Cold.

Cold was all Alex could feel. From skin to bone, the only discernable sensation was that of icey blood struggling through his veins.

His mind flickered every now and again with memories; his lab, speaking with someone, and suddenly feeling lost. He recalled a strange creature, and the desire to keep them both alive.

Then, darkness.

After some time, he managed to crawl his way into consciousness, only to find the countenance of another one of the creatures. In his reduced state, he lacked the faculty to object when the creature began removing his clothes and performed various actions.

After it left, he wavered to and from consciousness, his body demanding all his strength to correct whatever malady had befallen it.

Cold.

And yet, warmth.

Warmth, that had previously fled his body, eventually reversed course, starting to slam against the gates of his body, demanding entrance. Little by little, it began to seep in, bringing with it his lost strength and awareness.

He heard a door open and close — the scraping of metal, the clopping of hooves on stone — sound once again had meaning.

He felt a presence outside his personal bubble of warmth, and peeked out to observe. Before him appeared the figure of another creature, larger than the last. It made sounds that held the virtue of language, but he failed to infer its meaning.

Red light pierced the darkness as the creature’s horn lit, and he began to feel pressure mounting against his head. In a moment, the pressure turned to pain, and caused him to forget how to think. The painful light lasted only a moment, but he had not yet remembered how to feel time.

The creature turned away to do something outside vision, exposing its side. He noticed through the once-more dim light an image of a star upon its side; it reminded him of the memory of the creature he had encountered in the snow, and how it was hurt because of him. Perhaps it was his delirious state, but he couldn’t help but feel attached to that biblical beast, and felt sorry he had caused it injury.

At that moment, he vowed to see to the health and recovery of his strange friend, and should it be that it had not survived, he would make every effort to offer atonement in any way necessary.

His self-rightious fever was interrupted when he was presented with a paper and pencil. He intinctevly took them and drew the first thing in his mind, the creature from the snow. The purple one (colour once again had meaning) left abruptly, and he could only hope his message was was understood; he wasn’t sure he did himself.

Time moved on, heat and strength slowly returned to his body, and his faculties switched back on one by one. Eventually, a thought entered his head; an ancient urge that had plagued every being since the dawn of time — a thought that drove invention and toppled empires:

“I need to take a piss…”

<~.~.~</^>~.~.~>

Twilight sighed as she observed the Crystal Capital from her vantage, slouched over a window of the grand crystal spire. The clock had marched well into the afternoon since her odd morning, and the earlier blizzard had calmed significantly. She had come up here from the dungeon to clear her head, but thoughts and worries still managed to cling; her world had been thoroughly shaken up, and it was only the first day.

The First Day.

The first day of what? The first day of the rest of time, she supposed. Things would never be as they were; for eons, this day would be remembered as the day the universe became unimaginably huge; as the day ponies, and all Equus’ races, began thinking of things outside the context of Equus. Life existed elsewhere in the Universe, and it was within walking distance of her at that very moment! So many possibilities; magical and technological wonders beyond description, beautiful mathematical description of the Universe, new ideas and ways of thinking.

And it was her duty to make sure that all could happen. She would work harder than she had ever worked on anything before, in the effort of fostering peace and friendship between their two races.

As Twilight pondered how exactly she was meant to become friends with something she couldn’t talk to, she heard a pony coming up behind her. She turned to see her old friend, Seer Stone.

“There you are, Twilight. I was sent to come find you — you’ve been gone nearly an hour.”

“Has it been that long already? Oh well, I suppose I’m ready to go back. I hope I didn’t miss anything.”

The two ponies began trotting back in the direction of the dungeon, the halls of the castle now devoid of staff and guests, and only the occasional guard. As they moved, Twilight was urged to ask the battlemage for her advice.

“Seer?”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“What do you think I should do? About the alien, I mean.” Twilight was a little embarrassed to be asking for advice; she was a princess, and it was her job to know what to do.

