When in Rome...

Around the Ponyville library, a large crowd of ponies was gathering, attracted by the commotion going on inside. Nopony dared to go check what was the cause of this, but judging from the screams and noises coming from within the tree building, it was nothing nice. The majority of the mane six who didn't live there, already galloping towards the library, were probably the only ones determined to go inside and investigate, knowing that Twilight needed their help. Whatever it was, their friend was obviously in big trouble.

They didn't know much more than the ever growing crowd around the library, but from the information they did have, they could piece together just enough to be worried. Judging from what she had told them earlier that day about an experiment she was planning to perform, and from what Rainbow Dash, who was the one who brought them here, had briefly seen through the library's window, Twilight just made one of the worst mistakes a magical pony could make: she accidently brought a sentient creature from another world.

"Pardon me, coming through!", yelled Rainbow Dash as they tried to push aside all the curious onlookers gathered around the tree. From there, they could already hear the bone-chilling shrieking and screeching coming from the inside, and they knew nothing good would come out of this. Consequences of bringing denizens of different worlds to Equestria were always disastrous, and considering how one time an unwise unicorn in Canterlot accidentally brought a giant tentacled abomination, who knew what kind of a terrifying creature those sounds were coming from. By the time they reached the door, they could also hear the voice of Twilight trying to somehow deal with the situation she had gotten herself into.

"Look, mister, if you only just calmed do... Ouch!", the familiar voice was coming from inside.

"Get away from me! Don't come any closer!", they could hear the screeching more clearly now and they were relieved that it was actually in their language.

As the five ponies opened the door and entered the library, they saw their purple friend standing among few books strewn around the floor, looking very uncomfortable. They followed her nervous gaze and backed against the bookshelves on one of the walls, they saw the creature making all those noises, which turned out to look much less menacing than they had expected. It had a body more or less similar to that of a small minotaur and a face of a primate, and it was mostly hairless save for a short mane on the top and the sides of the head, although it was hard to tell since it was covered almost head to toes in clothes. Literally the only body parts visible were its head and hands. From its voice and from how Twilight was referring to it, they concluded its gender was male. Right now, he was preparing to throw another book at Twilight.

"Twahlight, what's going on here?", asked Applejack in confusion.

"There's more of you?", the creature looked at them, panting nervously, "What are you furry things even supposed to be?"

"Please, you need to relax, I just want to explain...", Twilight continued begging, but then the book was thrown at her, though luckily this time she managed to duck in time.

"Shut up! Just send me back dammit, I demand you!", the creature hissed back, still backing himself against the shelves in panic.

"That's what I need to tell you about!", Twilight tried to reason, but the cornered individual just grabbed the unicorn head statue from the nearby pedastal, with an intent of using it as a projectile too, "Look, sir, I don't want to do this, but if you don't stop, you'll give me no choice..."

But the aggresive biped ignored her pleas and just raised the statue above his head, preparing to throw. Reluctantly, Twilight fired her tranquilizing spell at the creature, but he managed to dodge the magical beam just in time while throwing the statue badly, which just sort of landed at the purple mare's hooves. The spell simply hit the books on the shelves instead, charging them with static electricity.

"Don't worry Twahlight, Ah'll take care of it!", said Applejack as she took out her lasso and started swinging it above her head. The loop fell swiftly around the biped's shoulders, and with one strong pull, he dropped restrained to the floor. Before he was able to put himself together, the cowgirl pony galloped up to him and tied the rest of the rope around his body multiple times. Now completely immobile, he started thrashing around and screaming, calling the mane six dogs, reproductive organs and... a horse? It took good few moments before he finally calmed down and the others were able to approach him safely.

"Look, mister, if you promise to calm down, we will untie you, okay?", said Twilight in a firm voice.

"Pleeease, I just want to go back home!", the biped started begging in an almost crying voice, all his aggression gone now, "I was just waiting for a bus, and then suddenly that bright flash of light came, and then I ended up here with the purple one apologizing me..."

