From the Journal of Leon the Dragon

Chapters

2. Real life sucks
3. Maybe unreal life isn't any better.
4. Disbelief
5. In which Leon embarrasses himself.
6. The Talk
7. Another day, another problem

2. Real life sucks

Author's Note

I know the first chapter says it's the second one. I have an interesting idea for doing the first chapter, but it might be a while before it's ready. I'm leaving the numbers like this so it won't be a shock when I finally put the first chapter in its proper place.

2. Real life sucks

It had been a long shift. Again. I tried to not let it get to me. I knew when I joined the Air Force that things like this would happen. I expected it to suck when things got busy. I always thought it would be worth it, though. I wanted to protect my nation, my friends, and my family. I wanted to make a difference. So long hours were just going to have to be okay.

But this just felt excessive. Having exercise after exercise so that we would have enough practice for the "real" exercise to get good scores seemed assinine. I mean, I thought that the point of these military exercises was to find out if we could perform our war-time jobs properly. Not to get our commander a good report card.

I sighed quietly as I let myself into my dorm room. ‘At least they gave us Monday off,’ I thought to myself. Not that I thought it made up for the fact that we had just worked right through the weekend, making it seven days straight of 12-hour-plus shifts. But one day off was better than none, right?

I slumped into the recliner and stared blankly at the small entertainment center the Air Force provided. Some people thought it was odd that a staff sargeant (SSgt) would still be in the dorms, but I didn't need anything bigger. I either ate at the chow hall or went out for most of my meals, so the small kitchenette I shared with my suite-mate was enough. The rest of my money went toward my anime and video game collections. So really, I didn't need anything bigger.

I mean, it's not like I had to worry about being able to fit all my friends into it.

With that dark thought I glanced at my laptop, then at the clock set above it. What few friends I had were all online people I'd never actually met in person. And seeing how it was already after 8pm on a Sunday, most if not all of them would be getting ready for bed so they could go to work in the morning. Still, I decided to fire up my laptop and log in to my preferred chat program while I got changed into more comfortable clothes.

As it turned out, my prediction seemed to be spot on. Other than one guy who gave me a call out seeing me come on as he was logging off, none of my friends were active right now. Glancing outside at the snow still softly falling, I pondered what to do. Since my normal shift was Mids I would be expected to be back at work at 2350 tomorrow night... or 11:50pm for you non-military types. So I didn't want to just go to bed. I needed to stay up as late as I could stand, then sleep as much as possible to be ready for my next work-day.

I yawned while glancing at the clock, noticing that now it was almost 9 o'clock. On a normal day I would have only woken up one to three hours ago. With the peaceful yet depressing snowfall outside I figured now was a good time to indulge my guilty pleasure. Getting back in the recliner I fired up my PS3 and signed into Netflix, found the picture of colorful horses, and set myself up to watch the last few episodes from season 3 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I blame my sister for getting me started on this, but I would have to say I'm officially a Brony at this point. I'm also certain that if my fellow aircraft maintainers found out I was a fan they would have plenty of unkind things to say to me about it... although, now that I think about it, there are those two new guys always talking about Pokemon and no one seems to be giving them too hard a time over it... and one of them is even a crew chief!

As an attempt to cheer myself up this plan ultimately failed, partly because I was so tired, but mostly because it reminded me of yet another way all these exercises bugged me. You see, season 4 had just premiered last week. My plan at the time was to re-watch season 3 before watching the new two-parter on YouTube, but with suddenly changing my sleep schedule and working so many hours through the week, it had taken me until tonight to finish watching last season... and now there was ANOTHER episode out.

Normally the idea of having 3 new episodes to watch would be exciting, but I knew I was too tired to properly appreciate them right now. As it was, I almost nodded off while watching the final episode of the last season, and I still needed to stay up as long as I could. A quick glance at my clock showed me that between my pony watching and slow pondering of depressing things I'd almost made it to midnight. "Great. Only 24 hours before I have to be at work again," I mumbled.

Pushing myself out of the comfortable chair, I stretched while looking around the room for something to do. Looking out the window I noticed that the snow had stopped and the moon was shining down over the white-covered landscape. It looked beautiful... but also empty. Still, I figured that fit with the way I was feeling, and maybe a walk outside would do me some good, so I started gathering up my cold weather gear.

As I grabbed my gloves off of the desk I accidentally knocked off a couple papers that had been sitting on the edge. Cursing softly I bent down to pick up my Separation Notice papers. It reminded me of yet another problem I had, because if I didn't make up my mind soon, the Air Force would decide I didn't want to stay and automatically list me as separating. A quick glace over the top page confirmed I only had until the end of the week to get this resolved. With a sigh I put the papers down and left the dorm.

Trudging through the fresh snow I quickly found myself headed in the direction of the main gate. I really didn't want to think about the military right then, so it made sense to walk to the town just outside the base, even if nothing would be open at the moment. Well, except for the 24hr McDonald's, but I wasn't hungry and can't stand their food anyways. I waved at the two gate guards as I walked by them and turned down the side of the highway that led to the town. My thoughts ended up back on my impending separation despite trying to avoid the topic. I really didn't know what to do. I felt tired of being in the military, but I didn't have anything else I wanted to do.

I trudged through the snow alongside the highway, barely noticing the cars and trucks hurtling past me. I felt like I needed a point to my life, but had none. I always thought that everyone had a reason they were alive, a purpose to their life, but I couldn't figure out what mine was. Then there was the matter of friends, or lack thereof. I’ve never been one to make friends easily, but even at my worst points going through school I’d always had at least one good friend. And if I was being totally honest, I still had 3 very good friends. The problem was that I now lived in an entirely different state than any of them, and I never got to see them anymore. Plus, they were moving on with their lives, so we didn’t even talk much on the phone or online anymore.

Honestly, I thought that if I just stopped answering my phone, or going online anymore, the only people who would be concerned enough to start looking for me would be my mom and sister. I figured that while my online friends might get a bit worried, eventually they'd just forget about me.

I thought that, if I died, only two people in the world would actually care at all.

……

I was blasted out of my dark musings by the blare of a truck horn. Turning to look behind me I saw the big rig skidding along the icy road, already sliding onto the shoulder.

The shoulder I was walking on.

I remember how my last thought as I stared into the headlights was about the irony of having considered, more than once, of doing something like this on purpose. That and, "Oh shit."

Then the world went white.

3. Maybe unreal life isn't any better.

In something that felt like five minutes of this overwhelming white, I began to notice things. Things like... my body hurt, but not in the 'I just got run over by a big rig and I'm bleeding out on the street' kind of hurt. More like a 'I just fell down and got the wind knocked out of me' type. Breathing was hard, my chest hurt a lot, and I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or not since no matter what I tried all I saw was the white. All I could hear was a ringing in my ears.

Gradually I started to make out other colors in vague shapes. As my senses started reporting things other than pain, white light and white noise I was able to figure a few things out. For one, I seemed to be lying on my face, and it felt like I was on some kind of carpet. If my eyes were looking where I thought they were than it seemed to be a light gray carpet, though if there was any kind of pattern in it I couldn't tell through the fuzziness of my vision. And there was something at the edge of my sight that was a dark red. And someone was talking above me, but the continued ringing made it impossible to make out any words yet.

I tried to speak, tried to move, but my body wasn't paying attention to my brain. I think my lips moved a little, but other than that the only movement I managed was to keep blinking my eyes. At least my vision continued to get better. I was sure now that I was looking at carpet. But even more, I noticed at the edge of my sight there was a shoe. It was black and fairly shiny, reminding me of the shoes that went with my dress blues. And I thought that I could just make out the bottom of a black pants leg. This discovery made me wish I could turn my head to see who it belonged to, but my body still wasn't listening.

On the other hand, my hearing was also improving, or maybe it would be better to say the constant ringing was getting softer. I was starting to make out some of the words being said. "... why... him...?" Not a lot to work with, but the voice sounded a bit familiar. Definitely a guy speaking. Maybe French? Hard to tell through the ringing, but it seemed like he had an accent.

"Tha-... -ery nice... was... -inking it wo-... have some-... -een there... talk to."

Whoa! Now THAT voice was really familiar. Like, someone I knew I should remember, but the ongoing pain and other distractions were preventing me from remembering where I knew his voice from.

