Twilight Zombie

A work of ...One very sleepy zombie in a cleaned out coffee shop, I guess. By a very Busyguy.

~Chapter Two - The Mountain~

“I would like to tell you that this was a terrible idea!” Twilight cried, her poor head bouncing off the bottom of the sidecar. "I can't see anyting, and my head keeps hitting the top of this center support rail thing!"

“Well you sure didn't seem to have any better ideas!” Chuck countered. “...And stop waving your legs around! You’re supposed to be trying to look dead!”

“...You didn't give me any time to think of alternatives!” Twilight shot back from her very unpony-like position. “And why did you do my face? You can't even see my upper half!” She looked up from her inverted position on the floor of the sidecar, and all she could see were her poor legs sticking up into the late evening sky. They were unrecognizable, being coated in a thick and goopy brown muck that would probably never come out of her fur again in her immortal lifetime. Needless to say, Twilight was not a very happy pony.

And why in the name of all things good was she covered in sticky mud? Well, it was the cornerstone of Chuck's 'great' idea. And by 'great', she meant spontaneous, though the term 'haphazard' fit a bit better. He'd decided - out of nowhere - that she would be perfectly content with being passed off as a freshly hunted animal, and so would allow herself to be coated in mud to better fit the bill.

Twilight didn't recall actually agreeing to the idea, either. After they'd left the unwelcoming town of Kelly, she’d been convinced that the only way to survive the ride across the flats was to wallow around in a man-made ditch. A very wet man-made ditch... One she had very reasonably and politely refused to enter. But Chuck hadn't taken 'no' as an answer, and had taken it upon himself to ...convince her. It was a fairly short and simple process, involving a fair deal of pushing, shoving, and the incredibly low tactic of yanking her hooves out from underneath her center of mass. She had managed to save herself from a tumble onto the hard ground with a strong flap of her wings, but failed in that she'd instead landed right were she had been so desperately trying not to wind up in the first place...

But being up to her barrel in sticky muck hadn’t been enough for her ill-mannered and blatantly insane travel companion, oh no! Chuck had felt it necessary to use a nearby wooden board to shovel even more of the nasty stuff all over her! He even told her to pretend that the stinky stuff was shampoo, which was ridiculous! Mud could never be mistakable for shampoo! Especially not when it smelled like an amalgam of Buffalo excrement and rotting vegetation!

But regardless of her many attempts at making the human stop and see reason, she was soon coated from horn to hoof in filth ...and Chuck had been upsettingly thorough. Nearly every single inch of her body was covered in a good inch-thick layer of the awful stuff. He had even decided to sling a generous amount directly in her face! And what was his reasoning?

He 'didn't want to take the time to think of something better'!

...

...

Okay, so Twilight did have to admit that the idea itself was sound in theory. And the sun was getting fairly low in the sky, so his concerns about most human hunters coming out to kill animals in the morning and evening were valid. But still! She had mud in places she didn’t even know she had! It was even getting into her mouth as the motorcycle bounced around! She felt she had the right to be as grumpy about the whole ordeal as she pleased.

“Twilight...” Chuck chided from his mud-free and comfortable seat. “Look, I don't think there's a single animal in the entire world that we could pass you off as. I mean, you're purple for crying out loud! Freaking PurpleEEEOUCH! Alright! OKAY! LAVENDER! YOU'RE LAVENDER I SAY!"

Twilight quickly released her magic, which had been firmly - and only a tiny bit vengefully - attached to as much curly beard as she could get an eye on from her very muddy and uncomfortable metal floorboards.

"Good grief!" Chuck lamented, probably looking smug for some reason she couldn't be bothered to explain. "You should warn a guy before you go nuts on his beard like that! I damn near left the road." Chuck then cleared his throat, and continued trying to explain himself.

"Okay... so you're mad. I get that, but like I was trying to say before you tore my freaking face off... Pur …er, that is to say purple shades like lavender and violet are very rare in nature. There are birds and reptiles that have natural shades of purple, but mammals? ...Not a chance. There isn't a furry critter alive that sports a purple-shaded coat in this whole wonderful world. And while I'll admit that we could get lucky and not run into anyone on the Flats tonight, I'm not willing to put my trust in the crappy luck we've had so far.”

Twilight felt her anger cool to a gentle simmer, and she traded the angry rant on the tip of her tongue for a simple sigh. Chuck was insane, but he was also frustratingly close to being right. She blew an unnecessarily loud raspberry to clear her lips of any mud, and said, “Chuck, I'm not mad at you ...even though I think I really should be. You threw me into a muddy ditch, then stuffed me in the sidecar head first without even bothering to ask if I was okay with it. You didn't give me the chance to think up a better plan, or explain your ideas so I could understand them. You just acted on your own impulses." She huffed loudly, and would have crossed her hooves if she had the room to do so. "That's not what normal ponies do, Chuck! You have to think about other pony's feelings before you act! I have mud in my ears, for Luna's sake! Do you have any idea what that feels like! It's not pleasant! ...Not at all!" She noticed she was yelling, and took a brief moment to calm herself back down. When she felt collected, she continued with, "That said, I get the feeling you would just ignore me if I tried to explain why what you did was wrong. Instead, I think I'll be the voice of reason and just say that you're probably right about our luck. I wouldn't be surprised if we ran into every single human within a hundred mile radius out here ...and I would either be seen as a dangerous creature to be shot at, or a food animal. It really doesn't feel right to say this, but ...you're right. I’ll just stay stuck down in this confined space and coat your father's incredibly rare sidecar in mud.”

Chuck laughed, and Twilight was a bit confused when the sound actually managed to lift her spirits a bit. “Well you got me there, Princess. I didn't even think about cleaning up the mess. You know, I’m actually kind of looking forward to giving you a nice hot bath when we get home. Assuming I have the water for it, of course. It'll be just like bathing a big fluffy dog or some...” Chuck's voice abruptly cut off, and Twilight could easily hear the tension when he spoke up again, “Here we go, princess. We’ve got a dust trail up ahead. It looks like it's just one bike, by the looks of it. Probably one of the Bar J boys out for a joyride. They know me, so it’ll be suspicious if I just go flying by. I’ll try to keep the conversation short, just don’t move a muscle and stay as quiet as you can ...got it?”

"I have it," Twilight agreed. "Just please make it as quick as you can. This isn't exactly comfortable, and I don't want to get caught." She then let her legs fall as they pleased, and immediately regretted it when her knees bounced off the under-padded edges of the sidecar's opening. She was more than a little nervous about having to rely on a human she still didn’t quite trust yet. But it was either this, or risk a fight breaking out. And she had no idea which way Chuck's loyalties would fall, if she was forced to defend herself against a human he knew personally. She didn't have time to think it over, though. She could hear the other bike in the distance. There was little choice but to go along with the plan as it was and hope she could play her part.

Twilight's heart rate slowly rose as the sounds of the other bike grew louder, and she felt Chuck bring their own mount to a slow and smooth stop. A soft squeak came from somewhere nearby, and the other bike's power plant fell silent only a moment later. Chuck left their machine running, trying to make it seem like he was in a hurry.

Or at least she hoped that was his plan, because she could already feel a droplet of mud sliding down her muzzle toward her nostrils...

“Evening, Jimbo! Out for a late night ride?” Chuck's offered the stranger, though he sounded ...different. It was almost like he was trying to sound more masculine. And Twilight's big brother quickly came to mind. Shining Armor often did the same thing with his voice when he was still Captain of the Guard, so maybe it was a common thing among males in general? She'd have to ask about it when she got home.

“Hey there, Chuck!" A strange voice all but yelled. "Yah nailed it right on the ole' noggin. I'm jus' doin a little test ride over near Kelly and back. Bike's been acting kinda funny lately an' ah' got no idea why. Ah cleaned the jets out and set the fuel height up a bit, but I’m start’n to think the carb’s just plain old wore out.”

The other man sounded like he was older, though he had a slightly higher pitched voice than Chuck's. He also had a very heavy accent that reminded her of Applejack even more then Chuck at his heaviest country drawl, but the stranger's grammar was so much worse than AJ’s. She could barely even understand what he was saying.

“Well good luck with that, Jimbo. Those old Holley carburetors are getting hard to find,” Chuck said, still making himself sound like he'd rinsed his mouth out with sawdust and then gargled a cup full of rocks. Why was he doing that? It sounded almost painful...

“Yup …so what’cha got thar? Looks like you had ‘a go fishin it outta the mud,” The stranger said with a coarse laugh.

She heard Chuck sigh loudly, hopefully pulling off his part of the act. “A miniature horse ...I think. And before you ask, it wasn’t what I was after. I could've sworn it was a buffalo calf when I took the shot...”

She heard a slap, and the sidecar wiggled a bit. ...The stranger had just hit Chuck! And with enough force to rock the whole bike! Why had he done that?

Twilight felt her hiding spot wiggle about as Chuck moved, and there was another slapping sound. She expected Chuck to start yelling angrily, followed by the sounds of the two humans trading blows. But it was actually the stranger’s loud and mirthful voice that reached her ears next...

“Ha! Gotcha again! You’re slower 'n ever, Werther. And getting buffalo’s mixed up with horses now? I'm tellin ya... Yer too damn old fer the mountain life. When’re you gonna wise up and call it quits?”

Chuck suddenly laughed loudly. “HAHAHA! You crack me up you old coot! Did you forget? You’re older than I am!”

“Whaaa?! Now I know that's a load ‘a horse shit! Yer a crap ton older 'n me!" The stranger accused. "...An' don't say it's the beard, cause I know it ain't! Mah boy Trevor looks his age, n'his beard is damn near a foot long!”

Ugh. This Jimbo human's rotten grammar was starting give Twilight a headache, but Chuck wasn't having much luck in ending her suffering just yet as he kept right on going...

“I'm actually younger than you by six years.” Chuck explained. He then suddenly shifted back into his normal voice and said, “Wow... Maybe we should both hang our boots up. I just realized that I'm forty two, and you’re two years short of fifty. It's kind of hard to outrun a walker when you're half way to being one yourself, you know."

A long moment of what she hoped was contemplative silence followed, and Twilight nearly twitched in surprise when she felt something cold and wet leave her muzzle and run down into her left nostril…

“Yeah well, I don’t reckon I'm ready tah slow down just yet,” The stranger said. "...Too much left I wanna do 'n see, yah know?"

“Yeah,” Chuck answered. “I'm with you, there. It seems like there's always something knew to add to the bucket list, but never enough time in the day to check any of it off.”

“Yup…”

“…Yup.”

Well great, they were stuck in contemplative silence again. This should be the moment where Chuck told this 'Jimbo' that he had something to do at home and …hnng! Oh sweet Celestia that TICKLED! It almost felt like she was going to…

NO! She couldn't do that right now! She had to hold it! Just keep calm, and hold it in!

...Hooooolding it in.

It doesn't tickle... I does not tickle. It's like sitting in the Ponyville Sauna with Rarity... Perfectly smooth and steamy air all around, not a single irritating quality to be found at all...

...

...

...“Hnnnk ...chew!”

Chuck's heavy boot impacted the side of her current hiding spot, and Twilight silently cursed the human for putting all this mud so near her nose in the first place! But fortunately for her, the stranger was either as much of an idiot as his grammar indicated, or he was a bit deaf from riding such a loud bike...

“The hell kinda sneeze was that, Werther? …You grow a vagina out there in the mountains?” The man tastelessly chided.

Chuck snorted and spat, letting out a nervous chuckle as he countered with, “Ah hell, Jimbo. I don’t know what that was. It did sound pretty girly though." He then raised his voice, starting to laugh even before he started talking. "And really, Jimbo? We both know that if I grew a vagina, I’d be the prettiest bearded lady in the whole state of Wyoming!” He then burst into laughter, followed by the stranger laughing in turn. And stars above, could that stranger laugh! He laughed harder and louder than Twilight had ever heard somepony laugh in all her life!

…And the joke was not that funny.

“AHAAAAHAHAHAAAAA!” The stranger roared. “That’s a damn good 'n, Chuck! Ah man! ...Whew! I think I blew a lung or somthin." He seemed to finally calm himself, but continued to chuckle as he said, "Yah know, Werther. I’m glad we run into each other tonight. I was feeling tired as all hell afore, and now I feel jus’ fine'n dandy. Thanks fer the talk, bud.”

“It's nothing,” Chuck dismissed. “...But I’d really better get moving. My light started flickering coming down through Kelly, and I don’t want to get caught in the dark going up the mountain.”

Twilight felt her eye start to twitch. Why this perfectly acceptable excuse was not in Chuck's opening statement, she had no idea. She assumed that human males were just a bit less equipped to deal with complex social interactions and higher thinking ...or maybe Chuck was just a special breed of idiot, born to push her buttons.

“Well that's no good, I’d better letcha go then.” The stranger relented. Twilight heard the other bike creak, hopefully meaning the other man had returned to his mount. “Oh! And afore I forget," SHOOT! "...I gotta warn yah bout somethin! Watch yer back real good if yah head north anytime soon. There’s somebody new up on the freeway, just southeast ’a Moran. We saw a couple water jugs and one ‘a them giant stuffed animal toys on patrol today, right near mile marker forty two..."

"You didn't get a headcount?" Chuck interrupted, not missing a beat ...and making her second guess her opinions of him... "But I thought it was standard procedure to help anyone you find get to town. Why didn't you give them an escort?"

The stranger coughed and said, "Well, that's the thing, yah see. Yah know that new fellar we borrowed from Idaho Falls? Well he's gettin the boot. Turns out he was a real arsehole, jus' wanted to carry a gun an' waste bullets. Damn fool shot those folk's water jugs all to shit, an' fer no reason other'n to have himself a good laugh. We didn't think they'd be too happy tah see us after that, so we just let'em alone. They'll be hurtin fer water now, though. The toy prob'ly means they got kids, too. You know what means, I'm sure...”

"...They'll be shooting at anything with two legs, if they have anything to shoot with," Chuck agreed. "Thanks for the warning, Jimbo. And you be sure to watch yourself in Kelly tonight. It was the worst I've seen it in years, and most of them still had both their feet. There's also a mob up on that same section of road you just mentioned, heading for Moran. They were in a real hurry, last I saw them. Some lake up north probably dried out and let them out of the mud all at the same time. I’ve heard it happens pretty regularly in the swamps down south. Anyway, just be extra careful. I've seen too many friendly faces go to rot already..." Twilight felt Chuck make some kind of gesture through the bike, though she still couldn't see anything other than the metal roof of the sidecar. It must have been a parting gesture though, because she heard the other man kick his own bike into life and roar off down the road.

