That's The Night The Lights Went Out In Canterlot

“Hello there!” someone shouted, waking Reggie up from a sound sleep. “It’s so nice to finally meet you in ponyson! I’m Rarity! You must be Reggie!”

“Whut?” Reggie moaned, pulling the covers off his head. “What time is it?”

“It’s ten o’clock, so we’ve got to get started!” the unknown pony cheerfully said. “I know you humans have a pathological need of clothing to cover yourselves, and considering I’ve seen how your kind has such patchy areas of fur barely covering your hides, I can understand why. It’s positively mangy-looking! No wonder the Cutie Mark Crusaders were traumatized! Fortunately for you, the Princesses have commissioned me to design enough outfits to last you your stay with us. I’ll have you looking fabulous in no time!”

“Um—” he muttered, trying to think and grimaced. “Well, I guess I do have to get that taken care of. And pretty quickly, too, since I’ve gotten rather ripe already. The first thing I’m going to need, aside from a shower, is enough sets of underwear and then the outer garments. Does this place have any sort of laundry facilities?”

“Why, yes! It does!”

“Good,” Reggie said, considering the problem as he stood up out of bed and made his way to the restroom. “It would helpful if you can duplicate the items I’m wearing right now. I think about fifteen of each for now, if you’ve got something as soft yet durable as this cotton. Apologies for the odor, though. I’ve been wearing this set since I got out of the hospital. I’ll pass them out to you and take a shower. You probably should get them washed before trying to take measurements off them.”

However, before Reggie could close the door, he felt a warm tingle envelop his entire body and he was lifted off the ground.

“Hey! What are you doing?” he yelled.

“Measurements should only be taken directly from the pony who’s going to be wearing the garments,” Rarity haughtily said, setting him down somewhere he had no idea. “Absolutely not form another set of garments! Doing it like you suggested, Darling…that just isn’t done!”

“Seriously? Trust me, you don’t want to do that,” Reggie warned her. “You really, really, want me to go take a shower right about now!”

“Don’t be silly,” she scolded him. “It won’t take but a min—Oh! Gyahh! Sweet Celestia! Go! GO TAKE A SHOWER!!”

“Can you please send me back to the bathroom door?”

The warm tingle enveloped him once more and he nearly toppled into the restroom. After removing his undergarments and tossing them out the room, Reggie was snickering to himself the entire time he was in the shower.

After cleaning up, he toweled himself dry and started thinking of his options. Even though these creatures apparently didn’t go about with clothing, he didn’t feel comfortable doing the same.

After groping about the restroom for probably half an hour, all he had was the towel he used to dry himself off with and its like-sized mates. So, with it wrapped around his waist, he opened the door to the sleeping chamber.

Immediately, some force yanked the towel away from him.

“Hey!” he yelled as the tingling feeling washed over his body again and he felt himself moved.

“Now, about those measurements, this won’t take but a jiffy,” Rarity stated. Reggie just had to stand and wait.

But as he stood there, occasionally lifting or lowering an arm at Rarity’s instruction, he began to be aware of an extremely low pitched hum hovering about his head. It was very difficult to locate and even harder to identify.

A bug? he thought. Or something else? If it was a bug, it must’ve been fucking humongous, as he heard it flit from one side of his head to the other as Rarity moved about taking her measure of him, sometimes buzzing right in front of his face. The noise was like the blade slap from a helicopter.

For a moment, a slight breeze wafted across his face, carrying the odor of hay at the same moment he knew Rarity was to one side, still measuring his arm.

Reggie inwardly smirked, being sure to keep his face neutral.

He continued to just stand there until Rarity was finished.

“Okay! All done!” she cheerfully told him, her voice sounding odd as if she was trying to suppress a giggle.

“Good,” he muttered. “Now, about that towel you yanked from me,” he began, but was cut off when he felt a large cloth drape over him.

“There you are, darling,” Rarity said as he felt a portion of the fabric tie itself into a knot over his shoulder. “That toga should do you until your clothes come back from the laundry.” Reggie felt over his body, and found he was indeed wearing a Greco-Roman style toga.

“Th-thank you,” he said astonished. “H-how did you even know how to make one?”

“A previous visitor from your world taught it to me,” she explained.

“Oh, okay,” he muttered, straining his hearing to locate that loud hum. “Uh, can you please direct me to the bed? I need to collect some items from there.”

“It’s directly behind you, darling,” Rarity told him, “about three of your strides or so.”

“Thanks,” he said, turning about face and taking the three steps, and slowed. Another half step and he felt the edge of the bed against his knee.

Just as he had hoped, the subsonic hum followed him and moved about to be in front of him.

