Under The Blue Sky

It had been an entire two months since Alfred received the bad news, and everything was looking a lot better. Alfred had become more social, spending more time with his friends and going on multiple trips around Equestria. His mental state had also improved. Since there was nothing that could be done (even after checking many, many times with Celestia and others) everyone tried their best to stay off the subject. Alfred slowly became more confident and proud, which was a different experience for him. He was finally more comfortable in his surroundings, now that he was seeing people he could relate and talk to. It felt like freedom, and after all these years of constant torment he enjoyed his time being free. He felt fantastic most of the time. He soon became a popular face among everyone. Things were looking better.

Alfred still stayed at Twilight's. He made sure to unnecessarily thank her everyday, which Twilight relished in. Eventually he got his own room with his own bed, and he was planning to get his own house since he was here to stay. All of his clothes were being provided by Rarity, of course. She took much interest in creating new outfits and styles for Alfred since he was an entirely new shape. She would sometimes get things wrong like the amount of fingers on a glove or the exact hat size he needed to have. Her custom made clothes were excellent and gave Alfred that little shine that he needed. Alfred and Rarity had become very close friends, almost as close as Twilight.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack would often challenge his strength in silly competitions and after losing about a hundred times each to both of them, Alfred decided he needed to become healthier. He had a quite skinny and fragile structure before he came to Equestria. Now he was gaining weight (in the good way) and building up his muscles. He certainly felt more active and started to look a lot more colourful. Rainbow Dash started to notice his health improvements and moved a little closer to Alfred. He wasn't sure what this meant but he suspected that she wanted to know more about him. It would be easier to say that as his happiness and health improved, so did his relationship with Rainbow.

Fluttershy had introduced him to all her animals and he was incredibly amazed that they were all similar to ones back home. Fluttershy, being the sweetheart that she is, started to feel guilty for reminding Alfred about his home. She and her friends had got together multiple times to talk about avoiding this, but Alfred wasn't affected. He started to spend more time at Fluttershy's, telling her all about the pets he used to own. He was even tempted to look after a new one after Fluttershy insisted. There wasn't any animal that particularly interested him as a pet, and anyway, there was already enough people living under Twilight's roof. Alfred did appreciate the offer though and continued to pay Fluttershy visits.

Pinkie didn't change. She never changes. It's always 'happy happy happy' for her, human or not. Alfred still enjoyed being around her, even though she could sometimes become a little too much to handle. Parties were constantly thrown weekly, so they all were never bored. Pinkie always made sure there was something fun to do.

Celestia visited him regularly, just to check up on him. Whenever she happened to show up Alfred became slightly nervous. Not only because she was perhaps the most important feature of Equestria, but also because she would often ask him strange questions. It seemed to Alfred that she was intrigued by the human body. Most of her questions felt very scientific. He tended not to worry about it too much. It made sense since he was the only one of his kind, but Alfred couldn't help but feel slightly suspicious of her. She was also working with her top companions to try and figure out how Alfred even got here in the first place, so there was an answer to look forward to.

He had also spent more time with Twilight, excluding the fact that they lived together. If they were alone in the house they would often talk about Earth and all of Alfred''s experiences there, without pushing him a little too far. Alfred soon became more open about his life back home. One day Alfred was asked if there was any magic on Earth.

"Magic? No there wasn't any magic like there is here. I suppose the most magical thing that I've seen was Luke's birth, that and Heath Ledger's Joker, now that was incredible."

"Heath, who?" Twilight said as she tilted her head slowly.

"Ah, don't worry. There wasn't any magic back home."

"Really, no spells or tricks?"

"There were magicians that could claim to do that, but really it was all about creating illusions."

"Oh you have to show me!"

"Erm, I'm no professional...but I think I remember a small little trick."

"Yes! This is going to be so amazing!"

"I wouldn't get your hopes up," Alfred said as he opened the door to his room and grabbed his bag. He unzipped it and took his wallet out, noticing the gun at the bottom. He remembered pulling it out and wanting to end it all. He felt so ashamed that he would even stoop that low. He never wanted to see that gun again, not after all the pain it caused. Luckily Twilight didn't see it when she rushed up, so no one knew he had a lethal weapon. He looked over to Twilight who was patiently waiting, and sighed. He decided he was planning to keep it that way. No one needed to know. He zipped the backpack back up and sat beside Twilight. His fingers dipped into his wallet and pulled out a small coin. He held it up and saw Twilight staring at it confused.