“Well, it’s not my place to tell you how to do your job, but if you want my opinion, I would urge you to make every effort to find a peaceful route. I was still young during the Skirmishes of 1049; everypony was sure a war with the gryphons would break out. We were lucky that the gryphons’ interests moved elsewhere — let’s try to have more than luck this time, hmm? Not that take you for much of a warmonger, Twilight. You were always pretty bad at those strategy games I had you play with me.”

Twilight scoffed. “Yeah, because you always cheated.”

“And that’s why you’ll never be a general.” The pair shared a chuckle, and continued to the dungeon in silence.

Once they had descended the spiral staircase and came into the antechamber, Seer frowned.

“Strange… the Praetorian should be standing guard here.”

“Maybe Princess Cadence summoned him?” Twilight wondered aloud, but gasped when she opened the door to the dungeon proper. At the end of the hall stood Edge and Doctor Sharp peeking through the door to their workroom. Twilight and Seer shared a look of concern, before breaking into full gallop down the hall.

“What happened?” Twilight demanded when she reached her colleagues. The two turned away from trying to spy through the ajar door to face her, their faces expressing a mix of shock and fear. Edge responded first.

“We’ve got a big problem — apparently, the battle-mage’s enchantments work for crap against aliens, ‘cause it just opened the door without a hitch. You’d better get in there.” Without hesitation, both Twilight and Seer charged their horns and threw the door open. They froze in surprise upon seeing the doorway across the room wide open, and filled with a tall, straight figure wrapped in a white blanket like some sort of pillar. Atop the body was a head she couldn’t make heads nor tails of, but she immediately recognized the ice-blue eyes from earlier. The creature was more than twice the height of the guards currently leveling their weapons at it. The two scouts were shakily wielding spears, while the Praetorian brandished a sword between his teeth, calm as ever.

The alien itself was slightly leaning against the door frame, all its limbs hidden within its blanket. Its eyes were squinted from the room’s bright light compared to what it had been adjusted to. If Twilight had to interpret its facial expression, she say it looked dazed and confused — if it had any fear of the guards’ weapons, she couldn’t see it.

“Drop your weapons, now!” Twilight shouted. She wasn’t about to have their first contact be initiated at spear-point. The praetorian immediately dropped his sword and pulled back; the guards took a few seconds to glance between each other, the alien, and Twilight, before backing away, though still keeping their spears crooked in their elbows.

The alien’s piercing eyes were now fully open and locked on Twilight.

Well, it knows I’m in charge now, she thought to herself as Edge and Doctor Sharp slowly came to stand on either side of her, subconsciously agreeing that the safest place in the castle was as close to the alicorn and battle-mage as possible.

Silence ensued, both parties just staring at each other. Twilight took this time to notice that the alien was actually taller than the door frame, causing her to wonder how it had looked so small while lying on the cot earlier.

After what must have been several minutes of awkward silence, the alien made a sound like clearing one’s throat, and proceeded to speak. Its voice was deep and raspy, and its words incomprehensible.

“ɪz... ðɛr ə ˈwɑˌʃrum hir aɪ kəd juz?”

Twilight gulped, “I’m sorry, we don’t understand.” She needed to remain calm and in control of the situation if things were to have any hope of succeeding. After some more silence, the alien suddenly began exhaling and swaying side to side, making Twilight afraid the giant creature was about to topple over. Instead, its flat face contorted into a grimace while continuing to breath heavily. She could only tilt her head in confusion.

Eventually, a limb tipped with the alien hand emerged from the blanket encasing the creature, causing the guards to tense up, but it only pointed urgently toward its covered midsection.

“aɪ ˈrɪli nid tə juz ðə ˈwɑˌʃrum raɪt naʊ.”

“Uh, princess,” Doctor Sharp whispered to Twilight, “I believe he is requesting to relieve himself…”

“Oh.” Twilight realized that made sense, considering. She looked back to the alien and nodded, pointing toward another door in the room that Edge had informed her was a washroom. The alien nodded back and slowly began towards the door, the blanket dragging across the floor and hiding its legs, creating the illusion of it gliding across the room.

