Alicorns and Beards

by ThePinkedWonder

Rating: everyone
Tags: Spike, Comedy, Starlight Glimmer, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human, Original Character
Length: 8106

Eric Reed wonders why he stopped growing beards in Equestria. Twilight Sparkle becomes obsessed with learning why. This will end well. Or not.

In the months he's been in Equestria with no way to leave, Eric Reed's beard hasn't grown back for unknown reasons. When he finally mentions it to Princess Twilight Sparkle, she becomes driven to learn the reason.

Eric soon grows fed up of Twilight's persistence and tries to make her leave him alone. But to do it, he must figure out the solution to one question.

What can Eric, a human, do against an Alicorn that won't leave him alone if she doesn't want to?

Good luck buddy.

This story takes place after the events of my "A Giant Adventure to Equestria" story. However, it is not required to read it first to understand this story other than to learn Eric's backstory and how his bonds with the other characters formed.

Here's the link to the story if you'll want to check it out, and it's an 18-chapter story.

A Giant Adventure to Equestria

Edit on 1/22/20: And special thanks to flutterjackdash for editing the story. Errors that was there on submission are fixed.

Published 2020-01-21 17:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-01-26 17:41:30 UTC

Chapter 2: Man Vs. Alicorn

Sometime during the night, a light woke me up. Seeing the face that was looking at me, I pulled my bed's blanket over my face and muttered, “Oh, come on, Twilight, five more--wait, WHAT?!”

I became fully aware of what was going on and my eyes flew open. I tossed the blanket off me and sat up. The face that was staring at me was, of course, Twilight’s, who stood beside my bed near the room's closed window. Her horn was glowing, lighting up my room in a pink light since it was still nighttime.

But Twi was wearing “that” face she wears after obsessing about something too long. Some of the hair of her mane was sticking out, making it look messy. She had a creepy as buck grin. However, her eyes, while blood-shot, weren’t twitching; when they do, that’s a sign that she either lost it or is losing it. The face she was showing at this moment just meant this Alicorn was about to start losing it. She also was holding a quill and paper in her magic.

“Twilight? What are you doing in here?”

Twilight dropped the paper and quill and answered, “Who, me? Nothing, nothing at all. Just checking...things.”

“Like my face?”

“Maybe?” Like the last time she said “Maybe?” it was in a cute voice tone and her creepy grin became a more cute one, but with a hint of crazy. But this time, her adorkableness wasn’t as endearing as it usually is.

“Well, I’m trying to sleep, so ‘maybe’ you should go away and leave me alone!”

“Aww! But I was making some progress! Can’t I ju--”

“Well, too bad...wait.” I pointed a finger at Twilight. The fact that she was there before I woke up and how she wanted to use spells before I told her "no" sunk in.

“What?”

“Twilight, were you casting those spells that you wanted to use on me earlier, while I was asleep?”

Twilight’s eyes grew big and she stuttered, “W-Well...m-maybe I c-cast just a c-couple of them...or three...or ten?”

Yeah, now she’s starting to not annoy but creep me out a bit. I would have yelled at her for casting spells on me while I was in dream-land, but thought of another idea. I hopped out of bed to stand beside her and asked, “Well, did any of your spells work?”

I walked towards my open bedroom's door. Twilight walked with me and she explained, “No. I first tried a spell that would reveal if any hair follicles were damaged but they didn’t appear to be. Then I cast a spell to--hey!”

Twilight was cut off by me shoving her out of the room’s door, a more “gentle” way of throwing her out, and slamming the door shut and locking it. With the light from her horn out, the room dimmed, but the faint pink glowing from one of my two baseball bats in the room's corner brightened the room enough to let me see what the moonlight from my window alone couldn't show. Oh, and why was one of those two bats glowing? Twilight had poured a little of her magic in it a week ago, so if I use the magic-powered bat to hit something, there would be more impact than it would usually give. The bat was obviously for self-defense and Twilight got the idea to give it to me.

“Cute story, Twi. Now--"

Twilight teleported back in my room, in front of me, and again her horn lit up the room. “As I was saying, then I cast a spell to detect any hair embedded in the follicles.”

I jumped from surprise. Should have known getting rid of my big sis wouldn’t be that easy. “Twilight, you promised to never teleport in my room when the door’s closed and locked unless it’s for something important!”

Twilight set the hooves on her forelegs on my shoulders, like she did in the kitchen before, and countered, “But this isssss important! What if you never grow another beard?! What if you’re the first human to stop growing beards like this?! Even if you’re ‘okay’, this is information that should be kept in Equestria’s records for historic purposes!”

“Considering I’m the only human that can stay a human here, Equestria can probably survive without that info.”

“Sure, you’re the only known human that can remain in human form in Equestria, but future historians would still be interested! I would! In fact, after I learn what happened to your beard, maybe we should run some tests to find out why you didn’t turn into a pony. Doesn’t that sound like fun, fun, fun? But back to that beard...”

