Pathfinder 5

Chapter 15: Exploring Ponyville

It was morning in Ponyville, you would think that it was any other morning in the town as the sun rose up. The early risers were slowly waking up, those that had to open up shops or start the work day while others slept in a little. You would never know that the town held the most exotic and literally alien creature and ship on the entire planet. Yet there in an open field just outside of the town the rays of the sun made the large metal ship gleam.

Rainbow Dash taking a morning fly to loosen herself up for the day saw it as she flew through the skies from her home. She couldn’t believe it was still there, it seemed like a dream but there it was. She grinned as she did a few tricks wondering what it would be like to go into space to go higher than any pony had ever gone before.

She continued to fly as her mind went to thoughts of strange alien worlds and exploring such places she had seen last night.

Elsewhere in the town in the library Spike was trying to sleep in, the party had gone on a little late and he was still a little tired. The non-stop sound of hooves walking on the wooden floor was making that a bit hard to do unfortunately for the small dragon. He pulled the bed sheet down and looked to see Twilight with saddle bags and a check list muttering to herself.

“Twilight, what are you doing up so early?” He rubbed an eye.

“Oh Spike, morning,” She grinned at him happily. “I got up early to get everything ready for the big day.”

“Big day?” he repeated.

“Yep, I’m going to show [David] around Ponyville today, I figured he could use a guide,” She happily checked her list. Today she planned on showing him Sweet Apple Acres, the school, Rarity’s Carousel Boutique, maybe a stop at Sugarcube Corner, oh plus at the party she got in touch with a few of the residential doctors to see if they could look at him. They needed a baseline comparison in case he ever got sick or injured while here. She hoped to take detailed notes as all of her notes could be used in future studies of [humans].

Twilight finished rechecking her check list as she put on her saddle bags. “Well I’m off, take care of the things Spike.” Although she knew she didn’t need to tell him that, he was the perfect assistant for her but she liked to remind him sometimes. She disappeared in a flash of a teleport as Spike just shrugged and went back to bed.

The library wasn’t supposed to open for a few more hours anyway and even then it was rare for anyone to show up when they just opened. So he could get in a little more sleep.

Across Ponyville in an alien ship, David was dead to the world. He was so tired when he got back to the ship that he could only make some notes as not to forget certain things in his next report before hitting his bed. He was out like a light when he hit the pillow. It was strange as he had been dreaming about the day he left.

-Dreamscape-

David suited up in the locker room as he put his clothing in the box next to him. That would be the last time he would see his old clothes as they would be put into storage on his trip out there. He grinned as he felt a sense of giddy anticipation. All the hard work had finally paid off, he had made it into the Pathfinder program, passed every test and challenge thrown at him and here he was about to leave for the Great Unknown as it was sometimes called.

He finished dressing up in the Pathfinder uniform as he left it to see someone waiting for him. Leaving against the wall with a Pathfinder Program Mission Command patch was a dark skinned man with short hair that was still mostly black but had some grey starting to sink in.

“Well look at you, ready to go where no one has gone before?” He asked with a smile.

David rolled his eyes, “How old is that line now Charles?”

Charles Stewart shrugged his shoulders, “No idea, older than my parents that’s for sure.” He kicked himself off the wall. “Come on I’ll walk you to the ceremony.”

“Do we really have to do this?” David sighed as they walked the clean white halls of the circular tube like structure. “I never liked this kind of crap, can’t I just get in and launch?”

Charles gave him a dirty look, “It’s traditional, plus I didn’t bust my ass getting you and the others ready in training for you to skip out and have me deal with the media asking where you are.”

“You busted your ass?” David smirked. “Oh so that was you running with us with those heavy packs on every day? Or the sleep deprivation exercise or how can I forget the vomit comet ride?”

“I did all those when I was a Pathfinder on Five’s first mission, so don’t give me no shit about how hard it was, I paid my dues.” He clapped him on the back. “You better take care of that old ship of mine, Pathfinder Five saw me to a lot of places and you better bring that lady back home in one piece.”

