I tried to shoot them all, but they kept coming. The truck that was blocking the road had a machine gunner on top, and he was shooting everywhere. It seemed like the end when a magical bolt came from behind me, hitting the truck with a fiery explosion that sent a few bad guys flying in the air.

I could only blink in surprise.

“Huh,” a familiar voice called behind me. “It seems like I’m always saving your ass.”

I turned around and spotted a familiar white unicorn with a yellow-ish white coat with purple-orange mane standing on top of a burned derelict car. Her purple cape flowed with the wind, and I could have sworn that the stars on it sparkled. I smiled, approaching her. “Well,” I began, “it is an ass worth saving.”

She chuckled before jumping towards me, and I was somehow able to carry her with just my arms as she wrapped her forelegs around my neck. I enjoyed the floral scent of her purple-red hair that had just a hint of rosemary. I kissed her, tasted her for a moment, which she returned with gusto. She gave me a rather naughty look when we separated.

“Oh, is that an ancient Tibetan ritual dagger in your pocket?” she asked.

“Maybe, uh, I’m just happy to see you?” I asked back. She laughed as she let me go. I then felt her magic going for my pants, and declared, “Yowsa!” as I felt the dull edge of the blade touch my inner thighs when she lifted out the dagger I had hidden there.

She studied the ornate dagger, focusing on the gemstones situated in it. “So,” she began, “this is the key to everything.”

I nodded. “Yup. Marco Polo’s passport to Shambala.”

“So… what do we do with it?” she asked.

“Ah, that… well,” I paused, “I actually don’t know.”

She stared at me for a moment, her face amused. She turned around, looking around, giving me a nice view of her rear, as well as her cutie mark of three smiling flowers. It was rather an engrossing view until she called my name, “Wingman!”

I blinked, and looked at what she was staring at. It was another unicorn, familiar as well, white coat and light pink mane. She was standing at an angle, showing off her cutie mark of entwined rings.

“Who are you?” my companion asked.

“Ever Ring, last year’s model,” the new unicorn replied sarcastically.

I blinked. “I don’t think that’s how it was supposed to go,” I muttered to myself when I heard a familiar tune. Before I knew it, I was opening my eyes.

The rays of Celestia’s sun peeked in through my windows. I blinked, and suddenly felt the warmth of my surroundings. The scent of oranges was rich in the air. Nate’s Theme played continuously from my smartphone, with the drum section muting slightly to give the horns prominence. I sighed, looking to my side to see that Eve was absent from her place. In fact, it looked like she hadn’t slept in the bed at all.

I felt a little frustrated, but I slammed that feeling down and closed my eyes, staying in bed for a moment. I surrendered myself to the excellent instrumentals as I pushed away my annoyance at Eve’s absence, and instead started going through my plans. I had an appointment with Rarity today, and she booked me for the whole afternoon and evening as a favor. One of these days, I would pay her back.

The itinerary had already been decided yesterday, thanks to the rather surprising expansion of the telephone system, as well as the extra plans I had been working on for tomorrow night. It took a bit of work to keep it all hush-hush, but it would be definitely worth the extra effort in the end.

I stood up from the bed, looking at my now-charged smartphone connected to a portable speaker. Eve had been curious about computers—probably started when she had been trying to find ways to keep me up to date with my IT studies—and I showed her whatever devices I’d brought from Earth. They were a little outdated by a few years, but they were enough to show her the wonders of software applications, games, and the like. I remember her commenting that having a computer, maybe a tablet, would make her life a little easier.

I needed to do this today. That thought caused me to relax a bit more.

Turning off the music, I went to the bathroom and took a nice warm shower, then brushed my teeth. Dressed in a plain shirt and shorts, I made my way towards the kitchen, where I saw Eve as she was last night, surrounded by stacks of papers on the table, though now dozing. I shook my head, walked over to her, and gently prodded her neck with my fingers.

“Wha—” she muttered sleepily. Her eyes blinked slowly, almost drooping when she saw me. She blinked faster afterwards, then groaned. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Morning,” I replied, a little peevishness leaking into my tone. She looked out the window for a moment before sighing.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered. “I know I said I’d go to bed.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” I replied softly, before going to my icebox. As I grabbed out a bowl of fruits and a bottle of milk, I heard her continue.

“No, it’s not.” Another sigh. “I’m really sorry I’ve been so busy lately.”

I put those items on the table before going to my cabinet. I grabbed two bowls and a plastic bag of crisped oats—something of an Equestrian equivalent of cornflakes back on Earth. Placing it down beside her stack of papers, and one on my side, I stole a glance at her and saw her genuine remorseful look. It was my turn to sigh.

“I thought we agreed, no work on our respective days off,” I said.

“Well,” she began, her tone now turning a bit more normal, playful, “this isn’t technically work.”

