“That,” said Twilight Sparkle, raising a hoof to her chin in a thoughtful manner, “is a good question”. Me, Twilight and Spike were sitting in Twilight’s house where I had arrived after my unexpected journey.

“How do you mean?” I asked, my brow furrowing.

“Well, it’s all about making sure the portal leads to the right place,” explained the purple pony, “if it led anywhere else, who knows what could happen next!”

“Would it help if I told you where the portal was where I fell through it?” I suggested, “I think that’s important if I want to get back home again”. Twilight considered.

“It could work,” she said slowly, “yeah, it’s certainly worth a try”. With that, I leant over and told her exactly where I noticed the portal only a few minutes before. Though of course, I couldn’t type it down here, otherwise I’d have people knocking at my door for days on end!

“Perfect,” smiled Twilight, “I’ll see what I can do. Though, I do have one more thing to say”.

“Really, what’s that?” I asked. I was beginning to get anxious.

“You still have some explaining to do,” said Twilight, “like where you’re from, how you got here and most of all, how you even know all about us in the first place”.

“Ah yes,” I said clasping my hands together, “I really should get to that”.

“Oh, would it be OK if I invited my other friends as well?” Twilight added, “I’m sure they’d be curious as I am to know about you”.

“Sure,” I smiled, “no trouble at all!” I didn’t mind a bit, I felt I could use a bit more company now that I’d been here long enough.

“Well, that’s settled then,” announced Twilight, getting to her hooves, “I’ll go and get the invitations written while you straighten yourself up. You’re looking a little frazzled after your fall”.

“Got it,” I said, “I think I’m gonna need it”. Twilight wasn’t wrong. As I felt my hair, I could feel it was still swept back a little from when I was falling through the portal. Also, I was getting rather hot so there was no need for my jacket for now.

“Can I send them once they’re written, Twilight?” Spike piped up, eagerly.

“Of course, my little helper” chuckled Twilight, as she headed over to her writing desk. I could just hear Spike let out a ‘yes’ of triumph under his breath. I smiled as I went up the stairs to where a mirror was standing.

‘They certainly are a welcoming pair,’ I thought, ‘I’ve never met anyone like them’. I certainly hadn’t. I didn’t think anyone had ever met a talking pony and dragon before. When I reached the top, I stepped up to the mirror and dusted off my jeans, took off my jacket, straightened my jumper, tied my shoelaces and combed my hair. Well, I say ‘combed’ my hair, I actually ran my fingers through it as I didn’t have a comb on me, but it worked well nonetheless.

Whilst I was up there, I took the time to look out of a nearby window. As I looked out of it, I nearly fell over backwards with amazement, for there it was: Ponyville. It certainly had a similar look to towns from where I lived, the only differences being 1) the town was inhabited by ponies of all shapes and sizes instead of humans and 2) the houses had roofs made of straw instead of tiles. Well, they were the only notable differences I could make out. Other than that, everything remained the same; green grass, blue sky, white fluffy clouds and yellow sun. It certainly was a marvellous sight! Heaving a contented sigh, I went back downstairs.

“Almost done with those letters, Twilight?” I called, as I made myself comfortable on the bottom step since there weren’t any chairs.

“Just finishing off the last one to Fluttershy” came the reply. Looking over to her writing desk, I could see a glow coming not only from Twilight’s horn, but from the feather quill she was writing with. The quill was moving and writing on the paper all by itself!

‘That’s certainly an advantage of being a unicorn’, I thought, rather impressed, ‘or alicorn, as the case may be’. I gazed on with fascination as Twilight put the finishing touches to the last letter.

“Aaaand done!” announced Twilight, putting down her quill and handing the letters over to Spike. “Don’t be too long now, Spike”.

“Got it!” said Spike, giving the pony a salute and hurrying out of the door. Now that everything had been sorted, I managed to take a better look at where I was. In the middle of the room, there was a round table on the outside of a tree stump with a horse head cleverly carved out on top. Like I had noted before, shelves of books littered the walls and now that I looked more closely, I could see golden flowery patterns surrounding the neatly stacked shelves. I looked around with admiration.

“Nice place you have here,” I noted, “very neat and organised”.

“Thanks,” said Twilight with a grin, “I like to keep things that way”.

“I can understand,” I chuckled, “I’m kinda the same”.

