What Is This Place?

Etiquette (Part 3)

Chapter 13: Etiquette (Peter)

I finished putting my suit on and looked at myself in the mirror. My suit was blue with aqua lines adorning it.

“I look good in a suit,” I said as I casually walked out of the dressing room. Although there was no one outside to greet me, I looked around the room to find where matt had gone. I spotted him at the far end of the room holding up a suit that looked quite good, gray with tiny crimson lines adorning it.

He put the suit on and asked Rarity how he looked. I could tell from the movement of her mouth and actions that she said something like smashing, I decided to wait for Rarity to finish appreciating Matt’s suit and leaned against the nearby wall. When Matt turned toward my way, his face turned into a both shocked and scared expression when he saw the window, which was closed by the way, he started pointing at the window and making creeped out faces. So I assumed he wanted the window open.

I gave the window a little nudge and it popped open, I hit something when it opened though and then I heard something hit the floor, I looked out the window and saw Lyra on the floor trying to regain her breath from falling onto her back. She blinked a few times and looked straight at me, which made her mouth turn into a huge grin.

“Humans! I knew it I’m not crazy!” She got up hurriedly and began to run into town.

“Come back here!” I jumped out the window, turning into a pony when I landed, and began to follow her.

She was fast, and I barely caught up to her when she was going into her house, “Hey Lyra, stop!” She came to a complete halt right in front of her door.

“Um… Who are you, and how do you know my name?”

I thought to myself for second, she must have not seen me turning into a pony, hence she doesn’t know I’m a human. To her I’m just a normal unicorn right now.

“Um,” I began, “I heard about your research”

“Really?” What the hay am I getting myself into?

“Yeah! I’ve heard all about your research on humans.”

“Nopony has ever been interested in my research,” she said skeptically. “Why are you?”

“I have important information on humans.” All that was going around in my head was ‘You’re bucked,’ and ‘Matthew will murder you once he finds out’.

“What? Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Come inside and tell me everything you know!” She began to push me into the house

As we went into Lyra’s house (or, well, as Lyra pushed me inside) I heard a voice from the nearby kitchen. “Hello Lyra, are you home yet?”

“Hey BonBon!“ She continued to push me inside her house. She was strong for such a small mare. The mare who Lyra called BonBon looked my way and saw me being pushed around.

She sighed. “I really hope you didn’t tell her you know anything about humans.”

“I did.“ She just sat down, facepalmed (facehoofed?) and continued on her own business. I just kept getting pushed deeper into the house. I was shoved into some room that looked more like a laboratory than a room. It still had the bed but there were drawings of human bodies everywhere and colorful  test tubes and other science equipment.

I sat on a chair and stared at everything around the room. The mare was quite frankly more than obsessed with this whole human thing. She sat right in front of me.

“Now tell me, what do you know about humans?” The question ran around my head for a few seconds, I was wondering if I should tell her anything true or anything at all. She just continued to look at me with an excited look on her face and I just sat there wondering what to say.

“Humans eat meat.” What the buck is wrong with me? I can’t go telling her that if her research hits the news or is even told to a few ponies they might fear us whenever it is that they find out that we are here in Ponyville. “I mean, they are completely vegetarian!” I made a poker face and remained silent .

"So they’re Omnivorous creatures?"

"Uh. Yeah. That." I felt horrible lying to Lyra but it had to be done for the greater good.

The rest of Lyra’s questions weren't very hard to answer, being mostly about how we lived and how we were like them in the way that everyone was equal to each other and friendly. She seemed very confused as to why that was the way humans lived she tried to get me to talk more about friendship in between humans but I avoided the subject as much as I could, she was coming close to the last question, when things got awkward

"How do humans reproduce?"

I pondered over the question trying to come up with a way to explain that wouldn't require me to use obscene words and I tried to make my answer come out with everything being understandable for everypony.

"When mommy human and daddy human love each other very very much they decide-" I was rudely interrupted before I could finish my flawless explanation.

"Sexual intercourse?"

"Um.... Yeah."

She wrote something down in a notebook (most likely my answers).

"Well thanks a lot for all the information, it really helped me in my research."

"You’re welcome, if you need anything else I'm usually around town"

"Thanks Mr...” She pondered for a second. “Actually, I never caught your name."

"I’m Skamper Gunallen, it's a pleasure Lyra."

"I hope we can meet again someday Skamper"

After that I just walked out of the house and headed back to Rarity's house, I could already see the sunset so if I didn't hurry we might have to crash in Rarity's place for the night

I trotted into the house and saw Matt and Rarity having a paste full chat about the weather and Pegasus being able to control it unlike in the our home planet, I already had turned back into a human since.

"Well dear it seems awful for you kind not to be able to predict the weather before hoof."

"Not exactly that. We can predict the weather but it isn't as accurate as being able to control it."

"How dreadful." She turned and saw me. "Oh dear we were wondering when you would come back when you wandered off chasing Lyra."

"Something interesting happened," and then I heard Matt mumble under his breath, "I hope nothing TOO interesting happened."

"Not much, Lyra asked some questions and I answered them."

"Well it's good that she didn't over react and tell the whole world that mythical creatures exist .”

"Yeah I was surprised about her being so calm too. Maybe she still thinks no one would believe her."

"Well, everypony thinks her theories are ridiculous so I don't think they would believe her anyways."

There was an odd silence, where no one had anything else to say

"Well, Matt if you would be so kind as to turn into a pony again, we can go back to Twilight’s house to sleep. Thanks a lot for everything Rarity."

