Nona On Earth

Nona and I stepped out of the transport arch onto the station platform. She had shifted into the form of an absolutely stunning cream skinned green eyed redhead while we were in transit.

I was glad of that because, although ponies were pretty common on Earth, now, I was sure very few if any ponies or humans had ever seen a changeling in their natural form. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t want to but you never know; there’s some pretty freaky humans out there. (Fuck me! I was one of them!)

I looked around, saw a sign. Park Street Station. I headed across the platform to a flight of old Victorian style iron and concrete stairs, headed up with Nona close behind.

Another platform, this one for trolley cars, another flight of stairs.

It’s a good thing Nona had a parasol. It was a bright day. We stepped out of that ancient Victorian transport entrance onto the corner of the Park and Tremont streets on the edge of the Boston Commons.

Those entryways had to be two hundred years old. Everything else in Boston was new, why the fuck had they kept these ugly, ancient things?

I looked around. I wasn’t surprised to see ponies either walking hurriedly, lounging on the grass of the Boston Commons reading books, sitting on benches reading newspapers or talking with humans or other ponies. That had been a common sight from the time I was boy.

I tried to imagine a time when there were no ponies on Earth. I couldn’t. There had to be a time when there weren’t any, though, I just couldn’t picture it.

I smiled when I saw the old North Church across the street. Had they renovated it? It looked kind of new.

I turned right and we headed toward a corner, pushed the walk button on a stop light and waited.

People were staring at Nona. That stunning, beautiful, gorgeous redhead. Guys looked at me with envy, women looked at her with jealousy. We ignored them.

“You gonna be okay in that form for a while?”, I asked her.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine”, she said.

Just then she looked up, saw some pigeons sitting on utility a wire above our heads.

“What’re those?”, she asked, glancing at me sidewise.

“Pigeons”, I said, "I thought you’d been to Earth, before?”

“Yeah, but I never saw those, before!”, she said. She suddenly got a look in her eye. I knew what was coming. I wondered if she chewed before swallowing?

As I watched, her tongue shot out, snagged one of the pigeons and dragged it, flapping and squawking all the way down to her mouth. Gulp! That slowmo vore thing again as it slid down her gullet fighting desperately all the way down. The sight of that gorgeous redhead swallowing a live pigeon whole! Anyway, that answered my question! She didn’t chew.

A well dressed businessman who’d been waiting with us for the light to change had seen the whole thing. He stared, shocked, paled, took a couple of stumbling steps backward before he turned and ran down the street terrified and screaming.

Nona blushed. “Sorry about that”, she said, realizing what she’d unwittingly done.

“Meh”, I shrugged, “It’ll give him something to tell his wife. If he has one. Or his girlfriend.”

“What if he’s gay?”, she asked.

“Huh! I hadn’t thought of that”, I shrugged. ‘If he wasn’t gay before this he would be, now!’, I thought. Poor bastard would probably have nightmares for the rest of his life.

Light change. Green. We crossed Tremont street, walked down to Winter street. A moment later we were on Washington street. I looked around, remembering where everything was.

“So, what’re we doing here?”, she asked, eyeing another line of pigeons on an overhead wire. She started to open her mouth, thought better of it.

“Currency exchange”, I said, “We can’t use bits here.”

We  turned left and we headed up Washington street. It was late afternoon so the tall, old Victorian skyscrapers put the street in shade which was nice for Nona.

We walked about a half block until I saw a black enamel painted door with the words “Greater Boston Currency Exchange painted on the glass in gold leaf letters. We stepped inside.

An elegantly dressed middle aged man smiled and greeted us as we stepped up to the glass counter.

“May I help you, sir?”, he asked.

I opened my duffle, took out my bag of bits, laid it on the counter.

He smiled as he picked it up, daintily hefted it, opened it and looked inside.

He stepped away, returning a moment later with a bit counter. He started counting the coins.

“Nice weather we’re having”, I said, trying to make small talk to pass the time. He grunted but said nothing. Yeah, he was trying to be nice but it was clear he had no desire to rub elbows with the unwashed masses. Snobby prick.

He finished counting a moment later, took a small, yellow pad from under the counter, filled out a receipt. A moment later he slid the pad toward me with a pen.

“Sign here, please”, he said, pointing to the signature line.

I scribbled my name. He separated the sheets from the pad, handed one to me, stepped off to the back room, returned a moment later.

“One, two three hundred and... Fifty three cents”, he said, as he counted out the hundred dollar bills and some coins.