Wonderful. Now here were two things to worry about that mare making me a test subject for. Anyway, as Twilight kept tapping into her inner Pinkie Pie by yapping on and on, a book on my dresser caught my eye. An idea popped into my head, I pushed Twilight’s hooves off me, and walked to the book I saw. More as a joke than anything, I picked up the book, ran to and opened the door, and whistled.

Twilight finally shut up and stared at me.

I tossed the book out of the room and said, “Go get it, girl!"

I waited for Twilight to ask why I did that. But instead, she smiled, “neighed” like a...well, pony, then hurried out of the room to get the book! Twi looked like a puppy playing fetch and had never looked more adorkable. It even calmed me down.

Chuckling at what happened, I closed my door. “Wow, I can’t believe she fell for that. Maybe I should keep--”

But Twilight popped in my room again, holding the book in her magic. “Got it! Now, as I was saying, we should--”

Oh, man. This was one of the rare times I wished Twilight weren’t so great in magic. Or, at least not in teleportation. That ended my calm moment, I facepalmed, and yelled, “Ugh! Twilight, that’s enough! Get out!”

“Okay, okay! You don’t have to yell!"

Twilight picked up the paper and quill on the floor with her magic, levitated my book back on my dresser, stomped out of the room while muttering "ponyfeathers" under her breath. With her gone, for now at least, I went back to my bed, groaned, and covered my face with a pillow.

Unsure if she might come back to bug me some more, it took some time to doze off.

The next day, when I woke up, the Princess of Research was nowhere in sight. Yes.

I already told Twilight, Starlight, and Spike I would make breakfast today, so I needed to get on that. But first, I put my hat on; it was on the same dresser that the book I "played" fetch with Twilight was on. It has designs of Twilight’s, Starlight’s, Rarity’s, Rainbow Dash’s, Pinkie Pie’s, Fluttershy’s, and Applejack’s Cutie Marks, with Twilight’s and Starlight’s near the top. I also put on a necklace with a green geode. Let’s just say that necklace was a special gift given to me.

I went in the hallway and Starlight was standing near my doorway.

“Morning, Buggie!”

“Morning, Starie. You seen Twilight yet?”

Starlight shook her head. “No, I don’t think she woke up yet.”

“Guess she’s catching up on the sleep she lost trying to study me when I was asleep last night."

“Huh? Oh, so you had trouble with her in your room?”

“Yep, and for a while, even throwing her out wasn’t working because she kept teleporting back in! But since she’s still snoozing, I can cook breakfast without worrying about her trying to spy on me or something.”

“So you’re really going to try to make breakfast for us this time?”

“Yep, but it can’t be that hard! Besides, it’s been long overdue for me to cook Spike breakfast for a change.”

“In that case, go for it!” Starlight said with a wink, but gasped a second later. “But, maybe you should, uh, wait in your room and I’ll look to make sure Twilight’s not awake, then come back to let you know the coast is clear.”

“Good idea. Thanks, big sis.”

I returned to my room, and Starlight closed the door before checking on Twilight. After a couple of minutes, she came back and told me it was safe to come out and I went to the kitchen. It was odd that it took Starie so long, but if Twi were still asleep, whatever.

In the kitchen, I got out a pan from a cabinet for the pancakes. It was a different one from the one Twilight hid in before.

But before I even got the stuff out for them, while beside the kitchen’s table, I felt a chill. I had no idea how Starlight goofed, but I knew Twilight was watching me. I looked toward the cabinet she hid in before, but it was closed. Even so, I sighed and asked, “Let me guess: you’re hiding in that cabinet, aren’t you, Twi?"

But Twilight popped in front of me from seemingly thin air. “Nope, I’m right here.”

She had that creepy grin on her face again, though something about it felt different. Her mane wasn’t messy this time; guess she fixed it after she left my room. There was also no “poofing” sound that happens with teleportation: she just...appeared.

I jumped away from her and said, “Whoa! How? Where did you come from? That wasn’t teleportation!”

Twilight chuckled. “Not even some Unicorns would have pieced together that I didn’t teleport. I’m impressed, little bro!”

“Thanks, but again, how did you get here?”

“I was already here: I was invisible, thanks to an invisibility spell. Now, hehe, about that beard--"

I took steps back. “Okay, Twilight? You’re creeping me out now.”

Twilight walked beside me and wrapped a foreleg around me. “Come on, it's me, big sis Twilight. You know I’m a pony you’re always safe with, right? Besides, after you threw me out of your room last night, I got close to finding out what was wrong with your beard!"

“Okay, then what did you come up with that’s new?”

Twilight grimaced and took her foreleg off me. “I...well...uh…”

I stepped behind Twilight and started pushing her towards the doorway out of the kitchen as I said, “That’s what I thought. Now--”

Before I could finish, Twilight teleported ahead of me and faced my direction in her new position. Since I was suddenly pushing nothing, I fell to the floor with a grunt, landing at her hooves, and came close to accidentally kissing them, literally.