There was a harsh thunk as Chuck put the bike back into gear, and they finally lurched back into motion. She remained slack for as long as she could manage, but her legs started to hurt almost as much as her nose was itching. Eventually she had to relent, shifting to a more comfortable position to spare her legs any real damage ...and of course she tried to extricate herself from the sidecar, though she didn't think she could get out without risking being ejected at an unknown speed. She settled for bracing her wings against the sides of her bouncy prison, trying to keep her shoulders and back from getting jostled so much. She also sneezed ...a lot. About a half hour and twenty or so sneezes later, the bike finally began to slow...

Chuck let the speed drop by itself, and she could feel the distinct rhythm of the two pistons in her abused spine as they came to a clunky and choppy stop. The bike gave one final cough, and then settled into silence.

The sudden quiet left Twilight with a strange ringing in her ears, as if they didn't quite know how to deal with silence anymore. She felt Chuck get off the bike, and a moment later her muddy rear legs were being held upright by a pair of strong hands...

“Good work back there, Princess. Other than making me pretend to sneeze like a little girl, you made for a decent dead animal. But I'm guessing you’re probably ready to come back to life now, right?” He asked, giving her legs a little tug to make his intentions known.

“Yes please,” Twilight replied, wishing Chuck could see the deadpan she was wearing under her mask of mud. Her rear legs were slowly pulled upward and back, dragging the rest of her out of the sidecar to hang upside down. Her back bumped up against Chuck's slightly rounded stomach as the man turned to set her down ...or at least that's what she had expected him to do, but after a long moment of just dangling there...

“Um, Chuck? I'm starting to get a headache. Could you please put me down now?”

Chuck giggled and started to swing her gently back and forth. “Hehehe, Just giving you a little taste of your own medicine, Princess. Nothing too personal, of course,” He taunted. Twilight felt her mud-laden mane drag through the dirt with each gentle swing, and she could clearly hear her own heartbeat steadily whoosh through her ears.

Okay, so maybe she did deserve it ...a little, anyway. But she reeeally didn't like how the tilting horizon was making her stomach feel. She opened her mouth to voice a complaint, but felt her forehooves touch the ground before she could speak her mind. Her head and neck were then shoved up against Chuck's legs, her position directly in front of him preventing her from lifting her head. She quickly took a few steps back, taking a normal stance as she did so. She was sporting a disapproving glare, but left her opinion of the man's actions unspoken. Luna had told her that it was never wise to admit annoyance to somepony intent on annoying you. It only led to repeat performances, and she had just learned that she really didn't like being swung upside down.

But she was still feeling rather grumpy, and Luna had also mentioned that non-violent revenge could be incredibly therapeutic ...given the right circumstances.

Hmm... Well she did have a whole lot of ironic justice stuck in her coat, and the current circumstances certainly felt right ...so then this was the perfect opportunity for a little self-therapy, right?

...Right

Twilight smirked. She then quickly spun sideways and shook herself as hard as she could, flinging mud everywhere. She turned back with a grin, expecting to find a very surprised human where she’d been aiming ...but either Chuck was a mind reader, or he had spent a great deal of time around other humans just as foalish as himself.

“HA! I knew you would do that!” Chuck taunted from the other side of his mud-splattered motorcycle. But Twilight just smiled right back. She had never been very good at shaking the water off her legs after a bath, and they still felt very heavy. She lit her horn and quickly collected as much mud from her legs as she could manage without loosing any fur, forming a truly massive mud ball. It had to be at least thirty pounds in weight by the time she was done. The way Chuck’s grin fell from his face made her really want to throw it, but she found she just didn't have the heart to go through with what would likely amount to murder in the first degree. It was just too big and heavy a projectile. She'd probably kill the man outright if she even gave it a gentle toss and hit him, much less a proper throw.

She found herself wishing it were winter here, as there would be little danger of anypony getting hurt if she, oh say... stuffed Chuck's clothing with snow until the seams burst? That would teach him some manners!

...Or it might just encourage him to return the favor with a well-placed snowball, which now that she thought about it was a far more likely response.

Twilight sighed, and sent the heavy collection of mud rocketing off into the distance, much to Chuck's apparent horror. She then walked over and gave the bike the same treatment she’d given her legs. It was a lot easier when she didn't have to worry about pulling fur out, and she had cleared away the worst of the mud in only half a minute. Chuck watched her nervously, probably wondering why she had decided not to seek out her well-deserved retribution on him.

In truth, Twilight had just been given a rather intimate example of what she herself had put the stubborn human through earlier today. And since they were now technically even when it came to dangling each other in the air and making each other sick, she found herself more than willing to keep the score perfectly even.

...At least until she found a way to make large quantities of snow. Then all bets were off.

“Uh… You alright in there, Princess?” Chuck asked, interrupting her happy thoughts. "You kind of zoned out for a minute ...and I mean that literally. You've been standing there for an entire minute."

Twilight sighed, and shook her head a bit, making Chuck shy away from her. She then hopped up into the sidecar and shot Chuck a cocky grin, saying, “I’m perfectly fine, Mister Chuck. A bit tired, and a little dizzy ...and my hooves feel like they're stuffed full of nails and tacks. But otherwise, I'm fine. Now let's get out of here before any other trouble shows up, alright?"

Instead of joking or even smiling, Chuck just gave a reserved nod. He stood, talking as he took his place on the bike, “Alright, so my place is less than a mile up Shadow Mountain here. We can probably get most of those problems you just mentioned sorted out soon enough, but I can't promise much when it comes to that hot bath I was talking about. I don't know how much water it would take in your current ...state.” He gave her a worried glance, and kicked the bike into life. The sound was familiar after half a day of riding in it, and Twilight let herself settle a bit deeper into her - only slightly muddy - seat.

The longest day of Twilight's entire life was finally drawing to a close. She’d not expected to get so much help, and from some random human, no less. But she was not about to complain about gaining an ally in as dangerous a place as she'd found herself. Chuck was an odd one, that was for certain. But there seemed to be more to him than just being crazy. He struck her as kind ...caring, even. And yet the first thing he'd done when they'd met was shoot half a dozen deadly projectiles straight at her head...

Alright, so she had no idea what to think of the guy, just yet. She wasn't anywhere near ready to trust him, not even to be out of her direct line of sight when he was armed. But as long as he kept being helpful - and didn't make a habit of holding her upside down or coating her fur in mud - he was welcome to be the only sentient life form she had to work with.

...Wow, she'd forgotten just how cynical she could get when she was hungry. Hopefully Chuck had carrots and apples to bring her back to her usual contented demeanor. Or at least some nice refreshing apple cider to dri-EEENK!

Chuck's bike roared forward without warning, heading straight for a well-worn gap in the trees. Twilight's forehooves had lifted from the seat when the bike lurched into motion, but the acceleration after Chuck shifted into the next set of gears was even more violent. Her wings were shoved right up against the padded edges of the sidecar, and her entire front half was push back by the quickly growing airflow. They passed into the worryingly dark forest a moment later, and she found herself hanging on for dear life as the smooth ground gave way to tooth-chattering madness. She had been expecting Chuck to slow down and make a turn after entering the trees, which was the proper way to make a path go up a steep incline. Switchbacks and gentle grades were an ideal and sensible necessity, one that ponies had been using even before well documented history.

But apparently the local human population didn't think along those same lines of engineering and foresight, as Chuck's choice of path was currently taking them straight up the side of the mountain. The ride was beyond harsh, and it felt like somepony had strapped a thin pillow across her flanks before starting to use her entire lower half as one of those sand-filled practice bags the guard used for training in hoof-to-hoof combat. The light source on the front of the bike was also rendered useless, jittering and moving around so randomly that she couldn't get any real sense of speed or direction. The scene reminded her of that one white mare with the ever-present headphones, the one with the apparent love of collecting unpaid noise violations. There was certainly enough strobing light and noise to match the raunchy mare's enthusiasm for giving sleeping ponies a rude wake up call. And really! Who cuts their tail that short these days! Sure, it was probably easy to keep clean, but it was still completely indecent! She probably only did it to show her goodies off to other mares, because there were a lot of obvious signs that she and that other musician were in a h... ~THUMP!~ ...eeEEEERD!

A surprisingly strong jolt had fired up through Twilight's seat and spine, hard enough that she had actually left the seat for a second. Under more controlled circumstances it probably would have been fine, but she had been distracted. Her wings hadn't had any direction, and so they did what they were meant to when gravity fell away ...they popped open as wide as they physically could to stop her from falling. Her flight muscles cried out in protest as her dirtied feathers caught the wind, and she was yanked up and out of her seat. She would have cried out, but felt her back slam into the ground before she could draw a breath.

And then ...nothing else seemed to really happen. Twiilght wasn't tumbling or falling down the mountain, and she could still feel the unique thrum of the bike all throughout her body. It prompted her to try to figure out what had actually happened, so she opened her eyes and...

Any sense of relief she had started to feel was gone in an instant. Of course she had lashed out with more than just her wings, but she had not expected the knees on her rear legs to get wedged into the space between the upper seat cushion and the sheet metal. It was a show of luck on an order of magnitude she had thought only Pinkie Pie possessed! Though "luck" didn't feel like the right term at the moment. She was now stuck in place, draped out on her back over the rear of the sidecar like a dirty rug. Her stomach stretched out above her, while her head bounced along only inches from the ground. Her tangled mane was far from what she thought of as long, but it was skipping across the ground, regardless.

Twilight called out for help, but Chuck was busy bouncing around and laughing to himself like a madpony, fully absorbed in some kind of mania. A mania that didn't seem to involve keeping an ear open for the cries of an endangered mare.

She clenched her stomach muscles and curled herself upward, intent on simply pulling herself back to safety. She managed to reach her thighs, before the slender knob of bone behind her right knee popped free of where it had been stuck. She was sent swinging out behind the vehicle, getting a face full of forcefully sprayed earth from the rear wheel in the process.

She couldn't scream with her every facial opening clogged with dirt. But it didn't matter anymore ...she was going to do what she should have done in the first place, and teleport herself back into the sidecar.

Her horn lit up, and she was confronted with an uncomfortably personal view of the bike's earth-churning rear wheel in the light of her magic. Her left hoof found purchase against the wheel's upper cover, and she pushed her body well clear of its powerful stream of dirt and rocks. Her other knee chose that moment to slip, and she reacted instantly by casting the spell she'd charged up before she hit the ground.

Now... It should be noted that overlapping the anchor, terminus, or bridging path of teleportation magic, was a very good way for a unicorn to loose a limb. For the same two things could never exist in the same place. They would cancel each other out. Alicorns were no exception to such rules, no matter how powerful they were. It should also be noted that Twilight's hoof was still trapped awkwardly in the seat, right in the very space she was attempting to reappear. Had she a moment more to think, she likely would have thought about the dangers involved in such a short jump through space and time. But she was a bit busy trying not to fall off a mountain, so...

Twilight felt her body start to materialize, and she just as quickly felt her hooves touch down on soft cushions and painted steel. She heard Chuck yelp in surprise, and then he quickly pointed behind her and yelled something that she didn't manage to catch.

Or actually, she'd heard him just fine. She just didn't want to believe that what he'd said could actually be true.

"You're not serious, are you Chuck? Please tell me you're not serious!" Twilight yelled, her ears ringing slightly from the dissipating magic, and the bike's power plant giving her hope that she'd heard wrong. But Chuck just shrugged, and went back to his crazed attack on the mountain.

Twilight gulped. She then slowly turned her head back over her shoulder, and cast a bit of lavender colored light over her backside...

Her tail flapped in the wind behind her. Mauve, Violet, and Rose-Pink hairs all somewhat muted from the mud she'd carried all over herself, but the appendage was still there. Chuck had shouted out something to the contrary of that ...as in he'd said that it was gone ...as in completely removed. So Twilight had expected to see nothing back there but a shaved dock, or a bleeding nub.

She was glad to see the human had blown reality well out of proportion, but what she was looking at still made her feel an emotion she couldn't remember ever encountering before.

Her tail was half its former length, ending up in a very rough version of what was commonly referred to as the 'stallion low straight' cut...

Twilight couldn’t help but stare. Half her tail was gone, yes ...but it could have been a whole lot worse than suddenly having a stallion's tail style. Had she reappeared only a foot further back, she could have been seriously hurt. Teleportation magic was nothing to take lightly, especially at close ranges.

She turned back around ...and one fear was traded for another. A short wall of earth met the cone of light from her horn's light, and there was no time to react before she felt the sidecar push up violently underneath her hooves. She consciously held her wings tightly to her sides, and didn't try to cast any sort of spell. Not this time ...not after the lesson she'd just had to give half her tail to learn.

Her light spell flashed across trees, white paint, chrome, dirt, and then the trees again. Her horn dinged off of something metallic, and everything suddenly went dark as she came crashing to a sudden halt. She worried that she'd somehow been knocked out for a moment, but the sensation of acceleration and the familiar rumbling beneath her proved her fears wrong. Of course, she was feeling the rumbling in her face rather than in her hooves, so the first thing she did was try to untangle herself from the cramped confines of the sidecar, where she seemed to have landed.

Once she'd managed to get herself re-situated, she was surprised to find herself cruising calmly along on a well maintained dirt road. All three wheels of the bike were firmly planted on the ground, and she was alive and ...relatively unharmed.

It was a much better situation than she had imagined possible from all the chaos she'd just gone through, and also a much more serine situation than Chuck was about to find himself in...

“Chuck! What exactly was that!? ...And what were you thinking, going straight up a mountain!? There are clearly roads up here! You could have taken a much safer path!”

Chuck just smirked and made his bike bark out a loud burst of noise, forcing her to cover her ears. Then he caught a glimpse of her expression, and his mirth was replaced with a nervous smile...

“Uh... Sorry, Princess," He excused himself. "That’s just how you get a heavy bike up a hill. You have to keep your speed up and really commit to it.” He sat back down from his standing position and reached over to roughly pat her ruined mane, saying, “I know it seemed a little sketchy back there, but this road is hard to reach for a good reason. It makes my house safer from ...all kinds of stuff."

"I fell out..." Twilight accused, turning to face her human companion. "I was hanging off the back of the sidecar! And you didn't even notice! I had to cast a spell without making any of the proper preparations, and now half my tail is ...well, just look at it!" She stood up and whipped her tail around, noting that Chuck winced at the sight. She raised her voice and pointed a hoof at the road they were on, saying "This is a road, Chuck! Roads come from places! You could have easily taken this road all the way up here, and we would have avoided going up that hill! So how - exactly - was going straight up the side of a mountain a better choice than just taking the perfectly serviceable road?"

