last night a lie? What am I going to tell our foal when she’s old enough?”

It was at this point that I belatedly noticed something. Or rather, the absence of something. “Dash,” I said with exaggerated patience, “I have two questions. First, how could you have possibly been in heat? It’s the dead of winter. Isn’t that more of a spring or summer thing? And second, if we had drunken nookie like you said, why are the sheets bone-dry?”

The facade cracked a little, and Rainbow began to sweat as my logic seemed to have stymied her. It didn’t last more than two seconds before she brightened, and the devious grin returned to her face for an encore. “I’ll answer your second question first. I cleaned up the evidence while you were asleep and used my patented Rainblow-Dry to dry you off.

“It’s my second favorite bedroom technique next to the Rainblow-Job,” she added parenthetically, barely able to keep a straight face as she did so.

“And the heat thing?” I supplied helpfully, doing my best to ignore the horrible pun she’d just made.

She merely smirked before waving her forelegs as if trying to zap me with a spell. “Maaaaaaaaaaaaagic,” she intoned in a spooky voice.

I merely rolled my eyes at her. Whether she was telling the truth or trolling the hell out of me, I was done putting up with Dash’s shit for the day. It wasn’t helping my rather delicate condition, as a wave of nausea that I’d had to bite back at that moment so graciously reminded me.

“One more thing, Derren,” Dash said with a hint of seriousness that was almost believable, “You should probably know that bedding a pony can cause transformations in low-magic species. You might want to check the mirror soon. Wouldn’t want to surprise Twilight, eh?” With that, she hopped off of the bed to let me up.

Okay, this is building up to something, isn’t it? I let out a long sigh. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to humor her, even though I’m sure this won’t end well for me.

Carefully, so as not to upset the delicate balance of my stomach into creating more involuntary personal protein spills, I made my way to the en-suite bathroom. Looking into the mirror as instructed, I was relieved to see no evidence of spontaneously developing fur coats or any other body horrors. What I did see there, however, wasn’t much better. Due to my hungover state, I spent a minute trying to puzzle out what the drawings covering every inch of my exposed body were before belatedly realizing I’d left my glasses on the nightstand near my bed. Cursing myself, I quickly retrieved the visual aids. Unfortunately, the resulting newfound clarity of vision only added to my torment once I’d taken more than a second to look at my new additions.

Horsecocks. Rainbow Dash had drawn horsecocks on me.

That proved to be the last straw. I slapped a hand to my forehead as a wave of irritation flashed through every fiber of my being. “RD, GAWD ‒” my rant devolved into mouthing a string of silent curses at the mare in question for a few seconds “‒ DAMMIT!”

A certain used weapons dealer in the fictional town of Tuna, Texas would probably be able to sympathize with me.

Unfortunately, the only thing it earned me from Dash was more of her hysterical laughter. Taking a moment to let out a low, animalistic groan as I ran my palm down my face, I walked back out to confront my prismatic tormentor.

By now, Dash’s amusement at my expense had died down to a few throaty chuckles. I raised one eyebrow at her before asking, “So, am I correct in assuming that nothing untoward actually happened last night, and that your earlier antics were just a setup to get me to look at these?” I held up a marked arm for emphasis.

Rainbow nodded briefly before descending into another round of uncontrolled laughter. I rolled my eyes and turned my back on her until her laughter subsided once more.

“And now we’re even,” she said smugly, which caused me to round on her again.

I glared at her for a moment, irritation rolling over me like a wave. “I oughtta spank you.”

“Ooh, kinky,” Rainbow cooed.

My glare hardened for a moment before an idea came to me. “Maybe I could see if Rarity has a riding crop or something similar in her stash of toys.” I paused for a moment, tapping my chin in thought. “Assuming, of course, that she even has such a stash.”

“Oh, she does,” Dash replied absently. She then let out an uncharacteristic squeak and shoved both forelegs into her mouth as her cheeks reddened slightly in anticipation of excruciating humiliation.

“Really?” A predatory grin sensuously stretched itself across my lips. “Do tell, darling,” I purred in a somewhat passable imitation of the fashionista.

My words must have had an impact, as Dash’s face exploded into a full-blown blush, and she began sputtering incoherently. A small measure of her earlier smugness alighted on my lips as I watched her attempt to reboot her brain, especially when I noticed that she had no small manner of trouble getting her wings under control. The stiffly erect appendages were proving to be about as cooperative as a cat getting a bath, much to my amusement.

It was perhaps fortuitous that at that moment, the door burst open and two familiar figures sprang into the room like the Spanish Inquisition. When Faran interjected, however, it wasn’t to inform me of the ever-expanding list of diverse weapons available to her and Twilight.

“What in the name of Luna’s furry rump is going on in here?” she demanded irreverently.

“Oh, you know,” I quipped, “Drinking, passing out, getting molested in my sleep. The usual.” I shot a sly gaze at Rainbow Dash on the last part. A metaphorical light bulb went off in my head as I thought about a way to press my momentary advantage over Rainbow. “Oh, and these, as well.” I drew one hand across the opposite arm to show off my new embellishments, courtesy of a certain prismatic mare.

Faran, however, was not amused. Not in the slightest, judging from the way her face resembled a thundercloud. “Mister Knox,” she said in a tightly controlled voice, “I know from our past conversations that you are well aware of the consequences of getting drunk, even if your knowledge is more academic than first-hoof. So if it’s not to much to ask, could you please enlighten me as to what is so amusing about having such consequences happen to you, especially when I’ve spent half the night trying to make sure you weren’t in any danger of alcohol poisoning?”

If I’d been thinking at the time, I would’ve wondered if Dash was becoming a bad influence on me, because a really dumb idea formed in my brain at that moment, and I couldn’t resist it. A look of mock surprise blossomed on my face. “Why, Faran, were you actually concerned for me? I’m touched.” I punctuated this statement by giving her a condescending pat on the cheek.

Time seemed to slow down as Faran’s expression darkened further and her head jerked towards my hand, mouth open. I barely had enough time to extract my hand from the vicinity of her teeth, making her clamp down on empty air.

“Sin go leor as duit!” she shouted, as though there were any hope of understanding her when she started ranting in her native language.

“I don’t speak freaky-deaky Capallian, Faran,” I replied with a bemused glare. Even though she hadn’t succeeded in biting me, I still massaged the hand that had been her target, never feeling more relief that I’d managed to avoid becoming the victim of a horse bite. Sapient or no, equine teeth can hurt.

Faran’s only response was to facehoof. “I said, ‘That’s enough out of you.’”

Unbeknownst to me, Dash had taken to the air on silent wings and was now hovering beside me. I could feel her breath on my ear as she half-whispered, “Wow, she’s a barrel of laughs in the morning. You sure know how to pick ‘em, eh, Derren?”

The sudden weight on my shoulder as Rainbow rested her forelegs on it caused me to stagger momentarily before finding my balance again. Between that and her words that were clearly meant to be heard by more than just me, it was no surprise that everyone was now glaring at the pegasus in the room.

“I’m going to pretend that I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Dash,” Faran replied primly, shooting Rainbow the stink eye, “because frankly, the idea is patently ridiculous.”

With an air of exaggerated coolness and a sly grin on her muzzle, Rainbow replied, “I dunno, Faran. That sounds like denial to me.”

Seeing that my nurse looked like she was about to have an aneurysm ‒ and not the funny kind, either ‒ I decided to intervene.

“Rainbow, I can assure you that my relationship with Nurse Faran is strictly professional, and that nothing untoward is going on between us.”

I began to tick off the points on my fingers as I went down my mental list of reasons why Faran and I weren’t an item. “First of all, despite the obvious sapience of the ponies here, I’d have to get a lot drunker than I did last night to become that experimental. Secondly, last night’s thaw in our relationship aside, Faran and I have been at each other’s throats from day one. I seriously doubt we’ll ever be more than friends, because we started off on the wrong foot.”

Rainbow opened her mouth to interject, but I held up a finger to forestall her.

“Besides,” I added simply, “As the idiot of record in this village, I’m the only one allowed to piss her off.”

Both Twilight and Faran were struck dumb by my last remark, and spent the next few moments merely standing around blinking dully as they attempted to form rational thoughts once more. Twilight’s recovery was marked by her burying her face in a hoof and muttering inaudibly to herself.

For her part, however, Faran developed an unreadable expression. It may have been a trick of the light, but for the briefest of moments, I could’ve sworn I saw the tiniest hint of warm appreciation in her facial features.

“Rainbow,” Twilight said with somewhat strained patience in her voice, “didn’t I tell you not to bother him while he’s recovering?”

“Well… yeah,” Rainbow reluctantly agreed, “but you didn’t say anything about after he’d recovered, Twi. Besides, this was too good of a pranking opportunity to pass up!”

Her exuberance died on her face as she saw the disapproving stares everyone was aiming at her. “Alright, alright,” she groaned, “I can take a hint.” She turned to face me, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof sheepishly as her ears drooped in apparent shame. “Sorry about that. I guess I went a bit overboard, didn’t I?”

“Just a little,” I replied in a totally deadpan tone, fixing her with a level stare. “But I suppose I can forgive you this time.”

“Now that that’s over with,” Twilight said, “don’t you think you should be going to work, Rainbow? I’m sure you don’t want to get Raindrops mad at you again.”

Rainbow buried her face in both forelegs as she hovered near me. “Oh, horseapples. You’re right, Twi. Gotta dash!” And with that, she zoomed out of the room at speeds I previously would’ve thought only possible in cartoons.

“She didn’t really molest you, did she?” Twilight’s flat stare melted into a look of concern towards the end of her sentence.

I shook my head. “Nah, she was just teasing me again. It was mostly to set me up to get a good look at these.” I raised my arms up for Twilight’s inspection. Her cheeks developed a pinkish tinge, and she looked away in embarrassment as I continued. “Apparently, some traditions regarding pranking someone who is drunk enough to pass out transcend the differences between our worlds.”

Faran snorted derisively. “Rather juvenile, if you ask me. But I suppose that’s par for the course with Miss Dash.”

Twilight let out a long-suffering sigh, her ears drooping along with her head. “I wish I could say otherwise, Faran. She’s a great friend, but her taste in pranks can sometimes leave something to be desired.”

Faran grunted noncommittally, then turned to face me. For several long seconds, she cast an appraising gaze over me, as if looking for any residual effects of my night of excess. At long last, she nodded to herself before speaking. “Well, just from a casual glance, I can see that most of your hangover has dissipated. Just to be sure, though, can you tell me if you still feel nauseous or if you’re experiencing any hypersensitivity?”

I massaged my temples as a wave of pain thudded against my skull. “Not especially so. I mean, I’m still feeling a tad more delicate than normal, and I still have a terrible headache, but nothing that would be more than inconvenient for a while.”

My nurse silently stared at me for a few moments as she took in the information. Eventually, she made a noise that sounded vaguely self-satisfied. “Nevertheless,” she said, “I’d recommend getting a good, filling breakfast. You’ll need to replenish the nutrients you lost from processing all the alcohol you drank last night. That will help to settle your stomach and lessen the headache better than any folk remedy.”

Twilight spoke up at that point. “Spike’s already gotten started on breakfast. I can let him know to fix something special for you. Just let me know what you need.”

My brow furrowed and a thoughtful frown formed on my lips as I thought about it. “Beans and eggs would be good. And avocados, if you have any.”

“We’re a little low on avocados, since they’re not especially in season at the moment, but I think we may have enough on hoof to suit you,” Twilight replied, dutifully scribbling notes on a piece of paper held in her telekinetic aura.

“You may as well indulge your carnivorous side, as well,” Faran added, looking at me. She then turned to Twilight. “You wouldn’t happen to have some fish on hoof, by any chance?”

Twilight thought for a moment, tapping her chin with a forehoof. Her face then brightened in realization. “I do, actually,” she said. “I managed to convince one of the caterers to give me some of the leftover salmon when you were taking Derren to Ponyville General for treatment.”

I shot Faran a questioning look. “You actually had me hospitalized last night?”

She nodded in response. “Thankfully, your blood work revealed that you had managed to avoid developing acute alcohol poisoning. However, we felt it necessary to hold you for a few hours for observation to make sure.”

“Then how did I end up here?”

“You were released a few hours ago. I brought you here as a courtesy. I was trying to catch up on my rest when Miss Dash came in and… disturbed you.”

“Ah,” I said.

My attention was drawn back to Twilight by the clearing of her throat. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go down and tell Spike to make you breakfast, as well.”

I gave her a look. “Are you sure you should be putting that much responsibility on Spike?” When she gave me a questioning look in reply, I decided an explanation was in order. “I mean, you said yourself that he’s a baby dragon, right?”

“He just turned twelve a few months ago. He’s still a baby in terms of a dragon’s much longer lifespan, but he’s about as mature as Apple Bloom and her friends.” An embarrassed blush bloomed on her muzzle, and her ears drooped at her next words. “Besides, you really don’t want me to cook for you. I’m not nearly as good at it as Spike.”

I could have sworn I then heard her mutter, “At least I’m not so bad that I burn juice.”

“How exactly do you burn juice?” I inquired.

Twilight’s ears shot up at realizing that she’d accidentally spoken her thoughts out loud. A sheepish look adorned her features, and she laughed nervously. “I’m not sure. Even Rarity doesn’t know exactly how it happened, and she was there. It happened during that ‘particularly difficult week’ caring for her sister that she told you about.” Twilight then looked at the door, which lit up in her signature telekinetic aura and opened on its own. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I should go down and help Spike with breakfast.”

With that, she promptly trotted out the door. Once she was out of sight, the door closed gently, yet firmly, still encased in a magenta glow. As the glow faded and silence descended upon the room, I turned to Faran. “Should I be worried that she’s helping Spike with breakfast?”

“I think she meant that she would be helping with the non-cooking part of making breakfast,” came Faran’s bemused reply. I caught her trying ‒ and failing ‒ to stifle a loud yawn.

“How much sleep did you get last night, Faran?” I asked with audible concern.

“Not enough, between your antics last night and those of Miss Dash this morning,” she grumbled in reply. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a little bite to eat, then catch up on my beauty sleep.” She turned her head, catching me in the middle of winding up for a derisive snort. “And if you wish to continue that love-hate relationship with your penis that you sang about last night, you will refrain from commenting on my last statement.”

“Aw, poopie. You’re no fun.”

Faran rolled her eyes, then grabbed the handle of the door in her mouth and twisted it. As she backed up to pull the door open, her rump collided with the lower portion of my solar plexus. She quickly let go of the door knob, and her head snapped up in surprise ‒ as did her tail, which whacked me in the face.

I was thanking my lucky stars that my reflexive flinch in response to the hirsute assault spared me from another look at her feminine charms. She would’ve really let me have it if she’d caught me looking at the chestnut fur surrounding her nether lips again.

“Do you mind?” she demanded waspishly.

“Sorry. I’ll get out of your way, and we shall never speak of this again.”

“I should hope not,” she replied stonily before trotting off, pausing only long enough to turn around and slam the door shut.

“Well, that happened,” I muttered to myself. With a sigh and a resigned shake of my head, I headed into the bathroom, hoping that a warm shower would help clear my head.

It turned out that the shower did have a modest effect on my condition. While I was still suffering from a lingering headache and nausea, I figured that I was about a quarter of the way to feeling human again. It was enough of a revival that getting dressed and attending to my morning hygiene had only taken a few minutes.

I made a mental note that I needed to thank Twilight for providing suitable toiletries for me as I finished putting my more comfortable walking shoes on. They had survived the trip from Earth intact, so I figured they would be better suited to the dirt roads of Ponyville than the mageweave dress shoes that Ruby Weave had crafted for me.

Given the time of year, however, I wouldn’t have minded a pair of boots like the ones I had in college. I would have to see if I could convince Twilight to commission Rarity to make me some at some point.

Fully dressed, I only slightly stumbled out the door of my room as the hearty smells of a disgustingly wholesome breakfast wafted up from below. I’d never really been a fan of eating breakfast as a general rule, even going so far as to frequently joke that it was against my religion to do so, but between the savory smell assaulting my nostrils and my stomach’s loud protest of the abuse it had suffered lately, it was hard to resist the alluring call of food.

Despite my elevated awareness from the shower, the best I could do was shamble blearily down the stairs towards the irresistible call of nourishment. And yet, said call proved to be not so irresistible when I reached the ground floor, as a faint, somewhat regular whinnying sound reached my ears. It was unusual enough for me to marshal my wits and creep in the direction of the sound as quietly as possible.

What I found in the main part of the library provoked a mixture of amusement, bemusement, and a slight warming in the cockles of my heart. A familiar form was sprawled out on one of the reading couches near the central table with the wooden bust, looking dead to the world. Faran’s preferred position of repose, from what I could tell, was one common to most quadrupeds ‒ lying on her stomach with her hind legs tucked closely to her sides, front legs stretched out in front of her with her head lying on them like a pillow. Furthermore, her tail was curled up against her flank for additional warmth ‒ not that she needed it, seeing as how the library apparently had some form of central heating that Twilight had failed to mention during the tour of my new home.

Despite feeling every inch like a peeping Tom, I couldn’t help taking a few moments to appraise Faran’s slumbering body. She may have borne a closer resemblance than the average Equestrian citizen to the non-sapient equines I was more familiar with back home, but I couldn’t say that she was completely repulsive, either.

In spite of myself, I was mesmerized by the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and the way a portion of her mane splayed out messily over her ears as she slept. All the stress and frustration that turned her tongue so acidic during the day seemed to melt away into nothingness when she tuned the world out for forty winks. Such a metamorphosis was at once jarring and strangely heartwarming.

I suddenly felt my heart skip a beat in response, and decided that I’d seen more than enough to brand me as a creepy pervert. Not wanting to wake her up, lest she take it the wrong way and banish me to the moon using nothing but her back hooves, I backed away as stealthily as possible.

I had managed to get mostly out of Faran’s line-of-sight when my stomach turned traitor, growling angrily at me for wasting time that would be better spent fueling up for the momentous day ahead of me. Faran’s near ear twitched once in my direction, and that was enough incentive for me to beat a hasty retreat in the direction of the kitchen.

It took some frantic faffing about, but I managed to lock onto the smells coming from the kitchen once more, reaching my destination only a couple of minutes later than intended.

Spike looked away from the stove as I stumbled into the room, my breathing somewhat elevated by my narrow escape from Faran’s notice. “About time you showed up,” he said with a sly smirk, “Your breakfast is getting cold.” He pointed towards an empty seat at the nearby table, where said meal was indeed laid out before me.

The little drake had apparently gone all out for my first home-cooked meal in Ponyville. The salmon, though reheated, looked every bit as delectable as it had the night before, and was accompanied by a dish that resembled a vegetarian version of huevos motuleños with a few slices of avocado added on top. The savory smells that floated up to my nose from the food before me hit all the right spots to set me drooling in ravenous anticipation.

Wasting no time, I sat down at the place that had been set for me. Twilight was already seated on the opposite end of the table, idly chewing on a floating piece of toast as she perused the morning newspaper. As I began to dig into my breakfast, her attention was drawn to me, a small smile settling in on her muzzle.

“Feeling any better?” she asked.

I barely managed to remember to swallow the bit of fried plantain in my mouth before replying. “A little.” A sly smile tugged at my lips. “I’ll know for sure when I’m done.”

“Good,” she said, pausing long enough to take a sip of what smelled like a strong cup of coffee, “I want to send Princess Celestia a message letting her know what’s happened once we’re done eating.”

“Well, I shouldn’t keep you waiting then,” I said before plowing into my meal once more.

“Take all the time you like, Derren.” I cast a glance at the speaker, only for an amused grin to appear on my face as I saw that it was Spike, who was just sitting down with a bowl full of turquoise gems in front of him. He promptly proceeded to shovel a clawful of the ornamental stones into his mouth, crunching loudly on them as he continued. “Wo weed to wush on myw accwownt!”

“Spike!” Twilight chided, “What did I say about talking with your mouth full?”

The baby dragon swallowed before responding. “I shouldn’t do it, because it’s not polite.” The monotone in which he spoke suggested he’d been lectured on this point more times than he’d care to remember.

I bit back my laugh at the familiar sight, opting to focus on breakfast instead. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. Once everyone had finished, I gathered up the plates and deposited them in the sink for washing. Despite Twilight’s protests, I wanted to feel at least somewhat useful, if for no other reason than to avoid causing her to resent me for not doing my fair share.

In a very real sense, she was my landlord, after all.

Once the last dish was rinsed, scrubbed, and placed in the rack to dry, Twilight dictated a letter to her mentor, which Spike dutifully scribbled down on a piece of parchment. After a few minor tweaks of language, Twilight judged the letter worthy of the eyes of the Princess of the Sun.

“Okay, Spike. Go ahead and send it,” she said simply.

Imagine my surprise when the little dragon opened a nearby window and proceeded to incinerate the damned thing, the ashes floating away on the frigid morning breeze.

“Spike,” I deadpanned, “she said ‘send it,’ not ‘smoke it.’”

“Derren!” Twilight objected, outrage written on her features.

Spike blinked in bemusement at our little argument. “Umm, actually, Derren, I’m able to send and receive letters from Princess Celestia and Princess Luna by way of my magic fire breath.”

“How?” I said. My skepticism was well on its way to being beaten out of me by this world, but it wouldn’t go down without a fight. “I mean, unless Princess Celestia cast some sort of spell to enchant your fire breath when you were a hatchl‒”

“She did,” Spike interjected blandly.

“Oh,” I muttered, nonplussed. “So basically, you’re now a living fax machine.”

Twilight buried her face in a hoof. “As if I would ever treat my Number One Assistant in such a callous manner,” she growled.

I blinked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then how did you mean it?” Twilight challenged. If looks could kill, the one she was shooting at me would've flayed the flesh from my bones.

I paused to carefully consider my next words. “As unorthodox as it may sound, given how I feel about all the unusual parallels between our two worlds, I thought it might help cushion the blow of any… surprises that this world threw at me by trying to come up with useful comparisons with more familiar things from my world.” I gestured towards Spike with a hand. “The analogy may be a bit crude, and the technology is a bit obsolete by human standards, but a fax machine is a communications tool that most closely replicates Spike’s abilities.”

“Well, you probably could’ve worded it better,” Twilight grumbled, her withering gaze unrelenting.

“Most likely,” I agreed.

My attention was then diverted to Spike as the young dragon’s cheeks suddenly bulged like he was about to barf. Thankfully, the only thing issuing from his mouth was a rather loud belch accompanied by his fire breath. A flash of light burst from the end of the flames, and when I could see again, a scroll had taken its place, falling neatly into Spike’s outstretched claws.

Easily snapping open the ornate seal that bound the scroll, Spike unfurled it with practised ease. He then cleared his throat loudly to make sure he had our rapt attention as he read from the missive.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

My most faithful student, I am rather troubled to hear about the issues Derren is having with his connection to Equis’ Harmonic Magic Field. You and Nurse Faran are most welcome to bring him to Canterlot at your earliest convenience to consult with Doctor Silverclaw, and to run any scans you may require.

Princess Luna has also been informed of your intention to come to Canterlot, and is in the process of arranging another meeting with the faculty at the Canterlot Institute of Applied and Arcane Science, so that Derren can make amends for his earlier transgressions. Unfortunately, at this point, the earliest we may be able to set up the meeting would be this Thursday. The three of you are more than welcome to stay at the palace until all of your business in Canterlot is concluded, of course.

I look forward to seeing you once again, my most faithful student. I hope your travels are safe, and that you find the answers you seek.

Sincerely,

HRH Princess Celestia

I stared blankly at Twilight for a moment. “Well, I know how I’m going to be spending my week. Think you’ll be able to keep yourself occupied while I’m appeasing the ivory tower types with a long, ritualistic apology?”

Twilight struck a contemplative pose. “I’ll probably just go see my parents.” A guilty look crossed her face. “I haven’t kept in touch with them as often as I should have after moving to Ponyville.”

I nodded sagely. “I can understand and appreciate that. Family’s important, after all.” This elicited a warm smile from Twilight. “Though if you get bored, you can always come watch me make a fool of myself for the benefit of the easily-offended.”

Twilight responded with a deadpan stare. “You know, for somepony who’s supposed to be his world’s de facto ambassador, you aren’t very diplomatic.”

A sigh that could’ve been interpreted as somewhat exasperated escaped my lips. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I could swear that with all the exaggerated importance the princesses are placing on this apology, you’d think that my dog had peed on one of their sacred trees.”

Twilight held me in a bemused stare for a long moment before shaking her head and responding. “Well, you promised to go through with it, so you should go ahead and get it over with.” Another pause, then Twilight walked over and placed a comforting hoof on my arm. “You’ll be fine, I promise. Just be as charming as you were at the welcoming ceremony, and there won’t be any problems.”

I graced her with a weak smile. “Thanks, Twilight. I could use all the reassurance I can get.”

Twilight’s eyes ran over me in an appraising fashion. “It would probably also help to get your mind off of it for a while, so you won’t be so nervous when the time comes.”

“I assume you have something in mind.”

Her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “Of course!” she chirped.”I’d like to review your progress on learning written Equestrian, if you don’t mind.”

Inwardly, I groaned. I was beginning to see why Rainbow Dash was not so enamoured with Twilight’s borderline obsession with studying. Outwardly, however, I merely shrugged. “Why not?” I replied. My eyes then shot open in realization as I remembered something. “Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to do it in the main part of the library, though, since that’s where Faran’s sleeping.”

Twilight hummed to herself as she thought it over. “I suppose we could use the study upstairs, if that’s alright with you.”

I nodded once more. “That’d be perfect.”

With that, she led the way to the stairs, the promise of a rousing morning of intense learning filling the air as we ascended to her private study.

Snow was falling once again as Twilight, Faran, Spike, and I left the library for our lunch date with Lyra and Raindrops. During our study session, I had caught glimpses of the sky growing slowly overcast as the morning weather team brought in their gray burdens, heavy with their frozen payloads. Each time, I was quickly brought back into focus by an annoyed clearing of the throat and the withering glare of my tutor. Eventually, she’d had enough of my wandering gaze, and telekinetically yanked the curtains closed.

As we walked in the general direction of the train station, I still had my eyes glued to the sky. I watched in silent wonder as the distant form of a vaguely familiar mare bucked a cloud, followed shortly thereafter by tiny flakes becoming barely visible as the cloud began to add its contribution to the day’s snowfall.

I could practically feel Twilight’s eyes rolling as she no doubt caught the goofy grin on my face from gazing upon the spectacle before me. I was certain she was recalling the same thing I was: our discussion of the physics of pegasus magic back in Canterlot, particularly as it applied to a pegasus’ ability to buck things in midair without anything to push off of.

At the time, Twilight had explained that a pegasus’ flight magic allows them to interact with the molecules in the air as readily as they might push off the ground during liftoff. It was the same effect, she’d said, that allowed them to manipulate and walk on clouds. Outwardly, I accepted her explanation at face value. Inwardly, however, I was formulating odd theories about pegasi being made of dark matter, or something along those lines.

My other pony companion was maintaining the stony silence she’d been subjecting me to from the moment we woke her up to get ready to go. There wasn’t much doubt in my mind as to why. I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for the incident, and I wasn’t about to set off a Plinian eruption from her mouth by trying to talk to her.

Instead, I settled for satisfying my curiosity about something Twilight had said last night. Spike was riding on her back as I turned to her. “So, Twilight, you were saying something about a ‘Pinkie Sense’ last night when Faran and I were empathically communicating, as it were.”