This just wasn’t fair! At least one of us was having a good time: Twilight giggled after I hit the floor. She also backed the hoof on her left foreleg away from me.

After the giggling was over, she helped me to my feet with her magic while she yapped, “But don’t you want to go down in history if you really are the first human to stop growing beards like this? I’m a princess, so I can easily spread the word!”

“Not if it means a bunch of spells being cast on me to find out, Princess of Annoyance. Besides, as far as Equestria’s concerned I’ll be the first and last human to do it, and don’t you need to give a speech or something at the Ponyville Hospital later?"

“Uh...yeah. In three hours. But that's no problem, because I could just slow down time for the area where we are. That way, I'll have pleeeeenty of time to study your hair follicles some more!”

"How about...wait. You can slow down time? When? And why come you never did it?"

Twilight looked away. "Uh...I, that is..."

"You just made that up so I'd say 'yes', didn't you?"

"Maybe?"

I ignored the usual adorkable smile Twilight always does when she says "Maybe?" like she just said. Instead, I turned Twilight around and again got to pushing her. “I knew it. So how about you worry about your little speech later and let your little bro cook you, Starlight, and Spike a big breakfast?”

“W-Well, I--"

After one more big shove from me, she was out of the kitchen and she walked off. But I didn’t hear her grumble “ponyfeathers” this time. Never been more thankful for Twilight’s “princess duties”.

With her out of my hair for the time being, I got back to making breakfast. It was of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and toast, and turned out pretty good if I say so myself.

After Twilight had finished eating, she left for the Ponyville Hospital, leaving me some time to rest without worrying about her trying to bug me again. But, how the buck could I keep her away once she was finished at the hospital? Without becoming Mr. Test Subject, I couldn't fend off that royal pain in the butt forever.

But at the very least, at least she wasn’t saying “Hey, listen!” as she annoyed me. After I played a certain video game in my world, I HATE hearing those two words together!

Author's Note

I know that feel Eric: that annoying fairy in "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" got on my nerves too.

How long can Eric keep this up? Is there any way for him to get around Twilight's teleportation and other spells? Or will he give up and let himself be her "test subject" and hope Starlight didn't curse him in chapter one by asking "What could go wrong?"

Chapter 3: The ace in the hole

About an hour after Twilight left the castle, lying on my bed in my room, I was trying to, as Rainbow Dash likes to say, “chillax”. I figured I’d read a couple of books, maybe solve a jigsaw puzzle, and was glad for this moment of peace. But it wouldn’t last.

What would I do when my purple shadow got back to the castle? Twilight didn’t seem ready to give up and only backed off because of her “princess duties”, but WILL be at it again.

If my memory was correct, a Unicorn’s or Alicorn’s spell can be canceled on the spot by touching their horn, if they're actively casting it. I didn’t think Twilight ever rid herself of that weakness, so it was possible for me to do the otherwise impossible: stop Twilight Sparkle’s spells without a type of anti-magic device, IF I could tap her horn in time. But, she could counter that trick by staying out of horn-catching range, or freezing me in her magical telekinesis. Then there’s the fact that it’s useless against her teleportation, and at this point, I would want her to do it!

In other words, grabbing Twilight’s horn to make her go away wasn’t an option. In fact, I couldn’t think of any options.

Right after I had finished reading one of the books, Spike came to the room's doorway. “Hey, Eric, enjoying your little...break from Twilight?”

I looked towards Spike, laid my book beside me and sat up. “Yeah, but I’m in for it when Twilight’s done at the hospital because I doubt she’s going to lay off anytime soon. If that’s not enough, with her magic, she’s too strong, so I can’t stop her! Ugh!”

Spike set a claw on his cheek and suggested, “Maybe you could hide somewhere for a while? If she doesn't know where you are, she can’t teleport to you.”

“I thought about that. But this is one of my days off from the spa, and I want to rest in the castle today before Sunset comes through the portal to see me. Plus, even if I do take off, I’ll have to eventually come back to the castle, and when I do, the Princess of Persistence would be here waiting for me!”

“Oh, yeah. In that case, you’re in trouble.”

With that little confirmation, I fell backward on my bed and groaned. “Oh, this is just great! I tell you, Spike, I love Twilight to death, but sometimes that pony's OCD--wait.” An idea popped into my head and it even made me smile. “I have an idea. Why didn’t I think of it before?!”

“What?”

“You’ll see, and I don’t want to do it, but I have no choice. I’m going to get my secret weapon to keep in here.”

“Secret weapon?”

“Yep. It’ll keep Twi away, no matter how powerful she is.”

I left my room to prepare my trump card. It was the only thing I knew of that a measly human like myself could use to fend off Princess Twilight Sparkle.

A bit later, I walked back to my room with a plate holding my ace in the hole: an extra cheesy quesadilla. Spike was still waiting, so maybe he had nothing to do if he wanted to stick around. Not that I minded.

“Is that a quesadilla?”