"Um, that's the problem...", Twilight just looked aside awkwardly.

"What are you talking about?", the creature's voice rose a little again.

"Well, I... I can't send you back. That's just impossible", said Twilight, knowing it was time to face the consequences of her mistake.

"What do you mean, you can't?", now he wasn't even trying to contain his voice, "You brought me here, now you send me back just like you did it the first time!"

"No, I really can't!", Twilight tried to explain nervously, "There's an infinite number of different universes, and I connected with yours completely at random, there is no way now to find which exact one it was!"

"I don't care if it takes you ten years", he started hissing and spitting, "You go find the way back to my world and get me there, you hear me?"

"You don't understand!", Twilight only now began to truly understand how much she screwed up, "The number of possible universes is infinite, which means the chance of finding the exact one you came from is one to infinity, so pretty much zero. Even if we did find a universe that looked just like yours, the subset of universes that are different variations of your own is technically also infinite, so we could never know if it's your universe or just one that looks more or less like it but with significant differences, like one where people you care about never existed, or where you are treated very differently. Not to mention there would likely be two of you, which would cause further problems. So at best, you'd live a life that would be remotely like the one you used to have, while also dealing with another you, but it would never be the same."

For a brief moment, he didn't say a word, just staring blankly somewhere in front of him. Then he started breathing more and more intensily, until his hyperventylation turned into another fit of anger, only this time way more intense. It took another few moments of screaming, tossing around and throwing those weird insults, during which Fluttershy almost fainted, before he finally calmed down, and became simply apathetic.

"You realize what you've just done?", he asked in a lifeless, defeated voice, "You ruined my life. I used to actually have a life back home, you know. And then you just came and destroyed it. You should burn in hell for this."

"I know, I know", Twilight didn't even try to defend herself, "And believe me, I will have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life. But although I understand nothing will ever undo the consequences of my stupidity, I assure you I will do everything in my might to make up for it."

"Make up for it?", he just sneered bitterly, "What could a colorful talking dog-thing like you possibly do to make up for my ruined life?"

"Technically, we are ponies", she corrected him, "And yes, I know I can't give you your life back, but at the very least I could make sure that your new life here is as good as possible."

"Are you kidding me?", he kept scoffing, "What good could there possibly be? Just take a look around. You keep books in literal holes carved in the walls. I don't hear any traffic outside. This whole place just seems incredibly primitive. Do you even have any cellular networks around here?"

"What networks now?", Twilight blinked, not understanding much.

"See? I knew it!", he pointed out with satisfaction, "You horse people really are pretty backwards, assuming you can even be called horses! How am I supposed to spend the rest of my life here?"

"Look, sir", Twilight rubbed her forelegs against each other awkardly, "I know it may not be as impressive as your world probably is, but you'll see it's not so bad around here, I'm sure you'll grow to like it. After all, if you are stuck here anyway, why not at least try to make the best of it?", she tried to smile politely.

"Well, I guess I have no choice...", he just sighed in defeat.

"Good!", she said with the first hint of relief, "Now, if you promise not to cause any more trouble, we will untie you, okay?"

"Whatever, it's not like resistance will help me in my situation anyway."

"Applejack, untie him!", she turned to the orange pony.

"Are ya sure about it, sugarcube?"

"Just do as I say."

Applejack reluctantly untied the creature, prepared to get jumped at any moment. However, when the ropes came loose, he simply lifted himself from the floor and started rubbing his numb joints lazily. Still, Twilight carefully watched his every move, always ready to use her tranquilizing spell again if needed.

"Alright, now that we have that out of the way, how about I give you a little introduction to our world?", she smiled politely, and then turned to her friends, "Okay guys, thanks for all your help, I think I will be able to handle it by myself from this point."

"Are you sure we can leave you all alone with him, darling?", asked Rarity with hesitation.

"Don't worry, I still have my magic!", she patter her horn in confirmation, hoping that this time she would always be close enough to him if she ever had to use it, "Besides, I'm responsible for this mess and I feel that I have to face all the consequences of it, even if they include putting myself at risk."

