That's The Night The Lights Went Out In Canterlot

“Sometimes, being rulers of Equestria just doesn’t pay enough,” Luna softly muttered to her sister as they watched from the doorway Fluttershy try to coax the human from where he cowered.

“I hear that!” Celestia responded in kind.

“What doest thou suppose went wrong?”

“I suppose—wait! Remember? He didn’t recognize your guards as guards!” Celestia looked at Luna in astonishment. “If he wasn’t expecting to see ponies as guards, then he must have been expecting something else! After all those times we explored that world to where Sunset Shimmer had fled, humans there didn’t seem to be aware of any other sapient life.”

“And with his blindness—!” Luna finished with a groan. “Oh! We are truly sorry, Celie! We did this without thinking!”

“It’s not your fault, Lulu,” Celestia said, covering her sister with a wing. “I, too, thought that with all the contact he has had with Doctor Splint and his nurse, I assumed he was aware we were ponies.”

“What’s your name?” Fluttershy decided to ask, hoping to make better progress with calming the human. At least he had stopped hyperventilating, but she suspected that was only because he had run out of the energy to do so. His body language clearly screamed that he was still in full panic mode, even though he had stopped screaming and was just speaking with her.

“R-Reggie. Reggie Pine,” the human replied.

“That’s a nice name,” she said. “D-d-do you like to walk in the forest, Reggie?” she asked, thinking to distract him from his terror. Hoping to build rapport with him, she chose to pursue a possible relation between his name and a peaceful environment that he might relate to. But her tactic held its own risks, and it made her nervous to try it.

“Yeah. Sometimes,” he said. “Why do you ask?” His question caught her by surprise. He was challenging her. That was a good sign that his panic attack was starting to weaken.

“I do, too. Sometimes,” she told him. “I enjoy hearing the birds singing and animals chattering away at each other. I often wonder what they think of their lives and environment as they go about their daily routine. I always try to listen to them.”

She continued the conversation in that vein, randomly introducing a subject to hopefully take his mind off whatever it was that had sent him into such a panicked reaction, and following where his responses led. Mostly, she let him guide the discussions before she’d bring up something new to talk about. Or she would occasionally ask a question about his home, his people, or the world where he came from, hoping to get an understanding of his culture. Eventually, he began to ask his own questions of her and her culture. Her heart leapt at that, as this was an indicator that his panic was finally broken.

Then he asked her why she was there. And she explained how she was approached by the guard force yesterday evening and requested to come to Canterlot.

“…And that’s why the princesses asked me to come talk with you, because I have a talent for relating with non-ponies,” she said as a conclusion. “I apologize for not reacting quicker to stop Princess Luna from giving you a hug. I saw too late that you were having a panic attack.”

“Except ‘ponies’ don’t have wings and horns!” Reggie countered.

“Well, it’s true that earth ponies don’t,” Fluttershy quickly admitted. “But pegasi have wings. And unicorns have horns. And of course the princesses, who are alicorns, they have both. I’m a pegasus, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

She watched Reggies’ eyes dart back and forth and his head jerked to tilt with micro movements this way and that, as he processed what she had told him. There were numerous minor twitches throughout his body, which she would dearly love a chance to learn how to read him. But there was some definite improvement, she could clearly see he was beginning to relax, but he also was still very wary.

“W-w-would y-you l-like to examine my w-wing?” she fearfully asked, extending one toward him, just a foot away from body. She watched his throat worked as he nervously swallowed. Finally, he nodded. “Pl-please be gentle. Our wings are rather sensitive. J-just r-reach out with your p-paw.”

“My ‘hand’,” he corrected as he raised his right forelimb to his chest then carefully extended it out. Fluttershy shivered when he made contact. Once he felt her, he jerked back for a moment before reaching out again. This time, he gently stroked the forward edge of her manus, instinctively following the lay of her feathers from the alula, over her primary coverts and her primaries.

“Those—those are some big feathers,” he whispered in evident awe. He repeated his gentle exploration of her limb.