It didn’t take long for Spike to return. A few minutes later, he came through the door with 5 other ponies in tow. All of them were murmuring to each other, probably wondering what Twilight had called them over for.

“Hi, girls!” smiled Twilight, “I have a new friend I’d like all of you to meet”. She pointed a hoof over in my direction. “Everypony, this is Matthew”. I gave I shy sort of wave. Suddenly I jumped as one of the ponies, a pink one with a poofy mane and three balloons on her flank, one yellow and two blue, gave a squeal of excitement and galloped over to me.

“Ooooh!!” she squealed, “I’ve never seen anypony like you before!”

“Uh, Pinkie,” said another pony, “how do you even know it’s a pony. It doesn’t even have hoofs”. The pony that had spoken rolled her eyes. She had a light blue coat with a rainbow mane and wings and on her flank was a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt emerging from the bottom of it.

“Matthew,” continued Twilight, “these are my friends; Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy”. The five ponies all waved and gave greetings.

“It’s very nice to meet you all,” said I, “I’ve heard quite a lot about you”. The ponies looked just as surprised as Twilight had.

“Now, hang on just a sec,” said Applejack, the one with the orange coat, brown Stetson hat and Southern American accent, “yer sayin’ that ya know all about us, but you’ve only jus’ met us?”

“That’s the long and short of it,” I said, “I might as well get on to the explanation then”. Everyone, including Twilight and Spike, gathered round to listen. And that’s when I told them everything; who and what I was, what my world looked like, what my life was like, what I liked doing, what my interests are and how I came to discover the portal that led me to meet Twilight. Last of all, I explained how I knew all about them, how people all across my world knew all about them and how over the last 30 years, ponies like them had become household names.

“And to think I thought ponies were the only beings who recognised my beauty!” beamed Rarity, the white unicorn with the curly purple mane.

“Yep, that’s right” I replied.

“All this is absolutely fascinating!” exclaimed Twilight, “I never knew beings from another world would know about us, let alone through a TV show”. All the others nodded in agreement. I then turned to the yellow pegasus with the pink mane.

“You’ve been rather quiet, Fluttershy,” I noted, “what’s up?”

“Oh...um...” Fluttershy hid behind her mane, “I just can’t believe all those people know about all of us”.

“Kinda crazy, isn’t it?” I chuckled, “And don’t worry, I’m kinda quiet sometimes too”. Fluttershy blushed at this and slowly emerged from her mane. She must’ve been a bit flattered that we both had something in common.

“Well, while I try to think of how to get Matthew home,” Twilight announced, “perhaps you’d like to have something to eat over at Sugar Cube Corner?”

“Sure, I’m all for it” I said. Now that Twilight mentioned it, I did feel rather hungry. My stomach had just began to rumble, it felt like an earthquake down there!

“Ooh, ooh, and then I can take you on a tour of Ponyville!” cried Pinkie with enthusiasm. I grinned.

“That’s kind of you,” I replied, “I’d enjoy that!”.

“Alright then,” said Twilight, heading over to another staircase leading down to what I presumed was her basement, “come on, Spike. We have work to do”.

“Coming, Twi!” called Spike, hurrying after her.

A few minutes later, I was sitting at a table in Sugar Cube Corner, chowing down on a cupcake with pink icing and rainbow sprinkles. It tasted absolutely delightful and filled me up perfectly. When me, Pinkie and the others were walking up to the cafe, I wasn’t surprised to notice a few (OK, a lot of) ponies stare at me. They didn’t seem to be scared or threatened, just puzzled and confused. After I had finished the cupcake, I looked up at my five new friends who were sitting round the table with me.

“Er...sorry if it’s a bit awkward” I said, sheepishly.

“What do you mean, darling?” said Rarity.

“Well, having someone like me about the place,” I explained, “I don’t think it’s ever happened before”.

“Aw, it’s not a problem at all, sugarcube” smiled Applejack

“Yeah, it’s actually kinda awesome!” put in Rainbow.

“I just know it’s gonna be super-duper-ooper fun having a human around!” exclaimed Pinkie.

“It’ll certainly be some good extra company” beamed Fluttershy. I smiled again. I felt like I’d been doing that a lot since I arrived.

“Well then,” I said, getting up to my feet, “shall we begin the tour?”

