It was a long trip. I was dead tired. I sat comfortably on the hotel room bed, watching TV. I flipped through the channels, hoping to find some MLP, but no luck, of course, so I settled on Seinfeld. I hate Seinfeld, why am I watching this? I wanted to sleep, but despite my exhaustion, it didn't come to me. I flipped the channels some more, but eventually, I turned off the TV and threw the remote to the far corner of the bed. I decided to hit up the hotel bar, thinking maybe a little booze would relax me. Lazily rolling out of bed, I put my shoes back on my aching feet, and my cheap suit jacket back on.
After strolling through the lobby, I located the hotel bar, right where it was when I checked in. Walking in, I looked around and saw the place was dead empty, except for one girl at the bar. She was a blonde, in a slinky black dress. Couldn't see her face yet, but from what I saw so far, she's a knockout. I casually took a seat at the bar, next to her, albeit a comfortable distance away. She looked in my direction and I looked at her, managing a slightly awkward smile, and a quick "Hi."
She greeted me back with an equally quick "Hi." I detected a hint of depression in her voice, poorly hidden by a weak smile. She went back to stirring her martini with the olive on a toothpick.
Finally the bartender appeared and flatly asked me, "What'll it be?" Clearly he had a long night too, even if the bar was empty right then.
"Can you do a frozen margarita?" The bartender nodded and began to walk away to make the drink. "And make it strong!" I yelled after him. Not the manliest drink, I am aware, but I just didn't feel like taking my booze straight right then.
I sat there a minute or two in silence. Suddenly the hot girl next to me turned and asked, "Where are you from?" I noted a little more happiness in her voice this time.
I looked at her, and replied, "Chicago."
"Oooh, where's that?"
I sat dumbfounded for a moment. Who the hell doesn't know where Chicago is? How many has she had? The bartender interrupted my thought process and delivered my much needed alcohol (especially after that question of hers). He demanded ten dollars for the drink, and, grumbling about the price, I dug a ten out of my worn black leather wallet. I took a drink of the cold beverage and decided to answer her question with another, "So where are you from?"
She almost said something, but quickly revised it to "…Oh, I- I'm not from around here…"
No shit. I wasn't from around there either (hence the hotel). Her accent wasn't unusual or foreign in any noticeable way, but even if it was, who doesn't know where Chicago is?! This drove me crazy. Both of us sipped our drinks in silence for a while. The margarita tasted watered down, of course. Prick bartender. My drinking partner polished off her martini and picked up the olive toothpick. She stared at the olive as she spun the toothpick between her thumb and index finger. I was watching her, probably a bit awkwardly, but right then, I didn't really care. She was the weird one, not me.
After she grew tired of the olive, she bit it off the toothpick and devoured it. Suddenly she turned to me and asked, "Hey! You wanna make love?!"
I coughed and spit my mouthful of watered down margarita back into the glass. After a brief coughing fit, I looked at her face, she was staring right at me with a huge shit-eating grin. Finding myself opening and closing my mouth like a fish, yet incapable of refusing such a request, I just nodded at her, with the dumbest look on my face. She grabbed my hand and pulled me off my bar stool. Still holding my drink in my other hand, I chugged what was left of it, cringed from a brainfreeze, and left the empty glass on a table on my way out, as this horny mystery woman dragged me to her room to have her way with me.
On the way to her room, she still had me by the hand, my mind was awash with questions and concerns. The first question, naturally, was 'why?' but I set that one aside for later. The next one was 'is she a hooker?' The last thing I wanted was to get stuck with the bill for a hooker with that body. Not to mention that I'm not that kind of guy in the first place. Another question popped into my head: 'is she a he?' I examined her body shape from behind, as she drug me along, and decided the answer was no, but you can't be too sure these days. I'd find out soon anyway. Please let her be a woman.
She fumbled with her room's key card, but managed to get the door open anyway. I noticed she was still grinning. Grabbing me by the hand again, she pulled me into the dark room, and closed the door behind me.
A short while later…
Well that was interesting. It was good (who am I kidding? It was great), but interesting. She insisted on being on top, and she made a lot of noise. A lot of weird noise. As I laid there in bed next to her, I realized that I didn't even know her name. I tried to think of a casual way to ask her. Trying to sound suave, but probably failing horribly, I said, "You know… I never got your name…"
"Lyra, what's yours?" She happily answered.
Suddenly, my mind clicked, as it makes a series of connections and assumptions in a split second. 'Where is Chicago,' 'Not from around here,' the way she fumbled with the key card, that oh-so-recognizable mint green color of her fingernail polish, the way she stared at that olive… she wasn't staring at the olive! She was staring at her hand!
