Tired and Emotional

by Cackling Moron

Chapters

One
Two
Three
Four
Five

One

Author's Note

I was waiting for some potatoes to roast and, while sat in the kitchen, I did this. Not sure why.

Hope you like how I write drunkeness! Hah!

Someone will probably tell me this is sad. Maybe it is?

One

Rarity was not the biggest fan of Rhys, the local human, so his showing up in the middle of the night was not something that filled her with joy.

That he was clearly ratarsed was merely the icing on this cake of woe.

It was not overdramatic to use ‘woe’ here.

“R-rarity?” He asked, amazed, peering down at her as he wobbled dangerously, very nearly toppling over backwards before managing to snap forward, clinging to her doorframe for support. “What you doin’ in my house? Did you - did I giv’ you a key? Don’ ‘member doin’ that…”

Even by his usual, slovenly standards the human looked rough. He was crumpled in places Rarity hadn’t even known it was possible to be crumpled, half of his hair was stuck down while the other seemed to be trying to compensate by going in as many directions as possibly all at once and to top it all off he was incredibly red in the face. Particularly around the eyes.

Not that any of this made Rarity feel happier about seeing him. If anything, it made it worse. If she was going to be woken up out of the blue the least her nocturnal visitor could do was look vaguely presentable.

“Your house is on the edge of town, Rhys. This is the middle of town,” she pointed out.

He stared at her blankly a second as though she was some intensely troubling, complex obstacle that had been placed there just to make his life difficult, still clinging on to the doorframe with both hands the whole while.

“Oh yeah,” he then said.

He blinked and his eyes widened.

“Oh! Oh thish is your house! S’the roundabout thingy! Shhop! Clothes. Yeah?” He asked, looking up at the top of the porch. From underneath. This clearly couldn’t have told him anything of use, but he did it anyway.

“Yes. It is,” Rarity said flatly, her level gaze not leaving his face. When he stopped staring up and looked back at her again - finding her gazing levely - he flinched, tried smiling in a friendly fashion, failed, tried smiling in a neutral fashion, failed, and then just shrugged.

Shrugging nearly caused him to fall over again.

They stared at one another for a moment.

“Oh,” he said again, eventually. Rarity sighed.

“If you thought this was your house, Rhys, why did you ring the bell?” She asked.

And not just ring it once, either. Ring it repeatedly. Even after she’d opened the door.

“...sh’good queshtion. I - heh - I don’ e’en have a bell! S’confusin’,” he said sheepishly, one eye starting to droop closed.

“You certainly seem confused.”

“Yeah, n’yeah.”

Dead silence, barring some crickets who chose this moment to highlight the intense awkwardness. Pony and Human stood locked in silence. The pony, hoping that the human would get the hint and go away. The human, so fucking pissed he was having difficulty seeing six inches in front of him.

Amazingly, the human was the one who broke first.

“Well ‘am sorry woke you, Rarety. Raarty. Rarity. M’sorry. I’ll - I’ll let you to it. N’you go back t’sleep. I’ll go my place. S’this way. Yeah, yeah, this way…”

This he said, pointing and starting to stumble off in completely the wrong direction. Rarity sighed, again.

She couldn’t in good conscience let him go off on his own in this condition. As likely as it was that he would simply find a nice, safe ditch to keel over into and sleep this off, Rarity wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if something bad were to happen to him.

“Rhys,” she called out after him and he rounded, this time actually falling over as his legs failed to operate properly in concert. She winced as he fell flat on his face but he didn’t seem to mind. Or even notice.

“M’yes?” He asked, picking himself back up again, now even more crumpled and dishevelled. It was getting to the point where it was starting to be physically painful to Rarity to have to look at. But she swallowed it down.

“Would you like a glass of water?” She asked.

Rhys considered this question as though it were one of the weightier ones in life.

“Yes,” he said, at length.

Getting him inside was easier said than done. He was unsteady on his feet - which was obvious - but what was worse was that he was unsteady to a level that seemed to vary by the second. Any time Rarity tried to compensate for him with her magic he would suddenly get his poise back and her help would tip him over, or else she would withdraw assistance and he’d suddenly lose it all again.

Infuriating.

Still, little by little she managed it, coaxing him by inches to a chair and getting him sat down.

“Now stay there,” she said, firmly. “I will be back.”

“N’okay. Am I home?” He asked. Something in this must have been pretty funny because a second after saying it he giggled. Rarity ignored this and went off to get that glass of water. Sooner he was even a smidgen sober the sooner he’d get his sense of direction back and the sooner she wouldn’t feel awful about turfing him out.

Returning, Rarity passed him the glass - making sure he took it with both hands and even then paying very close attention to the handover - and then sat across from him on something considerably more comfortable, she having specifically put him on a chair without upholstery.

Drunks were messy.

Rhys sipped in silence for a bit and Rarity watched him, debating with herself whether she’d need to get a bucket or not. He kept on sipping and, eventually, just to break the awful silence Rarity said:

“I must say I’m surprised to see you still here, Rhys. I was under the impression that today was the day you were to go through that portal Twilight has been working on.”

At least as far as Rarity knew.

It wasn’t something she followed particularly closely but she had heard it mentioned once or twice that all of Twilight’s hard work had finally started looking as though it was about to pay off and she’d finally got that portal she’d been tinkering with to work without collapsing violently.

All gibberish to Rarity, of course, but she’d smiled and nodded with the best of them while Twilight had gushed about dimensional this and stabilisation that. It was nice to see the girl so excited.

And, certainly, it really was a surprise to still see Rhys about. Rarity would have expected him to have been off like a shot at the first opportunity, pulling his usual ‘human goodbye’ and just slipping away without a word.

And yet, here he was. A little the worse for wear.

“Portal?” He asked, brow furrowed, screwing first one eye shut then the other in a feeble effort to get them to focus on the same thing at the same time. Rarity gritted her teeth and pulled in all her available patience.

“Yes dear. The portal? The one you’ve been helping Twilight with? To get you back home?” She asked.

‘Helping’ was a strong word here, but Rarity felt it was allowable in the circumstances.

Rhys blinked at her very, very slowly. He then burst out laughing.

This sudden shift in tone was alarming to say the least. Had he not already drunk half the water he would likely have spilled some, such was the violence of his laughing, doubling over the chair and nearly keeling over forward out of it before Rarity caught him. He did not notice her doing this, and he just kept on laughing.

They did tail off though and he sat up straight again, wiping away a tear and sniffing, shaking his head at a joke he’d clearly thought was just a riot.

“Aha, yeah, n’yeah. Portal was today, n’yeah,” he said.

Which did not explain anything about what had just happened.

“...so why are you still here? I would have thought you couldn’t wait to get back home.”

Normally it was about all he could talk about. Everything he said seemed to somehow loop back to where he was from and how much he was looking forward to being there again. Rarity barely spoke to him and she knew this to be the case. Indeed, it was because it was all he talked about that she rarely spoke to him. It got dull.

Rhys was shaking his head, rocking a little in the chair.

“N’didn’t work. S’no go. No go. Nope. Not going back,” he said, giggling again, then hiccuping.

Rarity was stunned. This was all so bizzare. What had happened? Some of her irritation on having been woken up so rudely began to melt away, replaced with a thirst for the hot gossip of the day. Why hadn’t she been notified?!

“Not going back? Whyever not?” She asked.

Rhys - taking another gulp of water and so unable to speak - waved a hand around. This told did not tell her much of anything.

“Nnothin’ to go back to,” he said.

“Nothing to go back to? Did the portal not work?”

Rhys had another minor attack of laughter, but much subdued compared to the last one. More of a flutter, really.

“Heh. N’no, t’worked. Worked alright. Got home. Jusht nothin’ there. Nothing there.”

Rarity felt that Rhys was probably not the best source of information available for this, at least not right at that moment. Then again, the only other one she could think of would be Twilight, who would be asleep. So that would make him the only source of information on the subject.

“That...how could that be?” She asked. Rhys shrugged. He’d looked quite chipper following his laughing fit, but that seemed now to be wearing off fast.

“S’time dilation or somethin’. Somethin’ like that. S’two years here, right? ‘Cos I’ve been here two years now, right?” He asked her.

“I am aware,” she said. Rhys nodded, albeit after a small delay.

“Right, yeah. Two years here, but, like, a million back home or somethin’. Longer maybe. Or not as long. S’doesn’t matter. Long time though. N’so when Twilight opens up that portal and we ‘ave a look through we got nothing. S’place is good. No, no, wrong. Wrong word. N’not good. S’gone! That’s the one. Gone. S’all gone.”

“Gone?”

“All gone! Jus’ nothin’. Not even grass! S’all dust. Sand,” he scratched his chin and squinted into middle distance. “Lotta sand. Maybe it was jus’ that bit we looked at I ‘unno. Maybe there was grass I did’n see. But Twilight said me to that there wasn’t anythin’ left. She had a look. Went off flyin’ fer a bit. Nothin’ left. All gone.”

Rarity gaped at him. Surely there had to be some mistake somewhere in this. Had he seen the wrong thing? Possibly. Seemed more likely that - given his current state - he was instead missing key details or muddling up the telling.

Slipping from the couch she’d been sitting on Rarity pulled over another chair of the kind she’d sat Rhys on and sat on it herself, putting them closer together and nearer the same level. Rhys did not notice this, at least until Rarity gently put a hoof onto his leg, whereupon he stared at it, mystified.

“White thingy. Oh! Hello,” he said, following the white thingy up to its owner and finding Rarity sat there.

“Hello,” she said, smiling politely. “Now Rhys, I’m afraid I couldn’t quite follow all of that - would you mind going over it again for me?”

“What again? Oh, right. Uh, portal, right? The thing?”

“Yes dear, the thing.”

“Right, right...could I hav’ more water, please?” He asked.

“Of course.”

This happened. Rarity came back, passed the glass back and sat again on the chair next to his. Rhys sipped and it became pretty obvious in the quiet that followed that he had forgotten what she’d asked him previously.

“Now, trying telling to me again. Slowly, dear. Take your time,” she said, patting him on the leg. He stared at her hoof, then it all came back to him.

“I dunno what you want me to say Rare-rar-Rarity, I said w’as all gone and it was - all gone! Nothin’ left,” he said.

“Yes but I’m unclear what you meant by ‘all’. ‘It’s all gone’ is very final. From the sound of things something was still there, at least. Sand, if nothing else.”

He giggled, hiccuped, nearly dropped the glass.

“Heh, yeah. Lotta sand. Maybe a new desert! Didn’you know ‘at you can get, like, deserts with cold? S’cos it’s got to do with, uh, moisture. I think? And, like, if’s too cold ‘en the moisture is all, like, stuck an’ - hang on, am I remembering this right?”

He frowned, looking around the room as though the answer was hidden there somewhere. Rarity lent forward and used a hoof on his jaw to gently get his attention back on her again.

“Dear, focus, focus.”

“Right, right. Sorry. Uh. You - n’you asked me somethin’?”

Drunks. Rarity took a calming breath and kept on smiling.

“What happened when you went through the portal Twilight made? What did you see? What was gone?”

He clearly couldn’t quite work out where she was coming at the question from. Then it seemed to penetrate his skull and his face lit up.

“Oh!” He declared. “Oh! I get it now. Yeah, yeah. N’now I get ya. Right, yeah, so, uh, people. People were gone. That’s what I meant. Planet was still there! With sand. N’and maybe other stuff I dunno - but no people. All gone, all gone people. Long, long gone. M’millions o’ years. Left without me! Haha. Ha. Ha.”

He trailed off then, staring down at he glass in his hands and what water remained in it. After a moment of consideration he raised it and drank the rest in one gulp before returning the glass to his lap and idly rolling it about between his hands.

“Ha,” he added, as an afterthought.

Rarity didn’t really know what to add to this or what to ask next.

She heard a sniffle and when she looked up found Rhys starting to cry. This she had not prepared for and this she did not know how to handle. Her eyes widened and, in a panic, she patted him on the knee.

“There there,” she said, cursing herself even as the words left her. Could she have said anything more useless?!

Luckily for her Rhys was too drunk and miserable to even notice.

“Can’t go home again. Heh. Eheheh. Hoo. Can’t…” he mumbled to himself, sniffing some more and wiping his eyes on the back of his sleeve.

This was not the Rhys that Rarity was familiar with. Up until right then even the possibility that he was capable of crying hadn’t crossed her mind. He was just so distant that it had never seemed an option for him.

Come to think of it, before tonight she didn’t think she’d ever actually seen Rhys looking anything other than grumpy and unapproachable. He’d spent all his time in Ponyville - all that two years he’d mentioned - either in his house or at Twilight’s. The times he’d actually joined in with anything or tried to make friends or anything even like that Rarity could count on a hoof.

Not that she had a whole let else she could count on, of course.

Shuffling to the edge of her own seat she magically plucked the glass from his hands and, while he looked about in confusion, reached over to take his now-free hands in her hooves. That got his attention.

“N’what? Did I do somethin’?” He asked.

“I’m very sorry, Rhys,” she said, looking him in the face though he turned away, sniffling some more. “Are you absolutely sure it was the right place?”

He just nodded, swallowed.

Rarity hadn’t expected a different answer. She trusted Twilight to have got it right.

She gave his hands a squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

Rhys shrugged and his hands withdrew, tucking underneath his armpits as she folded his arms across himself.

“S’sfine. I mean, s’not fine but s’nothin’ I can do ‘bout it. Happened,” he said.

“If there’s anything I can do for you…” Rarity said, realising there probably wasn’t but still feeling the need to offer. For such a large thing Rhys suddenly looked very small and just so overwhelmingly miserable. It was upsetting by proxy.

Rhys shook his head, pulled his arms about himself tighter.

“Nah, s’okay, s’okay. Jus’...they’re all gone. Everyone’s gone. Everything happened and I missed it. N’I don’t mind ‘at so much I guess. Most of what happened s’was prolly pretty bad. But I didn’t want to miss everyone. I - I had people. I wan’ned to see ‘em again. N’now I won’t. All gone.”

Proper crying now. Hands out from under armpits and pressed to face. Rarity stood up on the chair the better to pull him in for a hug. Rhys didn’t resist this.

“Shh, there there, poor boy, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, one hoof around his neck while the other rubbed his back. This made the crying worse, but in a cathartic kind of a way, a way that made it obvious he was getting it out, which was something.

A lot of what he said while bawling into Rarity’s neck was unclear. Here and there she picked out bits and pieces. Things about how he’d waited two years thinking every day of the moment he’d show up home again and how everyone would see he was back and how he’d cooked up all sorts of explanations for his absence and what he thought might have happened in the time he’d been gone and how much he’d missed everyone and how it had all been a waste of time.

Through all of this she soothed, rocked, rubbed his back.

Little by little Rhys tapered off and quietened down, moving through the dry, soundless, wracking sobs and eventually back into being settled again. Rarity could tell he’d made a mess of her coat. She’d kind of expected it. Worse things had happened.