“Fuck man does your wife know of your little love affair with a ship?” David smirked at him.

He only got a punch in the arm for that one as they made their way to a set of large doors. “You ready for this? When I had to do my mission it was only for three months, you’re going on a lot longer this time.”

David nodded. “Hell yeah, I can’t wait to see what’s out there.”

Charles paused before he opened the doors, “On your psych profile you put that as the same reason but I’ve always wondered. Why are you so interested in going out there?”

David looked at him and he didn’t really have to think about it. “You know I was born and raised on one of the space colonies, Nova Prime right? Well we got artificial skyline that goes from day to night but it wasn’t until I saw the actual stars from a viewing port that actually looked outside. There I was as a kid looking out at the real stars and I was thinking what else it out there?”

“We’re already on our way to being everywhere in our own solar system, we got a few colonies being built on worlds you and the others have found. But there has to be more out there, when I looked at those stars as a kid I saw endless possibilities. There is just so much out there that we haven’t seen or found out yet.”

“And you want to go out there and find it,” Charles grinned and nodded. “I know that feeling, the wonder lust, the urge to explore and just get out there and seize everything with your own hands. To see alien worlds and creatures first hand. To be someplace totally new and to step on alien soil for the first time and see worlds we’ve only imagined.”

David nodded his head, “Yeah, ever since that day I’ve wanted to explore space.”

Charles pressed a button as the door opened. “Well you got your wish.”

As the door opened there was a podium at the end of the large room as it was filled with people. Mostly officials and reporters and members of the Pathfinder mission. He could see his family up front, although he knew his parents preferred him going into the family business they didn’t stop him from doing this. The crowd were already filling the hall with talk and it only got worse when he showed up as floating cameras came in to get good shots of him.

“Really wish I could skip this,” David muttered but then he thought he caught something, something that didn’t belong. He saw in the crowd a familiar blue alien looking at him but that didn’t make sense. When did he meet an alien and why did she seem familiar? How did he know it was a she? He noticed that she finally noticed him looking at her as she did something and everything stopped.

“What the fuck?” He turned around to see nothing moving. “The hell is going on here?”

“Oh I can understand you,” Luna said walking forward. “I wasn’t sure if we could communicate in the dreamscape but I’m thankful it’s working.”

“Wait you’re talking English now?” David suddenly realized that this wasn’t real, he had already been here before. “Dreamscape, you mean I’m dreaming?”

“Yes,” Luna nodded her head coming up to him. “I saw a new dreamer that I haven’t seen before, I was surprised it was you.”

“Hold on, if I’m dreaming how the hell are we’re talking, aren’t you a dream?”

Luna shook her head, “I am Princess of the Night, as such I have the ability to go into dreams. Normally I look over the dreams of my subjects and ensure they have nice dreams and if they are having nightmares then I vanquish such things for them.”

“You’re telepathic?” David asked her.

“Not as such, no.” Luna admitted. “I can only enter dreams.”

“Great so an anti-Freddy Krueger.” David rubbed his temples not sure if this was really happening or not.

“What’s a Freddie Kruger?” Luna asked him.

“You got films, you know movies?” He asked her as she chocked a head to the side. “Moving pictures with sounds that you record and play back?”

“We have magic spell that can do that but to my knowledge our cameras only take single still images.” Luna thought about it she wasn’t totally up on all the technology but she felt she would have heard about moving pictures.

David blinked, “Did you just say ‘magic’?”

Luna looked at him, “Yes it’s how we’re talking now, you saw it yourself with Twilight teleporting. All ponies have some form of magic in them, from Earth Ponies, to Pegasi and unicorns.”

David wasn’t sure how to handle that, it didn’t make any sense was she telling him that they actually believe in magic? No he refused to believe that, there had to be another more scientific explanation. Maybe they only called it ‘magic’ back when they could use it but just didn’t update the language for it with science. He had so much he wanted to talk to her about but the world started to shimmer.

“I’m sorry but it looks like you’re waking up,” Luna told him.