“Yep,” I answered while setting the plate on my dresser. “The cheesiness of quesadillas freaks her out too much to come near them, so this will be my ‘Twilight repellent’ till she cools it. This may scare her half to death if she sees it, but I’m up against an Alicorn, little bro, so I gotta use any advantage at my disposal.”

“Not bad, Eric, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of quesadillas. I’ve known her my whole life!”

“Well, I might not have known her anywhere near as long as you have, but I know our big sis pretty well too.”

“Ha, we should get the others to quiz us to see who knows her the best sometime. Anyway, with you safe from Twilight now, I’m going to go check on something.”

“Okay. See you.”

Spike left, and I closed my eyes to rest. Soon, I was out cold.

After my sudden nap, I woke up and jumped at who was staring at me beside my bed again. By now, you should know who it was.

Yep, the royal pain in the butt returned and had her paper and quill again, in addition to a closed purple box beside her on the floor. She had a creepy grin again, though it wasn't as creepy as it was before for some reason. Still, I was probably going to be seeing it in my dreams.

You have got to be kidding me.

“Oh, good, you’re up, Buggie. While giving one of my speeches, I thought of something and needed a strand of hair from the top of your head, but I couldn’t get it because you took your nap while wearing your hat.”

“Okay, how did you--where did--what happened to--” I looked to the plate of my quesadilla...and saw my Twilight repellent and the plate gone.

“Where did that quesadilla go I had on my dresser? Did you do something with it?”

“Me? Of course not! You know I never go near…*shudder*...quesadillas! But if you had one there, maybe it’s the one I saw Starlight carrying and I’m surprised my scream didn’t wake you up. But enough about quesadillas: take off your hat so big sis can get that hair!”

Buck! Starlight must have come into my room while I was in dream-land. Guess she was hungry, and didn’t want to wake me up to ask if she could have it. Either way, I was going to get her for this!

There was one desperate option left that popped in my head. I could do something to distract Twilight, throw my bed's blanket over her, run like mad, and hope I could get far enough before she could recover and teleport to my exact spot. The idea I thought to do it was one of the classics.

I pointed behind Twilight and asked, "Twi, what's that?"

Twilight turned her head. "What’s wha--hey!"

I tossed my blanket on her, jumped off my bed, and took off!

“So long, Princess of Suckers! Ha ha!”

But when I ran a few feet into the doorway, I felt an odd sensation. Next thing I knew, I was somehow sitting on my bed with Twilight giggling. My blanket was on the floor beside her. Oh, no.

“Welcome back, little bro. Have a nice trip? Did you get me anything?”

Now Twilight's tapped into her inner Discord to troll me! Guess he’s rubbed off on her way more than she knew.

I looked left and right to nothing in particular while I asked, "What happened?! What did you do?! I thought you couldn’t teleport anything that’s hidden from you, and I made it out of the room!"

"Well, I thought you would try something like what you just did, because I know you. So, when I came into your room, I cast a special type of high-level teleportation spell in the hallway that would activate one time and functions like an invisible portal. If you run through it, the spell will automatically teleport you back to your bed.”

Of course she would have expected me to do that! Lucky for me, I thought she might have done something like that: I know her too. I even had a plan to make her drop her guard a second time by tapping into her “Motherly big sister” mode. I started fake coughing and really went all-out to make it sound bad.

Twilight leaned to me with a frown. “Buggie? Are you okay? Are you sick?!”

Once she was close enough and seemed to have fully bought it, I tossed my bed sheet over her head, then ran out again! This time, I didn't say anything to tease her.

Once in the hallway, I went in the opposite direction as that “portal.” But after another several feet, I felt that odd feeling again.

Next thing I knew, I was back on my bed, with Twilight giggling again. My bed sheet was on the floor with the blanket.

“Welcome back. You still didn’t get your big sister anything?”

“B-B-But I thought you said that portal you made only worked once, and I didn't run at it anyway! Why am I back here again?!”

“I did, but I never said there was only one portal out there. Want to try again for ten bits?"

I facepalmed and moaned. Great. Not only did Twilight have me vastly overpowered, but she was too smart to outwit! I almost wanted to say "buck my life", but didn't.

"You are too strong with your spells. You know that?"

"Yep, but just let me try to find out why you stopped growing a beard! Just for a little while! Please? I neeeeed to know for Equestria's history!” Twilight formed her “begging” smile, and it was another of her adorkable ones. I should count myself lucky that Twi usually doesn't try to use her adorkableness to make me do stuff, or I'd be in trouble. In my normal mood, she would break me on the spot with a face like that; don't need to have a crush on her for that.

I didn't want to break, but here, I was plum out of options anyway. Knowing her, there were more "traps" in the hallway. Not that it mattered because she wouldn't fall for my tricks a third time: she’s too smart for that. Trying to repeat an escape would have done nothing but make that Alicorn laugh again and cost me bits. Twilight Sparkle had me, pure and simple. I flicked my arms up in defeat and said, “Okay, Twilight, you win! Do whatever spell--ow!”

