There was something about this pink pony that chased away any and all negative emotions, as quickly as possible. Sure, we had spent our time together, mourning the loss of her planet; but after we finished, it was just that, finished. We didn’t continue the negative atmosphere, neither of us moved sluggishly or looked down at all. We were simply okay with moving on and leaving the sad emotions behind.

It was an interesting phenomenon, but not one that I planned to invest much time or energy in, like the question of why apples fall; because they do.

I was now on my second cup of coffee. I didn’t typically get to the second cup until later in the day, but this Saturday morning was a special occasion. Special, in that I was enjoying a casual conversation with something that really shouldn’t exist in my living room.

We both decided that it was my turn to introduce myself, even though I only really got the first few years of Pinkie’s life. I began saying, “well, where do I begin? Hmm, well I guess my life began in Philadelphia where I…

“Wait, what did you say?” Pinkie interjected.

“Philadelphia” I replied.

“…Okay…” She said.

I continued, “as I was saying I was born and raised in Philadelphia.” I gave the word a bit of emphasis, confused by her curiosity over one word. “My family was never rich, but I had a pretty good life, a couple good friends and family nearby. I mostly enjoyed hanging out with friends and friends of friends at parks and stuff. We used to run and bike up and down the Delaware, just hanging out and talking.

Eventually I got into computers; my dad always said they were just a fad and wouldn’t go anywhere, but I stuck with it and got into making websites, I made a bit of cash over the summers making amateur websites for some friends. when the internet took off I got into web security and now I’m keeping large websites secure in a small company in New York.”

It seemed Pinkie was a bit more polite than I was, and only asked her question after I had finished with my short biography. She asked, “What’s ‘the internet’?”

“Oh, well hmm, it’s really tough to explain. I guess you could think of it as a really big library, or, a museum! Yeah, a really big museum with all the information in the entire world; and anyone who wants to can go onto something called a computer or a smart phone and ask for whatever they want to know, from anywhere in the world; and they can share what they know with other people across the world.” I replied, describing arguably the world’s biggest resource as quickly as I could.

“So, it’s like borrowing a book from the library? Or, well, teleporting a book from the library to you?” Pinkie asked.

I replied, “well yeah that’s the gist of it, wait, can you teleport?” I was suddenly very interested, remembering our discussion of magic from earlier.

She replied, saying, “No, but Twilight can! She’s the best at magic! She can do all kinds of different things! Like transforming oranges into frogs, and giving little baby dragons mustaches! Oh oh! she can also shoot really big lasers!”

Wow, so their magic goes a lot deeper than I originally anticipated. I decided to avoid breaking my head over the magic subject again, rather than asking about it more. I decided to start up our conversation again, saying, “well I guess I kinda cut off your introduction earlier, tell me a bit more about yourself.”

She jolted at that, forgetting how little she actually told me about her history. She said, “Oh, I guess I forgot about that. Um, we already went over the rock farm, oh! Right! I have three sisters, Maud Pie, Limestone Pie, and Marble Pie, and we all grew up on the rock farm with our parents, Igneous Rock and Cloudy Quartz.”

Pony names are weird.

She continued, “After I got my cutie mark I moved to Ponyville, and got a job at Sugar Cube Corner working for the Cakes. And then I made friends with everyone in Ponyville and I met Twilight Sparkle and Apple Jack and Fluttershy and Rarity and Rainbow Dash and then we went on a super duper adventure after the summer sun celebration and we got the elements of harmony and then we defeated Black Snooty and saved Princess Luna; and then we went to Canterlot and defeated Discord, the god of chaos; and then we went to the Crystal Empire and defeated King Sombra, who enslaved the Crystal Empire and made it disappear; and then we went back to Canterlot for a wedding and defeated Queen Chrysalis, who was the Queen of the changeling hive; and then we went to a small town in the middle of nowhere and defeated Starlight Glimmer, who lead a cult; and then we went to the crystal empire again and defeated Flurry Heart, no, wait, we didn’t defeat Princess Flurry Heart, we fixed the crystal heart after she broke it! And then we got captured by changelings, and then Starlight Glimmer, who we reformed, reformed the changelings and rescued us; and then I was helping my friend Fizzlepop Berrytwist who I just met. She wanted me to help her with her mirror, so I did, but then I fell through it after Fizzlepop bumped into me and now I’m here!