Suddenly, it stopped and swivelled its head around, landing on the pile of clothes that Sharp had removed from it earlier. It changed course and scooped the entire pile up with a long limb, before continuing to the washroom, and closing the door behind it.

“Do… you want us to…” one of the guards stuttered and gestured to the washroom door.

“No. Let’s assume they value privacy as much as we do.” Twilight said.

The entire team just stood still for a moment, trying not to think about what was going on behind that door as the sound of the toilet flushing and a shower starting could be heard. Edge was the first to speak up.

“Well, that just happened.” He took a seat on the floor, pulled out his note book and began to write.

A nasty thought popped up in Twilight’s head. “Um, Edge? Where does the plumbing lead to from that washroom?” She couldn’t imagine what might happen if the alien’s waste got out into the environment.

“Relax, I hooked all the outgoing water lines into a void-pipe as soon as I got here — the quarantine orders were quite strict. The enchantment will last a few days,” Edge said, though his mind was clearly on bigger things.

“Oh yes, I forgot you were a plumber.”

“You’re a plumber?” laughed Sharp.

“You laugh, but that apprenticeship paid for my degree.”

Their banter died down as the sound of flowing water ceased and rustling noises could be heard from within the washroom. Everypony stood and readied themselves for their second encounter with their guest.

The door opened, and a veil of steam broke forth, slowly revealing the alien.

Twilight, now able to observe its figure clearly, began furiously taking in all she saw. The alien, now wearing the garments it had retrieved, was impressively tall — upwards of fifteen hooves. Just like Doctor Sharp had mentioned, it was bipedal, but not in the manner of a minotaur; rather than a bulky, top-heavy frame built for high-speed charging, this creature was far more elegant in shape, apparently more suited for balance.

The alien’s face was the most puzzling to Twilight; lacking a muzzle, it bore only a pair of modest lips, a small pointed nose, and two small, piercing eyes. The rest was a smooth, pale cream colour that, combined with the odd lack of feature, eerily reminded Twilight of a skull.

As Twilight and the others stared in awe, the alien began walking. Twilight instinctively stepped forward with intent to catch the alien when it began teetering precariously from its high vantage, but it managed to right itself, and let out a pained groan. With one hand grasping the wall and the other its head, it began shuffling its way back toward its room, closely shadowed by the guards.

Midway through its journey, it paused and looked up, observing its surroundings for the first time. Twilight was about to say something, when it frowned and changed course to the table of artifacts, surprising her with its speed.

Twilight tilted her head to figure out what it was doing, but her ears shot up in panic when she realized it had grasped the blue-fireball device. Her colleagues picked up on this as well, and began backing up as Twilight and Seer Stone charged their horns in preparation for a possible attack. The tension in the air had suddenly grown so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

If the alien could sense the fear of the ponies around it, it didn’t show it. It simply held the device to inspect the device, then turned its head to regard the ponies with an odd expression. After a moment, the alien turned back to the device and prodded it somewhere with its finger producing a ‘beep’, then replaced the device on the table. The creature then casually made its way back toward its room, unphased by the pair of spearheads following inches from its neck as it reentered its room, leaving the door open.

Possible crisis averted, Twilight breathed a sigh of relieve and immediately cast her most powerful shield spell around the device, making a mental note to disallow ponies from leaving lethal alien weapons lying around.

“Oh, I bet he’s hungry!” Doctor Sharp declared cheerfully and left for the staircase, as if she didn’t notice that the alien could have reduce any one of them to pile of ash, should it have chosen to do so.

Your move, Twilight thought to herself. “Edge, watch that thing, and tell me if it does something weird.” Edge nodded and seated himself beside the table, fixing his eyes to the device. She then turned and made to enter the alien’s room, once again flanked by her guards. If the alien was awake, now would be the time to solidify its intentions.

