Memory Loss

by QazRa

Rating: everyone
Tags: Sad, Tragedy, Random, Slice of Life
Length: 22496

Jonathan wakes up in the middle of a cold, night-time forest, not being able remember anything..

A story about Jonathan, who finds himself in a foreign world with no memory of the past week. His life on Earth had been full of sadness, loneliness and remorse. In this new world, he can live free of those past emotions.
His new life in the new world starts to turn into a nightmare, as his memories start to seep information about Equestria and its inhabitants. It drives him to the brink of death; only to get a new chance in the world he always wanted to live.
———-

This is my first attempt at fan-fiction, so feedback/reviews/comments/etc. are very welcome!

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-02-18 18:58:55 UTC

"Where am I?"

Jonathan slowly drifted back to consciousness, his senses starting to register his surroundings.

First sense to come back was feeling. It was chilly, the kind of chilly which is found during late autumn. He felt the spikey tips of grass pinching his exposed skin. The smell of grass also confirmed this sensation.

He couldn't hear anything, just the quiet ruffling of leaves. Even with closed eyelids, he could guess it was night-time.

Opening his eyes, he found his guess was correct. It was night-time, with the moon shining some light to the grim-dark landscape.

"Where am I?" Jonathan thought with his confused mind. He had no idea where he was, how he ended up where he was or why he ended up at the foreign place. He couldn't remember what had happened before this. He felt like he had lost a week worth of memory.

"So, a small concussion, with its nice sideserving of memory loss and a tasty headache. This is going so well.." He said to himself with a sarcastic tone while pulling himself up.

Now fully aware and thinking straight, Jonathan corrected his glasses and took notice of his surroundings more carefully. All around him, he could only see dark trunks of trees, their leaves covering the starry night sky. There also were leaves on the ground, a clear indication of the upcoming or already in progress autumn and its cold nights. He knew he had no chance of surviving the night without some sort of shelter. Wearing only a pair of camopattern sweatpants, a black hooded shirt and a pair of sneakers, the level of cold resistance was low.

He started walking at a random direction, hoping to find a place to keep himself warm.

***

Jonathan didn't know how much time had passed. Thinking his current situation and trying to remember what had gotten him to this place took over his sense of time. If the feeling of tiredness and cold were anything to go by, it had been at least an hour or two. His stomach groaned, noting that he probably hadn't eaten much before this happened to him.

He started to get increasingly worried as he walked among the dark tree trunks, seeming to be unable to find the shelter he needed.

Soon, Jonathan arrived at a large clearing. Immediately he noticed the two large building-like shapes. The farther one, looked like a mix of a church's bell tower and a barn, at least that's what he could make up from the dark silhouette. The closer one resembled a good, old, ordinary barn with its curved roof and overall size. He thought that it wouldn't be a good idea to disturb a dark house located in the middle of a forest;  a house of which that who knows how far away from society it is. He opted to check out the barn.

He approached the dimly moonlit building, hoping the insulation was decent enough to keep the place a few degrees warmer. Opening the wooden door, he felt a slight rush of warmer air brushing his face. He quickly darted inside, closing the door behind him.

The barn was pitch-dark. Jonathan started to walk forwards, while slowly scanning the floor with his feet, in the hopes of finding something soft to rest on. The cold and walking for god knows how long had taken all the little energy he had left and he desperately needed some sleep.

His foot touched something soft; at the very least it was something that was softer than the hard, wooden floor. He crouched down and touched it with his hands. It was hay.

"Well, what else could there be in a barn?" He wondered to himself with slight amusement. He crawled on top of the pile. Taking a comfortable position and laying some hay on top himself, he already felt slightly warmer. Jonathan closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

***

"What in 'tarnation are you doin' in mah barn?"

Startled, Jonathan sat up quickly. Still overwhelmed from the sudden wake-up, he squinted his eyes in an attempt to see something through the bright sunlight. The barn door was fully open and the sun shined right inside, blinding the suddenly woken up Jonathan and casting a dark shadow in front of him. He couldn't make out the silhouette from the doorway.

"Wait, I was just.." he managed to say, before he saw something in a form of an apple flying towards his face.

Before his neck muscles could even react to the evading order, everything went black.

***

"Now AJ, are you sure?" A calm female voice asked.