Twilight didn’t even wait for me to finish before she took my hat off and pulled out a strand of hair from my head, both with her magic. After that, she got some books out from her box and resumed working to learn the deal with my beard. Twilight did some spells to try to figure it out, but nothing worked, according to her.

She also tried a bunch of...strange ideas. Some of which were levitating and holding me upside down, spinning me in her magic, and using my head as a drum while singing a song. Twi even materialized some eggs and cracked them, pouring the yolk over my face and head, and it was fitting how I had egg on my face. She must have entered "playful big sister" mode or something, because that mare seemed to enjoy doing those things to me with the giggling she let out as she did it. She even giggled during her song. At least Twi has a great singing voice.

After the fifth egg was cracked, I asked, “You haven’t figured out what’s wrong yet? I definitely don't mind your singing, but I'm getting tired of being your test subject and human drum! And what’s with the eggs? You trying to feed my hair follicles an omelet or something?”

“The eggs were to try to stimulate the hair follicles, but it’s not working. I still don’t know what’s wrong with your beard, so I’m going to go get another book that might have an answer. Stay here while I get it.”

Twilight ran out of my room, and once she was out, my own curiosity made me peek in her box. It had more books that she didn’t go through for some reason, but also something else that made my mouth drop. A syringe that’s usually seen in hospitals. It held a needle.

No. Bucking. Way.

Twilight Sparkle couldn’t be thinking of using that thing to somehow figure out why my beard stopped growing, could she? Does she even know how to use it correctly?! She’s not a doctor!

Not only that, I hate needles, so I ran out of my room! Didn’t even think about where I might go, or if I was about to run into another magical trap.

But a second after I was in the hallway, my heart sank when a voice called out, “Hey, where are you going?”

Yeah, you know who it was!

I turned to see a grinning Twilight running towards me. I said nothing, but ran faster than before down the hallways with the Princess of Pests chasing me. The thought that she might freeze me in her magic didn't even pop in my head.

“Come back! Hey, listen! I have soooooo much left to do!”

What did I do to deserve this? And why did she have to say those two words together?! Even Twilight knows I hate hearing “Hey, listen!” and it’s like she’s just picking on me now!

As Eric Reed fled from his room and from Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer and Spike stood in the hallway watching them run in the other direction.

Starlight commented, “Wow. Our brother is running fast!”

Spike said, “It still wouldn’t be fast enough if Twilight chased him at her top speed. And, Starlight?”

“Yeah, Spike?”

“When are we going to tell Eric?"

"What?"

Spike explained, "That after she left his room last night, Twilight went back to the notes she wrote and figured out why his beard stopped growing? And that ever since this morning, she’s just having fun with him?”

Starlight chuckled. “Until it either stops being funny or the ‘Princess of Playing’, as Eric might say, runs out of songs.”

Spike chuckled as well. “So, we’re not going to tell him?”

“Nope, but we'll step in if she tries to have Pinkie Pie tell him ‘Hey, listen!’ because that would be going too far. And Twilight said it’s been three weeks since she messed with Eric, so this might go on for a while before she starts feeling bad and stops.”

“It's a good thing that it's nearly impossible to get him mad with jokes, as long as it's done in fun, or she wouldn't be doing this. After Twilight tells him the truth, we will all be laughing.”

Spike and Starlight chuckled again and looked at their respective open bags of popcorn beside them. They were thankful for already having them before Twilight told them her plan earlier that morning before sending Starlight to his bedroom’s door.

The pair also made a mental note to inform Eric that Twilight was not going to run tests on him to deduce why he remained in human form in Equestria. Just in case Twilight forgot to tell him herself.

Another half-hour later, Twilight finally told Eric that Equestrian magic forced his face’s hair follicles into an arrested state and apologized for getting a little carried away. He declined her offer to reverse the effect. And as Spike said, Twilight, Eric, Spike, and Starlight shared a group laugh over Twilight's joke.

Author's Note

Ooh! Eric got punked!

Did you guys catch the hints I left in chapters 2 and 3 that Spike and Starlight were up to something? Or that Twilight's fixed mane and giggling later on in chapter 2 was a hint that she was just acting from that point on in the story?

EDIT: if you thought Twilight went too far in the story, I started souring on its ending too some times after I wrote this story. It's sequel tried to make it for it some.

Chapter 1: Two mistakes

“Hmm…”

“What’s wrong, Eric?”

“Well, Spike, since I ‘came’ to Equestria, my beard hasn’t grown back.”

“A beard? You can grow them?”

“Yeah. Or at least I used to.”

Hey, Eric “Buggie” Reed here.

In my bedroom in Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle, I was staring at a mirror hanging on a wall near the door. Spike had just stopped by my room and saw me staring at my reflection and stood outside the door.

What's going on? Over the months I've been stuck in Equestria, my beard stopped growing for some reason. Weirder things have happened to me, namely being trapped in a magical world full of talking ponies and other beings possessing human-like intelligence, so not growing an annoying beard anymore wasn't something I cared about. If anything, my thoughts were “Good riddance!” because having to shave each time it grew back annoyed me.