He pulled back. He was now incredibly red in the face, particularly around the eyes but, again, expected. Despite this he looked better, as well as deeply embarrassed.

“S’sorry,” he mumbled, again unable to look her in the face, up until she again tilted his chin so he had no choice.

“Nothing to be sorry about, dear. It’s good to let it out. Do you feel better?”

Rhys nodded, shrugged.

“Little,” he said.

“Well I’m glad to have helped even a little. If there’s anything else you need - anything at all, any time, you just ask. Okay?”

Rhys squinted at her. He could have sworn she’d been annoyed with him a second ago for having shown up so late. Or had he imagined that? The way she was smiling at him made him think he was probably imagining it. Weird.

Probably nothing.

“S’okay,” he said. “S’just - s’just thing. I’ll get over it. Shouldn’t ‘ave got my hopes up, really. Stupid.”

“Don’t say that,” Rarity said, sternly. She was still standing up, using his shoulders to keep balanced. It was a level of closeness Rhys really wasn’t used to with ponies. Had he not been drunk he probably would have felt distinctly uncomfortable about it. In the event, he did not.

Not at all, in fact.

“Sorry…” He said, realising belatedly that he’d been staring and so turning away again to mumble: “N’now m’jus here…n’don’t belon’ here…”

She pulled him in for another hug, he didn’t resist this.

“Don’t say that either, darling. You’re perfectly welcome here and belong as much as anypony. Don’t even think otherwise.”

“Sorry,” Rhys said, muffled.

“And stop apologising.”

“Sorry,” he said. Then, on noticing what he’d said, added: “Sorry.”

The hug continued a little longer and then broke, Rarity backing up and settling back on the seat, leaving Rhys looking a bit lost and confused. He got over it.

“I should - I should go. Already woke you up. You can go back to bed, I’ll go,” she said, gesturing towards the door and gathering the energy to rise from the chair. A hoof on the knee stopped him cold.

“Nonsense darling. I can’t have you walking all the home in the dark, can I? You can sleep here. The sofa is especially comfortable,” Rarity said.

Or so she’d heard. Rhys followed the direction she was pointing in and saw the sofa in question. It looked small but, he had to admit, comfortable. Some feat to look comfortable at a distance.

“...issit?” He asked.

“It is, yes.”

Couldn’t really argue with that.

The water had done much to clarify Rhys’s thinking but the crying had done a lot to give him a splitting headache, so thinking straight was still a hair’s breadth beyond him. He peered at Rarity trying to work out what the deal was. He barely knew the woman. Had spoken to her, what? Twice? Three times? And even then only at those ghastly events he’d been dragged to?

Why was he being so bloody nice?

“You - n’you don’t hav’ to do that, Rarity. S’fine. M’fine,” he said, failing to reach any conclusions as to why she was being so bloody nice and so just giving up trying.

“I don’t have to, no. But I want to. After what’s happened you shouldn’t have to be alone. I’ll get you some blankets. If you need anything else - even if it’s just company - you come and you wake me up. Don’t even hesitate,” she said, hopping down from the chair and trotting off to - presumably - get blankets. Rhys watched her go, dumbly.

“I couldn’t do that…”

She turned on the spot, stood up straight, smiled.

“I insist that you do! If I was in your position...well…” The smile dimmed a little as she tried to imagine even for a moment what it would be like. Even hypothetically she wasn’t a fan. Why Rhys had chosen to get bladdered she could now understand.

Quite why Twilight had felt it acceptable to just let him wander off after learning that his world had ended and everyone he’d known in it had moved on was, ah, unclear. Rarity felt she should probably have words with her about it tomorrow. She was sure there was an explanation.

Still. That was tomorrow and right now was right now. Rarity put the smile back on again and concluded: “If I was in your position, darling, I wouldn’t want to be alone. It is the least I can do.”

Rhys swallowed, screwed his eyes shut a second and just said:

“Thank you.”

With this Rarity bounded off to go get blankets, leaving Rhys on his own. He watched her disappear up the stairs and listened to her clatter about above. He thought about what had happened today and was clear-headed enough now that it was really starting to sink in.

Though no so clear-headed that the room wasn’t starting to spin.

Bending over double Rhys clutched his skull with both hands and sucked in a breath.

“Oh my fukcin’ head…” he groaned.

Then, more quietly, just to himself:

“Everyone’s gone…”

Two

Author's Note

No-one asked for this but I did it anyway.

Hmm, good title for my autobiography...

Two

Rhys woke up and immediately regretted it.

His first impressions were that he did not feel great. The second - which took a few seconds of groaning and writhing and blinking to sink in - was that he was not somewhere he recognised.

He was on a sofa, for one. That wasn’t right. He slept in a bed. A tiny bed that wasn’t made for him. A bed he hung over the edge of and could never get comfortable on. This sofa, at least, was comfortable but that didn’t answer the important question: why was he on a sofa?

And, more importantly still, whose sofa was it?

“The hell? Where - “ Rhys mumbled, wincing in the brightness of the world in general, trying to move away from it while also staying as still as possible. Obviously this didn’t really do much for him, practically speaking.

Then it all came back to him. In bits and pieces. Like someone had thrown a handful of a jigsaw at his face. They weren’t really in the right order these bits and pieces but he could put it together enough for it to make sense. If he took it a step at a time.

This was Rarity’s house. He was in Rarity’s house because he’d got drunk and wound up there...somehow. The exact details of that part were fuzzy, but that it had happened was not. It must had done because, well, he was. And now here he was on her sofa. Because she’d let him stay here for...some reason.

And he’d got drunk because…

Oh. Oh yes. That.

“Fuck…” he groaned, closing his eyes.

He was most certainly not going to think about that. There was just too much. Where would he even start? At the end, with the absolute, crushing weight of how pointless the whole thing had been? Or at the start, with how overwhelmingly hopeful he’d been on hearing that Twilight - a magical princess, no less - was on the case and adamant she’d be able to get him home?

Or in the middle, maybe? After he’d spent a year away from everyone he knew, surrounded by strangers who weren’t the right shape, dreading what he might find once he did actually get back home, worrying what they’d all say on finding he’d just appeared again. They’d be happy, of course, but they’d also be pretty damn angry. He’d have to get his story straight.

That had been his concern about a year in. Moot point now, obviously.

No, no, no thinking about that. Not even thinking about thinking about it. It just made him upset. Already he could feel that prickling in his eyes again and he wasn’t having that. He’d cried enough last night. That he could most certainly remember. Embarrassing - humiliating! A proper man cried alone, if at all.

Certainly not onto the tiny shoulder of a technicolour stranger.

“Fuck it,” Rhys said to himself.

He then attempted to move again, this time properly, tried to sit up. A grave mistake. He very quickly stopped trying to move and his head took some further minutes following this to properly forgive him and settle down and stop spinning.

This at least gave him something else to think about. Or not think about, rather. He did his best to think about anything other than vomiting, and so in doing thought about vomiting and how much it felt like he was just about to. Thankfully for everyone he did not. Yet.

“Fuck...again…” he said.

The hangover had done awful things to his vocabulary as well as the rest of him, apparently.

“Rhys?” Came a quiet voice from somewhere that seemed like up above, floating on downwards. “Are you awake?”

He raised an arm, an action complicated by having it briefly tangled in a blanket that had at some point been laid over him. This seemed an acceptable level of movement, but was about as far as he was willing to risk it. He gave the arm a wave.

“Yup. Awake. Morning. Uh, Rarity?”

He still had his eyes closed and it sure sounded like Rarity and he could remember her from last night, but who knew what had happened since then? One time he’d woken up in a second-hand car dealers after having vaulted the fence for reasons that to this day remained obscure. Anything can happen during a rough night.

The giggle that followed kind of confirmed who it was though, and there followed the sound of hooves descending a staircase.

Rhys listened to her approach and she did so slowly, coming to a halt close enough to him that he could hear her breathing. He’d let his hand flop onto the floor after waving it about and a moment after she’d come over she put a hoof onto it. He didn’t bother pulling away. It would just hurt his head.

“How are you feeling?” Rarity asked, softly.

A good question, and one with a straightforward answer.

“Everything feels...awful…but I’m alright though. Just - just gotta stay here a bit. And not move. At all,” Rhys said. Then, as an afterthought, as the consequences of what he’d said sunk in, he cracked an eye and added: “Uh, if that’s okay. I can go if you need me to.”

He’d just have to crawl back to the house if this was the case. But so what? He could probably manage that in reasonable time and, really, worse things had happened, hadn’t they? As recently as yesterday in fact. It was all uphill from here for Rhys. Or just staying at the bottom forever. Whichever worked.

Rarity giggled again, lightly, presumably in a fashion that was supposed to be reassuring and breezy. Surprisingly it actually did come across as pleasantly reassuring, at least as far as Rhys was concerned. Just sounded nice.

“You don’t have to go anywhere, darling. You stay right there as long as you need to,” she said.

As delightful as this was to hear Rhys still felt compelled to try and get her to change her mind and throw him out. She must have wanted to. Why wouldn’t she? He was being an imposition. She was just being polite.

“I’m not in the way? Don’t you have, uh, a business to run?” He asked.

“Not today, no. Today I am running errands,” she said, removing her hoof from his hand and stepping back smartly.

“Oh. That’s lucky,” he said.

Rhys could not work out if she was doing this just because he was there or if his timing had just been good. She wasn’t giving him any clues and he did not feel like asking outright. He wasn’t winning this one, he could tell.

And so he gave up.

“Thank you,” he said.

“That’s quite alright, dear. Now, I will be back shortly. If you feel up to it before then, feel free to help yourself to water or anything you like. Do you remember where the kitchen is?”

He had watched her go and get water last night, after all, but it paid to be sure. He hadn’t exactly been in the best of conditions for noticing or remembering things. Rhys thought a moment and then gestured vaguely towards where he thought the kitchen might be relative to the sofa.

“Over there?” He asked.

He was mostly right.

“Just so, dear. As I say, feel free.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool. I’ll probably - just need to rest a while. Then I’ll go,” he said.

“Whatever works best for you, Rhys,” Rarity said, giving him the most delicate of pats on the shoulder before turning and flouncing off.

She spent the next few minutes moving about the place, humming happily to herself and sorting out her saddlebags and bits and such. Rhys remained utterly motionless, eyes closed again, thinking about not throwing up.

The humming helped, actually. Something to focus on.

When he heard Rarity moving across the floor towards the door and away from him he piped up again:

“Hey, uh, Rarity?”

“Yes dear?”

He swallowed, then:

“I’m - I’m really sorry about last night. And this. You should have just sent me back to mine.”

Rarity didn’t say anything to this and Rhys was deeply worried that what he’d said had landed badly. There came the creaking of the floor again and he risked opening up one eye once more, seeing Rarity approach, looking concerned.

She did not actually say anything. Perhaps she felt she didn’t need to. Instead, she removed the bags she’d slung over herself and then, very delicately, rose up on her hindlegs and gave Rhys the best hug she could given his rather awkward position splayed across her sofa.

Various ponies had tried hugging Rhys during his time away from home. None had done it for very long as it was not something he enjoyed on any particular level and so was something he often got them to stop as soon as possible. Most all had now learnt not to, not that they often got the chance anyway - his height typically made hugging impractical unless they felt like grabbing him about the knees.

Which worked for Rhys. The less the better. There was just something about it that made him deeply uncomfortable. Something he’d never given a whole lot of thought to.

They just weren’t the right shape. It bothered him.

Then though, right then that didn’t seem to happen. Just like last night, although then he’d the excuse of being blind drunk. Even when he noticed how warm Rarity was, and felt a hoof of hers just gently rubbing his back. And how she smelt, too. That was particularly strong. Impossible not to notice, really. Even then no discomfort or desire to gently but firmly remove her.

Maybe he was already uncomfortable enough, so it didn’t register? Maybe it was just the pounding in his head? Maybe, maybe.

This hug held for a little moment and then Rarity, with a smile, extricated herself, picked the bags up again and left properly this time, all without a word. Rhys watched her go and watched the door close behind her.

He didn’t really know what to make of that. Certainly had no clear idea why she’d thought it was the thing she should have done, but he would have been lying had he said it hadn’t been a pleasant experience and one that somehow just made him feel...better.

Intangibly better, of course. Tangibly speaking he still felt Godawful. But you take what you can get.

With one eye still open and the brightness of the day coming in through the windows seeming now not quite as agonising as it had been not that long ago, Rhys took a look around. Just to get an idea of things. The previous night he hadn’t exactly been taking notes.

His position wasn’t exactly the best, and he couldn’t see a whole lot from it. Door. Rug. Windows. Mannequins? Not a lot he could work with, really.

He also saw that, at some point, Rarity had put a bucket beside the sofa. He groaned and felt like a disgusting, vomit-packed millstone around her neck and the neck of everyone else but couldn’t really do much about it. He would have rolled over but he dared not risk it. Instead, he closed his eye again. Much better.

“Just go back to sleep,” he said to himself through gritted teeth.” Back to sleep, back to sleep fucker, go on…sleep it off and wake up before she gets back and get up and go back hom-”

Rhys cut himself off there and bit his tongue.

“Back to the house,” he corrected.

He’d been back home yesterday. It was how he’d ended up on this sofa.

Never again.

As a matter of fact Rarity really did have things she needed to do in town, so her line about having errands to run was not one she’d just been feeding Rhys to keep him placated.

She pottered hither and yon, buying some bits and pieces and chatting here and there as was custom. This meandering path eventually led - not entirely by accident - around to Twilight’s, whereupon she knocked on the door.

No response. She knocked again. Nothing. She tried the bell. More nothing.

After what felt like long enough to consider leaving, the door finally opened, and there stood Twilight, looking a touch on the frazzled and sleepy side, like someone who’d just woken up and wasn’t sure they had woken up yet.

“Oh, hello Twilight, I was rather expecting Spike to be the one to open the door,” Rarity said.

“Right? Talk about dereliction of duty. He’s off somewhere,” Twilight said, yawning, rubbing her eyes.

“That so? Doing anything exciting?”

Twilight tapped her chin. He had explained it but in all honesty she might have been a tiny bit distracted at the time. She really couldn’t recall.

“You know, I don’t know,” she said, stifling another yawn.

One of those things.

“I haven’t woken you up or anything, have I darling?” Rarity asked, far too late. Twilight waved her off.

“No it’s fine. Overslept anyway. Tiring day yesterday. You here for…?” Twilight asked, squinting outward from the doorway.

“Well, being out in town - just to run some errands, you see - I was passing and thought that I might have a word. There was something I rather wanted to talk to you about,” Rarity said.

“Oh? What?”

Rarity took a moment to glance at the bags she was carrying and then asked:

“May I come in?”

The answer to this was yes and so this was what Rarity did, shrugging off her bags once inside and settling in for a proper chat in more comfortable surroundings. Twilight picked a chair, Rarity a sofa for the sofa was the superior choice.