Once inside, Twilight cast a lighting spell to gently illuminate the room. She found the alien back underneath the covers of its cot, again curled into a ball. Twilight felt quite anxious, forcing herself to carry on while she still had the nerve. She cleared her throat.

The alien’s head emerged from the blanket to look at them. After a moment, it took in a deep breath and let out a guttural groan. It cast of the blanket and began a series of complex movements, from uncurling itself to standing. Twilight watched in amazement moved from the size of a pony to being over twice her height. The creature approached her, and stopped a good distance away as they observed each other.

Having a strange creature loom so high above her instilled a primal fear in her, a feeling that urged Twilight to flee. Pushing away such bestial thoughts, she took a deep breath and put on a smile befitting a politician. She levitated over a pair of cushions. Taking a seat on one, she gestured for the alien to do the same. It followed suite without much hesitation.

The two just looked at each other for several seconds, before Twilight decided it was time to speak. “Hello.”

“Hhéloö,” the alien mimicked, struggling to form the word. Whether or not it understood, Twilight decided that she would need to start with a simpler concept than greeting — perhaps names. Surely, the alien would understand names? She pointed to herself and said her name.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twelint Spél-ka.” Close enough.

She then pointed to her guards, who quickly caught on.

“Steely Gaze.”

“Flash Sentry.”

The alien made its best attempt to pronounce their names, but did not make further action. Now let’s see if it understands. He… Twilight corrected herself. She would have to recognize this being as a person if she was to make a good impression.

She pointed her hoof at the alien, hoping he knew what she was trying to do.

“ˈdɑktər æləgˈzændər ˈwivər,” he replied without hesitation. Twilight smiled, confident he understood they were exchanging names. She attempted to repeat his complex name, with little success; it contained several foreign sounds not used in Equestrian.

Seeing her struggle with the name, he amended, “ˈæləks.”

“Älak-çe?” The alien nodded, accepting her attempt. Twilight couldn’t wait for that linguist to arrive.

She continued for a while to try and make some progress in deciphering the alien’s intentions, but little was made.

After some time, Doctor Sharp returned, joining Twilight and the alien bearing two trays, one with several dishes of food and a jug of water, the other’s contents hidden by a silver cover. She took a seat at Twilight’s side and lowered the platters between them and the alien. Edge, not wanting to miss an opportunity to study their guest, observed safely from the door.

“The kitchen was abandoned, so I grabbed as many varieties of raw vegetables and fruit as possible, along with some grains and other plants. I made sure to only take unprocessed food, so he can better identify what it is. To drink, I just got water — wouldn’t want to start off our guest with Gryphon rum, would we?” Sharp smiled, quite pleased with herself.

“What’s under the cover? Something for us, I hope,” Edge said as he came to join the rest of the team.

“Tell you what, Doctor Edge, you can have our friend’s left-overs.” Edge made rolled his eyes and smiled.

“His name’s Alek, by the way. Abbreviated, at least.” Twilight informed the two ponies, hoping leaving off the difficult syllables wouldn’t offend him. Sharp turned and smiled politely at Alex, and raised her foreleg as to shake his ‘hoof’.

“Hello, Alek. My name is Doctor Sharp Reflex.” He nodded, but stared blankly at her outstretched hoof, unsure what to do. “Like this,” she said as she turned to Twilight, who took the doctor’s hoof and shook it to demonstrate. The princess was interested to see what Alex would do.

Once again presented with her hoof, Alex hesitantly reached out and curled his spindly fingers into a ball to emulate a hoof and gently touched it to Sharp’s. They held together for a moment before relaxing. She gave a light laugh and returned to the food platters. Twilight marvelled at how jovial Doctor Sharp was, in spite of the situation.

Alex leaned back in surprise when a bowl of vegetables was levitated in front of him. He eyed the offering suspiciously, clearly reluctant to eat it.

“Don’t worry. It’s just food,” Sharp said encouragingly, and demonstrated by levitating a salad leaf into her mouth. Alex nodded, but was still glaring at the food. He poked at the hovering dish, muttering something in his alien language.