“Damn it not now,” David looked around. “wait can you get back here if I’m dreaming again?”

Luna nodded her head.

“Okay good because I got a lot of questions and this can so help with the translations to have actual word for word translation-“

-Sparrow I-

“Translation!” David muttered as he woke up looking around. “God fucking damn it!”

He wasn’t sure what woke him up but if that dream had been real he really needed to get back to sleeping. He already had words for direct translations now, things like Princess, night, ponies, etc. He really needed to get those words to AVI for the translation matrix. For some reason most of the dream faded but when he was talking to that Princess (now he knew her title at least) it was still as clear as day.

A familiar tapping sound was heard against the hull.

He sighed and pulled up a camera shot of the outside hatch to see a familiar face.

“So you’re name is Twilight huh, well I need to teach you to get over here at a proper hour.” He pulled on some pants and a t-shirt and went to the hatch. He opened it to see Twilight there looking more chipper than should be legal for someone at this hour.

She started to speak but he held up a hand. “One hour please?” He said in her language.

Twilight paused because looking at his appearance and suddenly realized she must have woken him up. She hadn’t accounted for him being asleep. “Oh I’m so sorry I thought you would be up, I-I’ll wait then.”

David nodded his head as he closed the door and went to work. First a quick shower as he told his computer the new translated words. That would help cut down on the time it would take for the computer to translate everything. He had a quick breakfast after a change and he met with Twilight with ten minutes to spare.

“So, what now?” He asked her.

Twilight could only smile broadly as she led the way. They talked on their way there although David didn’t bring up the Princess visiting him in his dream, at least not after he had a longer talk with her tonight. At least he hoped that hadn’t been some strange dream. He also stayed away from the ‘magic’ thing until he could talk about that a bit more as well.

But the conversation was helping him with their language at least, he knew he must have a horrible accent but with every new word and new grammar rule brought him a step closer to a better way to communicate with them.

He found that they had arrived at what looked like a farm, there are rows upon rows of apple trees. He could only smile as he got a feeling who ran this place. A hard slamming sound was heard as Twilight led him in the direction. There was the large red alien (or maybe he should start calling them ‘ponies’ now?) with a bunch of baskets with apples in them. He was wondering how in the world beings with no hands picked apples?

His question was soon answered as he moved to another tree as he just kicked the damn trunk and apples feel off the tree into prepared baskets. Okay that shouldn’t be possible, he did the math quickly in his head and those trunks had to be super strong because in order for that to work the amount of force would most likely break the tree. They looked like just regular apple trees though. While Twilight asked him something he took a quick scan of the tree.

He sent the data back to the Sparrow for analysis so he could look at it later.

Twilight led him to the large red barn as an old looking pony in a rocking chair was on the porch.

“Hey there Twilight, y’all here to see AJ?” Granny Smith asked her and then she looked at the tall being next to her. “Now what in tarnation is this big fella?”

“Oh this is [David] a new friend, he’s from very far away,” Twilight suggested.

“Huh so is that this alien I keep hearin’ about?” Granny looked him over. “Well ah never thought ah live to see tha day when ah’d meet some alien, nice to meet cha Mr. Alien.”

David nodded his head at her.

“Well AJ is back with tha chickens.” Granny Smith told them as she got back to rocking.

“Okay then,” Twilight was amazed she took it so well but then again that old mare never really got anything get to her. With a mental shrug she led her friend to the back of the barn where the chicken coop was. There was AJ with a basket of feed behind the chicken fence.

She noticed the two of them as she waved at them while the basket she carried in her mouth she set down. “Howdy y’all, what brings ya by?”

“I was showing him around Ponyville,” Twilight motioned to David. “I thought this would be a good place to start.”

“Well ah hope ya don’t mind me working ah got plenty of chores ta get done.” AJ picked up her basket as she walked into the chicken coop.

David and Twilight took a look around as Twilight gave him words for certain items or animals that they saw. She wanted to help him to get a better understanding of their language. David of course had the computer on his gauntlet recording everything just so he didn’t miss anything.

He was surprised when a cow of all things walked up to the fence.