Once settled and smoothed out Rarity said:

“Well, as I was saying, last night I was lucky enough to, ah, enjoy an unexpected visit from a rather tired and emotional Rhys.”

“Tired and emotional?” Twilight asked. She wasn’t familiar with the term. Well, she was familiar with those two words separately, but it was obvious that Rarity was using them here paired quite deliberately, and that was where the confusion arose.

“Drunk, dear,” Rarity said.

Learn something new every day. Twilight blinked, acknowledged this.

“Oh, right. How’d that go?” She asked.

Rarity thought she saw some fluff on one of her hooves and, frowning, flicked it off. Could have been imagining things, but it paid to be sure. Ponies might talk otherwise. Once satisfied all was as it should be once more she answered:

“It was rather enlightening, I must admit. Certainly showed me a side of him I hadn’t really seen before. Or even imagined had existed, if I’m being honest. I’d always found his obsession with going home rather myopic, frankly, not to mention unconvincing. He never seemed to show any real passion for the place, he just talked about going there as though he was discussing the weather. I always thought if he had as much fun there as he does here then I could hardly see the point…”

After all, had he seemed excited or animated on those occasions he spoke of home then perhaps she might have understood it. If he’d spoken fondly of any particular person there or any particular place. If he’d smiled when speaking about it, maybe, or given even the merest glimmer that he had actually been desperately missing the place. But he never had.

He’d always been the same, dreary, withdrawn Rhys he was whenever he was talking about anything else. It had just not seemed especially important, at least as far as Rarity could see. Just something he brought up out of a lack of anything else to talk about.

Last night, though…

Sniffing, straightening, Rarity resumed:

“In vino veritas, I believe the expression goes, and certainly whatever reserved front Rhys felt he had needed to put up came away. I felt he was truly open with me. Maybe for the first time with anypony since he arrived here! I saw how much he’d been waiting and hoping for the moment he’d get to go home, and how distraught he was that he wasn’t going to be able to,” she said.

“Got a feeling this is going to be linking back to me in a second,” Twilight said.

She was not wrong.

“On a related note, I hear from Rhys that that portal of yours was finally put into operation yesterday,” Rarity said. Twilight grimaced and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Ugh, yeah. That was - well that was pretty depressing, actually. Mean, I was prepared for a lot of things once we got through but I wasn’t prepared for that. Poor Rhys…”

Indeed, Twilight had run all manner of contingency simulations through her head, accounting for a vast - frankly, unnecessarily vast - range of possible environments and scenarios they might have encountered. Lions? Tigers? Bears? All three, all at once? Oh my.

These and more she had considered and planned for until she was utterly convinced that she would have an answer to anything Rhys’s home universe might throw at them on their arrival.

The possibility that what they would encounter would just be, well, nothing, hadn’t really occurred to her. At least not at any great length.

A hostile nothing? Sure. The absence of that which was required for life to exist? Certainly possible. Some kind of lifeless vacuum? Maybe. That’s why she’d gone through first and made that bubble for Rhys, just in case.

But they hadn’t needed it. The nothing they’d found had been perfectly mundane and non-threatening but it had also been absolute and all-encompassing, at least as far as the planet went. Rhys could have walked around for hours entirely unprotected in perfect safety.

It just wouldn’t have got him anywhere. Because there was nowhere for him to go.

“I don’t mean to criticise, darling, but how could you let him be on his own after seeing him go through such a thing?” Rarity asked, delicately.

That brought Twilight back to the present with a bump.

“He told me he was fine,” She said. Rarity blinked at her in abject disbelief and Twilight kind of got the feeling she was being tangentially accused of something here. She bristled. “He did! I asked him if there was anything I could do and he said no he’d be alright. Then he just went off. You know what he’s like, he’s always on his own. I just thought that’s what he wanted to do…”

In Twilight’s defence she wasn’t wrong. He was always on his own.

Barring those times when not being alone was foisted on him, obviously. And even then he only put up with it long enough so that everypony stopped watching him so closely, whereupon he’d slip away. This hadn’t done his reputation for friendliness many favours, and by this point most had stopped bothering.

Not that he seemed to care. Not that anypony had ever asked if he cared.

“Since when are you concerned with how happy Rhys is, anyway? I thought you didn’t like him,” Twilight said, still feeling a touch prickly from what felt like accusations of carelessness and callousness.

And this wasn’t ‘thought you didn’t like him’ in the sense of actively, out-and-out disliking him, more in the sense of not thinking especially highly of him and thinking him a little on the uncouth and unfriendly side.

In Rarity’s defence this time Rhys was uncouth and unfriendly, so that part was understandable.

Still, Rarity was wounded by such harsh words. She put a hoof to her chest and flicked back her mane with the daintiest of huffing sounds.

“I’m not. I don’t!” She said. “I didn’t, I mean,” she clarified. Twilight raised an eyebrow. Odd thing to feel the need to clarify.

“But you do now because he woke you up drunk? And was open with you? Drunkenly?” She asked.

“I’m concerned because he’s clearly very upset about what happened! As could only be expected. He was in a frightful state when I found him. And I don’t just mean drunk, of course. Poor boy was in bits. Understandably so! One can only imagine how he must have felt. And to have to deal with that all on his own! Well. I struggle to think of anypony who wouldn’t fall to pieces,” Rarity said, a hoof theatrically held to her forehead in all the right spots in her spiel.

Twilight, used to this sort of thing, was unmoved.

“Don’t think him arriving on your doorstep by mistake really constitutes you ‘finding’ him…” She muttered. Rarity narrowed her eyes.

“The point is,” she said firmly. “I am concerned for his welfare. As concerned as I would be for the welfare for anypony else in town had they also received such dreadful news. That’s all.”

Stranger things had happened, albeit not often. Twilight decided that it was too early in the day she’d had too little coffee or time awake to really feel especially strongly about it one way or another. It had happened, for whatever reason, and there it was. Rarity cared now. Fine.

“Right, right. So what happened with him? Is he okay?” She asked, feeling they were perhaps drifting off topic or at least onto a portion of the topic that was away from the important bits, the important bits being whether Rhys was even still alive or not. Seemed important.

“I gave him some water, let him get some of his melancholy out of his system and then put him to bed, as it were. A sofa, technically. Presently I imagine he is sleeping off the effects of last night,” Rarity said.

“Where? His place?”

“No, my sofa. The nice one.”

They were all nice, but one was especially nice. Twilight knew the one and so this came as something of a surprise. She herself had once been holding a drink and had dared to move too close to the nice sofa. That Rarity had let a drunken Rhys sleep on it seemed unlikely. Perhaps she’d heard wrong.

“You let him stay the night?” Twilight asked. Again Rarity made a teeny little huffing sound, cheeks momentarily puffed from the insinuation that she might have turfed out somepony so helpless.

“Why wouldn’t I? I could hardly have sent him on his way. He couldn’t walk straight, certainly couldn’t have found his way back to his home in the dark. And what sort of pony would I have been, expecting him to? It was the least I could do in the circumstances.”

Thinking about it, Twilight could see her reasoning. Still seemed a bit odd to her though.

“Suppose,” she said, scratching her chin again and then pausing, finding a piece of parchment stuck to it. How long had that been there? How had it been stuck there?

Here the conversation faltered, as neither of them were really sure of where they wanted it to actually go. Sitting in her chair Twilight kicked her hooves a little while Rarity busied herself with more possibly-imaginary fluff.

“So…” Twilight said, at length, just at the moment when Rarity asked:

“Is there nothing else you can do for him?”

Twilight wasn’t entirely sure what Rarity was getting at here.

“For Rhys? Like what? Like about the portal?” She asked.

Rarity nodded. Twilight blew out a breath. Not an easy proposition.

Nothing was impossible, obviously, as evidenced by Twilight having already having managed to burrow through dimensions through nothing but grit, determination, ingenuity and applied magical theory.

But between possible and impossible lay vast tracts of varying levels of difficulty, and given where the portal had taken her and Rhys she had to imagine that succeeding in getting him to where and when he should have been was sitting somewhere in the ‘very difficult’ part of the tract.

So to speak.

“Mean, the portal was already some work on its own. Fascinating stuff, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t easy. I’d love to get him back home, I really would, but this time problem...it’s a big one,” Twilight said.

“Surely not insurmountable?”

Twilight gave Rarity some prime side-eye.

“I can’t travel through time, Rarity,” Twilight said, but on reflection felt compelled to say: “Well, I can. I mean, I have. And so have a few others. Sometimes. But there are limits, not to mention a lot of unknowns. I mean I can always look into it.”

“Could you?” Rarity asked, somewhere in the borderlands of pleading but not quite actually there.

If it wasn’t one thing it was another. Still, Twilight hadn’t been lying, the problem of attempting to bridge the dimensional gap had been a fascinating exercise, and had brought up a lot of stuff that she wouldn’t have minded going back to because of the tantalising possibilities they presented and the juicy, juicy work involved in getting at those possibilities.

And the actually achieving any measure of success? With such an intractable, seemingly-impossible problem? To actually achieve it, even a little bit? To chip away at intractable issues that had baffled those who’d come before? To add just that little more to the gestalt of ponykind’s magical knowledge?

Well...

“Sure, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll look into it. But I can’t make any promises, okay? Don’t go getting your hopes up. Or going and getting his up, either,” Twilight said, mind already starting to buzz in that very particular way when it had latched onto something.

And not getting Rhys’ hopes seemed a fair precaution. Not after what getting his hopes up the last time apparently did.

“Of course not, darling! I shan’t even mention it to him, not until I’ve heard from you!” Rarity said, swiping a hoof across her lips to emphatically demonstrate that her lips were zipped - sealed!

Twilight didn’t really buy this, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it either way and besides, the buzzing had resolved now into half a dozen separate ideas and thoughts all vying for her attention, which made it difficult to focus.

With that settled it was silently, mutually decided that the conversation had ended. Rarity slipped from her seat and picked her bags up again before accompanying Twilight back to the front door of the place.

“And thank you again, Twilight” Rarity said on the threshold.

Twilight was already squinting in the daylight coming through the open door, but this made confusion add further to the squint.

“Don’t know why you’re thanking me,” she said.

“Because I asked you for a favour, darling! And you’re going to do your best to deliver on it. And it’s a nice thing you’re doing. Lots of reasons,” Rarity said with a titter and a waft of her hoof which did little to alleviate Twilight’s confusion.

“Oh, right. Well like I say, there are no guarantees. This whole thing could fail before it even starts, so just bear that in mind. In the meantime should we, uh, check on Rhys or something?” She asked. Seemed like it might be a good idea, given what Rarity had said about his recent behaviour.

As aloof as he was and as robust as he liked to pass himself off as, everyone had a breaking point and, well, if learning that you couldn’t go home because your home and everyone in it was gone wasn’t one of them what was?

“The state the poor boy was in I expect he’s exactly where he was the last time I saw him - on the sofa, probably asleep. I’ll make sure he’s alright and that he gets home safe,” Rarity said.

Again concern from Rarity and, again, done with such breezy lightness. Twilight considered maybe pressing the issue, maybe insisting on going in and following up on Rhys - she had been the one to see his home as well, after all - but something in her waters told her that having two ponies come to check on him would just do more harm than good, make him feel like he was being ganged up on. Odd boy.

“Hmm, if you’re sure,” she said, stifling a yawn.

“I am I am, don’t you worry about Rhys, I’ll keep an eye on him! But I’ve taken up quite enough of your time, I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get back to bed, or, well, whatever you’d like. And thank you again, Twilight!”

With that off Rarity went, humming to herself, happy as anything. Twilight watched her go until she was out of sight then stayed standing there a moment more, brain fizzing quietly to itself.

“That was weird,” she said eventually, going back inside again.

By the time Rarity got back to hers, Rhys was nowhere to be seen. Or at least he wasn’t where she’d left him on the sofa. Where he should have been and where Rarity had been expecting him was instead the blanket that had been draped over him, neatly folded up. This came as something of a surprise.

On a hunch she moved on through toward the kitchen, just on the off-chance that maybe he was at that very moment getting some water, say.

But no, he was gone.

Rarity had to admit to feeling unexpectedly upset about that. She’d rather been looking forward to telling him the good news. Or not out-and-out telling him - she had promised, after all - but maybe just hinting that good news was on the way. That would be vague enough to not qualify as having spilled the beans and would also doubtless cheer him up! Everyone would have won.

But no, he was gone. Hmm.

“Rhys? Hello?” Rarity called out, just in case, but no response. Not that she’d honestly expected one. She sighed. “I hope he got home alright, at least…”

Her eyes then alighted on what appeared to be note, left out in a place where she would notice it. So far so successful if that was the case. Curious, she dropped her bags and moved over, levitating up the note and bringing it in for a closer look.

A note it was indeed, and the note read:

“Hello Rarity.

I already said thank you but I want to say it again because I mean it. Thank you. You didn’t have to do what you did for me because I know you don’t like me but you did it anyway, so thank you for that.

(Should probably have just written out ‘thank you’ twenty times, it’d be simpler.)

I’m totally fine now so don’t worry about me. I owe you one. Not that I’m good for a whole lot, but I owe you one. You need a lightbulb changed, I’ll hook you up. Or something. That’s a joke. Batteries in your smoke detector. That’s another joke. Thank you. Again.

And sorry for using this bit of paper I found. I hope it wasn’t important. Sorry.

Rhys.

(The human)”

It was one of the more awkward things that Rarity had read but it did get the point across, she supposed. Poor boy didn’t need to apologise quite so much.

Sighing, Rarity put the note back down again. She’d follow him up about how he was tomorrow. Assuming she saw him, of course. Didn’t want to crowd him after all.

He did say he was fine, for however much she actually believed him.

Three

Author's Note

Continued events and words.

Three

Some time passed, or at least a little bit of time, some of it notable, most of it not.

There were no magical hijinks or shinegans, which was a pleasant change of pace. Instead it was simply life trundling on for a week or so, quietly grinding onward. Rarity took the opportunity this afforded her to really knuckle - or the nearest pony equivalent - down and get some work done, barely finding the time to surface and go off and do yet-more errands.

And when she did, quite by chance, she ran into Twilight. She too was out and about doing things after almost non-stop work having kept her inside, albeit of a different sort. Life is riven with coincidences and unexpected encounters. The universe practically ran on them.

“Twilight, darling! I haven’t seen you in, well, days! Not since I saw you last!” Rarity declared after quite literally bumping into Twilight.

“By definition-” she started, but Rarity could see where it was going immediately.

“You know what I mean! However have you been?” She asked.

“Oh you know, busy busy, just doing stuff,” Twilight said, chuckling, shrugging, scratching her neck. She’d been so deep in so many books the last few days that she’d kind of lost how actually speaking with words was meant to go. It was coming back to her, but in spurts.

“How very descriptive of you, Twilight. I too have been engaged in ‘stuff’. I’ve been very productive with my ‘stuff’ which is lucky as I had a lot of ‘stuff’ that needed getting a handle on and - if I say so myself - I got all the ‘stuff’ done that needed doing and then some more besides!”