Pinkie practically leapt 2 or 3 feet in the air from her seat and squealed, “Yesyesyesyeyesyes!! I know the perfect place to start, the town centre!” With that, she bounced out of the door of the cafe. I glanced over at my new friends, who were also just getting to their hooves, and then ran after Pinkie out of the door.

After the tour was over, we all returned to Twilight’s house to see how she was getting on. The tour was brilliant and most of the landmarks were pointed out to me; the lake, Carousel Boutique (Rarity’s fashion centre), the bowling alley and the train station among others. It was as I was reliving the tour in my mind that something occurred to me that I hadn’t stopped to think about. I took my phone out of my pocket, switched it on and my eyes nearly popped out of my head in astonishment.

“Oh cripes!!” I shrieked. Fluttershy let out a sudden “EEP!” of surprise at my exclamation. “Sorry, Flutters” I apologised.

“It’s alright,” said Fluttershy, softly, “you didn’t mean it”.

“I’ve just seen the time; I need to get back home. PRONTO!” I explained. I went over to the basement stairs and called down. “You almost finished down there, Twi?”

“Yep,” answered Twilight, “I’m just coming up now”. She was as good as her word, trotting up the stairs with Spike in tow.

“Any luck with it?” I asked, hopefully.

“I believe so,” replied Twilight, “I’m not sure yet until I try it out. Stand back, everypony”. And so, concentrating really hard, the purple pony produced a glow from her horn and shot it out. A vertical, swirling pool suddenly appeared, the same colour as the one I had discovered only a few hours before. Everyone in the room, including me, cheered with delight.

“Nice one, Twilight!” cried Rainbow, giving Twilight a pat on the back with her hoof. Everypony else gathered round Twilight and shared their congratulations. Well...there’s a reason why I said everyPONY. They all looked round and saw me with my backs to them, staring into the portal with my hands in my pockets.

“Is anything the matter, Matthew?” asked Fluttershy, coming over to my side.

“Oh, uh...no,” I said quickly, “nothing at all”.

“Come on,” said Fluttershy, “I know something’s wrong when I see it”. I couldn’t keep it in any longer, that voice she used seemed like it was made to make me crack. I sighed.

“Oh alright, you’ve got me,” I said, “it’s just I’ve become such good friends with you all and I’d love to visit again some time. Only...” I paused.

“Only what?” the ponies chorused.

“Only...only I don’t know how” I finally said. As I said that, I could’ve sworn I saw a twinkle in Twilight’s eye.

“I had a feeling you’d say something like that” she said.

“You did?” I asked, incredulously, “What do you mean?” Twilight suddenly went back down into her basement and came back 30 seconds later with a strange object.

“Take this,” she said, “it’s a present I made”. I took the object she’d brought with her and examined it carefully. It was a purple orb about the size of my palm with a gold ring round the middle and a red button on top.

“Thanks,” I started, “but what is it exactly?”

“Well,” explained Twilight, “when you press the button, it will open a portal back to Equestria. That way, you can visit us any time you like”. Everypony else in the room let out an “Oooh!” of amazement. I stared at Twilight, then at the purple orb and back again. I didn’t know what to say, I was so touched. So I said the only thing I could say:

“Thank you, thank you so much!” I bent down and spread my arms. All the ponies and Spike came over and we embraced in one giant group hug. I eventually let go and got back to my feet. “Anyway, I must be off,” I said, “I promise I’ll come back very soon”. I turned to leave, but then turned back again. “You know,” I said, “I’m extremely glad to call all of you my friends. I’ll never forget what you’ve all done for me today.” The ponies all beamed at me.

“Goodbye!” they all chorused, “See you soon!”

“Bye!” I called and, with a last look at my new friends, I took a run up and leapt through the portal. I could feel my hair sweeping back once more and the air blowing in my face. Two minutes later, I came flying out of the portal, but this time into a bush rather than a wooden floor. Once I’d pushed myself out, I looked around. I was on the corner of a road on a hill. Thank the lord, I was back home once again! As I walked up my pathway to the front door, I took a look at the orb in my hand. I smiled and put it into my pocket. I’d certainly be visiting again soon, I knew it. But when? I didn’t know, but I’ll be sure to tell you all about it once I do. Catch you later!

Author's Note

Well, that’s the first episode officially over. I’m gonna start work on episode 2 in a few days hopefully. I hope all of you enjoyed the start of my fic, so leave a like and a comment if you did