Although now that I’ve had time to think about it, she probably actually wanted to push me into it. But I can’t figure out why.”

I had a lot of information to sort through now. First of all, there was apparently either a national hero, a seal team member, or an alien Indiana Jones in my apartment. Second, there were apparently a lot of bad guys in her world with awesome bad guy names, leading me to envy Pinkie’s comic book world. And third, the poor pony on my couch was a very friendly girl who was betrayed by someone she thought she could trust, even if they only met a few moments prior to the betrayal.

Chief among my questions, was something she said earlier that had piqued my interest. I asked, “Pinkie, what’s a ‘cutie mark’?”

“Oh, you don’t have cutie marks here? Well I guess there have been more surprising things today. A cutie mark is the mark that all ponies get when they find their special talent.” She turned a little to show me her flank and pointed at the balloons that were tattooed on it, “My cutie mark shows my talent for parties and making ponies smile!”

“Huh,” I replied, “so someone just gives tattoos out to ponies who find out what they want to do with their lives?”

“Well, I dunno what a ‘tattoo’ is, but nopony gives out cutie marks… they just sort of, appear when ponies find their special talent.” Pinkie said.

“A tattoo is, kinda like body paint but permanent.” I explained, “So, what? destiny just decides to give you a mark on your butt when you find out what you’re good at?”

“I guess, yeah that about sums it up.” Pinkie said.

“You ponies are weird, you know that right?” I said

“I could say the same thing about you, you big monkey” She rebutted.

I gave her an exaggerated face full of offence, and then dropped it to say, “Touché, Pinkie, Touché.”

We both tried to hold straight faces, both trying to hold on and beat the other in a staring contest. However, we failed our mission, and we both succumbed to the absurdity of the situation, breaking down in a fit of giggles. As I tried to stop laughing, Pinkie would see my strained face and laugh harder. When Pinkie tried to stop, I saw her face and broke out in equally intense laughter. Neither of us could stop, and so that chain of events continued for a good long while.

Eventually we both ran out of giggles, chuckles, and guffaws and we simply sat in the afterglow of the intense laughter.

<>><<>

Later that day, I ended up giving Pinkie a tour of my home.

I showed her the bathroom, a simple white room with a standing shower, towel racks, a shelf, a toilet, and a counter and sink with a medicine cabinet above.

We made a quick stop by the hall closet on our way to my room to show her where I kept any extra towels, blankets, pillows, and a couple coats. My room wasn’t exactly what I would call clean, but it was far from filthy. Sure, I tend to leave a couple bits of clothing lying around, but the area was always kept clear enough that I could comfortably navigate it.

I had recently cleaned my bedroom, and by clean, I mean tidied up, so everything was more or less nice looking. There was a small bed off in one corner with a nightstand next to it that held my phone, sunglasses, wallet, and small pocket knife—because you never know when you’ll need one. Off on another wall was a humble bookshelf, which contained, half books, and the other half, my collection of Lego sets. Pinkie seemed to appreciate those when I showed her around.

The rest of the room was taken by a small desk and my hefty computer. The computer wasn’t much of a sight, but it held a secret power behind it that would make an anime villain look like an extra. The setup was a standard two monitors, with a mechanical keyboard and a nice little mouse, essentials for anyone in the field of computer programming.

Pinkie was surprised enough by my light switch, which I found weird considering that ponies could literally teleport and make rocks glow, so she was amazed when I turned on my computer. Of course, I had already mentioned computers before, but as was the case for me, seeing is believing. The first thing I thought of to show her, to really show off what technology could do, was google maps.

You can bet I spun that globe like a marble. It took a bit of convincing for her to actually believe that the big blue ball we were looking at was actually the planet we were on; one thing that helped was when I showed her the view through my window, and then zoomed in on my house on the computer.

We didn’t spend long playing with the computer, I showed her a couple more landmarks, the white house, the Eiffel tower, the empire state building, and then we moved on to other things. I figured that if she maybe felt like cooking some more, she might want to know where I kept everything; and that’s what I did, I showed her everything, the pots, the pans, the plates, the cups, the pantry, the spice cupboard, the knives, the silverware, the appliances. I showed her how everything worked, the toaster, microwave, especially the oven. If it wasn’t obvious by now, I really liked her cooking.

