We walked back to town in relative silence; Pinkie hopping along on my left, and Fluttershy walking on my right.

Deciding to break the silence, I ask a question directed at Pinkie. “Where to next?”

She looks at me with a grin as she continues hopping by my side. “Next, we’re going to go introduce you to my friend Rarity! She’s makes clothes like what you wear! Well, not like what you wear, she usually makes dresses!”

I shudder involuntarily at the thought of this mare trying to put me in a dress. “She’s not gonna… try and make me wear one, is she?”

Fluttershy giggles a little bit. “No, she won’t make you wear a dress. Although she might question your clothes. Speaking of which, why do you wear those?” she asks with a tilt of her head.

This actually makes me miss a step, causing me to trip up a bit. “Why do I wear clothes? That’s a silly question. Well they keep me warm for one, keeps the wind from getting to me. They also keep me cool, keeps the sun from roasting me. You two got fur for that, I don’t.”

They both consider my response, both of them running it through their own logical processes before they both nod.

As we reach a four way intersection, Pinkie looks around and gasps before grabbing my hand in her mouth and dragging me along somewhere to our right. “Applejack!” she calls out, albeit a bit muffled due to my hand being in her mouth.

Said pony she was calling happens to be an orange pony, who, like Pinkie, has neither a horn nor wings. She did have a hat on her head tho. She looked at Pinkie, a smile starting to form on her features; which quickly fades to a look of confusion as she sees my hand in her mouth, connecting to my arm and to me as a whole.

Pinkie comes to an abrupt stop in front of this pony, who I assume to be one of her friends. Unfortunately for me tho, I wasn’t able to catch myself and ended up tumbling down to the ground in front of the orange pony. Shaking the stars from my vision, I look up at her; hoping she has a better reaction to me than Rainbow Dash did.

She merely regards me with raised eyebrow for a moment before turning to Pinkie, who still hasn’t let go of my hand for some reason. “Pinkie”, she starts, “Now, I know better than to question whatever it is that you do, but this time I have to ask.” she points a hoof at me, “What is this?”

Pinkie finally lets go of my hand and takes a deep breath,before she lets loose a barrage of words that I had no chance of understanding. Her friend must have understood her tho, as she gives a slow nod with an “uh huh” to go along with it.

I decide I’ve had enough of laying on the ground, and stand back up. As I do, the orange pony lets out a low whistle. “Tall fella’ aint’cha?”

I let out a small laugh, and nod my head. “Compared to you ponies, yeah.” I say as I stretch and wipe the dirt off my clothes. I crouch and extend a hand to her. “I’m Tots; nice to meet ya!”

She regards my hand for a moment before giving a friendly smile and she folds my hand up into a fist and bumps her hoof to my now closed fist. “I’m Applejack; it’s nice to meet you too.” she puts her hoof back to the ground and I stand back up. “I don’t wanna seem rude, but I kinda have somewhere to be right now. So I’ll see you around at some point, I’m sure.”

Applejack trots off a little quickly for some reason. I merely shrug it off; she did have somewhere to be after all. I look back at Pinkie, then notice that Fluttershy hadn’t followed us and is nowhere in sight. Maybe she had something else to do in town as well.

I don’t have much time to think about it, because Pinkie just clings onto my back again and climbs back up to my shoulders and points to yet another direction. “That way!~” she says in a somewhat sing song voice. I shrug and start walking in the direction Pinkie has directed me; not like I have anything better to be doing. I mean, I could be exploring, but that's not as fun when you’re alone, and this kinda counts as exploring. I’m heading to a place I don’t know, and learning to lay of the land here as I go along! Two for the price of one!

As Pinkie leads me through the town, I notice that I’m still getting quite a few stares and glances from all the ponies. Am I really that much of an unknown to them?

I don’t get much time to dwell on it, much like a lot of things, because Pinkie has lead me to a door. The door in question is attached to a building that looks like it belongs at a carnival. “This is Carousel Boutique! My friend Rarity lives and works here. Knock on the door!” Pinkie instructs me.

I do as instructed and a voice of elegance calls back in a somewhat sing song voice. “Come in, I will be with you momentarily!” doing as instructed again, I open the door and walk in, being sure to duck so I don’t hit Pinkie on the door frame. Looking around, I can see a bunch of odd looking ponies on poles, each of them wearing a formal piece of clothing of some sort. I walk over to one of them and extend my hand. “Hi, I’m Tots, it's nice to meet you…. I like your outfit.” Pinkie giggles from atop my head, and I look up at her confused before she bursts out into full blown laughter; so much so that she ends up falling from her perch on my shoulders and ends up on her back, kicking her back legs in hysteria.

