The Voices (In My Head Again)

As the guards fly out of view Twilight uses her magic to lift the sleeping Sketch from where the guards let him off at on the ground.

“For being sound asleep he sure is loud.” Twilight says as she carries Sketch into the castle as he loudly snores.

“Twilight, Twilight! Celestia sent you a letter!” Spike shouts running to the castle door with a scroll in claw, the seal broken.

“A little late for that Spike, our new guest has already arrived.” Twilight states.

“Oh, my bad.” Spike says.

“Get a bed ready I have a feeling he won’t wake up anytime soon.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He slept through the ride over here and even when the guards dropped him off he was still sound asleep.”

“Wow, talk about a heavy sleeper.”

“You’re telling me, he weighs more than I thought.” Twilight groans.

With Sketch in the castle, Twilight tucks him into bed, his feet hang off over the edge of the bed but for the most part, he seems just fine.

“So what do you think that is? Kinda looks like a big monkey.”

“Spike! That could be offensive, you don’t want to upset our guest do you?” Twilight says worryingly.

“Sorry, it just he is bi pedal and mammalian so I just thought of the closest thing to that was a monkey.

“Actually you are mostly correct, my kind evolved from monkeys over millions of years.”

“Ha, I told… you.” Spike stammers as Sketch walks into the main room which was just down the hall from the room Twilight had put him in.”

“How can you two expect someone to sleep with your voices echoing through the halls?”

“You slept through most of the days and a chariot ride, and talking woke you up?” Twilight asks.

“Yup!”

“Ugh, fine, we will try to keep it down from now on,” Twilight says.

“Too late, I’m up, so princess number three, what do you wanna know about me?”

“Well first, is Sketch your real name?”Twilight asks.

“Nope!”

“Then what is it?”

“For me to know and you to never find out.”

“Why not?”

“Cause.”

“Cause why?”

“Just cause.”

“Ugh...Fine, next question, you said you evolved from monkeys but you aren’t one, so what exactly are you?”

“A human.”

“What differentiates you from monkeys?” Spike asks.

“We stand upright, are sentient and we eat meat, at least, I think monkeys only eat fruit and vegetables.”

“Huh, and how do you know you evolved from monkeys, did you travel back in time?”

“Time travel is impossible in my world, the closest we have gotten to it is a theory stating that if one were to orbit a black hole time would slow down and if you spent ten years there you might only age half that. Since we have no magic like you have we only have ideas and theories. We based it on thousands of excavations showing similarities between us and monkeys, the neanderthal is a good example, wanna see?”

“How? You don’t have a book with you do you?” Twilight asks excitedly.

“No, but I have the next best thing, an Ebook,” Sketch says.

“What is that?” Spike asks.

“An electronic book, I have all of the books from my college days on my phone. Wanna see?”

“Yes!” Twilight excitedly shouts clapping her two forehooves together.

“Okay, let me open up the files.”

“What files?” Spike asks.

“The book files on my phone, wait, never mind, they are on my external hard drive.”

“Whosawhatnow?” Spike says.

“A storage for all my books and other files such as movies, comic books, etcetera,” Sketch says as he withdraws his external hard drive from within his trench coat.

“How can you story so many things in something so small?” Twilight questions.

“It doesn’t matter how small it is, it’s how you use it, unfortunately, I didn’t have my movie collection on me when I died otherwise I had hundreds of movies we could watch,” Sketch exclaims." And those are just the ones I liked at the time.”

“How is that possible?” Spike asks.

“We have had over two thousand years of documented scientific study to reach the point to where all the stuff I have costs next to nothing. This phone? One hundred dollars. This external hard drive? Eighty dollars. Entertainment value? Endless.”

“Two thousand years of scientific development? How do you know that?” And you said millions of years of evolution, how is it only two thousand years?” Twilight asks, her curiosity piqued.

“Well, that is two thousand and seventeen A.D.”

“What does A.D. mean?”

"After the death of a very important religious figure which I think like one fourth of the world's population follows.”

“And you know he exists?”

“Yup we have paintings and scriptures of him, they say he was the son of our god who died for our sins.”

“He died?”

“Yup, crucified.”

“Why is your culture so violent?”

“I have a theory since we are the dominant species and the only sentient one on our plant we tend to get bored and find problems with each other and we just fight amongst ourselves like children sadly.”

“How come you aren’t like that?”

“Because that was long ago, plus I like to think I keep an open mind about things.”

“Okay, can I see the books now? Please?”

“Hehe, only because you said please, what topic do you want? Government, history, biology, networking, business?”

“Biology!” Twilight cheers her eyes portraying the amount of excitement the little pony had for the subject. Sketch plugs in his external hard drive into his phone and opens up the file.

“Here you go little lady,” Sketch says as he hands her the phone. “Now please be careful, that is the only one in this world and if it broke I would be very upset with you.”

“Understood.”

Sketch now turns to Spike.”So… you’re a dragon, right?”

“Yeah, how’d you tell?”

“While I was half asleep on the ground I heard something about fire and you are reptilian and sentient I just kinda put two and two together.”

“Just from that, you knew I was a dragon?”

“More like an educated guess... Okay I just took a shot in the dark there...”

“Do you have dragons where you’re from?”

“Only fake ones and ones in movies that are animated by computers.”

“Say what?”

“I’ll explain that later,” Sketch says to spike as he turns to see Twilight enamored in the book sketch just gave her, “How are you likin’ the book Twilight?”

“I love it! Such detail, such good diagrams, and pictures! This is by far the most detailed book about biology I have ever seen!”

“Glad you like it, wait til you get to my favorite sections on marine life, you will lose it when you read about the giant prehistoric fish that are still alive in the modern day in my world.”

“Really?! There’s a prehistoric fish that made it through thousands of years of evolution and is still around?”

“Yup, I think it is called an Arowana, I even had one as a pet.”

“How did you get it? Did you catch it?”

“No, I bought it as a baby from a local pet store.”

“You sell prehistoric animals as pets?”

“If the shoe fits.”

“What?”

“I mean, it is a relatively interesting fish that can be bred in tanks and sold for profit and a little for educational value why not buy one? Wouldn’t you love to have something like that as a pet?”

“I would but...Wait, you said your kind, the uh…”

“Humans.”

“Yes, humans, were the only sentient species on your planet?”

“Yup.”

“So it doesn’t mind being kept as a pet?”

“I doubt it is smart enough to put two and two together, all they know is that they get a big tank to swim around in and there is no shortage of food for them.”

“Makes sense, but here even the wildlife is sentient.”

“I heard, makes me wish I had a steak right before I died.”

“You eat meat then? Like a gryphon?”

“I do eat meat but wait, let me get this straight, you have gryphons? What else do you have here?”

“Earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, diamond dogs, gryphons, hippogriffs, dragons, cows, pigs, and yaks. But that is only scraping the surface.”

“Okay, this world just got a bit more interesting.”

As the day goes on the two continue to nerd out over biology and the differences and similarities between their species. Eventually Twilight hit a dead end in the book and then Sketch falls asleep in his chair, Twilight then levitates Sketch back to his bed just as she is heading to bed as well. Spike, on the other hand, had left hours before Sketch and Twilight decide to head to their rooms and continue their talk tomorrow and thankfully there was a bathroom in his room so he didn't have to share.

"No one must know..." Sketch says as he reaches into his coat.