This was a lot for a very tired and frazzled Twilight to take in.

“...what?” She asked, bewildered.

Rarity frowned.

“I made dresses, dear. A lot of dresses. And one pair of trousers,” she said.

A very fine pair of trousers at that, too, some of Rarity’s best trouserwork to date, were she of a mind to actually say so, which she was not.

Twilight caught up.

“Oh. Oh! That’s great!” She said.

“It is!”

Just for a change of topic and just to keep things going Rarity then asked, brightly:

“Have you seen Rhys recently?”

‘Rhysently’ was a word that popped into the heads of both mares, who also both decided to keep this a secret forever. No good could come of such questionable wordplay.

“No. Why?” Twilight asked.

“Just curious, dear. I haven’t of late and, well, you’re the only other pony I can think of that he might have had cause to visit,” Rarity said.

“Other than who?”

“Why, me!” Rarity said, as though this should be obvious, and when Twilight failed to immediately see how obvious this was Rarity pressed: “Well, he might have come to see me. He has precedent. He did before, after all.”

“When he was drunk. And thought your house was his house. On account of being so drunk,” Twilight pointed out.

If she’d meant this to puncture Rarity’s sense of importance in this rather specific scenario she was to be disappointed.

“True. But still. The point remains! You are the only one I am aware of that he used to see on a regular basis. Or semi-regular, as it might have been. So I merely thought it might be sensible to ask.”

Rarity deciding that she was one of the ones that Rhys would visit at all still seemed like a bit of a jump to Twilight but clearly it was what she’d settled on, so hell. No sense in attempting to undermine that right now.

“I haven’t seen him, sorry. After the other day he hasn’t come around. Hasn’t really had any reason to, I guess, given that I haven’t mentioned that I’m trying to see if there’s a way around what happened,” Twilight said, shrugging.

Twilight’s present time-portal based research was in very, very early stages and so Rhys was not yet required anyway. It was all theoretical at the moment, and she didn’t need him moping around the place to help her theorise. Later, if things looked promising, then he could be told and brought in if she needed him. For now, no. Hence.

Rarity frowned, concern mounting by degrees.

“At all?” She asked.

“Not once, Rarity, no.”

“Hmm…” Rarity hummed, thinking, looking off to the side.

She had gone around to his the day after, just as she’d planned, but he had not been at home. Or at the least there hadn’t been any response to her knocking, so she’d just assumed that he was doing something and that was that. Hammering on the door and yelling likely would have done more harm than good, she’d reasoned at the time. Not to mention being an uncouth thing entirely unsuitable for a proper lady.

If he’d been in he would have stuck his head out, at least, she had concluded at the time, and that had been the end of it for that day.

Beyond that she hadn’t given it much thought, assuming that, as he’d said, he was fine and that he’d probably pop up at some point and she could ask him then. Only not, apparently, as he had not popped up.

Twilight watched her closely a moment then asked:

“Are you worried about him?

Which snapped Rarity out of whatever she’d been thinking about.

“No. Well, yes. Perhaps. Just a little bit. I mean, he’s hardly the most sociable but it’s still a touch unusual not to see anything of him, isn’t it? For days on end?”

Not many days agreeably, but still. More than one seemed cause for concern in both their books. And sure, they’d both been shut up inside during those days so the possibility existed that he’d been pulling cartwheels twenty-four seven throughout town while they’d been busy, but it didn’t seem that likely somehow.

Twilight frowned, scratched her chin.

“Now you come to mention it. I don’t think anyone’s said anything about him...”

Normally he might be spotted once or twice, slouching around. Sometimes ponies would wave and he would make the minimum amount of gesture in response as required by politeness, but generally nopony bothered.

By and large these excursions were just for him to get something to eat before immediately heading back to his house to shut himself away again, but that was still at least some sign of life. Nothing at all was worrying now they’d noticed and now they thought about it.

“Should we...go check?” Twilight asked, feeling an unpleasant pang of guilt for not having picked up on any of this sooner - it simply hadn’t crossed her mind.

“Perhaps we should…” Rarity said, thinking, then concluded and so adding: “Ah! But, not together, I think, hmm? Wouldn’t want to overwhelm the poor boy, would we? You know how he can get.”

She signed this off with a breezy laugh, just to demonstrate what a lark all this was to her. She was taking it seriously, obviously, but not overly seriously. This should be clear. She was only lightly concerned, only in passing.

This was not the first time this particular argument had come up, Twilight noticed, and while it still held water she did feel she was starting to notice a pattern.

“So I’ll go?” She ventured, though something told her that this wasn’t how this conversation was going. Rarity gave a tiny jolt, eyes widening for a fraction of a second before another breezy laugh snapped in to cover up this tiny flutter.

“No no! I’m sure you must have all sorts of things demanding your attention, Twilight, no! I’m having rather a quiet day as it is - I’ll go,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“Of course of course, it’ll just be a flying visit I’m sure - I’m sure he’s perfectly fine! Well, as fine as can be expected, at least, given his recent, ah, circumstances. Likely we’ve just not seen him about of late, and that’ll be all it is. Coincidence, you know. These things happen, life goes on,” Rarity said with a deep and thoughtful wave of a hoof. This Twilight regarded with some confusion.

“They do, it does…” She said.

Not a whole lot else she felt she could add, really.

Rarity’s reasoning for wanting to go and check on Rhys herself was more-or-less as she’d explained it to Twilight - one pony on their own would hopefully make him feel less like he was being ganged up on, something that would probably only make things worse, whatever things turned out to be.

The other side of the reasoning and the side that she’d kept to herself was that, apropos largely of nothing, thanks to her prior handling of a drunken, emotional Rhys she felt that she now understood him on some deeper level and so would be better able to determine if he truly was as fine as he claimed to be.

So ran her logic at least, and to her it seemed iron-clad.

And so it was that she was humming quite happily and quite confidently to herself as she went on her way, across and through town, onward towards the periphery of Ponyville, where sat Rhy’s house.

His was a small house, formerly abandoned, out toward the outskirts as said. He’d been offered larger - offered bespoke, indeed, but he’d politely declined - but had picked this one.

From what Twilight had said this was on account of him feeling that it would have been wasteful otherwise. Not that he’d done much with the place since. It was livable, just, and wasn’t falling down yet, which was a start.

The garden was free of weeds, too, on the plus side. It was free of weeds because it was entirely free of life, contrasting rather alarmingly with everything else around it. How he’d managed that was an open question the answer to which no-one really wanted to go to the trouble of asking.

Taking all of this in Rarity swallowed, and made her up the path to the front door whereupon she raised a hoof and she knocked.

No response. Much the same as last time. She knocked again.

Again, silence. This time though Rarity felt a mounting sense of concern. Once she could have shrugged it off as him just not being in - it could happen, after all - twice was just unlikely. This was Rhys, after all. Where did he have to? What did he have to do?

“Rhys?” She tried, loud enough that she hoped he’d be able to hear on the inside, not so loud that it might cause the beginnings of a scene. “Are you home?”

Some more knocking, some more nothing.

“Hello?” Rarity said, rearing up to peer through the grimy window set up in the door. This showed her nothing, at least at first, then she caught sight of something moving. Just in time, too, as seeing this meant she avoided being knocked back just a moment later.

The door opened, creaking.

And there in all his half-dressed, unshaven, shabby glory was Rhys. The glory in question was even more pronounced than it usually was, which was saying something.

Rarity could tell immediately that he had not washed, either, probably not since she’d seen him last. It would have been difficult for her not to tell this.

“Rarity?” He asked, squinting in the sunshine, stooped to peer through the pony-sized door. “What - why are you here?”

Taking a second or so to get over the veritable wall of Rhys wafting out toward her Rarity put on a friendly, casual face - as might be expected from an acquaintance just popping by because they happened to be in the area - and drew herself up on the spot.

“Well, I was simply passing by and I thought to myself that I should say hello, darling! I haven’t seen you since, well, the other day, yes, and I was wondering how you were doing! That’s all.”

Playing it cool here, was Rarity. Rhys squinted some more, briefly glancing about to see if she’d brought backup and if this was some sort of intervention or something. She hadn’t and it wasn’t.

“Doing? Doing fine. I said, didn’t I? Doing fine,” he said.

“Good, glad to hear it. Oh, and I was also here to thank you for your note, of course. Your thank you note. With its abundance of thank yous,” she said, just to keep things on track. Rhys blinked.

“Note? Oh, yeah, that. I - I really am very grateful for what you did, you know. Might have fallen into a ditch and drowned otherwise, heh. That would have been fun for someone to wake up to,” he said. Rarity wasn’t sure what to make of that and gave a muted, polite laugh that segued into an awkward cough.

A bird swooped, saw how the conversation was going and abruptly changed angle to swoop away again.

“Please may I come in?” Rarity asked.

This Rhys hadn’t expected at all. He hadn’t expected visitors in the first place, ever, and having it be Rarity - who did not like him, he knew - was a cut above. That, and he knew what a state his house was in. He glanced back and then back to her again, staring up at him with those big, big eyes, lashes fluttering.

He hadn’t been prepared for that, and for a second his brain just kind of fizzed as it tried to comprehend what it meant or how he should feel about it.

“Uh, I don’t - you probably don’t want to do that, Rarity. I haven’t tidied,” he said once he’d recovered.

“Nonsense! I can stand a little mess.”

Rhys wasn’t so sure about this.

“...I don’t think that’s true.”

Rarity huffed.

“Honestly, people think so little of me. I’m a grown mare! Now, I’ll ask you again, please may I come in?”

Rhys had never been the best at standing up to direct requests, polite or otherwise, and so he caved, standing aside. What did he have to lose anyway?

“If you insist. But like I say, it’s not great,” he said.

“Thank you,” Rarity said, smiling a small smile of triumph and holding her head high as she trotted in. This meant that she did not immediately see what it was she was trotting into. That came a few seconds later, at which point trotting stopped and the smile of triumph became the lopsided gawp of muted surprise.

For somewhere with so little in it the place managed to look remarkably untidy. This was something of an achievement in and of itself, Rarity would have to admit, but it was an achievement that was likely better enjoyed at a distance.

The mustiness, the darkness and the disarray was really what got to her though, as all these elements worked together to make the inside of Rhys’s house simply an unpleasant place to be. Like being stuck inside someone else’s shirt on a hot day. In a dust cloud. With your eyes closed.

“How...cosy, Rhys,” she said

“Did warn you…” he mumbled.

Rarity stood considering what she was standing in the middle of for a moment or two before reaching a decision. The decision was to fling open all the curtains and crack a window. This helped immensely.

The place was still managing to be both sparsely-decorated and alarming untidy, but at least it was now light and had air flowing through it, which was a definite improvement. Rhys might have been left squinting and blinking in the sudden sunlight, but he wasn’t complaining out loud, so there was that.

“Fuckin’ bright, Jesus…” he grumbled, shielding his eyes. “Uh, there any particular reason you...came to my house and...opened my windows, Rarity?”

“I hadn’t seen you in a few days, dear, and I’m not the only one. I - we - were starting to feel a little worried,” she said. Rhys just stared at her dumbly.

“...you were? Why?”

Rarity couldn’t quite work out whether he was being deliberately obtuse here or if he was genuinely in such a funk that he was asking an honest question. Neither prospect was especially exciting and though she opened her mouth to say something she quickly decided that a heftier dose was required.

She looked around.

“Can we sit and talk?” She asked, pleasantly enough.

“Sit? Uh…sure...we got...”

Rhys’s turn to look around, squinting in the brightness. He then pointed and Rarity turned to see a pair of chairs. One was upright, the other was not. The one that was not also appeared to be missing all but one of its legs, which went some way to explaining why it wasn’t the right way up.

“Sure, yeah. Think this chair’s still in one piece. The other one’s, ah, broken. Yeah,” Rhys said, being a master of stating the obvious. Gingerly, Rarity moved over to the two chairs, considering giving the broken one a nudge but then deciding against it.

It wouldn’t exactly tell her anything she couldn’t already see.

“How did that happen?” She asked and Rhys shrugged.

“Sat down a little too hard.”

It had been a second hand (second hoof?) chair to start with, and hadn’t been designed with humans in mind. That was Rhys’s excuse at least.

“These will do,” Rarity said, feeling that it was likely as good as it was going to get. “Sit, please.”

This she said while indicating that Rhys should take the unbroken chair.

“Oh no, you take that one,” he said.

“I insist,” Rarity said, unbudging.

“You’re the guest,” Rhys then said, taking the executive decision to plonk himself down right on the floor cross-legged. A power move and a surprising display of initiative, also pleasantly polite in a kind of aggressive way. Rarity rather appreciated it. Not only for the courtesy it showed, but also because it meant she got the chair that wasn’t broken.

She sat in it.

“So…” Rhys said when nothing immediately happened after that. “...we’re talking?”

“We are,” Rarity said, brightly.

“Okay. Uh, about what?”

This was probably the longest conversation he’d had since the last time he’d spoken to her, and that was only a fuzzy, hungover memory at best.

“Oh, I don’t know. Anything you like! Whatever’s been on your mind.”

As Rhys had in actual fact spent the last however long either trying this best not to think or else sinking into a mire of despondency whenever he did think, being as how there was only one thing that kept insisting on popping up in his head. Home, gone. Everything, gone. Everyone, dead. That sort of thing.

Discussing what had been on his mind was not a prospect that appealed.

Rarity seemed to realise this herself almost as soon as she’d spoken, pupils narrowing in sudden, bowel-clenching worry. After all, given what had happened and given what it had already given Rhys cause to do - late-night drunken door-knockery - what would extended time on his own have given space for if not further dwelling?

For a moment she felt that perhaps she’d been hasty in coming here, inviting herself in and opening up all the windows, but only for a moment. If there was one thing that Rhys clearly, obviously needed at this time it was a friend and, well, who better?

“Ahahaha well, ah, perhaps not, hmm? Though if you want to talk about, er, that then you’re more than welcome, Rhys, though perhaps you’d prefer to keep the tone more cheerful?” Rarity said hurriedly with a self-effacing, mea culpa smile. Rhys managed half the start of a chuckle.

“Not a whole lot of reasons to be cheerful. Or hopeful. Learned my lesson on that one,” he said. Rarity found herself frowning at him, and not for the first time.

“I’ve told you before, darling, don’t say things like that,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said and he would have built upon this apology but words failed him - he didn’t really know where to start or where to go, so decided on going nowhere instead, pulling his knees in against his chest and put his arms around his legs.

“Were you really worried about me?” He then asked not looking at her.

“We all were,” Rarity said.

“Yeah but, you’re the only one here,” Rhys pointed out.

Couldn’t really argue with that. Straight facts. But she could explain it, which was the next best thing.

“Well it would have been myself and Twilight, but I felt that having too many ponies coming to see if you were alright would be a touch, ah, overwhelming for you?” Rarity said.

Rhys considered this.