"Sure as sugar Ah'm!" Responded another female with an accented voice, with a hint of frustration in it.

"I think he's waking up." A third female voice said, much closer to Jonathan.

Jonathan grunted and slowly opened his eyes. His eyelids felt heavy and overall he felt a little under the weather.

"You're at the Ponyville Medical Clinic." The answering voice was soft and reassuring. "May I ask what your name is?" The closest female voice continued.

"Jonath.. What?" He couldn't believe what he just heard. He quickly sat up and looked around, before noticing he had lost his glasses and couldn't see anything except for three strange shapes of color, that stood out from the dull, grey background. The closest one, right next to his bed, was white as snow with a little hint of light pink around. The other two blurry shapes were purple with darker features and orange with blondish features. Jonathan tried to squint his eyes, but it didn't help. A small trace of confused panic started to pick up in his mind.

"There's no need to panic, you're safe here." Said the white one, with a motherly caring voice.

Jonathan didn't know whether or not to trust that. Being in a room with almost no ability to see who was talking to him and the closest memory being hit by an apple so hard he lost consciousness didn't help him to calm down.

Surprised by the tone of voice, he managed to gather up a big question, for him it was a big one.

"W-who are you?" He said with a voice that seeped confusion and mild panic.

"I'm Nurse Redheart" the white shape said, with the same caring voice. "But may I ask your name again?"

Jonathan replied, this time telling his name in full. Looking at the purple shape, he wondered; Why did they wear so highly saturated outfits? And why were they so short? They didn't seem to be much taller than the hospital bed he was sitting on.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, nice to meet you Jonathan." Said the purple shape with a polite tone while stepping closer to Jonathan's bed.

"And Ah'm Applejack" The orange shape said with a neutral voice from farther back, not moving.

Jonathan wondered what happened to his glasses. Without them, he was practically blind, which was a little unnerving in this particular situation.

"You don't happen to have any sort of glasses around?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.

The now closer Twilight and Nurse Redheart appeared to look at each other, at least that's what Jonathan could make out from the blurry colorful shapes. A slow hum filled the previously silent room and a few seconds later Jonathan felt something touch his hands. Taking them into closer inspection, he knew right away what they were. Reading glasses.

"I always carry a pair if I need to read something." Said the purple figure. "I hope you can see with them, they are not very powerful ones."

Jonathan winced at the fact they were reading glasses, they won't work on his negative-sided eyes. In fact, they would make his vision worse. Still, he tried them on and noticed he could see quite well with them.

"Wait, if these are reading glasses then how can I..." The sentence was interrupted by the sudden confusion that flooded his mind. He now could see the figures more clearly, albeit not perfectly. Still, it was enough to make his brain go blank from what he was seeing.

They were horses; no, ponies. They were brightly colored ponies. Polite and apparently caring and friendly, brightly colored ponies. His mind desperately tried to process what he was seeing.

"How are you feeling?" Asked the blue-eyed white pony, with a nurse's hat on.

"I.. my.. my head hurts a bit" He wasn't sure anymore if the pounding in his head was from the apple or from the attempts to comprehend his surroundings.

"That's from the concussion you suffered earlier." The nurse-pony said, giving a blaming look at the cowboy-hat wearing orange pony. "Aside from that, you have no other injuries," Turning to look at Jonathan again, the blaming look now replaced by a genuinely caring one. "But we still have to keep you under observation for a while."

Jonathan felt quite surprised that he didn't suffer from a cracked skull. Taking a hit from a frozen fist-sized apple with enough force to knock you out wasn't a small thing. Jonathan's eyes turned to the purple unicorn.

They both watched each others' eyes for a few seconds, before the one with purple eyes slightly tilted her head. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, nothing really. It's just that where I'm from, there are no talking brightly colored ponies, not to mention unicorns." He said, his eyes still locked with the purple ones.

"Where are you from exactly? We haven't seen anypony, or should I say anyone, like you in Equestria before."

Jonathan didn't know how to answer that question. He was probably in a different planet or universe or something, how could he explain where he was from?

"We humans are from a planet called Earth.." He began. He recalled the history of humankind as best as he could, telling how the humans evolved from simple hunter societies to an intelligent and technological race. Apparently in Equestria, war and terror wasn't a recent or well known subject. Hearing about the stupid wars of humankind and their results drew horrified gasps from the three listeners. Aside from that, the two others didn't react much or say anything. The technological advancements particularly seemed to interest the purpled one a lot.