Twilight merely nodded. “I believe I mentioned it, yes. It’s a precognitive ability that Pinkie has. Basically, it allows her to anticipate and react to vague and immediate events based on random body twinges she gets.”

I made a face at that. “That’s not normal.”

Twilight tilted her head nonchalantly ‒ the pony equivalent of a shrug when walking. “It is for Pinkie. I’ve come to learn most of the more common ones, too. For instance, when her tail shakes rapidly like a ‒” Twilight was suddenly subjected to an involuntary shudder “‒ rattlesnake, it means something’s going to fall out of the sky.”

She paused her explanation for a moment to look up thoughtfully as she walked. “On rare occasions, she even goes into a full body shudder, which she calls a ‘doozy.’ That typically means that something that nopony would ever expect is about to happen.”

I looked at Twilight as if she’d suddenly sprouted another head. “Well, that’s a little vague, isn’t it?”

A smile dawned on Twilight’s face. “Exactly.” She then fixed me with a thoughtful gaze. “You know, she was getting a lot of ‘doozies’ around the time you showed up in Equestria.” An involuntary giggle escaped her. “I guess nopony except Princess Luna was expecting a human to come here.”

“Right.” I shook my head in disbelief. “And that’s all you know about it?”

“Pretty much.”

Something about Twilight’s explanation wasn’t sitting right with me. “Wait a minute, Twilight. You’re telling me that you’ve known Pinkie for two years, and you still don’t know how this ‘Pinkie Sense’ works?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Faran had been listening in on our conversation, and was wearing a skeptical expression equal to my own. We shared a meaningful look for a moment before she jerked her head back and looked away from me in a displeased manner that only a true tsundere could manage. I gave a disappointed shake of my head before my attention was drawn back to Twilight by her response to my question.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Twilight,” I said, an exasperated sigh escaping me as I did so, “I know I’m not as gifted as you when it comes to science, but if I were in your shoes, I’d want to find out. In fact, I just might do that.”

Twilight stared at me with more than a little concern, her tone deadly serious. “Look, Derren. Let me save you twenty-two minutes and a lot of pain. Don’t. Just don’t.”

I looked at her, flabbergasted. “But, aren’t you the least bit curi‒”

Twilight silenced me by rearing up and jamming a hoof in my mouth, which caused Spike to wrap his arms around her barrel and hold on for dear life to avoid being unceremoniously flung off her back. “No,” Twilight said flatly. “No good will come of it. All you’ll get for your troubles is a headache and a hydra trying to kill you.”

I blinked owlishly as Twilight dropped back down on all fours. After a long pause, I had only one word. “Hydra?”

“It’s a long story,” Twilight replied sheepishly.

“Is that the one about the time Ditzy Doo and I almost flattened you with about half of the stuff in the moving cart hauling Merry May’s personal belongings?” a familiar voice chimed in from above.

“Yes, Raindrops,” Twilight said, a long sigh escaping her, “it was. How did you guess?”

I looked up to see the golden mare perched on a low cloud, laying on it as a cat might lay on a ledge. “Well, I heard you two discussing the Pinkie Sense, and you said something about a hydra,” Raindrops replied, punctuating the sentence with a good-natured giggle.

The gears began turning in my head at Raindrops’ statement. “Wait a minute,” I interjected, eyeing Twilight in puzzlement, “Is that what you were referring to when I mentioned that my meeting Raindrops was not without embarrassing moments?”

Twilight merely nodded.

“Wait a minute,” Raindrops replied in turn, her tone mildly outraged. “You mean to tell me that you told her about how we accidentally locked lips when I tripped on that stone?”

I tugged at the collar of my shirt. For some reason, it seemed it was getting rather warmish all of a sudden. “Actually, I sort of left that part out.” An odd smile turned my lips crooked. “That and your subsequent wingboners.”

“DERREN!” Twilight shouted indignantly, ears folded down in outrage.

“What?”

Twilight merely jerked her head backwards twice, indicating her draconic charge.

“Oh, sorry…”

“It’s a little late for that, Twilight,” Spike broke in, exaggerated patience evident in his voice, “I’ve heard ‒ and seen ‒ worse from Rainbow Dash.”

Twilight’s only response was to bury her face in her hoof, muttering darkly about her prismatic friend. Raindrops and I merely looked at each other. Her muzzle twitched, then I felt my mouth do the same. The pattern continued for several moments, and each time, the twitch in our lips would get more and more out-of-control.

Eventually, we both broke at the same time, our laughter filling the streets as the occasional pony passed by. No doubt they were pausing to stare at the spectacle before them, but in that moment, I didn’t care. I was having more fun with friends than I could recall in a long time.

It was Twilight’s unamused voice that brought us back to the present. “If you two are quite through, we should get going. We wouldn’t want to keep Lyra waiting for too long, after all.”

“Yeah, I’m good, Twi,” Raindrops replied, still grinning sheepishly. Somehow, on her muzzle the expression managed to look both ridiculous and adorable at the same time.

“Ready when you are, Twilight,” I added.

With that, we set out on our way once more. As we walked ‒ or in Raindrops’ case, flew ‒ our pegasus companion took great pains to explain to me ‒ in excruciating technical detail, even down to why they had used nimbostratus praecipitatio clouds for the day’s snow as opposed to cumulus congestus ‒ how she and her team had helped to create the weather for the day. Though much of the specialized terminology and bureaucratic nuances went over my head, I could tell from the way her eyes lit up as she regaled us with her tale of a day in the life of a weather pony that she really did love her job, just as she said.

She just wasn’t doing a very good job of selling me on a career in the weather service. It was rather strange, since I could recall through my hazy recollection of the previous evening’s festivities that she’d brought up a potentially interesting anecdote from the earlier days of her career.

“You know, Raindrops, as fascinating as that story is, I’m kind of curious about something you alluded to last night.”

“And that is?” Raindrops’ question was marked by a note of apprehension in her voice.

“Something about a fire tornado threatening Sweet Apple Acres. I guess I’m still not quite sure how a rapidly whirling column of air could catch fire.”

I had never seen a pony’s eyes get that wide before. Raindrops’ surprise didn’t last long, however, as her eyes suddenly narrowed dangerously. “No,” she said flatly, “I’m not telling that story.”

“Okay,” I replied, drawing out the vowel sounds, “I can see that it’s a touchy subject for you, so I won’t pry.”

Raindrops breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“I still wouldn’t mind hearing it someday, if you ever feel comfortable enough to tell it.”

“Maybe someday,” she half-heartedly promised. After a long pause, she continued. “I will tell you one thing about the incident, though. Ditzy Doo was to blame for the tornado catching fire.”

I barked out a short laugh. “After seeing her efforts to light the streetlamps last night, I can believe that.”

Raindrops gave a little chuckle of her own. “Let me guess, she accidentally set fire to her pet rat’s tail again, didn’t she?”

I nodded, unable to keep an amused smirk off my lips.

“Ha! I knew it!” she exulted. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a wonderful, kind mare, but she can be a bit… clumsy. It drives the Boss up the wall a lot.”

I frowned. “Ditzy’s on the weather team?”

Raindrops let out a hum as if considering how to word what she was going to say. “Well, sort of. She serves more in an administrative capacity these days.”

“I can imagine, if she was responsible for that fire tornado.” I thought about it for a moment as a small cluster of restaurants ‒ judging from the decor and layout ‒ came into view. “I guess the Japanese concept of ‘being promoted to a corner office’ exists here, as well,” I concluded as a small laugh escaped me.

“I don’t get it,” Raindrops replied, confusion written on her features.

“Basically, they’re given a fancy-sounding title that doesn’t mean anything, and are assigned tasks that will do as little damage as possible.”

An amused snort issued forth from Raindrops’ muzzle. “Yeah, that sounds like Ditzy, alright.”

At that point, another familiar voice decided to join the conversation. “Ah, there you all are,” Lyra exclaimed, a partly-relieved, partly-playful smile fully evident. “I was beginning to wonder if something had happened.”

“Nah, we just got a bit sidetracked, is all,” I replied, prompting a knowing chuckle from the mint-colored unicorn.

“Still getting used to the differences from your world?” Lyra inquired, her voice filled with warm compassion.

“Eh, yes and no. There are a number of things here that are still familiar. Some of them are a little too familiar.” Seeing Lyra’s expression turn crestfallen, I quickly changed tactics. “I’ll probably get over the differences and similarities eventually, though.” I flashed Lyra a weak smile. “After all, if there’s one thing humans are good at, it’s adapting. It’s probably how we became the dominant species on our planet.”

Lyra’s resulting smile was like a ray of sunshine. “Good thing you have friends you can count on to help you through the rough times, then.” She waved a hoof to indicate herself, Twilight, Raindrops, and Faran.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “I suppose so. Now, let’s do lunch, shall we?”

“Indeed,” Twilight said, pointing a hoof at a particular restaurant. “Especially since we’ve reached our destination.”

“Right where the universe needs us to be,” Lyra added, shooting Twilight a playful wink.

I rolled my eyes at the interplay between the two unicorns, and I think Twilight was doing the same. I then turned my gaze in the direction that Twilight had indicated. The building had all the earmarks of a traditional “greasy spoon” restaurant. It was a small, squarish edifice painted in muted pastels. Through the slightly dingy windows, I could make out a lunch counter of sorts, at which several ponies were already seated. Even the name ‒ once I managed to puzzle it out after a minute of mental struggle ‒ struck me as evocative of the heart attack-inducing cuisine within: Crispy’s.

One thing about the restaurant was slightly unexpected ‒ though in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been, given my new place of residence. That difference was a second level that appeared to be made up of extremely low cloud formations that somehow managed to convey the same artery-clogging aesthetic as the rest of the place.

“I’m guessing this place caters to pegasi?” I asked, pointing at the strangely stationary vaporous structure on top of the building.

Raindrops nodded as the door lit up in Lyra’s amber aura and opened to grant us access. “Figured you might want to eat here, given your diet.”

I shrugged. “As long as it’s not hay, I’m good.” Raindrops shot me a quizzical look, so I decided to explain. “No offense, Raindrops, but I can’t digest hay, and even if I could, it’d probably be too bland on my tastebuds for me to enjoy.”

She merely gave a mid-air shrug as we entered and approached the hostess stand. “I suppose it can’t be helped, eh?”

An earth pony stallion standing next to the stand watched us approach, his steel grey eyes widening, then lighting up in recognition as they ran over me. Belatedly, I realized that his brown coat and black mane, tail, and mustache were familiar to me as well. He had been among the caterers that I’d spoken to the night before at the party.

“Ah, yes. Monsieur Knox and friends, oui oui?” he asked in an overly exaggerated French accent once we’d stopped in front of him. “We were wondering when you were going to stop by our humble little establishment. I did not think it would be so soon, no?”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one,” I replied, letting out a weak laugh that he shared in as he plucked a set of menus from the podium.

“You’d like a table for six, yes?” he asked somewhat rhetorically as he started to walk away from the entrance.

“Yes, we’d like a booth, please,” Twilight said, following along with the rest of our party.

“Very well. This way, please.”

Without further ado, we were led to a rather private-looking, but well lit, booth near the back of the restaurant. We sat down, and I couldn’t help but notice that I was sandwiched between two veritable walls of pony-and-dragon flesh: Raindrops and Lyra on my right, with Twilight, Spike, and Faran on my left. The little dragon had been given a booster seat so that he could reach the table like everyone else. Once everyone was seated, the host left, and a waiter came by shortly after to take our drink orders as we perused the menu.

I had to get help from Twilight, since I still wasn’t one-hundred percent literate yet. Granted, I had made great progress in the hours between breakfast and lunch, but I still had a ways to go before I could order for myself. As I studied the menu, Twilight had me attempt to read each option out loud, praising me each time I got a word right or managed to completely read a sentence of the description, no matter how long it took. She displayed an amazing amount of patience, given how long it took me to get through even half the menu before giving up and picking something seemingly at random.

It had only taken about ten minutes, but it felt like hours. By the end, Raindrops had clearly gotten impatient and was grumpily huffing intermittently in an attempt to get me to hurry up. Once Twilight had explained that I wasn’t used to reading and writing in Standard Equestrian yet, however, Raindrops had had the good sense to look suitably chastened and much more sympathetic to my plight.

The whole time, Faran had sat idly by, looking at her menu without really reading it. Though she was still pissed at me for my lack of discretion earlier, even she came to my defense, shooting a reproachful glare at Raindrops that had helped to quiet the irritable pegasus.

Lyra, meanwhile, had watched the whole scene impassively, though for some reason, every now and then a smile broke out on her face whenever she saw Twilight leaning in to help me and I caught a whiff of whatever mane care product she was using.

At least, I assumed it was mane care product. Either that, or lavender was Twilight’s natural scent.

Our drinks arrived just as I was making my decision, and we all placed our orders. I brought my Countess Gray Mare tea to my lips, and gently blew on it to cool it off before taking a sip. It just so happened that Lyra chose that moment to speak.

“You know, Derren, that was an interesting selection of music you regaled us with once midnight passed.” She paused for a moment, a sly smile adorning her muzzle. “You should probably be glad that all of the foals had gone home by then.”

“Yeah,” Raindrops added, her face matching Lyra’s in predatory deviousness, “If they hadn’t, we would’ve had you explain to them why you were singing about ‒” she paused for a long moment, looking at Spike circumspectly, “‒ a certain part of your anatomy no longer watching you shave. Awkwardly.”

I nearly choked on the tea that I had started to swallow. It took nearly a minute of loud coughing for me to clear my airways and regain control of my breathing. Faran chose that moment to add her own two cents to the conversation.

“You know, Derren, as your main medical care provider, I wouldn’t recommend breathing tea. It’s detrimental to your health.”

“Yeah, you’re just saying that because you don’t want to have to deal with all the paperwork afterwards,” I retorted.

Faran gave a derisive snort, but there was a ghost of a smile on her muzzle for the first time since this morning. “On the contrary. It’s my job to care about the well-being of all my patients.”

I merely rolled my eyes in response, which prompted a round of polite laughter from the rest of the group. “Alright,” I said with a resigned sigh, “I suppose you may as well just lay it on me. How badly did I embarrass myself with my selection of songs from Earth?”

Lyra shot me a sympathetic smile. “Well, most of them weren’t too bad,” she said. “That one about ‘the day the music died’ was kind of sad, though.”

I grunted. “Yeah, that one was basically about a famous singer from Earth who died in a plane crash when my parents were growing up.”

“Ah. That explains it.”

“Anything else?”

Twilight thought for a moment before replying. “There was one that interspersed some interesting facts about your world with a somewhat dismal view of human intelligence,” she said.

“And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space, ‘cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth,” I sang. “That the one?”

Twilight nodded.

“That one was done by a comedy troupe known for its surrealist humor. I suppose it wouldn’t work as well outside of its original context,” I explained.

“Ah,” Twilight replied, “I see.”

Lyra’s eyes suddenly lit up as she remembered something. “There was one other song that I couldn’t quite figure out the lyrics of. Something about ‘alligator lizards in the air.’”

Faran snorted. “Sounds like somepony was on some wacky recreational drugs when they wrote that.”

I barked out a laugh, causing all at the table to stare at me in surprise. “You’re probably a lot closer than you think with that assessment. A lot of bands in the era that song is from spent much of their time stoned out on various drugs, or so the stories go.”

“What sorts of drugs?” Spike piped up, causing the color to drain from my face. Judging from the look on Faran’s face, I would’ve seen something similar if it weren’t for the fur covering her face. Just to drive the point home of how badly we’d messed up, Twilight shot each of us a reproachful glare.

“The bad kind, mmkay?” I replied in my best imitation of the guidance counselor from South Park.

Our food arrived at that moment, giving me an opportunity to change the subject away from my social pratfalls ‒ of both the drunken and sober variety.

“So, now that we’re all here,” I started, only to pause as I took a bite of the poutine I had ordered. I’d never had the dish before, owing to the fact that I’d spent most of my life about as far south of Canada as it was possible to go and still be in America. My moment of culinary adventurousness was duly rewarded, however, because not only were the fries at the right level of firmness from the combination of the gravy and the hot oils they’d been fried in, but the gravy itself was creamy in a way that made sweet love to the taste buds and left them wanting more. Even the cheese curds contributed their own brand of ritual seduction to the experience, and cheese curds weren’t normally my fetish.

A shudder ran through my body, and I’m pretty sure I let out an almost pornographic moan. When I came to, I could’ve sworn Lyra and Raindrops were fanning themselves, while the others had goofy grins on their faces.

“Wow... It was that good, huh?” Spike inquired innocently.

“You have no idea,” I replied blandly. Then I shook my head to clear it of the heavenly, yet unhealthy, food I’d just consumed. “Anyway,” I said, turning my attention to Lyra and Raindrops, “like I was saying, I’ve known Twilight, Faran, and Spike for the better part of two weeks, but I’m far less familiar with you two. I wouldn’t mind hearing a few tales from your lives, if you’re willing to share.”

The two mares shared a glance, then gave the pony equivalent of a shrug. Raindrops spoke up first. “Not really much to tell about me. Born and raised in Cloudsdale. Moved to Ponyville as soon as I was old enough to live on my own. Got a job on the weather team here, and eventually became the morning shift manager.”

That seemed a little too pat for me. “No hobbies or anything like that?”

She hummed for a bit as she thought about it. “Some hobbies, yes, but nothing special. I’m a pretty simple mare in that regard.”

“Fair enough.” A teasing smile tugged at my lips as a thought occurred to me. “No stallion in your life?”

“No.” The vehemence with which she said it told me not to press further.

“Alright, so you’re a workaholic who only feels the need to kick back and relax every once in a while, and has no social life.”

Raindrops snorted. “You’re making me sound like Twilight,” she replied, eyeing the town librarian with a teasing grin.

“Hey!” came Twilight’s indignant reply, “I happen to enjoy an active social life! Just ask any of my friends.”

“Oh, relax, Twi. I was just busting your chops,” Raindrops countered with a lighthearted giggle.

“I will admit though,” Lyra broke in after swallowing a bite of her food, “it’s good to see you actually trying to make friends here in Ponyville, Twilight. You and Moondancer weren’t exactly the most social ponies back in Canterlot.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” I said, turning to Lyra. “You mentioned knowing Twilight when the two of you lived in Canterlot. How far back do you two go?”

“It was Magic Kindergarten, I believe,” Lyra said, leaning back on her haunches as her eyes gravitated towards the ceiling in recollection. “Isn’t that right, Twi?”

Twilight nodded. “That’s where I first met the rest of you girls. Moondancer and I were probably the most studious of the group.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Lyra said with a warm smile.

Twilight let out a nervous laugh, “Yeah. We were both real bookworms back then, weren’t we?”

“But you still managed to come through for us when we were having trouble with our schoolwork.” Lyra then chuckled as a thought came to her. “Or to pull our heads out of conical flasks.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, but burst into a giggle of her own. “I swear, I think Lemon Hearts just did that to get my attention.” She suddenly grimaced. “Was I really that bad a friend?” she asked in a tremulous tone of voice, ears folded down and regret clearly written on her features.

Lyra took another bite, seeming to use the need to not talk with her mouth full as an opportunity to pause and collect her thoughts. “I wouldn’t say that you were a bad friend. But I do sometimes wonder what it would’ve been like if you’d been as invested in your friendships back then as you are now. I think you’d have been much happier.”

“Yeah, and maybe then it would’ve been you, Twinkleshine, Minuette, Lemon Hearts, Moondancer, and me standing up against Nightmare Moon instead of my current friends,” Twilight said with a smirk before taking a bite of her own food.

Lyra shook her head and let out a sigh. “I’m sure I’d be up to the task, but I’m not sure I’d welcome the extra political attention I’d receive in response.”

My curiosity was piqued at that, but somehow, I got the feeling that it was as touchy a subject as the fire tornado Raindrops had mentioned. I eventually decided to let it go, knowing that if Lyra wanted to expand upon it at a later date, she would.

“You probably wouldn’t have to worry about that, Lyra,” Twilight said with a sympathetic smile. “So far, the nobles have been content to pretend we don’t exist.”

“The operative phrase there being ‘so far,’” Lyra murmured.

“Yes, I’d imagine that royal court politics can get pretty toxic,” I murmured, to which Twilight responded with an exasperated sigh before nodding sadly at me.

“Be that as it may,” Twilight said, turning her attention to Lyra, “you might have forgiven me for being a bad friend, but I can’t help but worry that my other Canterlot friends haven’t been as understanding. Especially poor Moondancer, since I blew off her party to‒”

“Save the world?” Lyra replied, cutting off Twilight before she could work up even a mild panic attack. At Twilight’s silent nod, worry still showing clearly in her eyes, Lyra continued. “Twilight, I’ve discussed this with Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, and Minuette, and we all feel the same way. While we wish the circumstances had been different, we understand that your duties as the Princess’ protege came first. The only one who might see things in a ‒” she paused for a moment “‒ less charitable light would be Moondancer.”

“Just one more reason for Faran and I to take Derren back to Canterlot this afternoon,” Twilight muttered.

“Why are the three of you going to Canterlot?” Raindrops asked, wiping the remnants of her lunch off her muzzle with a napkin.

“Long story short, my connection to the planet’s harmonic magic field is messed up, and I’m getting odd visions of things that I should be remembering, but aren’t,” I replied.

Lyra blinked. “That’s… odd.”

“It sure is,” I said. “That’s why we’re getting on the train to Canterlot as soon as we’re done here.” I turned to Lyra and Raindrops. “You two are welcome to come, if you can spare the time.”

“Wish I could,” Raindrops replied, though not very sincerely, from what I could tell, “but I’ve got to get back to the weather patrol office to finish some paperwork before my shift ends.”

“And I just got back from Canterlot yesterday,” Lyra said. “I’m not so fond of it that I’d turn around and go again at the drop of a hat.”

“The old hometown lost its charm for you?” I asked.

Lyra’s chuckle was just a tad bitter. “Just a little,” she replied with a weak smile.

I nodded sagely at that. “I can understand that. If I’d had the resources to do so, I probably would’ve left my hometown years before I wound up here in Equestria.”

“Why?” Raindrops asked.

I merely shrugged. “It was getting ever more expensive to live there all the time, and the attitude of the local politicians wasn’t exactly healthy for those at the lower end of the economic strata. I was barely making ends meet, even with the generous support of my parents. And they’d started hinting that their support wasn’t going to last forever…”

“Ah.”

An awkward silence descended upon our table, hanging over it like dense fog. Lyra eventually broke the stalemate.

“Well, on that happy note, let’s finish eating, shall we?”

Her motion was met with unanimous assent, and thus we proceeded to finish our meals in peace. We split the check, though Twilight paid for both Spike and me. At last, we emerged into the wan afternoon sunlight, parting ways with our companions after promising to “do this again sometime.”

Fifteen minutes later, Faran, Twilight, Spike, and I were walking up to the platform at the Ponyville train station just as the next train to Canterlot was pulling in. I hadn’t ridden a train in a long time, but the flurry of activity following the train’s arrival was still very familiar to me.

Ponies disembarked, some seeking out loved ones who had been waiting patiently for them to appear, some lone travellers collecting their luggage before moving on to greener pastures. All seemed a bit too preoccupied in their own lives to ponder the novelty in their midst, and for that, I was somewhat thankful. I was still processing everything that had happened at lunch, and wasn’t really in the mood to be gawked at.

It wasn’t long before the platform was clear once more, and we were being called to board the train. The four of us took our seats in a private compartment in one of the cars near the back of the train.

As the final calls of “All aboard” were being made, I couldn’t escape the sneaking suspicion that I’d forgotten something. Something rather important. I turned to my travelling companions.

“Twilight,” I intoned, drawing the mare’s attention. “You don’t suppose there was something I was supposed to do before we left town, do you?”

Twilight merely shrugged, uncertainty marring her features. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno… I mean, we turned off the oven before we left, right?”

She snickered in response. “Yes, we did. I have a whole checklist for whenever we go out of town to make sure I don’t forget anything.”

“And I have the claw cramps to prove it,” Spike grumbled.

“Fair enough,” I said with a slight smirk. It faded into a frown as I continued my rumination. “Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I forgot something important.”

A buzzing reached my ears a moment later. It gradually grew into an angry murmur. Eventually, I could clearly make out what was being said. Strangely enough, it sounded vaguely like Pinkie Pie, though almost as if her voice had been electronically manipulated to sound like she was ranting demonically in G major.

“DERREN! YOU PINKIE PROMISED!”

The bottom fell out from my stomach as I suddenly realized what I had forgotten. All I could do was groan out a weak, “Oh, shit…”

Author's Note

It's about time this thing went up. Only took four months. :twilightoops: :rainbowlaugh:

In case you were wondering, part of Derren and Twilight's conversation about the Pinkie Sense was "inspired by" a comment from Lord_Nanfoodle on Equestria Daily during the run-up to the release of Friendship Games.

Also, while I can't link to "that song about Derren's penis no longer watching him shave" due to site rules about linking NSFW content, I can show off the other songs mentioned in this chapter:
1) American Pie by Don McLean:

2) Ventura Highway by America:

3) Monty Python's Galaxy Song... Which, come to think of it, may have some risque parts (at least in the clip from The Meaning of Life)... :twilightoops: :rainbowlaugh:

Anyway, moving on! Faran's once again making a Capallian spectacle of herself. And just as she translates it for Derren, Google Translate gives us this:
"That's enough out of you!" = "Sin go leor as duit!"

Finally, Derren has welshed on a Pinkie Promise, and now she seeks retribution! Feel free to speculate on what form Derren's penance will take in the comments. :pinkiecrazy: :trollestia:

EDIT: Speaking of Derren's Pinkie Promise: it occurs to me that given how long it's been since this story updated, I should've had a reminder of what said Pinkie Promise was. Here it is:

“Parties are serious business, Der-bear, and I’m seriously serious about wanting you to enjoy yourself! Now, do you Pinkie Promise to have a good time and tell me all about it later?”

Chapter Seven-A - Canterlot Blues (Part One)

“Shiny, happy ponies holding hooves!” Pinkie sang, and was answered by a muffled, though apparently equally enthusiastic-sounding repetition that I could barely make out through the walls of our private compartment in one of the rearmost train cars. This was probably her third time leading everyone on the train through the song, and I was beginning to regret the situation I’d put myself in by breaking my Pinkie Promise from the previous evening.

To atone for my sins, Pinkie had demanded one thing: that I teach her a happy or silly song from Earth. The song I ended up picking had a certain sentimental attachment to it. Under the auspices of an educational tourism program, I went to Australia when I was sixteen, and this particular song happened to be popular with the other students I was with. Like Pinkie, we’d performed the song almost every time we were on the road.

It went without saying that I was beginning to feel a certain amount of pity for the teacher-chaperones that had had to endure our antics almost half a lifetime ago.

Thankfully, Twilight was there to save my sanity. “Pinkie," she said, "I know you mean well, but I think you’re having the opposite effect from what you intended.”

At that particular moment, I heard a sound that was halfway between a balloon deflating rapidly and someone sitting on a whoopee cushion. Whipping my head towards the sound, I caught sight of what had to be one of the most heart-wrenching and strangest displays of emotion I’d yet seen in a pony. Pinkie was shooting me the most soulful, sad-looking eyes ever, and her mane and tail had visibly deflated, looking far flatter than I’d ever seen it. It kind of reminded me of those pictures she’d shown me of her sisters.

“Oh, Derren,” she said in a tremulous voice, eyes glistening with unshed tears, “I was hoping to finally get you to turn that frown upside down with something that made you feel good, and it only made things worse. I ‒” her breath hitched, and before I could do or say anything to stop what was coming, she threw her head back and wailed loudly, tears cascading from her eyes like a waterfall.