“Wait a second,” she exclaimed. "You can turn into ponies?!" She sounded shocked and scared at the same time.

"Yeah, it's a spell Twilight casted on us so we could go undercover in Ponyville."

"No this is not good now I have to make new ensembles for you to look fabulous, I have to get to work immediately if I want them to be ready in the next few days!"

“Wait, but first,” Matthew said as he trotted down to one of the wardrobes and pulled out a simple, black hoodie. “This has been catching my eye since I came in here. Can I buy it from you?”

“That thing? You can keep it for free. I’ve been wanting to get rid of it for some time now actually.”

“Thanks Rarity, you’re too generous. I’ll have to make it up to you.”

I decided to interject before they began to talk more. "Okay then, we will leave you to your work Rarity." She went into her work shop and locked the door.

Me and Matt turned into ponies once again and headed back to Twilight’s house, the night was young. The majority of the ponies were already asleep, leaving the town clear and almost empty, only but a few ponies were walking around.

We walked silently all the way back to Twilight's home

(Matthew)

‘Well, that’s one disaster averted,’ I thought, relieved that Peter hadn’t done anything crazy for once. ‘Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll continue.’

As we neared Twilight’s house, I thought I spotted Lyra heading for Rarity’s boutique, but didn’t really pay too much attention to it.

“Hey Twilight,” I said, opening the door and holding it open for Peter, only to find that he was already inside.

“Hello Matthew,” Twilight said, “how did it go with Rarity?”

“It went great,” Peter said, speaking up before I could say anything, “she made suits for each of us.”

“Really? Can I see?”

“Sure.” Peter morphed back into a human, showing off his new suit. I morphed as well, but I didn’t strut around like a peacock showing off its feathers.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Peter said. He quickly stepped into the kitchen, and when he returned, he was carrying what looked like a hastily glued together mass of cardboard. He thrust it into my hands, and upon closer inspection I saw that it was made of boxes and toilet paper rolls.

“Peter,” I said, getting a little tired of his shenanigans, “what exactly is this?”

“Pull the trigger and find out!”

‘Trigger?’ I thought. Looking around, I finally spotted a cardboard trigger near the back. When I pulled it, a blue oval flared to life on the floor.

“Is that what I think it is?” To answer my own question, I pulled the trigger again, this time aiming at the ceiling, causing an orange oval to appear with the instantly recognizable Portal appearance. Peter is the only one I can think of who would be crazy enough to create a Portal Gun from cardboard.

“What is that?” Twilight asked, taking a couple steps toward the blue portal.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said, thrusting the gun back to Peter, only to see it fall to the ground when Peter was not there to grab it. Looking around, I saw him sitting on a bookshelf, munching on an apple.

“It’s a portal,” he said. “If you go through the blue one, you’ll come out the orange one, and vice versa.”

“Really?” she made a move as if to step through, and of course I had to stop her. Unfortunately, in doing so I suffered the same fate that I saved her from, the notorious endless fall. Since I had been stupid to place the orange portal directly above the blue one, I would continue to fall until I moved to the side. That, however, was not an option, seeing as how the speed continued to build to the point that if I did move, I would either be seriously injured, or dead. Peter thought it was amusing, and almost choked on a bite of apple while he was laughing.

“Shut up and help me get out of this!” I said, my voice a little distorted. Grinning, Peter jumped down from his bookshelf and walked over to me, where he stood watching. Just when I thought he was going to be an asshole and do nothing, he reached out and grabbed my arm, somehow stopping me without ripping it off entirely.

“I’m not even going to question it this time,” I said, sighing with relief as I sat off to the side, a good distance away from the portals.

“Aw, but it’s fun when you get frustrated at my answers!” Peter whined.

“Why did you put them one above the other in the first place?” Twilight asked.

“I wasn’t really thinking about placement,” I replied, “I was just checking to see if it actually worked.

“Well it wasn’t a very good idea to step into it, considering the massive amount of velocity it would build. If Peter didn’t share certain... abilities with Pinkie Pie, you wouldn’t have been able to get out of that so easily.”

‘You don’t say?’ I thought to myself. Twilight was awesome and everything, but boy could she be boring sometimes. Peter picked up the cardboard portal gun and apparently turned it off, causing the portals to vanish. Stashing it in some invisible pocket, he went into the kitchen.

“Well at least I learned an important lesson,” I said.

“Really?” Twilight asked. “What might that be?”

“I learned what Chell felt like when I did that in Portal.” Twilight cocked her head quizzically. “Portal is a video game used for entertainment,” I said, noticing her mouth open to ask a question. “You use portals to solve puzzles and advance through the game.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Trust me, it can be downright frustrating at certain points.” Letting out a yawn, I stretched and popped my neck.

“You must be tired,” Twilight said, once again stating the obvious. “The blankets and pillows are in the closet for you and Peter to use.

“Got it!” Peter called from the kitchen. I could smell grilled cheese, and I facepalmed thinking, ‘Why is he still hungry!?’

“I better get to bed as well,” Twilight said, looking at the clock. “Sleep well!”

“Don’t worry, we will!” Peter responded, coming out of the kitchen with a grilled cheese sandwich.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever sleep well with Peter around,’ I thought, grabbing a blanket and pillow from the closet and getting to bed as quick as possible so I didn’t have to put up with Peter more than absolutely necessary.

“I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be a long day,” I muttered, setting my new glasses to the side and closing my eyes.