Which is not to say she didn’t enjoy the extended tour, it seemed like Pinkie’s happiest place on earth was inside of a kitchen. She was very excited to see all the conveniences that human technology brought to the kitchen, all the way from blenders to microwaves, even the dish washer.

Looking through the kitchen and noticing how empty it was reminded me that Saturday was shopping day. Remembering this fact reminded me of something else I forgot, I didn’t have a car at the moment. My car was fitted for a lovely boot yesterday, I’ll have to call to get that off and then walk a couple blocks to go and get it.

And so that’s what I did. After I explained to pinkie what I had to do, and what a car was—I decided against the horseless carriage analogy that many time travelers enjoy, considering the circumstances—I went on my walk, leaving Pinkie to her own devices.

The whole trip was fairly uneventful; walk to work, insert code to remove boot, take boot to collection facility, drive home. My 70s dodge charger purred as we cruised along the New York asphalt, enjoying the trip home as much as I could. The car itself used to belong to my dad, but after he and my mom retired and left for California, he left me the car, mostly because it would be too difficult to take with them. When I received the car, it was in pretty bad shape. Over the years, through plenty of tender loving care, it became a magnificent sight to behold; I had even taken it to a few car shows.

When I arrived back at my apartment, I invited Pinkie out to see my pride and joy. My neighbors were mostly secluded hermits, only ever leaving for work and errands; which suited me just fine, as I wasn’t much of a social person myself, although I tended to keep up with a group of friends from time to time. With that, I wasn’t too worried about anyone freaking out about a pink alien checking out my car, anyone who might see her would probably think I was just one of those crazy people that paint their dogs pink.

Pinkie didn’t react with as much enthusiasm as I was hoping for, which made sense considering she didn’t know what a car was. I planned to remedy that fact by getting her in the passenger seat. Of course, in the interest of safety I put a seatbelt on Pinkie as best I could. I moved around to the driver’s side and Pinkie jumped when I put the key in the ignition and the engine revved up.

Pinkie looked a little uneasy when the car started moving, but eventually when we got out on the road, she loosened up a bit. I think part of that was because I drove down the Hudson river for a while, it must’ve been a nice break from the towering buildings everywhere.

After a while, and after Pinkie looked more comfortable, I rolled the windows down to bring in some relatively fresh air, which Pinkie loved. She stuck her head out the window like a dog, and that drove the last of her discomfort away. She smiled, contentedly, as we drove down the streets of New York at lax speeds, closing her eyes and taking in the environment.

As Pinkie’s eyes scanned the roads, she asked, “How far does it go?”

“The roads, or my car?” I replied.

“Um, both?”

“Well, my car gets about twenty-two miles to the gallon, with a thirty-gallon tank, and seeing as how I can just refill it, I guess my car can go on forever. As for the roads, I suppose the entire continent has roads, you could drive straight from here to the other side of the continent.” I explained.

“This is a big world you live in Josh, no wonder you have such fast carriages. How does it work?” Pinkie said.

I said, “well I wouldn’t be an expert on the subject, but the basic principle is it uses gas to make explosions and push pistons which spin a little rod which makes the car go forward.”

Pinkie looked confused and said, “You’re right about one thing Josh, You’re not an expert.” She giggled, and even I had to share a chuckle at that remark.

After a while I turned the car towards home, it was a little after lunch time, so I stopped by a burger joint that I liked and ordered one burger and fries for myself, and a veggie burger with fries for Pinkie. This restaurant also sold cupcakes, so I got each of us a chocolate cupcake as well.

We ended up eating in the parking lot, I wasn’t too worried about making a mess inside, as I could always clean it up. I enjoyed my meal, and Pinkie described hers as “kinda like a hayburger but a bit more cooked, and with less hay” whatever a ‘hayburger’ was.

We later arrived back at my place, I hung up my keys and put away my wallet and phone. It had been a pretty good day, and it was only half over. Somehow, I made friends with an alien pony from another world, and on top of that, said pony was a national hero. Hopefully we could keep it that way, I enjoyed Pinkie’s company so far.

Maybe someday I can work out some better living arrangements, especially if I’ve got a new roommate.

Author's Note

There you go, chapter 3! This one was a little harder to write, I felt I had to get a little bit more introduction out of the way, but now I think we're getting closer to some plot!

As always I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I would appreciate it so much if you left a comment down below, your input helps me learn, and improve my story. I really love writing and I also love improving, so let me know your opinions!