I cringed at the display, and desperately looked to my other companions for assistance. Using her quadrupedal seated position to her advantage, Faran merely gave a very human shrug.

Gee, thanks for the help, I thought, sarcasm dripping from every unspoken word. She at least had the decency to look concerned about Pinkie’s condition, though.

“I’m suddenly regretting mentioning it,” Twilight said guiltily. Her ears were folded back, and she was cringing just as much as me at Pinkie’s hysterics.

I shot her a sympathetic look, reaching a hand up only to hold it awkwardly for a few moments before yanking it back, prompting a confused stare from the mare. I had been sorely tempted to add a comforting scratch behind the ears, but thought better of it. If nothing else, it might be taken the wrong way. I ultimately settled on the least offensive gesture I could think of, and reached out again to gently pat her on the back.

“It’s my fault, too, Twilight,” I said, silently cheering myself that she hadn’t objected to the contact. Instead, she gave me a wan smile before jerking her head in the direction of the crying mess I’d made of a particular pink party pony. I got the message loud and clear.

“Pinkie,” I barely croaked. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to grab her attention. I cringed again at the sight of matted fur along her cheeks and her puffy, bloodshot eyes; not to mention the snot drooling out of her nostrils.

I cleared my throat and tried again, this time sounding much stronger. “Pinkie, I really am sorry I broke my Pinkie Promise.” Buoyed by my success with Twilight, I crouched down and placed a comforting hand on the party pony’s withers, which caused her to look hopefully up at me through the rather unglamorous mess she’d made of her features. “I let my struggles in dealing with all the culture shock I’ve experienced since coming here get in the way of enjoying what looked like a very fun party. I’ll bet if you threw another one once I can get my bearings, I’d enj‒”

I didn’t get to finish the sentence before getting tackled across the private compartment and slammed painfully into the side of the train. Further damage was being inflicted by the hug I was receiving from Pinkie, which had the force of about a hundred boa constrictors all compressing the same portion of my body. She also happened to be getting bodily fluids all over my shirt as she nuzzled me, but for some reason, my impending death by pony-induced asphyxiation bothered me more at that moment.

“Of course I forgive you, Der-Bear, you silly-billy!” Pinkie squealed. “Just let me know when you’re really ready to party, and I’ll set everything up for you!”

“Thanks, Pinkie, but could you possibly let me breathe now?” I choked out.

“Oopsie! Sorry about that, Der-Bear!” she sang. I still had a hard time believing that anyone could be so damn cheerful all the time, but I was beginning to think that if any sapient being could pull it off, it’d probably be Pinkie.

As promised, however, my poor, abused lungs were quickly given room to suck down precious oxygen, and my breathing gradually returned to normal. “Don’t worry about it, Pinkie,” I said. “I know your heart’s in the right place. I’m just going to need some time to get used to the full ‘Pinkie Experience.’”

“Okie dokie lokie!” she chirped, wiping away what remained of her earlier tears with a hoof. And just like that, all was forgiven. Praise Zombie Jesus.

Twilight chose that moment to interrupt our little interspecies kumbaya session. “I’m sorry too, Pinkie,” she said, her words as heavy with contrition as her ears. “I can’t believe that I forgot how sensitive you can be when somepony doesn’t warm up to you right away.”

“It’s okay, Twilight,” Pinkie replied cheerfully. “You were just trying to make him feel comfortable, just like me!”

“Besides,” I supplied, “Pinkie seems to be pretty forgiving of most transgressions ‒ though I suppose you would know that better than me. You shouldn’t worry too much about it. Just think of it as practice for when you meet with this Moondancer.” I couldn’t resist a somewhat sly smile when I said that.

Unfortunately, this had an adverse effect on the lavender mare. In that moment, I knew that even if I lived to be a thousand, I’d probably never fully understand the ability of Equestrian ponies’ facial fur to reflect the physiological expressions of emotion in a similar manner to human skin.

The color drained from her face until she had achieved a ghostly pale hue, and she sat there stammering incoherently for several moments. Her left eye developed a rather worrisome twitch to it, as did her right ear. She also seemed to have adopted what I could only describe as the pony version of the fetal position, and I couldn’t tell how much of her rocking motion was from the movement of the train, and how much was her own panic-induced catatonia.

At a loss for what to do, I turned to Spike. “Is… Is she always like this?”

“Like what?” he demanded, looking up from his comic book with visible reluctance, as if pulling him from the riveting tale was a massive imposition. His attitude made an immediate one-eighty upon seeing his caretaker’s psychological state. “Geez, Derren. What did you do to her?”

“Do? I didn’t do anything! I ‒” Spike’s skeptical gaze quickly took the wind out of the sails of my vehement denial. “I just… reminded her that she was going to rekindle some old friendships while she was in Canterlot.”

“Friendships that she deeply regrets having taken for granted,” Spike retorted, his reptilian eyes boring into me in a way that had me sweating bullets. “No wonder she’s so upset. I haven’t seen her this bad since that one time when she got so worked up over being tardy with a friendship report that she enchanted a raggedy old doll of hers to be extremely desirable to anypony who laid eyes on it.”

“That… sounds like it should be very illegal,” I murmured in worried awe of Twilight’s magical prowess.

I shook my head to prevent my thoughts from straying into much darker territory. After all, Celestia had given every indication of being a benevolent, non-corrupt ruler so far, and I had more immediate concerns to deal with. I’d stuck my foot in my mouth ‒ again ‒ and it was up to me to fix the mess I’d made. I set my sights on Twilight, who was still looking like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her mane had become disheveled once more from all the rocking she’d been doing.

“Twilight,” I said softly. She didn’t stir, or give any indication of acknowledging my presence.

“Twilight,” I tried again, louder this time. Still no response.

Okay then, time to up the ante.

With exaggerated slowness, I reached out towards the hysterical mare with my right hand. Only my index finger was extended as I made contact with her nose.

“Boop.” A cheeky smile had wormed its way onto my lips. The response was immediate, as Twilight scrunched her nose, touching it with a forehoof as if in wonder over the strange sensation that had just broken her out of her trance.

I reached out to boop her again, only to have her pin my hand to the plush cushion of the train seat with a downward motion of her hoof. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she looked at me.

“Um, hi,” I said sheepishly. “Welcome back to the waking world.”

“Why did you do that?” she replied, a slight trace of irritation in her voice.

“To be honest, I was starting to worry about you,” I said simply. “You were really freaking out over the prospect of being reunited with your Canterlot friends ‒ totally my fault, by the way. I didn’t realize that merely mentioning it would be so… stressful.” I paused, looking at Twilight curiously. “Why did you react that way, anyway?”

A long, mournful-sounding sigh eventually escaped Twilight’s lungs. “Let’s just say that I have a habit of setting very high standards for myself, and that if even the slightest prospect of failure exists, well ‒”

“She’ll make a mountain out of a molehill, which ends up causing problems for everypony else,” Spike bluntly concluded for her.

“Spike!” Twilight chided.

“You have to admit that it’s a fairly accurate assessment, Miss Sparkle,” Faran replied. She then appraised the little dragon with a chastising glare. “Even if it could be said more tactfully.”

Spike flinched from Faran’s disapproving eyes and gazed back at the mare that had hatched him. “Sorry, Twi,” he mumbled.

Judging from the way she looked at him, Twilight wasn’t fully satisfied with his apology, but wasn’t inclined to pursue the matter, either. “It’s okay, Spike,” she said evenly, “I can forgive you this time. Just try to think before you speak in the future, alright?”

Spike merely nodded in understanding, and the two shared a brief, familial embrace before separating. The baby dragon returned to his seat and picked up his discarded comic book as if nothing had happened.

I sat watching the scene for a moment before coming to a decision. I scooted over close to Twilight, and laid a comforting hand on her withers. She looked up at me, worry written on her features and her ears flat against her skull.

“Twilight,” I said in a gentle tone, “it’s okay to worry about the future. I do it, too.” I could feel my heart warming a little as a small smile dawned on her lips and her ears slowly returned to normal. “But, as I’m sure you’re aware from your little time travel escapades, if you become consumed with everything that could go wrong, it can paralyze you into indecision, and that can be worse than overreacting.”

“I suppose you speak from experience,” Twilight replied with a wry smile.

A small burst of laughter escaped from my lungs before I replied. “You could say that.” The brief moment of levity evacuated the compartment like a fart in a gust of wind, and my face fell in response. “In addition to my growing cynicism about friendship, I naturally had a hard time making new friends because of my anxieties about messing up. Probably even missed out on an opportunity for romance because of it.”

“Really?”

I nodded my head in sober reflection. Just as I opened my mouth to tell the story, realization set in. Here I was, about to pour my heart out for someone I didn’t know all that well. And on top of that, she was an alien. Granted, it would be unfair to call Twilight a complete stranger at that point, but we’d only hung out together for a total of four days so far. For all I knew, she was only doing it at the behest of her mentor, the mare who ran the country. Was she really showing me genuine kindness by offering me a place to stay and helping me get back on my feet, or was she simply doing it to please the princesses?

You’re being silly, you know, some small part of me retorted. She’s generously giving of herself for your benefit, and you’re questioning her motives?

Well, yeah, I countered. If you’d experienced the things I have, wouldn’t you?

No, and especially not when these ponies have given you no reason to mistrust them, came the forceful reply.

Great, now I’m arguing with myself, I mentally grumbled.

And losing, my conscience shot back dryly. Now, if you weren’t lying to this mare earlier about reconsidering friendship, you’ll say something to her before she starts to worry about you.

Why would she‒ a palpable stony silence cut my internal debate short ‒ Right. Opening up to pony now.

Another crack formed in the seemingly impregnable shell I’d spent half a lifetime building up to keep from being hurt by others.

Closing my mouth once more, I merely nodded in response to Twilight’s question. “It’s kind of a long story, and involves unrequited love compounded by the fact that the girl I was pining after was getting out of a bad relationship at the time we’d met. I’d like to tell it to you some day, but I’m just not comfortable doing so right now.”

Twilight smiled sweetly, though tiredly, at me. “I understand. I wouldn’t dream of pressuring you into talking about anything you don’t want to discuss,” she murmured, leaning against me and looking as if she were about to fall asleep against my arm.

I looked a bit askance at her, though that was because of the unexpected contact. Taking a moment to settle down, I gave her a wan smile of my own. “Thanks, Twilight.”

“No problem,” she replied. “Anything for a good friend.”

“I don’t know that we’re quite at the good friends stage just yet,” I said, my words interspersed with a nervous chuckle, “but I appreciate the sentiment anyway.”

“Nonsense,” Twilight retorted, “We may not have known each other all that long, but I’ve seen enough to be pretty confident that we’re going to be good friends.”

At Twilight’s words, I felt a familiar warmth spread through me. It was something that I hadn’t experienced in a long time, and part of me wanted it. Badly. At the same time, however, I still had a hard time believing it could be real, so I ruthlessly suppressed the sudden surge of emotion, and made to continue my point.

“Anyway, Twilight, what I’m trying to say is that despite being relatively new to the whole friendship thing, you seem to have proven yourself to be a natural. After all, your fellow Element Bearers seem to think very highly of you. I think you’ll be able to mend some fences with your old Canterlot friends without much trouble.”

“Thanks, Derren,” Twilight replied with a gentle smile. “It’s good to know that you have confidence in me, at least as far as that goes.”

Twilight then let out a particularly exhausted-sounding yawn, and leaned even further into me before closing her eyes. Within minutes, the rate at which my arm and chest were being warmed by her exhalations had dwindled to a slow and steady pace.

I figured that between the stress that I had caused her by mentioning her old friends, the late night caused by my binge drinking, and the rhythmic rocking of the car as the train sped along the tracks towards Canterlot, she was pretty worn out, and had chosen to use me as a pillow.

Looking at her, a twinge of guilt shot through me for putting her through all of that. With a sad smile, I gave her withers a gentle squeeze and returned my attention to my more alert companions.

Spike still had his nose buried in his comic book, while Pinkie and Faran both bore ear-splitting grins as they looked at me. While Pinkie’s seemed more genuinely happy, there was something about Faran’s that just sent an involuntary chill down my spine.

Suspecting that her empathic ability was active, I fixed Faran with a flat stare that carried my unspoken demand. What?

She developed an arch expression, her smile never wavering. Sure enough, her mental “voice” came through clearly with that eerie seamlessness that had accompanied it the previous evening. You certainly have a way with mares. Her emerald eyes twinkled with mirth. Or at least, with Miss Sparkle there.

I responded with an unamused expression that probably made me look like I’d been sucking on a lemon ‒ a very sour lemon. What on Earth are you talking about, Faran?

Faran looked pointedly in Twilight’s direction. You should ask your hand that question.

Rolling my eyes, I did as the nurse suggested. Where I thought I’d merely been laying a comforting hand on Twilight’s withers, it turned out that I’d been unconsciously giving the muscles there a full-blown massage. Somehow, I’d been so focused on my conversation with Twilight that I hadn’t noticed the subtle shifts in the texture of her fur as my fingers worked their magic on her.

Once the realization sank in, I jerked my hand away from Twilight’s slumbering form as if scalded. For some reason, Pinkie seemed rather disappointed in this development, judging from the pout on her muzzle. I couldn’t help but shake my head and smile at her antics.

“Sorry, Pinkie. Show’s over,” I stated, playfully ruffling her mane. She let loose with a bubbly giggle before ducking away.

I took advantage of the distraction to turn my attention back to Faran. Our empathic “conversation” picked up where it left off, with a chagrined look on my face. I hope accidental massages aren’t considered a faux pas here.

Faran shook her head. Not at all. She fixed me with a flinty glare. If anything, you peeping on me while I was asleep was more egregious.

I winced in response. See, that’s probably why I’d never be selected as my world’s ambassador to yours. I spend so much time with my foot in my mouth.

Faran raised an eyebrow. If you’re trying to make amends, that’s a strange way of doing it.

I sighed, adopting a forlorn expression. No, I really do want to apologize for that. I shouldn’t have violated your privacy like that. If it makes any difference, I felt like a massive pervert the whole time I was watching you sleep.

A few moments passed in silence, both audibly and psychically, as Faran studied me ‒ presumably trying to sense any duplicity in my words. At long last, she “spoke” again: So, why did you do it, then? If you knew it was wrong, why didn’t you stop?

Another long sigh escaped me. That damnable human curiosity I mentioned at the welcome ceremony, I suppose. I heard an odd whinnying from the libr‒

Faran cut me off with an icy glare. I do not snore.

A strangled snort shot forth from me as I struggled not to laugh at what she’d said. “Really? Is that how ponies sno‒”

Faran clogged my mouth with her hoof. “I. Do. Not. Snore,” she declared with a finality that would brook no argument.

Thanking my lucky stars that she hadn’t accidentally knocked out any teeth, I decided to let my face do my talking for me. Point taken.

With a nod, Faran carefully removed her hoof from my mouth. She paused to wipe it off on the seat next to her. An awkward silence descended upon us, hanging heavily over our heads like a giant alien spacecraft pointing its oh-so-phallic guns of lasery mass destruction at the White House.

Deciding that we’d danced around each other enough, I locked eyes with Faran once more. This time, I made sure she could see the contrition on my face. I really am sorry about this, Faran. I promise to respect your privacy in the future. Think you can forgive me?

Faran sullenly stared at the seat fabric for several long moments. She then let out a long sigh and looked up at me, her eyes full of earnestness. Yes, I suppose I can forgive you. I can feel the sincerity in you when you say that you regret your actions, so I’ll let it slide this time.

A wan smile dawned on her lips. We’re probably going to be seeing each other ‒ in a professional sense, at least ‒ for a long time to come, so we may as well put our differences aside and try to be friends.

Despite how unsettled I was in my feelings for Faran, I favored her with my own tentative smile. I’d appreciate that.

Yet another crack appeared in my metaphorical armor. I could swear that I actually heard it that time. Then again, maybe one of Pinkie’s party cannons firing off at point blank range at that moment was to blame, and the “crack” I’d heard was my poor unprotected eardrums giving up the ghost.

I put my hands up to my ears to check. There was no blood, nor was there any other physical indication of trauma-induced deafness that I could detect. Then again, I wasn’t a medical professional.

It also helped that I could still hear the steady, rhythmic clacking of the train as it raced along the tracks towards our destination.

Whatever the case, the noise had startled Twilight awake, and driven Spike to cling to the ceiling of the train car like a cat. They both gazed in shock at the weapons-grade party implement Pinkie had managed to smuggle onto the train. The muzzle of the damn thing was still smoking, and we were all struggling to get free of all the confetti and streamers that had suddenly been strewn all over the compartment.

The pink party pony, however, seemed oblivious to the mess she’d made. “Yay!” She squealed happily, wrapping both me and my nurse up in an enthusiastic hug that once more had me worrying for my own bodily safety.

“Derren and Faran are friends again!” Pinkie’s enthusiasm was at once heartening and worrying.

I soon found out why I was worried. Pinkie had quickly ducked out of the group hug, and was pressing my body up against Faran’s. “Now, hug and make up!” she demanded.

Faran and I shared a long look as we broke apart, my worry mirroring hers. Might as well, I said across our empathic link, I think she’d get upset if we didn’t, and I don’t think either of us wants to make her upset.

Faran nodded in agreement. That, and she can apparently follow our empathic ‘conversations.’ She was close enough that I could practically sense her shudder, even without looking at her.

With some hesitation, I dropped to my knees to be a little more accessible for hugging. An equally nervous smile adorned Faran’s lips as she raised a foreleg and apprehensively hooked it around my right arm near the shoulder joint. Little by little, we drew closer, and she eventually rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel the gentle warmth of her body where we were touching, and her fur was just as soft as Twilight’s. I idly noted that she actually smelled fairly pleasant, like a lush and fertile field in the mountains of western Ireland after a light rain.

I gingerly reached out and draped my left arm across her withers, feeling every bit as awkward as if I’d been hugging another guy. With the tenseness I was feeling in her muscles, I could tell that Faran was of the same mind regarding what we were doing. And even though her hug was much more restrained than that of Pinkie, I could easily see Faran accidentally crushing me to death with that earth pony strength of hers if she wasn’t careful.

In spite of that, there was a strange sense of rightness as Faran and I held each other in that tentative embrace ‒ so much so that we’d clung together for longer than either of us had intended, if Twilight’s forceful clearing of her throat was any indication. We separated from each other with almost the same speed that Raindrops and I had achieved in breaking off our accidental kiss the day before.

Faran and I had trouble looking at each other for several moments after our hug ended, and to my great surprise, she actually appeared to be blushing a little. She quickly regained her composure upon sensing my gaze, fixing me with a flat stare.

She then leaned in, and in a half-whisper, said, “If you tell anyone about this‒”

“You’ll kill me?” I supplied in a voice filled with trepidation.

She looked at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a third nipple. “I’ll deny it.”

I anxiously bobbed my head like a pigeon. “That works, too.” I could’ve sworn I was doing a damn fine impression of Vir Cotto after having been granted the authority to negotiate on his boss’s behalf.

Don’t give away the homeworld, indeed.

Somehow, that thought reminded me of my impending appointment with Doctor Silverclaw. Strange that I should be looking forward to meeting with that crazy griffon again, I thought. A lopsided grin spread across my lips. Maybe I’m the crazy one.

On that happy note, I took a seat over by the window so that I could watch the world pass by at a rapid pace as the train continued to speed towards our destination.

The sun had just disappeared below the horizon when we pulled into the train station in Canterlot, though the skies weren’t completely dark just yet. When we flew to Ponyville the day before, I hadn’t really had much of a chance to take in the layout of ponykind’s capital city, as I had been preoccupied with preparing to meet my new neighbors (among other things). This time, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity that had unexpectedly presented itself.

The city itself was situated on three giant cantilevered plates, arranged like a mountainside terrace. From my earlier excursions with Doctor Silverclaw, I knew that those plates were secured to the side of the mountain by an equally mammoth lattice of support structures that ran through a series of abandoned gem mines deep in the mountain. It was these tunnels that had allowed us to sneak out into Lower Canterlot without being seen by the general public.

I suppose there’s something to be said for not having a nudity taboo, among other things, because it took far less time to disembark from the train than it would to deboard an airplane back on Earth. Twilight, Faran, Spike, and Pinkie were waiting for me when I finally managed to collect my luggage and step out onto the station platform.

The station itself was situated on the border between two plates. The tracks that the train rode on were firmly planted on the lower tier, while the platform itself formed part of the lip of the upper plate. A tall, elegantly-decorated pedestrian bridge at each end of the platform provided access to the other side of the tracks.

As we began walking away from the platform, I happened to catch a glimpse of the lower tier from around the corner of the caboose. From what I could tell, it housed what might be politely called “the bad side of the tracks” back on Earth. From my previous excursions with Silverclaw, I knew that the support tunnels exited in an alleyway to the left, hidden from full view of the train station by the dilapidated slums assaulting my eyes. In contrast with similar low-budget housing from Earth, however, the erstwhile homes in Lower Canterlot at least looked like they had been maintained sometime in the recent past.

The “entertainment” district was blocked from view by the bulk of the train. However, I didn’t need to see to know that a particular seedy tavern named The Whickered Stallion was a mere five blocks away from the train station. I was almost certain that my griffon friend would want to go there again at some point during my visit, as it was his favorite purveyor of “wine, mares, and song,” as he put it.

Not that he’d ever partake of the second part of that phrase. He was happily married, though his wife, Giselle, apparently still lived in a place called Griffonstone. Furthermore, the owner of the bar in question had made it quite clear on our first visit that his was not one of those taverns.

I was pulled from my musings at that point by the clearing of a throat behind me. It wasn’t Twilight or any of my other companions. I turned around to face the newcomer, only to suddenly find myself almost face-to-muzzle with an armored pony ‒ presumably, another guard. The unexpected encounter caused me to let out a strangled noise and take a step back.

“Oh, sorry aboot that, Mister Knox,” the guard said in a familiar accent that had me mentally sighing, “but you were kind of off in your own little world, and I had to get your attention, eh?”

I could feel an eyebrow rising in bemusement. Of all the guards I could come across in Equestria, I had to get the one that sounded like a goddamned Canadian stereotype.

Mentally shaking my head at this turn of events, I took the opportunity to get a better look at the guard I’d nearly run into. He was about as big as Applejack’s brother, and his slate gray coat was mostly obscured by the heavy armor he wore. Two things stood out about him: one was the fact that his armor was a sort of burnished dark purple ‒ or at least would have been in the full light of day. As it was now, it verged on a very dark, almost black shade, almost the total opposite of the gold-plated armor the guards I’d seen previously usually wore.

The other oddity that jumped out at me was actually a pair of oddities: his eyes and his wings. The yellow irises of his eyes had a more feline shape to them, and instead of standard feathery pegasus wings, it seemed that nature had seen fit to issue him a pair of leathery, batlike appendages.

He wasn’t alone, either. A small squad of about ten guards accompanied him, and were it not for the fact that roughly half were clearly mares, I would’ve sworn they were clones of the Mountie before me.

“Anywho, I suppose I should introduce myself, eh?” he said, prompting a mental eye roll at his manner of speech. “I’m Lieutenant Molson, of the Nightwatch Division of the Canterlot Royal Guard.”

“Really? Because I would’ve taken you for more of a Labatt, myself,” I said with strained snort, barely resisting the urge to laugh at the absurdity of this particular parallel. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught both Twilight and Faran burying their faces in their hooves at my quip. I didn’t think they’d get the reference. Most likely, it was the distinctly American pronunciation I’d given the name that had set them off.

Without batting an eye, the lieutenant replied with utmost sincerity, “Oh, no. That’s my second-in-command.”

If I’d been drinking something, I would’ve done a spit take.

Worse, this reaction was not lost on Molson, who bore a small, knowing smile as he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. Without further ado, he raised a hoof to his lips and whistled shrilly. “Hey, Sergeant. I want you to meet our VIP, eh.”

One of the mares trotted over, wearing armor that was a bit more ornate than the rest of the squad, but not quite near the level of her commanding officer. Like the other guards I’d seen, she was wearing a tail wrap as part of her uniform. Hers stood out by virtue of its color. While Molson’s was a dull golden color, and the rest of the squad’s was a dull purple ‒ some with a silver stripe ‒ hers was a bright, solid silver. My best guess was that the color of the tail wrap served as some sort of rank insignia, but I couldn’t be sure without asking. And considering the body part in question, I didn’t want to risk a diplomatic incident over idle curiosity.

The pony that Molson had summoned came to a halt about a yard away and crisply saluted. “Sergeant Labatt, reporting as ordered,” she stated in a professional tone.

I mentally groaned at noticing that her accent matched the lieutenant’s.

Molson returned the salute just as crisply. “At ease, sergeant.” He jerked his head in my direction. “I’d like for you to meet Mister Derren Knox. He’s the first of his kind in Equestria, and the princesses have granted him special status.”

The mare turned to me, her blood red, cat-like eyes boring into my hazel irises as if sizing me up. After a few moments of silent contemplation, during which I was beginning to get somewhat nervous, a broad smile suddenly burst forth on her muzzle.

“Pleased to meet ya, Mister Knox,” she said, extending a hoof.

“Likewise,” I intoned mechanically, shaking the proffered hoof with perhaps one-fifth of the firmness I would’ve normally applied.

“If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask. We’re here to serve and protect, after all.”

“Right,” my reply was still as stilted as before. However, one question did happen to spring to mind at the invitation to ask. “So, are the wings and eyes natural, or an enchantment?”

The sergeant’s smile didn’t dim in the slightest. “Oh, they’re an enchantment. The wings allow us to fly silently and get the drop on ne’er-do-wells and all, don’cha know.”

“I’m guessing the eyes are for improved night vision.”

Labatt favored the lieutenant with a smile. “He’s rather quick on the uptake, eh?”

“Indeed,” Molson replied, “But I think it’d be best if we moved along, eh?” He turned to face me. “We want to get you to the castle with as little hubbub as possible.”

My companions and I looked at each other, matching expressions of worry written on our faces. “You’re not expecting trouble, are you, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“No, but it would be better for everyone if we got a move on, eh?”

I nodded. “Very well, then.” I indicated the castle looming over the whole city in the distance with a sweeping hand gesture. “Lead the way.”

We set off down one of the main streets of Middle Canterlot, heading away from the train station and the slums beyond it. The guards formed a loose circle around us, as if to shield us from prying eyes. As we walked through the gathering gloom, our course marked by the warm light of several Dickensian street lamps, I took in as much of the local architecture as I could.

Most of the area near the station appeared to have been given over to a commercial district. While I couldn’t read several of the signs due to a combination of the time of day and my current level of skill with written Equestrian, I could clearly see some of the wares available for purchase in the dimly lit windows.

There wasn’t a whole lot of time for window shopping, however, as our brisk pace quickly took us to a fork in the road at the northern end of the stolidly functional, Victorian-style edifices that served as the face of modern Equestrian business. Ahead of us lay a path that led directly to the palace. To the right, the modest homes of hundreds of solidly middle-class families backed up against the mountainside. To the left, the garish opulence of the Platinum District assaulted the eyes from behind the safety of a twenty foot-high gold-plated, wrought iron enclosure that wouldn’t have been out of place in a ritzy neighborhood back on Earth.

From that point, it was only a ten minute walk to reach the edge of the uppermost terrace, which was solely dedicated to the palace grounds. Lieutenant Molson vouched for us at the castle gates, and we were led inside with little fuss.