"... doesn't belong... time...! Send... back... now!" Mister Frenchy didn't sound too happy with the other guy.

"Temper... mon capitaine... only... to help." Man, the way he said that, at least the part I could understand, REALLY made me think I should know who he was. I knew it was going to bug me until I figured it out.

I noticed that it felt like I could get my foot to twitch a little as Mr. Frenchy fired back again. "This isn-... -unny! He -an't -ay here!" Wow this guy is loud! I hadn't realized it before due to my ears, but he must be yelling at the top of his lungs. I mean, at this point I could make out other mumbling voices around me as well as some odd beeping noises to compare to.

Just as I found I could move my hand a little bit, I heard the other guy's response with my rapidly improving hearing. "Fine then!" After that I heard a snap... and then the whiteness claimed me again.

"Oh, but sending you back would be such a waste!"

Strange, I couldn't feel my body... again... but I was still hearing that frustratingly familiar voice.

"Hmm... I know! How about sending you somewhere else you'll be useful?"

As the chuckling of the mysterious voice faded out, I noticed the rest of my senses coming back again. The pain was thankfully less, but my vision and hearing seemed to be messed up again. I tried blinking several times and decided that there was something I was looking at, but what it was I couldn't make out at all. There were a variety of colors this time, and no easily defined shapes to work out. So for the time being, I decided to just leave my eyes closed until the strange white overlay would fade out.

Not worrying about seeing anything let me concentrate on other things. For one thing, my breathing was getting back under control, and I could move my arms and legs around although it hurt to do so. I also realized that I was laying on my back instead of my face this time. I heard a soft dripping noise that seemed to echo a bit. Then I heard the sound of a hollow wind blowing. I started to think I must be in some kind of cave, but then I realized there was a soft rustling sound, as if some leaves were being blown around in the wind, but what would a tree be doing in a cave?

With a massive effort I managed to lift myself up into a sitting position. After deciding my head wasn't going to spin off my shoulders, I cautiously opened my eyes again. With most of my sight back I could confirm that I WAS in a cave, and the entrance was in clear view and didn't look like it would be hard to reach. On the other hand, it almost seemed like there was more light coming from behind me than from the opening in front of me, so I carefully shifted around to look the other way.

And there was the tree. The first thought I remember having was that all those people who told me gemstones don't grow on trees were wrong. This tree living inside of a cave had a brightly shining gem at the end of each major branch, and the whole trunk had an obvious glow. I was just starting to notice the oddly familiar shapes these gems were in when the strangest thing so far happened and blew away all working thoughts.

The tree talked to me.

It wasn't in words or even images so much as... sensations. I felt an overwhelming sense of welcoming, joy, and a sense of love like being hugged by my parents. The tree was happy to have me here. It needed to tell me something. And in a whirlwind of colors, emotions, sounds, and scents it started to flood my mind.

I came out of my rapture to find myself on my hands and knees still staring up at the tree with someone tapping me on the shoulder. As the tapping started to become impatient I shook my head to help clear it and let whoever it was know I was awake now. As I worked at standing up, I finally realized that I could hear several feet shuffling around in the dirt behind me. But when I turned around I almost fell over from the shocking sight it revealed!

Standing in front of me was an anthro horse woman. With lavender fur. And a horn on her forehead. And wings. And... no clothes. But the human-ish parts didn't stop me from recognizing who had been tapping me. After all, I've seen my fair share of fan art.

"Twilight Sparkle?!"

4. Disbelief

This couldn't be happening. I had to be dreaming or something. People don't actually get transported to other worlds, especially not ones you know of because of a children's cartoon. I mean, who would actually believe me if I said I got sent to Equestria? Much less a version where they're all anthro-style ponies that don't wear clothes and have their boobs just hanging out for anyone to see? That kind of thing only happens in bad fanfiction stories!

[Go away Pinkie. No! You don't get to write anything down!]

Those thoughts ran through my head as I looked at Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle staring back at me in confusion. With a slight cough, Twilight brought my attention back to her. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I don't think I've ever heard of a creature like you, much less met one before. How is it you know who I am? And what exactly are you?"

Well I'm fucked, I thought in an almost casual way. I was gifted with a naturally analytical and logical mind, so the small part that wasn't gibbering to itself about how this couldn't be happening noted that if I was dreaming then my dream Twilight would already know who I was. And would already be trying to have sex with me. So I was pretty sure this wasn't a dream.

Of course, that used up just about all the coherent brain power I had left so my only answer was, "Uhh..."

"Yeah! And what are you doing here with the Tree of Harmony?!" Rainbow Dash demanded of me. Which didn't help my brain since another small portion started chewing over the fact that she had named a tree using capital letters. It always strikes me when you can actually hear someone use capital letters on words. Like when someone says, "The President" of the United States as opposed to the president of a fan club.

And again, no brain was left for speaking. "I, uh..."

"Not a very articulate creature, is it?" Rarity quipped while placing a hand on her hip. I noticed two things from her change in posture. The first was that her off hand was occupied holding some kind of tapestry, and the other thing was how putting her hand on her hip was distracting me again. It called attention to her generous curves, and I could swear that between her legs I could almost see a hint of her...

Bringing my mind up short from that direction of thought had a side benefit of clearing my head a good bit. "That would be 'He,' actually. And I'm really sorry. This is all just a big shock to me." I finally answered them. "As far as I can tell I've been sent into another world. And ... And none of you are going to believe me when I tell you how I know your names." I had to shake my head at that.

Twilight drifted a step closer, curiosity plain on her face. I tried my best to ignore how this caused her breasts to sway in a hypnotic fashion. "So, what are you, if you're from a whole different world?" she asked again.

I took a deep breath before replying. "I am what's known as a human."

Twilight reacted with more shock than I had counted on. "Wait... What?! You're actually a human?!" Behind her Applejack gave a low whistle and snapped her fingers.

"Well heck, guess I owe Lyra ten bits."

Rainbow Dash was covering her face with her hands. "Just ten?" she moaned through her fingers. "Now I'm not going to be able to afford a ticket to the Wonderbolts show next week!"

Personally I was wanting to do a face-palm hearing the name Lyra brought up. "Seriously? Lyra actually has an obession about human beings? What's next? Vinyl and Octavia actually being roommates?" I mumbled to myself.

A sudden screech of indrawn breath next to my ear nearly made me jump out of my shoes! In the corner of my vision I noted a pink blob bouncing up and down at my side. "Ohmygosh ohmygosh OH MY GOSH!! Vinyl and Octavia ARE roommates! And they just moved into their new house last year. How did you know?!" Pinkie blasted into my ear, making me cover it up in painful reflex.

"Ow! Ow! Not in the ear, Pinkie," I complained while rubbing the side of my head. Taking a quick look around showed me that all of them were looking at me with varying degrees of curiosity, so there was no way I was going to be able to avoid explaining this. "Um, listen guys... I mean girls... Look, the answer to how I know things is long, very complicated, and is going to sound silly at first. So can it wait until we're some place more comfortable? Please?" I looked around at all of them with a slightly pleading expression. Thankfully this was met with a collection of nodding heads.

"Sure thing Sugarcube."

"Fine Darling."

"Yeah, whatever."

"Okie doki loki!"

I didn't hear Fluttershy answer, but that could have been because of how she was hiding behind Rainbow Dash at the moment. Twilight, however, was the one I was worried about, and for several seconds she simply stood there chewing her lip while staring at me. Finally she let out a sigh and nodded as well. "Alright, but I'm not letting you out of my sight until you've given me a good answer for knowing about us."

I let out a quick sigh of relief. "Thanks a lot." I replied. Starting to turn around I began to ask a question of my own. "So if I can ask something first, do you guys know how...?". I promptly forgot the question I was asking in favor of a new one that couldn't wait. "Twilight, why does this tree have things that look like your elements of harmony stuck in it?"

"That's, um... actually a recent development, and..." Twilight started out before I heard her sigh behind me. "Actually, since you already knew things about us I was hoping you would know about the tree as well... That you could tell us what the box is for." At that point I finally noticed the large gem-shaped thing at the bottom of the tree, further noticing that it seemed to have a set of what looked to be keyholes around the top section.