“Pardon me Applejack but the girls and I are wondering if you can move up the milking time today, some of the girls are feeling a little too bloated.” The cow spoke which made David pause. He watched the cow holding a conversation with the two aliens he knew. He was so surprised he wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying until the cow left.

“Great…looks like I won’t be getting hamburgers or a nice steak anytime soon,” He muttered to himself. He saw a pigpen with some pigs there, so he walked over to the fence.

“So…hi, you talk too?” He asked them but they only just stared blankly up at him before rolling back into the mud. Well at least he knew the pigs didn’t talk so that was something. He really was going to have to spend some time figuring out which were the sentient beings and which were just animals. He sighed to himself as he would have to keep an eye out.

Last thing he needed to do was treat some sentient being like an animal, he quickly looked around. Or in this case talking to animals like they were people, he slipped back to the others in case they asked why he was talking to pigs.

Spending time at the farm was a unique experience for David, he had never been on a farm before. Sure it smelled but given that he and all recruits had to scrub the incinerator with toothbrushes where the trash got burned in training, it wasn’t all that bad.

Applejack seemed a like a nice down to earth type, he really hoped to get to talking with her later as he felt he could really get along with this alien farmer. Plus he was interested in seeing how their farming methods were similar or different from their own. He was going to have to come back there later once the translations got better. After about an hour Twilight said it was time to move on. David said his goodbyes to the farmer as they continued on back to the town.

Twilight led him down what looked like a main road back to town as he noticed more Pegasi moving clouds, he pointed this out to Twilight and asked what they were doing.

“Oh, they’re moving the clouds, I think it’s supposed to be a cloudy day and then clear skies tomorrow.” Twilight explained to him.

David looked back up as he watched them. “You make it sunny or not?”

“Yes we control the weather,” Twilight paused thinking about it. Why was he so surprised by that, then she remembered all those worlds he had seen. “In your travels have you or your people found any other intelligent species? You know others that talk?”

David shook his head, “You first.”

Twilight’s mind went racing, something had bothered her about those images last night but she wasn’t sure why. Now she knew what it was, there had been no other species that were intelligent in them. But if that was the case then how did everything work? Who took control of the weather or moved the sun and moon on those worlds, on his world?

She thought about her next question, “So how does it work on your world?”

“Weather does what it wants.” He shrugged.

Twilight couldn’t believe it, did that meant that the entire universe operated like the Everfree? It was a unique place on this world but she hadn’t thought of it being normal and the rest of her world being unique. In fiction about space flight there were usually some alien beings that did everything they did. There were those that had the universe like the Everfree but those were in the minority.

“So, everywhere is like that?” Twilight asked him.

David looked at her curiously and nodded. He wasn’t sure why the strange question or her odd reaction. She got very quiet suddenly and the rest of the way was kind of silent for him. Something was eating away at her but whatever it was it seemed to pass as she looked up and pointed out the building in front of him.

“Oh we’re here,” Twilight pointed out to him. “Welcome to Rarity’s Carousel Boutique.”

David looked at the place it certainly was interesting to say the least. It was like someone meshed a building together with a carousel. There were windows that had mannequins with fancy looking dresses in it. The whole place looked like a play set for a young girl brought to life with how brightly colored it was.

Twilight knocked on the door as Rarity called them in, they both walked in and David looked around. This obviously was some kind of tailoring shop. There were half completed dresses and some suits, completed ones as well. They all looked pretty well made, he had no idea what [Rarity] did before now but apparently she made fine clothing. Although he hadn’t seen many with clothing on so he was wondering how she stayed in business.

“Welcome both of you, I was hoping to see you again [David],” Rarity used her magic to pull him to the center of the story onto a small pedestal. “Now I have to ask do you wear that suit all the time? Don’t you have any other clothing?”

David looked down at his uniform. “Clothing official, normal clothing back home.”