Then the slightest breeze touched his face again and his hands suddenly shot out, each luckily contacting and grabbing a target and he was rewarded with a surprised squawk. With a mighty heave, he spun 360, lifting the object up before slamming the hovering pegasus down onto the bed, eliciting a yelp from it.

Behind him, he heard Rarity giggling.

He shifted his grip, following the limbs he held toward the creature’s body and found he had initially grabbed the pegasus’ right foreleg and rear hind leg.

“The princesses need to do something about the horseflies here, Rarity!” Reggie said as he leaned forward close to the being’s face and smiled. “I just found a fucking huge bug buzzing about my room!”

“Okay! Okay! You got me!” a gravelly female voice called out laughing.

“So, who are you?” Reggie demanded.

“Rainbow Dash, of course,” she said. “As if you couldn’t tell! Ain’t many pegasi out there with this style of mane.”

“Rainbow Dash….the pegasus friend of Fluttershy,” Reggie tried to recall her.

“Yep! That’s me! The one an’ only! Now, willya let me up?”

“You do know I can’t see, don’t you?”

“Oh! Really? Wow! I guess that explains why you weren’t reacting to all the faces I was making at you,” she ruefully chuckled as he released her. “I just thought it was because you were like all the guards here Princess Celestia and Luna hire. Good catch, by the way. I almost got away before you grabbed me. I’ve usually got better reflexes than that.” That made Reggie laugh.

Yeah, he remembered something about her from the dreamwalking experiments Luna did last night. She was the cocky little rascal, wanting to join some flying team.

“So what brings you here?” He could tell from the nearly subsonic noise of her wings beating the pegasus had resumed hovering nearby.

“Flutters asked me to stop in and see how you’re coping,” she told him. “And I told Rarity to not let on that I was here. Didn’t expect you ta be so entertaining!” He could literally hear her grin when she said that.

“Well, come along now. It’s time for you to speak with Princess Celestia,” Rarity called, pulling his hand through her telekinesis. “We don’t want to be late.”

“Those other humans you mentioned, were they the ones that came and went by a spaceship?” he asked.

“Why, yes!” she responded. “How did you know?”

“Celestia and Luna told me,” Reggie replied. “Those people weren’t from my planet. But it is curious that they apparently had the same form, and now clothing. By the way, just a small thing that’s been bugging me since you arrived, have we met before?”

“We most assuredly had!” she exclaimed. “Last night, in fact, when Luna brought you around to see me during her dreamwalking.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Reggie said, nodding in understanding. “Then you’re the—unicorn, right? White fur with dark blue trim?”

“I beg your pardon?” Rarity asked evidently offended.

“To be honest, I don’t remember much of the dreamwalking,” Reggie explained. “As I told Luna and Celestia, we humans simply aren’t wired to remember our dreams very well. Unless the dream was particularly vivid, we often forget we ever had it. And even in cases where we do remember them, most times, it’s just impressions or emotional features that stay with us. Details of who or what we experience quickly get washed away over time.”

“Oh, you poor thing! You told us the same when we met. We ponies remember all our dreams. But for you to not remember almost half your life?” she exclaimed. “So you really don’t remember us?”

“I remember—something about you guys,” Reggie admitted. But he was also feeling the opportunity to get back at them opening up right then. “It’s easier to associate the types of critters you are to some glaring colors I remember. Names—and what you do—that’s tougher, I’m afraid. Sorry. But some parts are easier than others. Almost certainly the one who’s supposed to be in weather control has to be a pegasus, but I know it’s not Fluttershy.”

“Yep! That’s me!” Rainbow Dash happily announced.

“Okay, that makes sense,” Reggie said, nodding. “So, you’re the purple one with the hat, right?”

“WHAT?!?” Rainbow Dash angrily screamed as Rarity burst out laughing.

“And the one that’s all pink is Applejack, I think. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the blue one with the rainbow mane and tail. Was it Twilight Pie or Sparkle Pink?”

“I think you’re going to need a few more dreamwalking sessions to straighten us out in your mind, darling,” Rarity said giggling.

“I’d be happy to bop him back ta sleep so Luna can fix him, like right away!” the pegasus yelled, swatting a hoof at his shoulder.

“Hey! What’s wrong? What’d I do?” Reggie defensively asked.

“Now, now, Rainbow, dear,” Rarity scolded her friend. “Please remember he can’t see us.”

The pegasus grumbled behind him as they continued walking, while Reggie smirked with his hand on Rarity’s withers, confident the unicorn wouldn’t be looking back at him to see him grinning for pranking them both by mixing up all their names and descriptions.