In the grand foyer of the castle, we were met by Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, along with a few unicorns whose stuffy-looking attire marked them as part of the castle staff. Unbidden, the staffers swept up our belongings in their telekinetic fields and carried them away to rooms that they said had been prepared for us.

Being received by the Princess of Love and her husband wasn’t too surprising, given what I had been told about my status the last time I was in Canterlot. What was surprising, however, was the ritual with which Twilight and Cadance greeted each other.

“Sunshine, sunshine!” they intoned while prancing in place.

“Ladybugs awake!” They dropped to their bellies and made a little “peek-a-boo” motion with their hooves.

“Clap your hooves ‒” they played patty cake with their forehooves.

“‒ And do a little shake!” They wiggled their rumps at each other. I had been standing off to one side, watching the whole spectacle. When they got to this part, however, I had to avert my eyes. Twilight’s jiggling hindquarters were causing her tail to sway from side to side, offering glimpses of everything she had to offer.

It was purple.

Thankfully, the little show was at the end of their routine. When they were done, they descended into gleeful laughter and shared a sisterly embrace. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a soft, strangely wistful smile on Faran’s lips as she took in the scene. Pinkie, of course, was being Pinkie: soaking up the palpable joy with a wide grin splitting her muzzle.

And though Spike kind of looked like he wished he could be anywhere else right at that moment, the slight smile on his face told me that he was enduring the boredom caused by not being the center of attention far better than many human children would.

“It’s good to see you again, Twilight,” Cadance said as the pair separated. The elation on her muzzle quickly morphed into concern, however. “I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

“I wasn’t aware you’d been informed of my situation, Your Highness,” I replied.

Cadance’s smile was tinged with a slight sadness as she came over to me. “I am a ruling princess, Derren. I’m just as much a part of the government as my adoptive aunts, and can fill in for them if necessary.”

A delicate, downy sensation across my arm and part of my back caused me to look down. Cadance had draped one her wings over me. “I’m sorry to hear about your condition,” she said, her voice full of warm compassion, “but if there’s anypony who can figure out what’s going on, it’s Twilight. I’m sure she’ll get to the bottom of this mystery.”

I merely nodded. “Thanks, Princess. I appreciate it.”

She looked at me a bit askance. “Please, Derren. Call me Cadance. All of my friends do, and any friend of Twilight is my friend, as well.”

I let out a sigh and smiled weakly at her. “I’ll try, Pri‒ Er, Cadance.”

I only stumbled slightly at the name, but it was good enough to earn me the full force of the princess’s winning smile. “That’s better,” she replied before cheekily hip checking me.

“Hey, knock it off!” I admonished, casting a nervous glance in Shining Armor’s direction as I hastily backed away from his wife’s overly affectionate gesture.

Strangely, the stallion didn’t seem to mind, if his unperturbed gaze and slight smile were any indication.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Derren,” Twilight replied. “You know that ponies are more prone to physical displays of affection than humans, and Cadance has always been more affectionate than the average pony.”

“Especially where Shiny is concerned,” Cadance added, favoring her husband with a smoldering gaze as she trotted up to him. They engaged in a brief, but passionate kiss that left even me a little hot under the collar.

“Maybe so,” I conceded as I tried ‒ and failed ‒ to subtly fan myself with my shirt, “But I was brought up believing that you don’t play around with another man’s wife. Especially when that man is a powerful unicorn.”

Shining and his wife both chuckled at that. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about in that regard,” he said, favoring Cadance with a loving smile as he draped a hoof over her withers.

“Yes, well, I-I’m happy you two have such a strong bond, really,” I stammered uselessly, “but perhaps we should continue this discussion as we walk.” A low growl emanated from my stomach. “Preferably towards the dining hall.”

After everyone had had a good chuckle at my expense, Shining nodded. “Perhaps,” he agreed, gesturing with a foreleg down the corridor. “This way, please.”

Our group quickly fell into step alongside the royal couple as we walked through the brightly-lit halls away from the castle entrance. Of course, in Pinkie’s case, it was more of her usual highly energetic bouncing as she easily kept pace with the rest of us. We navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the palace in an uneasy silence for some time before Twilight spoke up.

“Not to sound like I’m not happy to see you two again, Cadance,” she said, “but I’m kind of surprised that neither Princess Celestia nor Princess Luna are here to meet us.”

“It’s okay, Twilight,” Cadance replied, “I understand. Unfortunately, Princess Luna is involved in trade negotiations with the minotaur ambassador, and the meeting is expected to run pretty late tonight. Princess Celestia has retired to her private study for the evening, and asked not to be disturbed.”

“That’s a little odd,” Twilight muttered, “She always seems to have time for me, no matter what’s going on.”

Cadance nodded. “I know what you mean. I asked her about it, and all she would tell me is that it had something to do with Derren’s arrival in Equestria.”

“Me?” I asked in a tone full of incredulity. “Why me?”

Shining Armor chose that moment to speak up. “She wouldn’t say, except to mention that it might be important to Equestria’s future.”

To say that I didn’t like the implications of that declaration would be the understatement of the century. I buried my face in a palm and let out a low groan. “Please tell me that I’m not some clichéd Chosen One destined to save Equestria from a horrible fate.”

“From the way she spoke of it, she didn’t seem to think so,” Cadance answered. “It was almost as if there were bigger concerns on her mind.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness for small favors. I have enough on my plate already without adding the burden of being this world’s Neo.”

“Who?” Twilight asked, scrunching up her muzzle and looking for all the world like she’d just smelled a fart.

“Never mind,” I replied, shaking my head and letting out a small sigh. “Human movie reference.”

“Ah,” she said blandly.

Something about what Cadance had said still didn’t sit right with me. “Why wouldn’t Celestia tell me about this?” I asked, gazing pointedly at the princess. “If there’s something about my arrival that impacts this world, I think I’d have the right to know the details.”

“She didn’t want to say anything without being sure,” Cadance replied, “In the past, there have been ponies that had a degree of clairvoyance, able to see ‘echoes’ of things that may or may not come to pass. I suppose that you could call their visions prophecies, to some extent.”

“Unfortunately,” Twilight continued, “while many of these ponies could ‘see’ thousands of years into the future, their predictions were often vague, or worse, inconsistent. And as if that weren’t enough, many of these ponies were…” She paused with a frown, tapping her chin with a hoof. “Well, they weren’t quite right in the head, so their predictions were often dismissed as the ravings of madponies.”

“I’m guessing that not many of these prophecies were written down,” I said, completely deadpan.

“A few were, but the vast majority were lost to history,” Twilight admitted, “However, there was one pony who was fascinated by the idea of being able to predict the future, and set out to make a science out of it. You might recall that many of his accomplishments were either not recorded, or misattributed to his protege due to the prevailing sexism of the times, among other things.”

For some reason, that last comment got Cadance to shoot a knowing, salacious-looking grin at her husband. She whispered something in his ear. Given the bright claret color that suddenly blossomed on his white-furred cheeks and the strangled snort he emitted, I could only assume that it was something highly naughty.

Preferring to ignore the married couple’s innuendo, I pondered the news Twilight had given me with a bemused frown and furrowed eyebrows. “Starswirl the Bearded?”

“That’s the one,” Twilight declared proudly, complete with a smug grin.

“So, what does he have to do with the events surrounding my arrival?”

“I’m getting to that,” Twilight retorted, shooting me a reproachful glare that was enhanced by the irritated downturn of her ears.

“Sorry. Please, continue.”

“Starswirl determined that while it was impossible to predict the actions of an individual sapient being, one could use statistical and mathematical models to predict the evolution of whole societies, much like statistical models can be used to accurately predict the mass action of a gas.”

I shot Twilight a look. “You’re talking about psychohistory.”

Twilight’s reaction made me wish I had my cell phone with me so that I could take a picture. “You know about it?” she inquired, shock warring with awe on her features.

I merely shrugged. “It features prominently in one of the classic science fiction series from my world. It stayed in the realm of science fiction because nobody could figure out how to make an actual science out of it. Am I to assume that Starswirl actually managed that feat?”

Twilight nodded, a sly smile on her muzzle. “He used it to successfully predict Nightmare Moon’s return.” She paused for a moment before continuing, “She didn’t mention it to me until recently, but according to Princess Celestia, that’s what I found in that copy of Predictions and Prophecies when she sent me to Ponyville to meet my friends.”

I was silent for the next minute as I thought about what Twilight had just told me, as well as its implications. “So, what? Does this mean that Celestia is worried that some aspect of my arrival may presage the pony version of a Seldon Crisis?”

Twilight shared a brief, meaningful look with Cadance and Shining Armor. “It would depend on what you mean by that.” she said.

“Long story short, it’s a social or political situation, typically involving a combination of external and internal threats that arise simultaneously, with both threats being resolved by a single action. These crises are generally predictable through the use of psychohistory.”

An anxious look crossed Twilight’s face, and her voice trembled slightly as she responded. “Ah, that sounds a bit like what we call a ‘Starswirl Contingency.’” She gave a visible shudder, as if the possible implications were especially worrisome. “Well, if Princess Celestia is looking at her collection of obscure history and prophecy, then it’s certainly possible. I don’t think it’d be a good idea to baselessly speculate, though.”

Her voice brightened considerably with her next statement. “I’m sure that if Princess Celestia finds something related to you specifically, especially in that context, she’ll let you know.”

“Let’s just hope she’s not as cryptic about it with me as she was with you regarding the return of Nightmare Moon,” I grumbled.

Canterlot was especially chilly that night, but it didn’t bother Lieutenant Molson and his crew as they winged their way through the skies above the capital city. Pegasi were by nature more resistant than the other two tribes to extremes of temperature, and the enchantments on the Nightwatch Division’s armor provided further insulation against the cold.

Molson pondered the snowy streets below as his course took him low over the steeply sloped, shingled roofs and soot-blackened chimneys of the residences in the Hurricane District. His powerful wings beat the air silently, changing their angle to bring him into a hover by the time he reached the boundary between Middle and Lower Canterlot.

This newcomer, this… human, seemed like an okay fellow. He’d been pretty quiet for most of the trip from the station to the castle, but Molson figured he was still in awe of his new surroundings.

If Molson was being honest, he worried a little for the guy. From the briefing he’d been given by Captain Nightwing, head of the Nightwatch Division, he knew that the human wasn’t used to being around intelligent equines, among other things. He couldn’t begin to imagine how such a mind would handle the full enormity of everything it was being asked to absorb, understand, and accept all at once. It kind of reminded him of…

Molson was pulled from his thoughts by a slight turbulence against his wings, accompanied by a familiar feminine voice. “Loony for your thoughts, Boss?”

The lieutenant smiled and turned to his second-in-command. “Just thinking about that VIP earlier, Sergeant.”

“Care for a fly-and-talk?” Labatt enquired with a sly smile.

Molson’s smile brightened. “Sure thing, eh.”

They made a lazy circuit of Lower Canterlot that gradually tightened into a spiral, with a certain seedy tavern at the center. A few moments into their patrol route, Molson spoke again.

“He’s a good seed, y’know.”

Labatt blinked. “The human?”

The lieutenant nodded, a slight smile dawning on his muzzle. “It kinda feels like he’s got a lot on his mind right now, but I think he’ll do fine in Equestria.”

Labatt’s left eyebrow quirked upward, her curiosity piqued. “Why do you say that, Boss?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but he wasn’t exactly being what you’d call sociable. In fact, he seemed to have a sort of overawed expression on his muzzle, kind of like somepony who is experiencing culture shock.”

Labatt’s head listed to port, and her eyebrow rose even higher. “How could you tell? I’d like to think I’m pretty good at reading folks, even those who aren’t ponies, but he’s pretty hard to read, what with those beady little eyes and all.”

Molson let out a rueful-sounding chuckle as they approached the center of their spiralling patrol route. “Let’s just say that I may have had a similar experience during my first tour in Deerheim. It took my CO ordering me to get my head out of my dock to cure it.”

“So, you’re saying he just needs a kick in the flank, and he’ll be alright?” Labatt’s inquiry was accompanied by a goofy grin.

“Something like that.” Molson’s grin was equally goofy.

The calm, mostly silent atmosphere was shattered by the sergeant’s loud laughter. “Well, if he ever tries his hooves at court politics, that’d definitely give him a much-needed buck to the head, eh?”

Molson rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Oh, sure. You betcha.”

He would have commented further, but a movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention.

“Speak of the draconequus…” he muttered.

As if on cue, Labatt followed his gaze. They were hovering over a building that looked for all the world as if all the joy had been sucked out of it, and had subsequently decided that sagging against the buildings around it was a much better use of its time than going out and facing the cold, harsh world.

In an alleyway not far from the building, a unicorn stallion with a salmon coat and overly-coiffed silvery mane and tail appeared to be talking to a pair of strange unicorn stallions. The guardsponies were too far away to hear anything, but the way the ponies below were frequently casting furtive glances around the alleyway suggested that they were up to something.

The larger of the two shady stallions bore an ash gray coat. His dull orange mane didn’t start until well past his poll ‒ were he human, he would be considered mostly bald. Nevertheless, it was long enough at the point where it still grew that he often bound it up in a ponytail. The scar tissue around his left eye ‒ a trio of parallel furrows ‒ spoke of a rough encounter with a griffon, which served to add to his intimidating presence.

His companion, on the other hand, had a more weasel-like build, which was made even more apparent by his tawny coat and light amber mane and tail. His dull yellow eyes, constantly in motion as if ever in search of a potential escape route, made him seem perpetually jaundiced in the eyes of an untrained observer. Despite his less-than-intimidating stature, however, there also lurked a dangerously intelligent glint in his eyes that wasn’t readily apparent until somepony dared to cross him. His cutie mark consisted of a simply styled gray weasel.

“That’s Count Silken Words,” Labatt whispered harshly, pointing a hoof at the meticulously groomed stallion.

Molson frowned. “He’s a bit out of his comfort zone, especially given his public statements about the less fortunate. What’s he doing in Lower Canterlot?”

“Maybe if we were to get closer, we’d be able to hear what they’re saying. Besides, those other ponies look like trouble.”

Molson was silent for a moment, still watching the hushed exchange below. “Alright,” he eventually said, pointing a hoof at a nearby overhang that looked like it might give them some cover while they were eavesdropping. “We’ll watch from there, but we’ll do it stealth-like, eh?”

“Right.”

With that, the two guardsponies focused their flight magic, activating an enchantment that they hadn’t bothered mentioning to the human they’d escorted to the castle. If one were to look at the two, one would have noticed the air around them shimmering like a mirage before seemingly swallowing them whole.

Once they were certain that the optical camouflage enchantment was firmly in place, they silently glided down to their pre-designated surveillance post. It wasn’t long before they could hear their target speaking.

“‒pleasure doing business with such fine, upstanding gentlecolts as yourselves,” came the folksy drawl that was the count’s voice.

The taller of the two thuggish stallions merely nodded, then lit his horn in a muted dust color that matched the big ball of violence that constituted his cutie mark. A modest sack of bits that had previously escaped the notice of of the invisible witnesses lit up in the same color and lifted itself into the air as he and his partner trotted off. Shortly thereafter, Silken Words also left the alleyway, muttering to himself as he took a different route from his co-conspirators.

Once they were out of earshot, the two guardsponies dropped their cloak.

“Aww, ponyfeathers,” Labatt swore, “We were too late.”

Molson winced briefly. Sergeant Labatt generally had a good head on her withers, but she could also be a little… excitable. “I’m afraid that’s so, Sergeant,” he said evenly.

“You don’t suppose those three were up to something, do you?”

Molson gave a noncommittal shrug. “Hard to say without something solid to go on. For all we know, he could’ve been digging up dirt on a political rival.”

Labatt’s eyes widened, and her pupils shrank to pinpricks. “You mean, kind of like how Coco Drop got caught artificially hiking the stock price of Appleloosan Trail due to insider knowledge?”

A nod and knowing smile were her commanding officer’s only response.

Labatt could feel her eyebrow rising up to meet her forelock. “Surely, you’re not suggesting that the rumors are true, are you?”

Molson shook his head. “Can’t say for sure. There’s never been any solid evidence that he got that info and used it to force her from office. But if what we just saw is any indication, he’s not above it, either.”

Molson’s words sent Labatt’s mind into a tailspin. Perhaps she hadn’t been that far off with her speculation after all. And worse, she was certain that she recognized the count’s associates. Now would be a good time to bring her worries up with her commander.

“That’s not all, sir.”

“Oh?” Molson’s eyebrow quirked up, and his features fell slightly.

“I can’t say for sure, but I think I’ve seen those other stallions before.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Sergeant,” Molson replied in a tone that was equal parts encouraging and exhorting.

A low sigh escaped Labatt’s muzzle. “I’m not entirely sure about that wiry one, but I know I’ve seen that brute working as a bouncer at one of Technically Legal’s clubs the last few times I was there.”

“Really, now?” Molson’s tone was arch. “Do tell.”

Heat burned in Labatt’s cheeks, and a pink tinge invaded the fur on her muzzle. “I-I didn’t mean it that way, sir!” she spluttered. “I was only there to pick up ponies who’d gotten a bit too rowdy and take them to the drunk tank. Nothing more, I swear!”

Molson barked out a long laugh. “At ease, Sergeant. I was just teasing you.” He quickly adopted a serious expression. “If the good count is consorting with Technically Legal’s collection of hosers, then he may be up to something, indeed. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough evidence to get permission to tail any of them.”

“So, what do we do?” Labatt demanded.

Molson shook his head and let out a sigh of regret. “We can’t do anything at the moment. Until we get solid proof that they’re about to commit a crime, I can’t even condone an unofficial investigation.”

“What if someone were to provide an anonymous tip?”

A long silence ensued during which Molson leveled Labatt with a searching gaze. Eventually, he spoke.

“It would have to be truly anonymous. Nothing can link it back up with our department.” Molson’s gaze hardened. “That means no running off to play Shadow Spade, Sergeant. Am I clear?”

Labatt visibly chafed at the restrictions, but she quickly realized that there was no help for it ‒ not through official channels, at any rate. “As crystal, sir.”

Even as she said those words, however, Labatt’s mind was quickly forming a plan involving unofficial channels. Specifically, a certain former secret agent rumored to be living in Ponyville...

For the second time since my arrival in Equestria, I was conscious of the cool, clammy gel and the slight pressure of adhesive gauze keeping the electrodes of various monitoring equipment in place. While I was used to being poked and prodded by doctors and nurses, it was too early in the morning for any civilized being to be subjected to such treatment. Doctor Silverclaw and Nurse Faran had insisted, however, and the duo was not to be denied.

It was a little unnerving just how many devices I had been attached to. They’d even hooked me up to the magical output sensor whose name I’d forgotten, and as far as I knew, it was still measuring the magic in me ‒ precisely nil, as expected.

“Alright, Meeester Knox,” came the very distinct voice of my doctor. As always, his flamboyant Eastern European-esque accent had me imagining him with a peacock hairstyle, despite how ridiculous it would’ve looked on his feathered head. “All the monitors are set up.”

A sly smile dawned on his beak ‒ something that still baffled me despite all the time I’d spent with him the last time I was in Canterlot. “I know you’re eager to get this test done and get back to your life, but as you might put it, you’re going to have to put your shirt on while I go retrieve Miss Sparkle.”

“I think you mean, keep my shirt on, Doc,” I corrected, my wan smile seeming more like a grimace. I was once again decked out in a powder blue hospital gown. This time, Ruby Weave had seen fit to provide the castle medical staff with suitable attire for my unique anatomy, so I didn’t have to worry about indecent exposure.

“Yes, that,” Silverclaw replied in a sort of mock-cavalier manner, the twinkle in his left eye giving the game away. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with the star of our little show.” So saying, he marched out the door of the examination room while whistling a jaunty tune.

Faran merely rolled her eyes at the doctor’s behavior as she continued to jot down notes with a quill held firmly in her mouth. After a few moments, she set the quill down and looked at me. “You two seem to be getting along famously,” she eventually said, a slight crooked smile on her muzzle.

I blew out an amused huff of air. “I think it’s more of an odd friendship, if anything.” With a shrug, I added, “He’s a pretty decent fellow, though. The only weird thing about him is that his accent makes him sound like a character from my world’s science fiction. I keep expecting that at some point, he’ll slip and accidentally call me” ‒ here, my expression broadened and my voice changed into a passable imitation of the good doctor ‒ “‘Meeester Garibaldi.’”

“I’m just going to have to take your word for it,” Faran replied, eyes and muzzle crumpling in bemusement.

My face fell slightly at her reaction. “That’s just one more thing for me to get used to,” I said morosely. “I have to constantly remind myself that I’m the only one who will ever fully understand a lot of the references I make. Hell, even some of the everyday expressions I use when not trying to be funny are so thoroughly marinated in my world’s culture that the full impact would be lost in explaining them.” I sighed. “I suppose it’s my cross to bear.”

Faran opened her mouth to respond, but promptly shut it again as her ear twitched in the direction of the opening door. We both turned in time to see Twilight walking in behind Silverclaw. The studious mare had her muzzle buried in a book that was held in her magenta telekinetic field alongside a cup of warm, steaming liquid that smelled strongly of tea.

I was distracted from the approaching pair by something hard nudging me in the ribs. Faran was looking at me with a serious, yet clearly concerned expression. Relax, Mister Knox. We’re professionals. She cast an odd glance in Twilight’s direction. Well, two of us are, at any rate.

I gave the nurse a flat stare. Be nice.

Faran let out a small sigh. As you wish.

My face brightened considerably. Atta girl.

Faran’s only response was to give a derisive snort and whack me with her tail as she trotted over to her station near the monitoring equipment. Silverclaw had reached me, and was ready with a dizzying array of medical equipment for whatever weirdness might present itself during the exam.

Between the two of them stood Twilight, still mulling over the dense tome of Equestrian magical knowledge that she’d borrowed from the Canterlot Archives after we’d finished dinner the previous evening. She absentmindedly took the occasional sip of her tea as she read, re-read, and read yet again. After some time, she finally set both the book and the tea down on a nearby desk and looked at each of us in turn.

“If we’re going to find out what’s going on with Derren’s connection to Equis’ harmonic magic field,” she said without preamble, “I’m going to need to start with a baseline scan. And while I may not be a doctor, I went over the procedure with Doctor Saddleton several times last night to make sure I had it right. It should be perfectly harmless.”

“Shouldn’t I have to sign a waiver or something, in case it’s not?” I murmured.

Twilight shot me a highly unamused stare.

“R-Right,” I stammered meekly. “Shutting up now.”

“Thank you,” she replied in a long-suffering tone. She then closed her eyes and concentrated. Her horn lit up in its warm magenta glow again, accompanied by the ethereal chimes that seemed to always play whenever unicorn magic was active. A wide beam that matched the color of her magical aura passed above me, then slowly made its way over me. I could feel a slight tingling in my skin as the beam ran down from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, then made its way up once more.

So far, there had been no ill effects. Faran was dutifully scribbling notes as fast as her agile tongue could work the quill. Every now and then, she’d pause her writing just long enough to glance at one of the many machines that I was hooked up to before resuming her record-keeping.

After a bit, Faran nodded to Silverclaw. “Alright, Miss Sparkle,” he said grandly, “We’re ready for Phase Two whenever you are.”

“What’s Phase Two?”

“I’m glad you asked, Derren,” Twilight chirped happily, “This spell places an amniomorphic tracer on your connection to the planet’s harmonic magic field, which is then translated into an image by cross-referencing the thaumic resonance ‒” her explanation was quickly lost in a sea of arcane technical jargon that set my teeth on edge.

“Just a one-sentence summary will do, Twilight,” I said.

She spent a moment blankly staring at me before adopting a suitably sheepish grin. “Oh. Um, well, it basically will project any hallucinations you encounter into a holographic display that we can see.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Eeyup,” she said with a smile.

“Well, then. Fire away.”

And that was precisely what she did. The arcane bolt she fired smacked me solidly in the chest, but aside from letting out a grunt at impact, there seemed to be no physical effects. After a few moments, my vision developed a strong fuchsia tint to it as the spell activated. Another beam of light shot forth from my body, expanding into a three-dimensional window whose edges carried the same glow that was emanating from my body. Within the window, there was only a solid, inky blackness.

“Okay, Derren,” Twilight said, “Try and connect to the planet’s harmonic magic field. Just concentrate, like you did with Vinyl Scratch’s equipment the other night.”

A long sigh escaped me. “Okay then. Hold onto your butts.”

And that’s when the weirdness began. As soon as I closed my eyes and concentrated on the psychic radio receiver that served as my connection to the planet’s harmonic magic field, a strange humming reached my ears ‒ one that I’d yet to hear from any of the medical instruments attached to me.

“That’s odd,” Faran murmured.

“What is?” I asked, my voice tinged with worry. I’d cracked my eyes open for a moment, and the humming stopped.

The nurse shook her head. “Never mind. Whatever it was, it’s gone now. Maybe I was seeing things.”

Twilight walked over to Faran’s station. “Hmm,” she murmured, “Do you mind if I watch over it with you, Faran? Maybe I can provide some insight.”

Faran shook her head again. “I think I can handle it, Miss Sparkle.”

Silverclaw spoke up at that point. “I’m sure it’s just a glitch. We’ll figure it out later.”

Everyone in the room looked back at me as they took up their positions once more. “Alright,” I said with a long sigh, “Take two.”

Once again, I made the connection to Harmony, as I was coming to call the planet’s secondary magic field. Once again, the strange humming resumed.

“Definitely not a glitch, this time,” Faran reported. “The arcano-psychrometer’s showing a reading in the upper H-band.”

“Upper H-band?” Silverclaw queried. I risked cracking one eye open, and found him with his own eyes closed, tapping his beak with a talon in thought. He marched over to Faran’s station and glanced at the expensive-looking device that until now had failed to detect anything from me.

“Yes, there it is,” Silverclaw drawled, jabbing a particular point on the display. “That’s definitely the right frequency to indicate a connection with the harmonic magic field during a Harmony Song. Interesting that the damn thing’s never picked up anything from him without a connection to the field.”

“It proves what he’s been saying, for sure,” Faran supplied. “In the absence of a Harmony Song, or any other manifestation of the field’s power‒”

“He has no magic,” Twilight finished. She then looked at me with what appeared to be a mixture of awe and pity. “Wow,” she breathed, “That’s something no other sapient race on Equis can say. You really are from another world…”

Thank you, Captain Obvious, I mentally groused, rolling my eyes.

Unfortunately, the fireworks weren’t done yet. Right then, my vision suddenly filled with white. Faran shouted, “We’ve got a harmonic spike!”

I suddenly felt myself lifted off the ground, my arms slowly extending outwards until I was sure I was doing a passable impression of Jesus on the cross. My mouth was suddenly wrenched open by an unknown force, a slight pulling sensation tugging at my jaw. I have no words to describe it, but somehow, I could feel raw power streaming out of my eyes and mouth in the general direction of where I had seen the holographic viewer that Twilight’s magic had created.

Eventually, the light show died down, and I crumpled to the floor. The rhythmic thudding of two sets of hooves and the rapid beat of wings rang in my ears as Twilight, Faran, and Silverclaw approached.

“Are you alright?” Twilight’s voice was full of concern, worry, and a little bit of guilt as Silverclaw did a quick check with his stethoscope to make sure I was alright.

I shook my head clear of the cobwebs, and placed my hand in Faran’s outstretched hoof to accept her unspoken offer of assistance in getting to my feet. “I think so. Why? What happened?”