With a slow shake of my head I turned around to face the ponies again. "Sorry Twilight. I'm afraid I don't know anything about your box." Scratching the back of my head, I looked over my shoulder to the Tree of Harmony again. This was really a lot I was trying to take in at once and it left me feeling like my brain was mushy and slow. But just before the looks of disappointment could settle on the girls' faces I snapped my fingers. "Hey, I know! Why don't you try asking the tree?"

5. In which Leon embarrasses himself.

"Why don't you try asking the tree?"

I would like to note here that the deer-in-headlights expression on someone with a pony face is completely hilarious, and if I hadn’t been trying so hard to figure out why they looked confused I would have been rolling on the floor with laughter. Instead I simply asked, "What's wrong?"

Rainbow Dash was the first one to speak up. "Yeah well, maybe it's different in the world you're from," she started in a tone full of incredulous sarcasm. "But around here, trees aren't known for talking too much." Crossing her arms under her chest while she struck a snide pose had the unfortunate effect of distracting me once again. Seriously, even Rainbow Dash has a nice set, although hers were obviously the smallest out of the group.

'Well I guess that makes sense since she's the most athletic one.' But dragging my mind away from mammaries let me notice all of them were looking to me for an explanation. And as any full grown male would, I was feeling a mite awkward about this now. Telling people about trees that talk would be really stupid in my world. Now in a world inhabited by magic using anthropomorphic ponies... it's still stupid. Like I said, awkward.

And now I had Rainbow AND Rarity looking almost angry at me for taking so long to reply. "Um... what?" I know, I'm so smooth. "Uh, no... No, trees don't talk where I'm from." Turning around once again, I looked up into the glowing and sparkling foliage, my face full of disbelief. "But this one talked to me." I found myself starting to reach out to it like I was trying to grab hold of that feeling of connection again. "It's never done that for any of you?"

I heard a soft voice mumble something and went to turn around again only to find myself staring up into the concerned faces of Twilight, Fluttershy, and Applejack. And the fact that I was obviously looking UP seemed strange, until I realized I was lying on my back on the ground, with no memory of how I got there. Although I did have a rather nasty and persistent headache that seemed to be centered somewhere on the left side of my head. The first question that came to my mind escaped through my mouth.

“Why… am I on the ground?”

Twilight leaned in a little closer, looking intently at each of my eyes in turn. “You suddenly fell over. I think you passed out. Are you feeling okay?” I was thinking to myself, really?! I passed out in front of these girls? No way! I mean, sure, I wasn’t feeling too good. And I WAS just moved to an entirely different world… actually, thinking back, I probably did that twice today (or whenever it was, I didn’t know)... and yeah, I’d been up for over 24 hours by now, I thought…. but, passing out?

“Yeah, and you totally weirded us out when your eyes rolled up into the back of your head,” Rainbow added.

At this point my stomach decided to remind me that I hadn’t eaten anything in a long time either. I noticed most of the girls suddenly raising a hand to their lips and trying to stifle their giggling, some doing a better job than others. Of course, Pinkie wasn’t even trying. I rolled my eyes and sighed, internally admitting defeat. “Actually, guys… gir-... whatever. Yeah. I mean, no. I’m not feeling so good. I’m tired, and hungry, and still trying not to freak out over getting … sent… transported?… warped?... Er, getting here.”

With that, the girls broke into a quick discussion that ended with them deciding to take me back to Ponyville with them, especially as it was getting dark and they wanted to get out of the Everfree Forest. Walking back to town with them, I mostly kept quiet and concentrated on not falling down again, which seemed to be getting harder to do every minute. The backdrop of the forest wasn’t helping my concentration any, either. Even in the cartoon, they seemed to make the Everfree Forest a pretty scary looking place, but this didn’t even compare. This forest was the stuff of nightmares. The trail we were following seemed faint and was continually coming upon sections that made it difficult to tell where the next part was. I’m sure if I wasn’t with these girls I would have become lost in under an hour. The noises coming from deeper in were unnerving, and most of them couldn’t be readily categorized into any kind of sound I’d heard before, other than from some fantasy movies. The plants were almost worse, because even here on a “safe” trail I was noticing all kinds of things that just looked wrong.

We passed a group of tree trunks that looked like they had disfigured faces in them. Just as I realized I might actually know this place from the show, Pinkie jumped out in front of one while making a silly face and sticking her tongue out at it. This caused the rest of the girls to let out a shared chuckle and caused me to believe it really must be the place from the chase of Nightmare Moon.

As we continued I found myself stumbling more often, and my vision was getting to be distinctly blurry… when it wasn’t outright double-vision. After a trip finally sent me to the ground (Hey! That vine -did- jump out at me! The girls confirmed it for me later,) I was forced to accept the help and support of Applejack, with Rainbow Dash sometimes helping as well. I honestly was starting to feel pretty low. I was tired, hungry, lost, somehow in an entirely different and unbelievable universe, and in a super spooky forest, parts of which actually -were- out to get me. Not to mention the near-death experience that seems to have set this whole thing off. Now I was full grown man, a SSgt in the US Air Force… who needed to be carried along by a couple girls. Yeah, it had me wondering a bit about my self-worth. In fact, I was so caught up in my moody thoughts that I didn’t notice when we came out of the forest and only realized what was happening again when Twilight opened the door to her tree… house… thing. ‘Magic ponies,’ I reminded myself as my brain tried to get weirded out all over again from actually seeing a house made from a living tree.

So much of my memory from that point is blurry. I remember finding myself in what appeared to be the guest room, of having several of the girls asking what was wrong, asking how they could help. I kept trying to tell them that I would be okay, but I wasn’t fooling them or myself. But I did manage to insist that I would be better if I could get some sleep, much to Twilight’s obvious frustration. Poor girl. I realized that she was fit to burst with questions, no surprise since that’s exactly how she was in the show, but there was no way I could give out coherent answers by that point. So finally I was left to rest after assuring them that I would call out if I needed anything. As soon as I laid on the bed, I blacked out.

I don’t know how long I slept, but I remember dreaming about the things the tree had ‘said’ to me. When I finally woke up everything felt … fuzzy. My thoughts were hazy and slow, my eyes blurry, and all over my skin there was a tingling sensation somewhat like when your foot is asleep. Rolling over, I carefully sat up on the bed and tried to take stock of things. The wooden walls, shelves of books, and large bed all confirmed that I hadn’t simply dreamed of being moved to a different world.

I hung my head as I once again tried to wrap my brain around what had happened to me. Opening my eyes, I looked down at my lap and listened to the train-wreck of my thoughts. I heard a voice call out for Twilight, and it took me a second to realize it was my own.

“Yes? What is it?” I heard Twilight respond through the door.

“...Remember how I said the Tree of Harmony talked to me?” I asked.

“...yes?”

I slowly stood up and started moving towards the door, staring at the ends of my arms all the while. “I remember something that didn’t make sense to me before. It basically told me that I was welcome here, and that I was needed for … something. But it also said… not as I am. Like, not in this form, or something. And I think I figured out what it meant, now. I can’t stay here as a human.”

I could hear Twilight’s footsteps (hoofsteps?) reach the other side of my door, but she didn’t open it. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean that my body is being changed. I’m transforming into something else.”

As I reached for the doorknob, I heard Twilight’s gasp of surprise. “What…. What are you turning into, then?”

“Well I’ll tell you what it fucking -isn’t!-” I replied as I pulled the door open. Seeing her standing there with confusion and a touch of fear on her face, I held up my hand, showing her the large claws that had replaced my fingers. “Not a pony.”

6. The Talk

So here I was, at last. Sitting in a library that was eerily familiar, looking across the way at six multi-hued, anthropomorphic ponies... and one dragon. THAT meeting had been another shocker, for when Twilight called me out to meet her “number one assistant!” Spike the dragon, I found another key difference between the TV show and this world I had landed in. Spike was huge! Well, okay, that’s exaggerating a little, but I was expecting this little kid of a dragon, one that maybe came up to Twilight’s stomach, now that she was standing on two legs. I was -not- expecting what amounts to a teenage drake that was actually taller than both of us!

Come to think of it, the height thing was already bothering me a bit. I’m a pretty tall guy, over 6 feet, so I always notice when someone is taller than me, because it doesn’t happen much. Except so far, -all- of the ponies I’d met were taller than me! I really wish I’d thought to measure myself against something at that point, because it wasn’t until later that I found out they don’t use the same standards of measurement, and I’ve never figured out a good conversion between ‘feet’ and ‘spans,’ the main unit used here. It’s less than a foot, I’m sure of that, but I don’t know by exactly how much, so knowing that Twilight is 8 and 3/10ths spans tall doesn’t really help me figure out what that would be back in my world.

