Where I Belong

Morning seems so far away, come to think of it. So much has happened during the past a little over 12 hours that I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't lived it through myself.

This morning had started as any other normal morning: I'd woken up a bit early, at 6AM, to get a chance to surf on the internet before heading to breakfast and shower. School would start in about two hours, but I had thought I had enough time to browse through some images on some humor site. I had eaten some toast and drunk a cup of coffee while rather unamusedly browsing through the images, landing to the ones I'd seen the morning before rather quickly. I had heard some faint humming and wondered who would vacuum this early. I had had a short inner battle about whether I should check my Facebook and e-mail or head to shower. Shower had won and I had taken a rather quick shower, coming out in roughly five minutes.

The humming had grown louder while I was in the bathroom, but I had decided not to pay attention to it too much. While I had been putting some clothes on, the humming had slowly grown into a roaring sound surrounding me. At that point ignoring the sound had become impossible. I had thought it'd be some twisted joke of my neighbors living in the apartment below mine - they did have the weirdest timings for playing loud music - but the annoyance brought by that thought had quickly been replaced with slight panic as the booming sound had suddenly been accompanied with a quickly brightening purple-ish light. I had only gotten out a short yelp before the light had suddenly formed a purple bubble around me, which immediately after forming collapsed on me, disappearing into a tiny spot in my room, with me in it.

The next thing I had felt was a wooden floor beneath me. I had laid there for a moment, before starting to slowly push myself up. My ears had suddenly unlocked from the lock the booming noise had caused them to go into, allowing a female voice to flood in:

"...so sorry, I didn't mean to bring you here! I must've made an error somewhere in my calculations, the spell I was using wasn't supposed to be able to transfer fauna of any sort on the power level I had planned! Oh, I'm terribly sorry, this is entirely my fault..."

I had lifted my head as I had propped myself up to sitting on the floor, seeing a purple unicorn mare pace back and forth in front of me and levitating books off the surrounding shelves by glowing her horn. The most bizarre of sights, I had thought.

"The spell I was using was originally designed for transferring flora samples from far away places for botanists' needs, without forcing them to actually go out to collect the samples by their hooves, but was later developed to answer the needs of other biologists too. I must've made some error in my calculations, but it seems all fine to me..."

She had stopped her pacing in front of a blackboard and started analyzing the seemingly complex calculations written on it.

"I'll have to analyze them thoroughly later. Oh, I think I'm being a bit impolite here: I never introduced myself. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I am Princess Celestia's personal student studying the magic of friendship here in Ponyville. Wha... *ahem* Who are you?"

I had been dumbfounded by the flood of information I had to process. Spells? Princesses? Ponyville? I had opened my mouth to answer her question, closed it and opened it again, finally getting the words out:

"Um... My name is Nico, I'm a human from the Earth and..." I had paused for a moment, trying to gather the pieces of my slightly blown mind, "I have no idea where I am and what am I doing here. You said something about a... Spell?"

"Yes, as a unicorn I'm able to perform magic. This spell in particular was meant for, as I said, getting samples for biologists without them having to go out to look for them. I think I made a mistake in my calculations and used too much power, thus bringing you here. Again, it was an accident and I'm terribly sorry"

She had spoken slowly and clearly, obviously realizing I'd have no clue of what she'd said if she had spoken in a normal manner. The look on her face had been sincerely apologetic, with a smidge of confusion alongside.

"I... Guess that's... Cool? Um... Do you know of a way to send me back?" I had replied, hoping she could send me back right away.

She had frowned and replied: "I'm afraid not. Reverting spells is slightly difficult in itself, but this spell has clearly broken some boundaries it wasn't supposed to, as I have never heard of a place called 'Earth'."

"Well then, what am I supposed to do? It's not like I can stay here, I have duties back home!" I had said, beginning to panic a little.

She had probably picked up my panic from my tone, since she had tried to calm me down:  "I'll try to find a solution from my books; I think there might be something useful in them. It may take time to find it though; as you can see, I have quite a few of them. I guess you can stay here at the library while I look for a solution."

"I'll help you with that" I had said and walked to the nearest book, opened it and started reading.

