What's the Harm?

Watching Sweet begin to break down, Jessica felt bad. Getting off the bed she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close as she dodged his pedaling hooves. “Sweet Moon, calm down! I told you, this isn’t a dream, and you weren’t just ‘thinking’ this stuff up… freaking out isn’t gonna help out any!”

The presence of another did much to give the pony a reason to calm, and he took a deep shuddering breath. "Right, right, not helping. Um… So… Um…" His words weren't working very well. "I can stay with you, right, until that wizard figures out how to pull me back and I can go home?" But then a thought hit him. "Oh! Oh! This is all real! This is amazing." He rolled about in her grip, facing her.

Jessica let go of him, on her knees and around his eye level. “Yes, this is all real… I think I would’ve figured it out by now if the last twenty one years of my life were just a dream, yeah?” she joked, leaning back to rest her back against the bed, sitting down on the floor. “And yes, Sweet, you can stick around with me for a bit. Gran’s a bit generous on the funds, so I can afford it, easy peasy!”

Sweet clopped his hooves together. "Good good, then I'll just try to enjoy this." He bobbed his head. "Yes, better to enjoy new things, than to worry, right?" His voice had a bit of a hysteric edge to it, but he was really trying to do his best. "I mean, I already made a new friend, right? She's a lovely friend, if a little naked."

“A little naked?” she enquired, raising a brow as she reached out, resting a hand on his neck, scratching at it. It worked to calm down horses supposively, perhaps it’d help calm Sweet down? “And yeah, freaking out over stuff you can’t control is silly, or so my dad always says. Just control what you can, and prepare for the rest. Sides, it’s summer… too much work to deal with all that nonsense right now!”

Scritches were an easy way into Sweet's happy place, it turned out to be, as his eyes drifted halfway shut and a little equine purr came from him. "That's good. Harmony provides in its own way. But you are naked, it's true." He poked a leg with another leg. "See, fur, almost everywhere, even my eyes, when I close them." To demonstrate he did just that, closing his eyes to show off his fluffy eyelids.

Jessica giggled a bit. “They are kinda furry, yeah, but I’m just fur-less. Naked means not having any clothes on, least here it does,” she remarked, getting up and having a wicked idea. Grinning, she grabbed Sweet and grunted as she managed to awkwardly lift him up onto the bed, flopping back onto it herself, landing on her back. “So, now that you realize it’s not a dream… how the heck you’d end up here?” she enquired, head turned to look at him.

Sweet became curious when he was hauled up onto the bed with the human, peering around a moment before he decided to roll with it. Maybe that was just how humans got along? He nuzzled her cheek a little. "Well, you see, they were offering a few bits to let some wizard cast a spell. It was supposed to make you dream of an odd place, then all you had to do was say what you saw and that was it, easy bits, or so I thought."

“Sounds like the wizard was pretty bad at magic, then,” she remarked, that softness against her cheek lingering a bit, causing her to grin. “And I always wondered how soft you pony’s fur would be… you’re like a giant, warm stuffed teddy bear. Just, not a bear, but a pony.”

He tilted his head a little. "I had a stuffed animal when I was a little foal. His name was Snuggles, and he was a little dog, this big." He held up two hooves not very far apart. "He seemed huge to me when I was tiny, but now he's barely nothing… I still have him, on my dresser. He protects my things while I'm away." He looked around curiously. "Do you have one?"

Sitting up, she nodded. “Yeah, but not here. I only brought a few things with me, the rest is back at my apartment or packed away at my parent’s old place. I’ve still got a bear that’s… this big.” She held out her hands rather far apart, smiling. “It’s very comfy, I’ll admit sometimes I grab it and sleep with it, just because I can~” Standing up, she looked to Sweet. “So, I wanna draw you.”

Sweet sat up on his haunches. "Do you want an actiony pose?" He adopted a fighting stance, as sloppy as anything, but he was no fighter. He had his hooves up as if he was ready to punch something, and he made his horn glow brightly. "Or maybe something contemplative?"

Laughter filled the air as Jessica grabbed at her sides. “That’s just fucking adorable!” she squeaked, grinning at him. “You’re funny, Sweet, but just something simple is fine. When I draw people, I try to catch them doing whatever they’re doing at the time… posing is kinda silly and for the artsy fartsy types. I like to be in the moment, not try to force it to conform to what I might want,” she explained, carefully looking over her supplies now, grabbing a pad. “Sides, this’ll be more of a doodle than a full blown portrait.”

Sweet settled back onto the bed and started musing what a natural pose would be, which happened to put him in his most natural form. He looked like he was considering his place in the greater world, eyes focused on something far off and his body relaxed, like he could sit there and muse for quite some time.