I open my mouth to ask her what she thinks is so funny, but I don’t get the chance as another pony walks into the room and clears her throat. She’s got a white coat of fur, curly purple hair and tail, and deep blue eyes; which happen to be staring straight at me with a bit of scrutiny. I internally cringe a bit; she seems like the type of pony who could send you home crying if you said the wrong thing to her.

“Hello, I’m Rarity, owner of Carousel Boutique; and you are?” she introduces herself. I glance at the pink pony beside me, who is still in a giggle fit, and look back to Rarity. “I’m Tots, it's nice to meet you Rarity.”

She nods and looks back at Pinkie. “What set her off this time?” she questions with a raised eyebrow.

“I dunno. I was just introducing myself to this pony and telling her I liked her outfit, then Pinkie just starts laughing for some reason.” I say as I point at the pony on the pole, who still hasn’t moved an inch.

Her eyebrow just raises even higher. “While I appreciate your opinion on my work, I question your sanity. You do know that's just a ponyquin right?”

I look back at the pony. “I have no idea what that is.”

She just looks at me for a moment before explaining to me that its for modeling clothes, and isn’t alive; making me feel somewhat embarrassed as I piece together why Pinkie was laughing.

Speaking of said laughing pony, she isn’t laughing anymore and is now standing next to me with a smile on her face. “Rarity, this is my new friend Tots. I just wanted to introduce you two! Tho it seems you two already did, so we’ll see you around Rares!” She then grabs me by the hand again and runs outside and away from the building.

“What was that all about, Pinkie?” I question.

She lets my hand go and starts trotting at an even pace, leaving me to follow her. “As good a friend Rarity is, she tends to talk a lot. Not that thats a bad thing! I just wanna make sure I have enough time left in the day to introduce you to my other friends. They live in the library.”

I tilt my head at this, but don’t bother to question it; don’t want another incident like with the ponyquins. After about five minutes of walking, we approach a large tree with a door on it.

After a few moments, I hear some shuffled movement, and a bit of grumbling, then the door opens to reveal a purple unicorn, with a royal blue mane and tail with a pink and lighter shade of blue striped through it. She looks like she just woke up; bags under her eyes, messy unkempt mane and tail, even her fur is messy.
She seemingly ignores me or doesn’t even notice me, and keeps her focus on Pinkie for a few moments before letting out a yawn and one of those deep inhales people seem to do when they just wake up. “Good afternoon Pinkie, what brings you to my doorstep today?”

Pinkie smiles and hugs Twilight, which she returns fully. “Sorry to have woken you up Twilight. What were you doing sleeping in this late? You look like a mess.”

Twilight merely lets out a breath. “I was up late trying to figure something out; something happened last night, but I can’t figure out for the life of me what it was.”

Pinkie simply keeps her smile and puts a hoof on her shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out Twilight. As for why I’m here, lookie!” she points a hoof at me. “I wanted to introduce you to my new friend!”

Twilight for her part, regards me with a single raised eyebrow, which slowly transitions into two raised eyebrows, followed by wide eyes and a dropped jaw. I wave my hand and give a somewhat sheepish smile. She picks up her jaw and turns back to Pinkie. “Pinkie….” she starts off slowly. “What is this?”

Pinkie taps a hoof to my knee. “This is Tots! We dunno what he is, but he’s friendly enough.”

Twilight goes back to having only a single eyebrow raised. “We?”

“Yeah, we! He doesn’t know what he is either. Infact” she pulls Twilight closer to her and whispers in her ear something that I can’t hear; to which Twilight gives me a sidelong glance before nodding at what Pinkie said.

“Tots, why don’t you come inside for a moment?” she asks slowly.

I nod and step past her as she opens the door a bit more for me. Looking around, this place looks nothing like how I expected the insides of a tree to look. There are tons of books. I walk around looking at all the books. Man, so many books. Stepping up to a shelf, I nab a random book from the shelf and open it.

Twilight’s POV: First Person

I don’t exactly know what to think about this ‘Tots’ person. He seems friendly, if what Pinkie says is anything to go by. I watch him look around the library, wondering what he might do. Soon enough, he makes his way over to the bookshelves and takes a book and opens it. It makes me smile to know that he would actually read the books instead of just glance at them like all the other ponies Pinkie brings over for me to meet. Oddly enough though, his expression morphs to one of confusion. He flips a few pages, a frown forming on his face. He puts the book back and hastily takes another one out, only to be met with the same result; whatever that result is, seems to be upsetting him greatly. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a notebook, and seemingly compares the two open books side by side. I tilt my head at this, wondering what he might be doing.

“Twilight. Your books are all weird. I can’t read any of them.” he points out.

So he can’t read? But then why would he have that other book? Maybe he can’t read our language… but how is he speaking it then? I’m broken from my thoughts as Pinkie shakes me a little. I give her a look of thanks; I might have been here all day contemplating if she didn’t do that. Looking back at Tots, I motion for him to come over, and he does so with the book in hand.