Three hundred bucks for about twelve thousand bits!? Fucking exchange rates. I wondered if I was being gypped.

“Oh, can I get change for the train?”, I asked.

The bastard eyed me like I’d just called his mother a whore.

“Nevermind”, I said, as I snatched the receipt and the money off the counter and we headed out the door to Washington street.

Just then, off to the left,  a glint of bright red neon caught my eye. I looked.

Bickford’s said the neon sign. I was shocked! They’d rebuilt Bickford’s Cafeteria? I grinned broadly as I headed  for the entrance.

“You hungry?”, I asked over my shoulder.

“Can I snag another pigeon?”, Nona asked from just behind me, “I like those! The feathers tickle on the way down.” I cringed.

“You might like this”, I said, “they used to have the best turkey dinners. I hope they still do.”

Nona frowned but followed me as we stepped through the huge chromed steel and glass double doors.

Yep! It was just like I remembered! Large, black and white checkered linoleum floor,  chrome trimmed red tables and chairs and, of course, the huge, chrome and glass cases, showing dozens of well lighted steam trays.

A pretty little Asian woman stood by the cash register eyeing us as we walked in. I grabbed a red plastic tray, some napkins and silverware from the end of the counter, took a few steps toward the cash toward her and started looking at the different items on the other side of the glass.

“You still got the full turkey dinner?”, I asked

“Yah, we got dat”, she said. She looked bored.

“I’ll have that”, I said, smiling and licking my lips.

She grabbed a large plate and started spooning stuff onto it. Sliced turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, cranberry sauce, large white-bread roll. A moment later a ladle of gravy over the potatoes. She paused, looked at me.

“You wan’ gravy on your turkey?”, she asked in very charming accent. I smiled, nodded, imagined what she looked like naked. Nona smacked my arm and gave me a look. Her damn mind reading again!

The server obliviously but generously poured gravy over the turkey.

“An’ what wou’ you  like?”, she asked Nona, who pointed out the window at some pigeons sitting on a wire outside.

“Can I get some of those cooked?”, Nona asked.

The server looked at her like she was sprouting heads!

I leaned in toward the server.

“She’s not from around here”, I said, in a grinning, winking aside. The server continued to stare.

“Give her the baked chicken dinner”, I said. The server started filling up another plate.

We moved to the register, the server started ringing us up.

“So, where your frien’ from?”, the server asked casually as she fingered the keypad.

“Equestria”, Nona said. The server paused, eyed her.

“You don’ look like you from Equestria”, she said, “I thought you was all horses or something?” She’d obviously never been there.

“Ponies”, I corrected.

“Wha’ever”, she shrugged.

Just then Nona shifted back to her normal Changeling form.

“But I am from Equestria”, Nona smiled as pleasantly as a hole riddled, scraggle horned, green eyed, massively fanged changeling could.

The server looked up, froze, stared. She looked like she was about to piss herself.

“Uh... Uh... This dinner on the house! You have a nice meal!”, the server squeaked as she turned and ran for the back room.

“But, I need change for the bus!”, I called.

A second later a hand full of bills flew out from the back room, fluttered to the floor, followed by, “There! You go get bus now! We’re closed!”

Fuck!

Ignoring the now whimpering server crouching in the back room I grabbed the tray and headed for a table, Nona following. We sat down. I put Nona’s plate in front of her. She stared at it.

“It’s chicken”, I said, “just like those things out on the wire.”

She smiled, then frowned.

“Where are the feathers?”, she asked.

“We take those off before we cook them”, I said.

She shrugged, picked up a leg, sniffed it, stuck the whole thing in her mouth, swallowed,  pulled out a bare bone a second later.

At that moment I was really glad it wasn’t a turkey leg. Or worse, a leg of lamb! I cringed when I wondered what she’d do to  a whole cow.

“Not bad but I’d like it better with feathers”, she said as she continued to pick at and try different things on her plate. I shrugged. Suddenly I was worried. Was I getting used to this.

...

Back on the street I began looking around for some place where I could buy something cheap in order to break one  of the hundred dollar bills in my pocket.

No, I hadn’t taken the money from where the panicked and terrified server had thrown it. In fact, I’d  begged her to let us pay for our meals. She kept yelling at us to get out or she’d call the cops.

Just as we stepped onto the street the server raced from the back room, locked the doors and began barricading them with chairs. I glanced back at her, shrugged, headed down the street with Nona.