I took too long to reply, and she fidgeted a little, prompting me to answer. I coughed up my name, "Michael," still in a blaze of confusion. I tried to think of a way to ask her the obvious question at hand, but found myself completely unprepared for such a situation. 'Are you a pony?' 'Are you from Ponyville?' 'What's your favorite musical instrument?' 'If you had a tattoo on your ass, what would it be?' None of these questions could have been pulled off. Eventually, of course, I realized that this was probably just a HUGE coincidence. If anything, she was a fan of the show just like me. I mean, she couldn't possibly be…
My thoughts were interrupted by a blinding white light. Lyra grabbed hold of me, pressing her warm body against mine. In a matter of seconds, I heard a loud noise, like a gunshot, and the light went away.
What happened? I was still on the bed, in the darkness, but something was wrong. It felt like I was falling. Lyra was still clutching me. Suddenly I was jerked and I bounced on the bed. I was falling, or actually, the bed was falling. I opened my eyes and looked around me. I wasn't in the hotel room anymore. It was dark, but paying more attention this time, I noticed a beautiful starry night sky above me. Lyra let go of me and rolled off the mattress and onto the grassy ground. I sat up in the bed and took a quick look around to survey my new surroundings. It was a fairly open grassy field, with a few trees here and there, and what looked to be a forest a few hundred feet away. I couldn't make out much else in that darkness.
Lyra looked up from rolling around on the grass (she was still buck naked), and met eyes with me. "Hey! You came with me!" She said, excitedly.
"Did I have a choice!?" I asked, annoyed. I wasn't even entirely sure what the hell just happened, or where I was, but I had a pretty good guess. She frowned and looked like she was about to cry. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean it like that. But where are we anyway?"
She perked up a little bit. "Somewhere by the Everfree Forest…"
That confirmed it then. She was who I thought she was, and I was where I thought I was. But holy friggin' shit, if we weren't on that mattress…
Plus, I was near the Everfree at the dead of night.
Realizing I was completely nude, I became thankful that the whole bed came with us. Although my pants were on the floor, my shirt and boxers managed to stay on the bed. I hurriedly got dressed in what clothes I had, and I planted my bare feet on the cool grass. Lyra was just lying on her back, on the grass, in the nude, staring at the stars. "Lyra," I said "shouldn’t we go somewhere… away from the forest? You know, safe?"
She vaguely agreed "…Yeah."
"Ok, well where should we go?" I was about to suggest some places, when it finally sunk into my head, where exactly I was. I knew it moments ago, but between my panic and my brain telling me 'there's no fuckin' way,' I hadn't really accepted it. I was in the land of ponies and magic and friendship. The place that bronies like me could only dream of. The promised land. And I should have been excited. In a way I was. But I was still scared shitless of that forest.
"Let's go to my friend's house, she should be expecting me." Lyra finally said. "It's not far."
Friend's house huh? Bon-Bon maybe? Lyra got up and brushed some blades of grass off of her stunning body. I didn't exactly get to see the complete picture of her form before, but here, under the moonlight… oh man. She was getting ready to start walking away, in the nude. "Lyra, put some clothes on!"
"Why do humans wear clothes all the time anyway?" She asked, cocking her head sideways.
I briefly explained, "It's mostly for modesty, we don't like being seen naked."
"Weird…" She said, thinking about it.
"It's also a little cold out, humans don't have fur to keep them warm…" I grabbed the only crumpled-up sheet on the bed and draped it over her shoulders. She seemed not to mind.
"I was a little cold…" She snuggled under the bed sheet a little. "Let's get going."
As I followed my female companion, I couldn't help but notice something. She used me. For sex. Experimental human sex.
After pondering this for a while, I came to the conclusion that I was ok with this.
She was right, it wasn't far. We walked up to a house, the lights were still on inside. I couldn't quite tell what house it was, in the darkness, but I had a guess.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK "Fluttershy! Open up! It's me, Lyra!"
The door opened slowly and I heard a familiar soft voice on the other side of it.
"Hi Lyra… What took you so long?" I detected a slight annoyance in Fluttershy's voice.
"I dunno. I brought a friend with me!" Lyra happily answered, pushing herself through the door. I mused that Lyra's quirky personality almost mirrors that of Pinkie Pie's.
I saw the yellow pegasus through the doorway. She looked at me in surprise, then looked away. I felt nervous about entering. "Um… Hi. Fluttershy, right?" I tried to fake an introduction, despite knowing all about her.
She made a small squeaking noise in response.
"Do you… mind if I come in?" I asked, pointing at the threshold, frightened of giving a bad first impression to one of the most sensitive characters in the show. My disheveled appearance, and the fact that I was half naked, unshaven, and stank of sex probably wasn't helping.