Chuck reduced the sound level of the bike, and turned to her as he answered with, "Hey, I know what you're saying, but the road isn't actually passable. And by that, I mean half a rock face fell across it three years ago. You can't get up here on the road anymore. I've made other paths, of course ...but they're all a few miles long, the only exception being the hill we just came up. It's the fastest way up the mountain, and we were getting really short on light. I knew I could make the climb, and it would have been a long walk in the dark if we got stuck in a rut somewhere on one of the other paths. The dark is no place to be out here, believe me ...not even up on a mountainside.”

"Well... you still should have warned me about the hill." Twilight pressed. "I wouldn't want to be walking through the woods in the dark, but you have to start telling me what you're plan is BEFORE, you do it! I could have been hurt from that emergency teleport!"

Chuck's mania had gone from his face, and he had the decency to look guilty as he continued with, "Listen princess, I'm sorry I didn't warn you ...and about you loosing part of your tail. It'll grow back, won't it? It's not some kinda magical unicorn thing that doesn't ever come back, right?"

Twilight gave him a sour look, and crossed her hooves. "It's keratin, the same as any other hair or fur. It'll grow back in a few months." She then gave the man the coldest shoulder she could manage while facing forward, not ready to trust him not to drive off the mountain without reason or warning. He'd really scared her back there ...and he'd also repeated his error from only an hour ago! He'd just acted, without warning her ahead of time! She was tired of it, and so Chuck was getting the fuzzy cold shoulder until he apologized ...or she managed to think of something to say that wasn't as mean spirited as the majority of what was in her head at the moment.

“Aw, come on, sweet cheeks. Don't be like that. You know I'll warn you next time...” Chuck began.

“Sweet cheeks?” Twilight interrupted, her thoughts of psychological manipulation instantly forgotten in favor of waving her hooves around and shouting, “Sweet cheeks?! Why do I get the feeling that's some kind of derogatory term for human females? And if it is then why the HAY are you using it on me!?”

Chuck jerked his gaze away from her, and fell silent. He scratched at his beard and cleared his throat awkwardly as they steered around a gentle bend in the road. The long moment of awkward silence was quick to become unbearable, and Twilight found herself just wanting it to end ...even if it meant apologizing for her completely reasonable outburst.

“…I'm sorry,” Twilight began, but she was surprised to hear Chuck say the exact same word at the exact same time.

“Well,” Twilight chuckled awkwardly. “At least we both seem to have the same sense of timing when it comes to apologies." She settled back into her seat and said, "Alright, Chuck. I think it might be best if we just call this entire day a waste of our time, and move on ...does that sound fair? I mean, I don't want to you to think I'm ungrateful for all your help or anything. It's just ...I'm really hungry right now. I know I can get a little grumpy when I'm hungry sometimes.”

Chuck grunted, took a deep breath, and then just started talking... “Look Princess... I’m sorry I called you sweet cheeks, that was in poor taste. I’m also sorry for holding you upside down earlier, and for not telling you about how I was planning to get up to the mountain road. ...And those arrows you had to stop, which I'm glad you did, by the way. And then there's that bear I didn't see until it was right on top of us. …And making you get all muddy was a plan I probably could have thought out a little better. And whatever else I’m forgetting, which feels like way too much for a ...pony I only just met.”

Twilight sighed, and took a deep breath… “Thank you for the apologies, Chuck. And I guess I should say that I’m sorry too, for…” And her brain just stopped. She couldn’t remember the day's events at all. Her poor brain must be so starved of food that it had simply given up the ability to recall short-term memories. “...for everything that's happened so far,” She finished, feeling a bit inadequate.

Chuck gave her a quick glance. “Are you okay, Princess? I was expecting a bit more, well ...more.”

Twilight opened her mouth and lifted a hoof to retort, but her stomach beat her to the punch… “Rrrrrrrrrr …pop”

“Oh really? Well that just about explains everything just fine,” Chuck said melodramatically. He then suddenly snorted, and burst into laughter. A long and very one-sided moment later, Chuck was still laughing his flank off, but they were also turning left onto a loose gravel driveway. They went down through a small dip between some massive pine trees, and then back up and through an opening to ...something she was definitely not expecting.

Twilight's eyes widened as a very strange looking home came into view. It was nestled into a large flat area that seemed to bulge out from the natural shape of the mountainside. She couldn't decide if the house was large enough to pass as a mansion, but it was certainly close. Even more amazingly, it appeared to be made entirely out of un-sectioned trees. Whole trunks had been cut to length and then stacked up on top of one another; so high that the unusually steep and tall roof did nothing to make the home look small. It was like a typical A-frame home back in Equestria, but much larger and without the typical bright paint and smooth walls. There was even a massive wooden deck across the front of the upper floor, made of thick and strong looking timber. Huge angular glass windows were present along the front of the house, going from the deck to the roof.

All in all, it was a very beautiful home. And in her current situation, it looked like an impenetrable fortress...

“Chuck …is this really your house? And what is this style of architecture? I don't think I've seen anything quite like it,” Twilight asked, looking up at the massive log walls as Chuck stopped the bike and quickly lept off.

The human wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his heavy looking jacket, still fighting back some mild mirth. When he'd managed to stop chuckling, he gestured to the home and said, “This place is out of my league. It actually used to be a family friend's log cabin. Or at least they called it a cabin, anyway. It's more of a log mansion if you ask me.”

“I …yeah,” Twilight agreed. She then pulled her weary limbs free from the sidecar and lowered herself to the ground. With a slightly uneven canter, she headed straight for the only door in sight. A tall white-framed one right above her head, which she would actually have to fly to reach, as it was up on the side of the deck. As she got closer, she realized that the back of the home had been built right into the mountain itself. The thick rock base she'd thought to be an elaborate support structure was actually another floor made from stacked rocks. Either the home had three floors, or incredibly tall ceilings.

…Outside of her old library and Fluttershy's house, this was easily one of the most unique homes she’d ever seen.

“Hey Princess!” She heard Chuck call from behind her. “The door’s over here!”

Twilight turned around, finding Chuck staring at her from under the deck like she’d grown a second head. She trotted back toward him, and followed him around to the front of the log-house. The wide deck was now forming a ceiling above her head, and she wasn’t a bit surprised that she’d missed the door Chuck was now fiddling with. It was almost exactly the same color as the rock the first floor had been built from.

But before they went inside, she had a very important question to ask... "Hey Chuck? I don't really want too many humans knowing I'm here. Are there any neighbors? Or do other humans live with you, and are they nice?"

Chuck froze in place for a moment, and then went back to trying to open the door. "It's just me out here,” He said. And the way he said it made her think that asking any more questions about the man's personal life in the next twenty four hours was probably a bad idea.

There was a soft click, and Chuck smiled back at her. “So... You ready to call it a day, Princess?” He asked.

Twilight didn't even have to think about it. She hastily nodded, and Chuck pushed the door open to let her inside.

Twilight stepped through the stone doorway, and looked around the room. She saw rough stone walls, a large red throw rug across a chilly looking hardwood floor, a glass-topped table that had been fashioned out of giant wagon wheels, and one monster of a giant green couch. There was also an ancient looking wood fired stove against the left wall ...which explained the smoky smell burning her sinuses.

Frankly, she’d been expecting a bit, well ...more.

Forcing a smile, Twilight turned to face Chuck, who was obviously waiting for her reaction. “Um, this is a very …nice place you have here, Chuck,” She offered. She could tell he didn't buy her praise for a second, though.

Chuck smirked at her and said, “You’re not a very good liar, Princess.” Twilight felt herself blush a bit. It wasn't like being bad at lying was a bad thing. But Chuck didn't really seem to mind her dishonesty, as he was still talking, "But lucky for you, this is just my floor of the house. The owner rented the upstairs out back in the day, and the guestrooms are actually pretty swanky. You can pick a room upstairs once I get the place cleaned up a bit.” Done talking, he closed the door behind her and walked toward the giant couch.

Twilight suddenly felt a bit nervous. She still hadn’t developed much trust for the unstable human, and being alone in a relatively small space with such a large being was pushing some of her panic buttons.

...But then the big man kicked off his boots and slowly teetered over like a freshly cut tree, landing on the giant couch with a loud 'POMPH'. He moaned loudly into the cushions, slowly sinking until he was almost completely out of sight.

Twilight found herself torn between her lack of trust, and just joining Chuck on the couch ...which had just now finished devouring all but the big man's feet. It was the oddest thing to want to do, but the inappropriate urge remained, all the same.

She squashed the idea like a grape underhoof, wondering where it had even come from. Then she cleared her throat and trotted over to where she thought Chuck’s head might have wound up. “Um, Chuck? I'm sorry to interrupt your rest, but ...could we possibly have something to eat now? I'm as hungry as I've ever been, and I think it's starting to make me feel a little bit ...tired.”

“Yeah, yeah… I’m hungry too.” Chuck said from somewhere in the cushions. “Just let me get my armor off, and I'll get the stove going.”

Twilight didn’t understand what he meant at first, but then Chuck rolled over and started to unbutton his jacket.

Wait… He was undressing? Right here and now? But she was still here! Didn't humans have a problem with that sort of thing?

“Chuck? You're not actually going to take your clothes off, are you?" Twilight asked. "...I mean, I don't mind. It's just that I remember it being considered inappropriate from last time I was here. One of the humans I met was pretty clear that humans don't like being ...naked around each other."

Chuck chuckled and said, "Relax, Princess. I'm not that cruel. I'm just gonna hang up my jacket and armor so I don't get all hot and sweaty cooking supper."

Well ...thank Celestia for that. She wouldn't have minded seeing what a human looked like without all their clothing ...probably; but she would much rather it be part of a proper scientific study. Maybe when she'd secured her way home, she would begin a study on human biology. It should be easy to find the same world again, now that she'd been here; and humans may have developed methods that could prove helpful in advancing Equestria's rather antiquated approach to medicine. ...But not right now. Now it was time for food. And why did Chuck keep talking about armor? What armor? He wasn't wearing any, was he?

"Um, Chuck? I don't see any kind of armor on you, but you keep saying that you're wearing armor. What exactly do you mean by that?"

Chuck hauled himself up with a tired groan and pulled his dusty brown jacket off of his long arms, revealing an off-white shirt underneath. It was made of a much thicker cloth than seemed comfortable, and was cut in a very simple pattern. It certainly looked sturdy, but it wasn't armor.

And yet the human pulled the shirt up over his head and presented it to her, making it obvious that the roughly sown garment was indeed the subject of her curiosity. He smoothed out his last remaining layer of clothing, a thin white garment that she could just barely see a patch of curly dark chest fur though, and then he finally took note of her incredulous look. He smirked and said, "This shirt is made of a material called Kevlar. It's only a few layers thick, so it won't stop a bullet or an arrow. But it should be enough to stop even the strongest undead teeth from getting through. I wear it every time I leave the house, although I've never gotten to test it out ...not that I actually want to, but ...eh, you know what I'm trying to say."

Twilight took the surprisingly light shirt in her magic, and prepared a scanning spell she'd picked up from one of her favorite chemistry books. The spell would give her a basic idea of what this 'Kevlar' was made of on a molecular level. And what the spell couldn't tell her, she could figure out with simple chemical group theory.

...She dropped the shirt to the floor the moment the spell produced a result.

Carbon and a bit of Nitrogen, latched firmly in an offset pattern with Hydrogen and Oxygen taking isolated positions alongside each molecule. It looked like a mythical material called a Maramid fiber, one of the most elusive chemical compounds in modern chemistry ...and yet Chuck seemed to have an entire shirt made of it.

"Chuck..." Twilight whispered, staring at the fallen fabric. "...How exactly did you make this?"

Chuck shrugged. "Oh, you know... just cut the shapes out and sewed them together. It wasn't exactly hard. I mean it’s not really supposed to be pretty or anything..."

Twilight stomped a hoof. "Not the shirt, Chuck! The fibers! How did you make the material itself?!"

Chuck stood up, collecting his shirt armor and jacket to hang back on a coat rack near the door. "I didn't make the material, Princess. I just cut it and sewed it together. In the days when stores still took paper money, you could buy woven Kevlar sheets for about thirty five dollars a yard. I don't actually know how it's made, but I do have a few extra rolls left in back. Maybe you could take a sample with you when you do ...whatever it is you have to do to get back home?"

"I ...I'm not sure that would actually help," Twilight admitted. "Reverse engineering complex materials takes years of trial and error ...and this kevlar material would probably mostly lead to error, since we ponies have already been trying for a very long time to develop something similar. But your kind has already achieved something remarkably close to a true Maramid Fiber! It's the closest stable example I've ever seen successfully synthesized! The possible benefits to pony kind are unimaginable! I ...I have to know how it's made!"

Chuck stroked his beard in thought as he turned. He eventually dropped his hand and said, "Well, you might find a book about it in the library or something. Maybe in the science wing?"

Twilight felt her ears flick forward against her will. "You have a library? Where? Is it upstairs?"

Chuck shook his head. "It's a public library, just across the river on the southwest side of Jackson. It's outside the wall, though. So it'd be dangerous to spend more than a few minutes there, even if you didn't get seen by the Bar-J boys."

Twilight felt her heart break a little. "Oh ...well that's no good. What if I snuck in at night, though? Would that work?"

Chuck shook his head. "They re-purposed the big spotlights from the airport. You'd be seen as soon as you moved between buildings, even if you went at night. There's only around sixty people still left in town, but that just makes the guards watch all the closer. None of the original residents stayed around after the initial breakout, of course. The people in Jackson are all travelers who got tired of running. They cleared the whole place out and built a wall around it to keep the walkers out."

"Walkers?" Twilight asked. She really just wanted to change the subject and get that amazing fiber's impossible structure out of her head before it drove her mad. ...Dumb fibers.

"Zombies," Chuck clarified. He then corrected himself, "Well, not zombies. We covered that topic a couple of hours ago. We just use the word because it fits with most people's idea of what a zombie is supposed to be. The term you're supposed to use is 'Post Death Infected', but it's not like you have time to say all that when one is trying to gnaw your face off. ...In fact, it's a bad idea to make noise at all when they're around. Just point them out quietly and then get the hell out of there. And don't ever take on a dead man without a ranged weapon, or you'll just wind up like ninety percent of the population ...dead and hungry for your neighbor's left ass cheek. Anyway, I can probably go to town in a few days and..."

Chuck continued talking, but Twilight had latched onto one particular thing he'd just said. It was a massive detail that wouldn't let her move on until she'd confirmed it. He'd said that Ninety percent of the population was already lost to the ...what had he called it? The Mang Jieshu virus? But how could that be possible? If ninety percent of Equestria's population were suddenly turned into mindless killing machines, the remaining survivors wouldn't even last half a week. And another important question... Just how many healthy humans were left? How many infected humans were still stalking around? Was the whole world affected? Were there safe places that were untouched by the disease? What was the total population before the virus was released?