"If you say so", Rainbow Dash shrugged, and the five ponies walked out of the library, save for Pinkie bouncing her way out, leaving Twilight alone with the strange creature.

"Okay", said Twilight when the others were gone, "So now that it's just you and me, how about you introduce yourself? You know, your name, what species you are, or where exactly you come from."

"Well, my name is Arnold", the biped said reluctantly, without even looking at her, "And if you need to know, I am a human, which is a kind of a primate, but I doubt there's any of us around these parts. As for the place of residence, I come from a small planet... called... Earth...", with the mention of his home, his lower lip started tingling in anger.

Twilight was very curious about the planet Arnold came from, but, as much as she wanted to know about it, seeing how just the very mention of it rose his temper again, she chose not to touch the subject for now.

"Alright, Arnold", she smiled politely, "My name is Twilight Sparkle and I would like to educate you a little about our world. We are now in the land of Equestria, which is ruled by two benevolent regal sisters, princess Celestia and princess Luna, who raise the sun and the moon every day. Our beautiful land is mostly inhabited by ponies like me, who can be divided into three races..."

"Wait, did you just say 'raise the sun and the moon'?", he gave her a careful look.

"Well, yeah, princess Celestia raises the sun in the morning, and then princess Luna raises the moon at the day's end."

"But how can you 'raise' the sun, or the moon? How is that even supposed to work?"

"That's just the way it is."

"Well, that doesn't make any sense."

"Ugh...", she groaned, knowing now that it wouldn't be easy.

For the next hour or two, she tried to give him knowledge on everything he needed to know about Equestria, while he just kept asking more and more questions, constantly getting on her nerves. She tried to just answer politely to each and every one of them, knowing she owed him all the help he needed after what she had done, but by the time she had told him everything, she was completely exhausted.

"Alright, I think that's pretty much it. Is everything clear?", she gasped out, wiping her forehead.

"Yeah, just one more thing, do those carts they supposedely haul behind them have that 'passive magic' too when in the air?", he asked with a barely contained smirk on his face.

"Enough!", she just screamed in desperation, only wanting to be finally done with it, "It's getting late and we still have a lot to do."

"What exactly do you mean?", he asked more seriously.

"Well, we need to find you a job and a place to live", she explained, "Now that you have to stay here with us, I'm responsible with making sure you have means to provide for yourself."

"Oh, that's nice of you", he tried to sound polite, although he didn't like being reminded that he was stuck there for good.

"Alright, let's go!", she turned toward the door and he followed her reluctantly.

Once outside, she noticed Arnold carefully studying all the ponies passing them by and all the buildings along the streets they walked, although his face didn't make him look very impressed. Still, she tried to make him familiar with the neighbourhood that was going to be his own too.

"And this big building over here is our townhall", she pointed her hoof, "And across the stream over there, you can see Carousel Boutique, where my friend Rarity - you met her earlier - sells the best dresses in town!"

"Do you really need to have thatched roofs on all your houses?", he suddenly asked, "Aren't you afraid about the fire hazard? And have you never thought about paving those roads? It must be one hell of a mud here every time after it rains. Honestly, that really doesn't seem like the best place to get permanently stuck in, to tell you the truth."

"Oh please, could you at least give it a chance?", she really struggled to still sound positive, "I know it may not be perfect around here, but I'm pretty sure once you get to know it, you will actually learn to love it around here, and one day it may actually start to feel like home to you too. Will you at least try?"

"Yeah, yeah, so where are we supposed to go now?", he just waved his hand.

"Our first stop is the Ponyville Employment Agency!"

It took them a while to reach the agency's building, and once there, they were served by a nice unicorn official in glasses. Arnold waited in front of her desk while she was preparing some documents, until finally she whipped out a blank form from a folder.

"Alright, mister... your name?"

"Arnold Nakuyamitopous."

"And what's your current place of residence?"