But I’m getting distracted. All of the girls were back in Twilight’s house to hear my story, only I still didn’t know where to start off. And it certainly didn’t help that they all looked totally sexy and naked! Well, except for Rarity. She was actually wearing a shirt, which was a simple but elegant thing that stayed on with a single button at the top. It actually did cover her breasts, but since she wasn’t wearing a bra it was making it -harder- for me not to stare, visualizing what I’d already seen before. She’d put her hat on the hat-rack when she came in. Oh, and Applejack hadn’t. Other than that, they were all naked.

I mentioned I was distracted, right?

Hearing Twilight clear her throat brought my wandering attention back to the matter at hand. “So,” she started. “I guess we can start with who you are? Um, what’s your name?”

I had to blink at that. ‘Wow, I’ve already spent the night here and I never introduced myself?’ I quickly shook my head as thoughts of what my grandmother would have had to say about my manners ran through it. “I’m very sorry about that. My name is Leon. I would have tried to introduce myself sooner, but things were… crazy.”

After a murmur of hellos from the group, including an unnecessarily loud “HI LEON!!” from Pinkie, the silence descended once again. For me at least, it was the awkward situation, plus the fact that I was still having a hard time believing this wasn’t some kind of dream, that kept me from talking. I think the others were feeling pretty awkward, too, except that Pinkie was looking completely cheerful while slowly bouncing up and down on her seat, and Twilight was literally sitting on the edge of hers with eyes that seemed to burn with her curiosity.

I finally got the courage to break the silence. “So, if I can ask a question, how did you find me?”

“Heh, that part was easy!” Rainbow declared from her position above the couch most of the others were sitting on. Idle flapping from her wings seemed to be keeping her afloat.

“She’s right!” Pinkie exclaimed. “We were all in the Castle of the Two Sisters, and I thought everypony was having a ‘Have fun scaring each other’ party, so I was helping by playing scary music on the organ I found! Then everyone decided to leave, and we went outside and there was a WHOOOOOSH! and a BANG! BOOM! and there was a bright white light coming from the cave where the Tree of Harmony grows and Twilight was all, ‘Ohmygosh! The Tree is in trouble!' And Rainbow was all, 'Let’s go check it out!' And we all ran down and we thought we were going to fight something and we saw this strange creature on the ground looking up at the tree and it was you and then MMRRFFPH APHFRRDR….”

Applejack, hand over Pinkie’s mouth, gave her a look. “He knows what happened from that point.” She waited until she heard a muffled ‘Okay!’ from Pinkie before putting her hand back down, then looked back over to me. “Ya never did really explain how ya’ got here, sugarcube. Mind tellin’ us now?”

I nodded half-heartedly. “I’m willing to try, but it still sounds crazy in my head. So… fair warning, okay? ‘Cause if it doesn’t make sense to you, then I’m not going to be able to help.” So I started off by telling them about what I considered to be my near-death experience, only I kept ending up talking about stuff that happened earlier and earlier as Twilight immediately hit me with a barrage of questions about why I walking by a street, what cars and trucks were, what an AFB was, and so on. I had to cut her off when I realized I was about to start trying to explain what the United States was, asking her to save those questions for a later time so I could finish telling my story. She looked frustrated by this, but quickly agreed, which caused everyone else to let out sighs of relief. However, all of the girls seemed a bit disappointed by the lack of detail I could give them about the first place I woke up in.

At this point I had to ask for something to drink, as my throat felt sore and dry. I was suitably impressed when Twilight managed to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen using her magic… without ever leaving her seat. After having a drink and giving my thanks, I continued on through to the part where they had found me. As the girls sat silently contemplating all I had told them, a thought suddenly occurred to me. “Um, Twilight? Have you sent Princess Celestia a letter about this yet?”

That earned me another stunned look from the group, which honestly was starting to get old. Taking a deep breath, I decided to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak. "Okay. I guess I should try to explain how I know all these things about you.” I tapped my fingers a couple times on the arm of the chair, then winced as the clacking noise forcibly reminded me that they weren’t really fingers anymore, although I wasn’t about to just call them claws either. “Alright, I’ll start with what would be easiest. Do you guys have TV shows?” When the blank looks continued, I pressed on. “Okay, what about… movies?” That earned me some slow nods. “For fun?” Confusion. “I mean, movies for entertainment, as opposed to, say… instructional.”

Rainbow gave a huff and blew a lock of her hair out of her face. “Just gotta use all your big words…” I heard her mumble. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t trying to be all that quiet about it. The rest looked like I had lost them, but thankfully Twilight was nodding fairly enthusiastically, so at least somepony was getting it.

“Okay then, well all of you, and this world, are featured in a ‘show’ that is played on TV, which is basically having small movies that you can watch in your house all the time.” I decided to not try to go into too much detail on the differences between the movies they seemed to have and how TV actually worked. Of course, Twilight later made me go into so much detail that I ended up explaining things I didn’t even realise I knew about, but as I said, that was later. “Anyways, the show focuses mainly on what the six of you here do, day in and out. If what I’ve seen in this show is accurate, then I think I know a lot about all of you, and a fair bit of this world you live in, at least as far as Equestria is concerned. But…”

I trailed off as I decided to openly let myself gaze over their bodies. I’ll admit, being the only one in the room being fully clothed, at least by my own standards, had the advantage of helping to hide my reaction to openly looking at six gorgeous girls wearing nothing or the next thing to it. Each girl would perk up a little as my gaze wandered over them, Rarity looking back coyly, Applejack simply tilting her head to the side with a questioning expression, Rainbow Dash actually striking a pose in mid-air with a smug smile… and Fluttershy trying to somehow fit between Pinkie Pie and the back of the couch. “... But I’m not sure how much I can trust what I saw. I’ve already found some major differences.” I eventually finished with.

“Like what kind, darling?” Rarity asked while fluttering her eyes at me. She was even giving me a look, and I wasn’t so comfortable with it. I knew Rarity was someone who loved getting attention, but it almost felt like she was … I don’t know, pushing at me somehow. Felt a little creepy, really.

I took another deep breath with my eyes closed and slowly let it out. “Well, um… you all look… uh, I mean, you don’t have…” huge tits and an ass that even a boob-guy like me can appreciate. “I … just… you…” I snapped my fingers as I thought of something that would show the huge difference without making me feel like a pervert for saying it out loud. “Look, I don’t mean to shock or insult you, but in this show you walked on all fours.”

That one took them a second to process, and while Twilight suddenly got a thoughtful look on her face, Applejack was quick to pipe up. “Wait a darn second! Yer sayin’ we walked around like a dog?!” I nodded softly, trying to show with my expression that I wasn’t trying to be insulting. AJ continued to stare at me for a bit before leaning back and shaking her head. “Well I’d sure say THAT was a difference!”

Feeling better now that I'd found an angle to use, I tried to keep the train of thought going. "Yeah, that is. And Spike here is another one." That comment brought the young dragon's head up, and I suddenly wondered if I had actually been boring him earlier.

"What's so different about me?"

I think the guy was trying to sound tough and upset, but it mostly came across to me as sounding nervous. Not that I could blame him. "Well, Spike, again meaning no disrespect, but the last part of the show I saw still had you looking like a little kid." Hearing that out loud sounded worse than it had in my head, so I thought I should give the guy a bone. "You certainly didn’t look like a tall, muscular drake that most guys would hate to meet in a dark alley."

For a minute I thought maybe I'd laid it on too thick, because Spike still looked like he was trying to decide whether to be insulted about his 'kid' status on this show, or being impressed with how he really was. But then he straightened up a bit and actually started flexing his arm. I think my mouth fell open a bit at that point. I shook my head a little, thinking to myself, ‘Well, the show got -that- part right!’ Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack were all shaking their heads with resigned grins, while Pinkie and Fluttershy didn’t seem to be affected. Strangely enough, Rarity had a different expression than any of the others, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was gone quickly enough as she returned an attentive expression towards me, but I kept wondering about it. It almost looked like… admiring? But that didn’t make any sense to me.