“That’s fair. Good shout. Thanks,” he said, then adding: “Why you though?”

“Why not me? For one, only Twilight and myself are aware of, ah, what happened and beyond that, well, why not me?” She asked.

She couldn’t think of anything else to say, really. Why not her?

“But you don’t like me,” Rhys said, flatly.

This was something that had appeared previously in his - otherwise rather pleasantly rambling and meandering - note, and Rarity hadn’t liked seeing it written down any more than she’d liked hearing it. She shook her head fiercely, such was her dislike.

“Simply not true! I know we haven’t always been on the warmest of terms with one another but I would never go so far as to say I didn’t - and don’t - like you, darling. I barely know you! Nopony does, really. You’ve always preferred to keep to yourself which is completely fine, of course. It’s simply that in light of - ah - recent events I thought you might benefit from some company. Or at the least just somepony to talk to,” she said.

“Doesn’t seem fair that someone should have to suffer through listening to me…” Rhys mumbled, eyes on the floorboards.

There came a tinkling sound and Rhys found, to his mild alarm, his chin being brought up so he was facing Rarity again. This action came as such a surprise to him that he didn’t really know what to do other than just stare at Rarity’s arrestingly large, serious eyes.

“It’s not something I’m doing on sufferance, I care that you are happy,” she said.

Sounded like she meant it, too.

“Really?” Rhys asked.

Rarity nodded, smiled.

“Really,” she said.

He imagined this must be a cultural thing. While this inexplicably sincere empathy might have confused him, a human, he supposed it was perfectly normal for ponies to be so concerned about the feelings of strangers.

Right? Maybe. Possibly.

At anyrate and despite himself Rhys did actually believe her, to his surprise. Realising this felt very odd. With a little effort he managed to break out of the weird, tickly, magical grip on his chin and go back to examining the floor boards.

“Very nice of you, then. Appreciate it, Rarity. Thank you,” he said.

“Think nothing of it. What else are friends for, after all?”

He glanced up to check whether this was the part where she started being insincere, but it wasn’t. She meant this part, too.

“Thanks, Rarity,” he said.

There then came a strange noise which Rarity could not immediately identify or place. Rhys also winced, which added to the confusion. A moment later though it clicked: what she was hearing was his stomach grumbling, and grumbling loudly enough for her to even hear it at all.

“When did you last eat, Rhys?” She said, causing him to blink, not having expected the question.

“Hmm?”

“When did you last eat?” She asked again.

“I, uh...it was…” Rhys said, scratching his head, wracking his brains.

He couldn’t remember.

“Probably not that long ago,” he concluded.

“Which would be when?” Rarity pressed.

“...not that long ago?”

As far as answers went it needed work. Rarity looked around to see if she could find what she was looking for on her own, couldn’t, and so looked back to Rhys and asked sweetly:

“Rhys, you wouldn’t mind pointing me in the direction of your kitchen, would you?”

He did so, dumbly, and Rarity hopped down off her chair and trotted into Rhys’s kitchen. The idea being that, once there, she could see whether there actually was anything he could eat, the idea behind that idea being that him eating something would probably be a good thing, all things considered.

The kitchen, however, was not doing so great.

Very quickly Rarity discovered that there was not a lot of food, and what little there was was now probably not what most would consider food anymore. Things were furry that were not meant to be furry, and that was just the least of it.

“I think I just saw that move. Whatever it is. Or was,” she said, gravely.

Her eyes then alighted on the bin, sat unhappily in the corner, bottles piled atop whatever had been crammed into it, those bottles that couldn’t be balanced just nestling in around the base. There were a few.

“No. No this won’t do at all.”

This was not an environment conducive to anything, and frankly Rarity didn’t have the faintest idea of where the best place to start would be. Other than food, obviously, but there wasn’t any of that to be had, at least not here.

“Should probably clean this up, huh?” Rhys asked, making Rarity jump by appearing behind her with a silence she hadn’t expected.

“It might prove wise. But, ah, perhaps not right away if you’re not feeling up to it, Rhys. No need to rush. Just perhaps, er, don’t dawdle either.”

Rarity backed out of the kitchen. Slowly. In case she startled something.

“Well, what with it being so close after lunch I was rather going to suggest we see what we could make out of what you had to hoof but that does not appear to be an option,” she said, tapping her chin, then: “I know, why not have lunch at mine?”

Rhys baulked.

“I don’t wanna impose on you anymore than-” he started, but Rarity cut him off, turning her head, closing her eyes and raising a hoof - erecting a wall of not-having-it.

“I shan’t hear of it! You’re well within your rights to say no but I won’t have you thinking that you’re an imposition as you simply aren’t, dear, not at all. It’s my offer, fairly made, take it or leave it. Or take it,” she said and not for the first time her eyes seemed just that bit bigger and more potent, though Rhys put that down to an overactive imagination on his part, compounded by lack of sleep, food and most other good things.

“Well...guess it’d be rude to turn down such a generous offer…” he mumbled, Rarity beaming as she felt herself inching towards winning this particular push-and-pull.

“Frightfully rude,” she said, nodding, getting a look from Rhys for her troubles but letting it glance harmlessly away.

“Should probably put some more clothes on first though, right?” He asked.

Rarity blinked. She had quite forgotten that he’d spent the whole of their conversation so far in his undergarments, on top of which also forgetting that, for a human, this was apparently considered an issue. She wasn’t sure what his apparent lack of concern for it up until this point signified, but doubted it was anything good - so this newfound sense of modesty could only be a sign of improvement!

Probably, maybe. Probably a cultural thing, she imagined.

“By all means,” she said.

“Cool, cool. Hang on a tick,” he said, shambling off and up the stairs. The house creaked as he moved about and Rarity cast her eye about the place again, looking over when she heard Rhys making his way back down once more, in trousers now, still pulling on a shirt.

And it was then that Rarity remembered that she was actually the one responsible for Rhys’s clothes, at least beyond what he’d shown up in. This fact had quite slipped her mind, something she had been quite glad of.

They’d been items she’d made way, way back when just after Rhys’s arrival and during his integration, as it were. They’d been made without measurements and just off-the-cuff, based on the information gleaned from Rhys that he disliked being naked.

That being the case, they worked. They just worked too well and covered too much, requiring him to tuck and roll to keep from tripping over. He didn’t mind.

“You made these, didn’t you?” Rhys asked, bunching up and tucking the voluminously baggy shirt so that it didn’t billow like a sail quite so much.

“Yes…” Rarity said, in the manner of one who’d prefer you not mention such a thing.

Rhys stood in his ill-fitting, hoof-stitched clothes and looked down at himself, twisting about to get a fuller picture.

“They’re good,” he then said.

“There’s no need to rub it in,” she said with a pout that hit Rhys with an almost physical force.

“What? No. I really mean it, you did really well. Who else could have just made something for an alien just from, uh, did you have a picture or what?” He asked.

“A description,” Rarity said.

Not even a height! Just a gesture to indicate ‘about that tall’! They might as well have asked her to work blindfolded! And in the dark for good measure!

She’d still done it, obviously, but she hadn’t been happy about it. Still wasn’t, looking at the results.

“See? Who could do that! You did that. They might as well have asked you to work blindfolded and in the dark but you still made this and look! It fits me! Well, it doesn’t not fit me. I couldn’t do that. That’s, uh-”

Rhys realised he was being overly effusive, something that in his experience never ended well, and so he reined it in.

“-it’s good. Really good.”

For her part Rarity had actually been rather enjoying what he’d been saying and found his abrupt capping-off something of a disappointment. After she’d fed him she might broach the subject again, she felt, just to hear some more of his thoughts. And the nice things he’d been saying. Those too.

Who knew Rhys could show enthusiasm! Certainly not Rarity.

“Thank you darling, glad to hear it. Ready to go?” She asked, reminding Rhys that all of this was leading up to him having to leave the house, something he had not done in a few days on the trot at this point. He swallowed.

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” he said.

Tail swishing Rarity clip-clopped happily over to the door, opened it, headed out only to pause when she realised that Rhys was dawdling. Turning in place in his still very-dead front garden she looked back and saw him still standing in the front door.

“Rhys?” She asked, perplexed.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. It’s fine, really. I’m fine,” he said. Rarity huffed. No backing out now!

“And have you got all dressed up for nothing? I couldn’t abide knowing I’d been party to such a thing. You’ve laid your table - as it were - now you’ll have to eat off it. Now come along,” she said.

Magic enclosed his hand and tugged him along, yanking him forward and across the threshold, from inside to outside. He got the message and got moving, having just about enough time to swing the door closed before he was dragged out of reach.

“That feels weird,” he said. The chin thing had felt weird enough, but that had been just a light cupping action. This was full-on gripping and it, as said, felt weird. Kind of tickly and spongy and numbing and firm all at once. Like having pins and needles while someone was giving you a brisk handshake.

“I’ll let it go if you promise not to go running away from a free lunch from a friend.”

“...friend?”

The word caught him completely off-guard. Rhys had spent quite some considerable time carefully constructing things in his head in such a way as to make it impossible for him to have friends here. After all he’d barely had friends back home, and they’d been human. Here he was some strange-shaped thing that didn’t belong - it simply didn’t add up.

And yet there the word had been. From Rarity of all people! Baffling.

And man was it bright outside.

Rarity, smiling, head held up, continued to canter happily forward at pace, still pulling Rhys along kind of beside her, mostly behind her.

“Of course! We’re all friends here and that includes you,” she said.

Again, baffling.

“It does?” Rhys asked.

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

He tried to think of a way of puncturing that, but couldn’t come up with anything in the time he had available.

“...technically yes,” he conceded.

“Then you’re a friend. It’s quite simple, darling,” Rarity said.

Rhys tried to think of a pithy or downbeat response to this but while his brain was grinding on the issue Rarity cut in again with:

“Don’t overthink it.”

This put an immediate wrench into Rhys’s train of thought somehow, and all progress he’d made on saying something to his own detriment went out the window. He sighed.

“Alright. Can you let go of my hand though, I think people are looking.”

“Only if you prooommiisseee,” Rarity sing-songed.

“Fine fine, I promise I promise,” he said and Rarity obligingly released his hand, giving him a look back over her shoulder just to make sure he kept moving, which he did.

“Colourful horses…” he grumbled, though now at least he was walking next to her and not behind her.

Four

And Rhys he found himself back at Rarity’s once more, this time sober and non-hungover enough to truly appreciate how clean and expensive everything looked to him. He was kind of afraid to touch anything lest he despoil it somehow and so just perched warily on the seat by the table that Rarity had directed him towards while she bustled about doing...something…

He wasn’t sure what.

The walk there - after she’d let go of his hand - had been the very definition of uneventful, apart from the odd looks they got. Rarity had not noticed or cared about them while Rhys had felt every one of them like they’d run up and slapped a biscuit out of his mouth, so had been very glad to arrive.

He was also secretly glad that he was about to get food, as the strenuous physical exertion of walking from one side of town to the middle had reminded his body that it needed to eat to live and it, in turn, was now reminding him. With intense hunger pain.

“What do humans eat?” Rarity asked, genuinely curious. It was one of those details about Rhys - or, indeed, humans in general - that she simply hadn’t been told or picked up. Few ponies knew, actually, and for the fairly simple reason that Rhys hadn’t ever told any of them and had always got food for himself.

“Most things,” Rhys said unhelpfully, shrugging.

The look Rarity gave him told him that this was insufficient as an answer, given she was the one trying to feed him. He swallowed.

“Uh, but, I’ve seen you guys eating, like, flowers and stuff? And hay? Yeah, that doesn’t work so good for us. But, you know, bread and, uh...stuff...is good.”

Rarity held the look on Rhys perhaps a touch longer than was strictly necessary. A bead of sweat trickled down his neck. Then she smiled as though none of that had happened.

“Eloquently put, darling! I shall see what I can do. You wait there,” she said, pointing to where he was sitting just so he was sure where it was he was meant to wait.

“I can help?” He offered, halfway to rising.

“No, you’re the guest now so you just wait right there, I won’t be gone long,” she said.

Typically in the habit or doing what ponies said only for only as long as it took for them to look away so he could escape and go back home to hide, Rhys found himself waiting where she’d told him to wait while she clattered about in the kitchen. He reckoned it was in the way she’d told him, all in her technique.

That and, well, food. It was in his best interests to do what Rarity said, really. Just sensible.

And like she’d said she wasn’t gone long, returning bare minutes later, hovering a tray in front of her and humming in satisfaction. She’d compromised and played it safe by rustling up a small selection of things to be picked from and assembled as worked best. There was bread, there were some vegetables, there was some fruit, there was some cheese out lurking towards the periphery - just a touch of anything she had to hand. Or hoof.

A cunning move Rhys felt.

“That’s a spread,” he said as Rarity set the tray down on the table.

“Why thank you, Rhys. Always nice to know one is being a good host!” She said happily, hopping up onto a seat just along from him, practically within arm’s reach. The better to pass him a plate, really.

Not that Rhys really noticed how close she was, or even the plate. Too hungry for that.

He attacked the food with vigour, grabbing grapes with one hand while attempting to put cheese onto bread with the other. Both hands then fed their respective contents into his mouth, more-or-less at the same time. Rarity watched him do this.

“Maybe pace yourself, dear. It’s not going anywhere,” she said.

Cheeks bulging, hands reaching for more, Rhys paused, chewed and then swallowed.

“Right, right. Sorry. Hungry, heh,” he said sheepishly.

“Quite alright,” Rarity said, helping herself rather more daintily to what was on offer.

The two ate in companionable quiet for a while, exchanging occasional glances and small, pleasant smiles. Rarity hadn’t actually ever seen Rhys smile, at least not that she could remember, and while he was doing it now while chewing and they were hardly the largest it was still a marked improvement.

Not having eaten for a while though his eyes proved bigger than his stomach and it wasn’t long before he had to take a break and lean back. Rarity chose this moment to move the conversation along.

“Dear? Are you alright?” She asked, delicately.

“Me? Course, just maybe ate a bit quick, heh, that was - oh, oh you mean about the...the thing, don’t you?”

She nodded and he slumped forward in his seat a little, elbows resting on the table until he noticed Rarity’s sideways look and put his hands in his lap instead.

“It’s fine. I’m over it now, really. Had some time to think about it and can’t really do anything about it anyway, so it’s fine. Just done. Done,” he said.

“Would you like to tell me about it? You don’t have to, of course, just it might - oh I don’t know - make you feel better?”

Rhys wasn’t sure he followed her logic on that one but she’d asked so nicely it felt churlish to refuse.

“There’s not a lot to say. Shouldn’t have got my hopes up, I suppose. I mean, if you get tossed through dimensions you should just be glad you arrived somewhere non-lethal in one piece, right? Expecting to get back and everything be fine is just stupid. So I was dumb, shouldn’t have got my hopes up,” he said.