“Now that looks natural,” she remarked, moving her chair over and swiping a few more supplies, settling them down. “So, I’m gonna put on some music for this, if you wanna chat, just ask away.” Jessica sat down and started with her outlines, pencil moving quick as her eyes darted from the paper to Sweet, soft music playing in the background.

Sweet Moon tried to keep himself still at first, but that proved to be harder than he originally thought. "That's a nice kind of music. I figured it out though, your magic. You're lightning magicians! Best I ever saw. You make it do… all kinds of things. I don't even know how. I always thought lightning was just good for lighting things, or zapping things, or maybe, you know, krakoom!"

Jessica paused, looking over at him and rolling her eyes. “I’m telling you, we don’t have magic of any here. We’ve got technology though, and that’s all that it is. We don’t have your cutie marks, either, so we just sorta do whatever works for us as far as life goes,” she rambled on a bit, picking back up her pencil and finishing up the outline so she could move on to the next step. “Electricity has been around for like, a hundred years? Maybe?”

Sweet Moon snorted softly. "Electricity's been around forever. It just takes a very clever pony to make it do something besides set a tree on fire." He clopped his hooves together light. "And you have. You use it for that thing." He pointed at the laptop. "I bet you use it on everything!" He got a grin as his theory expanded by the moment. "I bet the 'car' uses it too! What don't you power with it?"

Smiling a bit as she picked up her first colors, she started in on them. “Nah, the car runs on gasoline, although the battery… I guess it does sorta run on electricity, just not all of it. And that ‘thing’ is my laptop, and it runs on it as well. I’m not sure how any of it works on the technical details, all that I care about is that I can use the things!” Glancing up from her piece, she glanced over his form a bit more, finding his enthusiasm a bit contagious.

Clop clop clop. "I couldn't say how magic works, but it does, and this is just the same thing." He tilted his head a little, looking more confident now that one mystery of the world was put to rest. "How's the picture coming? I bet it's really nice, I mean, not because it's of me, but because you're drawing it." Perhaps realizing that came out awkwardly, his ears fell. "Because you're a good artist…"

“Are you always this adorably awkward around others, or is it only because that you’re on an entirely different planet, hmm?” she jokingly asked, taking the easel and spinning it around so that he could take a quick look at the rough piece so far. She’d gotten his form outlined, and was currently working on his face, a curious expression captured perfectly on it. “This is what I’ve got so far.”

Sweet tilted his head left, then right. "Do I always look so lost?" Yes. "It looks nice though." He settled down, sinking to his belly. "Do you have friends? Oh, um, I didn't mean it like that. I mean, do you have anypony that will come by, to visit? Should I be worried? Will they be worried? Do they like ponies too?"

“You don’t look lost, you look curious, adorable, even,” Jessica corrected him, turning it back around. “And yeah, I’ve got friends, yourself included Sweet. But, it’s just me till Gran returns, all of my friends are out on roadtrips or across the country back home visiting their families for the summer,” she explained, focusing once more on drawing. “And good question… I enjoy watching My Little Pony, and some of my friends do too, but those that don’t? They’d probably be weirded out by a living, breathing unicorn.”

Frowning for a few moments, she glanced at him again. “You know, though… I thought you were a stuffed animal at first on the trail, at least until you talked,” she mused aloud, letting her gaze focus on something not related to him out of curiosity.

Sweet looked uncertain at the doll comment and looked himself over. "I don't look that much like a stuffed animal, do I?" He paused when he saw her working at the drawing and tried being quiet for a change, still entirely unaware of its effect on the world around him.

After a few minutes of silence had passed, Jessica turned back to the bed, blinking a few times. “Uh…” she muttered in confusion, looking at the giant unicorn plush on her bed. Looking at the artwork, and then back to him, Sweet seemed to come into focus once again. “That’s weird… I didn’t look at the art for a few minutes, and you looked like a stuffed animal again.”

Sweet blinked before breaking the effect with a "I'm right here, look, not stuffed at all." He tapped at his chest with a hoof. "What do you mean anyway? I'm not… that cute." Red colored swiftly around his snout and cheeks, and he looked embarrassed at her words.

Jessica rubbed at her eyes for a moment. “The moment you said something, yeah, I can see that you’re definitely there, Sweet. But you were kinda blurry, almost like you weren’t even alive, till then, when I wasn’t focusing on you…” she trailed off, humming thoughtfully as she got up, leaving the half done artwork to sit next to him. “And yes, you are cute, I mean… you can even blush, and your fur shows it! If that’s not cute, then what is, hmm?” she teased him, grinning the entire time.