So many questions! But she could get all of them answered in one clever swoop if she wanted to ...which she did. It would be important to understand as much as she could, if she was going to be stuck here for any real length of time.

"Chuck? I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have a question." Twilight said as she sat down and got the weight off her sore hooves. "Now I knew that things weren't right the moment I ran into that ...walker, out in the woods. His behavior was unlike any human I'd ever met before, and the fact that he could move around without a spark is still really bothering me... But the way that you've talked about this disease, and the sheer number of those infected humans that chased us..." She took a moment to get her question worded right, making sure she'd get all the details she needed. "I would be lying if said I wasn't scared to know, but I'm going to be stuck here until I can perform a very difficult spell reversal. It could take a while for me to get home. In the meantime, I'm going to need a good understanding of the situation as a whole. Everything you know about this disease and how it works? I need to know it ...all of it. Please don't leave out any details." She cleared her throat, and scooted a bit closer to where Chuck was leaning near his coat rack. "Now... you said ninety percent of the population was affected. But that just doesn't seem feasible to me. There wouldn't be a single survivor left, much less a lone human living all alone in the woods. What I really need to hear right now is numbers. How many humans were there before the disease, how many are left, anything along those lines that would give me an idea of how bad things are."

Chuck's face shifted to a thoughtful scowl, and he kept it in place as he spoke...

"Well I won't know exact numbers, and I'm kind of worried you'll freak out and toss me around again if I give you my best guess here ...but fine. I'll tell you what I think things are like out there." Chuck crossed the room and sat cross-legged on the floor next to her, keeping his serious scowl in place. "The fact is, princess ...it's impossible to say just how bad things really are. Information only gets around by word of mouth these days, so it's almost never accurate. In fact, that ninety percent estimate came from a drunken caravan woman over a month ago, and she claimed to have gotten it from some other nutcase in Arizona. You can't believe a word travelers say to you anymore. Life is just too hard on them, and the constant stress turns them all into a bunch of liars. I will say this, though. You remember that mob we ran into out on the road?"

Twilight nodded her head. She would likely never forget that moment in all her life, no matter how much she wanted to...

"Yeah, well I'm afraid that was nothing." Chuck admitted. "Things are worse if you get near major cities. If an average guy like me set foot in a city like Las Vegas or Denver, they'd be up against a mob numbering in the thousands within seconds. ...Actually, hang on. I'm telling you all of this in the opposite order I should be. You need to understand what things were like before it went wrong, or you won't have a clue what I'm talking about..." Chuck began to stroke his big bushy beard, and his eyes lost focus as he seemed to recall some happy memory.

"You see, Princess. Ten years ago this planet had a population of just over seven billion. We had everything we could ever hope to want, and the technology to do nearly anything we wanted to do. You could talk to another person on the other side of the world with the press of a few buttons. You could get on a jetliner and go see that very person face to face in half a day's travel. We even had a space station program, as in an orbital science lab for studying how a lack of gravity affects ...stuff. I'll even bet the thing's still floating around up there as we speak, though I doubt anyone on board is still alive... But anyway, my point is this: In less than sixty years, human beings went from primitive lead-acid batteries and tapping contacts together to send slow and hard to read messages, to a global digital network that could move data around at the speed of light itself. I used to talk to my mother every Saturday after supper, and she lived nearly a third of the way around the world! Heck, I even got a college education without ever leaving my house. Miracles like that were commonplace ten years ago. We took the technology we'd built up from that first set of electrical contacts for granted, it was so common. And we got to the point where you could almost completely envelope yourself in a fake world, and have it feel convincing. Virtual reality, through electronic components and digital memory chips."

Twilight listened raptly, captivated by what she was hearing. Such amazing feats! And they'd clearly been accomplished without the slightest bit of aid from magic! She really hoped Chuck would continue talking about human technology, but his face had slowly returned to a disheartened scowl, and he moved on to his point...

"But it didn't help us one bit. All those achievements were worthless, the instant the virus was released. You know how I said that there were around sixty people in Jackson? Well there used to be over ten thousand. That's ten thousand ...to sixty. If you do the math and assume that the whole country is in a similar state, I think it's something like ...point six percent of the people are still alive. That's just Jackson, though. Driggs is smaller, but has a couple hundred more people still alive in it. It's also the only spot with a working airport you can get to around here. But the funny thing is that it only had around sixteen hundred people living in it when the virus first hit the area. It probably has something to do with it being the only airport around that isn't overrun, but only the rich and powerful can afford to fly in planes these days... Anyway, I think I'm rambling here. I'll make it as easy to understand as possible. Probably the best way I can describe the state of things, is this: There's a crap ton of zombies out there, and not very many living people left to kell them off."

Twilight shook her head. "But there has to be somewhere safer if you started with such a high population, right? What about the rest of the world?"

"What about it?" Chuck growled. "The average American citizen is a far cry from a proper soldier, but most families had at least a few decent weapons lying around to fight with. We still lost in the end ...and we lost in less than a year, just to salt the wound. The rest of the world didn't have even have weapons at home like we did. They had simple hand tools, crappy blades, farming equipment, and legs to run on. That's it. They wouldn't have stood a snowball's chance in hell. In fact, if one single healthy human being is still kicking in the United Kingdom or Japan today, I'll eat my damned beard."

Twilight let the information sink in a bit, though it only made her worry more. This couldn't be the human world she knew of. Not if Chuck's statements were even half true. She needed to be sure, though... There were two more key pieces of information she had to get...

"Alright, Chuck... Exactly how long has it been since the virus first appeared, and how is it that every human I've seen so far is roughly the same color? I thought humans came in a lot more diverse shades."

Chuck screwed his face up, clearly confused. "Um... Well I'm not quite sure what you mean with that last question, but it's been ten and a half years since the virus first hit New York. And the very first news story about dead people walking around was only a couple of weeks before that, so ...ten years, I guess."

Ten years... So then it wasn't possible that this was the Mirror World. Canterlot High would have been a much more dangerous place than it had been. But she needed to be thorough...

"...And what about human skin coloration? I remember seeing humans with nearly every color of the rainbow, plus every shade in between. But the only color theme for humans I've seen around here is a dull pinkish-white ...no offense."

"None taken, and I get the question now ...as strange as it is," Chuck said. "As for the answer... I don't think I've seen any lavender humans, or any color but White, Black, or somewhere in between ...guessing that’s not what you were hoping for?"

"White or Black?" Twilight pressed, ignoring his question. "I know my colors, Chuck. And you are nowhere close to being White or Black. You’re fur is dark brown, and your exposed skin is a light to medium beige, if anything."

Chuck nodded, his face relaxing from its scowl. "You're right, Princess. Human skin gets darker the closer you get to the Equator as a rule. But it's always in the same vein of color no matter where you are, a very light beige to a very dark brown ...or even a chocolate color in some areas of the world. A bit of a yellow tint can occur in some parts of the world, but only according to a few people I've talked to. I've never actually noticed any yellow in anyone I've met in my life, so I honestly think it's just some leftover racism from a stupid war we got pulled into in the mid-forties ...Sorry, I'm not really the guy to talk to when it comes to race. Not even a little bit. I just never had cause to think about it as being worth thinking about ...if that makes any sense."

Twilight expected her heart to start speeding up, or at the very least to break out in a cold sweat. There was no reason she shouldn't be freaking out about this. She was very clearly in a brand new world, and stuck here until she managed to master some very powerful magic. But she mostly just felt a bit ...numb. Or actually, she felt numb, and purposeful. She had a clear goal now, something to push her efforts against. It was going to be one hay of a difficult goal to actually reach, but she would get home. If it took her a whole year, she would get out of this dangerous and violent place.

Chuck huffed and walked back deeper into the home, having figured out that she was done asking questions for the moment. He called to her as he went...

"Well, princess... I think we've talked more than enough about how shitty this world is for today. Let's change it up, and talk about the really important stuff in life ...like food, for example. I may not look it, but I've gotten pretty decent at cooking over the years. So go ahead and hit me with a request. What does your royal highness want for her grumbly tumbly?"

A number three with extra hay fries, and a large side of alfalfa poppers with extra barbecue sauce... “Do you have any hay or pasta? I really just need fast energy. My magic isn't recovering like it should be, so I think I need complex carbs.”

Chuck's slightly muffled voice came from somewhere in the house, and he seemed to be whispering to himself ...she still heard him, though.

“Hay... Of course she eats hay. She's a horse. Pony. Equine ali-thing or whatver. Damnit, what the hell was I thinking, bringing somethin like her up here! Can't just kick her out cause she'd never make it." He then raised his voice and called, "Well I don't have any hay, Princess! But pasta is a staple of survivors out here. I've even got a few different kinds to chose from. I have spaghetti or angel hair, rotini and macaroni, some really good rigatoni and ...oh. I think this used to be fettuccine? I haven't used it in a while though, so I think I'm just gonna... yep." Twilight heard the sound of pasta being tossed into a trash bin, and Chuck's voice was quick to start up again. "So yeah, I traded a few things for fresh veggies recently. I have a bunch of stuff that's gonna go bad if I don't use it, and this is a perfect excuse to do just that. It'll take an extra minute or two, but we can have proper tomato sauce to go with the noodles tonight. What kind of meeee~eal, do you usually like? Spicy, or more mild?”

Twilight winced. She knew exactly what question Chuck had just avoided asking. The humans she had met in the Mirror world were far from being mindless carnivores, but they still had some pretty scary looking teeth behind their smiles. She banished the sudden tension in her gut, and said, “Mild spices, please. And I think I'd like to try …what exactly is angel hair? That one sounds interesting.”

Chuck came walking back into the room, a large glass jar of uncooked and ridiculously thin noodles in his grasp. “It’s tasty and fast to cook, that’s what it is," He said as he reached the stove. "Just bear with me for a moment. I have to get this old stove pretty hot to boil water properly ...and that's gonna need more wood from the look of it." He set the large jar on the stove top, and made for the door. He was half way out when he stopped and said, "By the way, I just took a look at my water supply. I don't think I have enough to spare for either of us getting into a bathtub tonight ...sorry.” He then turned and lumbered off into the darkness outside.

Well that wasn't very good news. She wanted this grime and grit out of her fur almost as badly as she wanted food in her belly. And how was it so dark already, anyway? It didn't feel like it'd been more than half an hour since they'd reached Chuck's home. She certainly couldn't blame 'having fun' for the sudden loss of time, that was for sure. It had mostly been random conversation, awful revelations, and awkward silences.

Twilight pulled her gaze away from the door, and stepped over to the couch. It was difficult to get up on, with her hooves not wanting to take much weight anymore. But she managed to get up on her own power.

It was a horrible mistake. The very second her center of mass shifted forward, Twilight went tumbling head over hooves into the soft cushions. A short and rather halfhearted battle to roll onto her stomach began, but she was just so tired... Her Legs were now jutting up toward the wooden ceiling, splayed out in every direction. And with her tail cut down so short, everything she had to offer was probably on full display. Yet she found it nearly impossible to actually care. The sheer comfort was just too strong to fight against, and she readily let it claim victory for the moment ...at least five minutes or so ...if she didn't fall asleep first.

She was just about to let sleep claim her - future awkward situations be damned - when Chuck came back, his upper body hidden behind a tall stack of chopped wood.

“Hey princess? You still over there? ...I don't wanna step on you,” Chuck said as he poked around with his foot. And Twilight instantly felt her cheeks start to burn.

“Don’t look at me!” She cried, trying to cover herself ...and failing.

Chuck grunted and lumbered over to the stove, setting the chopped wood down on the floor with a loud clatter. He then turned and looked right at her, doing exactly what she'd told him not to do!

Twilight lit her horn, and yanked her frizzy and short tail up over her as much of her belly as she could. She then issued the most grievous threat she could think of... "Chuck, I swear to Celestia, Luna, and every star in the night sky. If you keep looking at me I'll... I'll pull out every hair in your beard out and feed them all to you! At the same time!"

“Hang on, what'd I do now?" Chuck asked. He then lifted a thick brown eyebrow, seemingly finally noticing the problem. "...Oh. You're worried about being decent. Well I've been seeing you naked all day anyway, so I'm pretty sure you can relax. I'm not bothered by alien pony ...things." He then went back to tossing logs in the stove like nothing had happened.

Twilight felt her cheeks burn, and she felt her anger start to grow just as hot as her face. "You ...you looked at me all day?" She asked. "...on purpose?"

Chuck shrugged, not even turning to face her. “Nah," he dismissed. He then gave her a sideways glance. "...Well okay, I did take a glance or two out of curiosity. I mean, you're not exactly covering it up or anything, so I couldn't avoid catching a glimpse here and there. Putting you in the sidecar... The whole time you were playing dead... You're a bundle of jiggly parts that are very much female. But it's still just like I said. I'm a human, and you're not. Now let's just change the subject before it gets any more uncomfortable..."

Twilight lit her horn ...and aimed what was left of her magic reserves straight at a peeping tom named Chuck. She plucked him off the floor and made him face her, glaring as hard as she could.

Chuck cringed under her glare and shouted, "Hey now! None of that magic stuff! Seriously! Don't hurt me or nothin, just... Look, If you'll give me a second here, I can explain it better!"

Twilight was about to tell him to start talking, but he had already started...

"I had a younger sister growing up!" Chuck began. "I knew about girls before I was tall enough to even reach the kitchen counter! And I was freaking married for Christ's sake! I washed a grown woman's underwear for ten years! I promise you! There is no surprise that the female condition could ever hope to spring on me. And you're not even the same species! You are literally in the same amount of danger of being ogled as any other piece of furniture in the damned room, so please just ...chill the hell out!”

It was an undeniably confusing and revealing outburst, and Twilight found that her horn had actually gone out at some point in the middle of it. She hadn't even been aware of releasing her magic, so the big human had actually been free to move about for an undetermined amount of time. She was left feeling angry, awkward ...and incredibly embarrassed. She desperately needed a moment to collect herself, and the only option that came to mind was to ask the most difficult question she could come up with. It was a trick that Celestia herself had taught her, right after the fiasco with the Yakyakistani Prince. She could sort out her conflicted emotions while Chuck was busy trying to answer the question...

“Alright, Chuck," She began. "Let's say for the sake of argument that I chose to believe you, and that you didn't mean anything by purposefully looking at my mare parts all day. How exactly would you ...go about proving that it's safe for me to fall asleep with you under the same roof?” There, that should be difficult enough to keep him occupied for a moment.