“Oh it’s a uniform then,” Rarity looked it over she could see how well made it was. The sticking was so uniform that it had to be machine made. She knew that some ponies like to use the sewing machines, she only used them now and again as she preferred to use her magic as it allowed her a type of control a machine couldn't always give her. She also found the material very interesting as she wasn't sure what it was made of exactly.

“Do you mind if I get a sample of your clothing at some time darling?” Rarity asked him. “I’m interesting to see how it was made.”

David shrugged it was a synthetic fiber last time he checked, it was supposed to help with being resistant to small flames, electrical burns, heat, cold and was rip and tare resistant. He didn’t see a problem with her taking a look although he might have to come back later as he didn’t feel like leaving a jacket behind. “Sure, later can drop something here.”

“Oh wonderful, oh and do you have any images I can use on [human] fashion?”

“Fashion?” David wasn’t familiar with that word.

“Oh you know clothing and what ponies-er, your species wares.” She pointed to her clothing line.

David nodded his head, there were some images he could print out for her to look through.

“Excellent, now since you only have your work clothing would you care for a suit of your own?” Rarity asked him.

“Really, why would he need a suit?” Twilight asked her friend.

“Well what if he has to meet with the Princesses again in a more official capacity? What if he has to go to Canterlot or meet with other leaders?” Rarity asked her friend.

Twilight hadn’t thought of that, there would come a day soon that would happen. Plus when the press gets a hold of things there would be interviews, photos and who knows what else was in store. Not to mention there were all kinds of scientists, anthropologists, historians and all kinds of educated ponies would want to talk to him.

Him being here would get around soon enough, with ponies coming and going, rumors would spread soon.

“I think you have a point,” Twilight said as she started a whole new mental list of things to look out for.

Rarity smiled as she got some measuring tape turning to David. “Oh good and I do so love a challenge. You don’t mind do you?”

David shrugged and let her do it, after all he was kind of curious how she was going to do this. He didn’t catch everything but he got that she wanted to make a good suit for him to make a good impression. That was actually a good idea for him, when the First Contact Protocols didn’t include things like official meetings or meeting reporters and who knew what else.

He allowed her to go to work measuring him the glow from her horn seemed to allow her to have a lot of fine control as she manipulated him, the tape and some pieces of cloth all at once. He had to wonder what kind of concentration she had to have for all of that. It was kind of impressive actually eventually she let him go as apparently she went to get some sketches going.

Twilight started talking to her but David took this moment to look closer at the dresses. One had a lot of gems on it. They almost looked real he did a quick scan of the dress and looked at the readout on his wrist. He nearly choked on his own saliva at the results, those gems were real. Hell even though his family was wealthy the amount this dress would cost in human society would be insane. This dress would cost the same as a new home.

He looked around and there were a lot of dresses with precious gems on them, either she only made them for the wealthy or gems like this were very common here. Well if that was true they had at least something to trade with.

Next up seemed to be the gingerbread house from yesterday, Twilight led him to the front door but he paused for a moment. He quickly ran a hand over the surface, okay so it wasn’t actually made of gingerbread it only looked to be. Well he could finally cross on mystery off his list of things. When he got inside he was kind of surprised by the height of the ceilings in this town. He would have figured that they would be lower.

Then he remembered how big the two Princesses were (at least he was assuming that was what Celestia was as she had the same title in their language) and he thought that maybe the reason was because they were so tall. If you had rulers that were that big you would want them to be comfortable just in case they ever showed up.

He saw the tall orange and shorter slightly plump aliens from yesterday who were looking after some of the food and drinks. Looking around he got the feeling they ran this place.

“Hi ya Mr. David Alien!”

David let out a surprised shout as Pinkie seemed to come out of nowhere. “Don’t do that.”

He placed a hand over his heart feeling his pulse slowly getting back to normal.

“Pinkie you really shouldn’t surprise individuals like that,” Twilight told her.

“But everypony loves a surprise,” she defended herself before jumping up and down facing David. “So are you all here for something to eat?”

“I think a couple of muffins would be nice,” She looked up at David. “You want to eat something?”