However, seeing Pinkie Pie hopping around Ponyville earlier, with a fake beard, made me start to seriously wonder what the deal was with mine. I learned to NEVER question Pinkie when she’s being Pinkie Pie, so I didn’t ask why she was wearing a fake beard.

As for my missing beard, maybe it stopped growing because of Equestrian magic? If so, Ponyville’s resident expert in magic, Twilight Sparkle, could probably figure out what’s wrong.

But as I pondered telling Twilight about it, said purple Alicorn walked to my doorway and stood beside Spike. She wore a cheerful smile. It was about time for a reading session that she and I have every two or three days.

“Oh, hey, Buggie, I picked out some great books for us to read this...wait, what’s wrong?” Twilight walked into my room and to me with a worried frown.

I turned to her and answered, “Not really ‘wrong’, but I’m just trying to figure something out.”

“What’s that?”

“My beard hasn’t been growing since I’ve been in Equestria, and I don’t know why.”

“I didn’t know you could grow them. Hmm.” Twilight set a hoof on her cheek and looked down. Something she often did when deep in thought. After a second, she took her hoof off her cheek and raised her head to me. “Well, I might be able to figure out why your beard isn't growing anymore, if you want.” Twilight smiled again. It was the kind she gave when her curiosity and inner researcher was triggered. “I'd just need to ask you a few questions.”

Heh, both that smile and last sentence brought back memories of the first night we talked and started bonding. Over my time in Equestria, Twilight Sparkle has literally asked me hundreds of questions about my old world, though I stopped counting once she reached a hundred during my third week here.

Not kidding. But over time, she cooled it on the questions and doesn’t ask many now, though she’d still ask some from time to time.

I was about to let Twi ask her questions. But, as I really noticed the look in her eyes and grin, the fact that she’s Twilight Sparkle registered in my noggin. When she gets that look on her face and tries to discover the secrets to something, she won’t quit till she does.

Twilight has some general knowledge about how the human anatomy works, but not about the more complicated things, especially if she can’t apply it to pony anatomy too. If she had trouble figuring out the deal with my beard, I would have been stuck with a purple shadow for who knows how long. I enjoy spending time with her, but not THAT much!

I shook my head hard and said, “Uh, no thanks, Twi. You don’t have to do anything.”

“But I thought you were curious?”

“Oh, uh, I was? N-Not really, and I hated having to always shave that thing off every two or three weeks anyway.”

Twilight frowned. “Well, okay.” She turned toward my open door, but a second later she looked back to me. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She turned towards the door and took some slow steps toward it. After the steps, she spun her head to me again. “Because I can take a little bit of time to find out what’s wrong and we can read together later.”

“It’s okay.”

Twi looked away, took more steps to the door, stopped, and faced me yet again. This time, she said nothing, but both her frown and big, purple eyes screamed, “Please?”

This was just getting sad. Poor Twi loved doing research on anything that piqued her curiosity. If I wouldn’t let this mare try, she would rack that head of hers wondering what was the deal with my beard. When she’s not allowed to even try to satisfy her OCD, things do not end well for her. And for anypony near her. Plus, over my time in Equestria, I’ve gained a brother-sister friendship with Twilight, and my heart couldn’t take my “big sis” looking like that.

I sighed and committed what I hoped wouldn’t be “mistake number two”. Mistake number one was simply telling her about my beard.

“Okay, big sis, you can--”

A big ‘ol grin curled on Twilight’s face, making her do something she’s prone to doing: looking aborable. Or "aborkable" in Twilight's case. Though, instead of laying into me with questions, she teleported out of the room.

“Weird. Spike, where you thi--”

Twilight teleported back in the room, in front of me, levitating a red quill and a scroll of paper in the air. Half of the scroll was laid out on the floor. She gathered those fast!

With an excited smile, Twilight sat down and levitated the quill over the scroll. “Okay, first, tell me more about beards so I know for sure how they grow in humans. When did you start growing them? How fast did it used to grow? Why didn’t you have one when I found you in Equestria?”

There would be plenty more questions than those, making me feel nostalgic. At her most excited, this was similar to how Twilight acted when she bombarded me with questions about my old world. Oddly, I think part of me actually misses that.

At any rate, I sat on my bed on the other side of the room, then explained to the Princess of Curiosity and Spike the history of my beards. I told them that they started growing three years ago, why I was beardless when Twilight and I first met -- it was shaved three days earlier -- and also answered the other questions Twi had.

As I explained, she wrote what I said in her paper. She didn't even ask Spike to do it, meaning Twi was really into learning about my beard!

After she had finally asked enough, Twilight levitated the quill and paper onto my room’s dresser, which was near the mirror on the wall. “I see. First, let me take a close look at your face.”