Now, ever since I’d realized where I ended up, I had a number of things I was wondering/worrying about sitting in the back of my mind, and one of those decided to float to the top at this point. Clearing my throat, I looked back over at Twilight and, with some hesitation, brought up my worry of: “So, if the Tree of Harmony now has the Elements of Harmony, how do you guys, um... keep Discord under control?”

Twilight drew a deep breath, but as soon as she opened her mouth to answer… another voice cut in. One that was FAR too familiar.

“Oh, that’s easy. They don’t!”

With that the room suddenly became dark. Disco-style lights started zig-zagging all over the room, but I couldn’t see a disco ball or anything else to cause the effect. And music started to play, which I could easily recognize.

*Discord, I'm howlin' at the moon*
*And sleepin' in the middle of a summer afternoon*
*Discord, whatever did we do*
*To make you take our world away?*

*Discord, are we your prey alone,*
*Or are we just a stepping stone for taking back the throne?*
*Discord, we won't take it anymore*
*So take your tyranny away!*

The heavy techno-beat even let me realize instantly which remix this was, namely TLT’s. As the song called out “Discord!” in its broken up way, the man… creature himself rose up out of the floor, bowing back and forth. “Yes yes, their hold on me was relinquished, leaving me free to do as I wish once again!” The funny thing to me right then was realizing that he looked exactly like he did in the TV show. Which was good. Really good. I heaved a mental sigh of relief that I didn’t have to find out what Discord’s junk looked like. Then I had to mentally slap my brain for coming up with a mental picture of it anyways.

My reaction, I’ll admit, went through a few stages. The first was to give Discord a deadpanned look. My thoughts were along the lines of, ‘Really?’ I mean, this was a cartoon character known for much tom-foolery and messing around. Then my brain started turning over the little fact that I was -in- said cartoon… and not looking particularly cartoonish at the moment. And that meant this Discord was real… as were his powers… and his penchant for being unpredictable…

And now there was nothing that could stop him.

I’m sure my expression must have started to show the dawning fear as I reached those conclusions, but then I realized something else. Something that had been bothering me a lot, like the height thing. It -sounded- like Discord, just the way I remember him. And the 6 girls plus one dragon? They didn’t. Close, but not exactly like I remembered. And Spike’s voice wasn’t actually that close, really.

But this isn’t what caused my expression to turn into a frown of supreme annoyance. This voice difference wasn’t what made me begin glaring with an intensity that would have sent young Airmen scurrying for cover. No, what suddenly sparked my anger was the -other- place I remembered hearing that voice.

“It was YOU!”

“I beg your pardon?” Discord blinked down at me with a slight sneer. “What was me? Many things are, so you’ll have to be specific.” He settled back to wait for my response, crossing his arms… which I suddenly noticed didn’t appear to be connected to the rest of his body. For some reason.

Taking a breath, and realizing that everyone in the room was looking at me now, I laid out my accusation. “You’re the reason I’m here. It was -your- voice that I heard while floating in that… wherever place between worlds. I -know- your voice.”

Discord tilted his body towards me, getting uncomfortably close as he put his hands to his cheeks with a bright expression on his face. “Oh my! Are you a fan of mine? How wonderful! Here!” With a snap… also a familiar sound… he was suddenly holding a large fountain pen and a shirt, which he promptly started to write on. “Here you go. One autographed shirt for my biggest fan in Ponyville!” By reflex I took the shirt as he offered it to me, staring down at it dumbly for several seconds.

Wait a minute.

I looked up from the t-shirt I never noticed being removed to glare at this nonsensical creature. “How… did you get the shirt I was wearing?”

Discord waved a han-... paw in a nonchalant manner. “Details, details. Now!” He clapped his… okay I’m just calling them hands!.. He clapped his hands together. “You were saying how you’ve heard of me?” He batted his eyes which seemed to be larger than before and suddenly having exaggerated eyelashes.

Taking a deep breath to help calm down… and noticing that my shirt was back on somehow (I wondered if it was actually signed)... I reminded myself that this creature had crazy powers, and to try to stay polite. It was hard. “You… are the one who sent me here, aren’t you? Something about sending me back would be a waste…?”

Discord rubbed his hands together with a gleeful expression. “Oh, yes, a terrible waste. It’s going to be so much more -fun- with you here. So many carefully made plans ruined thanks to an element of chaos added!” At this point he dissolved into a fit of chuckles that sounded kinda close to an evil laugh to me.

While my fear level started to rise again, Twilight decided to get back into the conversation. “Discord! What about your promise? You aren’t supposed to be hurting ponies anymore!” Rainbow Dash and Applejack backed her up with sounds of agreement, but Discord didn’t look at all bothered by it.

“Please, Princess,” he started. “I would never do anything to upset my dearest Flutterbutt…”

“FlutterSHY,” Dash interjected with an eye-roll.

Discord continued with a hand wave in Rainbow’s direction. “...whatever. Anyways, the point is the plans that will be ruined are ones you -want- me to stop. Besides, you’ve got to let me have a little random chaos from time to time or I might just go crazy from all this ‘nice and pretty’ normal you all seem to love so much.”

I seriously felt like barfing when he mentioned going crazy. His eyes -literally- rolled around in his head.

With a sweeping bow to the room at large, Discord made his farewell. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some things to discuss with dear Celly.” With a poof of smoke, he disappeared from sight, but an echo of his voice lingered. “But don’t you worry, I’ll be around….”

Twilight waved her hand in front of her in an attempt to disperse the smoke. “Sorry about all that, Leon. But you don’t need to…” She was interrupted with a serious coughing fit, causing her to wave even harder at the lingering haze. “Sorry. You don’t need to worry too much about Discord. He really seems to want Fluttershy to be his friend, and he’s not ready to jeopardize that yet. At least, I don’t -think- he would.”

While that wasn’t the most comforting way to phrase it, upon further thought I simply shrugged. “Well, he -is- the god of chaos. I guess that’s the best anyone can hope for.” Twilight gave me a small shrug and smile in return. Looking out a window off to the side I ended up thinking out loud, “Damn it, I still had a lot of questions to ask him…”

To my surprise, Fluttershy had moved to stand next to me, which I realized once she spoke at almost a normal conversational level. “Oh, please don’t worry about Discord. He’s trying to get better at interacting with other ponies. Really!” I really wanted to give her a nice smile in thanks for trying to reassure me, but I ended up quickly looking away with an embarrassed look instead. With her standing next to my seat it put her breasts at just above eye-level for me.

I had a small internal chuckle at my own expense as I realized I probably looked more like typical Fluttershy right now than -she- did. Not that this helped me change my reaction. “Uh, thanks… Thanks Fluttershy, I…um…” I coughed into my hand, still not daring to look in Fluttershy’s direction while I could feel the heat in my face.

“Oh! That’s just adorable…” Rarity squealed a little before raising a hand to try and cover her grin. I kinda felt like shooting Rarity a look for that, but instead just dipped my face a little lower. I noticed, however, that while everyone else looked fairly indifferent to what was going on, Twilight was staring at me pretty intensely.

When she saw me look her in the eyes, she tilted her head a little, one ear up and the other off to the side. “Why…? Is something the matter, Leon? Why are you suddenly… doing -that-?” She gestured at my head to show what she was talking about.

I sighed into my hand. This was a topic I had been actively trying to avoid. I was already trying to explain TV shows, talking trees, being human… I really didn’t want to add explaining why nudity was a problem to a group of nudists. I glanced around the room for a bit trying to find some way out of this, then lowered my head and raised my hand to cover my eyes with another sigh.

I heard some shuffling noises, then felt a hand on my shoulder. “Leon?” Asked Twilight. I willed myself to stillness, instead of jerking away from the contact like my first instinct was. I concentrated on breathing evenly, instead of hyperventilating. Meanwhile my mind raced in circles as it tried to come up with something to say or do that would get me past this point without wanting to die of embarrassment. “Leon?” Twilight asked again, sounding very concerned now, the other girls making similar noises.

‘Damn it! This is making things worse. But what the hell do I say?! How can I explain … Gah!’ My mind continued on its hamster wheel of indecision until I succumbed to the temptation of trying to simply escape. “Can I… explain later?” I asked in a quiet voice.

There was a pause that went long enough for me to wonder if they’d even heard me, but finally Twilight simply said, “Alright.”