“I think it doesn’t like your magic, Sharp,” Straight Edge commented.

“I think you’re right,” she agreed, lowering the plate to the ground. Alex gingerly gripped the bowl between his thumb and middle fingers. Apparently feeling nothing amiss, he raised it again and sniffed its contents.

Twilight noted his aversion to Doctor Sharp’s magic. She would have to look into that at a later time; now, she was intently observing Alex manipulate the bowl and food with amazing dexterity, inspecting the various vegetables, cautiously nibbling them, and either eating or returning them once judged. All the while, Sharp filled page after page of her notebook, presumably on what Alex did and did not consume.

After nearly half an hour of this slow, piece-by-piece inspection and consumption of the food, Alex had finally completed the first platter, leaving only the hay, the dessert flowers, and some assorted grains and seeds.

“Heh, he left all the good stuff. Can I have his flowers?” Edge said.

“Of course. Just wait for our guest to finish,” Doctor Sharp responded as she uncovered the second platter. Twilight felt her stomach twist when the smell of cooked meat filled the room.

“Doctor Sharp, what is that?” she asked while trying not to breath through her nose.

“An experiment. I brought two legs of poultry, one raw and one cooked. Let’s see what he does.

“You know, on second thought, you can have the flowers,” Edge said, earning a sly smile from Sharp.

When Alex saw the meat, he raised an eyebrow at the ponies, before grasping the cooked leg by the bone. He picked a small strand of flesh off and tasted it. Deciding it was to his liking, he placed it between his teeth (that Twilight could now see were quite sharp) and sheared off half the meat with quick jerk of his long neck.

As he proceeded to systematically excorticate flesh from bone, Twilight couldn’t help but feel uneasy, but not for fear of this creature trying to eat her; she felt confident in her and her guards’ ability to keep him under control. Her concern was that the only other politically-relevant species on Equus that regularly ate meat was the Gryphons. Throughout history, there was nary an instance when there wasn’t some tension between Ponies and Gryphons, not to mention the dozen-or-so wars they had throughout history. Even now, the fragments of the Old Gryphon Empire were riled up by Equestria’s vassalization of the city-state of Griffonstone, their old capital.

This history of bad blood was usually put up to them being predators, that herbivores and carnivores simply couldn’t coexist peacefully. Twilight didn’t know if this was true, but she truly hoped it wasn’t at this moment; a race of super-advanced, warmongering aliens could prove problematic.

Finished his meal, Alex put the cleaned bone with the rest of the uneaten food, then proceeded to lean back on his arms to observe the ponies. Sharp gathered the dishes and moved them off to the side.

“Fascinating. He barely even looked at the uncooked meat. Even a Gryphon would eat it out of politeness.” She said.

“Either way, I hope you don’t expect us to take turns feeding him.” Edge said, wearily glancing at the bone. Sharp walked over to the platters to pick them up, and responded,

“Don’t worry, I don’t want him eating anything without my supervision. I’ll be keeping a close eye on his diet; it won’t do to have us accidentally poison him. I going to go put these dishes in a secure container — would you please monitor him for any adverse reactions?” Twilight nodded as the doctor exited the room with the dishes.

“Well, I suppose that means it’s my turn…” Edge was out the door before Twilight could ask, but she inferred he had something for Alex. She now found herself alone facing the alien, her guards standing aside. In his sitting position, with his long legs folded together, he was still slightly taller that her.

Twilight, not wanting it to become awkward, moved closer to Alex. He straightened his torso upon her movement.

“Hello.”

“Héllö.”

His pronunciation had gotten better. Perhaps they wouldn’t even need a linguist, she pondered.

She looked up as he scooted closer, gazing intently down at her. The guards bristled, but Twilight gestured that it was alright.

With his hand, the alien extended a finger and tapped it to the top of his head several times. Twilight cocked her head, not understanding what Alex was doing. Seeing her confusion, he instead pointed to her horn, then continuing with a series of incomprehensible gestures and speech.