Sweet Moon hadn't considered it before. Wasn't fur supposed to show blushes? He looked Jessica over and decided she didn't need blushing fur, with her skin all… just out there like that. "You're, um, kind of cute too?" Was that the right thing to say? That felt so awkward." He shuffled in place a little. "Do you play any games, besides drawing?"

A small blush graced her own cheeks in turn, a rosy color that stood out quite well against the tanned skin. “Well, thanks, Sweet. And yeah, I do, that’s also what the laptop there is for. I haven’t done too much besides draw though, I had a summer assignment that I’ve been working through. Hmm, maybe I should include your portrait in it, would mean one less piece I need to do still,” she rambled on, one of her hands moving to rest on Sweet’s back near his neck without her really thinking about it. “I also watch a lot of shows, those’re good at passing time. Oooh, I know… you can watch My Little Pony with me. You’re curious, no doubt that’ll drive you kinda crazy!”

Sweet noticed the touch, ear twitching towards it, but he saw little wrong with casual contact. The curious human mare liked him. That was good, right? "You mentioned that before, a show? Does it work like that?" He pointed at the laptop. "I couldn't make it work. It wanted a password I didn't have." He pouted like it offended him by keeping him away from it. The nerve…

The portrait forgotten for the moment, Jessica got up off the bed and grabbed the chair from the desk, moving it to the bed’s side, before doing the same with the laptop, resting it on the chair and stretching its power cord to the absolute maximum. “Okay, so, let’s just unlock it first,” she muttered to herself, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to Sweet again as her fingers moved nearly lightning fast, the space for the password filling out before she hit Enter, causing the screen to turn black for a moment before the desktop loaded up. “Yes, it’s a show, and I can play it on the laptop, you see.”

Sweet tried to see what keys were hit, but his scattered thoughts and introspections were entirely ill-suited for catching a fastly-entered password, and he gave up as the enter key was hit so triumphantly and things happened. "You can watch plays on this? That's kind of amazing. Show me one." He sat up on the bed, clopping his forehooves together and looking ready to be all the more amazed.

“Yup, sure can! Although plays are something else entirely, these are shows and movies,” Jessica was quick to reply, looking back at him and grinning at that enthusiasm he seemed to hold for everything. Pulling up YouTube first, she pulled up a quick example as the sound of music started to fill the air, a random music video that was just there on the front page. “It can do all sorts of things, see?”

Sweet's eyes went wide as it started making noise, no, that was music. His clopping applause got louder before he fell to all fours and applied his magic, trying clumsily to move the little pointy thing like she did. Oh look, a Spongebob video! He looked a bit befuddled by its existence as the cartoon capered and did nonsensical things.

Giggling a bit, Jessica completely missed the hour or so they spent hopping random YouTube clips, finding it rather fun. The summer hadn’t been bad, on account of not having any classes and only a few assignments, but the last week or two had been boring with little contact with others. Spending time with someone again was rather refreshing for Jessica.

Noticing the clock at last, Jessica hummed thoughtfully to herself. “So, Sweet, having fun then?” she asked, internally debating on something that he would either freak out over, or find awesome. Or perhaps a bit of both, even. “So, remember how I knew what you were when I saw you? Want to see why?”

The unicorn bobbed his head. "I remember." Well he did! At least since she brought it up again. "I would like to see it." He settled in beside Jessica, friendly and comfortable with her. "If you'll show it to me, that is. I've been good, right?"

Rummaging through the folders on her hard drive, she looked at Sweet oddly. “Yes, you’ve been good, Sweet, but what would that have to do with anything? Trust me, I’d let you know if you were doing something bad, I’m just glad for the company. All of my friends are busy for the next three weeks, so I’m not really liable to see anyone unless I’m out shopping,” she remarked, finding the files she was looking for. “So, in Equestria, who all are alicorns there?”

Sweet rubbed behind one of his ears. "A lot of my friends, especially the mares, say I act a little funny sometimes… So I try to be careful about that." He tapped at his chin next, considering. "Let's see. There's Celestia and Luna, everyone knows them, oh, and Cadance! And, uh, oh, Twilight Sparkle? I never saw her before, but she's pretty new."

Nodding at his answer, she pulled up the first episode, the laptop working to load it. “That’s good to know. You might find this a bit weird, but… this is how I know you. Well, not you, but ponies and Equestria,” Jessica explained as the theme song to My Little Pony filled the air. Her eyes darted to Sweet, waiting to watch his reaction to seeing his world depicted here on another.