"A coin, when we talked about money you said these things were pretty useless right?"

"Nothing's useless if you know what to do with it. Now, focus on the coin."

"Okay," Twilight said plainly as she directed all of her attention to the coin. Alfred quickly closed his hand, twisted and moved it to try and confuse Twilight, and opened it up again it to reveal that it was empty. Twilight began to put the pieces together in her head, but before she could finish Alfred quickly outstretched his arm towards her and put his hand behind her ear. Twilight was hesitant at first, but she let him finish his little trick. Alfred pulled his hand away from her ear with the coin held between his thumb and index finger.

"See, magic. I made it disappear and reappear behind your ear." Twilight began to chuckle to herself when she heard this.

"Oh come on, I know you said you weren't a professional but that was just ridiculous," she said still laughing. Alfred began to laugh with her.

"Yeah, well you should've seen some of the stuff the professionals could pull off."

"I wish I could. Hey, do you want to see some real magic?"

"I've already seen most of your spells, Twilight. I'm sure tha..."

"What if I tried a spell on you?"

"Uh, are you sure?"

"Yeah, I want to give it a go at least. I've already done it on the others, so I don't think you'll be any different."

"Hey, if you're confident, give it your best shot."

"Right, could you please stand still?" Alfred quietly got to his feet and stood completely still and straight. Twilight took a deep breath and began to work up her power. Her horn slowly began to glow a bright purple colour. Alfred stood there with his eyes closed, completely trusting in Twilight. Twilight also closed her eyes to focus her skills. Within a few seconds a large beam of light travelled from Twilight's horn to Alfred's chest leaving a small puff of smoke that obscured him. Twilight suddenly opened her eyes but couldn't see Alfred through the smoke.

"Did it work?"

"Uh," Twilight could now begin to see Alfred's body and was slightly amazed. "No. It didn't work."

"I'm sorry, did I just hear the all mighty, forever ruling and triumphant Twilight Sparkle say 'it didn't work'?"

"Heh, shut up and let me try again."

"Alright," Alfred said in a friendly voice, trusting in Twilight. Twilight revved up her horn again and made sure to harness all her focus onto the spell. One bright puff of smoke later, Alfred was still standing before her, unchanged. Twilight was baffled by this. She had tried this spell on the others and had succeeded with flying colours, but this was different. This was a whole new kind of strange.

"I don't understand, it should've given you cute, little wings or something. Hold on, I'll try another."

"Okay," Alfred stood there trying to make himself as relaxed as possible so Twilight could make this work, but it didn't. Before they knew it they had spent the whole night casting spell upon spell on Alfred, and unfortunately to no avail. Alfred wasn't altered in the slightest way, and this made Twilight mad. She had no idea why her spells weren't working. She tried everything and Alfred didn't even flinch. She soon collapsed to the ground from exhaustion and started to catch her breath.

"I think we should see Celestia tomorrow. Hopefully she'll know what's going on."

"Okay, we'll go see her tomorrow, but it doesn't really matter, does it?"

"No, well maybe, I don't know."

"You should get some rest. You look really worn out."

"Same for you, you big dummy. Goodnight." And with that Twilight trotted up the stairs clumsily, leaving Alfred down below.

On the next day Twilight explained everything to Celestia. Her face was smothered with confusion. She was particularly interested when Twilight mentioned the idea of Alfred being immune to magic. After Twilight finished explaining herself to her, Celestia quickly assured them that this will be investigated.

"Oh, thank you Princess Celestia. I wasn't really sure what to make of it."

"Don't worry Twilight, we will get to the bottom of this. And as for you Alfred, I'm sorry to inform you that we do not have an answer to how you got here. We are working very hard to find some solid evidence, but right now there's not that much to discuss. I'll be sure to see you during the week for some more questions. I hope that's okay."

"That's completely fine. Come around anytime you'd like. Thank you again."

"No thank you, both of you. This information is very interesting indeed. Goodbye."

"Goodbye Princess Celestia."

"Goodbye."

As Alfred and Twilight walked out of the large doors that Alfred knew all too well, he couldn't help but wonder about Celestia. He knew that he shouldn't be asking many questions, but it all seemed a little fuzzy to Alfred. He tried to dismiss these thoughts as quickly as possible. They were stupid thoughts anyway. He was sure that Celestia was doing this for the better of everyone, or at least he thought he was sure.

With Twilight walking along in front, Alfred took one last look at Celestia through the small gap between the heavy doors, and closed them silently.