Chuck - instead of answering - wobbled over next to his stove and pressed his back to the wall. He slowly sagged down the rough stone, looking utterly haggard by the time he was fully seated. He didn't even lift his head as he began to speak...

"To be honest, Princess... I'd just let you have the whole damn house to yourself at this point. I'd rather sleep out in the garage than worry about what that magic of yours might do if you have a nightmare or something." He lifted his head slightly. "...But if I had to actually answer, I'd say that I could have left you out there at any point today. And yet here you are ...waiting for me to feed you the food that I've worked hard to get. I'd think it should all be pretty obvious ...but I've put way too much effort into getting you here alive just to have you kill me for seeing your ...parts, don't you think?"

Wait... kill? He thought she was actually threatening to kill him? ...What the hay was wrong with this crazy place!? Why was death the only way humans around here seemed to deal with things!? ...She needed to correct this, and she really hoped she could gain an understanding of the broken way of thinking these humans had in the process.

"I was never going to hurt you, Chuck. That's not how ponies do things." She looked away from Chuck's tired eyes. She had to be honest if she wanted to make this work in her favor. Chuck had already shown himself capable of detecting a lie, and she wasn't good at lying to begin with.

Twilight sighed, and said, "I'll admit that I may have stuck you to the ceiling for the night, or even cast a sleep spell on you to make sure I would be safe ...but that's all I would have done. My friends and I have faced down several very serious threats to our world, and we've always done everything we could to avoid causing serious harm to anypony in the process of setting things right. It really is just like I said when we first met. I am not going to hurt you." She freed a hoof from the couch and pointed it accusingly. "...And why did you jump straight to that kind of conclusion anyway? I haven't done anything to warrant such an awful assumption, have I?"

Chuck just stared at her for a good long while, and then he wordlessly picked up a thick piece of wood and slid it into the hole in the side of the stove next to him. Twilight watched his face as he grabbed another, and his expressions began to shift as he worked. Clearly he was taking his own moment to think. She of course wanted a quick and honest answer, but she held herself in check. Once the stove was full, he lit it with a small device he had in his pants pocket. He then turned toward her and folded his legs up underneath himself, staring her down as he finally began to speak...

"Look ...Princess. I don't have a clue what the world you came from is like, so making any kind of assumption here would be worthless. But here on Earth? The biggest threat is always the unknown. The stuff you can't or just flat out refuse to see coming." Chuck leaned back, staring up at the ceiling as he continued... "You can outrun the dead for a long time. You can climb a tree to escape from a pack of wolves. Hard work in the warm months can see you through the coldest and longest of winter storms. But the rattle snake you didn't notice warming itself in your boot? A forest fire in the night after you took a sleeping pill? ...A random bolt of lightning? You just can't plan ahead for that sort of thing, and planning is everything if you want to stay alive out here long enough to have a life mean anything." He pointed limply at her, and Twilight noted he was specifically pointing at her forehead. "When you fire up that magical cloud stuff of yours? The only one that knows what's going to happen from that point on ...is you. Do you understand why that might be terrifying? Do you see why a guy like me might assume the worst first, and the best last?"

Well... sort of. If a unicorn was going to cast a spell on another pony, it was common courtesy to let them know what they were doing long before they actually cast it. Not knowing what spell was being prepared could be a very uncomfortable feeling, if a stranger was aiming aiming their horn at you. She still felt that her original concerns were valid, but she'd clearly been wrong in making assumptions.

Just as wrong as Chuck had been in making his...

Twilight sighed. It seemed like it was time to accept the truth everything was pointing to... Chuck was probably as good a human as she was going to find in a world this backwards and violent, and she was really very lucky she'd found him instead of that 'arshole' that had shot her last water jug to pieces. And another thing... She would be exhausting herself trying to get home as soon as she got her strength back. She would need somepony reliable to keep her safe while she recovered after each failed attempt, and there would be a lot of them. It would be difficult, but all she really had to do was convince herself that she'd been wrong about the human - or at least this one human in particular - and try to be a proper friend to him.

And she needed a friend more than ever right now ...because she was kind of stuck in the couch.

"Chuck? I think I ...no. I know I was wrong to be so distrustful of you. I realize it isn't enough to just say this but... I'm sorry. Now would you be willing to come over here and help me up?"

Chuck looked weakly up from his spot on the floor and said, “What ...you stuck or something? How'd you manage that?"

Twilight groaned. Leave it to the male of any species to find a way to ruin a touching moment. “I’m just tired from all the excitement today. And I'm a lot smaller than you are, so I don't think it should be a surprise that I can get stuck in the deepest couch ever made. I’m also hungry, and knowing that you were about to start cooking before I messed things up is making me even hungrier, so..." Twilight slid her lower lip out and gave her best attempt at an upside-down pouty face. "…please?”

Chuck deadpanned, clearly unaffected by cuteness. But he forced himself to stand anyway. He then walked over and lifted her up out of the cushions without looking at her, or even making any kind of deal out of it. It was much appreciated; as Twilight was worried he would make fun of her for pouting, or stare at her some more and make it awkward.

"Thank you, Chuck" Twilight began. It was now time to implement phase two of the plan that she hadn't actually made yet. But being a better friend wouldn't require much in the way of planning. Friendship didn't ask for much, just genuine concern and a bit of effort on the behalf of another. "So..." She tried. "How can I help get supper ready? I'm pretty empty after everything that happened to us."

Chuck ambled over to a large bucket on the other side of the stove, picking it up and holding it out to her. "There's a blue plastic barrel in the last room on the left. It's my last barrel of water, so don't knock it over if you can help it. But if you'd be so kind as to fill this bucket up, then I can handle the rest," He said.

Twilight took the bucket in her magic, pretending not to notice Chuck wince and yank his hand away as she did so. She walked back through the hall, being careful not to scrape the metal bucket across the smoke-lacquered walls. She felt a bit claustrophobic in the narrow passage, but she managed to find the correct door without any trouble. The blue barrel was obvious as soon as the door swung open, and she wasn't at all surprised to find it filled a third of the way up with clear water. She slipped the bucket below the still surface and let it fill, then lifted it and poured some back out to give herself a safety margin. Spilling water all over the place wouldn't do much to help a newborn friendship, after all.

She left the small room, and was surprised by Chuck coming out of the room opposite hers as she did so. He was holding a woven basket full of vegetables in his arms, though, so the only thing that got too excited was her stomach.

She followed him silently back through the darkened hall, feeling her dry mouth starting to water for the first time in what felt like forever. It was almost demeaning in a way, as Chuck was so much taller than her. It felt like she was a half-starved pet of some kind, following its master to the food bowl. She really hoped that Chuck didn't try to give her a pet name or anything, or she would just have to start calling him ...Chucky? ...Chuckles? She couldn't think of any other possibilities at the moment. His name was just so strange to her ears, as were many of the other human names she'd heard in the mirror world.

She waited until Chuck had set the basket on a shelf near the hot stove, and decided that she really wanted to learn about human names instead of just suffering her stomach's demands... "Hey, Chuck? Does your name mean anything special? Or are human names really just unique sounds and nothing else? I found the names that the humans I visited before really confusing, and I'd like to better understand them. You see... in Equestria, names tend to reflect a pony's personal traits or an inherent special talent. They'll even change their names if they don't seem to fit, once they reach the age of independence. But I honestly have no idea what 'Chuck' could possibly mean, other than woodchuck, or chuckwagon. But neither of those seem to ...fit. Oh! And that man you called Jimbo? The one with the grammar problems? I heard him call you 'Werther'. Is that your last name, by chance?"

Chuck smiled as he got to work breaking up the vegetables, and nodded his head in her direction as he answered... "I suppose there's no harm in you knowing the whole shebang, so... Charles Martin Werther, at your service.”

Twilight cocked her head. “Charles? But I thought your name was Chuck?”

Chuck nodded. “Chuck is short for Charles, for whatever reason. It’s like people named William, they tend to get stuck being called Bill a lot.”

Okay... If this constants stream of oddities kept up, Twilight was going to get a cramp from all the confused tilting her head was doing. “I ...think I'm even more confused now. But how about my original question? Do human names mean anything special?”

Chuck sighed as he eyed the water bucket floating next to him, and Twilight sighed back as she set it down next to the magic-shy human's feet. "Thanks," Chuck said as he leaned down to grab it. "...And to answer you, most parents name their kids based on whatever names happen to be popular at the time. Some countries even have laws to limit the choice of available names. The vast majority of common names are just sounds or born of a forgotten language, but quite a few are based off of obscure or long-dead languages that we still understand. For example, Charles is thought to be early Germanic for Karl, which roughly meant ‘man’. It's kind of boring compared to some of the other common names, but it’s mine. I've answered to it too long to change it any further than going by Chuck.”

Twilight nodded. She didn’t get half of what Chuck had said, but she'd decided she wanted to move on to a much more important question she'd just come up with...

“Chuck? I don't want you to feel pressured to answer this, but ...would you really ...kill a foal? Or even a buffalo calf?”

Chuck silently filled a pot from the bucket, and set it on the stove. She didn't think he was going to answer, but eventually he did...

“You're referring to my mud idea, and what I said to Jimbo." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well I'm guessing this isn't what your expecting me to say at this point, but yes. I would kill just about any kind of animal if I had to. I'd have to be starving to death to take a new life that hasn't grown up yet, and even then I’d probably just try to catch something much smaller first. But you need to understand something important. Killing is a necessary part of living out here. Actually enjoying it is optional, though. It's the pursuit of nutrition and the collection of useful materials, nothing more or less.”

Well, at least he was honest. Twilight had to give him that. "And what about the dead humans? Do you have a hard time ...finishing them off?"

"No," Chuck answered flatly and without hesitation. "I don't even consider that killing. If anything, it's doing a dead man a courtesy. I would hope that if I died, someone would make darn sure that I stayed that way. Knowing that my body will become a mindless husk after I pass on is one of the few things that actually bothers me in this world. ...Well, that and the fact that aliens are real ...and decided to show up in the shape of adorable knee-high ponies."

Twilight huffed. "I am not adorable. Only young fillies and colts can claim that title, never a grown mare or stallion. And I'm probably just as tall or taller than you are, if I stand up on my rear legs. But never mind that. What did you mean just now? What happens to a healthy human that passes away?"

Chuck put the finely chopped vegetables in a saucepan, adding plenty of crushed tomatoes on top of them. He began to stir and mash them as he answered... "When a person that has been exposed to the virus dies, they wake up a walker. It's the same if they were bitten to death, shot to death, or just about anything else."

Twilight took a step back. "Chuck. Are ...are you saying you've been exposed? ...Have you been bitten? Can you be cured?!"

Chuck shook his head. "I've never been bitten, no. Everyone just has the virus in them naturally these days. It's transferred from a mother to her child, or picked up from flying bits of blood during a fight. Even drinking water from a stream is enough to get you infected. That's why I told you to only use ranged weapons. Just imagine what would happen if you took the virus home with you. ...Though of course we don't actually know that you can even carry it, but why take the risk?"

Twilight felt her heart try to rise into her throat. She remembered just how close the man she'd tried to heal had gotten to her. He'd been raging at her from mere inches away, his ragged wounds open and bleeding.

"Chuck... how exactly is the virus transmitted? Is it airborne? Blood borne? Would getting spittle or blood in your mouth be a route of entry?"

Chuck added the pasta to the water, eyeing her as he said, "No one around here would be able to answer a question like that. Not for sure, anyway. We were all too busy fighting to do anything beyond trying to survive the day. So for the most part, we all just assume it can be spread by any route available. And for cures - since you asked and I'm thinking about it - there was talk of a government program to develop a vaccine. But I know for a fact that vaccines take years to develop, and the whole country fell during that first year. Any decent research would probably be in an abandoned lab somewhere; probably hidden away from the public, given all the other crap we found out they were doing once everything started to come apart. ...Why? Did you get blood in your mouth?"

"I don't know!" Twilight cried. "I... maybe? It was the human I encountered in the woods! He tried to attack me! He got so close, and he was screaming so loud. There was probably blood flying everywhere! What if I'm already infected! I wouldn't be able to go home!" She tried to calm herself down, thinking of ways to test herself for infection, and ways of eradicating any viral presence in her body. She thought of a way to scan for the presence of viruses in general almost instantly, and decided to test it out. A more accurate test could be designed later...

Chuck's eyes followed her as she raced to the middle of the room. She didn't actually need the space, but the human didn't seem to like her magic being anywhere near him and she had no idea how she would react if this first test was positive. She didn't want to freak out right next to Chuck, and have him change his mind about her getting supper.

Twilight lit her horn, casting the same spell she'd used on the Kevlar fibers. Next she added a weak scrying spell, projecting the image onto... well ...ponyfeathers, she would need some other supplies for this to work.

"Chuck? Do you happen to own a hoof mirror?" She asked. "I'm going to need one for this spell to work. It won't be harmed, I promise."

"You mean a hand mirror, I'm guessing," Chuck said. “And yeah, I've got one. Don’t let the sauce burn; I'll be right back."

Chuck went back through the hall, coming back so fast that Twilight hadn't even had a chance to approach the steamy stove top. He held out a very simple round mirror, about a hoof and a half wide. He was quick to release it when she took in her magic, rubbing his hand as if she had slapped it.

"Man, I am never getting used to that. It's all warm and ...tingly. Makes my skin crawl," He admitted.

"You very well may have a different type of central nervous system from us ponies, then," Twilight guessed. "...But let's talk about that later, I have to know if I'm infected or not."

She lit her horn again, restarting the spell from the beginning. First came the scanning spell, to provide the information she needed. Next came the scrying spell on the hand mirror, which she could manipulate to - theoretically - see the area she was scanning on a microscopic level. And finally, she added a 'find-it' spell; which would allow her to focus the scrying glass she'd just made onto a specific target or material.

"What exactly are you doing?" Chuck asked, eyeing her nervously. "You do know that viruses are too small to see, right?"

I'm going to try to scan my body for a specific type of viral protein ...if I have enough magic left in me to multicast these spells, anyway," Twilight said. She then added, "And nothing is impossible if you can think outside of the expected results. I learned that lesson the same day I got my wings." She then activated both the scrying and scanning spells, bringing the mirror to life. It didn't have a target yet, so for the time being it was just a glowing mirror and a gentle hum in the back of her mind.

All she had to do now was give the 'find-it' spell the correct target, and she would be a large step closer to knowing if she was infected or not. And this was the part where she would have to get creative...