“It’s never ‘dumb’ to be hopeful, Rhys! And I’ll have you know that Twilight is - Twilight certainly did the best she could a-at the time. And who knows? Anything could happen tomorrow! Or some other time soon. Hypothetically. You should never lose hope.”

Quite nearly given the game away there but Rarity had managed to catch herself in time. Not that Rhys really noticed anyway. He was looking at his hands in his lap.

“That’s...that’s nice of you to say. But come on. She already made a bloody portal. I can’t make a portal. If she can’t do it then what’s going to happen? It’s done.”

He sounded so crestfallen that Rarity didn’t really know what to say to this and things went quiet for a moment before Rhys carried on himself:

“When I got here first it was a lot. A lot. I didn’t know what to do. Everything just reminded me of how I wasn’t meant to be here. I got a bed that’s like it was made for a child and everything runs on magic or friendship or something. And everyone’s the wrong shape. Then later they told me - Twilight told me - that she could work out a way for me to go home. So I spent all my time thinking about that, about going back to where I’m meant be. Didn’t really think about much else. And then, well, then you know what happened.”

He shrugged and what was on his face was a very strained expression that you might confuse for a smile if you looked at it only briefly. He then sighed.

“It’s weird. I know it’s real because I was there, I saw it, but it just doesn’t feel real now that I’m back here. Because now it’s somewhere else? And it was somewhere else the whole time I was here before. You know? It’s out of sight so maybe it’s fixed now and I just don’t know. Even though it’s not. So it’s like nothing’s happened, it’s like how it was before and I’m just stuck here again. Only sometimes I remember that I really, really am stuck here now, and there’s nothing and nowhere for me to go. No-one to go back to.”

That had been a mouthful, and the blank look on Rarity’s face made Rhys feel that he had perhaps not explained himself as clearly as he might have done. He winced.

“You know?” He ventured.

“I - I would be lying if I said I understood how you felt, darling, but I can certainly understand how so desperately wanting something for so long only to find it beyond your reach would be...disappointing. To put it mildly,” she said and Rhys nodded, this being an acceptable enough level of understanding.

“All that time wasted. Should have been using it to just get comfortable with the idea of being here until I died.”

Grim boy, but sad boy. Rarity leaned over to pat him on the knee, such a token gesture he almost chuckled when she did it. Almost, but not quite.

“Is it really so bad here?” Rarity asked as she leant back.

“No, no, not at all. It’s just - look, objectively this place isn’t bad. It’s actually quite nice. Everything’s bright and I don’t have to open the newspaper and see how things are being run into the ground by whatever prick I didn’t elect or who got murdered or whatever and everyone here is really nice, I’ll admit that, even if I - uh, even if I’m not very nice in return...it’s just…”

He wasn’t sure what it just was, and trailed off, frowning to himself. This left an opening for Rarity and she took it:

“Forgive me if this sounds like a silly question but do you miss it?”

After all he hardly sounded as though he was giving the place a glowing review. The newspaper thing alone had been alarming! Murders? Daily?!

Rhys blinked and considered the question, which wasn’t so much silly as out of nowhere.

“Uh, well, it - it wasn’t the best sure but I kind of had it figured out. And I belonged there. More or less. Here I just - I stick out, I don’t know. I don’t belong here. I don’t fit here.”

“With the greatest of respect, darling, you’ve hardly tried to,” Rarity said.

“I-” Rhys started, only to realise that he didn’t have a leg to stand on. “That’s fair,” he said, shrugging, defeated.

Again Rarity lent over to put a hoof onto his knee - this time leaving it there long enough for him to look up and se her smiling.

“One can hardly blame you. I imagine if I found myself somewhere wholly alien - if our positions had been reversed, say - I’d find fitting it a little difficult myself.”

The mere thought of what would have happened to Rarity - or any pony, really, but Rarity was the one saying it so Rarity was the one Rhys thought about - had she appeared on earth made Rhys distinctly uncomfortable. So much so he had to fight down the surprisingly sudden urge to grab her and keep her safe, which was odd.

He barely trusted his fellow humans with a knife and fork, let alone a sapient being. It hardly bore thinking about.

“What’s that face for?” Rarity asked, perplexed as to why Rhys was grimacing so much so suddenly. He shook his head.

“Nothing, just - s’fair, s’fair. Sorry, just had one of those thoughts, you know? Unpleasant.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” She asked. Again the polite, probing question. This time though Rhys resisted. This wasn’t something he even wanted back in his head, let alone out in the open.

“Not this one, sorry. Just, uh, thank you for the food. And for the talking. I don’t really do a lot of that. Normally,” he said, wringing his hands a moment before concluding: “Could probably try and...be...friendlier, couldn’t I? Nicer? To everyone else?”

“I can’t imagine it hurting, dear. You’re being nicer with me and look where that got you - a free lunch!” Rarity said.

“Heh. Yeah. I’d always heard there was no such thing as one of those.”

“Quite. But shh, don’t go telling everypony, they’ll all want one and I am but one mare!”

This actually got an actual smile from Rhys, much to Rarity’s delight.

He then yawned.

“Oh man. Might be an idea for me to go and sleep. And shower, probably,” he said, catching a sudden whiff of himself.

“Well, I didn’t want to say…” Rarity said, lightly.

“I did see your face when the door opened back at mine, you know.”

“Ah. Thought I’d been rather subtle about that.”

“Not subtle enough.”

“Something for me to work on, then!”

They shared a titter over this, then another moment of pleasantly friendly silence. Then Rhys slapped his thighs.

“Right. Yes. Time for me to get out of your exquisitely maintained hair. I’ll just - uh - I’ll go. Shower, sleep. Get started on being less of a wanker tomorrow. Can only be a good thing, like you said. Can’t be that hard,” he said, rising to his feet and tottering over to the front door. Rarity hopped from her chair and followed.

“That’s the spirit!” She said before watching him have more trouble with her door handle than a grown stallion really should have. He’d just about had it cracked when Rarity plucked up enough nerve to do something she felt might be a risk but would hopefully have a positive effect.

“Rhys?” She said and he turned, looked down.

“Hmm?”

“Come here.”

They were standing right in front of one another. He wasn’t sure what else he was meant to do.

“I am here?”

Rarity rolled her eyes with much theatricality.

“No, closer, come down closer,” she said.

There was something of a height difference.

Confused as to her intentions Rhys tentatively took a knee, the better to get them on the same level. This was pretty much exactly what Rarity had been angling for and no sooner had he dropped did she rear up onto her back legs and hug him.

This came as a shock to Rhys, much as it had the last time, and much as it had the last time he found himself not hating it anywhere near as much as he felt he should have. Every other time one of the locals had felt the need to latch onto him - particularly that pink one - it had been rather as though his skin had wanted to crawl clean off his body.

With Rarity though? Not so much. Weird.

She was still the wrong shape, but her intent was clear, so it wasn’t all bad. Right? Right.

She meant well, which was the main thing. And that counted for a lot. So where was the harm in, say, just putting an arm around her to hug back a little? It showed appreciation, which was polite.

But only one arm though. He wasn’t crazy. Didn’t want to seem like he was actively enjoying it. Just appreciating it. There was a difference.

“No matter how much you feel like you might not belong I’ll always happily welcome you here, darling. Remember that, hmm?” She said, not breaking the hug. Utterly blindsided all Rhys could do was nod dumbly.

And give her a light pat on the back for good measure. He wasn’t sure what else he was meant to do.

A few seconds after this the hug broke and he stood up again awkwardly.

“Um,” he said. “I - I will. I will remember that, Rarity. Thank you.”

“Good. I hope so.”

Anything further was lost by Rhys yawning again, leading Rarity to tut.

“Go on, you, go and sleep! You look like you need it.”

“Oh thanks, very nice. Come here to get fed and all I get is sass.” Rhys pouted and, giggling, Rarity give him a butt in the leg with her head, careful not to outright stab him. That would have undercut the moment.

“Go on, go!”

“Going, going…”

And he opened the door.

Standing outside - hoof raised to knock - was Twilight, who was as surprised to find Rhys opening the door as he was to find her the other side of it when he did. Rhys’s surprise manifested in a strangled yelp and nearly falling over, however, while all Twilight did was continue to stand there like a sinking pudding, hoof poised.

Rhys recovered first though.

“Sorry. Hi. I’m going. Bye,” he said, giving a rather unusual - and clearly not especially thought out - bow of greeting-stroke-farewell and then sidling past Twilight and departing as quickly as he could. She twisted to watch him go before untwisting to look at Rarity who was also watching Rhys go, though with more concern than bewilderment.

“Found him, then?” Twilight asked.

Rarity kept watching a moment longer and then took in a breath.

“Yes, at home after all,” she said, standing aside so Twilight could come in rather than having to stay on the threshold.

“He alright?” Twilight asked as he strolled on in, Rarity closing the door behind her.

“I think he went through something of a rough patch on his own but he seems much improved now. Fed, at least, which has to be a start,” Rarity said.

“Fed?”

“We had lunch! Would have had it as his but he was rather lacking in, ah, the key ingredients of lunch. Which is to say, food. Quite frightful, actually…”

The mere memory of Rhys’s kitchen was enough to provoke a mild shudder.

“That was nice of you, Rarity,” Twilight said but Rarity dismissed this at once.

“Oh posh, Twilight, anypony would have done it! He hadn’t eaten in some time, too, could hardly have not fed him. And it seems to have improved his mood, as I said. And we had a little talk. He seems much better,” she said.

“That’s good, that’s good,” Twilight said, nodding.

“It is. But, ah! To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Twilight?” Rarity asked, gathering up the remnants of lunch and carrying it all back through to the kitchen, Twilight following.

“Just coming to see if you, you know, actually found him. And you did, so that’s good. Just that the last I saw of you was you going off to see if he was alright and then that was it. But it all worked out so that’s good, cool,” Twilight said.

Rarity disposed of what little food remained before dumping the plates in the sink and rounding on Twilight, beaming, mane flouncing. That trick took practise.

“Indeed! Though, seeing you here now and talking of this, how is the, ah, second attempt coming along, if you don’t mind me asking?” She asked. Twilight winced.

“Oh you know, progressing. Slowly,” she said.

“I’m sure you’ll have it cracked in no time at all, darling!”

Twilight gave Rarity an especially flat look.

“It’s not as simple as that, Rarity. Cross-universe tunneling is complicated enough without fourth-dimensional mechanics getting involved. The variables were already difficult to account for when things were straightforward.”

‘Straightforward’ being a relative term here, obviously, but what was straightforward for Twilight was another category apart from how the word was typically deployed.

“But nothing insurmountable? Rhys was very impressed with your achievement in the last portal, even if the results were...well, yes. But that’s hardly your fault! He remains impressed with what you achieved regardless,” Rarity said.

News to Twilight, who cocked her head.

“He was?” She asked. Rarity nodded.

“He was!”

Twilight’s experience with Rhys was hardly limited - besides Rarity she’d spent the most time with him out of anypony around - but all he’d really ever done was answer her questions and otherwise just keep quiet. It had not given him much insight at all into his character, other than giving the impression of someone who wasn’t exactly bursting at the seams with sunshine.

That he’d been impressed by what she’d done was surprisingly nice to learn, actually. Would have been nicer to hear it from him firsthoof but still, you couldn’t have everything.

“Never said anything to me. Other than ‘thank you’. He said he was impressed?” She asked and again Rarity nodded.

“He did! Not in those words exactly, of course, but as good as those words exactly! He was mightily impressed. As were we all! I for one certainly was. You did something that, well, only you could have!”

High praise indeed. Twilight found herself going an abashed shade of pink.

But as nice as praise was it didn’t exactly solve some of the problems she’d been grappling with, something she wanted to convey to Rarity, just so that hopes weren’t raised unnecessarily:

“...it’s still very complicated! On a theoretical level I’m not so much working from books as having to write them as I go along and then on the technical side there’s a whole host of issues! A portal is one thing, that’s tough enough, but a portal that can through time as well as space? It’s hard to know where to even start, I mean…”

Twilight drifted off and her eyes glazed as an idea popped up out of absolutely nowhere, spurred on by nothing and catching her entirely off-guard.

“...although, I suppose, if I halved the size of the chronitron resonance coils, arranged them symmetrically...I mean that...in theory...might...hmm…”

At this point she started mumbling a bit and internally cursing herself for not having brought something she could make notes on. Rarity observed this shift with some confusion.

“Dear? Twilight dear are you quite alright?” She asked.

“What? Oh, right, yeah. Look I just need to go so I’ll - coils, halved, more of them? Less individual capacity but if running in sequence...symmetrically...yes, yes…maybe? Yes...”

Twilight wandered off and let herself out.

“Strange girl but we love her all the same,” Rarity said to herself before starting on the dishes.

All in all, today had been pretty good, she felt.

Oh, go on then! Very good.

Very good indeed.

Five

Author's Note

I don't know if this comes across as rushed or not but conceptually I think it draws a line under things.

Ta-dah!

Five

A day or two later Rarity popped over again.

In the intervening time she had actually seen Rhys around and about while she’d been around and about herself and they’d waved but she had been content to let him do his own thing while she got on with hers.

Now though, with a little spare time and also something to pose, she meandered over, wrinkled her muzzle again at his garden (which remained very, very dead) and trotted up to knock on his front door which, after a moment, swung right open.

“Rarity!” Rhys said, actually genuinely pleased to see her, much to his surprise. Rarity had own reasons to be pleased.

“Rhys! You’re wearing clothes today!” She said.

He was indeed and he twisted about as though in surprise and as though double-checking that he actually was. And he was.

“Well someone pretty sophisticated and very capable made them, I heard, so it seemed a waste not to,” he said, tugging on the shirt. Rarity giggled and waved him away with a hoof.

“Oh you! Flattery will get you everywhere.”

Rhys loved that cliche. Stepping back to clear the doorway he jerked a thumb back inside and asked:

“You want to come in?”

“Ooh, inviting me in today are you?” Rarity asked in turn, eyebrow raised.

“Could always slam the door in your face instead?”

Rarity’s eyebrow lowered right back down.

“My, aren’t you the charmer, Rhys,” she said, eyes narrow. She then sighed, hamming it up for all she was worth and having a whale of a time doing it. “A tough choice I’ll admit but I think on balance I’d prefer to come inside. I can slam a door in my own face at home.”

Odd image but Rhys rolled with it.

“Fine choice,” he said. Rarity entered, albeit tentatively, knowing what a state the place had been in last time. This time though was an entirely different story. She even gasped.

“You cleaned and tidied!”

“I did! Figured it’d be a good idea. You know, if you came back. And, uh, just - just generally too, I guess. Good for the brain, you know?”

“I have heard that, yes. Well done you!”

This she said while giving his leg a bump with her hip, something he didn’t expect and which nearly toppled him, much to Rarity’s giggling amusement. She then wandered about a bit to get the full experience and to see what a complete job he’d done.

The place was still far too empty for her liking but the tidiness remained a definite step in the right direction.

“You fixed the chair, too!” She said on reaching the two chairs, both of which were now sitting proudly the way they should have been.