“Oh, my horn?” she asked, tapping the cranial protrusion.

“Myahöirne?”

“Horn.”

“Höirne…. höirn... horn.” Alex repeated the word until his pronunciation was down.

“Yes, horn.” Twilight got the feeling that she was going to enjoy teaching this being all about ponies. She continued to speak, despite knowing he couldn’t understand, “It’s how unicorns focus their magic — like this…” She demonstrated by grabbing a quill from nearby desk and twirled it effortlessly in front of her. She knew it was silly, but it was difficult for her not to be proud of her magic, especially since Alex seemed to be rather interested. His eyes were wide as he observed the floating quill, and even bent down onto his hands to look at it from beneath.

Slowly, Alex reached a hand towards the quill, gently feeling the magic aura around it — receiving no harm, he grasped the object and plucked it from the air. Twilight was a little surprised by how easily he took the quill from her grasp, but was more interested in his curiosity to her magic, now closely examining the object, as if he had never seen such a thing before.

During this exchange, the door opened, Edge returning. He carried with him a box, along with his notebook. Joining them, he set his items on the floor.

“Likes quills, does he?” he commented, Alex still scrutinizing the instrument. “Well, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’d like a turn with our new friend.”

“Of course, Edge. What did you want?” Twilight nodded.

“Well, I had hoped to give you a full briefing on the recovered artifacts before involving the alien, but this thing is just too interesting to wait.” He opened the box and produced a small, black object. Twilight frowned.

“You really think that’s a good idea? Especially after the last incident…”

“I think the alien has proven he has no malicious intentions by not trying to attack us when he had the opportunity. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?” he said with a grin.

“Oh, I don’t know, the aliens could come and exterminate all life on Equus? We could all be enslaved and bred to be their pets? It’s kind of subjective.” Despite her dark humor, Twilight couldn’t deny that she too wanted to see some of this alien race’s technology in action. “Well, let’s give it a shot,” she sighed, levitating the object up.

Upon inspection, it was a small rectangle about the size of her hoof, one side glossy black, the other a smooth grey. Apparently made of metal and glass, she could make out no distinct features that might suggest a function. Taking notice to the ponies, Alex ceased his fiddling with the quill to see what they were doing.

“Here’s the interesting part,” Edge said as he tapped a spot on the glossy side, depressing a previously unnoticed button. Almost immediately, a luminous image appeared on the glass — a rectangle, partially filled in red on one side. Instantly captivated by the image, Twilight bent in close to eye the hovering object.

“Oh, that’s amazing! It’s some sort of picture-display? I wonder how it-” Before she could finish her thought, the rectangle was swiped from her magic hold by Alex next to her; his intense glare at the piece of metal, accompanied by growling something in his tongue, indicated that something was not to his pleasure. He began turning the object over, looking at it from all angles for something.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked him, hoping the context of the question would be enough. His alien eye moved back and forth between her and the object, as if contemplating whether to answer or keep examining the device. Finally, he pressed the same hidden button Edge had, and presented the same resulting image to the ponies, leaving them equally as clueless as before. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t mean anything to us,” she said shaking her head.

“It’s probably a symbol indicating something. Maybe it’s a scanning device,” Edge though aloud.

“Whatever it means, Alek doesn’t seem to like it.” Alex twitched at the mention of his name, then picked the quill back up and mimicked a writing motion. Twilight, inferring his desire to draw an explanation, levitated over some paper and passed it to him. He started running lines with the quill, but sighed when he noticed no ink was being dispensed, the well dry. Twilight started to bring over an ink pot, but stopped when she noticed him set the quill down and pull a little black stick out one of the many pockets covering his garments.

“You didn’t check the pockets?” she raised an eyebrow at her comrade.

“Uhh…” Edge blanched, realizing his oversight — small mistakes like that could easily prove costly, should things take a turn for the worse.