“Uh, are we going to be at your mother’s house, soon?”, asked Nona, as we walked on, “I’m getting tired and I don’t know how much longer I can hold this form.”

“Probably another hour or so”, I said, “can you hang on for that long?”

Nona shrugged.

“So, just go back to your normal form”, I said. Nona stared at me.

“You saw how that server reacted to me when she saw me like that!”, she shuddered.

“Hey, they’re just gonna have to get used to you”, I shrugged.

Nona frowned. Poor Nona. I began to wonder if she’d ever be truly happy anywhere? Hell, I knew that feeling all too well, myself. We continued down the street.

Just then she took my arm, snuggled up close to me, kissed my cheek.

“That was sweet”, she smiled. She’d read my mind again. A tiny smile curled my lip. I couldn’t help it.

Suddenly, a liquor store. We stepped inside, the fat, greasy, unshaven guy behind the counter eyed us suspiciously as we walked in. I wondered if he got robbed a lot?

Time to make a decision: what to buy? And would Mr Greasy break a hundred, anyway? I glanced around the store at the racks and racks of incredibly cheap knock-off booze. ‘Tankaray’? ‘Jack Dann’? ‘Bundtweiser’?

I shuddered, began to think that the guy probably didn’t even have a hundred bucks in his register.

“Ah, my frien’! My frien’!” cheesy grinned counter guy. What an incredibly cheesy smile! I was instantly reminded of a character from Aladdin, “what I get for you, today?”

“Can you break a hundred?”, I asked, “I’ll buy something”

“Read sign on door! No make change”, he scowled. “You can still buy something though”, instant cheesy grin again.

I wondered how many years he’d been practicing that grin, wondered how many more he’d have to practice before he got it right.

“Meh”, I shrugged, heading back out the door. Mr Greasy just acted like this happened to him all day every day.

I wondered if we were going to waste the rest of the day just trying to get change for the bus?

Just then I saw it! That beautiful green and white sign that spelled our salvation and deliverance out of here!

“Starbuck’s!”

We stepped in through the doors, up to the counter.

“May I help you?”, smiled the barista in an incredibly cheerful way that made me instantly think of some sickeningly sweet cartoon character. I had to suppress an urge to punch him.

“Yeah... Mocha Frappuccino double shot caramel sauce no whip”, I said. ‘Yeah that should keep me sleepless for a day or two’, I thought.

The barista picked up a clear plastic, green-and-white logo-ed cup, scribbled on it.

“Will that be all, sir?”, he asked with a grin that covered two thirds of his face. I suppressed another violent urge.

“Yeah”, I muttered.

“That’ll be four fifty, please”, he said. I handed him a hundred. He didn’t even blink. Change!

“Oh, can I get change for a five and some quarters?”, I asked.

“Sure!”, he smiled,  in a way that made me want to stab him in the eye with an ice pick.

He took my five, handed back four ones, four quarters.

“Have a wonderful day, sir!”. Suddenly his face disappeared into that grin.

“Yeah”, I said.

I turned to see Nona sitting at an empty table, frowned. She looked tired. I worried she couldn’t hold her shape much longer. I sat down with her.

“Are you okay?”, I asked. She looked up, smiled weakly at me, patted my hand.

“You’re the only one who ever cared enough to ask me that”, she said, leaving her hand on mine.

A moment later the barista set my drink on the counter.

“Your order is ready, sir!” Holy shit! That Jimmy-Carter-Grin-On-Steroids! Sudden desire to hit him with a chair.

I grabbed my drink from the counter, returned to Nona. She smiled as I sat down.

“What’s that?”, she asked, looking at my drink.

“It’s coffee”, I said, as I stuck a straw in the top, offered it to her.

She took it, looked at it, sucked down half the cup.

“Woah! Take it easy!”, I blurted.

“Gnah!”, she screeched, gritting her teeth as she grabbed her forehead with both hands, “what the fuck?!”

“Brain freeze”, I said, “put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, it’ll make it go away.”

Remembering her tongue, I wondered if that would work?

Her face softened as the pain disappeared. She stared at me.

“How can you drink that shit?”, she asked, very surprised.

“I don’t drink it all at once like you did”, I said, “that’s why you got a brain freeze.”

“Okay, then”, she said, eyeing the cup and obviously wondering why I’d wasted almost five bucks on the thing, then, “you ready to go?”

Nodding, I rose from my seat, leaving the drink on the table. I really didn’t want it, anyway, just needed to get change for the bus.