David shrugged with a nod, he could go for a snack. He watched as they got a couple of muffins as he noticed her paying with a few small coins. They looked like gold to him, he asked to see one for a moment to run a scan. It was gold alright, not only that but it was gold through and through.

In human history gold coins weren’t always solid gold, they had a core that was another metal. It was a way some old kingdoms would do to stretch their gold reserves and make more coins, it was the reason why traders got to weighing them in order to tell how much gold they actually had and how much they were actually worth.

The coin had a sun on one side and a moon on the other, again the sun and moon seemed to be a very important part of their culture.

Twilight got a small bag for the muffins and David turned to leave but stopped suddenly as he felt something grabbing onto his leg holding him.

[The hell!?] David stopped and looked down to see what looked like a really small child, maybe even a new born of some kind holding onto his leg looking up at him smiling. [Damn aren’t you the cutest thing I’ve seen so far, what are you doing on the floor?]

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Cake came around to pick up her son. “Pound Cake you shouldn’t grab onto customers like that. Now where is your sister?”

“Pumpkin is playing with her blocks over here dear,” her husband told her.

“Now come over here and play with your sister,” she told her little boy carrying him off to a corner. They really should have set up the playpen for them today.

David watched them and for a moment he was wondering how the two were the parents, they didn’t have wings or horns and yet by the looks of it one of the kids had wings and the other one had a horn. Then again he had no idea how genetics worked here, maybe it skipped generations or something?

At any rate Twilight let him to the park as they sat down on a bench together to enjoy the afternoon together. David looked around and it was really peaceful here, sure he got looks but it seemed the town was slowly getting used to him. That was odd for him but it seemed these people were very easy going once the shot wore off. It was almost like they were used to strange things going on around this place.

The muffins were pretty good as well. After they finished they were back on the road seeing the town.

David was next led to a building with a medical symbol on it, again he was reminded of how two races on two supposedly alien worlds could come up with the same symbol with the same meaning? They walked inside with a white female working behind the desk. She had one a little nurse hat which pretty much told him what she did here. He was able to see that the same mark on her hat was on her as well. He really needed to figure out what those marks were, maybe if he had another dream talk with that Princess he could figure it out.

Nurse Redheart looked up to see Twilight with the alien that everyone in town was talking about. She had seen him at the party of course but she honestly had no idea how to approach him or what to say. Looking up at him she had to admit that he seemed nice, at least he wasn’t some scary creature like in some books on the subject.

“Oh Nurse Redheart are the doctors in for that special checkup?” Twilight asked her.

That snapped the mare out of her thoughts as she shook her head and looked down at the paperwork on her desk to double check. “Oh yes, I was told to expect a special patient today, I take it that’s you two then.”

“Yes I got in touch with Doctor Feelgood last night at the party and we got to talking. He said to come on by today so he could take a look at [David] here.” Twilight explained to her.

“Alright, please follow me then,” She smiled at both of them as they walked to a room.

David looked down at Twilight. “So here for them to look at me?”

Twilight nodded, “Yes, just to make sure we know what’s normal for you.”

They ended a small examination room, David looked around and it looked like something you’d see in a medical room from the late twentieth or early twenty first century. Everything looked similar to what you would see in a human hospital of that era. There were two ponies in the room waiting for them.

The first was a dark orange coat male with a mane of brown hair wearing a doctor’s jacket. The next one was a female with a pale yellow coat and light blue mane with some silver in it. Twilight knew Doctor Feelgood but the other she hadn’t expected, she was Mane Goodall the town’s veterinarian.

“Uh…Doctor Feelgood why is the town veterinarian here?” Then she looked to Miss Goodall, “No offense of course! I just wasn’t expecting you was all.”

“Oh no worries honestly I’m not sure what I can do here myself,” the vet admitted.

“I thought she could help in some regard,” Doctor Feelgood told her. “After all this is a new species, honestly I’m only an expert in pony physiology so I had hoped any blanks could be filled by her.”

“So then, shall we start I’m a little interested to see how this goes.” Goodall said.