“Th-thank you,” Fluttershy responded, blushing. He had such a kind and gentle touch. He touched her alula feathers again, but this time he held his—‘hand’—there. She watched his face and noted that his seemed to struggle with his expression. His breathing became erratic and quickened, even as he seemed to struggle with controlling it.

“Sorry,” he whispered, pulling his hand away and turned his head to not face her. If she guessed, it looked as though he might start weeping at any moment. His evident distress broke her heart.

“It’s okay,” she softly said to him. “I think I understand. If you want, you can hold my wing some more.” His face registered tremendous gratitude as he cautiously reached out to hold her wing again. It was quickly revealing how much his expressions resembled that of ponies.

“It’s just—” he began speaking before stopping as he struggled to reign in his emotions.

“It’s just—these,” he said, holding up his other hand, “these hands and fingers—they make piss poor substitutes for eyes—but—they’re the only eyes I have now,” he finished, and a single tear slid down his face. The tear fell off his chin and dropped onto the figure of a green draconequus he wore about his neck. When the tear touched the material, the medallion glowed with an inner light for a moment. It was very pretty. The carving was quite unlike Discord. She would have to remember to ask him about others of his kind when she got back home.

“I understand,” she said to him. “I really do! For a pegasus to-to lose her sight, it-it would be tantamount to a death sentence!” He silently nodded in agreement.

“M-may I ask how you lost your sight?” she nervously inquired, knowing the severity of his loss and how emotionally impacting it must be for him.

“A concussion to the back of my brain,” he flatly stated. Suddenly, so detached! His response was almost as professional as a physician. “It—it damaged the occipital lobe. It may or may not heal, and I’ll never know until I actually get my sight back—if ever.”

Then he gave her wing a gentle nudge with his hand as he suddenly smiled at her.

“Heh! Talking ponies!” he said with a chuckle. “If I could’ve seen when the first guy came in, I might have simply thought I was going crazy. But this—” he looked and gestured with his left hand at the space around him, “would never have happened. I can’t imagine how funny it must’ve looked seeing me freak out just now.”

Fluttershy was horrified that he could think of such a thing.

“NO! How can you even say that?” she exclaimed. “It wasn’t funny at all!”

“Well—in a way, you’re right. It certainly wouldn’t have been very funny if you guys were tentacled acid-blooded brain-sucking xenomorph monsters,” he said, grinning. “But freaking out over ‘ponies’? Now you’ve got to admit, that was funny!”

She had to blink several times as she thought of that.

“I suppose—if you put it that way,” she finally agreed. “But I would never laugh at somepony for having a panic attack! I know all too well what those are like!”

“Perhaps,” Reggie said. “I don’t know all the situations you might have found yourself in, but are there any of those that were completely unjustified, panicking over something totally nothing, or even silly?”

“Well—some,” Fluttershy admitted.

“And you never laughed at your own reactions for them afterwards?”

“Um—no. Never,” she sadly replied.

Fluttershy was startled as she watched him shift his body about, getting his rear legs under his frame, but he remained crouched and low to the ground with her.

“Are you sure you’re not a brain-sucking monster?” he asked.

“Of course not!”

“And your blood doesn’t eat its way through steel plating?”

“Why would you think such a thing?”

“No tentacles?”

“Um—no?”

He slowly shifted his body way from the corner where he had been crouching and inched closer toward her. He used the hand on her wing to guide his way until he was crouching right beside her, and he gently moved his right hand to lie on her withers.

“I’ve gotten over my panic attack, so I can laugh about mine,” he said, smiling to her as he hugged her. “But you evidently still haven’t gotten over yours. Rest assured that when you do, you’ll be able to laugh about it, too. I wish I could help you, as you’ve helped me. Thank you.”

“That’s the sort of advice Pinkie Pie has always been telling me,” she said, looking at him in wonder.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” she said, smiling at him. “D-do you think you’re ready to meet the princesses?”