I poured some oats in my bowl, offered the bag to Eve. She magically grabbed it and put some on her own bowl as I filled my bowl with milk. “I see paperwork, and lots of it.”

“It’s more research than paperwork,” Eve replied. “A favor, if you will.”

“Research for what?” I asked, before taking a spoonful. After swallowing, I added, “And a favor for who?”

“The favor is for Princess Celestia and Princess Sparkle,” she replied, also taking a spoonful. We paused a moment to eat as quietly as we could before she continued. “Some of your countries in the UN are asking us to create consultancy positions for humans to fill.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“Well, apparently, to help with the sudden influx of humans,” Eve answered. “They want to send certified Consultants to Equestrian companies so they could both assist and guide employers in hiring human employees.”

I blinked again. “Wait, hold on. Sudden influx of humans?” I asked, regretting not even being up to date with Earth news.

Instead of replying, Eve began shuffling on her stack. With practised ease, she extracted a newspaper, and offered it to me. I took it and read the page that was offering. It was from a newspaper on Earth, under the International section. It took a moment for me to realize what she wanted me to see.

“‘Immigration to Tellus Rises by Almost 400%’,” I read.

“It started with that,” Eve began. “A year ago, there was a proposal for the Equestrian Government and Gryphon Kingdom to limit the acceptance of humans once more. You know, like the time you came here.”

I nodded, remembering how Equestria only took a handful of humans, mostly technical experts that would help them in advancing their technological growth. I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree for Information Technology and had been called here for an interview before things went south. Thankfully, I met Eve who had an alternative job open for me, and started on my journey to becoming a Gentleman, an escort and companion for mares.

Yes, yes. Not quite the job you’d expect from my background, but it was—or rather, still is—a very eventful journey.

“We said no, of course,” Eve continued. “Once the initial problems of relating to one another began to disappear, there were more and more job openings that humans could fill in, especially when the city expansions began to take place. We needed more hooves to help us out, and limiting the entrance of humans willing to work with us seemed to be very counterproductive. Plus, Gryphon is still recovering after the Cloven war. They’re not going to deny themselves more workers.”

I nodded. It made sense. “Okay, so now they want Equestria and Gryphon to hire human consultants?” When she nodded, I shrugged. “I don’t really see how this relates to all of these papers you have. Just say yes. After all, you guys could use all the help you can get, right?”

“That’s what I first thought as well,” Eve said, “Then this appeared.”

Her horn glowed and she extracted a newspaper from her pile. Taking it from the air, I read the headlines.

“‘Male Exodus to Equestria.’” I began to look through the article silently, as numbers and statistics began to dictate the writer’s narrative on how most of the humans traveling were single young men. Then, there was also a little snide side comment on how these men were apparently running away from responsibilities so they could have fun with lonely, ignorant Equestrian mares.

“Wow,” I muttered. “They laid it on a little thick there, didn’t they?”

“Which part?” Eve asked. “The part where young males are running away from responsibilities, or that Equestria is just a country of lonely, ignorant mares?”

I snorted, then laughed. “Both.” I sighed. “And they left out Gryphon too.”

“Good eye,” Eve said, smiling.

I looked at the newspaper again, then sighed. “Another article about males taking advantage of mares. Reminds me of that time.”

Eve looked at me for a moment. “You’re thinking about the controversy of Five Stars’ articles, and what happened to Jackson?”

I nodded. Five Stars was the mare that actually got me into Gentlemen for Mares, a trainer who took me in and gave me shelter from a storm after my rather disastrous first interview. Well, took me in more ways than one, some would say, which for some reason, ticked off Eve in a way that they almost stopped speaking to each other. Recently, though, they were getting more amicable.

“Maybe a little,” I admitted. “Honestly, I didn’t expect her articles about Gentlemen for Mares to garner such reaction—from humans and ponies! And what happened to Jackson—damn.” I shook my head. “Have you seen him? How is he?”

“Like any sane being would be after being ambushed by a hostile crowd,” Eve replied. “He’s back at work.”

I blinked. “Already?”

“So much for retirement, eh?”

I could only shake my head. “After what he went through?”

“Platinum said he insisted,” Eve replied. “And after talking to to him, he confirmed it. He said he wanted to forget what happened on that Tartarus-damned show, and the best way to do it is to get back to work.” She shook her head too. “Scarlet agrees with him, and I guess as long as she handles Jackson correctly, maybe it’s for the best.”

I had to admire the guy. He was given an opportunity to tell his life and work in Equestria, expecting it to be an eye-opener to those that haven’t been here yet. I remember him talking about it when he came back, saying he didn’t expect such a reaction.

Before the show, he had said, everyone treated him like everything was normal in the backstage. He had prepared himself, knowing about how our job didn’t have the best reputation back on Earth. He had expected a few jeers and criticism, but he wanted to at least showcase Equestrian culture, the values, and what we could learn from them.