Fully in a funk now, I still couldn’t summon the will to face any of them, and eventually I heard the girls start to head out, mentioning various things they needed to attend to as they said goodbye to Twilight and me. I made myself lift a hand to wave, to at least acknowledge them. I almost didn’t notice it, but Spike left as well, apparently doing something with Rarity. Soon enough, it was just Twilight and myself in the tree-... house… library thing.

As Twilight sat back down in the chair across from me, I was finally able to make myself look up again and gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that,” I began. I spent a few seconds trying to come up with something else to add, some kind of explanation, but eventually just shrugged at her. She seemed to understand my difficulties as she shrugged back.

“So…” Twilight twirled a bit of her hair… mane?... around with a finger. “Do you think you could answer some other questions now?” I honestly thought she looked pretty cute just then. It was obvious that her curiosity was at war with her attempts to be polite and not push me. The emotions were plain on her face.

I was able to dredge up a weak smile for her. “Sure, I owe you some answers. Where should we start?” I honestly didn’t mind telling her about me or my world, and I understood her thirst for knowledge. So I settled in for a what I knew would be a lengthy conversation.

The rest of the day went by relatively quickly. I told Twilight all about humans, our lack of magic, the United States, cars, airplanes, the US Air Force and so forth. In return, Twilight explained some things about living in Equestria. She was more than happy to satisfy my curiosity of how their magic worked. A lot of stuff she tried to explain went over my head, but I think I had a good grasp on the basics of how earth, pegasus, and unicorn ponies accessed the magic within themselves and used it to effect the world around them. I sort of got the impression that Twilight was pretty happy just having someone who was actually interested in listening to her explanations.

We ended up talking right through lunch. We probably wouldn’t have noticed dinner either if it weren’t for Spike returning and asking if we were ready for him to make it. I wasn’t surprised to discover that dinner consisted of a large salad. At least the ingredients were all really fresh, and the salad dressing (which was apparently apple-based?) was pretty tasty. Thankfully I was able to flesh out my meal with peanut butter sandwiches and milk. I had some thoughts about needing to figure out how I could get the nutrients I knew I needed in what was definitely a vegetarians-only area, but decided to worry about it later. After the stressful morning, a long conversation... not to mention everything that had happened yesterday still affecting me... it wasn’t too surprising that I was feeling sleepy even though it was relatively early in the evening.

Being much more coherent than last night, I took a few minutes to familiarize myself with my sleeping arrangements. The guest-bedroom I was using seemed to be down a little off-shoot from the main library room. I was very grateful to find a bathroom was located next to it, though I would still have to use the one upstairs when I wanted to take a shower. That thought also made me start thinking about my clothes, as I had been wearing mine for quite a while now and I was sure I must be starting to smell fairly ripe. I wasn’t too sure how I could approach the clothing problem without running into the … nudity issue. At least the show let me know who the best person was to ask for custom clothing.

For now, I decided to just sleep in my pants, without my shirt. Getting undressed, I noticed that the back of my shirt WAS signed by Discord… or at least I assumed the scribble was meant to be his signature, anyways. With a shrug and a sigh, I laid down and quickly fell asleep.

Author's Note

I realize as I get ready to publish this that not a whole lot actually happened, but any good building needs a solid foundation and I feel like that's what I'm working on right now. Hopefully people will be willing to stick through this bit until stuff starts to get interesting.

7. Another day, another problem

Waking up meant another round of grogginess while strange fragments left over from my dream flitted through my head. I was a bit embarrassed to note how several of the flashes seemed to include one of the mane 6 posing nude. Which, considering where I was now, was only strange because they were posing. And the tingling feeling was back. That was great. I had a suspicion that a pattern might have started and quickly pulled out my arms to look at them. To my mild surprise, the only thing I saw were my newly acquired claws.

Then I tried getting out of bed and found what I was expecting. “And there it is! Guess this is going to be a thing now,” I mumbled to myself.

My feet were no longer recognizable. With an off-white color that made me think of cream, they now sported their own set of claws with an almost digitigrade shape. I puzzled over the look for a bit, since I couldn’t immediately place the shape which had notable difference up to just above my ankles. They definitely weren’t paws, like a cat or dog would have. But the only other thing I could think of with claws right then was a bird’s feet… and they weren’t anything like that.

At the same time I felt like I’d seen feet -very- similar to these, but the lingering fuzziness of waking up… without any hope of coffee, I might add… meant that trying to chase down my thoughts just gave me a headache. I let it slide for the time being and worked on coming up with a plan for the day instead.

An audible gurgle from my stomach informed me that the first part of the plan would be breakfast. With only a couple of wobbles on my new feet, I made myself as presentable as I could before heading into the main room. Twilight was standing over by the stairs, yelling up at Spike to get out of bed. She spared a quick smile for me which I returned, though mine might have been a bit off due to my headache. I quietly made my way into the kitchen to help start on some breakfast. I’ve always been taught to try to be useful when being a guest, and I was kinda worried that I might end up being served flowers or something if I didn’t make my own inputs at the beginning.

Lucky for me there were plenty of eggs, so that didn’t seem to be against pony eating conventions. Plus I already knew from yesterday that Twilight and Spike were both fond of pancakes. It wasn’t my favorite breakfast item, and felt weird not having sausage or something with it (also not a fan of bacon, so at least I wasn’t pining for that) but it beat having a bowl of oats.

I’d just finished finding everything needed to start cooking when Spike padded in. He covered a yawn while waving at me as he came over to the stove. “Morning Leon.” He started to turn towards the cupboard I had recently discovered had the pots and pans when he seemed to do a double-take and looked back at me, specifically at my feet. “Huh. Cool feet you got now.”

That seemed like a really casual way to comment on my continuing change into something else, but I figured it was better than constantly freaking out over it. It also prompted me to look down at his feet, just for the symmetry...

…

Oh. THAT’S where I’d seen feet like these before. Right.

Spike seemed oblivious to my staring as he went back to pulling out pans and even started working on the pancake mix, but when Twilight poked her head in to see what we were talking about she instantly noticed what my numb brain had finally figured out. “Oh! You have feet like a dragon!”

Breakfast was a quick affair. For some reason my brain kept trying to call it dinner and I had to correct myself mid-sentence several times. Currently, I was sitting in a chair, staring down at my feet. Twilight and I had spent a decent chunk of time yesterday theorizing about what I was turning into, going over everything that had claws on their hands. I think she might have actually mentioned dragons once during that, but we really went over a whole bunch of possibilities including griffins, manticores, harpies, and even a cat-like race by Twilight’s description. (Apparently they mainly live on another continent.) But now it looked to be pretty firm that I was turning into a dragon.

I wasn’t totally sure what to think of that. Part of me thought it was freak’n awesome, to be honest. Another part was still pretty weirded out about transforming into -anything-. But I got dragged out of my thoughts by Twilight gently shaking my shoulder. “Did you hear me, Leon?”

I looked up into her concerned face and gave her the best smile I could come up with. “Sorry about that Twilight. I was just lost in my own thoughts. What were you saying?”

She shook her head at that, but didn’t seem to actually be upset with me. Moving to sit in a chair that was facing mine, she repeated herself. “I was telling you that I just got a letter back from Princess Celestia. She’s interested in you, obviously, and also worried about what Discord appears to have done. Specifically, something that Discord explained to her seems to be important and she’s planning to come meet you tomorrow so she and Discord can explain it to you.”

It took my brain a few moments to actually catch on to the implications of that. I was chewing over the fact that there was important stuff to learn from Discord, but I was happy to know I’d soon get a chance to ask him more questions. And the fan-boy in me was kind of squealing at the thought of actually meeting the royalty of this worl… “Wait. Tomorrow? Celestia is coming here tomorrow?!?”

Twilight sat back a little and blinked several times at my sudden tone of panic. “Um, yes. That’s what I just said.” She leaned forward again as I went to put my head in my hands. “What’s wrong with that, Leon?”

Internally, my body was trying to decide whether to simply shut down or to freak out. In this case, freaking out won. “I’m meeting a princess tomorrow! -Another- princess!! I don’t have anything appropriate to wear for this! Fuck!!” I realized I was standing and desperately trying to go somewhere, only I didn’t have any idea where I could go right now. “I should be in my best Dress Blues for this, dammit! At the very least I gotta get this outfit properly cleaned, but how do I do that without going around naked the whole time?!”