“You experienced what’s known as a harmonic spike, Meeester Knox,” Silverclaw replied. “It’s when your body receives and releases a powerful surge of harmonic magic in a small fraction of time. A little unsettling, perhaps, but ultimately nothing to worry about.”

“But outside of using the Elements of Harmony, it almost never happens on its own like that,” Twilight countered.

“It’s also not nearly as powerful as the Elements when it does happen,” Faran said, already back at her station. “That little surge topped out at thirteen and thirty-two hundredths kiloclovers.”

Twilight blanched. “That’s only five hundredths of a kiloclover less than a direct blast from the Elements!”

I felt the sudden urge to facepalm, and after a struggle, gave in. “Please don’t tell me that I just caused something important to happen,” I said, massaging my temples in an attempt to ward off a massive headache.

“I’m afraid it’s a little late for that,” Silverclaw replied, pointing a talon at the magical holographic viewer.

Where there had only been inky blackness before, it had been replaced with an image that was becoming increasingly familiar from my previous Harmony-induced hallucinations. The flame-haired mystery woman was now on full display in the viewer. Whereas before I had only been treated to images of her from the neck up, I now found myself looking at her whole body. I could feel my cheeks suddenly heat up, and it wasn’t hard for me to surmise why.

The mystery woman was as naked as the day she was born. She was fairly attractive, too. Her supple hips had curves in all the right places, and her chest bore ample, natural C-cup breasts that would’ve filled out any shirt she wore rather nicely without falling into gag boob territory.

I felt a familiar tightness forming in my pants. It was only with considerable difficulty that I was able to tear my eyes away from the image when Twilight spoke up.

“This is what a human female looks like?”

I nodded. “More or less. Obviously, there’s going to be some variances in things like height, breast size, and general torso shape, but for the most part, you could consider her to be a fair representation of the fairer sex.” I gazed wistfully at the woman a little longer before continuing. “She’s actually quite beautiful, by human standards. If it weren’t for the fact that I feel like I already know her somehow, I wouldn’t mind being friends with her.”

Faran snorted derisively. “That’s because she’s completely nude,” she grumbled, having obviously spotted my reaction.

I shot Faran a flat stare. “She could be dressed in a nun’s habit, and I’d still find her pretty.”

We stood mutely as we pondered the mysterious vision in the viewer. For several long moments, the only sound was the steady thrumming of the arcano-psychrometer as it continued to record my connection to Harmony. Eventually, the psychic radio receiver in my head crackled to life once more. This time, it was playing the familiar strains of an acoustic guitar. I recognized the melody at once, and before I knew it, I found myself singing to the woman in the viewer.

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you
It’s strange what desire will make foolish people do
And I never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you
And I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you

In the back of my mind, I pondered the oddity of singing to a projected image of someone I couldn’t recall ever knowing. I knew from earlier attempts to recall events immediately prior to my arrival in Equestria that this wasn’t a random image gleaned from some porn site, or anything like that. For some reason though, that day, and whatever role this woman had in the events of that day had been sufficiently traumatic that whenever I tried to recall it, I ended up puking my guts out.

And as the song continued, I found myself wishing that I knew just why I was singing like this.

At long last, the song came to an end, punctuated by an odd sniffling. Turning towards the source, my jaw dropped in shock to discover the cause: Faran. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears, and from the way she was biting her lip, it seemed that she was just barely keeping it together.

I was faced with a conundrum at that point: do I reach out and offer a comforting gesture to someone with whom I’ve had a largely adversarial relationship, or do I let her suffer in silence?

Letting out a long sigh, I came to my decision. We may have had our differences, but I couldn’t in good conscience bear to see her in distress. Not when I could do something about it. Besides, in an odd sort of way, I felt like I owed her my life. It was the least I could do to repay the favor.

She was wiping her eyes as I reached out to her. The moment my hand gently touched her shoulder, however, she tensed up. I flinched as she rounded on me, only to be surprised to find gratitude warring with suspicion on her features.

She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she was going to say was interrupted by a new development.

The viewer flashed white, drawing everyone’s attention. The mystery woman had been joined by an olive-colored earth pony stallion. Judging from the reactions, neither Twilight nor Silverclaw knew him. As for Faran…

Faran looked as if she had literally seen a ghost. Her jaw had dropped in shock, and she was trembling mightily. She swallowed a lump in her throat, seemingly on the verge of tears once more.

And as if that wasn’t enough, I could sense the Music of Harmony activating again. As before, the song was familiar, but this time, the role of vocals was not left to anyone physically present in the room, but to the strange figures in the viewer:

So lately, been wondering
Who will be there to take my place
When I’m gone, you’ll need love
To light the shadows on your face

Faran barely made it to the first chorus before the emotional turmoil became too much for her. She fled the room, sobbing piteously. Her keening wails rang in my ears long after she had disappeared.

I wasn’t faring much better, if the stinging in my eyes and sudden buildup of mucous in my nose was any indication. And yet, I somehow managed to soldier through the whole song. When it was over, I excused myself to find a bathroom.

As I was leaving, I heard an audibly perturbed Silverclaw say to Twilight, “I think we’ve seen enough for one day.”

Author's Note

I wonder who saw that bit of character development coming... :trollestia:

The song Derren taught Pinkie as his punishment for breaking his Pinkie Promise:

The first Harmony Song during the exam:

The second Harmony Song during the exam:

Chapter Seven-B - Canterlot Blues (Part Two)

It had snowed again in Canterlot in the intervening hours since our arrival. The street sweepers were out in force as Twilight, Spike, Pinkie, and I traipsed through the less ritzy residential section of the capital city’s middle tier. Above us, leaden clouds scudded sullenly across the sky, threatening to dump their wintry payloads at even the slightest errant brush of a pegasus feather.

I could only spare enough attention to my surroundings to follow along without stumbling into anything. My mind was too busy wrestling with an intractable problem surrounding the missing member of our party.

Faran wasn’t joining us for this little outing. After she and Silverclaw had made their report to the Princess, my irascible nurse had decided that she needed to lay down for a while to recover from whatever emotional hell she’d been through as a result of my earlier “harmonic surge,” as Silverclaw had called it.

The fact that a mystery stallion had joined in with my mystery woman for the second Harmony Song during the exam still occupied my mind in the immediate aftermath. From her reaction, it was clear that Faran knew him, and that he was associated with some painful event in her past. That was all I could figure out about him on my own. Given Faran’s mental state, though, I doubted that she’d be willing to tell anyone for the time being.

And that assumed that she’d ever be willing to divulge anything about him. My stomach churned at the thought. For some reason that I couldn’t fathom, Faran keeping secrets bothered me. After all, she was at best an acquaintance. I wasn’t emotionally invested in her happiness. And yet, I had offered her a comforting gesture when she’d started showing signs of emotional distress during the final portion of the exam.

Why did her mental anguish affect me so? Why did it feel like I was helplessly watching a loved one struggling with her inner demons because her pride demanded that she handle it on her own?

I had no answers. But as frustrating as the situation was, I eventually decided to put it aside for the time being and focus on the purpose of our little outing. The only thing Twilight had revealed about our initial destination was that we were going to see a mare named Minuette. I vaguely recalled that Twilight had mentioned her during our lunch with Lyra and Raindrops the day before. As luck would have it, Pinkie already knew her pretty well, because she and some of Twilight’s other Canterlot friends occasionally came to Ponyville to visit Lyra.

It also turned out that Twilight was completely unaware of this, much to Pinkie’s dismay and my surprise. The incredulous look on Pinkie’s muzzle, in fact, was very reminiscent of the one Rainbow had worn when I’d confessed my ignorance of the Wonderbolts.

“I’m sorry, Pinkie,” Twilight said as we came to a halt in front of a particular residence. “I wasn’t as close to my Canterlot friends as I am with you girls, so I kind of lost contact with most of them when I moved to Ponyville. I always figured that they’d moved on, so I never bothered to ask Lyra about them.”

A pause. Twilight’s next words were tinged with remorse and more than a little self-abasement. “Between that, and the way I’d abandoned them in my rush to save the world from eternal night all by myself, I just thought they’d suffered so much because of me that maybe it was better if I just let them be. I didn’t want to reopen any old wounds that I’d caused.”

Pinkie, being Pinkie, seemed unperturbed by this. “Don’t worry about it, you silly filly!” she chirped, “That’s all in the past. Now’s your chance to wow them with all the amazing stuff you’ve learned about friendship since then! I’m sure they’ll forgive you if you just give them a chance!”

Twilight offered her friend a wan smile. “Thanks, Pinkie. If there’s anypony who can help me make amends with my old friends, it’s you.” The two mares then shared a friendly nuzzle.

I did my best to hide a smile at the display as I looked over the facade of the Victorian-style townhouse before us. The exterior walls had been painted a purplish shade of blue, and the head of each lavender window frame had been embossed with a stylized hourglass. A small set of white stone steps led up to an hourglass-shaped door, above which a rather substantial decorative hourglass kept constant vigil.

“Gee, d’ya think whoever lives here might be a fan of timepieces?” I quipped sardonically.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Be nice. That’s actually Minuette’s cutie mark. Most ponies in this part of Canterlot decorate their homes in this fashion.”

To emphasize her point, Twilight waved a hoof at a house on the other side of the street. A caramel-colored unicorn stallion with a silvery mane and tail was just emerging from the open doorway. Sure enough, his cutie mark ‒ a pair of ivory dice showing boxcars ‒ perfectly matched the exterior decorations on his home.

Well, craps.

“I… see your point,” I murmured, suitably chastened.

As we stood on the threshold of Minuette’s residence, Twilight raised a hoof to knock, only to pause mid-motion as a look of trepidation crossed her features. As Twilight stood there, paralyzed by anxiety with one foreleg hanging in the air, I came to a decision.

“You wanna knock, or shall I?”

No response.

I let out a long, exasperated sigh, I reached out, and rapped firmly on the door in the classic “shave and a haircut” call-and-response pattern.

Strangely enough, Pinkie rather vocally supplied the “two bits” response just as I was beating it out on the door. I shot her a dirty look in response, to which she merely responded with the same cheerful smile she always seemed to wear.

The resultant rolling of my eyes was cut short by the sound of the door opening. What lay inside was not quite what I was expecting, given what I’d been told of Minuette’s personality. While the place was fixed up with lighting, none of it seemed to be on at the moment, and the shaft of sunlight through the door was the only thing piercing the gloom. A smattering of cobwebs suggested that the occupant dusted infrequently.

And yet, from what I could tell, the residence was gaily decorated in bright colors that probably looked even brighter under a stronger light. The space was filled with modest, yet stylish furniture, and the theme of antiquated timepieces from the outside continued inside.

I had no time to ponder the unusual duality, however, as the doorway was quickly occupied by a light blue blur that resolved itself into a unicorn mare of comparable size to Twilight. Her two-tone blue and white mane and tail were styled in a manner that provoked a subconscious desire to brush my teeth, despite having already done so several hours earlier during my morning ablutions. A quick glance at her flank confirmed what Twilight had said about her cutie mark being the basis for her choice of home decor.

Her bright blue eyes quickly focused on my unicorn companion, lighting up in a combination of surprise and excitement. “Twilight Sparkle, you old so-and-so!” she cheerfully exclaimed as a girlish giggle escaped her. “What are you doing here?”

Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but the brightly colored mare had already moved on to another member of our party. “Hey, Spike!” she cooed warmly at the pint-sized dragon in question.

I was quickly getting the impression that this pony was almost as excitable as Pinkie Pie.

Speaking of Pinkie, the unicorn’s attention had already turned to her. “Hey, Pinkie Pie!” she squealed.

“Hey, Minuette!” Pinkie chirped back. She then engulfed the other mare in a bone-crushing hug that was just as enthusiastically returned.

As they disengaged from the warm embrace, Minuette at last set her sights on me. “Woah,” she murmured as she craned her neck a bit upwards to meet my gaze, her voice betraying a slight sense of awe. She gave me a quick once-over before shooting a sidelong gaze at Twilight. “Say, Twi. Who’s Mister Tall, Bipedal, and Handsome?”

“H-handsome?” Twilight and I replied in unison. I shot Minuette a skeptical look at the notion that an alien pony could find me handsome, while Twilight was reduced to stammering and blushing.

Unfortunately for me, it seemed as if Minuette had misinterpreted our reaction, because her eyes lit up in excitement once more, as her face morphed into an arch expression.

“Twilight, you dog! Why didn’t you tell me you had finally found a special somepony?”

If I had been drinking something at that moment, I would’ve done a spit take.

“What?” Twilight sputtered. “No! I-I mean, it’s nothing like that! The princesses merely asked me to look after him for the time being while he’s stranded here on Equis.”

Minuette’s ears pricked up at that. “Wait, so he’s really an alien? I thought that was just wild speculation from the gossip column in the Canterlot Times.”

“No, it’s all true,” Twilight replied with a shake of her head. She then shot me a dirty look.

Adopting an innocent expression, I silently mouthed, What?

Our impending debate about my nighttime activities was cut short by a loud gasp from Minuette as her excitement completely took over her face. “Oh, wow, Twilight!” she exclaimed, “I didn’t realize that your taste in coltfriends was that exotic!” A teasing glint shone in her eyes at her last words.

“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, Minuette!” Twilight groaned. “Derren’s not my coltfriend! Just because we’re living togeth‒”

“You’re living together?” I could’ve sworn I heard a sound like a squeaky toy being languidly chewed on emanate from Minuette as Twilight continued to make matters worse for herself. “Wow, you sure move fast, eh, Twilight?” She punctuated her words with a salacious waggle of her eyebrows.

Twilight buried her face in a hoof, blushing furiously.

“Twilight,” I admonished, “One of the most important life lessons my father taught me was what he called The First Rule of Holes: if you find yourself in one, stop digging.”

I then fixed Minuette with a level stare. “I promise you, Minuette,” I said, holding up my hand like I was swearing in to give testimony in court, “There’s nothing going on between Twilight and I. She’s just my landlord at the moment. We might be heading towards something resembling friendship later, but it’s a little too soon to say at this point.”

Minuette blew me a playful raspberry. “Oh, sure. Just throw a wet blanket on a poor mare’s dreams of happiness for her friends.” For good measure, she threw in the best puppy dog eyes she could manage, though the effect was slightly marred by the sheepish grin she was wearing.

Needless to say, I was unmoved. Seeing my deadpan expression not dented in the slightest by her adorable assault, she let out a theatrical sigh.

“I suppose you’re right,” she reluctantly admitted. She then looked at Twilight with a contrite expression. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I just couldn’t resist. You know I only want what’s best for one of my best friends.”

Twilight visibly composed herself. “It’s alright, Minuette.” She paused, and a goofy grin wormed its way onto her muzzle. “I almost forgot that you were kind of the matchmaker in our group.”

“Yeah, I kind of was,” Minuette giggled. Her expression took a sudden serious turn. “I stopped for a while, though, when my meddling backfired spectacularly on Lyra. I’m just glad she’s so resilient when it comes to the slings and arrows of love.”

“She must’ve found the strength to move on with her life in the interim,” Twilight said with a sad smile. “I think the time she spent away from the machinations of Canterlot nobility did her a lot of good. She’s certainly a lot happier in Ponyville.” An odd expression settled on Twilight’s features. “I know that I’ve been a lot happier since moving there.”

“Must be something in the water,” I quipped, earning both a derisive snort and an eye roll from Twilight, who then slowly turned her gaze to her old friend once more. A wan smile dawned on her lips in response to Minuette’s ear-splitting grin.

“I-It’s good to see you again after all this time, Minuette,” she said, one hoof digging anxiously into the cement steps.

Minuette’s ever-present smile developed a gentle warmth to it. “It has been a long while, hasn’t it, Twily?” she said, suddenly rushing forward to nuzzle her friend.

Twilight slowly draped a foreleg across Minuette’s withers as she returned the affectionate gesture. I could’ve sworn I saw tears glinting in the eyes of both mares as they held one another.

“So, what brings you back to Canterlot after all this time?” Minuette asked animatedly as they broke the embrace. “I mean, we’ve seen you in Ponyville from time to time, but you’re always busy with running the library there and all your adventures with your Ponyville friends. We just sort of figured that you’d moved on.”

Twilight let out a rueful chuckle. “I’d figured the same thing about you girls. I have several reasons for why I came, and one of them was to get in touch with all of you again. If you could help me find Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Moondancer, I’d be glad to tell you all more about it.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Minuette replied cheerfully. She turned to face Pinkie. “Right, Pinkie?”

“Yepperoonie, out by noonie!” came Pinkie’s enthusiastic reply.

“Then, let’s fly!” Minuette exclaimed. She leapt into the air, only to come back down with a slight grunt at the bottom of the steps. “Well, we could if we had wings, or a pegasus to carry us,” she amended sheepishly. She looked at me hopefully. “I don’t suppose you could flap your hands and get us airborne?”

I blew out a playful raspberry at her. “Nope. We’re all earthbound for this trip.”

“Pity,” she playfully pouted, “I was hoping we could take the scenic route.”

Our group laughter filled the narrow streets as Minuette led us back out into the beating heart of Equestria’s capital city.

“I’m afraid we didn’t have any luck,” Twilight reported to our expanded party an hour later. We were sitting around a circular table inside a pretty snazzy-looking donut shop called “Donut Joe’s” in the middle of Canterlot’s commercial district. Pinkie had managed to retrieve Lemon Hearts, while Minuette did the same with Twinkleshine. Twilight, Spike, and I had decided to go after Moondancer.

“Either Moondancer wasn’t answering the door,” I supplied, “or the contact information we found wasn’t up-to-date. Whichever it was, we couldn’t find her.”

“That’s too bad,” Lemon Hearts replied, her rose-colored eyes filled with concern. “It’s been a while since I last saw her.” She was sitting with Twinkleshine and Minuette across the table from Twilight and I, while Pinkie and Spike were ordering donuts for our table.

“I don’t suppose either of you might know where she lives, do you?” I asked the two newest mares in our entourage.

Lemon Hearts shook her head sadly, causing her candy-blue mane to sway back and forth like a pendulum with clinical depression. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”

“Really?” I asked, unable to mask my disappointment. “That’s too bad.”

Thankfully, Twinkleshine seemed to have an answer.

“I think she moved out by the stadium,” she said. “I can’t say for sure, though. We kind of lost touch with her after that party she threw for the Summer Sun Celebration that Twilight was too busy to attend.”

Twilight winced and adopted a guilty expression at those words. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why: that would’ve been the day Twilight was sent to Ponyville to meet her fellow Element Bearers and save Equestria for the first time.

“Umm, no offense, Twilight,” Twinkleshine added lamely.

“None taken,” Twilight replied, though she still looked like she’d had salt rubbed in the wound.

“So, you haven’t heard hide or hair from her in almost two years?” I queried, seeking confirmation of my suspicions. I received a nod from Twinkleshine in response.

“Isn’t that kind of a long time to go without a response?” I pressed.

“We tried inviting her out a few times after Twilight left for Ponyville,” Minuette admitted sadly.

Seeing her expression reminded me of something. I’d only known her for the better part of an hour, but there was one thing I noticed about Minuette. The mare was full of joie de vivre, so much so that few things ever got her down for more than a few moments. She was very much like Pinkie in that regard. The difference was that Pinkie, it seemed, could be prone to some unsettling mood swings if she thought she’d failed as a friend ‒ I’d seen the evidence first hand on the train ride up. Minuette, on the other hand, seemed to be made of sterner stuff.

I found it to be a refreshing surprise.

I was pulled from my reverie by the voice of the mare in question. “Unfortunately, she was always busy with her studies, so we eventually just stopped asking.”

Twilight slumped down until her head was resting on the table, closing her eyes mournfully. “This is all my fault,” she moaned.

Twinkleshine cocked her head at Twilight, the hot pink locks of her curly mane framing a quizzical expression. “How do you figure that, Twilight?”

Twilight’s head didn’t move, but her ears were flat against her skull and her eyes were full of guilt as she met Twinkleshine’s gaze. “I blew off Moondancer’s party because I was obsessed with finding out about the prophecy of Nightmare Moon’s return. If she’s become such a recluse as a result, then it’s clear that my careless act hurt her deeply.” A deep sigh escaped her as she finally disengaged from her embrace of the table.

“That’s actually why I wanted to meet with all of you today.” She passed a glance at each of her friends across the table, each time meeting a face full of concern. “I took your friendship for granted as a filly, and I’m sure it’s caused you all as much pain as it did for Moondancer. I wanted to apologize for the way I’ve acted all these years. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.”

An awkward silence descended upon our table, hanging thickly in the air for a long moment. It was shattered by a round of raucous laughter from the three mares facing us.

“Oh, Twilight, you silly filly,” Minuette sputtered through sporadic chuckles, “Sure, it might have stung a little bit when you ran off to Ponyville without saying goodbye.”

“It’s not like we weren’t used to that from you, though,” Lemon Hearts added, gently laying a lemon yellow hoof on one of Twilight’s.

“Yeah, we didn’t take it personally,” Twinkleshine finished for them, mirroring Lemon Hearts’ action with one of her own powder white hooves.

“It still doesn’t make it right for me to have been so cavalier with your feelings,” Twilight rebutted. She then offered her old friends a wan smile. “I’m glad you’re willing to forgive and forget, though.”

“Of course, Twilight!” Minuette chirped. “After all, isn’t that what friends are for?”

The four friends, thus reunited, shared a heartfelt embrace. As they disengaged, I saw a genuine smile on Twilight’s face, and not a single pony eye at the table was dry. I looked on impassively, but not without registering the warmth reflected from their renewed friendship. After all, what Myrmidon, or Dolopian, or warrior of fierce Ulysses, could keep from warm and fuzzy feelings in hearing such a story of friendship?

I shook my head. This was not the time to butcher the classics ‒ not when I’d just caught Pinkie Pie and Spike out of the corner of my eye. As I focused on their approach to our table, I spotted a veritable pyramid of donuts situated on a plate that was precariously balanced on the pink mare’s back. Twilight must’ve noticed my shift in attention, because she too followed my eyes to watch her friend’s arrival.

“You were right, Pinkie,” she said, offering a warm smile to the pony in question. “I shouldn’t have worried so much.”

Pinkie’s ever-present smile grew. “See, Twilight? Good friends will always forgive you, even if they don’t think you have anything to apologize for!” Suddenly, her eyes bulged, and she gave a loud gasp. “Does that mean you’ve learned something about friendship? Are you going to write a letter to Princess Celestia about it?”

Just then, a lightbulb seemed to go off in her head, and her babbling grew even faster. “Ooh! Maybe Derren learned something about friendship, and he can write to Princess Celestia about it! Wait, Derren’s still learning how to write in Equestrian. Maybe Spike should write the letter for him, or maybe the princess can cast a translation spell to read what Derren writes, unless she already knows how to read his writing, but what if he has sloppy hoofwr‒”

I stared in awe as Pinkie’s babbling was suddenly cut off, accompanied by an unexpected zipping noise. Though I had been reaching out to clamp down on her muzzle with my hand, it seemed that Twilight had come up with her own method of stopping Pinkie’s verbal diarrhea. Namely, one that involved an almost cartoonish zipper-over-the-mouth effect. I wasn’t sure it was as effective as Twilight had hoped, however, because the pink mare continued to mumble unintelligibly against the restraint on her mouth.

“I think you’ve made your point, Pinkie,” Twilight said with a crooked smile. I stared in bemusement as the zipper disappeared from Pinkie’s mouth with a puff of pink smoke.

“I suppose I did,” Pinkie said, sporting a sheepish grin.

That produced a round of polite laughter from the assembled mares.

“Well,” Minuette said once everyone had gotten ahold of themselves, “I’d like to suggest that we dig into this delectable display of donuty delights, and then go out to the stadium to see if Moondancer is there.”

Twilight nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“I dunno,” I interjected. “I feel like I’d get diabetes from all this sugar.”

“You’re supposed to share the donuts, Derren,” Twinkleshine chided with a deadpan expression.

“I know that,” I replied indignantly. “But even thinking of just my share has my pancreas curling up in a fetal position and whimpering pitifully.”

Twilight snorted derisively. “Just eat the donuts, Derren,” she said, jabbing me playfully with a hoof.

“Oh, fine,” I replied melodramatically. “Have it your way.”

That sparked an even bigger outburst of laughter from everyone at the table, myself included.

“You know,” I mused as we made our way through the streets of downtown Canterlot, “This would be a lot easier if Equestria had phones.”

“Phones?” Lemon Hearts queried from her position behind me. Twilight and her old friends had surrounded me when we emerged from Donut Joe’s to begin our trek to the outskirts of Canterlot. Minuette and Pinkie formed the vanguard of our little entourage. It was the first time I found myself in the unenviable position of watching Pinkie from behind as she engaged in her usual method of getting around, and with the way her tail reached the crest of each bounce a second after the rest of her, hanging in the air just that much longer…

Needless to say, I quickly found myself wishing for brain bleach. Maybe I should see if Twilight knows a selective mind wipe spell...

Meanwhile, Twilight and Twinkleshine were flanking me on either side, with Spike in his usual perch on Twilight’s back. It was as if they had formed some unspoken agreement to shield me from wandering eyes.

Not that I needed such “protection.” Most of the citizenry seemed content to ignore the alien monkey in their midst, as if some intangible energy field had convinced them that I was someone else’s problem. I wasn’t too surprised by the lack of a reaction. As the capital city of Equis’ leading military, cultural, and economic power, Canterlot was probably home to almost every variety of sapient species on the planet. If anything, it was the self-important, condescending looks that I was receiving from the more conspicuously well-to-do residents that bothered me most.

Up ahead, I noticed that Pinkie and Minuette ‒ who up to that point had been happily chattering with each other about whatever subject came to mind ‒ had halted their discussion, and looked at me to see how I would respond to Lemon Hearts’ innocent question. Twilight and Twinkleshine were doing the same in their peripheral vision.

“What are ‘phones?’” Lemon Hearts repeated.

We stopped at the side of the street, and I turned to address her. “It’s a human technology that allows us to talk to one another over long distances.” I raised an eyebrow quizzically at her. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever taken a pair of tin cans, connected them with string, and used them to talk to one another, have you?”

She nodded. “We did a science experiment of that sort when we were yearlings.”

“Yearlings?”

“That’s what we call teenage ponies,” Minuette cheerfully supplied.

“Ah,” I grunted. “At any rate, that’s the basic principle behind a telephone, except that instead of vibrating string, we use specially designed electronic circuits to translate sound into electric pulses that go along conductive wire to the other end, where the pulses get translated back into sound.”

“You have that much control over electricity? What else can you do with it? This is so exciting!”

Twilight’s outburst drew my attention sharply to her. A scroll and quill were floating beside her, tinged in the same raspberry glow as her horn, and she was listening with the giddiness of a mad scientist as the quill flew across the scroll.

With barely a pause to roll my eyes, I addressed her question. “Actually, a lot of our technology is based on the controlled generation and transmission of electric power. It’s enabled a lot of conveniences in our daily lives that don’t exist here in Equestria, from what I’ve seen. But it’s also a weak point in our society. If any one of our cities suddenly found itself without power for an extended period of time, we’d be pretty screwed.”

I turned back to Lemon Hearts. ”Anyway, we’ve had telephones, in one form or another, for a little less than a century and a half. In that time, the technology has improved to the point where we can carry around little pocket-sized versions that are powered by rechargeable chemical batteries and don’t need a physical connection to transmit and receive signals. They’ve even gotten good enough that you can play games on them, among other things.”