"Well, to be honest...", he started, now knowing if it would make any sense to just give his home address.

"Ponyville Library!", Twilight barged in to help.

"Okay.", the clerk wrote that down too, "And your field of employment?"

"Umm... software engineering?", he had a feeling it wouldn't be very useful around these parts.

"Oh, I don't think we'll have anything for that", she just smiled politely, "But I can see you have hands, right? That could actually be a huge asset for you here, mister. As you have probably noticed, not many of us around here are blessed with these, haha, so those like... you, forgive me for not recognizing what species you belong to, are in high demand for manual tasks. I'm pretty sure we'll find a lot of offers for you."

"You'd be surprised how many businesses would find you useful!", Twilight chimed in, "I would probably just hire you as an assistant down at the library, but I already have Spike for that!"

"Good to know", he tried to put on a smile.

The clerk wrote down a few more details on the form, then she stamped a small piece of paper and handed it to him.

"Here's your jobseeker's card, sir", she explained, "Show it to me the next time you come here and we'll see if we've got something for you. Like I said, there's always a need for a pair of hands so you might even have some luck tomorrow!"

"Thank you", said Arnold as he took the card, and then Twilight saw him simply put it in one of the numerous pockets on his pants.

They said goodbye and left the building. Once back on the street, Arnold, looked at Twilight.

"Alright, now where?"

"We'll go check our community bulletin board", explained Twilight, "It's quite a walk from here, but they usually have at least few house rent offers!"

It really did take them quite a while to reach their destination, during which Twilight was thinking how else she could impress Arnold with the neighbourhood, but seeing how indifferent he still looked, she just decided to give him time. Unfortunately, when they finally arrived at the wooden board, they didn't find anything relevant among the countless notes plastered all over it. The only rental offers were one for a group of three, preferably college age, and another one for a single mare.

"Oh well, we'll come again tomorrow, at least in the meantime we can leave our own note", said Twilight as she reached out behind her back and whipped out a piece of paper with her teeth.

"How did you do that?!", Arnold looked at her with his eyes open wide.

"Do what?"

"That paper, where did you get that from?"

"What do you mean? I had it with me all the time!", she couldn't understand him.

"No you didn't, you just reached to that empty space behind you and... and..."

"What are you talking about?", she cocked her head at him in puzzlement.

"Oh, nevermind!", he just rolled his eyes.

Twilight hovered the note to the board with her magic and stuck it to the wooden surface in one of the few empty places. Arnold took a closer look at it and saw that it read: 'Looking for a small house for a single male to rent, more information at the Ponyville Library'.

"Okay, I think that would be it for today, now we can go back to the library and have something to eat!", she said.

After another long walk, they were back at the library, by which time the sun was slowly beginning to set. They climbed upstairs to the residential area, where Arnold took off his fancy laced shoes and put them next to the stairs, although Twilight couldn't see what his feet looked like as it turned out he was actually also wearing socks underneath. She opened the fridge and looked around to see what was available.

"Alright, it looks like Spike made a huge bowl of oatmeal before he left for Canterlot, does it sound good to you?", she asked.

"Well, if there's nothing else...", he nodded.

She heated up two servings of the oatmeal for both of them. After they were done eating, she started thinking of how to host him for the night.

"I'm sorry we don't have a guest bedroom here, but before you get your own place, you can sleep in the library's basement", she suggested, "It's not really too cozy but you'll have a lot of privacy down there."

"It's okay."

"Great!", she grinned with relief, "I'll go get you a sleeping bag, and if you need to, you can take a shower before sleep."

He felt relieved at the thought of a nice relaxing shower after such a hard day, but then he realized that all his clothes had gotten pretty dirty from all that walking and that he had nothing to change into.

"Look, could I have my clothes washed maybe?", he asked awkwardly, "I can't really wear them much longer..."

"Sure, just put them on the pile outside the basement's door and we'll get it washed with everything else when I send it all to the laundry."

"Uhm, and when will it be?", he asked nervously, realizing he would have literally nothing to wear while waiting to get his clothes back.