Twilight had long known that all skin cells produced a large amount of connective proteins to keep themselves stuck together, and that the skin cells were the least likely type of cell to have the virus present in them as a result. So if she found a large number of unusual proteins in her skin cells, it would be reasonable to assume that worrying herself further was worthwhile.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the 'find-it' spell. It didn't get the message at first, likely because she wasn't really familiar with what she was looking for herself. But it latched onto a spot on her left foreleg, when she simply willed it to find tiny things in her skin that weren't actually a part of her. She wasted no time after that, and had the scrying spell follow the find-it spell to the same point on her leg a moment later. With no small amount of trepidation, she let her eyes open and shift over to the small mirror...

She could see the entirety of two skin cells, and had a partial view of several others. The scrying spell had a hard time dealing with her heartbeat, losing focus slightly with each pulse of arterial force.

...But she could see well enough. And there was definitely a virus in her system. At such high levels of magnification, the viroids were clearly visible and distinguishable from normal cell components. The question now became if it was the Mang Jieshu virus, or just a harmless cold that she hadn't come down with just yet.

"Chuck? Do you happen to know much about virology? I found some kind of virus in my system, but its behaviour is pretty unusual." It was a shot in the dark, but if he knew how viruses worked in this world...

Chuck was stirring the pasta, but he looked over his shoulder to see what she was doing.

"That's some freaky light show, Princess," The man said. "But to answer your question, no. I know the basics, like how to treat the common cold or a stomach flu, but the rest of my knowledge is all from high school. I might be able to remember a few things if I think for a minute, but I doubt I'll be much help with ...whatever it is you're doing over there."

Twilight didn't want to expend much more energy keeping these three spells going, but just as she was about to dispell them, Chuck spoke up...

"Okay, so I remember that viruses reproduce by messing with genetics, and they tend to only affect specific species as a result. The teacher I had in biology wasn't a very good one though, so the rest is ...fuzzy. ... ...Oh! And a species that gets infected by a virus - but doesn't get sick from it - is called a carrier. That's about all I've got right now."

"That's okay, Chuck. It seems like the viruses in your world are very similar to ours. I should be able to kill it with a guided anti-material spell, but that will leave me pretty drained ...if I can even cast it at all. The spell is a specialty for medical unicorns, and supposed to be too difficult to cast unless it's your special talent."

Chuck gave her a look. "You sure that's a good idea? If you're gonna be out of it for a while, you should probably wait until after you've eaten."

That was a good point. But it didn't really matter, anyway. She'd said she was going to cast an anti-material spell like it was easy or common, but that wasn't the case at all. She'd have to create the spell from scratch, as she didn't know any of that class of magic by heart. And she highly doubted that anypony in Equestria had encountered this species of virus before, or Equus wouldn't have any living ponies on it. She knew how the spell worked, and how to make use of it in practice. But she would have to take her time and get targeting matrix right, or she could do a lot more harm to herself then good.

And that was if she could even cast a completed anti-material spell on herself at all! It was a specialist spell for a reason, and the unicorn that could cure a cold with a single stage anti-material spell was among the rarest sort of medical professionals that existed in the field. There were whole generations of ponies that simply never produced a unicorn with the talent to do it, it was so complex. And for Twilight to try it herself would be like if she tried to outcook the world's best chef without even a cookbook to start from.

But speaking of cooks...

Chuck lifted a sheet of noodles from the hot water, watching them swing back and forth on his wooden spoon. He nodded to himself and took the pot off the stove, pouring the water and noodles through a sieve over the big metal bucket. Next, he grabbed a can from the nearby shelf and opened it with one hand, adding a dollop of the can's contents to the pot before dumping the pasta back in on top of it...

"Food's ready," Chuck proclaimed after a quick stir. "And I made enough for seconds, so eat all you like. We can't keep leftovers around anyway."

"What? ...Why not?" Twilight asked.

"No power to run a refrigerator, and ice isn't free in the summertime," Chuck answered. "...And rotting food tends to draw the dead like flies, so there's that to deal with as well."

Oh... "Okay, well I can probably make ice if you can get enough water. I know a spell that can freeze a bucket of water solid in seconds."

Chuck paused in his work. "Yeah... could you maybe not tell me stuff like that? It's not helping the whole trusting you thing ...no offense."

Twilight shrugged. "I'd much rather you learn to trust my magic. I'm only trying to help, you know."

The big human turned, holding two bowls filled to point of spilling over with pasta and a delicious smelling tomato sauce. "We'll see," He said. "But let's eat, I'm hungry enough to eat a hor ...uh, I mean ...damn it."

Twilight giggled. "I've heard the expression once before, and I also remember one of my friends in the other human world saying that equine species are rarely used for food ...I take it the same is true here as well?"

"Yeah," Chuck informed, still looking embarrassed. "Lots of people actually ride horses these days. They're incredibly valuable, since they can go places that machines just can't get to." He paused, eyeing her down... "Hey, Princess? Can you talk to other animals? I'd like to be able to talk to a horse or a wolf or something. That'd be cool as all hell."

Twilight shook her head. "I'm not an animal, so no. If it can't speak Equish, English, Ancient Equestrian or Griffonian, then I can't talk to it. I do have a friend back home that can communicate with animals, but it's not on a level you or I would understand. It's a mystery as to how she actually does it. ...I'm sorry, but I wouldn't be able to communicate with anything that doesn’t already talk."

Chuck sagged in disappointment. "Aww, that sucks. I'd love to have a few horses to help out around here, but there's no way I'd be able to feed them and keep them healthy."

Alright... This conversation was getting a bit awkward now, and Chuck was still standing there with her food, too high up for her to reach with anything but her eyes... "Um, Chuck? Could we maybe eat now?"

"Yeah, yeah... But let's use the table," Chuck interrupted as he strode across the room and set the bowls down on said table.

Twilight followed closely, sitting herself down on the floor opposite the couch where Chuck had settled in. The smell from the food was demanding all of her attention, and she had no problems allowing her body to follow its instincts this time.

The bowl slid closer across the glass with a thoughtless application of magic, and she happily shoved her muzzle right into the saucy noodles...

"mmMMPHAA! ....HAAWT!"

Chuck laughed, causing a long noodle to slither down his beard and back into his bowl …ew.

"Hahahaha! You're supposed to at least blow the steam off them first!" He chided.

Twilight gave his smiling face a glare, but decided he was right. She lifted a small trail of the thin noodles and bundled them up into a bite sized tangle of saucy goodness. She blew on them a few times, watching the steam come off of them in ever thinner trails. When it had cooled off enough, she popped the whole mess into her mouth, and chewed.

The pasta was soft, moist, and delicious. But it tasted far different from back home, so she asked, “Hey Chuck? Is this pasta made from hay, or wheat? Because it tastes different to me. It's very good, just ...different from what I’m used to.”

Chuck tilted his head. “Hay again? No... There’s no hay in any human foods. We can’t digest the stuff, as far as I know. This pasta is actually made from corn flour and eggs, and I don't make them myself. Old Mrs. Smith ran a pasta store for years before the outbreak, and the new residents of her store run the place just like she always did. Of course, they only take a few things for trade now, so it's hard to get sometimes. But I'd say it's worth the trouble, wouldn't you agree?”

Twilight nodded happily, and took another bite. She could already feel the hot meal filling her up with energy, and her mind was starting to clear up again. This might be why she suddenly remembered everything that had happened during the day…

"Okay," Twilight began. "So your name is Charles Martin Werther, you live all alone in your family friend’s giant log cabin, and you hunt and trade to make a living ...how exactly are you still remotely sane? I'd go crazy if I had to live like this for even half a year."

Chuck shrugged, finishing a mouthful of pasta before he answered, "This is how I lived, well before the outbreak. I'm a mountain man, Princess. The land takes care of me, and I take care of it. I trade and make a few things on the side, just so I can get the things I can't make for myself, but that's it. This is my life, and it hasn't really changed much. Virus or no virus."

Twilight frowned, utterly unconvinced. "Chuck, listen to me. I'm known as a bit of a friendship specialist ...Princess of magic and friendship, remember? I can tell you that having friends is a vital component of keeping a mind and body healthy. You may have lived out here alone for a while, but that doesn't mean you can do it forever. Sooner or later, you'll start to feel lonely ...what are you going to do then?"

Chuck gave her a thoughtful look and said, "It gets lonely at times out here, sure. I got used to it pretty quick, though. Don't just assume that we humans are like you ponies, Princess. There are plenty of confirmed stories about men being stranded on islands for years and years, and most survived with no more trouble than a skinnier waistline."

Right... and the Ponyville psych ward didn't have a pony that thought she was a dog living in it, either. And all it had taken to break the poor mare's mind was a week of being accidentally locked in her own home with her pet hound. A life without friends was asking for serious mental health problems, no matter what species you were.

"I don't believe that for a second, Chuck. I would have lost everything three times over if it weren't for my friends. How can you say that friendship isn't a necessary part of living a good life?"

Chuck tugged at his beard. "Well I don't think that's what I said, Princess. Friendship is nice! I'd love to have a friend or two out here ...just not with things as they are at the moment. I actually avoid having friends these days, out of simple necessity. Every time you decide to call someone a friend today, they seem to either die horribly or move on with as much of your stuff as they can carry."

Twilight leveled a bundle of pasta at the man, and asked, "Friends don't do that, Chuck ...not real ones, anyway. I think you just need to experience a real friendship, to remind you of how good it can be to have a real friend close at hoof."

Chuck gave her a look, and said, "You're confusing ponies with human beings, I think. It's clear to me that we're different, Princess. I don't need friendship like I need air, as your kind seems to. I can live just fine without the trouble, and having friends around is just that these days ...a big old pile of steaming trouble. I haven't survived as long as I have up here by inviting trouble into my home."

"Alright," Twilight relented, before trying a new angle... "Then how about the opposite sex? You can't tell me you don't have any interest in having a few sturdy mares ...or rather women, around to keep you safe. It's basic instinct for all males, no matter what species they are."

Chuck sat his fork down, glaring at her from across the table. He leaned forward a bit and said, "Your opinion of males is duly noted. Remind me to stay well clear of whatever portal you come up with to get yourself home, so I can avoid falling into it. And again, I never said that I didn't want friends! I was trying to explain that the world just isn't letting me keep them around right now. I'm just beating the world at its own game by living happily alone until things settle down."

Twilight pondered the conversation she'd just had as she took another cheek-popping mouthful of food. She doubted that Chuck was actually happy without at least one friend around. She knew she certainly wouldn't be. But she was dealing with a being that was stubborn enough to stab his own hand with a dirty knife, then pick up a dangerous species of snake with nothing but two short arrows and kill a charging bear shortly after. Maybe she was wrong, and her knowledge of friendship magic didn't apply in the same ways here? She would have to make the assumption that she was - in fact - wrong, and work up from the bottom...

Twilight cleared her throat, and said, "Okay, Chuck. I thought about it a little, and I'm willing to change my mind that being alone is possible for more than a few years for a human male. But what about humans that don't want to be alone? Would you really turn somepony like that away if they asked to be your friend?"

Chuck swallowed quickly and said, "Hell yeah, I would! Anyone that friendly is going to stab you in the back. That's how just about everyone is now, even the good ones."

"That's ...no! I just can't believe that could be true." Twilight said, trying to keep the growing discomfort in her heart from showing.

"That's a life lived among the dead," Chuck shot back. "This world is as dangerous as it's going to get already, and if you want to stay alive in it long enough to call it living ...the very first thing you have to kill is your trust in others."

Twilight fought back a knot that was growing in her throat. She had a growing concern about her future with the man, and wanted to secure her place. It would need a fair deal of tact, given his stubborn opinions on friendship... "Chuck? I'll admit that we got off to a bad start..."

"Nope." Chuck interrupted, completely blocking her. "I can tell exactly where you're going, Princess Sparkle. And you can forget about it. I don't care how cool it would be to have an alien pony as a friend."

The knot got bigger. How the hay did he know her plan before she'd even gotten started! Was this species of human psychic? "But, Chuck! I need your friendship! I'll be running myself ragged trying to cast the spell to get back home! It takes every bit of magic I can bear to part with, plus even more from an active layline, and I won't be able to protect myself for at least a few hours after each attempt! I need someone to be close to me, or I could get dragged off by some wild animal while I'm helpless!"

Chuck polished off his bowl and stood, silently preparing a second serving for himself. He sighed heavily as he returned to the couch, stepping over her seated form on the floor to reach the couch.

His eyes found hers, and he said, "I meant what I said, Princess. You can stay here if you need to, but not as a friend. And even then, I can only support you for a couple of weeks. That's all I can spare in resources."

Twilight had to actually fight back the knot in her throat this time, and she didn't dare try to take any more food. "But ...I’ll die," She tried. "You don't want me to get hurt, do you?"

Chuck rolled his eyes and said, "Of course not! You're a nice girl! You saved my ass today with that head gasket repair! ...But I don't want to die, either! If winter hits while you’re still living here, I'd wind up feeding you what was left! I'd starve for sure, and then you'd get killed trying to make it on your own. You staying here through into winter would be the end of us both. That's all I'm going to say about it."

Twilight deadpanned. "Stop it, Chuck. I've dealt with dragons before, and faced down forces that could tear the whole of the world's magic apart. I won't be scared off by threats of hardship or a food shortage. That was why part of our deal was that you teach me about edible plants, remember? I can just go outside and graze!"

Chuck deadpanned back …harder. "Plants don’t grow in sub-zero temperatures! The problem isn't that I can't feed you now, It's that I can't feed you all the way through the damned cold season! You could try to copy what the local wildlife does if you like …eat pine bark and dig through the snow for grass. But I can tell just by looking that you're not built for it. That fluffy coat of yours doesn't exactly seem thick enough to stop the kind of cold we get, and the snow gets deeper here than you are tall. You wouldn’t be able to see the trees, much less actually harvest enough food to survive from them! ...So face facts, Princess. You need to get back home before winter comes, or you’re as good as dead. And I won't be dying with you because you softened me up. Now let's just both shut up about it and eat our damned food..."

Twilight lowered her gaze and pawed at the edge of Chuck's throw rug, trying to organize her thoughts. Leaving as soon as possible had been the plan from the very first moment she’d realized she wasn’t in her own world, and Chuck had said he would protect her while she was living here. She could take the offer as it was and be fine ...so long as she figured out how to do it within two short weeks.

But what if the spell took longer to figure out than that? ...What happened if winter came early?

"Hey Chuck? How long do we actually have before winter arrives?" She asked.

"About four months," Chuck quickly answered. "But you shouldn't think of that as an excuse to relax. I meant what I said. I can't support another mouth to feed, not unless you suddenly grow fangs and turn into an omnivore."

Twilight balked. "But why would you only give me two weeks if winter is four months away?"