“I guess so,” he muttered. Then he leaned in close to her ear, using his hand to locate where hers was. “Are you sure they’re not brain-sucking monsters?” he whispered, making her giggle.

“I’m sure!” she responded in kind. “Come on,” she said, getting to her hooves and folding her extended wing. He stood up easily on his rear legs, much as a minotaur would, but his legs looked different from theirs and he used her withers as his point of contact between them. She guided him around the furniture and medical equipment that had shifted about during his panicked run and toward the two princesses still waiting at the door.

They had patiently stood there, watching and listening to Fluttershy work to calm the human down. In her thousands of years of rule, Celestia had had experience doing the same thing with numerous ponies, griffons, dragons, and other beings. But such times, she had only been truly successful after learning to read their respective body languages. The same could be said for Luna, with her sister taking more opportunities to explore and encounter such creatures in their youth. But never had she seen anypony else that had such an instinctive intuition who could go up, sight unseen, and perform such a task like Fluttershy was doing now. It was no wonder the Element of Kindness had selected her!

Then the human shocked her as he left his retreat and moved toward Fluttershy! They spoke some more and finally stood and began walking toward her and her sister.

Backing up, Celestia and Luna allowed the two to exit the room.

“Reggie Pine, this is Princesses Celestia and Luna, rulers of Equestria,” Fluttershy announced.

“Welcome to Equestria,” Celestia said to him.

“Thank you,” Reggie replied. “And—I—I have to apologize for the things I said yesterday, as well as my little reaction just now. Up until I touched you, I had thought I was still somewhere on Earth. But the mental image I had created about you just got violently ripped to shreds. I guess my mind had to undergo a bit of a reboot,” he said with a giggle.

“Anyhow, my crack about ‘the horses you rode in on’ was completely out of line,” he continued. “I’m very sorry.”

“Especially, as it turns out, we are the horses we rode in on,” Luna wryly remarked, cutting in.

“Yeah! Indeed!” he agreed with a laugh. “I’m deeply sorry for insulting and offending you by saying anything like that.”

“Quite understandable,” Celestia acknowledged. “You evidently had no idea the ‘statues’ you were looking were Luna’s guards. And they were also quite surprised, with you literally coming out of nowhere.”

“No,” Reggie replied. “No, I didn’t. And I’m sorry I frightened them. I guess, when I was about to touch one—just before I got hit, I thought I saw its eye move—although, I thought that was just my imagination. But he really was real, wasn’t he?”

“Aye, they are,” Luna replied. “Ralph and Sam art the guards thou encountered.” At her instruction, the two waiting guards approached.

“I’m sorry I hurt you so badly,” Ralph told him.

“Hey, it was an accident,” Reggie said, turning toward the two. He held out his hand, but then hesitated.

“Uh—you’re not going to hit me again, are you?” the human asked.

“Of course not!” Ralph replied with a laugh, reaching his own forelimb out to shake hooves with Reggie. “I really hope you recover your sight soon.”

“Me, too,” Reggie said. “You guys really looked so cool! I’d love to see you guys again sometime.”

“Really?” Sam asked astonished. “Most ponies are rather nervous about us.”

“Sure,” Reggie replied.

“Why would you feel so?” Ralph asked.

“Well, for one, I’m not a pony,” Reggie replied, snickering. That got the two guards laughing, too.

“Since they are responsible for thy injuries, we have assigned them to be thy assistants ‘til thy recovery,” Luna said. “At least, during the evening hours.”

Reggie turned back to her and held out his left hand to her.

“May I?” he asked. Luna nodded, then belatedly remembered.

“Thoust may,” she told him. Reggie gently reached out to her, making contact with the base of her neck.

“And I’m sorry I hurt you when I panicked,” he sincerely told her.

“We were not injured,” Luna said, stepping closer to him. “But thou were!” she said, holding him with foreleg and wing as she had before. This time, Reggie reciprocated her hug and didn’t fight it.