Rhys, who’d been following her on her little circuit of his house, waggled a hand of doubt.

“Yeah. Not sure I’d trust it though if I were you. It’s mostly decorative.”

“Points for effort, darling,” she said, giving him a pat on the leg. “Have you considered taking it to Mortis Gage in town? One imagines she’d be more than happy to help.”

“She’s the, uh, kind of scary one, isn’t she?”

In Rhys’s mind most of the ponies were kind of scary, in that he found them all intimidating in a tiny, colourful, overly-friendly sort of a way. He thought he’d heard of Mortis though. Something to do with furniture? He thought she’d been the one to donate his bed.

Nice of her, if so.

“Oh she’s perhaps a little gruff sometimes but she’s hardly scary! Just go and talk to her sometime.”

“I’ll, uh, yeah. I’ll pencil that in,” Rhys said with absolutely no intention of ever actually doing it. Rarity saw through this immediately but felt that pressing the issue wouldn’t get her anywhere, and decided it best to move on.

“Still, this is all quite wonderful. These little things do make a difference, don’t they?” She asked brightly, beaming. Rhys found himself trying not to smile as well.

“As much as I want to say that’s cobblers they really do, in some way. Can’t really put my finger on it but I do feel better now than I did. For whatever reason. And the great thing is that while you’re tidying up you’re not worrying or thinking about anything else. So that was good, too.”

In Rarity’s mind this was a rather unnecessary way of saying that tidying up, like anything else you could focus on, was good for clearing the head, something which she agreed with in principle so couldn’t really argue with. His tone left a lot to be desired, however, but that was a quibble at most.

“Quite,” she said.

“Come look at the kitchen though,” he said, making to grab her hand to pull her along there only to remember that, well, she didn’t have any. In the event he settled for just beckoning her along and leading her that way as she followed.

“Oh my,” she said approvingly on arrival. Bottles? All gone. Everything nauseating? All gone. The things that had been moving that shouldn’t have been moving? All gone. It actually looked like a kitchen.

Rhys wasn’t proud of a lot of things in life - or anything, really - but had to admit to himself that if there was one thing he might be allowed to feel the merest glimmer of pride over it was his job on that kitchen.

“Even got food this time, can make you lunch. Got some, uh, flowers? Not sure which ones. Got a bunch. They told me they were good,” he said, fetching the flowers in question from where they’d been stashed and laying them out on the counter so Rarity could pass judgement on his selection.

He did still find the eating of the flowers a little strange, but it was hardly the strangest thing going on around Ponyville. For her part Rarity was nigh-on squeeing with delight.

“You went out and got these? Just for me?” She asked, giddy.

Rhys hadn’t thought about it that way until she’d said it just then, and while technically he supposed it might be said to be maybe true that he’d go them for her in that she’d been the one he’d had in mind at the time, it wasn’t quite like that. It was just that she was kind of the only pony he really knew.

He had the horrible impression he might be sending the wrong signals now.

Bit too late though.

“Well, you know, n-not just for you but just in case I had, uh, company. Thought it’d be a good idea,” he said.

“I’d say it was. Wonderful! Um, you don’t mind if I just...sample one…?” She asked, inching towards the flowers.

“Be my guest, Rarity,” Rhys said and no sooner had the words left his mouth then she’d swiped some. More than one, at that.

“Whoopsh,” she said, chewing. Rhys tutted.

“Talking with your mouth full indeed, tsch,” he said with a sad shake of the head. Rarity - cheeks just touched with the blush of the ill-mannered - swallowed hastily and gave him a sheepish grin.

“Our secret,” she said and Rhys obligingly drew his fingers across his lips, which were now sealed. At least as far as talking about Rarity’s appalling table manners were concerned. For everything else he could still talk. And did:

“So - you want lunch or a sandwich or anything? Or just...what?” He asked, but Rarity demurred. She’d had breakfast already - the flowers had just been too tempting to pass up.

“No I’m quite alright, dear, but thank you for the offer. I simply popped around to see if you were well,” she said, and now it was Rhy’s turn to raise an eyebrow, leaning against the kitchen counter as he did so.

Or sitting on it, really. It was made for ponies after all.

“Checking up on me?”

“That would be one, uncharitable, way of looking at it, I suppose, but it would miss the friendliness with which I am doing the checking. I merely wished to see if you were having a nicer time than you have been lately! Is that a crime?” Rarity asked, a hoof pressed to her forward, hair flouncing.

Rhys was glad she’d done that. He’d kind of hoped she would. There was something in the overacting he just enjoyed. Couldn’t put a name to it, he just did.

“Heh, no. Just pulling your leg. I - it’s nice to see you, actually. Heh, never thought I’d say that…”

“Must admit I’m rather surprised myself…”

They had a quiet moment, but not an awkward one. A pleasant one.

Then Rarity remembered something else. The other reason why she’d come.

“There was something else, actually, now I think about it,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yes, just a small thing. Now Rhys, I know that you’re not the fondest of, ah, ‘social gatherings’ but I was thinking that maybe a little more interaction might do well to convince you of how you’re not such a bad fit here as you think-”

“Not sure where you’re going with this, Rarity…”

“-and there is a party coming up later, you see, and so I was wondering whether I might be able to convince you to attend?”

Rarity was all sweetness as she said this, though Rhys was less than convinced.

“Party?” He asked, wary.

He’d hoped that his dislike of parties would have become widespread knowledge at this point and in this he would be satisfied to learn that it had indeed become widespread knowledge. Everypony by now had learnt that he did not like them and that inviting him was a bad idea, generally. Rarity was just ignoring this.

“Just a small thing, just a small thing! I just felt it would be good to get out of the house for a bit, hmm? You wouldn’t even have to talk to anyone if you didn’t want to,” she said.

“Then what’s the point in being there?” Rhys asked.

After all he could brood silently and suck up oxygen in the comfort of his own home and wouldn’t have to put a coat on to do it. Or be around anyone else. Or have to talk to anyone else.

“Because it’d be good for you to try?” Rarity ventured and, with fluttering eyelashes, adding: “It would make me happy to have you there.”

Rhys set his jaw.

“...that’s a pretty cheap trick,” he said.

There was more fluttering and Rarity leaned in towards him.

“Did it work?” She asked.

Rhys was quiet a moment and had to look away.

“...yes,” he said.

“Then I’d say it was cheap at twice the price, wouldn’t you?”

Rhys actually, openly laughed at that one, making Rarity jump. It wasn’t something she’d heard before. Once she’d worked out that it was laughter - and not just him making odd noises for no obvious reason - she found herself smiling. Always nice to make someone laugh.

“I like that line,” he said, turning back to look down at her, smiling himself albeit lopsidedly. He then sighed, shook his head. “Came at me quite short notice with this, didn’t you?”

“That was so you wouldn’t have time to come up with an excuse,” Rarity said bluntly but still with overwhelming sweetness.

“Could just make one up right now?”

“You could, but then I’d know you were lying and I know you wouldn’t do that to me. Would you?” She asked, the fluttering of lashes now combined with a lip-wobbling pout that forced Rhys to look away again.

“That’s just unfair...Fine, fine. I’ll come. Just because you’ve emotionally blackmailed me you tiny, adorable, manipulative so-and-so, you,” he grumbled.

“Please don’t call me adorable, Rhys,” Rarity said, primly, straightening herself up and swishing back her mane.

“Luxuriant and elegant?” Rhys ventured.

She had to admit she did prefer the sound of that...

“Better, but perhaps you should quit while you’re ahead,” she said.

“Good idea.”

“Wonderful. In which case I shall return later and we can go together, yes?”

“Alright,” Rhys said, glumly enough to get Rarity to roll her eyes.

“Oh don’t look so downcast, Rhys, you’re hardly being marched out for execution. I’m not going to abandon you there anyway. Not going to be joined to your hip, either. I’ll give you some space but also make sure you’re feeling comfortable and if you’re not then you’re under no obligation to stay longer than you want to, okay?”

That’d be the saleswoman in Rarity, Rhys reckoned. Could sell water to the drowning with a patter like that. Or at the least she’d convinced him. She almost made it sound not awful.

“Sounds good,” he said, still quietly dreading it but feeling the tiniest sliver of security in knowing that she’d be there.

Revelling in her success Rarity hummed happily and gave a small nod.

“Glad to hear it, dear,” she said.

She came back later. They got going.

Rhys had briefly wondered whether dressing up more nicely would be an idea before dismissing it on two grounds. First, he didn’t want to. Second, he couldn’t, as he literally only owned the clothes he’d arrived in (which were knackered) and the ones Rarity had made (which he thought were nice, but they weren’t ‘nice’ nice).

Rarity looked like she always did, which was to say her own particular brand of nice. So there was that.

“What’s this thing for anyway?” Rhys asked as they strolled along, other ponies in the distance visible heading in the same direction, distant music growing in volume the more they walked.

“The party? You know, I’m not sure. All Pinkie said to me and anyone else was that it served a direct narrative function. But I’m not entirely clear on what that means and she, ah, bounced away before she could clarify.”

“That’s kind of ominous.”

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you, dear. She says things like that a lot.”

How that was meant to make him worry less was unclear, but Rhys did his best anyway.

As quickly became apparent on their arrival it wasn’t the biggest party but it was still big and pretty well populated. From the sound of things - catching snippets of conversation as he continued to follow Rarity - everyone had received a different explanation for what was going on.

Someone’s birthday, someone said. A moving day for someone else. A business opening party? Someone winning an award? Mandated party to fill some new Canterlot-instated monthly quota?

None of it matched up. Rhys did his best to just not think about it. After all that’s what Rarity had said he should do, and had she steered him wrong so far?

No, no she had not.

So, trusting Rarity’s judgement over his own, Rhys just let events roll over him. Sure there were more people around than he might normally feel comfortable and sure it might be a little on the louder side than he might like, but so what? He could take it. Rarity certainly seemed to think so, and was he going to disappoint her?

No, no he was not.

So he scoped out and picked out a likely looking seat in a likely looking spot and sat right down, planting himself. Technically still in the party but tucked enough away to feel a little better protected from all the everything going on around him. There were balloons and all sorts. A lot of laughing. He felt immersed.

“This isn’t too much, is it?” Rarity asked, mild concern forming at seeing him settle down, but he waved it off.

“Nope, this is fine. Just going to sit for a bit, I think. You go do something else if you want. You’ll probably be able to pick me out of the crowd.”

“There is something about you that sticks out, now you say it, but I can’t quite put my hoof on it…” She said, peering at him intently and getting in closer and closer until Rhys, smirking, pushed her away. Gently-like, mind. She’d giggled at that.

“Har. Go on, go, you have people to talk to I expect,” he said.

She did, so off she went to natter, leaving Rhys behind to just be.

To his great consternation the whole thing wasn’t...actually...that bad…

This annoyed him greatly. He’d hoped - in that strange way that one hopes for the worst to be the case so that your low, low, bleak expectations are proved right and your grim image of the world is shown to be the proper one that you were clever in having - that the party would be nothing but being isolated and given odd looks while he lurked and brooded in a corner.

Instead, people were giving him space while also keeping him kind of in the loop of things, making sure he had a drink or what have you, passing some light chatter his way and actually making him feel…

...nggh…

...included…

He liked it and he hated that he liked it. He could have been doing this already! Why hadn’t he? And why didn’t he know why he hadn’t? The whole thing was a mess. But he had a drink that someone had been nice enough to get him and that last guy he’d talked to had had a pretty good dad joke about hummus, so it was a mess that was balancing out somehow.

He was very confused.

Someone then latched onto him from behind and he flinched until he saw that the hooves and legs that had folded over his shoulders and about his neck were white and that this was just Rarity, at which point he relaxed. He didn’t even particularly care that she nuzzled against the side of his head.

After all, she meant well.

“Having fun?” She asked

“Doing my best.”

“The most anypony could ask of you, darling.”

By definition, really.

Pinkie, the orchestrator behind all this and who had been passing at a comfortable strolling pace somehow managed to come to screeching, smoke-billowing halt before (again, somehow) sliding back so she was standing more fully in front of Rhys, whereupon she eyed him and eyed Rarity wrapped around him.

The two of them had no idea what to make of this.

She continued eyeing them up and down for a few seconds more before gasping in shock.

“Hey!” She said, pointing an accusing hoof right at Rhys. “How come Rarity can touch you?”

“What?” Rhys asked, entirely blindsided.

“When I try to hug you you go all stiff until I let go!” Pinkie said, affronted.

This was true, too. True of all the various ponies who had hugged Rhys across his time in Ponyville (ponies were a touchy-feely sort). It was just that Pinkie had tended to do it with a vim, vigour and vitality that had so utterly overwhelmed Rhys every time she’d done it that he had gone entirely ramrod stiff.

As a result Pinkie had stopped doing it, because it wasn’t fun and clearly no-one was enjoying them, much to her chagrin and frustration.

And now this! This!

She was leaning in to give the sight her full scrutiny, and while earlier Rarity had also leant in she’d done it in a restrained way, staying on all four hooves. Pinkie had no such reservations, leaning way, way over while somehow remaining balanced on only the single hoof, one eye screwed shut while the other did all the work.

It was more intense then it had any right to be.

Then, as soon as it had started it stopped.

“Well! Everything appears in order here. Carry on!” Pinkie chirruped, snapping back to her starting position so quickly Rhys literally blinked and missed it.

And off she hopped.

Stunned silence followed, during which time Rhys noticed that he’d started gripping Rarity’s hoof for security. Having noticed this, he stopped doing it and swallowed.

“This is another of those things I should just accept and move on from, isn’t it?” He asked, puncturing the tension of the moment nicely.

“I’d say so, yes,” she said, adding: “Pinkie raises a good point though.” Rhys looked at her sideways, as that was where her face still was relative to his.

“She does?” He asked and she nodded.

“Why is it that you don’t seem to mind me entering your personal space? When anypony else does it you do go all stiff, like she said. Not that I’m objecting, I’m just curious as to why.”

Rhys honestly had no idea. He hadn’t thought about it and, indeed, hadn’t actually really overly noticed it until just then. Even being suddenly, incredibly aware of the weight and warmth of Rarity just resting across his shoulders and her face right next to his, he still didn’t find himself feeling the normal sense of needing to get away that all other hugging attempts had generated.

He took a stab in the dark:

“Arbitrary double-standard?”

Unsatisfying. Rarity wrinkled her muzzle but there wasn’t a lot else she could do about it.

“...I suppose that’s as good a reason as any. As long as you’re happy, darling,” she said, finally disentangling herself from around him and just coming to stand by his leg.

“I am. Oh, heh, fancy that - I actually am! This is alright. I’m having - and don’t go telling anyone else this, now, you hear? - I’m having a pretty good time. So thanks for dragging me out. You remain the wind beneath my wings,” he said, raising his more-than-half-full glass to Rarity’s health.

“You know you can be quite colourful when you want to be, Rhys,” she said, the tiniest bit of colour in her cheeks. Rhys shrugged.