“Do you mind if a look at your book for a moment?” he nods and hands it to me. I open it up and look at it. At first, I’m a bit confused by what I see.everything written here seems to be scribbles at first glance, which I assume to be whatever language he writes in. But looking at it a bit harder, I notice some similarities between his writing and standard writing. It’s pretty much the same now that I look at it closer, just written differently.

I point this out to Tots, and he lets out an “oooohhhh” as he starts to piece together the similarities. Satisfied with helping him avoid falsely believing himself to be illiterate, I move onto the reason I asked him in. “Tots, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

He motions with his hand for me to go ahead,so I start off with the first question on my mind. “Where are you from?”

He stops for a moment to think, a look of concentration on his face. “I dunno. I just woke up under a mango tree and started exploring.” he answers.

I frown a bit at this. “You just woke up under a tree? Don’t you remember what you were doing before then?” I asked.

He scratches his head and shakes his head. “Can’t say I do Twilight.”

My frown deepens. “Would you mind if I cast a spell on you?”

He shakes his head and I start preparing a spell to look in his memory. Normally this spell is a bit questionable from a moral stance, but that’s why you have to ask for permission. Casting the spell, I close my mind and look through his memories. Meeting Rarity…. Applejack...Fluttershy...Rainbow Dash... Pinkie…. Wandering the town a bit…. Struggling to grab his bag from a tree… and...that’s it? How could that possibly bit it? I scrunch up my face a bit in concentration, trying to see if there is anything else; but there's nothing. It’s like he was just born a few hours ago.

But that's impossible! He can speak coherently, he can read, he can move about fine! There has to be something more to this… looking a bit deeper in his mind, I find the slightest traces of magic. It isn’t much, but its there. Was his memories erased? If so I suddenly feel bad for this creature. Losing memories due to things like head trauma or simply having them locked away is one thing… but to have them completely erased, with no way to get them back? That’s just horrible.

Unexpectedly, I’m ejected from his mind, and I collapse in a heap feeling drained. ‘That spell shouldn’t have taken THAT much magic...is he absorbing magic too? Or maybe just resistant to it?’ I conjure a few crystals and fill them with a bit of magic, and float them near him. He eyes them curiously, poking them a few times. After about about 5 minutes, the magic in the crystals are gone; which is odd, because I don’t feel like I’m losing any magic by being near him.

Concluding my little experiment, I regard him with a curious look. “Tots, would you mind stepping outside for a moment? I need to speak with Pinkie for a moment.” he simply shrugs and walks outside, shutting the door behind him.

Turning to Pinkie, I fix her with a leveled look. “Pinkie… do you realize how dangerous that thing is?”

“What could you possibly mean Twilight? He’s such a sweetheart! He’s done nothing but be nice this entire time. He wouldn’t hurt a fly!” she defends.

“He’s absorbing magic, Pinkie! That in itself is dangerous enough! Let alone forbidden!” I argue.

To my surprise, Pinkie actually gets in my face. “So what Twilight? So what if he’s absorbing magic? He can’t be doing it intentionally. I saw what you were doing with the crystals; just because I’m an earth pony doesn’t mean I don’t understand how magic works. He didn’t even do anything! You can’t just deem him a threat because of something he can’t control. That’s not fair to him!”

This genuinely surprises me with how much Pinkie is willing to defend him after only meeting him a few hours ago. Not only the fact that she’s willing to defend him, but also how adamant she is about it as well, along with how sound her arguments are. Somehow her words remind me of Spikes birthday, when he went on a rampage.

I shake my head from the memory,I let out a sigh of defeat and look Pinkie in the face. “You’re right Pinkie, I’m sorry. But we should still keep an eye on him just in case it gets any worse; even if he isn’t doing it on purpose. We don’t even know how much he can hold, or if he can even use it. And you know what happens when you try to stuff something into something else that’s already full.”

With that Pinkie backs off a bit and smiles. “Of course silly. I never said we shouldn’t keep it in check, just that you can’t punish him for something that is beyond his control. Glad we came to an understanding.” she says with a smile and bounces off towards the door. I follow her and look around outside, but curiously enough, Tots isn’t out here. Glancing up at the sky, I notice it’s starting to get dark out. He probably just went home. With that, I turn and head back inside, closing the door behind me.

Author's Note

example of Equestrian font. you can see why somebody as slow as Tots would not notice the difference.

also I apologize for being gone and not uploading anything. school has been getting the better of me, and I've just never had the time to sit down and write. I will try my best to get back to writing whenever I can.

Anyways, lemme know what you think! I like comments, they allow me to respond back to you guys. (however few of you there may be)