She gave me a barely perceptible nod, and I carefully walked inside. Lyra had already made herself comfortable, sitting on the floor by a little table. I decided to join her. Fluttershy cautiously approached, trying to remain closer to the human version of her pony friend than me.
"So did you have fun?" Fluttershy asked Lyra. Again, I detected some annoyance in her tone.
Lyra took a deep breath, as if to say something very long and exciting, but all she said was, "Kinda…"
What the hell was that supposed to mean? I gave Lyra a look.
"Well, I had fun with you!" She smiled. That's better. Lyra briefly introduced me to Fluttershy, who gave me a weak smile.
Fluttershy walked off to tend to some of her animals. I decided now was a good time to ask Lyra a little about herself. "So Lyra… I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that you're not normally a human…" I knew the answer but I didn't want to let them know how much I know about them.
"Oh no, I'm a unicorn… usually." She stuck her tongue out at me. "Our friend Twilight did this for me." Lyra gestured in the direction that Twilight would be.
"How long were you in my world?"
"A week." She said, becoming distracted by some of the little animals running around in the room.
"So um, what do we do now?" I couldn't help but wonder what would happen next.
"Oh, we'll sleep here tonight, and tomorrow, Twilight will come by and change me back…" There was that sadness in her voice again. This time I could see it in her face too. She was trying to hide it, but I could see it anyway. I felt bad for her. Fluttershy walked back towards us with some blankets and pillows on her back.
"Here you go… have a good night." She put the blankets and pillows on the little table and walked upstairs.
"Goodnight, Fluttershy." I called after her. Lyra seemed to have already forgotten her woes and was already making herself a bed on the floor. I joined her.
That was one hell of a night.
"WHAT!?" This loud word woke me from my peaceful slumber. "YOU BROUGHT ONE HERE?!" The voice was yelling so loudly, and I was so groggy, that I couldn't make out who it belonged to.
"…well, he sorta just came with me." I recognized this somber voice as Lyra's. I started to roll around.
"ACK! IT'S WAKING UP!" The other voice yelled.
"His name is Michael…" Lyra interjected.
I sat up angrily and looked at the source of my morning irritation, and shouted back at it "Of course I'm awake with you SHOUTING SO MUCH!" I realized I couldn't see much, so I rubbed my eyes and looked again. "Twilight?"
"How did you know my name?" She asked, completely dumbfounded. "How did he know my name?!"
I just blurted out her name didn't I? Um… "Lyra told me?" Speak of the devil, I spotted her near Twilight, in her much more familiar mint green form. She trotted over to me and gave me a big smile and a hug.
"Mornin' sunshine!" She was not the least bit concerned that I might not recognize her in pony form.
"Mornin' Lyra, how'd you sleep?" I asked her.
"Like a human!" Completely not what I meant, but whatever. How does one sleep like a human anyway?
Twilight walked over to us, she did not look happy. "I am NOT going to have you looking like that!"
I looked down at myself briefly, then back up to Twilight. "What's that supposed to mean?" She answered this by shooting me with magic. I was lifted off the ground and then the magic intensified. "OW! WHY DOES IT HURT?!" I shouted. In a matter of moments, she was done and dropped me on the floor. I felt dizzy, but I had a pretty good idea what had just happened. As soon as I opened my eyes, I couldn't help but notice that the world looked different. Like those huge pony eyes had a different lens angle or something. I looked to the most obvious thing first, my forelegs. Yep. Hooves… why was I not surprised?
I put my two front hooves flat on the floor and pulled myself up. I had trouble getting my hind legs to do what they needed to do. But I got myself up eventually. "Gee, it's nice to meet you too, Twilight."
"Sorry about that, I kinda freaked out a bit." She looked away, realizing the full extent of her first impression upon me.
Once the dizziness wore off, I couldn't help but admire my new form. My coat was piss yellow, and my mane and tail were green. "Might as well call me Lemon Lime…" I joked. I put a hoof to my forehead, then looked at my sides, yep. Dirt pony. I checked my ass, and sure enough there was a cutie mark there. Just what I expected too: an airplane. A passenger jet which looked like a 747. I am a travel agent, after all, it made sense. Of course this would be a bit confusing to them.
"What's that?" Lyra asked, pointing a hoof at my cutie mark.
"Wow you spent a week in my world and you don't know what an airplane is?"
"OOOH! So that's what an airplane looks like!"
"What's an airplane?" Asked Twilight.
Sigh.
So after Twilight dragged Lyra and I to Ponyville, we stopped at some kind of restaurant for breakfast. Lyra ordered grass pancakes, and I just said "what she's having," Twilight said she ate already. Surprisingly, grass pancakes were not bad. They tasted fruity, maple syrup went well with them. Don't judge me. My pony mouth liked them anyway.
Twilight couldn't help but ask, "So what do humans eat?"