The following few hours had passed in silence as we skimmed through the numerous books of the library. This might seem a bit odd; you'd think Twilight Sparkle would've grabbed a long sheet of parchment and her quill and started bombarding me with questions about my home, but she was so focused on helping me get back home she refrained from doing exactly that, which I later became very thankful of. At that point, though, I hadn't known anything about her curiosity for everything new - I'd get a hang of that later on.

After browsing through what felt like 9001 books (that number might actually be pretty accurate if you were to combine how much we both read added together) in a time span of about five hours, I had come to realize I had become quite hungry while reading all those dusty tomes. My body had been sure to voice this with a huge growl emanating from my stomach.

"You found anything?" I had asked Twilight while standing up from the floor and flexing myself.

"Absolutely nothing", she had said with a slightly sad tone. "I'd never have guessed my books would fail me. I've always found a solution to any kind of problem from them!" She had groaned, standing up as well. "I suppose I have no choice but to try and revert the spell..."

"I guess that means I'll have to stay here a bit longer then?" I had said with a flat tone. The idea of being stuck in an alien place, no matter how nice my hostess seemed to be, was slightly depressing.

"Yes, unfortunately that does", she had replied with a voice filled with sympathy.

"Well then, I could use a good lunch right now", I had said, my stomach letting out another groan.

"I may have something in the kitchen", she had replied, trotting to one of the two closed doors on the opposite side of the library.

The door had lead to a nice kitchen big enough to fit a four-seated table in it, along with the standard kitchen cupboards, fridge and a stove. She had walked to the fridge and opened the door with a flare of her horn. I had looked a bit stupidly while she had searched for food in the fridge, since I was still trying to get used to her being able to do things with a mere flash of her horn. "Wish I could do that, too. Life would be so much easier", I had thought.

"All I have is some leftovers from last night - Caesar salad - and a bag of hay fries... And some bread", she had said, with a slight frown. "Would that do?" She had asked, turning to look at me.

"So... Vegetarian only? No meat?" I had asked, looking past her into the fridge.

Her slight frown had vanished, being replaced with a look that was a mix of disgust and horror: "Dear Celestia, no! What kind of a pony... I mean, creature are you?!" She had exclaimed, taking a step back.

"You mean, eating meat is some sort of a moral crime here...?" I had asked, dumbfounded that carnivorism seemed to be strongly frowned upon, if not illegal, here.

"Of course it is! No sane pony would go ahead and slaughter an animal to eat it!" She had answered, taking another step back as if she feared I would try to eat her.

"Alright... I guess I'll have to settle for the vegetarian diet then" I had said, reaching out to grab the salad bowl from the fridge. She had taken another step back once I had done that, her face expressing deep horror and her rear bumping to the wall,  making her let out a small "Eep!". I had chuckled at that and said in the most comforting tone I could: "Relax, I have no plans for eating you. For the record, I have never eaten unicorn meat and I am not tempted to try it, at all. Normally I would eat pork or cow."

She had relaxed at that, audibly letting out a sigh. A moment later, her ears had perked up and she had asked: "Pork? Cow? Do you mean you have pigs and cows back where you came from?"

She had picked up the bag of hay fries with her magic while asking, not even looking while ripping the bag open with a flare of her horn, placing a pile of fries on a plate she had summoned from a cupboard and seemingly frying them with another, this time brighter, flare of her horn - all the while looking expectantly at me. I could only stare at the plate of cooked hay fries on the counter with my mouth slightly agape, at a total loss of words.

She had followed my gaze to the plate, blushing slightly and saying: "Uhm... It's not really anything special... I mean, I have practiced a lot. Hay fries are my favorite after all."

I had still been dumbfounded by the magic show I had just witnessed. She had carefully asked: "Um... Nico? You alright?" I had shaken my head a little, turning my attention into the purple eyes looking at me a little worriedly. "Uh, yeah. It's just... That's like the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And believe me; I have seen a lot of amazing things."

Her blush had deepened and she had had to clear her throat before saying: "Thanks, but it's nothing special, really. It's just the result of years of practice."

"Amazing all the same. But, enough chit-chat, I'm starving!" I had said, walked over to the table with the salad bowl in my hands, sat down and started piling up the salad and the steaming hot hay fries on the plate that had glided in front of me in a flare of purple light.