“Not with everyone,” he said.

This was true.

“You do know how to make a mare feel special,” Rarity said in tones of the utmost sultriness, rearing up to rest her forehooves on his knee and moving in closer. Rhys saw this coming a mile off and, again, gently nudged her away.

“Oh give over, you,” he grumbled. She got a fit of the giggles.

“Sorry darling, I couldn’t resist! Parties often have a way of bringing out the worst in me and - Ah! There’s Twilight! I must go and have a word, excuse me.”

Off she went, and Rhys watched the two of them start chattering. And as he watched, an idea occurred. It felt like an important idea, though one he didn’t really want to act upon. Though having planted itself in his head it refused to go away and the more he watched the two of them the more the roots of it spread until he could ignore it no more.

He reached a decision. TIme to put on the big-boy trousers!

Getting up, he went on over to them.

Twilight spotted him coming and, eyes widening, nudged Rarity to get her attention as well. They’d stopped talking about whatever it was they had been talking about by the time Rhys arrived. But this wasn’t a surprise.

“Hello Rhys,” said Twilight and he returned it with a nod.

“Something wrong, darling? Do you want to go?” Rarity asked and to this he shook his head.

“I, uh, wanted to talk to Twilight,” he said, eyes either on the floor or on Rarity, not really on Twilight. He tried though.

“Oh?” Twilight asked and again he nodded, girding his loins to push on through.

“I don’t - I don’t think I ever said thank you. You know. F-for what you did. For me. With trying to get me home. So thank you,” he said.

Whatever ease Rhys might have had when talking with Rarity he had not have with Twilight, this much was obvious, but it was equally obvious that he was trying and also meant what he said.

“It didn’t work though, Rhys. Sorry,” Twilight said and this time he managed to keep his eyes on her when he spoke to her.

“I know. But that’s fine. That’s not the point. Point is - the point is that you tried. No one made you and I wasn’t really ever nice to you while you did but you did it anyway. You did your best. That’s what matters. Thank you, Twilight.”

Rarity looked absolutely beside herself with delight at this unprompted action of Rhys’s part - boy done good! This sort of thing would have been unthinkable not long ago! Such progress. She was quite proud of him.

“Oh, Rhys-” she started, but commotion disrupted anything further, and the commotion was caused by the sudden appearance (as in, out of thing air sudden appearance) of…

Something.

Something that was not a pony but rather looked as though someone had diced a dozen mythical creatures, thrown the parts into a bag, shaken the bag and then made a new friend out of whatever fell out first when the bag (the shaken bag) was tipped up.

On top of which the thing was also wearing bright yellow shorts with what appeared to be palm trees on them, a luridly-coloured striped shirt, a red hat and also sunglasses, to complete the look. It was so garish that everyone else felt they could have benefited from sunglasses of their own.

“A party? Ah! It must be for my return. And what with my return being an unplanned surprise this certainly must have taken some planning! Well done, well done!” The something said loudly in a voice that immediately started to dig into Rhys’s brain because it was just so bloody familiar.

The thing then rounded on and spotted Twilight and made an immediate beeline over to her, and thus also to Rhys and Rarity by proxy as they happened to be standing in the splash zone, as it were.

“Twilight! Fancy seeing you here. Did you miss me? Ah! No need to say a word I can tell you did! It’s written all over your face!” Said the interloper, squeezing Twilight’s cheeks as one might with a friend’s baby.

It really was written all over her face, actually. Twilight peered down her muzzle and grunted in irritation, wiping herself clean and knocking away the thing’s hands. Or claws. Or whatever they were. One looked like a paw?

“Hello, Discord,” Twilight said through gritted teeth, aiming for politely but clearly struggling to get there. “Would have thought you’d go to see Fluttershy first. If you’re coming back. Which you say you are.”

Fluttershy being one well-known member of the local community who was conspicuous in her absence. Duty called, she’d said, with vague promises that she might appear later. So far, she hadn’t. The continued call of duty, one supposed.

“Oh I did, I did! First port of call, of course - had to tell her about my holiday, after all - but I apparently arrived during naptime and Flutters informed me in those hushed, commanding tones of hers that my outfit was too loud for the poor, sensitive, dozing animals. Can you imagine such a thing? This outfit! My holiday outfit! Loud! I ask you.”

As he spoke the outfit got brighter and brighter until it almost got painful to look at. Discord’s attention then transferred to Rhys and the brightness returned to normal.

“Ooh, another one of these! When did you get one? I could have brought you back another if you’re starting a collection - Bermuda was lousy with the things! Couldn’t move for them,” he said, circling around Rhys and tapping him on the head.

Rhys - being entirely unaware of who or what Discord was - just assumed that things like him doing stuff like what he was doing was something that happened sometimes and weren’t of particular note. After all, Pinkie could do sort of the same thing so why be concerned? And if ponies and griffons and bugbears (oh my), why not...whatever the hell this was?

Not that he enjoyed being tapped on the head, but he could survive it.

“This is Rhys,” Twilight said as Rarity quietly but firmly bit the back of Rhys’s shirt and dragged him back and just further out of Discord’s reach. “He’s a human. He’s been here two years. How did you never see him?”

“Scheduling conflicts, I expect. I can’t pay attention to everyone, Twilight! I’m very busy.”

“You went on holiday for, like, a year.”

“Yes! Because I deserved it! Because I’d been so busy! Honestly it’s like we’re speaking different languages. Still doesn’t answer my question though, where did you get one from? They’re really not from around here, I can tell you!”

“He’s not, he’s from a different dimension,” Twilight said.

By this point it should be made clear that everyone was watching this because they would have been mad not to. The residual scrutiny was making Rhys extremely uncomfortable, though having Rarity’s tail inexplicably wrapped around his leg as she stood resolute beside him did help a lot.

“I’m aware, I was there. Ooh, rhyme!” Discord chuckled, he hadn’t meant to do that.

“He got here by accident. Nopony knows how and we tried to get him back but it…”

Twilight winced and looked at Rhys apologetically. He mouthed ‘It’s okay’ at her.

“...it didn’t work,” Twilight concluded.

“It was the time thing, wasn’t it?” Discord said, sighing, as though this sort of issue cropped up all the time. Twilight goggled at him.

“How did you know?!”

He tapped his nose. Or snout. Or whatever it was.

“Couldn’t possibly say! That is a shame though, isn’t it? To expect to go home only to find there’s no home to go back to? Tsch, I mean I cou-”

“She’s working on a solution to that!” Rarity blurted, interrupting, clamping her hooves over her mouth the instant after she’d spoken and getting a very severe looking from Twilight for her troubles. Rhys just blinked, having to go back in his head to make sure he’d heard that.

“She is?” He asked, looking to Rarity who, in turn, looked to Twilight, who sighed. Cat out of the bag now.

“Yes. But it’s early. Haven’t really got anywhere with it yet.”

“I’m sorry, darling, I shouldn’t have said that,” Rarity said tentatively, lowering her hooves.

Rhys remained confused.

“Why didn’t - was this a secret thing?” He asked. Rarity waved her hooves quickly and leapt to counter this.

“No no, not secret! Just, well, we didn’t want it to be for...for nothing…” She said, again wincing. It didn’t sound so great out loud, not any part of it, not really. Did sound rather like keeping secrets. Or coddling. Certainly nothing good.

“Ah. Like last time. I guess I can see that,” Rhys said. He kind of could. He was still trying to wrap his head around the idea. He thought it had been all done. He’d just started heading towards getting used to the idea of being around ponies for the rest of things. Only now maybe not?

He was being pulled every which way, he was, and he really didn’t know what to make of it.

Discord though had his own ideas.

“Why didn’t you ask me?” He asked, pouting. An odd look for something with a face like his.

“Ask you what?” Twilight asked.

“To send it back, of course!” Discord said, pointing to Rhys.

“Because you were on holiday?” Twilight pointed out and Discord, standing proud and haughty a moment ago, was momentarily lost for words. He blinked and it came complete with a sound effect. Rhys found this quietly alarming.

“Oh yes, of course, silly me. Well, I’m not on holiday now - why not ask me now?” Discord asked, again striking a haughty pose, undercut somewhat by his holiday outfit which had remained in place this whole time, though the hat did appear to have grown slightly along the way.

“Ask what?”

“To send you home? Twilight’s working on a solution, you say? Probably some sort of portal, hmm? We all love a portal around these parts,” he said nudging Rhys in the ribs. “And I don’t doubt it - inventive scallywag that she is! - but I could perhaps speed the process up. Or sidestep it entirely. Portals are easy!” He said, snapping the fingers on one hand, summoning up a svelte slash through the fabric of space time, sticking the other arm through it and out the other end - directly into Rhys’s pocket. They rummaged for a second and then withdrew, pulling back through the portal again and holding up something that jangled. Keys.

Discord looked at them in puzzlement and let them dangle a moment before looking at Rhys again.

“Are these yours?” He asked.

Given that Rhys knew for a fact that he’d left those keys at home - ‘home’ home - this was no mean feat. Not that he was going to let anything show. And on the plus side he could actually enter his house now without breaking in.

“Yes,” he said, refusing to let this party trick ruffle him.

“Would explain why they were in your pocket. Here,” Discord said, tossing the keys to Rhys who - to his immense relief given the watching crowd - caught them.

“‘Portals are easy’ he says…just snaps his fingers...everything’s a joke...” Twilight groused, grinding her teeth. “Shove a rainbow up your jacksie again, see if you’re still cracking jokes then you mix-and-match tosspot…”

“Did you say something, Twilight?” Discord asked.

“Me? No, nothing. Just happy to be here. So you go to other dimensions all the time then?” She asked. She was so tired.

“Only on holiday. But I could make an exception, I suppose,” Discord said, exaiming his nails (or talons or etcetera). “Charitable and reformed soul that I now am.”

He then looked over to Rhys who had been, in defiance of his usual behaviour, keeping a surprisingly close eye on him. Discord narrowed his eyes.

“You do keep staring at me. Is it my devilish handsomeness? Or do I remind you of someone?” He asked.

“You do, actually. It’s the voice. Can’t quite put my finger on it…” Rhys said.

It was coming to him though. The fog was clearing.

“Oh this should be good. Come on, spit it out, I know what comes next.”

And then Rhys had it. Clear as day.

“Discord, have you forgotten the face of your father?” He said, pointing, as though he was being moved by an outside force. Discord sighed.

“Oh that was good, that was very good. Are you going to quote Shakespeare at me next? Defend humanity’s right to exist while I preside as a judge over some kind of space-trial?” He said, flapping what was definitely a paw.

“I was thinking more a mid-nineties Johnny Quest reference,” Rhys said and Discord let out a whistle.

“That’s a deep pull, we’re all very impressed, yes.”

Rarity and Twilight exchanged looks, both of them equally lost.

“...what is happening?” Twilight muttered and Rarity just shrugged and shook her head.

“Enough of this gay banter!” Discord then snapped, his holiday outfit vanishing into nothingness, the outburst making all those present jump about half a foot in the air. A lot of the party guests made a lot of effort then to make it look as though they weren’t listening in.

Discord then turned to Rhys and took a steadying breath.

“As I was saying, if you want me to send it - that is to say, you - back to where you belong then all you have to do is ask. I am fairly certain that I can probably get you back to when and where you came from, probably in one piece, probably without any unfortunate side-effects of accidents.”

Twilight cleared her throat and Discord turned and flinched when he saw that by now all the others had shown up and formed up, Rarity leaving Rhys’s side to form part of the squad so it had the full intimidation factor.

Fluttershy though was the one really selling it. It was like the temperature had dropped.

“Or we could cut out the maybes and the probabilities and just send you back without incident. If you’d like?” Discord asked, all sweetness and light now.

And now all attention was on Rhys.

Rhys felt that this was one of those rare, pivotal moments in life where the answer would only be obvious afterwards. One of those moments where there didn’t seem any right ways to go even though there were, and everyone else could see them. He swallowed.

“I think…” he said, playing for time. “I think that, uh, it’d be rude of me to have Twilight go to all this trouble and have her waste her time. If she - if she thinks she even has the slightest chance of d-doing it then I trust that she can. So if it’s all the same to you I’ll, uh - I’ll wait until she’s done. Thank you. Sorry.”

A veritable Oscar acceptance speech by Rhys’s standards. He glanced about nervously and much of that nervousness vanished when his eyes alighted on Rarity, who was beaming at him.

“Besides, there are worse places to have to wait in. Right?” He added.

All of which neatly skipping over the issue of how, when and if he did manage to get home, he was going to explain to people why it was he suddenly looked at least two years older. Rhys was banking on being generic-looking enough that no-one would notice.

Given how generic Rhys was this was a pretty safe bet, all-told.

Discord sighed.

“Very well, very well. Ridiculous decision but then you are a ridiculous bunch. If there’s one thing my holiday taught me it was that! Oh well! At least there’s a party, hmm? Where’s Nibbles?”

There came a comically loud gnashing sound of teeth and Discord gave a quiet yelp, turning and revealing a small, two-legged ball of anger and teeth clamped onto his scaly behind.

“There’s Nibbles,” he said.

No-one laughed. Discord looked appalled.

“Come on! I’m suffering for my art here! The least I could get is a pity chuckle!”

Still nothing. Not even the cricket deigned to chime in.

Wrenching Nibbles from his buttocks Discord, muttering about what he was going to do to the canapes, stalked off. Fluttershy peeled off from the group to give chase and console and, in dribs and drabs, the flow of the party resumed, ponies peeling off to continue what it was they’d been doing before, Twilight peeling off to go and get herself a drink.

Rarity came back to to Rhys, who was feeling a bit numbed by everything that had happened and all he’d learned.

“I might go home?” He asked her and she hissed to herself, still feeling bad for having let that slip. It had just been burning a hole in her ever since she’d known she couldn’t say it!

“Yes...the idea was to tell you when it looked more certain but now…” She said.

“No, no it’s okay. This is fine. Just have to wait and hope, right? Hope for the best and roll with whatever comes anyway,” Rhys said and Rarity’s face cracked into another smile.

“An excellent way of looking at it, dear!” She said.

Rhys glanced back to Discord, clearly visible above the crowd of ponies. Odd, having something else broadly the same height, though with Discord it seemed a little different every time Rhys looked. The canapes were indeed having awful things done to them, but even at a distance it was clear that his mood was improved by the presence of Fluttershy.

Or at least, Rhys could see this.

“I think I didn’t have the context to fully appreciate that. Is he a friend or something?” He said, nodding in Discord’s direction. Rarity made a ‘long story’ noise. A fine noise.

“I’ll explain it to you later, darling. Or tomorrow. Over breakfast?” She suggested, eyebrow arching.

“Heh, smooth. Yours or mine?” Rhys asked and she boffed him in the leg.

“So forward!” She said, scolding. Then, following a giggle. “Mine. You don’t have a table.”

He had to think about that for a second.

“Oh yeah.”