Chuck didn't answer, choosing to stuff his cheeks with food. But he didn't have to actually answer her, as an idea had just formed in her head ...and that idea brought everything Chuck had ever said to her into perfect context...

"You're scared of friendship..." She whispered, as much to herself as to Chuck. "You're scared of losing another friend after loosing others before, and so you’re pushing me away. That's why you want me to leave so soon ...isn't it? So there isn't time for a friendship to form between us?"

Chuck glanced at her, but shoveled another mouthful of food into his mouth without a word. It was all the confirmation she needed that she was right.

"Chuck... I know that you've lost friends in the past. But that doesn't mean that we can't be friends while I'm stuck here, does it? Why would you pass up the chance to have a helping hoof in your life again, even if it's only for a while? ...I just don't understand it."

Chuck choked a bit, having tried to put too much pasta into his mouth at once. He forced himself to swallow and then looked her dead in the eyes to say, "No, this is not up for any kind of debate. You have two weeks, and that's that. Now eat your food. ...You don't waste things out here and live very long."

Twilight watched in awe as the man stood and disappeared into the hallway, his footsteps trudging up what sounded like a set of stairs until she could no longer hear them.

She'd failed, and it hurt far more than she thought it had any right to. Back home, a bit of persistence and the right approach was all anypony needed to make new friends. Pinkie Pie was a perfect example of that fact. Friendship was a universal force of nature, the most powerful in existence! It was unstoppable!

Unless you were human, apparently... She got the feeling that she could argue her case for the rest of her immortal life, and Chuck would still find a way to counter any positive aspect about friendship she could come up with.

But then, that wasn't quite right, now was it... Chuck was purposefully pushing her away because he was scared of losing friends. He'd said it himself, that he'd lost so many that the only course he felt he had left was to simply give up on finding more until the virus went away. And now the only way he felt he could keep his heart safe was to hide it from the world ...from the Princess of friendship herself.

Well that was just crazy! He had to know that friendship wasn't something that bowed to such conspiracies! She just had to do something to make him see that they were already friends! ...Maybe not the closest of friends, but friends none the less! They had saved each other’s lives, for Celestia's sake! But he was just so ...stubborn! And she had so much to lose, if she made him lose his already shaky temper...

What should she do? She could try to be even friendlier, but she doubted that would work. Chuck seemed a bit too smart for such simple efforts. He would pick up on what she was doing, and simply harden his heart even more. He might even kick her out early if she became a nuisance. Of course, there was also a small chance that leaving him alone would help him realize that he was indeed abnormally lonely, but he had claimed to tolerate loneliness as well as the average rock tolerated a rain storm ...and she was starting to believe that claim was at least partially based in truth.

Twilight couldn't think of a solution, and then she realized that her supper was getting cold. She barely even tasted her food as she hurriedly scarfed down what little was left, and then she quickly used her magic to refill her bowl from the stove top. With all her emotions raging around there wasn't much hunger left, but she knew her body needed the food. She dug right in, thinking about random things as she ate in silence...

Why did the only friendly human on the planet have to be so difficult? Why was she stuck in his world, and not some other one filled with happiness and peace? Why was her bowl empty again even though she'd just started eating it?

Twilight sighed, and she heard Chuck do the same behind her on the couch. She whipped around, surprised at not hearing him come back, and also hoping that there wasn't any lingering wetness in her eyes...

"Chuck! I ...I didn't hear you come downstairs. Um ...Thank you for supper," She awkwardly offered. And then she noticed the human's emotionless stare ...aimed right at her. It made her feel like a foal in a dragon's lair, and her next words left her mouth without her permission... "Look, Chuck? I'm sorry for making you talk so much about friendship. I shouldn't have tried to force my way of thinking on you."

Chuck just nodded and said, "I'm glad you ate well. And I'm sorry for being curt with you. Now let's move on, shall we? Wasn't there something you were trying to do with that virus you found with my mirror?"

Twilight lifted her forehoof, staring at the spot the 'find-it' spell had zeroed in on. She re-cast all the necessary spells, bringing the small mirror back over to her side from where she'd left it on the table. The image cleared up quickly enough, and she turned the mirror so Chuck could see it too.

"Alright, now do you see the small round things with the little spiky tails?" Twilight asked.

Chuck leaned over and scowled at the image in the mirror. He blinked a few times and said, "Am I looking inside you right now?"

Twilight forced herself to smile and said, "Only as far as the uppermost dermal layers of skin. Now do you see the viroid structures floating around? They look different from anything else, like little segmented letters or roughly cut gears."

Chuck nodded his head, and Twilight continued, "Good. The virus definitely looks like a very large type of bacteriophage. It shouldn't be possible for it to survive for long in a living host, because a bacteriophage only infects specific species of bacteria. If you’ll just watch for a minute, you'll notice what caught my attention earlier. Something interesting is happening ...or rather, not happening."

A long moment passed, with Chuck staring intently at the mirror. Suddenly his eyes widened and he said, "I saw one latch onto a cell, but then it just spilled it's guts out all over the place! ...So does this mean you're immune?"

Twilight shook her head. "If I was immune, the virus wouldn't be present in those kinds of numbers except in my blood stream. The fact that the viroids can't penetrate my cells means that I'm a carrier instead. I can transmit the virus to others from wherever it's surviving in my body, but I can't actually get sick from it." She swallowed nervously. "I do have a theory that I'd like to test, but I'll need some help. I know you don't like magic very much, but..."

She let the request sink in, and was surprised when Chuck rolled up his sleeve. He offered his bare arm - which was just as hairy as the rest of him - and said, "If you think you can kill the virus with this, than I'm in. I'll gladly take take one for the team. Just warn me before you start, because that magic of yours feels like a thousand little hot needles."

"I already have the spell up and running," Twilight said, gesturing to the mirror. "If you're really okay with it, we can start right now."

Chuck took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Just when she thought he didn't have a speck of air left in his lungs, he said, "Do it."

Twilight withdrew her 'find-it' spell, and sent it toward Chuck's thick fore ...arm. She could give it a much more specific target this time, now that she knew what the virus physically looked like. Chuck had no idea yet, but this was much more than just a simple look into his arm. It was actually the final confirmation of her own state of infection. If the virus inside Chuck was different from the one she'd found in her own body, she was safe. If not …well then she was going to have a lot of complicated studying to do in the very near future.

The mirror's image came into focus, and Twilight's hopes were dashed the moment it cleared up. The virus in Chuck's body was an exact match to what she had already seen in her own skin tissue. But at least the secondary purpose of this test was looking like a success, as the virus wasn't having any luck invading Chuck's skin cells either...

"Okay, so now I'm confused," Chuck admitted, staring angrily into the mirror. "How exactly is a virus that can't infect humans ...infecting humans? How can we be carriers as well as victims?"

Twilight shook her head. "I don't know, but I do have a theory. I told you that the virus looked like a bacteriophage, right?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, and you said that meant it only attacks bacteria."

Twilight nodded back. "Right. So then it stands to reason that the virus isn't actually infecting humans …it's infecting the bacteria that live inside of them."

"Okay, well that's not creepy as hell..." Chuck deadpanned, clearly upset as he clenched his legs together and raised his shoulders slightly. "But then how does that lead to a walking corpse? I don't get how a virus and a bacteria can add up to a zombie."

"It's 'bacterium' in singular form, Chuck," Twilight corrected. "And ...I have no idea. There wasn't any sign of necromancy at work, and your world's magic is pretty still. I don't think it's magic of any kind. There must be some kind of interaction going on between the infected bacteria and the human nervous system. It's the only way the virus could be causing movement at all, and you've made a point of saying that head trauma is the most effective method for stopping one of those things. It makes sense that the virus and the bacteria are doing something to the brain itself after death occurs ...I think."

Chuck stared at the mirror in wonder for a while, his mouth working without making a sound. He then looked down at the small patch of magenta magic on his arm. He casually rubbed the spot, causing the spell to collapse. Twilight winced at her magic being broken up and wasted instead of reabsorbed, but allowed the other spells to collapse along with it. She scooted over and set a hoof on Chuck's nearest knee, looked him in the eye, and said, "Listen Chuck, this is actually a good thing. It means that we can kill the virus by destroying the bacteria it depends on. You could start hoofing out simple antibacterial treatments all across the world. Of course it also means that I could become a zombie pony if I died with the virus still in my system, but I don't plan on letting that happen any time soon."

Chuck gently grabbed her hoof, removing it and setting it on the couch next to him. He then stood and walked toward the hallway.

"It's really not that good of a thing, Princess" He said. "It’s not that good at all. The only place humans consistently carry bacteria is in our gut, and killing the bacteria that live there for long enough to destroy the virus would be a massive ordeal for the person in treatment."

Twilight disagreed. "There would be some diarrhea involved in the treatment, yes. But you don't have to kill all the intestinal bacteria. Just the species the virus uses for reproduction would be enough It would work!"

Chuck opened a door that she hadn't seen yet, and beckoned for her to follow him. "I don't think we know how to do that, Princess," He said as she slowly walked over to join him by the new door. "I'm pretty sure the drugs we use to fight bacteria will kill just about every kind there is. Killing just one species would probably be impossible with the medicines we currently have access to."

Twilight reached the door, and was surprised to see a set of stairs behind it. "Chuck? Are you going to let me pick out a bedroom now?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, you're just really dirty. Dried mud is getting all over the place every time you move around, so I'm going to brush you off, and then I'm going to pass out on the couch. You can sleep wherever you want."

Wait... He was going to do what now? "Um, Chuck? I don't think I need any..." Twilight began, but she didn't get a chance to finish, as Chuck put one of his knees in a place it had no business being and pushed her forward.

"Come on, little princess. Let's go already," Chuck pressed. "I'm way too tired to be awake right now, and you’re way too dirty to be walking around on the rugs."

Twilight put on the brakes, making Chuck bump into the same spot again. "Okay, no... I know what you're thinking, Chuck. You’re thinking I can sleep like the other equine species of your world. But I can't sleep standing up, or if I'm too cold. We ponies sleep just like you humans do ...in beds, with blankets and sheets. I'll just curl up on the other side of the couch. It’s big enough for both of us. ...And I can brush my own coat, thank you very much!"

Chuck gently nudged her forward again, saying, "Fine, I'll get you a comforter and some brushes. Just head outside on the balcony, I'll be right out with what I can dig up."

Well somepony was grumpy when he was tired. Or maybe he was still mad about her pushing her own friendship ideals onto him? Either way, she was not comfortable with being pushed from behind like that. It put pressure on things that were very private, and not meant for contact by others without express permission beforehoof. Her shortened tail didn't help, either. She really needed to explain these things before Chuck got stuck with bad habits.

Twilight walked further into the new space at the top of the stairs, and her initial suspicions about the home's structure were mostly confirmed. The main room had a towering ceiling, giving the outward appearance of having three floors. For furniture, the room had a long rustic table, a sitting area made up of a round table and several couches surrounding a massive stone fireplace, and those massive windows on the front of the house where on full display. She turned around to see the rest of the room, and she felt her jaw drop open. There was a spiral staircase that permitted access to yet another floor. The space wasn't very large, but it had its own balcony to look down on the main area she was still occupying. There were three doors on the upstairs balcony, with one that had a drawing of a young human male holding his pubic region and jumping on one foot. ...She could only assume it was a bathroom. The three doors above were actually mirrored on her current floor, but they clearly led into smaller rooms and the last one ended before reaching the opposite wall. Instead of putting an additional room in the available space, the designer had filled it with a large and open kitchen, complete with every possible cooking implement she could think of, plus a few she didn't even recognize.

Twilight's gawking was interrupted when Chuck came from a door in the back of the kitchen area she hadn't noticed. He saw her standing there, and gave her a simple crooked grin...

"Pretty nice for being made of nothing but stone and wood, isn't it?" He asked.

"Yeah... I really like the spiral stairs and the third floor." Twilight responded.

"Yeah, that was always my favorite too," Chuck agreed.

"Was? What do you..." Twilight cut herself off. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry, I was just..."

Chuck lifted a flattened hand, and she tried to remember what the gesture meant. She was fairly certain that he’d just told her to stop talking. She didn't know just how bad that was as a message, coming from a stubborn person like Chuck. But this place was obviously a home for many of his memories. She opted to remain silent, and let him make the next move.

"Come on, Princess ...let’s just get outside already. The stars should be out by now." Chuck said. He then walked over to a white door on the side of the main area and opened it. Twilight followed slowly, unsure if she'd upset the human enough to make him mentally unstable. As the door frame passed over her withers, she realized that this was actually the white door she'd first seen when they'd arrived at the house. There was a section of railing missing to her right, and a few nails poking up from the deck. It made her wonder if Chuck had removed a set of stairs that led from the deck to the ground below. She turned left, seeing Chuck standing further out on the deck. She passed a large grill as she walked toward him, which reeked heavily of burned charcoal and …other things she didn’t want to think about. She then passed a simple glass-topped table with six chairs set out around it, though their cushions were all missing.

...And then she passed Chuck, who was staring out into the distance like a statue.

"Chuck?" She tried. "...Are you okay?"

Chuck snorted dismissively and said, "Yep. Your brushes are on the table, by the way ...sorry if they’re not the right kind. Let me just get you some light to work by, and I'll leave you to it." He walked over to a small shed on the far end of the deck - that looked disturbingly similar to a giant outhouse - and opened it up. He came back with a strange looking lantern, setting it on the table nearby. He flicked a switch on the side of it, and the deck was suddenly bathed in a harsh white light.

"Gah!" Twilight exclaimed, nearly blinded. "What is that?! How is such a small lantern that bright!?"

Chuck adjusted something, and the light dimmed to a more comfortable level. "That better?" He asked.

Twilight nodded, slowly. She wanted to ask about the lamp, but imagined that resources were hard to come by for Chuck. Anything that could do what she'd just seen without affecting the magic around it had to be fairly inefficient, so she forewent any more questions and got to work. ...Except that she had no idea which of the three brushes to use. "Um, Chuck? I don't recognize any of these brushes ...at all."

Chuck grabbed one and held it so she could see it. "Dog brush," He said simply. He grabbed another. "Hair brush for humans" And the last one. "Shop brush, for general cleaning" he finished. Only trouble was ...she still had no idea which one to use. It was important to use the right kind of brush for the right thing. Use the wrong one, and you could easily pull out your undercoat, get a brush hopelessly stuck in your mane, or accomplish nothing at all. She would just have to guess though, as Chuck didn't seem to in the mood for anything other than just staring off into space at the moment.