Despite Twilight saying that like a request, her actions showed otherwise. She used her magic to pull me off my bed toward her and stared at my face as she was talking. After a minute, Twilight released me from her magic and said, “I can’t see any hair. Maybe Equestrian magic destroyed your hair follicles, so I’ll get a magnifying glass for a better look at them.” Twilight teleported out of the room.

Five seconds later, she popped back in, levitating a magnifying glass in her magic. Unicorns and Alicorns don’t know how good they have it to possess the ability to levitate stuff whenever they want. And how good they have it to just be able to use magic.

With the magnifying glass, Twilight leaned her head closer and examined the hair follicles on the right side of my face. Spike got bored and left, but around ten minutes later, he returned to see if Twi was finished.

She wasn’t.

“Wow, you’re still not done, Twilight?” Spike asked.

“No. I've only checked a few of his hair follicles.”

Giving in to her was already looking like “mistake number two”.

I gasped and asked, “Hold on, are you going to check every one?”

“Of course. How can I find out for sure what’s wrong if I don’t?”

“Y-You can’t! Well, you could, but I have thousands! We’ll be here for days, if not weeks, if you look at them one-by-one!”

“Yeaaah, and Eric’s not like you and could go on forever on this stuff,” Spike pointed out.

Twilight sighed and moved both her head and magnifying glass away from me. “Fine. But from the ones you let me see, Buggie, I don’t think your hair follicles are damaged, but just aren’t growing hair. Let me check the ones on the top of your head and maybe they can give some clues.”

Like before, Twilight didn’t act like it was a request. But this time, she turned me around to inspect the hair on my head. We’re the same height when standing, but Twi flapped her wings to get airborne to have the best look at the top of my head.

“You’re not going to look at each hair follicle on my head, are you?”

I’m only going to examine a few.” Twilight studied a “few” for another ten minutes, and Spike decided to stay this time. She adjusted her exact spot to me as she looked at different parts of my head, but stayed in mid-air the whole time. At this point, I could do nothing but just let my big sis have her fun.

And wish that I kept my big mouth shut.

After those ten minutes, Twilight landed on the floor and was now in front of me. She wore a frown screaming she didn’t find anything out. “Well, nothing seems to be different about the hair follicles on your head other than they are growing hair. I don’t think the structure of your hair follicles differs that much more than those of ponies, so I don’t get it.” Twilight set her hoof on her cheek again and laid the magnifying glass onto the dresser with the scroll and paper she laid there earlier.

“Well, thanks for trying, Twi”-- I walked around Twilight and toward the doorway to my room --“and since you’re finished, we can go to the library and--”

“Wait, who says I’m finished?”

I stopped in my tracks and spun around to Twilight, who had the hoof on her face back on the floor. “But didn’t you say that you didn’t ‘get it’?”

“Not yet, but there's still a lot more to do.”

Uh-oh. This was what I was afraid would happen.

“There is?” Spike asked, beating me to the punch.

“Yeah. I can cast some spells to see if they can reveal some hidden anomalies.”

“Spells?” I took a step back. “Uh, you know that I trust you with my life, but how about ‘no’ on the spells, Twilight?”

“Why? You know I would never cast spells on you that could do any harm!”

“Yeah, but if you cast spells like this, I'd feel like your test subject, Princess of Obsessiveness!”

“I wouldn't ever think of you as a 'test subject', little bro! I just--”

“Twilight Sparkle? NO!”

“But…*sigh*...okay, I won’t do it.” Twilight’s ears drooped. She picked up the scroll, quill, and magnifying glass she had laid on my dresser before, walked by me, and then by Spike after she went through the doorway. Guess she didn’t feel like reading together now. I felt a little bad for yelling at her, but not enough to give in.

Spike watched her mope down the hallway and said, “I don’t think you should have done that, Eric. Now Twilight’s going to drive herself crazy wondering what’s up with your beard. You know how that never ends well.”

“Yeah, and it’s not that I don’t trust her with spells and later I’ll apologize to her for shouting. But still, I’m not that pony’s lab rat.”

“Uh, lab rat?”

Heh, despite being so accustomed to Equestria, I often forget that a lot of expressions from my old world can confuse Equestrians. “Oh, yeah, you wouldn’t know what that meant. Let’s just say that I’m not doing what Twilight wanted to do.”

“I understand, but you might regret this, big bro.”

I decided to take the chance and wasn’t planning to change my mind.

An hour later, I headed to the kitchen to have something to eat. I would have been eating some snacks already with Twilight during our reading session, but that...got postponed.

Walking into the castle’s kitchen, by a table, I saw the second pony I gained a brother-sister friendship with: Starlight Glimmer. She was chowing down on a sandwich that she held with her magic. “Starie” must have been hungry, and since most of it was still there, she just started eating. There was also a new, larger cabinet in the kitchen that I never saw before.

“Hey, Starie. Is Twi in here?”

Starlight set the sandwich on a plate in front of her and looked around. “Uh...unless she cast an invisibility spell to hide, I don’t think she’s here.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

“What’s going on? Why aren’t you two having your reading session?”

