The sisters insisted that I stay for dinner, assuring me that they would have me on the first train back to Ponyville. I obliged, my head in a fog.

Pithia of Delphi was moving in.

Ugh, why could you not have been older? I detest young hosts. So many annoying thoughts flying around, so few neat memories to organize.

"I'm not exactly pleased about it, either."

"I'm sorry, John? Did you say something?"

"No, I'm just talking to myself." Thank God, there's coffee.

Stop doing that. You don't believe in God.

I poured myself a cup and ignored the Oracle. The breakfast was buffet-style and surprisingly thorough considering my watch said it was four-thirty in the morning. I piled on eggs and decided to try the hay bacon. Sitting at the long table, I buttered some toast and waited for somebody to say something.

Celestia took a graceful bite of pastry and chewed, surprising me by speaking with her mouth full. "So, John, we're going to need to talk about your continued presence in Equestria. You are certain you wish to go back to Ponyville?"

"Yeah, I've never been a big city type, really. My long-term plan is still to go home to Earth as soon a possible." The sisters looked at each other, and Celestia swallowed awkwardly. Luna's fork squeaked on her plate as she telikinetically cut her waffles.

Celestia phrased the next question gently. "Did you have a plan in mind to accomplish that?"

"The same way Paterex got there. The Earthen Meridian."

The Meridians were apparently a sort of faster-than-light transportation system, used by humans since before they'd arrived on Eden. Pithia had explained it to me, something about forming quantum tunnels using transitive links. Basically, it was like a teleportal, you could move a certain amount of matter a certain distance, so long as you had a station on either end. Unfortunately, the Vessels, the source of the Meridian's energy, had been running on emergency power for several thousand years. Luna spoke, in exclamation as seemed to be her habit. "The Meridian? I thought that it no longer functioned."

This was a bit of a lie of omission. On top of Paterex's promise to shut down all human activity on Eden and never return, the Sister's still attempted to sabotage the Meridian system. They'd failed, but apparently I'd need to move some rubble. As if a slew of handless savages could damage Human engineering with Victorian-era technology.

"Stop being racist," I said out loud. Luna was taken aback, so I changed the subject quickly. "What I mean is, they haven't been damaged as badly as you thought. Sadly, the kind of move I need is going to take a few months to prepare. About eleven."

Three hundred and eighteen Edenic days, a little less than eleven months, but who's counting?

"I'll be counting every minute."

Celestia stifled a belch and I suppressed a laugh, and she gestured at me with her fork. "You have to understand that we can't just let you run amok in our kingdom. There are species on Eden that still worship your kind as gods, you're a diplomatic incident waiting to happen."

"I agree, and I still want to be involved in this planet's crap as little as possible."

"Eat," She said, gesturing again with her fork. I'd piled eggs on my toast but I'd just been staring at the hay bacon as if I could glean it's answers. I yielded and bit into the toast. It was pretty damn good. Celestia, satisfied, levitated a pair of hay bacons and stuffed them in her mouth, speaking with mouth full again. "I will grant your request for political asylum in my country on one condition."

I tried the bacon myself. "And what condition is that?"

The Princess swallowed heavily, her long horse throat squelching audibly as the food slid down it.

"I want you to become my student."

. . .

The hay bacon was shit, it tasted like fucking grass, and I should've expected it. I'd never considered the possibility that I'd died and gone to actual Hell, but now it was a very real and scary possibility. They say that the Lord works in mysterious ways, Satan probably does, too.

You are not in Hell, and people say that because they want to believe in Him. You, however, need to stop wasting precious mental energy on hypothetical contemplation. Your predicament is very real.