Their attention moved back the Alex as he touched the stick to the paper, producing sharp lines as it moved. Every so often, he would flip the stick upside-down and rub a pearly-white nub on an unwanted line, erasing it.

“Ah. Just a pencil, then. No need to panic,” he chuckled sheepishly. Twilight sighed, making another mental note to compile a list of safety practices for her team, before looking back to the series of drawings Alex had just completed. The ponies looked over the paper:

The top half of the paper showed two bipedal stick-figure representations of what were presumably other members of the alien species, both holding rectangles. One stick-figure had a speech bubble (containing illegible alien text), and an arrow led from the bubble to the other stick figure’s rectangle, which displayed identical text. Next to this was a scene of the figures doing the same only while standing on opposite ends of a circle covered in random shapes. Twilight took this to represent a planet.

The bottom of the page showed a more detailed sketch of the rectangle, including the symbol it had displayed earlier. An arrow to the right pointed to the next scene, a dark cloud and a lightning bolt striking the rectangle, and a depiction of the red-filled section of the symbol progressively growing until full. Another arrow pointed to a final scene, one of the rectangular device displaying considerably more symbols.

“So… it’s a communication device? It looks like the little aliens are talking through it…”

“I think so. Look — I think that’s a planet; can that thing work over any distance?”

“That would be truly marvellous.”

“Down here… it’s that symbol again. Is it… being hit by lightning?”

“That might make sense. Lightning possess large amounts of energy; they might use electrical energy to power their technology. And here, the little bar is gets bigger, like it’s filling up.”

“That would explain the total lack of magic aura I’ve felt from Alek and the devices! Could it be that they don’t use magic as a primary power source? But I can’t even imagine how a modern civilization could exist without utilizing it…”

The two academic ponies exchanged thoughts as they interpreted the (rather crudely drawn) diagrams, and Alex went back to grumbling at the device, now presumed to be some form of communicator. After some time, a knock at the door was heard, and Seer Stone’s voice called,

“Your Highness, we have some ponies here to be briefed. And from the sound of things in there, just in time, too.”

Twilight sighed and excused herself to get up from her spot next to this alien enigma of hers to head out, praying that their language expert had arrived. In her absence, Edge moved closer to Alex and pointed to his alien writing instrument,

“Say, could I have a look at that?”

“Edge, can you make sure to wrap things up with our friend here? I want us to get settled in here for the night before it gets too late — we’ve got a long day tomorrow.” Edge nodded absently as Alex showed off the latest and greatest in alien graphite technology. Her mood today had been more fluctuant than a mare ten months pregnant; the day’s events would have reduced the most stalwart of ponies to blabbering fools. Despite this, Twilight was feeling great anticipation and giddiness for a bright future.

“How in Tartarus did you make the lead that thin?!” Twilight shut the door behind her to silence Edge sudden outburst, and prepared to meet her new guests.

<~.~.~</^>~.~.~>

Rats scurried around floating piles of accumulated refuse; the dark, malodorous sewer they called their home was well suited to them. Knee-deep sewage flowed down the tunnel, collecting the Crystal Capital’s waste for disposal. It was dirty work to maintain, but such systems staved off pestilence, allowing the early Crystal Empire to flourish. And, well built as they were, rarely required maintenance, eliminating the need for monitoring. After all, why would somepony want to be there in the first place?

Hoofsteps splashed and rats scattered. By light of rune, a masked figure trudged north through the cesspool; if the atrocious stench bothered him, it did not show. He had travelled like this for hours, and would be travelling for hours still before reaching his destination.

The Crystal Castle.

Author's Note

♫Seasons change, time passes by...♫

Seriously, if procrastinating is a sin, then I'd have earned an eternity in Hell's penthouse at this point.

This took longer to get out than mentioned in my blog post because of a side project thing I'm working on. Who knows -- maybe I'll even publish it. I'll give you a hint -- it starts with 'C' and rhymes with 'plop-tic'. You guessed it: chopstick