The ruckus I was starting to make got Spike’s attention. “Hey, what’s the problem in here?”

I tried to hold back on the glare that I wanted to give Spike right then as some part of me realized he didn’t deserve it. “What’s the problem?! The problem is that I’m about to meet an important leader from another world and I currently look like a disgrace to the whole human race! Not to mention the US Air Force.” I actually threw my hands up in the air as I all but screamed at the purple drake.

Spike was making a braking motion at me with his hands. “Whoa, whoa…” he started in a soothing tone. “Calm down there Leon. Whatever you think is wrong with you right now, I’m sure Twilight and I can help you fix it before you have to meet Princess Celestia.” As he attempted to calm me I couldn’t help noticing that Twilight was trying to hide a grin behind her hand.

When she saw me staring at her with a questioning look she lowered her hand and gently shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just a little amusing to me to see Spike doing this to somepony else. Usually -I’m- the one he needs to help calm down.” That statement earned a short chuckle and nod from Spike.

“Okay, fine, it’s funny,” I huffed. “But I really need help. I already feel like I’ve made a bad first impression for being the first person from my world. What is Princess Celestia gonna think of me looking like this?” I said as I waved an arm over my outfit.

She’d probably think humans were a horrible, dirty, smelly lot that could be potentially dangerous. She might even decide I need to be locked up for the safety of her subjects. Hell, I would in her place! It didn’t occur to me that I was already deciding what the opinions would be of another person. One I had until recently thought was only a fictional character.

My internal worrying must have shown on my face since Twilight came over to put a friendly hand on my shoulder. Looking me straight in the eyes (still felt weird needing to look UP to her) she confidently told me, “I’m sure the Princess won’t think poorly of you just from your appearance.”

Spike, who had also moved closer in what looked like an attempt to be comforting, tried to add his own two cents. “Yeah, if anything she’ll probably think you’re just overdressed.” A sharp look from Twilight made him shrug with a, “What?” However my own expression was simply one of confusion.

“Overdressed?” I parroted.

“Um, yeah,” Spike replied. “I mean, you’ve had on a shirt and pants every time I’ve seen you. It’s not like Twilight here or anyone else is acting formal, and this isn’t exactly the royal palace either, even if Twilight is technically a princess now.”

Twilight was nodding in agreement. “That’s right. This is still just the ponyville library. There’s no reason to get all dressed up while you’re staying here.”

I stood there, staring at them staring at me, for what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes. Finally I let out a sigh and beckoned them back over to the chairs. “Okay, I don’t want to, but now I have to explain this.”

It was surprising how easy that conversation went. Maybe it was because there were only two people I was talking to now, instead of a whole room full. Maybe having something else I was freaking out about was helping me put it in perspective. Whatever the reason, explaining humanity’s nudity taboos went quickly and easily. It definitely helped that Twilight was an intellectual and seemed to find this to be fascinating instead of being weirded out. And I really appreciated her offer to talk to all of her friends about it for me, instead of making me re-explain this to everyone I met.

Less than two hours later, I was standing inside Carousel Boutique. The walk over had some… ups and downs to it. One major plus was that having dragon feet meant that walking outside didn’t hurt at all. This was really good, since my boots no longer fit me. On the down side, every pony walking around was completely nude, with the exception of an occasional accessory like a hat or necklace. For the women, this just meant that I had to work really hard at not staring inappropriately. For the guys, though… well, it could be worse. At least they seemed to have a sheath that kept most of the more disturbing parts out of sight.

Come to think of it, where was Spike’s junk? Not that I was about to ask him.

Letting Twilight do most of the talking, while putting in my own inputs when needed or asked for, Rarity was eventually convinced to set me up with a basic tuxedo-style outfit. Of course, she wanted to make it from scratch and personally fitted to me. I was concerned that this would take too much time and effort, but these arguments got me nowhere with Rarity. Perhaps seeing my desperation, Twilight came to my aid by pointing out that my body seemed to still be changing and that it would be a shameful waste to put so much work into something that wouldn’t fit me in the near future.

While this got Rarity’s grudging agreement, it didn’t save me from being stripped down to my skivvies (the most I would allow, despite Rarity’s repeated attempts to get me completely nude) for the ‘required’ measuring. It would seem that while there was an existing set of clothes I would be using, they still needed to be adjusted to fit properly. I really would have been fine with something that simply fit well enough, but having now seen first-hand what was made obvious in the show, I knew I’d never convince Rarity. She promised to have the alterations done and delivered to Twilight’s home before dinner, so I didn’t have any real complaints.

The problem was that while I managed to keep the one piece of clothing, Rarity had none. While we were just talking, I’d done a good job of avoiding thinking about that fact too much, but Rarity’s idea of taking measurements seemed to include a lot of body contact. Feeling her breasts rubbing against my arms, back, and chest was too much for me. The boner was inevitable, and just as embarrassing as I figured it would be. Rarity laughed when she noticed it, coming around to begin the lower measurements. “Oh darling, it’s fine! Really! It’s a normal enough reaction. Honestly, even if you didn’t insist on this silly piece of cloth… it isn’t anything I haven’t seen before!” She stopped for a second, finger on her lip while she thought over that last sentence. “At least, I’ve seen what a stallion would have, but maybe yours is different….?”

She looked up at me, kneeling down in front of me, and bat her eyelashes at me. It was obvious from her face that she was curious and trying to get me to let her see what I was hiding. I returned her look with the best glare I could muster out of all the awkwardness I was feeling. She gave out a huff before going back to taking measurements. “Well, you can’t blame a lady for trying.”

As for the laundry problem, I was given a solution from an unexpected source. Spike mentioned that until I was settled into my new form, it would probably be easiest to use sweatshirts and pants. As he pointed out, they were typically worn baggy and had a lot of stretch to them, so I could get some that were pretty loose and keep using them even if I ended up becoming much larger. He also noted that he found them to be very comfortable when he wanted to wear something casual, although he seemed a bit embarrassed to admit it. Thankfully, Rarity didn’t have any arguments with this idea and even she couldn’t see a reason to alter sweat-clothes, so I was able to leave with a small pile of casual wear and a promise for a formal suit later that day.

Considering how much I don’t like dealing with clothes shopping, I felt like I got off pretty easy with that.

Twilight and I went back to library, leaving Spike behind since he volunteered to help Rarity out. Twilight had given him a friendly nudge and a wink after his offer, which I didn’t really understand. Nor did it make sense to me when she pointedly reminded him that the clothes were expected by dinner time. I let it go by without commenting. I didn’t really need to understand, and I wanted to get out of the dirty clothes I was wearing and into the new sweat-clothes I was carrying.

Taking a shower was a little more exciting with claws instead of my usual hands. I was very slow and cautious about how I touched my own skin. I also decided that I was going to have to owe Twilight a new bar of soap when I was done. The current one had sustained critical damage and would likely break up in the next attempted use or so. Still, it felt pretty good to finally get clean again.

It wasn’t until I was dried off and ready to get dressed again that I realized what was missing. Underwear never got brought up. I decided not to get worked up over it. Honestly, it wasn’t the first time I had to go commando, and at least this would be in some comfortable sweats instead of a scratchy uniform.

I was very thankful to find out Twilight had a washing machine and dryer to use. Even better, this discovery finally gave me the opportunity to ask a question that had been bothering me since yesterday.

“Twilight, do these machines…? What do they run on? Electricity? Magic?”

She gave me a thoughtful look, tilting her head to the side for a moment before answering. “I guess you could kind of say it’s both, but mostly it’s the electricity.”

That wasn’t the clearest answer, but it still let me get to my real question. “So where does the electricity come from? I don’t see any plugs. For that matter, I don’t see any outlets on the walls.” This discrepancy had been bothering me ever since I watched Twilight turn on a table lamp in the main room which I could clearly see had no plug coming from it.

Again, Twilight had a look of concentration, staring at me for a bit before answering. “Um… what’s an ‘outlet’ and how does it use a plug? Wouldn’t a plug stop the electricity?” It seemed odd to me how she seemed to have trouble saying “outlet,” like it was a foreign word.

“Well, in my world, the outlet is where you plug in the wire to get electricity from the wall…” I let my reply trail off as I only saw continuing confusion on Twilight’s face. Spending a moment to come up with a different track, I tried again. “Humans use wires to give the electricity a path to follow to the machine from its source, which is usually a generator of some kind.”