Instead of being able to express that, he had faced to a crowd who accused him of taking advantage of mares. His parents showing up was probably even worse.

I had watched that video—brought to us by Mike, another Gentleman who came back from Earth—and watched Jackson keep his cool against an onslaught, but even that didn’t last. Scarlet had to come out from backstage to intervene.

He called her a goddamned hero. We agreed.

“So,” I began, folding the newspaper and putting it down the table, “what was it about this article that made you wonder about the consultancy occupation in Equestria?”

“Well, initially, I thought it had to do with the cultural climate,” Eve replied.

“Initially?” I asked.

“Yes,” Eve nodded. “With what had happened with Jackson, I began to look into details of human gender issues.” She looked at her pile. “You know what I have here?” When I shook my head, she continued, “Basically, it’s every type of controversial news that has come up for the past few years on Earth.”

“That’s a small pile, considering the scope,” I said.

“True,” Eve conceded. “I’ve mostly just went for news and opinion pieces from America and Europe, and mostly on the whole man-hating aspect.”

“Man-hating?” I asked.

“Yes. Radical feminism, controversial laws, and such,” Eve said. “I’ve read more terms than I could shake a stick at.” She looked at me. “It’s really fascinating.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Human and Pony history don’t differ on some aspects,” she explained. “Maybe because humans have the same gender ratios that you have some sort of gender civil war going on.” She took a spoonful of oats, chewed them quick, and swallowed. “I mean, you’d think we’d have almost the same type of reaction, even a small one, considering we treated stallions almost as badly as humans treated their females during your medieval times.”

“Some say even after,” I added.

“Arguable,” Eve disagreed. “Your history seems to be rather spotty on some points. I’ve heard that women were treated like chattel only just a hundred years ago, yet I’ve come across books published during your early twentieth century that already have ideas that most of you would call modern.”

I blinked. That was somewhat new. “Like?”

“Well,” Eve began, magically grabbing a paper from the ‘not man-hate’ pile, and began to read through it. “Where was that? Oh, here. ‘Don’t talk down to your wife. She has much as intelligence as your colleague, and only lacks opportunity’. Hundred years ago, tell a mare that in regards to her stallion, and she would have scoffed at you.” She paused. “Anyway, I’ve noticed a pattern.”

“Really?” I asked, leaning in. “What pattern?”

“Almost every article in my man-hate pile is only there because it stirred up all sorts of controversy,” she explained.

Okay, I could see that. “News needs to be exciting to sell.”

Eve smiled. “We have a bit of that too, of course. Gossip columns are very notorious. However, this scale of sensationalism is really baffling. It gave me an odd thought.”

“Which is?”

She paused, looking unsure. “What if the whole gender issue is just one big sensationalistic movement?”

Huh, that was rather an interesting thought, and had some sense. I mean, my memory of it was a little spotty, but if I remember correctly the whole radical feminism issue did seem to spring up almost the same time the whole social justice movement went, well, viral.

Eve then added, quickly, “I’m not saying that the issues here in the man-hate pile are lies, of course. I can’t really say that. I mean, I can sympathize with the controversial rape claims. We’ve had those too.”

“You can rape stallions?” I joked.

Eve didn’t seem to get the humor, and nodded grimly. “How do you think boosters were conceptualized hundreds of years ago?”

I blinked, then shuddered. Boosters were sort of magical viagra that could shorten a male’s refractory period. Knowing that boosters were created for such a dark purpose was something I did not need to know.

“Anyway, if you look at those articles as some sort of sensationalism, then you can see a different angle of how things really go. And everything seemed to be linked, one way or another.”

“How?”

“Looking beyond what’s being written in that Exodus article,” she began, “I see young humans, men and women, traveling to Equestria for better opportunities. Yet, there are controversies every step of the way. Five Stars’ written work, Jackson’s job, and that article—they all seem discourage people from going to Equestria.”

“And they are using the currently very successful controversy of turning everything into a gender issue as an angle,” I guessed.

“Correct,” Eve replied.

I smiled, making Eve look at me. “What?” she asked, hesitantly.

“My Eve is a conspiracy theorist,” I replied.

Eve blinked, pausing, and then in the most adorable way, scratched her neck with her hoof, smiling. “Maybe just a little.” Then she blushed for a second, then looked at me, eyes blazing, and a seductive smile on her lips. “My Eve?”

I liked that look, but I knew the signs of her teasing. So, I replied with the best way I could. “Oh, look, our oats are getting soggy.” Then I proceeded to ignore her, and began eating in a faster pace.

“Harry!” Eve said indignantly.

“What?” I asked, with complete aplomb. “I’m hungry.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled at me, telling me she knew what was up, and I was okay with that. She too began to eat as well, and the next few minutes, the only sound in the kitchen, other than the singing birds, were the crunch of oats.