"Well, it's mostly just bedsheets and tablecloths, so probably in few weeks", Twilight just said casually, "Maybe a little earlier, I'll have to see if my gala dress needs some cleaning."

"FEW WEEKS?!", Arnold screamed in terror, "But what am I supposed to wear until then?"

"Who says you have to?", Twilight looked at him like he was crazy, "It's the middle of summer."

No, you don't understand!", he tried to explain, "I'm not like you guys, I actually have to wear clothes!"

"Why? Are you so sensitive to cold? Or maybe your skin can't be exposed?", she asked with curiosity.

"Not, it's not that, you see, in my world we always wear clothes, all the time!"

"Even when it's hot outside? But why would you do that?", she became confused, "Don't worry, you're not in your world now and you don't have to follow those rules, here you can just drop it all off any time you want!"

"But you don't get it, I just can't be naked outside!"

"But why exactly?", she was just getting more and more confused, "Could you just explain to me what's with your strange fixation on clothes?"

"Well, it's just that... you know, I'd feel kind of exposed being outside without anything covering me...", he started, "Besides, everyone could just see my private parts!"

"Your... private parts? Which parts of you are exactly private?"

"You know... uhm, genitals.", he looked aside while saying that.

"Is there something wrong with your genitals? Do they look funny? I promise no one will laugh at you, we have many different kinds of creatures here, each with their own unique anatomy."

"No, I just don't like having them in plain view."

"What's wrong with that?", she sighed in exasperation, "You can see mine all the time, do I seem to care about that? See?"

And in order to demonstrate, she simply turned around and waved her rump at him, and even thought technically it was just a horse vulva and he had already seen it multiple times that day, having it sway back and forth in front of his face made him feel kind of uncomfortable.

"Well, we just don't like to flash around the parts that we use for, you know, for reproduction.", he said after she turned around back at him.

"So let me get this straight", she looked at him carefully, "You're ashamed of a part of your own body just because every once in a while it is used for intimate purposes? Does that also mean that in your world, you keep beds hidden behind curtains?"

"No, of course not!", he protested, "But that's just not the same..."

"Well, here in Equestria we are completely comfortable with our bodies", she explained, "So I assure you that from now on you don't have to worry about covering yourself anymore."

"It's not about that!", he started getting anxious, "Try to put yourself in my situation, I've spent all my life always having some clothes on me, to me wearing clothes is like... like having an umbrella during rain! If I suddenly had to stand outside completely naked, with everyone seeing every inch of me, I'd feel... well, pretty awful."

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it!", she just smiled reassuringly, "One day you won't even remember about those silly rules from back home!"

"Wouldn't it be easier to just buy some washing powder and do the laundry here?"

"Um, no?", she said as if that was the craziest question ever, "It only comes in those huge industrial-sized packages that are used by laundries and also ponies who work with lot of clothes, like Rarity for example."

"Wait, so you can't just buy a small amount for your own use, like a box?"

"Who would even buy that?", she snorted, "We only dress up once in a while so we don't really need to have our clothes washed that often, well maybe except in Canterlot but most of them are rich over there anyway, and when you need to wear clothes for work, the company always provides the laundry. There's just no point keeping laundry agents at home for your personal use. Not to mention that even in small quantities it would probably be quite expensive."

"How expensive can a little bit of chemicals be?"

"Well, maybe in a world as obsessed with covering oneself as yours there is a high demand for it", she explained, "But here, there's not really much justification for mass producing it, so of course the prices will be higher. Same reason why you don't see small, affordable packages of gold polisher or elephant food lying around in stores."

"So you're saying that... I won't be able to just wear my clothes all the time like I always have?", he gulped as he asked that.