Twilight took the 'dog' brush in her magic and set it gently on a patch of the cleanest fur she could find. It dug in like a plow when she pulled, and didn't want to come back out without a fight. She winced when it finally came free, taking a bit of undercoat with it. Clearly it was meant for stripping fine hairs from a dog, and not at all meant for ponies. She set the dog brush down quietly and grabbed the next one, the hair brush. Now that she could see it, it was worthless for her coat. The wide distance between the bristles would be perfect for shaping her mane and her ruined tail, though. She set the normal hair brush down nearby, and grabbed the 'shop' one. It was obviously not meant for fur or manes, and the bristles were flimsy and long. This 'brush' was more like a broom for use by human hands. It wouldn't stick or pull, though. It was probably her best shot at getting her coat cleared of dry mud. A proper bath would be still be needed before she could call herself clean, though...

Twilight set the shop brush high on her withers, and began working it down her back in short strokes. It was uncomfortable, but was doing a good enough job of getting the lumps of dry mud out. She increased her speed until the brush was dancing across her fur in a familiar pattern she'd been using since she was a filly…

In. Down. Out. Up. In. Down. Out. Up...

She could probably keep up with Rarity doing this, as keeping a schedule locked down tight required plenty of morning efficiency. She’d had a lot of practice. It wasn't long before she'd moved on to her neck, and then her sides. Next came her legs and flank, and then some very careful work around her face. She noted that the brush smelled like wood shavings and lacquer as it tickled her nose, and she wondered if Chuck was involved in woodworking of some kind. But now that she was done with her coat, she had to start the hard part...

Twilight collected the normal hair brush from the deck floor where she'd left it, blowing the dusty mud that had landed on it clear. The brush had each bristle capped with a rounded piece of black material, likely to avoid poking an eye while a human brushed their ...hair. She put the brush on the exact top of her head and ...changed her mind.

Those little black things weren't for eye protection. They were clearly meant to make brushing your mane feel like ...well, sex came to mind, though it mostly just felt really really good. She had a moment of weakness on the spot, and ran the brush across her side to see what it would feel like...

...

...

Okay... When she secured her way home, this brush was going to be coming with her. She would pay any price for Chuck to let her keep it! It was that good...

Her mane was done all too soon, and she turned around to do her tail. Normally, she would just sit down and let it spread out a bit, but that would be a bit awkward at the moment, as there wasn't enough to spread without things showing. She knew Chuck didn't seem to care, but it didn’t matter. She didn't feel comfortable about him seeing her, so she was going to do things the safe way.

As it turned out, the 'safe' way was also the 'slow' way, mostly because the shorter hairs refused to cooperate with her established tail-brushing technique. But she managed to get a simple and straight shape after a few tries. She gave the best brush ever a quick flip to clear it of any remaining tail hairs, and set everything back on the table. She considered telling Chuck she was done, but he was still staring intently off into space.

He looked so ...old, just standing there. Like every stressful moment of his life was pushing down on him all at once. It made sense, as she hadn't been living here for three full days and was already trying to leave it behind. But if the conversation with that other bike rider had been accurate, then Chuck had been living on this planet for forty two years …ten of them spent worrying about the dead of his own kind trying to kill him.

She wondered just how tough this place would make the average stallion, and if an earth pony or a pegasus would stand any real chance of surviving the dangers of this world without help. She kind of doubted it, as she'd used all three of the natural magics her Alicorn form provided so far. Her Earth Pony strength and toughness had been at play many times, even if she hadn't thought about it. Her magic was certainly used a lot, and probably saved her from dehydration on her first day. And her Pegasus side had gotten some use too, regardless of her wing's current condition.

If she were an earth pony or even a powerful unicorn when that group of humans had come bursting through the woods, she probably wouldn’t have been able to escape.

Or actually, a unicorn could have just teleported away from them, but how long would it be before they simply caught up again?

"All done?" Chuck asked without turning.

Twilight jumped. She had nearly forgotten the man was still there, as he was so silent and still that - without the light from the lantern - he may as well have been invisible...

"Yes …I'm all finished. Thank you for letting me use your brushes. Now I just need a hooficure and a bath, and it'll be just like nothing ever happened!" ...Aaaaaand, que obnoxious deadpan. "But seriously, Chuck, my hooves are killing me. I'm okay for now, but I'll have to figure something out in the morning. I just hope they don't keep me up tonight."

Chuck finally turned around to face her and said, "Are you sure you’re just not used to walking a lot? It could be shin splints, you know."

"No," Twilight said. She then shook her head. "I mean, the walking didn't help, but it's not my canon bones. The hooves themselves are sore from all the rocks I've been collecting. My frogs haven't felt this stuffed and swollen since I spilled acid on the floor and stepped in it."

Chuck cocked his head. "Frogs... ... ...Is that a joke? Cause I don't get it."

Twilight giggled and said, "You don't know much about equine anatomy, do you?"

"No reason to learn about it so far, so no," Chuck admitted, sounding grumpy.

Twilight frowned. Chuck was clearly exhausted, though the only way he seemed able to show it was by acting grumpy. She decided that she could ask him to help her with her hooves in the morning... "I can teach you the basics on hoof anatomy tomorrow, Chuck. But I think I've kept you awake long enough. Let's just call it a day for now."

"Hang on a second," Chuck said. "If there's even a small chance that you're going to be kept up all night, then I think you should deal with the problem here and now. I’m a pretty light sleeper. And that's not going work well if you're groaning in pain all night." He thought for a moment, and then said, "Tell you what... I have an old ice pick in the kitchen. Would that work alright for getting the rocks out?"

Twilight thought about it for a short moment, and said, "It might, but I can't do it myself. Hooves don't really bend enough to get a good look at what you're doing. I normally go to a specialist, and she takes care of it as part of a polish and shaping deal. I know you're tired though, so maybe it would be best if you helped me in the morning?"

Chuck huffed and said, "I gave you a mirror, remember? Why not Just use that and do it yourself."

Twilight deadpanned. "I would if I wanted your ice pick stabbed through my hoof, or lots of junk left behind. I've had the same hooves since I was born, Chuck. I've tried cleaning and shaping them myself a few times, and believe me ...working on your own hooves isn't a good idea."

Chuck sighed heavily, and turned to head for the door. "Come along then..."

Twilight followed Chuck back inside to the kitchen. He opened a drawer and retrieved the ...Okay, wow. Human icepicks were tiny! And sharp!

"Um, Chuck? That looks sharp enough to pierce armor. Do you have anything …blunter?"

Chuck poked his hand with the tip. "It's not that sharp, it just looks pointy. I'll be careful, I promise. You're going to have to tell me what to do, though. Now sit down over here, and let's get this over with."

Twilight forced herself to step forward and sat down in front of Chuck, who in turn sat down on crossed legs. She leaned back so she could lift both of her front hooves, and began to point out each part...

"Okay, first things first. You can't clean a hoof without knowing where the rocks are." Chuck's expression didn't change, so she kept going... "A pony's hoof is divided into three parts from front to back. The front third is the toe, the middle is the quarter, and the rear third is the heel. This fleshy part from the heel to the middle is the frog I mentioned, and the two lumps on the back of the frog are the bulbs. The hard outer shell is called the wall, which mine need a good trim and a polish to be shiny again, but whatever." She looked up, and Chuck's face was still stuck in the same tired neutrality. He didn't seem like much of a student, but at least he hadn't fallen asleep yet... "The inside of the hard wall is called the sole, and the layer between the wall and sole is called the white line. Put them all together and you have the hard outer part of the hoof. If you follow the outer wall back to where it ends near the bulbs ...can you see how it turns in and forms a ridge?"

Chuck sleepily nodded. "Uh huh..."

"Well the spot where it turns inward is called the Angle, it's why horseshoes have their little nubs at each end. And then the two ridges where they terminate are called the bars. Rocks like to get stuck up between the bars and the frog. They sit in there and rub you raw, and it hurts like crazy! All you have to do is hold the frog gently to one side and remove the rocks …but please be careful with that thing. I really don’t want a lame hoof."

Chuck nodded dumbly, and then stood up.

"Where are you going?" Twilight asked.

"I'm not doing that," Chuck replied numbly. "…not without some light, anyway," He casually added. He then headed back out onto the deck, returning a moment later with the lantern. He turned it on and made it as bright as it could go, angling it to bath the room in light ...and also blind her, but she didn't really need to see much. Having your hooves cleaned out was more about telling the other pony where it hurt, and trusting them not to hurt you more.

Now that she thought about it ...maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Chuck thumped back down in front of her, and took hold of her right hoof. He lifted it up in his left hand, and she could see the pick in his right. Twilight winced as her frog was pulled back and forth a bit, but she bit her lip and pushed through it. The icepick came, and it was cold! Freezing, even! It both hurt and tickled when Chuck got to work. She was surprised at the number of small rocks she could hear hitting the floor. She knew it was going to be bad, but she could tell just from the nearly rain-like sound of falling rocks that it was far worse than she'd ever had in her life. Chuck worked on the one side for a few more minutes, and then changed hands. His thumb pressed her frog in the other direction, and she was surprised to find that he was just as skilled with his left hand as his right...

"Hey, Chuck? I thought humans were like ponies, either left hoofed or right hoofed, but you seem to be doing pretty well with your non-dominant hand. Is that something you learned, or is it a special talent?"

Chuck didn't slow his work as he answered with, "I'm an archer. You use both hands sometimes."

It wasn't an answer, but Twilight didn't get to ask any further questions before a lance of pain shot up her leg. "Ah-Ow! Please be careful!"

"Sorry," Chuck said. "You had one stuck stuck up under the frog thing and I slipped. Hang on, I'll go grab something to sterilize it with." He released her hoof and stood, heading back to the room he'd gotten the brushes from. He came back with an unlabeled bottle of clear liquid, and a box of muzzle wipes.

"You know," Twilight said accusingly. "Storing unlabeled bottles is never a good practice. How do you know for sure what's in there?"

"It's cornmeal moonshine," Chuck said. And he said it like it was common public knowledge. She had no doubt in her mind, that the bottle contained cornmeal moon shine …whatever that was.

"Alright then, so what exactly is it?" she asked as Chuck poured some of the liquid on a wipe. The smell that reached her nose was distinct and familiar. "Oh... It's alcohol ...wait, you're not going to use that on a wound, are you?"

Chuck gave her a concerned look and said. "It'll only last a few seconds, and I promise that it's a lot better than getting an infection. It's not like I can just take you to the vet, you know. I'm pretty sure they'd get excited about a lavender furred mammal with feathered wings coming in with an infected hoof."

Twilight took a calming breath. "Oh, alright. Just ...please be quick about it."

And he was, pouring a bit of the bottle's contents directly over the bottom of her hoof before he wiped the small puncture wound clean with a swab he'd pulled from his pocket. She squirmed at the burning sensation, but managed to keep from making much noise. A single involuntary squeak at the initial cold of the moonshine, and that was it. Chuck grabbed her hoof again, and the burning sensation returned for a moment as he pulled her frog back out of the way to look it over. He angled her leg around for a while, then set it down to start the other.

She had known what he'd want next, so she'd already had her other hoof lifted. Chuck looked at it, and then grasped to shake her hoof like they were old friends. "Goooood pony. Now sit. Stay..." He said in as mocking a voice as he could probably pull off.

Twilight deadpanned, and said, "Really?"

Chuck just grinned, and got back to work. Her left hoof had just as much debris in it as the right one, but there were no wounds to give him an excuse to burn her with more ...moonshine alcohol.

Her front hooves were now both done, and she already felt at least a hundred times better. But now the question of the evening came up ... how was he supposed to do her rear hooves without it becoming awkward? She was pondering the possible positions a pony could present when Chuck made a suggestion...

"Just turn around and rest one leg on my knee at a time …and don’t swish your tail around. I've seen it done this way by professionals on the ranches they used to have around here."

Twilight felt her cheeks warm slightly. She'd been about to lie on her back and tuck what was left of her tail between her legs, but Chuck's idea was much better. She turned around and lifted the closest leg, which was her right one again. Chuck had shuffled a bit closer and changed his stance, his one leg propped up as a shelf for her leg to rest on. The next few minutes went by faster than she thought possible, and both rear hooves turned out to be a fair deal cleaner than her front set had been.

"That ...that was fast," Twilight praised. "Even faster than the Lotus twins, and they've been doing it for years!"

"Uh huh, that's nice," Chuck said with a yawn. "But I'm done. It has to be past ten, so let's hit the damn sack already. I don't want to give the universe a chance to send any more crazy my way."

Twilight felt more like running around like a sugared-up little filly at the moment. It felt pretty amazing to finally have her hooves back to their proper rock-free state. But she knew she'd probably fall asleep the moment anything softer than solid wood or stone touched her cheek. "Alright, Chuck. But I'm still not sleeping on the floor..."

"Oh yeah ...forgot about that,” Chuck mumbled. He then staggered off into one of the rooms on the left, coming back with the biggest and poofiest looking comforter she'd ever seen. "Here, put this on the ground near the stove. I'll add some wood before we tuck you in ...Princess."

Princess… She really didn't like that title, especially when it was so obviously spoken as a taunt. She much prefered to live as an equal to the ponies around her. But the soft comforter Chuck had just dropped over her back was already putting her to sleep, so she let it slide.

She tripped on the way downstairs, but it wasn’t her fault; it was just ...the comforter was so big and poofy! And taking Chuck with her wasn't her fault either. He'd had plenty of time to get out of the way, but he'd just stood there like a bowling pin. He was okay, if the lack of groans or cursing was any indication. And as for herself, there was a sore spot on her right flank. It might be a bruise in the morning, but she could just waste more magic on healing it if it got too ugly or painful.

"You fell on me..." Chuck lazily observed from …somewhere.

"I tripped on the comforter..." Twilight excused herself.

"Oh... Well I suppose you can be forgiven, then," Chuck offered.

Twilight looked at the heaps of soft fabric all around them and said, "You know, I wouldn't mind just sleeping here..."

"That would be a bad idea," Chuck advised. "It gets pretty darn cold here at night, even in the summer. You'd wake up shaking like a leaf. Now get a move on, Princess ...your almost there."

Twilight sighed and gathered the comforter in her magic, dragging herself to her surprisingly happy hooves She started folding it in halves as she approached the lightly glowing stove, and had a nice thick mattress ready when she reached her destination. She set the 'mattress' down and lifted the first layer, crawling into the resulting cave of fabric with a groan. She had the soft comforter beneath her, and one layer of its downy softness draped over her side. Add in the soothing heat from the stove on her partially exposed stomach, and it was just too much sleepiness to fight off. She didn't even notice the world fading away as she fell asleep...

Author's Note

Former readers might not even recognize this chapter, due to all the changes I made.