Twilight still looked confused, but also a bit surprised. “Really? Wouldn’t that use up an awful lot of wire? We just send the electricity through the air using the *******.”

I blinked several times. Her last word didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before, in any language on Earth. To be totally honest, it sounded kind of horse-like. But that wasn’t even the weird part. No, the weird thing was that when she said it, I got this mental picture of … crystals… with waves coming out?... in my head from out of nowhere.

My best bet was to relate what just happened to me, and hope Twilight could explain it. The good news? Yes, she could. So what’s the bad news? The explanation still gives me a headache whenever I try to wrap my head around it. In the short form, there really is a ‘magic of harmony’ that surrounds all life (still makes me think of the Force from Star Wars) and one of its many uses is the ability to automatically translate what anyone… no matter the species… says into the native language for whoever is listening to them. The problem with the word Twilight used is that English doesn’t have any term that’s close. The vague impressions I got was the best the magic could do. This actually helped explain some things from earlier conversations I’d had, since anytime I was a little confused on word choices I would suddenly get a clearer idea of what the speaker had meant.

Oh, the other bad news though? The magic doesn’t work on writing. I realised that I couldn’t read a single damn book in Twilight’s library. I had everything from chicken scratch to moon letters to something that looked vaguely Egyptian to me. None of it made sense. So there went one of my main hobbies.

Damnit! I can’t even read any of these Daring Do books! Which there are apparently already 23 of, and she’s still going.

I guess it could have been worse. Being with Twilight at least gave me someone interesting to talk to. Oh, and the whole electricity thing gives me a headache, too. Using crystals to send electricity wirelessly through the air? Mind-boggling.

By the time we’d settled my newest issue, it was past time to get some lunch. Twilight suggested going out to get a “large snack” instead of a full meal to try and keep a normal eating schedule, which I was happy to agree to. Much to my amusement, though not to my surprise, we ended up heading to Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie was nowhere in evidence, but Mr. Cake was happy to serve us the sweet bread and chocolate milk that Twilight ordered for us. I was just happy that he wore an apron while working, so I didn’t have to deal with seeing things I didn’t want to.

I’d never really had anything like this ‘sweet bread’ before, and I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what I got was fairly tasty without being all that sugary. I was enjoying my snack and our conversation on Equestrian technology when I received a shock. The first part was when I noticed a dark, chocolate-colored unicorn mare come out of the back area. I didn’t recognize her from the show, but I was ready to assume she was just some pony who worked here. Then she walked right up to Mr. Cake and pulled him into a loving embrace!

Now it wasn’t like they were making out in the store, but the full-on kiss and hug were obviously of a type only used between loved ones. While my brain scrambled to come up with some explanation for this, Mrs. Cake came out from the back area as well. Then the chocolate-colored mare turned and pulled HER into another loving embrace!

My mind was still in the process of trying to reboot as this mystery mare walked out. I only caught the fringe of what was said between them, basically some ‘Love you!’ type things and something about bringing the kids over soon. I finally got myself somewhat back together when Twilight’s elbow dug into my side.

“Hey!” She said. “Everything alright? You’re spacing out pretty bad there.”

I gave my head a slight shake before turning my attention back to her. “Um.. I just… thought I knew something, and now…” I found myself scratching the back of my head and made myself quit. “Um, question: Who was the lady that just walked out?”

Twilight still didn’t look like she got what was going on. “Oh, her? That was Fudge Brownie. Why, do you know her? Is she from that ‘show’ you talked about?”

I shook my head, in negation this time. “Actually, no. I don’t know her from anything. That’s what surprised me. Wasn’t she just… kissing Mr. Cake? And Mrs. Cake?” I could hear my voice getting squeeky despite myself.

Twilight’s expression grew a bit thoughtful, while she seemed to be studying my face. “Yes, she was, but why is that surprising? They are all part of the same herd, after all.”

“Herd?” I parroted back in confusion.

“Yeah,” Twilight replied before taking another sip of her chocolate milk. “I know they aren’t nearly as common as they used to be, but you can still find several ponies in herds in any city.” She seemed to consider what she just said for a moment before absently nodding, apparently to herself. “I’ll admit, it’s a bit hard when the rest of your herd lives in another town, but the Cake’s herd seems to do pretty well. It’s not like Fudge or Electric could really leave Canterlot, after all.” After a quick look at me, with my face probably still showing nothing but confusion, she explained further. “You see, Electric Cotton is one of the royal guard, and Fudge Brownie still runs the bakery she’s owned since before meeting the rest of her herd.”

Twilight’s expression started to show some concern, probably because my jaw kept dropping farther. I gave my head a quick shake to try to get my brain started again. “I’m sorry, that’s going to take a bit to process. Um… It does raise a question though. Who do the kids belong to?”

Twilight gave me a huff and a look. “Well obviously, the kids belong to the whole herd!” Her expression softened a bit before she added, “But if you mean who are the biological parents, Pumpkin Cake was born to Fudge Brownie and Pound Cake was from Electric Cotton.”

I really needed to stop staring at her. I gave my head a brief yet sharp shake, then looked back at Twilight in an apologetic way. “I’m sorry, really. I didn’t mean to sound rude or anything. This… just kind of came as a shock.” Then, after Twilight didn’t look upset anymore, I went on to explain how in the ‘show’ I’d told her about there weren’t any herds, and how Mr. and Mrs. Cake were seen as an exclusive couple that managed to have twins that were somehow a unicorn and a pegasus. I also went on to mention how the majority of human civilizations practiced a strict philosophy of monogamy.

I was afraid that some of what I was revealing would upset Twilight again, but she stayed calm throughout. Once again, I found myself thankful that Twilight was such an intellectual. As long as we were talking about things in an almost scientific way, she seemed to be able to handle anything without taking offense.

Still, -I- was a bit boggled by this recent revelation. “Wait a minute, so by what you said, that’s one more thing that’s different. The babies can’t actually be twins then, right?” I asked.

Twilight gave a quick nod. “That’s right. Although, it isn’t hard to think of them as being twins, I suppose, since they were born less than two days apart, I think.” She looked up towards the ceiling in thought while scratching at her chin. “It’s not surprising, really, since they were probably both conceived on the same…” She suddenly broke off, suddenly lowering her head with an obvious blush on her cheeks. “Um.. ah-heh!... heh…”

When my brain finally finished processing what she’d just almost said, I was a bit taken aback. With a quick clearing of my throat, I asked the question I now needed to. “Um… not wanting to be rude, but… you seem to know a lot about the Cakes’.... Um… personal… stuff…?”

Twilight blew out a gust of air, then looked me straight in the eye with a resigned look. “If you’re a friend of Pinkie’s, then you end up finding out about everything that happens at Sugarcube Corner. And I mean, -everything!-”

After a moment’s consideration, I just had to shrug. “From what I know of Pinkie Pie…? Yeah, sounds like par for the course.”

“Par for the … what?” Came Twilight’s response.

I gave a brief laugh. “Sorry. Just an expression. Uh, do you guys have golf as a sport here?” After a quick nod from Twilight, I continued. “Yeah, so it’s from that. Guess not all expressions are equal here.” Twilight grinned and shook her head in agreement, before turning back to the remains of her snack.

Without any other pressing matters, we decided to just head back to Twilight’s tree. We arrived to the sight of Spike unlocking the door with a clothes bag slung over his shoulder. “Hey guys! One tailored suit, delivered as promised!”

Twilight and I thanked him, then we all headed inside. Small talk led to dinner, one where we all ended up making our own food. Once again, I found myself growing sleepy well before what I considered normal, but I figured it would be better to be well rested for Princess Celestia’s visit tomorrow anyways. The strange part was a quiet conversation I overheard parts of between Twilight and Spike as I made my way to the bedroom.

“... be heading back now” Twilight was saying.

“Well, I ... be here ...” Spike replied. “... in case… anything happens.”

“... I don’t think … go wrong, but … get upset, will she?”

“She understands. Besides, I promised I’d make it up to her later.”

“Okay, as long as you’re both okay with it. Thanks Spike.”

I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but I was basically too tired to care… even if I -did- suspect that anything “going wrong” was probably in relation to me. Still, even if that’s what he meant, I wouldn’t blame him. It’s good to be protective of your friends.

With that thought, which was almost a comforting one, I went to bed.