David went with the doctors, although he was wondering why the mark the female had was the head of a dog, cat and bird. They took his blood pressure, checked his reflexes, they had something he had to blow into the check his lung strength. All in all it reminded him a lot of the physicals he took for the program. Then of course the needles came out, now he didn’t really have an issue with needles but that didn’t mean he didn’t like them.

“If you don’t want to give a blood sample I will understand,” The doctor told him.

“It okay, just be careful,” David rolled up a sleeve he was thankful the doctor was a unicorn as he uses that glowing horn to manipulate things. He didn’t want to find out first hand just how in the hell a non-unicorn would draw blood.

The doc was pretty good, a little sting and that was all as he drew in some flood. The female asked him to open his mouth so he did so as she got a good look at his teeth. He didn’t think she was a dentist but it was hard to say what kind of medical training their doctors got. They could be jack of all trades in medicine for all he knew.

“Huh, judging from his teeth I would say he’s an omnivore.” Goodall spoke up after studying his teeth. “He’s got molars, fangs and the front teeth are for meat eating.”

“Really?” Twilight looked up at the notes she had been making. Although she had asked the doctors to give her a copy of their findings so she could put together a report for the princesses. She looked at David as she hadn’t seen him eat any meat.

“You eat meat?” She asked him.

“Meat?” He asked her not knowing what that word meant.

“Oh let me try something,” the doctor looked and got an old kids chart about food groups. It was used for omnivore species like griffons. It was also most likely the only one in Ponyville as there hadn’t been any griffons living here permanently in years.

“This is meat,” He pointed to the cartoon image of several meat products.

“Oh, yes,” David scratched the back of his head. “Didn’t eat that here, not sure if others would like. No others do, have some on ship but that’s all.”

“Is it a part of your normal diet?” He saw the confused look and thought about making is simpler. “You eat meat normally?”

He nodded his head.

“Ah, well if it’s on your ship, please do. I don’t want you to get sick from ignoring your normal diet.” He explained with a smile.

“Not a problem?” David asked the doctor.

“There are others that do eat meat, not ponies mind you but griffons do,” again the blank look at the word ‘griffon’ so he opened the book to the image of a griffon and pointed at it. “This is a griffon.”

David’s eyebrows rose up, if he was getting this not only where there other races on this planet but it looked like a god damn griffon. Just what was up with his world?

“So you can eat meat but maybe keep it to the ship just in case, some ponies can get sick at the sight of it.” He explained to David.

“Got it,” he nodded.

“Well then that takes care of a lot of issues although there is one thing,” He was a bit hesitant on this last one looking up at David sitting on the bed. “I don’t suppose you would allow for a full physical exam?”

“Full physical?” He asked.

“Yes, if you would like I can send both mares outside now if you are more comfortable?” The doc wasn’t sure about any social norms for their race so he tried to figure out what would be best.

“Why would we want to leave?” Twilight asked confused.

The vet however knew where this was going, “I think I got enough done, I better go now.”

Twilight watched her leave a bit confused at first until the Doctor coughed into his hoof.

“Uh, Miss Sparkle I was going to ask him to remove his clothing for a detailed look at his physical body.”

“Oh!” Twilight blushed now fully getting it as she put her notes away.

The doctor looked at David, “That is only if you want to.”

David sighed, he should have guessed at this but at least they were asking nicely. He did feel a little weirded out, but then again they all walked around with either little to no clothing. Hell the few that did wear any kind of clothing like the doctors or the nurse it was just things like a hat, a doctor’s jacket or something like that. He hadn’t even seen anyone wearing pants, which now that he thought about it maybe for them going without clothing would be natural with their fur.

Maybe there was no real taboo on nudity and the doc was only trying to see if he was comfortable with it? Maybe it was the moment that counted, if you were in the bathroom or getting a physical like now it was just considered polite not to walk in on someone? It seemed like that might be it but he would have to ask later about that.

So he guess he should get this over with, at some point he knew there would be a long list of scientists that would just love to poke and prod him, he knew there were ones back home that would do the same after all. So maybe it was best to get it out of the way now with aliens he trusted instead of some strangers looking at him like a science project. That way he could just say ‘hey look I already went through this, look at that guy’s notes if you want to know’ and he wouldn’t have to do it again.