When we finished, I was about to take them when they began to glow with magenta light. I looked at Eve, her horn lit up, and motioned towards the sink. The bowls did as she commanded.

“I’ll take care of that,” she said as she stood on all fours. She took a few steps before sitting right beside me. “Least I can do.”

“Don’t mind if you do,” I replied, grabbing an apple, and offered it to Eve. She smiled her appreciation, before I grabbed a banana for myself. We both began to eat our respective fruits when a thought popped up my mind.

“Your research,” I began, “is about the human consultants, right?”

“Yeah,” Eve replied with a nod.

“Well, it just seems you went off on a tangent,” I said. “Especially about the whole sensationalism.”

“To be fair, I only came to that angle when I was looking through the whole gender issue.” She frowned. “I wanted to make sure that particular culture wouldn’t cross over to here. I mean, I’ve been reading proposals for gender quotas, affecting wages, and the like. I don’t want any of those ideas to come to Equestria.”

“And you think consultants will introduce said ideas here?”

Eve nodded. “Humans and ponies are already working rather amicably, side-by-side. The whole gender issue and the ideas from it seem toxic.”

“Can consultants even have power to incorporate such ideas, though?” I asked. “I mean, this isn’t Earth.”

“I know,” Eve said. “In some ways, that makes the whole radical feminism dangerous here. Our companies are run by traditional mares. I’m scared the consultants could stoke the old ideas Princess Celestia fought hard to extinguish, and to make changes to start a precedent of treating the human workers differently.”

“Can that happen?”

“Bits talk,” Eve said. “Princess Celestia will do as much as she can, but there are many companies here that can go behind her tail.”

“Of course, you speculated that the whole gender issue is just sensationalism, so the risk is minimum.”

Eve shook her head. “I can’t be completely one hundred sure it is. I mean, I can see its existence, the patterns, but I have to take into account that I am wrong. I don’t think I have even scratched the surface of human complexity. It is very possible it’s just sensationalism. It’s also very possible it is a gender issue. I mean”—she looked at me sideways—“what do you think of the whole gender issue?”

“Something I won’t understand even if I study it for a hundred years?” I said, half-joking, half-serious.

Eve chuckled. “Exactly, that. Only thing I can do is make recommendations on what kind of power we should give the consultants, and hope Princess Celestia and Princess Sparkle will take them to consideration.”

“They will,” I said, confidently. “You helped them before, during First Contact. They will take you seriously.”

Eve just smiled and leaned towards me. I was bathed in her warmth and the scent of flower and honey. I leaned in to kiss her ear repeatedly, earning a small gratified moan from her.

“You know, I am really regretting not coming to bed last night,” she whispered, her voice falling into what I dubbed Audio Erotica—a combination of deep, husky, and feminine rolled into one.

While I can’t do a seductive voice, I do have other skills. “As you should,” I replied, before giving her horn a very gentle kiss with a ghost of a lick. She shivered, then growled.

“You.”

Before I knew it, she pinned me down on the floor, another type of hunger in her eyes. She licked her lips, which stoked my fire a little bit, before she gave me a solid, wet, kiss. I returned it with gusto, tasting the hint of the apple she’d eaten as I stroked her beautiful neck slowly. Her hooves began to roam my waist, trying to go for my shorts. I stopped her, making her growl again before our lips separated.

“Eve, I would love to, but I have an appointment.”

Eve groaned before collapsing on top of me, her mane tickling my face. I chuckled, gently brushing her pink hair gently through my fingers. “Don’t remind me,” she said.

“Considering how heavy our conversation was earlier, I thought it was deliberate,” I teased.

“I’m not that unprofessional!” she protested.

“Of course not,” I agreed. “You just aren’t too fond of her.”

“She’s been showering you with gifts for the past few months, acting like a mare suitor, and hasn’t even said a word to me about it. Can you blame me?”

“Now, now,” I began, “giving me a few extras with my order of clothes is not exactly showering me with gifts. Or being a suitor. She’s just being her usual generous self.”

“All mares are generous to a stallion they want,” she muttered.

“You are so cute when you’re jealous.”

She bopped me gently with her hoof, which got me chuckling. She smiled slightly as well, before frowning. “Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have plans tomorrow?” Eve asked.

I took a moment before nodding. “I need to visit someone, and that may take the whole day. Why?”

Eve looked disappointed, but shook her head and said, “It’s… nothing. I just thought—you know, nevermind that.”

I stroked her head a little. In the six months she had been my marefriend, I never felt as guilty as I did today.

Author's Note

There we go, first chapter in. Thank you shira, coandco, permanent temporary. Also, thanks to the additional assistance of GIULIO, Denim_Blue, TownCrier, AJ_Aficionado, and Firesight. I hope this will be to your liking.