So, to explain the Pithia of Delphi situation, it seems that the Oracle has merged herself with my being, fueling her essence with my body's life force in a very parasitic manner. I could feel her rummaging around in my memories with a reckless thirst for information. I could sense her mind somewhat as well, and I now understood why they called her a clairvoyant. The lady (she was indeed a lady, she was a living human once,) was seriously smart, like ten-steps-ahead-of-everybody-in-the-room smart. Wall-street-one-percent-sociopath smart. And with a few thousand years of wisdom to back that up, it had been easy for her to play me like a fiddle.

It seems Earth's savagery has ruined Mankind's solidarity. Our goals are one and the same; you wish to return home, and I wish to guide you there. Since I ascended to noncorporeal form all I have sought is the assimilation of data and distribution of it among my fellow humans, and I can see from your memories that what remains of humanity is in desperate need of knowledge. Our return to Eden was inevitable, just as our return to Earth together is.

"I don't trust parasites."

"I beg your pardon?" Fireheart, the scholarly Earth pony who was quiding me through the Drakery, stopped walking for a second and turned to me, Confused.

"Nothing, sorry. Just thinking out loud."

"Well, as I was saying, there are dozens of dragon species to choose from. The Nesting Consulate provides a few dozen every year for training, and the rest are found abandoned, all are stored in the Drakery until it is time for them to hatch. Her Highness has informed me that you've met Spicheal already, he was quite a fine specimen, was he not? He was the only Jaded Topaz we had at the time, but we were trying to match Miss Sparkle's natural coloring. Obviously we won't be able to do that for you, but I was thinking I would just let you pick one. It's not like we have a shortage."

I didn't really understand what he was trying to say to me, so I continued to ignore him.

Don't worry, I'll pick you a good one. The Oracle directed me to a black and red egg that Fireheart identified as a Charred Ruby. He's wrong, this egg is no dragon at all. This is a wyvern egg, the coloring is a clever mimicry, note the counter-clockwise markings? No, this is a breed that we in the business call a Bloody Mess.

Images of massive, deadly lizards flashed through my head as I touched the egg, feeling dumb, and it started to shake, rattling and exploding like in Harry Potter. I picked shell from my jacket and inspected the steaming, spitting baby creature.

It was two feet long, looking very much like an infant Alduin. She was jet-black with red frills, her eyes were open, and she looked pissed.

"My goodness, where are her front legs?" The Dragonkeeper seemed like he was going to faint.

"She's perfect just the way she is, thanks." I scooped the little creature up into my jacket, and she seemed to like it there, despite still seeming pissed off. Flustered, Fireheart changed the subject, handing me a book on the basics of dragon husbandry and breezing through the important sections. Apparently, baby dragons are capable of taking care of themselves a few hours after hatching, she'll hunt and eat small animals until she's a few weeks old, then her teeth will harden and she'll start craving mineral nourishment. Apparently, that's when she'll start talking.

So, carrying a mind full of ancient knowledge and a fresh, new wyvern under my jacket, I boarded the train back to Ponyville, this time a big cargo hauler that had apparently been deemed sturdy enough to hold my weight. I watched the little wyvern sleep, talking to the voice in my head. I decided to call her Scarlet.

I got off the train and headed to the forest. I had a promise to keep to a monster.

I called to him, "Fluffy, come meet your new sister!"

He had apparently missed me, bounding to my side and licking my hands. He snorted when I showed him Scarlet, and then left for a few minutes, returning with some kind of fat, striped bird in his jaws. Before long, I had it roasting over a fire, and me and my little monster family had a nice, real breakfast with meat, and love, but more importantly, meat. For the first time since I'd arrived in this world, for the first time in a long time, I had hope.

Hope is all well and good, John, but do you know what rhymes with hope?

The Oracle of Delphi, with mental direction, led me down a short but ancient game trail and into a bowled valley, and in her infinite clairvoyance, to a wide field of tall, leafy plants. I smiled, singing softly as I went to work in the early morning light, "La-da-da-da-da..."

Maybe the next eleven months wouldn't be so bad; after all, we get by with a little help from our friends.

Author's Note

WHEAT BIX N MILK BABY