“Ah,” came Twinkleshine’s deadpan voice. “Is that what you meant when you told us that ‘human children play with more sophisticated toys?’”

My neck craned in her direction so fast, I had a momentary fear of whiplash. The look on Twinkleshine’s face was just as unamused as her tone. “Wh‒ How did you…?”

My voice trailed off as comprehension dawned. Oh shit, she was there when I made an ass of myself!

“I was right behind you, remember?” she said, as if in confirmation of my panicked thoughts.

I looked at her again as if I were seeing her for the first time. “I didn’t know. I thought you looked vaguely familiar when we met at the donut shop, but I didn’t place it until just now.” I stared intensely at her for a moment, puzzling over the new information, and something struck me about her. “So, why were you part of the group giving me the tour?”

“I’m an astronomer,” she said, turning to bring her flank into view. Three light blue stars, barely distinguishable from the white fur surrounding them, adorned the distinctly equine expanse of her thigh. “I’ve always had a fascination with the stars, and my research helps ponies understand and appreciate the beauty of the night sky. When I discovered that it was my special talent, I knew I had to apply for a job with the institute as soon as I graduated from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

“Sounds like your dreams came true,” I mused, feeling a warm smile coming on. It vanished in a moment of sobriety, however. “Though I doubt your dreams included having your world’s technological prowess denigrated by an alien ape,” I amended ruefully, idly inspecting my glasses for specks of dirt and fingerprints.

The corners of Twinkleshine’s mouth quirked upwards wryly. “No, I suppose they didn’t.”

“At any rate, I shouldn’t have gone off on you and the others at the Institute like that,” I admitted. “I… wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind, and… Solid Gear?” I looked at Twinkleshine imploringly, and she nodded in confirmation. “Anyway, Solid Gear’s presentation of the difference engine was basically the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.”

Twinkleshine’s gaze scanned over me, as if she were trying to gauge the sincerity of my words. “Well, it’s certainly not the sort of apology I was expecting,” she eventually said. A moment later, she gave the pony equivalent of a shrug.

“I suppose it will do. Consider yourself forgiven, Derren.” A wide grin split her muzzle, and she extended a hoof towards me.

“Thanks,” I replied lamely, taking her hoof and shaking it.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” she replied, a slight smirk on her features. “You still have the other members of the faculty and staff that were on that tour to make amends with.”

“Don’t remind me,” I replied with a grimace that had a hint of steel to it. “Princess Luna has been making the arrangements for the last week.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re going to do for this public apology?” Lemon Hearts asked, concern evident in her voice.

I thought hard for a long moment. My face lit up as inspiration struck. “I think I just might.” I shifted my gaze between Twilight and Twinkleshine. “I don’t suppose either of you girls might be able to help me to get my hands on a large quantity of dominoes, do you?”

“Umm… Maybe?” Twilight’s voice was uncertain.

“Just how large a supply are we talking?” Twinkleshine inquired.

“Umm…” I winced at the answer I came up with. “Probably a few thousand?”

“What?” the two mares cried in disbelieving unison.

Yep. Knew that’d be a sticking point.

“It’s for a visual aid,” I said, holding up my hands in a placating gesture. “One of my professors when I was in college did a similar demonstration.”

“Ah, I see,” Twilight murmured.

“Anyway,” I said, “The Institute showed me some of the stuff they’d been working on, and I figured it’d only be fair if I returned the favor by sharing some of Earth’s scientific knowledge. Y’know, like we were originally supposed to do.”

“Oh,” Twinkleshine replied, wearing a suitably sheepish expression.

“I’ll see if Princess Celestia would be willing to help me scrounge up the dominoes,” Twilight offered.

I nodded in appreciation. “Thank you, Twilight. Now, there’s one more thing I’d like to be certain of if this is going to go well. Twinkleshine,” I said in the most diplomatic tone I could muster, “I’d like to ascertain the state of mathematical knowledge in Equestria. Specifically, binary logic. Do you know who would be the best person to talk to about that?”

“Oh, that’d be Fractal Space, the head of the Advanced Mathematics department,” she replied with a demure smile. “I’ve sat in a few interdepartmental faculty meetings with her on behalf of my boss, so I know her a little bit. I can see about arranging a meeting once we’ve found Moondancer.”

I returned her smile. “That’d be great.”

“Then let’s go find Moondancer!” Minuette and Pinkie cheered in unison.

With a murmur of agreement from the rest of the group, we set out once more into the streets of Canterlot.

It was a little past three in the afternoon when we approached Moondancer’s presumed current residence on the outskirts of Canterlot. The “stadium” that Twinkleshine had mentioned loomed large in the distance. Looking for all the world like an ancient Roman circus painted a pastel blue, it dominated the outer edge of the terrace upon which Middle Canterlot resided. Minuette had explained that the Wonderbolts ‒ the aerobatics team that Rainbow Dash was so enamored with ‒ often performed there, and that the performance area had a retractable floor that could be opened to the air below if a show called for it.

The stadium was the least of our concerns, however. We were more interested in the residence at the far end of the cul-de-sac that we had just entered. The building had become the unfortunate victim of long neglect, as if it in some way reflected the occupant’s mood. The front lawn had grown long in the tooth, weedy and unruly. Some of the masonry was chipped, and the faded purple paint on the woodwork was peeling badly.

Per previous agreement, the rest of us stood off to the side, out of sight, as Twilight approached the front door. She knocked three times, only to receive no answer. She waited a moment, then knocked thrice more. On the final knock, a small, roughly hoof-shaped section of the wood splintered with a sickening crunch, leaving Twilight’s hoof caught in the door momentarily.

Twilight barely had time to extricate herself from the ruins of the door before it was flung open violently. The cream-colored mare who answered was glaring daggers at Twilight, clearly not thrilled to be receiving visitors at this hour. Or any hour, really.

“Moondancer?” Twilight inquired, her voice half excited and half nervous.

“What do you want?” The mare demanded, her bushy red eyebrows furrowed in irritation.

It seemed we had finally cornered our elusive quarry.

Moondancer’s state seemed to mirror that of her dwelling. She wore a rather ratty purple turtleneck sweater, and her black-rimmed eyeglasses were crudely held together with white tape, as if she were consciously living the nerd stereotype. Her mane was a rat’s nest of flyaways that peaked in a manner that resembled an Asian-inspired topknot on a human. It had a similar coloration pattern to Twilight’s, though the actual colors used were different. Red, tinted slightly orange, had replaced the indigo that dominated Twilight’s mane hair, and while they both sported an identical two-toned stripe just to the left of the horn, Moondancer’s stripe consisted of two different shades of purple, as opposed to Twilight’s light purple-and-hot pink combination.

“I’m trying to study,” Moondancer grated icily.

Twilight’s friends seemed to take that as their cue to pop out of hiding. Minuette, currently serving as Spike’s mount, laid a hoof across Twilight’s withers. Pinkie had somehow managed to drape herself across the backs of both Twilight and Minuette, lying on her side and propping her head up with one hoof while shooting Moondancer one of her patented gigawatt smiles. On the other side, Twinkleshine stood between Twilight and Lemon Hearts. Given the cold welcome Twilight had received thus far, I remained hidden, so as not to exacerbate Moondancer’s bad mood.

“It’s us!” Twilight cheerfully announced, “Your old friends!”

With a loud growl of frustration, Moondancer retreated into her apartment, slamming the door in Twilight’s face.

If her laughter was any indication ‒ slightly tinged with sheepishness as it was ‒ Minuette seemed to take the rejection in stride. “That’s old Moondancer, alright!” she declared gaily. “She always did like her books.”

Minuette’s eyes sprang open in realization. “Hey!” she said to Twilight, “Kind of like you used to be, eh?”

Unlike her bubbly blue friend, however, Twilight sported a startled expression, ears drooping guiltily.

“Exactly how I used to be,” she said mournfully.

Author's Note

Don't worry about the donuts, Derren!

Also, Publius Vergilius Maro is probably rolling in his grave at Derren's internal reaction to Twilight reconciling with her Canterlot friends.

Chapter Eight - Canterlot Nocturne

A fulsome bellow of laughter erupted from my companion’s lungs, piercing the din of the other taverngoers’ indistinguishable nattering. A few ponies shot us dirty looks before turning back to their own alcohol-fueled revels. Suitably chastened, Silverclaw managed to mostly stifle his amused outburst.

I already felt my mood lightening after the disaster a few hours earlier. Guess I was right after all, I thought. A bit of drunken revelry is just what the doctor ordered.

“So you’re saying,” Silverclaw managed between low chuckles that drew me out of my reverie, “that your country’s national anthem was based on a drinking song?” At my nod, his laughter, while muted compared to his previous full-throated guffaws, resumed once more.

I shot him a knowing smirk in response. “Figured you’d appreciate that bit of my world’s history.”

“Indeed,” he replied.

We fell into a companionable silence, which I took advantage of to fully drink in the tavern’s atmosphere. I had to give it credit for one thing that I’d somehow managed to overlook on previous visits. While it looked run-down and disreputable on the outside, The Whickered Stallion was anything but on the inside.

Aside from some wooden support posts, the dining area was fairly wide open, with booths along one of the walls for those who were more interested in drowning their sorrows in private. Lanterns with enchanted crystals serving the function of light bulbs dotted the walls above the cherrywood wainscoting at regular intervals, while modest chandeliers hung from the ceiling in strategic locations. Across the tavern from the table that Silverclaw and I were occupying, the bar was constructed from a heavy hardwood whose lacquered finish looked like it had been refreshed sometime recently. Towards the front of the establishment, a little stage was tucked into a corner for live music performances.

All in all, it reminded me vaguely of a bar on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas that I’d frequented in my early- to mid-twenties.

“I think I should like to know how it came about,” he stated at long last, an impish twinkle in his avian eyes.

I took a swig of my hard cider and closed my eyes in contemplation. “I don’t know the exact details, but the tune comes from a sort of social club devoted to the pursuit of ‘wine, women, and song,’ as you might put it, that existed around that time.” Putting my glass down, I stared pointedly into my doctor’s eyes. “Frankly, I don’t know why the club chose that particular song as its anthem, since the tune itself is difficult enough to sing right when sober, let alone when you’re smashed.”

Silverclaw absently waved a talon in a dismissive gesture. “Singing accurately’s never important when you’re inebriated. Just singing loud and proud.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” I quipped, aiming a teasing smile at him.

“You could say that,” he replied in a self-deprecating tone punctuated by a wry chortle.

Though I rolled my eyes at him, I couldn’t stop the smile that was growing on my lips. “Anyway, the guy who wrote the poem that became the lyrics to the anthem must’ve either been a member himself, or had a close acquaintance or family member who’d somehow known of the tune, because once it was pointed out that the lyrics fit the melody, well…” I let out a knowing chuckle. “The rest, as they say, is history.”

“Except, perhaps, for the source of the lyrics,” Silverclaw pointed out with a raised talon.

“Ah, yes. That.” I tapped my chin as I tried to recall as much as I could about the history I’d learned in school. “So, all this was happening about two hundred years ago, when we were involved in a war with a country called the United Kingdom. We called it ‘the War of 1812,’ but for them, it was just another front in a larger war they were fighting at the time. It pretty much ended in a bloody stalemate that both sides had gotten tired of fighting.

“By the time of the battle that inspired the lyrics, the other side had largely concluded the main front of their war, and thus had troops to spare for taking us on. They were starting to win major victories, including the capture and sacking of our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. But there was one area where American defenses had proven to be a thorn in their side for most of the war ‒ Fort McHenry, overlooking Baltimore Harbor.”

I held up a hand to forestall any commentary from my audience. “Yes, I’m aware that Baltimore has a parallel here in Equestria. All too aware, frankly.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Silverclaw replied with a sly smile.

“Anyway, just before the battle for Baltimore, the man who came up with the lyrics for the anthem, Francis Scott Key, had come aboard one of the British warships involved in the battle under a flag of truce to negotiate for the release of a group of prisoners that included a close friend of his. Because these negotiations took place as the plans for the attack on Baltimore were being drawn up, Key himself was held captive until after the battle.

“Despite heavy bombardment from British warships, the fort remained in American hands, and the British were forced to withdraw. It was a major victory, and the beginning of a reversal of the war’s momentum that helped speed along peace negotiations between the two countries that were already underway at the time. But it was that victory that inspired Key to write the lyrics, and ultimately, to set them to the tune of the drinking song I mentioned earlier.”

Silverclaw let out a long breath. “Fascinating,” he simply said. “To make war sound so poetic, and while drinking about it, no less.” He chuckled again. “Perhaps humans and griffons aren’t so different after all.”

A weak, patient smile dawned on my features. “I’m not sure that’s the takeaway I was going for, Doc,” I murmured, “But I appreciate the sentiment, nonetheless.”

“Then let us toast to all the things that bring us together as fellow sapients,” Silverclaw said grandly. He raised his glass, which at the moment only contained less than a third of its original volume of purplish brown fluid. At our first outing into the wild realm of Equestrian carousing, he’d referred to the drink as “Neighvari,” an expensive and temperature-sensitive alcoholic beverage that was popular with griffons, for some strange reason that I still didn’t fully understand.

After one taste, I’d described it in less-than-charitable terms, which only caused him to laugh loudly and declare that he was taking me under his wing to teach a neophyte like me the fine art of appreciating alcohol.

Back in the present, I stared into the strange brew for a moment, then blew out an amused huff of air. My smile developed a new warmth to it as I raised my own glass. “Sure, I can drink to that.”

We clinked our glasses together and gulped down the remaining contents. After a few moments of silently staring into our empty drink containers, Silverclaw spoke up once more.

“So, how about a little demonstration, then?”

I blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

He gestured towards the stage. “I’m curious. I was hoping you’d be willing to sing this... song of your people.”

“What, the anthem, or the song it was based on?”

“Yes.”

I shot him a deadpan stare, only partly because of his attempt to be cryptic. “I don’t think I’m quite drunk enough for that just yet.”

He raised a talon in a defensive gesture. “You’re the one who said it was an easier song to sing while sober. I figured I’d offer you the chance to put forth your best effort.” The impish twinkle had returned to his eyes once more.

I mulled over my options, only to silently curse when I realized that he had me there. With a significant amount of reluctance, I threw my hands up in surrender. “Okay, fine. But you’re only getting the anthem version, because I only know the first four words of the original lyrics.”

“Fair enough,” he replied with a slight chortle.

I began my gallows march towards the stage, pausing midway to look back at him. “You’re just lucky it’s open mic night.”

My remark provoked a new round of guffawing from the middle-aged griffon. “Go on,” he eventually managed with a wave of a talon, as if to shoo me towards the stage. “Quit stalling.”

I made a rude noise. “So be it.”

I wasn’t exactly rushin’ the stage, though. With a heavy tread, I slowly moseyed in the general direction of the corner that had been set aside for amateur hour antics. A familiar powder blue unicorn mare wearing a floral print headscarf over her wavy russet mane stood onstage, holding aloft a microphone in a steel gray telekinetic field that matched her eyes. Said eyes danced in the warm light of the bar as I approached.

“I’ll admit that I didn’t expect you to ever grace us with a little performance, Mister Knox,” she said, her wry smile dimpling her cheeks.

“I know,” I quipped in reply, while wearing a crooked grin. “It’s gotta be a sign of the apocalypse, or something.”

“I’ll… take your word for it,” she said, nonplussed.

I shook my head and sighed. “Never mind, Evening Glow. It’s a human thing. To be honest, let’s just say that the good doctor” ‒ I swept my hand in Silverclaw’s direction ‒ “prescribed a dose of patriotism to cure my case of the Saturday night blahs.”

Evening Glow’s face bore an enigmatic smile as she offered me the microphone, only to succumb to a girlish giggle as I plucked it from her telekinetic field. “Whatever works for you, hon,” she said once she had recovered the power of speech. “I’m sure whatever you have to share will be interesting.”

I nearly dropped the microphone when she gently hip-checked me, a coy smile adorning her muzzle. By some great miracle, I managed to avoid completely embarrassing myself. The sensation of many eyes drinking in my flustered reaction threatened to send me running into the streets in a blind, gibbering panic.

This is stupid, I berated myself. Yes, ponies have a different idea of personal space than I do, but that doesn’t make it right to react like they have cooties! When in Rome…

When in Rome… That had been my mantra for maintaining my sanity ever since arriving in Equestria. I could only hope that it would continue to serve me well for as long as I needed it to.

Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I offered my audience a weak smile. I wasn’t about to end up with mom’s spaghetti regurgitated on my clothes. Now was the time to step up and show this brave new world what I was made of.

“So, um, yeah...” I began with no small amount of apprehension. The din slowly died down to a respectful silence. “This song is called The Star-Spangled Banner, and it’s kind of special for me, because it’s my country’s national anthem.”

Without further ado, I put my right hand over my heart, just like I had been conditioned to do since I was a child, and began to sing.

I wouldn’t say that my performance was Grammy-worthy, but it was competent. At the very least, it wasn’t as bad as the one that a certain purported comedienne infamously turned in at Jack Murphy Stadium during the early Nineties.

Then again, that’s kind of a low Barr.

Had I known more than just the first verse, I might have gone on beyond what was traditionally performed at sporting events. Instead, I finished with a hearty, “Play ball!”

Before departing the stage, I placed the microphone back on its stand. A smattering of pony-style applause followed me back to my seat. Meh, I’ll take what I can get, I thought.

Silverclaw greeted me with a wry chuckle and a one-word response: “Fascinating.”

Rolling my eyes, I went back to nursing my drink, which had been conspicuously refilled while I was on stage. For some time, we watched others take to the stage, content to consume our beverages and offer the occasional comment on the performances to one another.

We were just finishing another round of drinks ‒ my fourth, and I had lost count of how many Doc had had. I was starting to feel a bit tipsy, and a glance at my companion showed that he wasn’t faring much better. At that moment, Evening Glow approached our table once more. “Last call, gentlecolts,” she declared, “Do you want one more round for the road?”

Silverclaw and I glanced at one another, and I merely shrugged. He made an encouraging gesture with one of his talons, and I nodded at our waitress. “Sure, why not?”

Evening Glow offered me a warm smile. “Sure thing, hon,” she said before sauntering off in the direction of the bar, her tail swishing slightly as she went. Looking back at the stage, I saw one of the bar’s employees was breaking down the equipment to put into storage for the next open mic night. All around us, the bar was beginning to empty as patrons finished their drinks and paid their tabs.

It wasn’t long before our drinks arrived, carried aloft in the gray glow of Evening’s telekinesis, along with a strip of paper with writing on it that I could only assume was our bill.

Silverclaw’s beak drew up in a frown as he perused the invoice. “Forty-two bits, eh?” His expression morphed into an arch smile, and he barked out a string of amused chortles. “You sure are an expensive date.”

With a playful scowl, I growled, “Gimme that!” I then snatched the bill from his talons with surprising deftness for the amount of booze coursing through my system. I slowly perused the piece of paper, giving my alcohol-fogged brain adequate time to puzzle out the still-foreign characters that comprised pony script.

Eventually, I found what I was looking for, and jabbed triumphantly at a particular line in the bill. “Hmph, says the one who accounted for the lion’s share of the bill with his overpriced mouthwash.”

“Yes, but I’m paying for it, aren’t I?” he retorted, “I’m entitled to a little self-indulgence.”

We both quickly downed our drinks. “I suppose so,” I admitted soberly as we stood up to leave.

Silverclaw dug into his satchel and brought out a bag of bits, counting out a sizable portion that he proceeded to leave on the table. “That should also cover the tip for our lovely waitress,” he explained with a grin.

“Then let’s get outta here,” I replied, unable to contain an air of impatience. In my haste to depart, however, I nearly bowled over Evening Glow, who was coming to collect our payment.

“Oh! Sorry!” I cried out, stepping back to let her pass.

“It’s okay, dearie,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m used to dodging customers on their way out. Come back and see us real soon, okay?” She began humming tunelessly to herself as she set about wiping down our table and taking the money, all at the same time. All without lifting a hoof.

Suddenly, hands looked a lot less advantageous in the light of unicorn telekinesis.

I was gently, but firmly herded towards the exit by the pressure of a griffon talon on my arm. I had my coat halfway on by the time we stepped out into the frigid air that seemed to define Canterlot nights during winter’s icy embrace. The resulting blast of arctic wind hastened my half-drunk efforts to finish gearing up against the hostile environment.

Our slightly wobbly course took us through one of the tougher parts of Lower Canterlot. The houses in the area looked particularly run-down, and the streets were sparsely populated with the usual ne’er-do-wells one finds in such slums.

A unicorn stallion wearing a genuine fake fur-lined mageweave coat and shades hollered out at us from under a street lamp as we approached. “Watches! I’ve got watches here!”

In my peripheral vision, I absently noted that he was indeed levitating a suitcase full of expensive-looking watches that were probably just cheap knockoffs. We ignored him. Undeterred, he continued to cajole us. “Yo! Hey colt, this shit’d cost you three-hundred bits in the store!”

Upon noticing that we were passing by without more than a cursory glance, his attitude immediately soured. “Aw, whatever!” he spat, throwing a contemptuous wave of his hoof at our passing forms.

Thankfully, from the sound of things, it didn’t take him long to find his next potential mark and start up his spiel again. “Watches!”

Further on down the cobblestoned streets, we came across an earth pony mare wearing an especially lacy saddle with a train that obscured her cutie mark like a veil. The train terminated at the high point of her tail, leaving her rump exposed to the elements. Her hind legs bore equally lacy stockings, coupled with a garter belt that connected to the rest of her outfit about halfway between her tail and the saddle. Even to my untrained eye, it seemed like it might be considered provocative dress for a pony.

“Hey baby,” she cooed seductively, “I could show you a good time.”

Before I could even react, she turned around and lifted her tail, revealing all her goods. I was once again reminded of the similarities between the genitals of Equestria’s ponies and their non-sapient cousins back on Earth. Just below her tail lay the protruding anal sphincter that threatened to make me swear off of donuts forever. Further down, the rhythmically flexing, pocketbook-like vaginal lips half-concealed, half-revealed a slightly bulbous shape that I could only assume was the mare’s engorged clitoris, coated in a light pearlescent glaze ‒ a mixture of the juices of her arousal alongside juices of a different sort that suggested she’d already “entertained” one customer tonight.

“What do you say, Mister?” she asked, looking back at me through half-lidded eyes. “Care for a pony ride?”

I quickly threw a hand over my eyes, even though the damage had already been done.

“Nopenopenopenopenopenopenope! Sooooo much nope! Not drunk enough for that shit!” I cried out, groping blindly for a few seconds before catching hold of a feathery wing and tugging desperately in any direction that might lead away from the shameless hooker. An outraged squawk and a sharp jab in the ribs helped to both bring me to my senses and direct me away from the source of my distress.

“Sorry about that,” I said lamely, ignoring the disgruntled huff of the mare behind us. I could’ve sworn I heard her mutter something that sounded like coltcuddlers under her breath. Ignoring the likely slur as we moved away from the mare, I inspected the spot where Silverclaw had struck me. Thankfully, he’d managed to avoid drawing blood, but the ribs would probably still be tender for a few hours.

“Just don’t do it again, if you value your health,” he warned, fixing me with a cold stare. His expression quickly softened, however. “I take it you’ve never been propositioned before?” he asked with an amused chuckle.

“Not by a pony prostitute, no.”

Unbidden, we continued our walk in silence for some time. In my partially inebriated haze, I found my gaze directed downwards more often than not, as the emotions and events of the past week swirled around in my head.

After about a hundred yards, and a cascade of images in my head that assaulted my psyche, I was feeling rather overwhelmed, and stumbled over to the side of the road before unglamorously plopping my butt down on a pile of dirty snow. My hands flew up to brace my head, and I let out a silent scream in an effort to drown out the disturbing visions I was seeing.

Silverclaw looked as if he’d been about to make some glib remark, only to reconsider on seeing my mental state. Instead, with a voice filled with genuine concern, he asked, “Are you alright?”

I sighed. “You tell me. Between these ridiculous hallucinations I keep having about things that seem to be from the hole in my memory, particularly under the influence of the Music of Harmony, and all the added stress of suddenly finding myself in an alien world, I sometimes think I might be about to crack. I mean, I blew up at Twinkleshine over an innocent question asked in jest, and then there’s the whole situation with Moondancer.”

Silverclaw frowned, saying nothing for a long time. Finally, he spoke, with all the gravitas of a doctor telling a patient that their cancer is terminal. “I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say, then. If the tests we ran on Wednesday were any indication, there is powerful magic at work involving the missing part of your memory. It’s certainly beyond my expertise, and I’m not sure if the unicorns on the Princesses’ medical staff would be any better equipped to help you.”

He raised a placating talon before I could even open my mouth to object. “I’m sure they’ll do everything in their power to help you, so long as it’s ethical to do so.” His beak curled up in an impish grin. “It’s why we take the Ponycratic Oath, after all.”

His face fell once more. “That said, I’m not sure if there’s anything Faran or I can do for you other than care for your mental well-being. I’m terribly sorry, Derren, but it is what it is.”

My expression soured. He was right, I didn’t like his answer. And as if that weren’t enough of a kick in the pants, I was enough of an adult to know that getting upset about it wouldn’t help matters.

Life just wasn’t fair sometimes.

I spent some time embroiled in my inner turmoil before deciding to figure out what I could do about my situation. Ultimately, that meant confronting the very thing that had sent me on my mission to get plowed under the watchful auspices of a medical professional. “So, what do you make of what happened this afternoon, Doc?”

He cocked his head, scratching at his temple with a claw as he contemplated his reply. “Any particular aspect of the drama you wish for me to opine on? Keep in mind, I’m going off of what you told me, so anything I say may be of…” ‒ the grin he was wearing was half apologetic, half teasing ‒ “limited applicability.”

I wasn’t in the mood for his japes at the moment, though. “Do you think Moondancer is right, Doc?” My voice was barely audible, yet he heard me just fine, if the sudden crestfallen expression he was wearing was any indication. “Does Twilight really see me as just a problem to solve, and not as a friend?”

A thoughtful furrow beset the griffon’s eyebrows. “I’m not acquainted with Miss Sparkle well enough to make that judgement for sure.” Seeing that his response did nothing to reassure me, he added, “But from what I’ve seen, she doesn’t seem like the type.”

I let out a noncommital huff of air as I considered his words.

Before the silence could become oppressive, Silverclaw walked over and sat down on his haunches next to me, draping a wing over my shoulder. “Perhaps you should talk to Faran. She’s got the training for this sort of thing, even if she tends to rub people the wrong way.”

I snorted derisively. “I would if I could. Faran hasn’t spoken to me since Wednesday. Whatever happened at the end of that exam really threw her for a loop, and for some reason, it’s gotten her to be even more… frigid than usual. I wish to hell I knew why she’s chosen to take it out on me.”

For some reason, this produced a knowing smile in Silverclaw. “Ponies, and mares especially, can be very strange, almost like alien creatures.”

“Doc, from this world’s perspective, I’m the alien creature,” I retorted.

He chortled. “Alright. Poor choice of words.” He adopted a thoughtful expression. “What I’m saying is that mares can sometimes act funny when they’re still sorting out their feelings about a stallion.”

Silverclaw closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His next words were accompanied by an intense stare. “I’ve known Faran for as long as I’ve been with the medical exchange program, and I’ve never known her to be anything other than professional to a fault, even though she can be a bit blunt at times.

“I can count on one talon the number of times she’s been as driven to emotional turmoil as she is around you, Meeester Knox ‒ especially like what happened during the exam. It seems that you have struck a chord with something inside her that she keeps buried under lock and key. Something she zealously guards like a mother bear does her cubs.”