He shrugged his shoulders and nodded as he took started to take off his shirt to put it next to his jacket when he noticed Twilight still in the room. She was just looking at him and he looked back, David cleared his throat which seemed to snap the girl out of it.

“Oh! Right, sorry, yes I can get some of my notes done, er, well organized at least, let me know if there are any issues doctor,” Twilight said quickly as she left the room as quickly as possible without trying to see like she was rushing herself.

David smirked and shook his head as he got right down to his underwear.

Doctor Feelgood took notes on his musculature as well as a crude diagram of what he was seeing. Sadly he wasn’t much of an artist but he tried his best to replicate what he saw. Although what was odd was that the alien had nipples on his chest. Was it a female of the species? That led to all sorts of questions but he guessed it was best to ask.

“So…are you a male or female of your race?” He asked as best he could.

“Male.”

“Oh, well that’s…that’s unique,” He muttered that last bit. Ponies and most equine races didn’t have nipples on them for the males. Perhaps he would ask Goodall a few questions if there were some animals that had them that were male. It might help to know what kind of animal that his race evolved from. Now there was a question!

“So if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of animal did your kind evolve from?”

“Not know word ‘evolve’ yet,” he replied.

“Oh uh, oh!” he found and old evolution chart although sadly there wasn’t much there. It was a great mystery to science how ponies actually evolved. They had found the bones of a few horses and the bodies of what could have been something between that and ponies but it was strange. All other animals there was some evidence of a slow process but here, it seemed they evolved in a giant leap forward. It didn’t make sense, some said it was magic others, well there were other theories like aliens.

That gave him pause looking at the alien here but he dismissed that notion, he didn’t seem to know about anything on their world.

He showed him the chart as David looked at it, he got it, he was asking what humans evolved from. He didn’t know the word for primate, monkey or anything like that. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen anything like that around here. Not in Fluttershy’s cabin, not in that animal book he looked through with her learning the names of animals when he had tea after getting the kids back.

David quickly looked through his stuff to pull out his gauntlet and pulled up an image of a chimpanzee and showed it to the doctor.

“Well that’s different, I can’t say I ever saw anything like it.” He told him.

David pulled more images of the various primates but the doctor had never seen any of them. So there were no primates on this world at all? To him that was very bizarre, it seemed every other animal seemed to be here but then again with the amount of species on Earth it was impossible to say that. Maybe they were just really rare or something? He would have to look into that later, maybe see if Fluttershy knew anything later.

“Can you get those images to Goodall later?” He asked his patient. “I think she would have a much better understanding.”

“Goodall other doctor?” David jerked his thumb behind him to the door.

“Yes that’s her,” the doctor had one last thing. “Now if you don’t mind could you remove the last of your garments?”

David looked at the doc for a moment. [I swear if you say turn your head and cough I’m fucking out of here.]

“Excuse me?” he asked not sure what the alien had just said to him. The alien just waved it off with a sigh as he pulled down the last garment. The doctor took a look and he had to admit he knew it was an alien but he wasn’t sure just how much more alien his patient could have gotten until now.

“Well…that’s different,” He mused at the sheathless member just hanging there out in the open like that. “No wonder you wear clothing all the time, with the lack of fur and, well that just hanging out.”

David looked down confused not sure why the doctor was looking at his crotch like that. [What, you never seen a dick before?]

Next up Chapter 16: What is this magic thing?

Author's Note

After doing some research I found that any primates have not been shown in the series, not only that I can't remember anyone speaking about them either. So I decided to try and play with that in that in this story at least (in case later they are mentioned) they don't exist on this world.

Also I really hope this can get to 200 likes (163 at this point) and that if this ever featured again it can last a bit longer lol. Anyways hope you all continue to enjoy the story. I'll try and see if I can get one more out before I leave for 6 months as I don't know how often I'll get the change to write and update while gone.