"How do you expect it to work?", she shook her head, "If you wanted to walk around in these clothes all day, every day, they'd constantly get covered in dirt and your sweat, and would need to be washed with something else than just water pretty much all the time. You would have to waste a lot of money on laundry or else you'd smell just like Pinkie's crazy sister. Well, maybe if you only wore a shirt like some of us do, I guess it would somehow work, but your whole body is covered in clothes, judging by your feet in more than one layer in some places, and all the warmer spots are in constant contact with them, I can't even imagine how much of your perspiration all of this would collect after whole day! Sorry, I don't know how it's managed where you come from, but here such lifestyle is pretty unsustainable."

"You mean that I... I will have to be naked here... all the time?", he started sweating as the implications of this were slowly getting to him.

"Well, when it gets colder I guess you'll have to get yourself some coat and warm boots, but outside of that? Yeah, you'll just stay in your own skin like everypony else."

"This is ridiculous!", he suddenly burst out and for a moment, Twilight got scared she'd have to use her horn again, "You can't just forbid me from wearing clothes, this is something I should be allowed to do whenever I choose to!"

"Well, who's stopping you?", she groaned as she rolled her eyes, "You can put on your clothes when you feel like it, just don't do it everyday! I like to wear something nice every once in a while too, but that doesn't mean I would walk around in a dress from when I wake up to when I go to bed, because that would be both pointless and impractical. Nopony else here has a problem with their own nudity, so why should it suddenly be different just for you? Just stop being silly and do what we all do, you won't run from it because you're going to stay here anyway, so might as well just get used to it, right?"

He didn't say a word, just stared at her with a defensive look on his face.

"Look", she said in her most friendly voice as she put her hoof on his shoulder, "Tomorrow we'll go see if there are any job or house offers, and before we leave, you will take everything off and just go out like I am, and I promise you that nopony will even look at your 'private parts', as you call them. You'll see that there's nothing wrong with having your body visible to others and that everything will be perfectly normal, no different from today. Sure, it might feel strange at first, but you won't even notice when you get used to it, and I bet after few days you won't even think about it. I know it's not easy to suddenly make such big changes in your lifestyle, but you're going to live here for the rest of your days so you'll have to get used to the local customs, wearing clothes everywhere would be very impractical in this world and besides, here in Ponyville they wouldn't like it as you'd probably just look like a Canterlot jerk to them. You'll have to go through this sooner or later so let's just get it over with as soon as possible, okay?"

He simply nodded without really saying anything, trying glumly to process the fact that tomorrow he would have to go outside completely naked for everyone to see, and that this would be his every day from now on for the rest of his life.

"That's a good boy!", she gave him a pat on the back with a huge relief, "Now go get yourself refreshed while I prepare your place to sleep!"

He went to the bathroom and had a quick shower, trying to finish as soon as possible and put on his clothes again, even though they were already pretty dirty, just to enjoy wearing them while he still could. Then he got to the basement end went down the stairs to the bottom, where Twilight was already waiting for him next to a sleeping bag and a kerosene lamp.

"Alright, I already made up your place", she greeted him with a smile, "If you need anything, just go upstairs and ask!"

"Yeah, sure, you can go now", he just shooed her away absent-mindedly and the purple mare went upstairs to the basement door.

"Have a good night", she said from the top of the stairs, and then the door closed behind her and Arnold was all alone.

For a moment he was thinking if he shouldn't just sleep in his clothes, but then decided that would be an overkill. He just took off the pants, then slid into the sleeping bag still wearing the dirty t-shirt and underwear simply because he knew it was probably the last night when he was wearing anything to bed. He turned off the lamp and the basement was plunged in darkness. As he was lying there in the sleeping bag alone with his thoughts, he started contemplating his dismal situation. The day started as normal, and then he was suddenly transported to a completely different world, learned that he would never come back, and now on top of that he heard that he would have to always be naked here. Already dealing with the fact that he was stuck in an unfamiliar world and that he would never see home again, he was also haunted with the awkward perspective of being completely exposed to everyone he encounters, every day, everywhere. Thinking about all this kept him awake for hours, tossing back and forth inside the sleeping bag at the bottom of the pitch-dark basement, until finally he drifted into an uneasy sleep.