I blinked. “Are you saying that she’s interested in me? Like, in a manner that might be considered unprofessional? Even though we’re two very different species?”

Silverclaw shrugged. “I can’t say for sure. All I know is what I’ve seen. And from the way she’s talked to me about you ‒ at great length, I might add ‒ you probably confuse and frustrate her just as much as she does you.” A knowing smile lit his features. “Come to think of it, mares like her aren’t all that different from a griffon hen in regards to a tiercel who’s caught her fancy.”

A wry smile wormed its way onto my lips. “Or some human women. It’s probably why the tsundere archetype is so common in Japanese romantic comedies back on Earth.”

“Must be a constant of the multiverse, then,” Silverclaw replied before devolving into raucous laughter that echoed in the narrow street we were on. For some reason, his mirth was infectious, and before long, I was adding my own bellowing guffaws to the cacophony we were creating.

Eventually, our laughter died down to a more manageable level. “Come on,” Silverclaw said at last, rising to a standing position and offering me an outstretched talon, “We should get going. As your primary physician while you’re in Canterlot, I wouldn’t want you to catch cold.”

Taking hold of the proffered appendage, I allowed myself to be hauled to my feet, still wearing a genuine smile. “Thanks, Doc.”

He smiled warmly. “Anything for a friend.”

As his words sank in, an unexpected warmth filled my being, banishing the chilly atmosphere like a blast of tropic air. I regarded Silverclaw with a newfound admiration. He may have only been my doctor when we met, and we may have been mere acquaintances for most of the last few weeks, but I finally felt that I had truly made my first friend in Equestria.

When the moment passed, I decided to take stock of our situation. We were much closer to the alleyway that led into the caves that served as part of the support structure for the city, and would ultimately lead us back to the castle. As we walked, I noticed a large, garishly decorated building that had a whole city block all to itself. Though we’d passed by it many times on previous outings, this was the first time I’d truly paid any attention to it. So much so, in fact, that I stopped walking to take in the sight.

The place was ablaze with neon lights, and raucous music thrummed lowly from the open front doors, where a tough-looking earth pony bouncer stood watch. It seemed to exude an energy all its own, one that invited patrons to shed their inhibitions and embrace their baser impulses.

After several long moments of careful study, I managed to puzzle out the establishment’s name. “Technically Legal’s Pleasure Palace? Weird.”

“It’s also not a place for upstanding citizens to frequent,” Silverclaw replied. A predatory grin stretched across his beak. “And while I wouldn’t call myself an ‘upstanding citizen’ by any stretch, you are.”

I gave him a look. “I’m not as innocent as you seem to think.” I waved my hand at the wretched hive that we were discussing. “That’s the sort of name I might expect to see on a strip club back on Earth. Though I’m kind of at a loss for how such a club would work in a society with no nudity taboo. We may have to check it out sometime.” At his skeptical eyebrow, I added, “For science, of course.”

A devilish grin arose on Silverclaw’s features. “Of course. But that time is not tonight, unless you wish to find us a hotel at this late hour.”

With some reluctance, I nodded. My curiosity would have to be sated later. We moved on, as the alley we were looking for was on the far end of the pony-style titty bar.

Silverclaw and I looked at each other with a little bit of trepidation as we approached, and for good reason. It was a blind alley that dead-ended at the sheer mountainside that Canterlot clung to like a security blanket. Only a clever person would be able to defeat the camouflage that hid the support tunnel from prying eyes.

“I don’t suppose we could find another tunnel?” I asked.

Silverclaw shook his head. “It would take too long. As it is, we’re already risking drawing unwanted attention.”

“Especially this late at night, in this part of Canterlot,” I added in a low tone.

We had barely reached the halfway point of the alley when we heard the clopping of hooves behind us. I didn’t think much of it, at first. In fact, we didn’t slow down at all. Once it had a chance to register in my brain, though, I thought it might be a good idea to pick up the pace a bit. Being followed into a blind alley rarely ended well, to put it mildly.

“Hey,” a gruff voice behind us called out. “Hey, you!”

Fuck.

“Keep walking,” Silverclaw murmured, his voice thick with urgency. “We’re almost there.”

“Hey! We’re talking to you!”

One-hundred feet. The clopping grew steadily louder and faster. Still, we pressed on for the safety of the caves.

Fifty feet. The ponies behind us were hot on our heels now. Silverclaw and I had picked up our pace considerably, now just below the point of running.

Twenty feet. I could hear the ethereal wind chimes that accompanied unicorn magic. At that point, I threw caution to the wind and broke into a run, willfully ignoring the protests of my burning lungs as they struggled to take in enough of the thinner mountain air to keep me going. At the same time, the ruffling sound of wings being unfurled told me that Silverclaw was getting ready to take to the air. Whether it was to aid me or to abandon me to the wolves was an open question.

Whatever he had been planning to do was rendered moot by our arrival at the mountain wall at the end of the alleyway. Before we’d even come to a halt, I had already started frantically looking around for the secret outcropping that would grant access when pressed, my breath coming in heaving gasps as I struggled to get my lungs working properly again.

This mountain air was going to kill me someday.

Chancing a glance over at Silverclaw, I saw that he still had his wings extended to an impressive length. Given what I’d seen of Rainbow Dash’s flying abilities, it wasn’t too hard to surmise that griffons could also take off from a standstill, and he was keeping his options open in case we couldn’t puzzle out the means of ingress in time.

As it turned out, we couldn’t. A pulsing, sickly green light filled my vision, and I felt a wave of heat washing across my cheek as an energy bolt slammed into the wall in front of us, making us jump back in surprise. The illusion before us shimmered like a mirage for a moment. A ghastly glow washed across its surface in waves as if someone had dropped a stone in a pond, before settling back into mute solidity.

With no other choice, we turned around to confront our pursuers. In the dim light of the alleyway, I could see that both were wearing heavy black cloaks that obscured their coats and cutie marks. Their heads were garbed in what I could only describe as the pony version of a balaclava. Clearly, these distinguished gentlecolts didn’t want to be identified.

“Oh, hell,” I murmured, having just gotten my breath back.

“End of the line, colts,” came the gruff voice from before, from the stallion on the left.

“Gentlecolts,” Silverclaw cajoled ingratiatingly, stepping towards them with a talon outstretched. “There’s no need to resort to violence. We were just passing through. Surely, you won’t harass innocent travellers?” An acid tone creeped into his voice. “After all, you ponies are so enlightened, to hear your newspapers tell it.”

“We would never dream of it,” came the sibilant voice of the stallion on the right. He was lankier than his companion, but was still solidly built. “However, we do have business to discuss with you.”

“What sort of business requires firing a warning shot?” I demanded, subtly shifting my stance in case I needed to fight.

If I were honest with myself, what I was preparing to do was extremely reckless. I may have had several years of martial arts training, but I mostly did it for the exercise. Sparring was never my strong suit, and that was against another human. Facing off against a sapient quadruped was completely beyond my realm of experience. The fact that our potential opponents had access to magic made it feel like I would be going up against a tank while armed with nothing more than a red herring. I certainly wouldn’t have done it if I thought we had a chance of escape. It was obvious that the warning shot had been meant to deter us from attempting to enter the support tunnels, and the two mountains of equine muscle were blocking the way back out of the alley.

If push came to shove, I’d likely be on the receiving end of a no-holds-barred beatdown. I had to hope against hope that it wouldn’t come to that.

“The special kind of business,” the stallion on the right replied with a harsh hiss. His eyes took on a malevolent glint. “We’re… tax collectors, of a sort. You see, it’s dangerous to be roaming about this part of Canterlot at night. We’re providing a civic service for folks like you by keeping you safe from folks like us. We only ask that you… donate whatever valuables you’re carrying right now.”

“I’m sorry, I already gave at the office,” I admitted with a tinge of regret.

“As did I,” Silverclaw added, though his voice had more of a note of defiance to it.

The two stallions shared a glance. “Perhaps we should be more direct, then,” the smaller stallion with the sibilant voice retorted. He looked at Silverclaw with a steely demeanor that I felt rather than saw. “You have something that belongs to us, and we aim to get it back.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Silverclaw insisted.

“The Celestial Sigil,” the sibilant stallion said in a tone that brooked no discussion. “We know you have it. Hand it over, and everything will be fine.”

Doc tapped a claw against his beak as if in thought. “Nope, still not ringing any bells.”

The stallion with the gruff voice stepped closer. From the way he loomed large before me, he could almost look the Princesses in the eyes. His breath wafted by me, smelling strongly of hay and alcohol. A heavy weight settled in my gut, and I got the distinct impression that we were about to have a very bad time.

“Round amulet bearing the likeness of a three-eyed, multi-tentacled skull,” he snarled at Silverclaw. “Has gems set ninety degrees apart from one another ‒ an emerald above the head, a yellow topaz below the tentacles, a sapphire by the left eye socket, and an amethyst by the right eye socket.” His voice lowered menacingly. “Does that ring any bells?”

After some hesitation, Silverclaw met the gruff stallion’s baleful gaze with a steely glare of his own. “Even if I had the slightest idea of what you were talking about, much less had such an ominous-sounding trinket in my posession, if you think that you can intimidate me into giving it up, then you’re fishing in the ocean with a truffle-infested worm.”

I blinked at him in confusion. That’s a strange expression. Is that a griffon saying?

Whether or not it was, our assailants seemed to recognize it, as they visibly tensed up. A deathly silence descended upon the alley. Even the normal background noise seemed to be in abeyance, as if watching the outcome of this encounter. But at long last, the silence was broken by the gruff-voiced stallion’s harsh laughter.

“And here I thought my night was going to be boring,” he said, a menacing glee dripping from every word. His horn lit up, a nauseatingly green color illuminating the area. His companion’s horn did the same.

The bottom dropped out from my stomach, and I was sweating bullets. This will definitely not end well for us.

Before I could even blink, a bolt of energy smacked me solidly in the chest, sending me staggering back. My flailing stumble was mostly arrested by the illusory wall behind me. Unfortunately, the remaining momentum was transferred laterally, and I stumbled out over my own feet. By some miracle, I managed to remain upright.

My sideways shuffle had the added benefit of getting me mostly out of the way of my assailant’s followup charge. He ended up embedding his horn in the holographic barrier, but not before grazing my arm with the thick pigsticker. A lance of pain radiated up from the point where I had been struck, and I reflexively grabbed the injured limb. My clothes now sported a not insubstantial rip where the horn had passed by, and the skin underneath felt quite raw. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like any blood had been drawn.

I finally found my footing, just in time to see that he had freed himself from the wall and had turned his backside to me, limbs already bending in preparation for a classic equine buck to the face.

I found just enough wherewithal to leap back out of the way of his thrusting hind legs. It just so happened that his landing was off balance enough to buy me the time for one counterattack. Going for the obvious target, I pushed off with my right leg and, using my left for balance, swung my foot powerfully forward.

The front kick is one of the most basic attacks a martial arts student learns. In the right circumstances, however, it can be devastatingly effective. In this case, the ball of my foot made solid contact with my assailant’s groin. The pendulous orbs dangling from his backside depressed inward with a meaty thwack from the force of my kick.

A savage grin warped my features as the stallion lept painfully into the air. The fact that his anguished wail sounded at least an octave higher than his normal voice told me that I had hit him particularly hard. Amazingly, he managed to land solidly on his hind legs. Comically holding his wounded crotch with his forelegs, he hopped around like a child doing the pee-pee dance for several seconds before collapsing in a twitching heap on the ground.

With cautious steps, I approached my downed opponent, hands raised defensively in case of any surprises. I was hoping against hope that my counterattack had taken him out of the fight, because I was gasping for breath already and sweating profusely under my coat.

My hesitation nearly turned out to be my downfall. The only warning I had of the stallion’s impending attack was the glow from his horn. I juked sideways just in time to avoid the incoming beam of energy by the narrowest of margins ‒ so narrow, in fact, that I could feel the the ray’s heat against my coat as it passed by.

Given my assailant’s unfair range advantage that evolution had graced him with, it felt like I was bringing a red herring to a gunfight. My only option was to try and rush him before he could get back to his hooves, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t be able to reload his magic pigsticker in time.

I was still gasping like a fish out of water as I poured everything I had into a desperate charge and lept onto his back like a rodeo clown trying to stop a rampaging bronco. He’d been struggling to stand, and my sudden added weight unbalanced him enough to send us crashing back to earth, knocking the air from his lungs and sending a hard jolt through my spine from the force of the landing.

At least we’re equally disadvantaged now, I thought. The coughs racking his body as he struggled to get his breath back matched my own desperate gasping from the thin mountain air.

I squirmed around on his back, seeking a position that would allow me to pin him down. All the while, he was doing his best to buck me off of him. In my desperate flailing about, I reached out with a hand and roughly seized his horn, which had begun to glow again.

It was at that moment that I learned just how sensitive unicorn horns can be when channeling magic. His horn abruptly cut out, and judging from the way he flinched and the very equine anguished squeal he let out, one would’ve thought I’d kicked him in the balls again.

Knowing that I had to end the fight quickly before he recovered and tore me to pieces, my grip on his horn tightened, and I delivered a solid punch to the side of his head, just behind the eye. Not knowing anything about equine anatomy, I wasn’t sure if this would merely be an incapacitating blow or a killing one, or if it would even affect him at all. All I knew was that I had to try something before I got my ass handed to me.

A grunt erupted from the stallion’s lips as his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the ground in a heap. He didn’t move any more, but the shallow, slowly deepening rise and fall of his chest told me that he’d merely been rendered unconscious.

I offered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deities might’ve been watching that I hadn’t shed blood in my ignorance. Several long moments passed as I paused to catch my breath before rising to my feet.

With my opponent disabled for the time being, I turned to see how Silverclaw was faring against our other attacker. The thug’s gaze was directed skyward, suggesting that Doc had taken to the air. Following his gaze, I tried to pierce the gloom overhead and find my drinking buddy.

Unfortunately, my Mark One Human Eyeballs weren’t evolved enough to make out anything other than the infinite void above. Some of the stars had been blocked out by a dark silhouette that was too far away for me to distinguish whether the object was pony or griffon. Worse, the shape obstructing my view of the night sky seemed to be receding, as if flying up and away.

Before the notion that Silverclaw might have truly abandoned me could even fully form in my mind, however, the increasingly familiar hum of active magic drew my attention back to ground level. The mugger’s horn glowed the same sickly green as his partner in crime, and his focus was still fixed on the heavens above.

Realizing who was the likely target of the mugger’s impending attack, I decided to intervene. Violently.

I rushed forward, despite not having a plan fully formulated. If Silverclaw was up there plotting a counterattack, any distraction would be invaluable. As I closed the distance, my mind ‒ perhaps fueled by five glasses of hard cider and too many hours spent watching professional wrestling as a kid ‒ settled on a flying tackle worthy of the Ultimate Warrior.

One of the stallion’s ears twitched, and swiveled in my direction. The moment I was in range, I leapt into the air with a blood-curdling war cry…

Only to remain airborne, helplessly flailing my limbs as the air around me glowed that damned puke green color. In absolute horror, I watched as my assailant’s head slowly turned in my direction, a malevolent gleam in his pale blue eyes.

“You just had to take a flying leap at me, didn’t you?” he sneered, clearly enjoying my fruitless struggles against his telekinetic hold. An intangible force flung me against the nearest wall. The impact forced the air from my lungs and set the pain receptors in both my upper back and my skull afire.

The pain had a secondary effect of providing me with a moment of clarity. Remember, I thought, the enemy’s gate is “down!”

Despite the cheesiness of recalling a line from one of the more disappointing sci-fi series of my youth, I was better prepared for the next attack. In a way, being held in mid-air telekinetically was a lot like having someone suddenly turn off the gravity.

“Tell me,” the stallion before me hissed in a sibilant purr, “does your kind really enjoy leaping into action so much?”

My muscles jerked involuntarily as I was yanked away from the wall, only to be slammed into the wall on the other side of the alley. Thankfully, this time I had the presence of mind to attempt to shift my body for a breakfall. While pain still accompanied the impact, it was much reduced, and I managed to avoid slamming my head against the wall.

I was then raised high into the air by the stallion’s telekinesis, only to be thrown hard against the ground. Again, my martial arts training saved me from extensive damage, but I could tell that I was going to lose this war of attrition if things didn’t change soon.

And then things changed.

I wasn’t sure how, but the stallion must have seen me brace myself for impact on the third slam, as he pulled me up short, jerking me around like a ragdoll. Before I could even react to the sudden development, I was thrown savagely into the wall to my left.

Pain radiated out from all points along the left side of my body as it collided with the wall. Then the world exploded into starbursts as my head followed suit less than a second later. Between the alcohol I’d ingested earlier and the white hot lance of agony searing my brain, I was on the verge of passing out. When I dared to open my eyes, my nerves were assaulted with another sharp blast of fire, and the featureless blob that was my assailant seemed to have multiplied, as if I were severely hungover.

I closed my eyes quickly, fighting to remain conscious. But while my vision may have been swimming, my hearing must have been even more screwed up, because I could’ve sworn I heard the angry screech of a bird of prey.

A heavy thud reached my ears, and all of a sudden, gravity reasserted its dominance over me once more. Thankfully, I didn’t have far to fall. The sounds of the struggle around me continued as I rose woozily to my feet and tried to shake off the cobwebs.

Ever so slowly, I opened my eyes. My head throbbed and my stomach churned, but I could tolerate the dim light of the alley a bit better now. Unfortunately, my vision hadn’t improved in the slightest. A quick touch to my brow confirmed that my glasses had somehow fallen off while I was getting slung around the alley like a ragdoll, and I was still suffering from double vision.

A multitude of black blurs, each moving as one entity that occasionally came into singular focus, was still wrestling around with a similar cohort of silver-and-brown blurs. Neither side seemed able to seize the advantage over the other for a long time. At long last, however, the silver blurs managed to fling the black blurs almost contemptuously away to collapse in a heap in a corner of the alley. Belatedly, my addled mind began to piece together who the opposing sides were ‒ Silverclaw and the remaining thug that had mugged us.

The blurs that represented the middle-aged griffon shifted as if to face me, briefly converging on the central blur as they did so. “Are you alri‒”

“LOOK OUT!”

My vision cleared in time to see a brilliant gold-colored beam reach out across the darkness of the dingy alleyway to slam home against the body of our assailant, who had been in the process of rising to his hooves, horn alight for another attack. He collapsed once more to the ground, and lay still.

A mint colored blur soon emerged from behind Silverclaw. “Are you okay?” a somewhat familiar, angelic feminine voice inquired.

What is she doing here? I thought she’d decided to stay behind in Ponyville? The incongruity of the mare's presence proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. My brain decided to shut down at that point to reboot in safe mode.

With what was no doubt a goofy grin on my face, I made a gun with my right hand, pointed it into the air, and pretended to shoot, eking out a gravelly “Bang” before surrendering to oblivion.

Author's Note

Guess who showed up to save the day at the end? :rainbowlaugh:

And yes, Derren's tale of how The Star-Spangled Banner came about is a true story. :rainbowlaugh:

As far as the fight scene goes, I tried to skirt the line between Derren being a pussy and Derren being an OP Gary Stu. I hope this solution works to your satisfaction. :twilightsmile:

Speaking of the fight scene... TFW you realize the muggers are demanding this: https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Celestial_Sigil

TFW you also realize what Silverclaw's response refers to.

And finally, if you enjoyed Evening Glow's little cameo here, and want to read about her getting lewd, why not try my newest fic, The Barmare?

Chapter Seven-C - Canterlot Blues (Part Three)

I watched with detached amusement as several unicorns went about resetting the domino visual aids Twinkleshine and I had painstakingly set up a few hours ago, only to knock them down again with different inputs, as if trying to replicate what I’d shown them. Equestria’s ponies may not have been as technologically advanced as Earth, but they clearly knew their scientific method.

All in all, the “Apology Tour” had gone better than expected. For the most part, the brain trust that the Institute had assembled were quick to forgive. I hadn’t expected to win everyone over ‒ hell, I hadn’t expected to win anyone over, so the fact that there were holdouts wasn’t too surprising. Their opinions probably weren’t that important in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

The ones that were receptive to my expression of contrition nearly filled the lecture hall I was using. For the better part of two hours, they listened to me ramble on about what I knew of the science behind our electronic gizmos with patient curiosity. Despite my incomplete knowledge in many areas, which I acknowledged up front, I was able to give a fairly extensive overview of Earth’s technological accomplishments, from the moon landings to the Internet, and so on. Many times, their questions were quite insightful, and I found myself learning from them as much as they learned from me.

In the end, I think I even made a few connections. Fractal Space, in particular, seemed interested in possible future collaboration on an effort to replicate human technological advancements in Equestria. I demurred, explaining that the gaps in my knowledge would probably make me more of a hindrance than a help. Still, she insisted that I at least let her pick my brain for ideas on occasion.

That, at least, was a deal I was willing to accept.

A voice drew me from my reverie. “You seem to have made a better second impression.”

I turned in the direction of the voice. “Oh, hey, Twinkleshine.” I took a moment to adjust my glasses. “Yeah, I guess I did an okay job. But I didn’t do it on my own, y’know.”

The powder white mare favored me with a small, but warm smile. “I know. I helped, remember?”

“And I appreciate that, believe me,” I replied, only to frown a moment later. “I’m still a bit disappointed that Twilight wasn’t more involved.”

Twinkleshine hummed thoughtfully, tapping her chin with a forehoof. “I know what you mean. I don’t think she meant any personal slight by it, though. I’m sure you’ve noticed that she has a lot on her mind at the moment.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, recalling the drama of the few days with pained ease. “She’d been driven to distraction by the situation with Moondancer ever since I sat in on that lunch with her and Lyra. You should’ve seen her on the train ride up here.”

“I can only imagine,” Twinkleshine replied, biting her lip and furrowing her brow. Her ears drooped as she added, “And that’s what worries me.”

I nodded in understanding. “It worries me, too. Something tells me that when she gets panicked, folks tend to have a bad time.”

“You mean like the time she enchanted Smarty Pants to be ridiculously attractive to anypony who laid eyes upon it?”

I blinked. “You heard about that?”

Twinkleshine rolled her eyes. “I was there when it happened. I was affected. When Princess Celestia dispelled the enchantment, I came to, only to find that I had locked horns over the doll ‒ metaphorically speaking, of course ‒ with some pink earth pony mare with cherries for a cutie mark.”

Spike had mentioned the incident when we were on the train. The only possible reaction I could have had to Twinkleshine bringing it up as well was to shake my head in disbelief. “I still think that sort of thing should be very illegal.”

Twinkleshine favored me with a knowing smirk. “You’re probably not wrong in that regard.”

“And with that in mind, we should go find Twilight before she does something silly like turning everyone into an alicorn.”

A highly amused snort erupted from the mare, but she said nothing else.

“Just give me a moment to politely excuse myself from these proceedings, and we’ll be off.” I then raised my voice so that the others could hear me. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but I’m going to have to take my leave now. Some personal matters have come up that need attending to. After that, I’ll be returning to Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle has graciously agreed to host me until I get back on my feet, so if you need to contact me for any reason, you can pass it along to her.”

Assorted murmurs of acknowledgement greeted my announcement, followed shortly by goodbyes and promises to keep in touch. I turned back to Twinkleshine.

“Shall we?” I asked, gesturing for her to lead the way.

A silvery giggle, not all that different from Lyra’s or Minuette’s, erupted from her muzzle. “Yes, let’s go,” she replied. “I think I know where we might find Twilight.”

The hallway into which we emerged was illuminated with a familiar, sterile fluorescence. While such lighting on Earth was produced with electricity and specially designed light bulbs, in Equestria, they ran on rainbows and sunshine and friendship and long rods studded with large, magically-enchanted crystals. But mostly the latter.

The beige walls were sporadically broken up by bulletin boards. I may not have been able to tease out meaning on any of the posted notifications as we walked, but given the fact that it was a center of academia, it wasn’t hard to guess that they contained everything from various and sundry departmental announcements and promotional flyers for upcoming events that might be of interest to students to want ad-style requests and offers for goods and services. At the far end of the hallway lay our destination: a stairwell marked by a green sign with an image of a pony going down stairs.

My footsteps and Twinkleshine’s hoofsteps kicked up a discordant, calamitous echo as we descended the stairwell towards the ground floor of the Modern Computational Mechanics building ‒ the bowels of which had been the site of the very incident that had necessitated my guest appearance just minutes ago. Lost in my own thoughts as I was, I was content to follow her lead, if for no other reason than because she knew the lay of the land much better than I did.

Our emergence into the wan midday sun was marked by a familiar tickling sensation in my sinuses. I had only taken a few steps towards the snow-covered greenbelt that marked the edge of campus when the pressure reached a tipping point, and I let out a loud sneeze.

“Oh, excuse me,” I moaned through a stuffy nose.

Twinkleshine turned her head to look back at me, her ice blue eyes shimmering in concern. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine. It happens to me sometimes when I go from artificial to natural light.”

She giggled in response, eyes closing and a small smile blossoming on her muzzle as if recalling a fond memory. “I kind of know what that’s like. I had an old coltfriend who was the same way.”

“Really?” I mused, eyebrows arching quizzically. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I’m guessing from your characterization of him as an ‘old’ coltfriend that it didn’t work out?”

Twinkleshine stared back at me as we waded through a large herd of oncoming ponies. They parted around us like waves against the prow of a large ocean liner. Some of the passing equines gazed in utter bafflement at the alien in their midst, but I paid it no mind. I had already long since inured myself to such reactions.

Eventually, Twinkleshine spoke, her gaze now fixed firmly ahead as the edge of campus approached. “No,” she declared flatly, “It’s not any of your business.” After a long moment, a sad sigh erupted from the mare’s lungs. “But I suppose it couldn’t hurt to tell. I mean, there’s not really much to tell anyway. We met at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, had some good times together.”

Judging from the wistful expression she was wearing, I guessed that Twinkleshine had been rather fond of the guy. “Unfortunately, those good times came to an end after we graduated. He’d gotten accepted to the prestigious pre-law program at Manehatten University. I wanted to stay close to home for my continuing education, and the Institute has one of the best astronomy programs in all of Equestria. We tried to make it work, but…”

“But long-distance relationships don’t have a very good track record,” I concluded in the wake of her unfinished sentence.

One of Twinkleshine’s ears twitched, and she chanced a glance back at me. “Maybe that’s true for us ponies,” she admitted, “but you’ve got, by your estimates, a couple of centuries’ advantage on us technologically. Wouldn’t that ‘Internet’ of yours make the distance much more bearable?”

It was my turn to give a sentimental sigh. “You’d be surprised at how even the most advanced communications technology in existence can often pale in comparison to real, live, in-person contact. I mean, you can’t exactly hold someone’s hand ‒ or hoof, for that matter ‒ through a computer screen.”

A brief pause ensued. “I suppose you have a point,” she said at long last, her muzzle scrunched up in an odd smile that seemed filled with a veritable stew of emotions.

The silence descended upon us once more as Twinkleshine led the way towards our rendezvous with Twilight and the others. The Institute’s campus was only a few blocks inside the Platinum District, so it didn’t take long to reach the imposing wrought iron gates I’d seen when we passed by on our way to the palace earlier in the week.

I was perfectly fine with the silence, to be honest. The less interaction, the less chance I’d make friends with the wrong person. That had been the guiding principle of my life ever since I discovered that one of my closest high school buddies had grown into a manipulative, usurious adult.