“I doubt she’s in the mood to read right now. I made the dumb decision to tell her about how my beard stopped growing. And when did we get that--”

The door to that new cabinet cracked open in pink magic, but the opening pointed away from me. What seemed to be the lens of a telescope peeked out and was aimed at me, surrounded by the same pink magic. When I focused my stare at that thing, it moved back into the cabinet and the magic closed its doors. Heh, wonder who that magic belonged to?

“What?” Starlight looked toward the new cabinet. "Oh, that's right, we have a new cabinet. I guess Twilight wanted to surprise us with it, because she didn't say anything about getting one."

That further confirmed what I was thinking. I crept to the cabinet’s door that closed, opened it, and found a certain Alicorn inside. Even with the larger space in it compared to the other cabinets, she was barely able to fit in there. Despite the limited space, she still held a scroll, a red quill, and a foot-long telescope. The telescope was curved instead of straight, so despite the cabinet being cracked open in the other direction, its lens was still aimed at me when I spotted it.

Knowing she was busted, Twi dropped what she was holding onto the floor and put on one of her nervous grins. She’ll get more adorkable points.

With a smirk, I faced Starlight and pointed at Twilight. “Well, well, looky what I found, Starie. One princess that can’t take ‘no’ for an answer!”

“Twilight? What are you doing in there?” Starlight asked.

“Oh, uh, hi, Buggie, Starlight. I was just, uh--”

I looked at Twi again and interrupted, “Let me guess. First, you knew I’d get hungry soon, so after you left my room, you went out to get that cabinet and carried it here. Then, you squeezed into it and waited for me so you could ‘study’ more of my face’s hair follicles without me knowing. Am I right?”

“Maybe?” Twilight answered in a cute voice tone. It’s tough to get too mad at her when she looks adorkable like this, but she’s pushing it.

I stopped smiling and said, “Okay, Twilight, this is getting ridiculous, and how can you even get a good look at my hair follicles from in there, anyway? Is that telescope that good?” I picked up the telescope on the floor and peeked through them. Its lens pointed at Twilight, who had crawled out of the cabinet while I was telling her how silly these antics were, so her head ended up in its line of sight. I saw not just some of the individual strands of her mane's hair, but the multiple tiny fissures along the strands in great detail. It was like looking through a microscope, not a telescope.

I lowered the telescope from my eyes and faced Twilight. “Wow, this is that good, bent or not. When did you get this, Twi?”

“I’ve always had it, but I cast a spell to boost the telescope’s zooming power to make it strong enough to be used like a microscope.”

“Ha, figures you could do that, and I bet you bent it with a spell so it would face the direction you needed it to. But anyway, can you knock it off before you get carried away?”

“But I just have to find out why your beard isn’t growing! There could be an important reason why!”

“Like you said, maybe it’s because of Equestrian magic. Besides, if something serious was wrong, we’d know by now.”

That failed to calm her down. It just made her place her forelegs’ hooves on my shoulders, making me drop her telescope. “But if it’s not because of Equestrian magic, you could be the first human that this happened to, making this groundbreaking news! Doesn’t that exci--”

“Twilight!”

“Okay, fine! I’ll stop trying to study the hair follicles on your face.” Twilight took her hooves off me, turned around, picked up her scroll, paper, and telescope in magic, and stomped out of the kitchen. As she left, she grumbled, “ponyfeathers,” to herself.

Starlight giggled and suggested, “Maybe you should let her try to figure out what’s wrong with that ‘beard’ you were talking about. Besides, what could go wrong?”

Annnnd any thoughts about changing my mind went bye-bye. When that question is asked, things WILL go wrong. Badly.

“Guess you didn’t learn to never ask that question, Starie. Now a disaster will happen if I back down.”

“If you say so, but I don’t think Twilight’s giving up. I hate to say it, but it’s not like you can stop her from doing something she reallywants to.”

“Why? Yeah, she’s a princess, but she wouldn’t use her title to make me let her keep trying.”

“It’s not because Twilight’s a princess, but because she’s an Alicorn. Most Unicorns’ magic can’t do much against hers, and you can’t use any magic.”

Oh, boy. Starlight had a point. Compared to me, Twilight Sparkle’s God-like because of the level of magic she possesses, so there was little I could do if she became a royal pain in the butt! And saying “little I could do” is me highballing. Twilight’s friendliness and modest nature help mask how strong she truly is, so it’s easy to forget.

Understanding the spot I was in, I facepalmed. “Oh, yeah, you’re right. I’m screwed if she won’t lay off me on her own. But then again, Twilight Sparkle’s not a pony that would use her magic to force me to do something, usually. I hope.”

My appetite left me, so I headed back to my room. Starlight stayed in the kitchen and got back to her sandwich. Several hours later, when I went to bed, since Twilight never came to bother me, I thought, Well, that was easy.

Author's Note

And since this story isn't a one-shot, it's not going to be that easy.

What will Twilight do next? Does Eric has any chance of fending her off?