Lyra answered, "Oh you know, vegetables, fruits… no grass or hay though."
I looked at Lyra and she looked back at me with a 'keep quiet' look on her face. But I just couldn't pass up that opportunity. "We eat meat. Copious amounts of bloody red meat."
Lyra gawked at me, and lightly punched me in the side with a hoof. I just laughed. Twilight was a little surprised, but not shocked as I imagined she would be. "Surprised, Twilight?"
"I suppose it is a little strange for a primate to be a carnivore."
"Not scared of the vicious meat-eater?"
"Why would I be? Griffons eat meat, and my pet owl eats mice."
I just face-hoofed. I didn't even think about that. "Lyra, did you…?" I trailed off, making a vague gesture with my hoof, assuming she knew what I meant.
"…No, I didn't want to. I just told everypony I don't eat meat, and they all just… seemed to understand… why is that?"
"Vegetarianism… some humans choose not to eat it."
Twilight and Lyra both seemed fascinated by this.
"Well, shall we go to the library?" Twilight asked with a quirky smile.
Twilight asked questions about my world for hours. They were all directed at Lyra, since she's the one who ventured there, and I didn't want to steal the spotlight from her. Occasionally I did have to fill in some blanks for Lyra, but there weren't many, she was very keen to study my world while she was there. Eventually the topic of money came up.
"What did you do for money, Lyra?" I asked.
"Oh, well I didn't know how much I would need, so I took a big bag of bits with me. And as soon as I got there, somepo… human saw my bag and asked me what was inside. So I let him see it and he liked it so much, he traded me a big pile of paper monies for all of it! He said it was ten thousand 'bucks'…" Lyra tried to make air-quotes with her hooves when she said 'bucks,' I don't think Twilight understood the gesture.
Twilight looked at me and said, "Bucks? What a silly name for a currency." (As if their naming system for things in this world was any less ridiculous.) "Is ten thousand bucks a lot?"
"Yeah, you could buy…" I trailed off as I wondered what kind of monetary comparison I could possibly make that would make sense to ponies. A nice used car, a first class plane ticket to another continent, yeah, not gonna happen. "Well… it's a lot."
Twilight fired a few more questions at Lyra, and then wrapped up her notes. I was getting hungry again by then, it was probably way past lunch time anyway. "If you're done with the notes Twilight, can we go get something to eat? I'm starving."
"Yeah, me too!" Lyra added.
"Oh no, I'm sorry Michael, but I have to send you back now." Twilight added.
"WHAT?" Lyra and I said in unison, each of us just as shocked as the other.
"Well we can't just have him stay here!" Twilight defended.
"WHY NOT?" We said together again. I added, "She got to stay in my world for a week! I haven't even been here a whole day!"
"I don't know how to say this Lyra… But what we've been doing isn't exactly… allowed. Nopony can find out. They'll probably banish us… or something…" Twilight said.
"But you made him look like us! Nopony will ever know..." Lyra countered.
"Yeah!" I added.
"What if he blows his cover? I can't take that chance. Besides, he doesn't belong here." Twilight wasn't changing her mind.
Both Lyra and myself were simply at a loss for words, stammering to try and suggest a valid reason why I should stay. Before either of us could come up with a reply, I was shot with magic again, but this time it didn't hurt. I just felt like I was drifting out of consciousness. Feeling half asleep, I finally came up with something to say, "I didn't get to meet the others…" I didn't say it very loud, they probably didn't hear it.
Right before I completely blacked out, I heard Lyra yelling, "NOOO!"
Laughing. I heard laughing. As I gained consciousness, I could tell it wasn't ordinary laughing… It was a laugh track for some shitty sitcom.
I sat up, and sure enough, the first thing I saw was the TV. Bad actors spouting cheesy one-liners, with an even cheesier laugh track added to make the writers feel like their jokes weren't as bad as they actually were.
Seinfeld.
I hate sitcoms. I was confused for a minute. Something happened. Something I couldn't remember. Must've been a dream.
I got my lazy ass off the bed, and went to the bathroom to take a leak. Apparently I fell asleep in my shirt and boxers. I finished my business and washed my hands. I looked at my tired self in the mirror. I put on a big fake smile just to see how bad I looked, being disheveled, tired, and unshaven. I didn't really like what I saw, and I had something stuck in my teeth. Figures. I wondered how long I had walked around with that stuck there. I got closer to the mirror and examined further. I picked it out and looked at the offending piece of food on my fingernail. It looked like spinach… or…
Suddenly I remembered some of the dream I had. It was still hazy, but there were ponies. And I was…
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Who the hell would knock on my hotel room door at this time of night? I tiptoed out of the bathroom and looked through the peephole in the door. There was a girl standing there… a blonde in a slinky black dress…
That was one hell of a night.