Unbidden, memories of the time our friendship began to sour rose to the surface of my thoughts. My mood soured right alongside those memories, causing a noticeable rise in my blood pressure. The more and more I thought about our final confrontation, the more my breathing became erratic, heated. I was on the verge of hyperventilating, snarling in rage as I silently mouthed the fatal words that had ended our relationship once and for all.

Tinkleshine’s ear flicked, and I fought desperately to bury my emotions back in the black hole in my heart from which they’d emerged before she noticed anything was amiss.

I needed a distraction, and Equestria had seen fit to provide plenty at that moment. My eyes flitted from one awe-inspiring sight to another like a caffeinated hummingbird. A street musician was playing a jaunty, very familiar tune on an acoustic guitar ‒ it took every last ounce of willpower not to sing along and give the impression that I was advocating the use of sapient equines as mounts for desert travel. Pedestrians casually tossed bits into his opened case as they passed by. A group of pegasi were clearing the cloud cover overhead with well-aimed, physics-defying bucks of their hind hooves. The near-midday sun glinted off the distant, gilded domes of Canterlot Castle in shimmering waves reminiscent of Eddings’ “fire-domed Matherion.”

At one point along our route, a group of ponies seated on the patio of a restaurant caught my eye. One pony in particular stood out ‒ an unassuming gray-coated stallion with a short-cropped metallic green mane. But what really drew my attention was the piercing in his left ear and the silver ring on his horn. The rest of his entourage, a handful of mares, were chatting animatedly among themselves. Occasionally, he’d offer a small smile at something one of the others had said, but for the most part, he kept to himself.

It didn’t stop the mares from occasionally giving him ‒ and each other, for that matter ‒ googly-eyed glances, which struck me as rather odd.

His pale yellow eyes caught hold of my own, and I mentally kicked myself for standing as gobsmacked as if I’d just run into Macho Man Randy Savage at an Albuquerque sushi restaurant. My internal self-abasement quickly morphed into a mild, yet rapidly rising anxiety as the staredown intensified. It had been a long time since I’d last felt an intense, searching gaze of this magnitude, but I recognized it for what it was almost immediately.

In an instant, my mind was transported back to a cramped, clean office. A middle-aged Korean man with a somewhat weathered face and kindly features sat in a chair opposite of me and my father. He spent some time looking at my developing shiner, fat lip, and various minor lacerations without really seeing them through his penetrating brown eyes.

I squirmed in my seat through his silent judgment, already feeling self-conscious about drawing attention to myself with my injuries. It was bad enough that I’d received them in the course of standing up for a friend. It was even worse that I’d received a Saturday detention alongside the perp by an uncaring principal. Now some complete stranger was getting ready to pass his own sentence on me.

Thankfully, that wasn’t to be. He smiled warmly and explained his philosophy on martial arts ‒ in particular, the idea that it was something for families to do together as a bonding experience ‒ in thickly accented, somewhat broken English. Needless to say, my father and I both signed up on the spot.

A glint of sunlight off of nearby glass brought me back to the present. The stallion had just finished his silent assessment of me as a person, and offered me a grudging smile and nod. I promptly returned the gesture with a similar wave of relief as had filled me all those years ago.

Said relief was short-lived, however, as ethereal chimes sang in my ears and my vision tinted ice blue. An intangible force slowly spun me around until I was gazing at the amused grin and twinkling eyes of my companion.

“Still getting used to living in Equestria?” Twinkleshine’s tone was every bit as arch as her expression as her horn cut out. We began to walk down the busy paved streets once more, passing several restaurants by.

“You could say that,” I grudgingly admitted, unable to completely keep the earlier tension from my voice. If anything, the bitter aftertaste of my past had mixed with the strangeness of my current surroundings to create a toxic stew that was about to flood the streets of Canterlot. “I thought that my love of science fiction and travels abroad had prepared me for the strangeness of seeing alien civilizations, but none of that seemed adequate for what I’ve found here.”

“You mean, like, magic and weather control?” Twinkleshine asked, only sparing the minimal attention required to navigate in a city that she likely knew like the back of her hand ‒ or “like the frog of her hoof,” to borrow a pony idiom that Rarity had once used when I was still convalescing in the castle during my first week in Equestria. I wasn’t sure about that ‒ some terms for pony anatomy struck me as rather odd.

“Ironically enough, that’s not it,” I replied with a wry smile that perhaps looked a bit too much like a grimace. “Those things at least make some sort of sense to me, given all the time I spent in the ‘science fiction and fantasy’ section of various book stores as a teenager.”

“Sounds like you and Twilight would get along just fine,” she interjected with an upward quirk of her lips and twinkling eyes.

A frosty glare from me quickly sobered her up. “Sorry,” she quickly amended. “I shouldn’t have interrupted. Please, continue.”

“Thank you,” I grumbled. After a moment to compose myself, I continued. “To be perfectly blunt, it’s actually the more familiar things this world has to offer that get to me.”

“Such as?”

I drew in a deep breath, already feeling myself winding up for a long-overdue rant. “For starters, there’s the fact that far too many things here sound like bad puns on things from my world. Manehatten. Baltimare. Fillydelphia. Canterlot. I mean, you’d think someone had made a children’s cartoon about magical talking equines in a bid to sell cheap plastic toys with names like that. In English, no less.

“Seriously, I get that I managed to luck into coming to a world where the natives evolved a language with a ridiculous level of similarity to my own, against all odds, but this just stretches credulity. Believe me, Random Number Jesus doesn’t like me that much. Or at all, for that matter.”

I was dimly aware that I was turning heads with the spectacle I was making of myself, but I was too riled to care at the moment. My breath misted in the frigid air as I unloaded the second barrel of my tirade. “And don’t even get me started on how awkward it is to live in a land with no nudity taboo, especially when roughly one-third of the population can fly,” I thundered, sounding every inch like a fundamentalist preacher.

I held up a placating hand as I attempted to calm myself. “Don’t get me wrong, I can accept ‒ at least intellectually ‒ that ponies here are fully sapient and only superficially resemble their evolutionary cousins back on Earth. I’m trying to be as enlightened as I can be for someone who’s new to sharing a planet with non-human sapients, believe me. But that slight similarity is enough for your genitals to fall into the uncanny valley to the less evolved parts of my brain. For Talos’ sake, thanks to her usual mode of locomotion, I saw enough of Pinkie’s… erm… pie… the other day to last several lifetimes.”

“Wow,” came Pinkie’s voice after a pregnant pause, surprisingly subdued for a mare whose normal volume was full-throated enthusiasm. Her ears were folded back, and a crimson tint to her cheeks was barely noticeable through her pink fur. In the blink of an eye, however, she was already back to her disconcertingly chipper self. “That was a lot of stuff to get off your chest. Feel any better now?” As with Minuette previously, Pinkie’s toothy grin was accompanied by an odd squeaky toy-like noise that I couldn’t place.

I blanched at the belated realization that the subject of the last part of my rant had been in earshot at the time. My hand hit my forehead with such violence that the afflicted area still stung for several minutes after impact.

“Me and my big mouth,” I grumbled loudly, collapsing into an empty seat next to Twilight on the patio of the cafe that I’d only belatedly noticed we’d arrived at. Said table appeared to be painted to look like a lilypad, or similar aquatic flora. It looked so inviting in that moment that I rested my chin on it in the vain hope of melding with it until the inevitable shitstorm had died down. “This is why, in the absence of this strange twist of fate, I’d never be selected as my world’s ambassador to ponykind. I don’t have the diplomatic training to avoid constantly putting my foot in my mouth.”

“Wouldn’t it be kinda hard to talk with your foot in your mouth?” Pinkie chimed in helpfully. “And how would you get your foot in your mouth, anyway? I mean, I know ponies are, like, super-duper flexible and stuff, but even I can’t get my back hoofsies in my mouth!”

So buried was I in the depths of self-pity that I couldn’t be bothered to do anything more than shift my eyes to direct a baleful glare at Pinkie. It was sufficient to shut her up, at least.

“Goddammit, Pinkie Pie,” I muttered almost inaudibly.

Any dark thoughts I might have been harboring towards her, however, were instantly routed by a light, reassuring pressure on my right shoulder. Sparing a glance in that direction, I spotted the culprit ‒ a familiar powder white hoof. Tracing the hoof back to its owner, I spied Twinkleshine’s eyes looking back at me, filled with sympathy.

She craned her neck down so that she could whisper in my ear. “Try not to let it get to you. It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie.”

That news was surprising enough to propel me into an upright sitting position. “Really? How do you know Pinkie?”

“As you might have guessed from the ‘Smarty Pants Incident,’ I visit Ponyville from time to time with Minuette and Lemon Hearts to see Lyra,” she said by way of explanation. “I also saw her at the Royal Wedding, because Lyra, Minuette, and I were Princess Cadance’s original bridesmaids before the changeling queen had us foalnapped as part of a ruse to get Twilight kicked out of the wedding.” Tinkleshine’s expression had soured considerably in recounting the incident.

I winced sympathetically. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

A full-body shudder ran through Twinkleshine, as if she were trying to shake loose the memory like it was water soaking her fur. “The worst part about it was not having any memory of the time we were under the changeling queen’s control. I only found out later that she’d used us to try and obstruct Twilight and Princess Cadance long enough to keep them from ruining the wedding.”

She then turned to look at Minuette across the table, who I had just noticed was sporting a ridiculous pair of electric yellow sunglasses with window blinds in place of the lenses. “I honestly don’t know how you managed to not be traumatized by the incident, Minnie,” she said, shooting the blue mare a quizzical look.

Minuette shrugged. “I’ve always tried to look on the bright side of life,” she said with a sheepish grin.

A shit-eating grin wormed its way onto my lips. “So, you’re saying that some things in life are bad, and they can really make you mad? Other things just make you swear and curse?”

I could feel my connection to the Music of Harmony start to activate again. And judging from the matching smirk from Minuette, she’d felt hers going off as well.

“Go on,” she exhorted.

With little more preface than a roll of my eyes and a resigned shrug of my shoulders, I began to sing.

When you’re chewing on life’s gristle

Don’t grumble, give a whistle!

And this’ll help things turn out for the best.

And…

Always look on the bright side of life!

As if on cue, Pinkie and Minuette joined in on the whistling part, expertly masking my own pathetic attempt to do so.

Always look on the light side of life!

Despite the gleeful inclusion of the two peppiest mares I knew, the rest of the table had decidedly mixed reactions, especially as passers-by began to join in on the festivities. Twilight, in particular, seemed incredibly disturbed by both the lyrics and the display. Her ears were pinned back and her muzzle was locked in a rictus of mute horror as she covered Spike’s ears with her hooves. Nevertheless, the spectacle continued on to completion.

In retrospect, it was probably good that we’d gotten the song out of the way when we did. The moment the music stopped, Twilight opened her mouth to speak her mind about what she had just witnessed, only to let loose with a panicked whicker at something she’d seen off to my right. The next thing I knew, she was shoving a menu in my face.

“Sweet Zombie Jesus, Twilight!” I yelped, “What the hell was that for?”

“Just go along with it for now,” Twilight hissed urgently, looking past me at whatever had spooked her. “Moondancer’s coming!”

Turning as casually as I could in the direction indicated, I swore under my breath. Sure enough, there was the mare in question, parting the sea of sapient equines like she was the pony version of Moses. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice us, as her muzzle was buried in a book that may as well have been the original stone tablets of the Decalogue itself.

Shuddering at memories of our first awkward meeting, I turned back to Twilight. “Well, thankfully, she doesn’t seem to have noticed us. But I don’t see how burying my nose in a menu is going to disguise me if she were to look up,” I whispered back. “I kind of stick out like a sore thumb.”

“We don’t have time to argue,” she retorted, just barely maintaining a whisper at this point. “You’re just going to have to do your best to avoid drawing attention to yourself.” A devious grin wormed its way onto her lips a moment later as she added, “After all, I’m sure you don’t want to field any more of her probing questions in uncomfortable places.”

I wished with all my heart that the deadpan stare I gave her in response could be weaponized. “You are truly evil sometimes,” I grumbled.

“But not too evil, I hope,” she replied with a girlish giggle.

I chose not to respond to that, instead busying myself with trying to puzzle out the items on the menu. From what I could make out of the menu options, the establishment catered primarily to herbivores, which admittedly didn’t appeal to me as much, but I was hungry enough to try. That said, I did have one embarrassing moment where I misread “cud salad” as “gut salad” due to confusion over a couple of voiced-voiceless consonant pairs.

It probably wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t using a barely readable, overly fancy font for their menu.

I was just about to settle on an item that was effectively a meatless taco salad when Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “Okay,” she said, “it’s safe now. She didn’t even look up from the book she was reading.”

“So, what exactly was the point of this whole charade?” Twinkleshine asked, completely deadpan.

“Yeah, Twilight,” I chimed in, my tone a bit more blatantly accusatory, “What do you hope to gain by stalking Moondancer?”

“I’m not stalking her,” Twilight insisted huffily. “I’m investigating.”

“You mean like the time you were investigating Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense?” Spike countered, sporting one very fascinated eyebrow. “Because that sure seemed like stalking to me.”

“I’m serious, Spike,” Twilight shot back. “I’m trying to learn how to get back into Moondancer’s good graces, and in order to do that, I need information. And since she won’t talk to me, I have to get that information through other means.”

Twinkleshine chose to not to say anything, but the fact that her face mirrored Spike’s earlier expression told me everything I needed to know about what she thought about that.

In the face of such defiant skepticism, Twilight’s resolve wavered a little. “Okay, fine,” she grudgingly admitted, her tone still a tad defiant, “Perhaps I went too far in trying to solve this friendship problem of mine. But I’m rapidly running out of options. I’ve tried talking to her in the library. We’ve tried taking her out to dinner. We’ve even tried introducing her to Derren!”

I winced at the memory of that effort.

“None of it has worked!” Twilight concluded, throwing her forelegs into the air in exasperation.

“And what have you gained from stal-” Spike flinched away from Twilight’s withering glare “-your investigation?”

After a long silence, Twilight let out an equally long sigh, her shoulders sagging as she seemed to visibly deflate. “Nothing,” she admitted reluctantly. “Nothing useful, at any rate. All she ever does is go between the library and her house. I’ve only seen her talking to maybe three ponies at most in all that time ‒ the librarian, a book seller, and her sister.”

“Then maybe it’s time to think outside the box,” Minuette suggested with a soft smile, massaging Twilight’s withers with a touch that was as gentle as her tone.

Twilight slowly looked up at the azure mare. “What did you have in mind?”

Minuette and Pinkie shared a knowing look before they both turned back to Twilight with dangerously exuberant grins on their muzzles.

Pinkie practically exploded as she announced, “A PARTY!”

I rolled my eyes at the overly-caffeinated pink mare. “That’s your answer for everything, Pinkie,” I grumbled.

I looked over at Twilight, fully expecting the level-headed mare to agree with me. What I found instead disturbed me. Her pupils were moving rapidly, as if reflecting the rapidity with which her mind was working over the suggestion. Was she seriously considering this crazy scheme?

The lead weight in my gut morphed into neutronium when I heard an excited-sounding gasp issuing from Twilight. “Pinkie,” she cried, “You’re a genius!”

“Thanks, Twilight!” Pinkie chirped, visibly more than happy at Twilight’s approval in a way that seemed to illustrate my favorite comedian’s observation about the phrase “more than happy.”

I could tell that I was going to need a stiff drink before the day was out. Perhaps several stiff drinks, at that...

The western courtyard of Canterlot Castle had undergone a radical change in the space of only a few seconds. Everywhere one looked, one could see streamers of varying shades of pastel, tables were set out and decorated, and a shiny pink disco ball even hung from a decorative metal archway at the entrance to the courtyard. If I hadn’t just witnessed it with my own eyes, I would’ve scoffed at the notion that Pinkie could decorate so quickly.

Come to think of it, I had indeed discounted it no less than a week prior. It’s amazing what a difference time ‒ or a well-placed party cannon or two ‒ can make.

My brain had just rebooted from shock at the casualness with which Pinkie had literally rejected my reality and substituted her own when I noticed a familiar figure approaching, a single book held in her telekinetic field. She gently placed it on the ground before continuing to trot in our direction.

“So, Twilight,” I called out to the mare, “What’s the fine in Canterlot for littering?” Admittedly, my tone was to some degree calculated to be as irritatingly cheeky as possible. I couldn’t say why I did it, other than out of some vague notion that I sometimes found it amusing to watch her rise to the bait.

And rise to the bait she did.

“Very funny, Mister Comedian,” Twilight replied in a tone as deadpan as her expression. Her ears were flattened as if in added emphasis.

“I rather thought it was,” I murmured with much the same self-satisfaction as before.

Twilight appeared to be about to respond when a soft voice reached us, gently calling every equine ear to bend in its direction. “I’m surprised at you, Twilight,” Lemon Hearts said softly. She pointed a hoof at the tome that Twilight had just casually discarded. “Normally, you’d take great umbrage at anypony treating books like that.”

“Well, I wouldn’t normally dare to subject them to such casual disregard,” Twilight admitted, “but this is an unusual circumstance, and I decided to think outside the box, as Minuette and Pinkie suggested.” She nodded in the direction of the aforementioned book. “In this case, I figured that since Moondancer shares my passion for literature, I’d… give her a reason to come here. There’s a whole line of books leading back to the Canterlot Public Library. The moment she comes out of there, she won’t be able to resist following it to the end.” She giggled excitedly, forehooves clopping together as she exclaimed, “It’s the perfect plan!”

I couldn’t resist the setup. “So, you’re saying you left a paper trail, eh?”

“Hush, you,” Twilight chided, sounding only mildly miffed.

I glanced around at the others, hoping that at least someone had found my attempt at humor funny. Twinkleshine rolled her eyes, while Lemon Hearts fixed me with a look that could only be described as weaponized disappointment. On the other hand, Minuette’s lips kept twitching, and her eyes were twinkling with barely suppressed mirth. Pinkie was quaking all over, as if she were about to explode with uncontrollable gaiety.

And Spike… Spike merely cocked a bemused-looking eyebrow at me, his stubby little arms crossed in front of him.

“Gee,” I murmured, subconsciously adjusting my glasses, “Tough crowd.”

Any further discussion of my sense of humor was cut short as Twilight’s ears twitched, then craned like miniature radar domes towards the entrance to the courtyard. Moments later, the distinct, cadenced report of hooves on cobblestone dimly reached my ears. Do ponies have better hearing than me?

With a series of frantic gestures from Twilight, we scrambled to get into our prearranged places ‒ each one meticulously selected by her to allow us to observe the courtyard entrance without being seen in return. A quick glance around from my hiding spot behind a cake-bearing catering cart showed that Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, and even Spike had reached their assigned spots. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen, and only Twilight remained in full view of our unsuspecting party guest as she crested the bridge leading to the courtyard, a sizeable stack of books floating alongside her.

Moondancer’s horn abruptly stopped glowing, and the books she was carrying unceremoniously plummeted to the ground as she gasped in shock. “What is this?” she demanded, using her pale pink telekinetic field to adjust her glasses in a nervous gesture that was all too familiar, despite the addition of magic to the equation. Almost unbidden, I adjusted my own pair.

“It’s a party,” Twilight replied, smiling as she gestured for us to come out of hiding, “For you!”

I pushed the cart bearing the large, triple-decker cake in Moondancer’s general direction. Since I was trying to avoid eye contact ‒ and thus, more embarrassing questions about my species from the mare ‒ I had to employ Spike as a spotter so that I wouldn’t run into anyone with the cake.

Eventually, the cart trundled to a halt a few inches away from the gathering of ponies. It was at that moment that I finally learned ‒ in a rather spectacular, Michael Bay-worthy manner ‒ where Pinkie had been hiding. With little warning other than a visible jiggling, the cake suddenly ceased to exist in cake form. In its place was a rapidly expanding spray of cake bits, climbing ever upward in a cloud that could only be described as Plinian.

And at the center of it all was a certain bright pink party-enthusiast pony.

“SURPRISE!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. And then the world suddenly remembered that the law of gravity had not yet been repealed.

With nowhere to hide on such short notice, I had to resort to the standard “duck and cover” routine that I remembered from tornado drills as a kid, scrunching down as tightly as possible on my knees while covering the back of my neck with my hands. Sadly, it provided about as much protection as it would’ve during either an actual tornado or a nuclear exchange. I felt several wet splats against my back, adding to the peppering my clothes had already received from the initial eruption.

Thankfully, the cake fallout expended itself rather quickly. By the time I was able to safely look up, however, Pinkie had already slapped a party hat onto Moondancer’s head and stuffed her mouth with a blue and pink party blower.

“C’mon in!” Twilight cheerfully exhorted, only to have Moondancer promptly spit out the party blower and glare at her.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Moondancer snarled, lifting the party hat from her head with her telekinesis. She then promptly crumpled the hat into a wad of wastepaper and threw it on the ground with all the adult maturity of Andy Samberg. “I don’t do parties!”

With that she walked off away from Twilight in a huff… further into the courtyard. She didn’t get very far before the telltale flash and pop of a unicorn teleport deposited Twilight directly in front of her, blocking the way. The sudden displacement caused her party hat to fly off of her head.

“I know,” Twilight said, holding a hoof out to block Moondancer, “And I think it’s my fault.” Her eyes were closed in sadness, and the hoof she’d been using to stop the other mare was now held against her own chest.

She opened them again before continuing. “Back when we were in school together, you invited me to a party.” Her ears drooped. “I was so focused on my studies that I didn’t show up.”

Unfortunately for Twilight, her words were only serving to harden Moondancer’s resolve, as the cream coated mare merely rolled her eyes. “Big deal!” she huffed. Something seemed off about it, though.

Was that a hint of a deeper hurt I spied leaking out from under her tough exterior? I mused.

The rejection only seemed to deepen Twilight’s concern for her friend, along with her determination to make things right. “It was a big deal,” she insisted, “And now that I realize how important friendship is” ‒ she draped a foreleg across Moondancer’s withers in a comforting gesture ‒ “I’d like to make up for my mistake with a new party.”

Twilight waved her free forehoof about the courtyard at all the decorations, including a vibrantly colored piñata. “A party in honor of my friend, Moondancer!” Her horn lit up, and a suitable stick rapidly approached the pair, one end glowing the same magenta shade as Twilight’s horn. “Please,” she said, her voice filled with desperation, “You’ve got to let me make this up to you.”

Moondancer remained unphased in her transparent irritation. Nevertheless, the glow around the end of the whacking stick shifted in color from Twilight’s magenta to Moondancer’s pale pink, signaling a change of possession akin to a relay baton being passed from one runner to the next.

“And you think this is gonna do it, huh?” Moondancer snarled, stalking heavily in the direction of the piñata.

“Uhh, yes?” Twilight admitted, letting out a nervous-sounding chuckle.

Moondancer’s scowl deepened, and the rest of her face darkened like a thundercloud ready to erupt. In a voice dripping with sarcasm, she rhetorically demanded, “Well, sure. Why wouldn’t it?”

She paused in her rant just long enough to vent some of her emotions on the piñata. Even though the candy-filled papier-mâché creation only swung about a foot from the light thwack of the stick, I somehow got the sense that she could’ve put far more force into the blow, had she really been trying. It made me realize that despite its mundane utility, unicorn telekinesis could be very dangerous in the wrong hooves.

It was at that moment that Moondancer’s long-simmering outrage exploded in our collective faces. “That was only the first time I put myself out there, and then you didn’t even bother to show up!” She turned around, jabbing at Twilight rather aggressively with the whacking stick.

The jabbing motions continued sporadically with her next words. “Then you left town without even saying goodbye, even though we were supposed to be friends!” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and she screwed them tightly shut in an attempt to keep from crying. “I was humiliated! I felt like I wasn’t important! I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again!”

The stick suddenly zoomed over to point at the trio of Minuette, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine, who all cringed when it came to a sudden stop just a foot away from them. “Those three finally convinced me that I had value! That other ponies might like me and want to be my friend!” She brought the stick back around to jab at Twilight. “And you! DIDN’T! SHOW! UP!”

And in that moment, the emotional dam burst. Casually discarding the stick that she’d been wielding so menacingly just moments before, Moondancer let out an anguished shriek, and then ran off to the far end of the courtyard, collapsing into a sobbing heap of miserable mare once she ran out of space ahead of her.

As Twilight looked on in utter shock, the rest of us shared a meaningful look. We hadn’t expected Twilight’s plan to go this awry. As much as we were concerned for Moondancer’s emotional well-being, there was a bigger issue weighing on our minds. Namely, Twilight’s tendency to go slightly loopy when things don’t go according to plan.

“You’re right,” Twilight replied with a sigh. “This party can’t make up for the way that I hurt you. But I thought that I could at least show you how serious I am about fixing this problem with our friendship. I know it won’t repair the damage, but we can at least start making amends...” Her voice trailed off as she realized what was happening.

Twilight’s words seemed to trigger something in Moondancer. She rose to her hooves, shaking with barely suppressed anger. “Seriously? Is that all this is to you? A problem to be solved? Is that all I am to you?”

“No, of course not, Moondancer,” Twilight protested. “I would never ‒”

Moondancer cut her off, evidently done listening to her friend. “And what about Derren over here?” she demanded, jabbing a hoof in my direction. “Is he just another project to you? He’s a sapient being, for Celestia’s sake, not some lab animal to be studied! Even I know better than that! If that’s your idea of friendship, then maybe it would’ve been better if you’d stayed in Ponyville after running off like that!”

She then spun on her hooves and tensed up slightly. For a moment, I feared that she was going to try to kick Twilight. But all she did was give an angry flick of her tail before charging out of the courtyard at a gallop, leaving us all dumbstruck at the reversal of fortune that had just transpired.

Spike summed up our feelings in just one sentence. “Well, that just happened.”

While the others began conversing about what had gone wrong and how to fix it, my head began spinning from all the expended emotional ordnance. Was Moondancer right? Does Twilight really see me as a “problem to solve,” rather than a real friend?

I suddenly found myself in need of some distance from this place. It stank of high drama.

“Fuck it,” I muttered, “I’m out.” I turned to follow in Moondancer’s metaphorical footsteps, only to be interrupted by the last voice I wanted to hear at that time.

“Where are you going?” Twilight demanded.

“To find Silverclaw,” I retorted huffily. “The spectacle we just witnessed is more appropriate to a high school than a body of full-grown adults. Because of it, I suddenly find myself in need of women, drinking, and debauchery. And not necessarily in that order.”

With that, I stormed off into the night, leaving the group of bewildered ponies and one equally bewildered baby dragon to stare blankly after me.

Author's Note

So, yeah. I decided to throw a bit of a kink into the plot of "Amending Fences," as it occurs in the Derrenverse (even more of a kink than the fact that it occurs earlier in the timeline than show canon). I'm well aware that there will probably be complaints about this particular plot twist, especially given how the plot of the original episode was resolved. There are two things to keep in mind here:

This fic is set between Season Two and Season Three of show canon (as is the planned sequel, BTW). At that point, Twilight has made great strides in learning how to be a good friend, but she's nowhere near the friendship virtuoso she becomes by the time Season Five rolls around. She's bound to make mistakes, and mistakes are often a big part of learning. (Her actions in the S2 finale - namely, accusing "Cadance" of being evil based on little more than circumstantial evidence - spring readily to mind in this regard.)
Twilight's friendship with Moondancer is not, by any means, broken beyond repair. They'll eventually make amends, but it'll take something extraordinary to make it come about.