Not knowing what to tell anymore, Jonathan ended his long speech. He couldn't make out what the trio was thinking after this enlightening, maybe not so happy, history of humans. He just hoped he hadn't made his situation worse.

"What 'bout you?" Asked the orange pony from farther back. She hadn't said anything after Jonathan had woken up in the clinic. "How you ended up in 'ere? In Equestria?"

"I have no idea how I ended up here. I woke up in the middle of a forest at night, unable to remember anything what happened to me. I can only recall memories from farther back like my childhood and some recent events." He answered. "But I can't remember anything what happened in like a week or so."

"Well, what can you tell us about yourself?" Redheart asked. Jonathan gave a sad smile at the question.

"Me? I'm nothing special. Just a lone student, with no friends." He said, lowering his eyes towards the soft sheets of the bed. "Or family.."

"I have never accomplished anything special. Nor have I felt much happiness during the last few years. I never had a real friend, never had a relationship, never felt true love, except for and by my parents." Sadness seeped through his features and voice. "After my parents died, I just drowned myself in computers and games, while trying to look forwards to get to my dream job." He paused for a few seconds and took a deep breath. "I still don't know how I managed to keep going. The only thing I really wanted was to find friendship and love and live happily for the rest of my life with my family."

"But, somehow that seemed impossible, from the bad experiences I got in trying to achieve that."

The room fell silent. For a few seconds everybody just stood there. Jonathan's eyes widened when he felt something touch his left shoulder. He raised his head and looked to his left. A pair of sad purple eyes were looking at him, with a purple hoof on his shoulder.

"You're not alone." She said. "Not anymore."

"How? You barely know me!" Jonathan said, disbelieved. "Not to mention I'm an alien to you."

"You may look different.." She said, those big purple eyes still locked to his light green ones. "But that doesn't mean you can't get friends. It's what's inside you that counts."

The room fell silent again, until a muffled shout broke the silence. "Is the monkey awake? Where is it?"

A synchronized wave of three frustrated sighs were let out by the three ponies accompanying Jonathan in his room. Nurse Redheart trotted to the door and exited, closing the door behind her. Jonathan got a good look at the red cross on the white pony's flank. He wondered, why they had their profession tattoo'd on themselves? Twilight turned to look at the door, as did Applejack. They both seemed to wait for something, but not in a very good way.

"Miss Dash, please quiet down. You'll wake up the patients from their much needed sleep with your shouting." The barely audible voice of Nurse Redheart said to someone.

"Oh, sorry!" Said a slightly high pitched voice, now with a similar volume to Redheart. "Is it in there? Can I see it? Is it awake?" The voice continued with excitement, almost forgetting to keep her volume down.

"First of all, it's 'he' and no, he still needs some rest." Two sighs of relief were let out in Jonathan's room, he wondered why.

"Aww, can I at least see him? Pretty please?" the higher pitched voice continued, disappointed.

"No. I will inform you when you can see him. Now please, keep your speaking volume..." The voice drifted off as they moved away from Jonathan's room. A few seconds of silence filled the room.

"Well, that was close." Applejack said relieved, breaking the silence.

"Indeed." Twilight responded and turned to look at Jonathan, he looking back with a raised eyebrow. "Long story. You should get some sleep. I'll come back to give you a small tour around Ponyville and find a place for you to sleep in, after Nurse Redheart allows you to leave, of course." She said with a small smile. Both Twilight and Applejack trotted to the door, the latter giving a dip of her hat as a farewell before exiting, Twilight just behind her.

"Umm, Twilight." Jonathan called. The purple unicorn stopped in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." She said with a soft smile, before exiting and closing the door. The room was now silent, except for the shuffling of the bed covers as Jonathan laid down and took a comfortable position. As his heavy eyelids pressed down on his eyes, he quickly fell asleep.

A/N Well, that was the first chapter of my very first fan-fic. I truly thank you for reading this far!

Comments, ratings and overall feedback is appreciated!

26.12: Fixed (again) some mistakes I made and changed some oddly used words etc. to a more readable form. And consarn it, I know the difference between "its" and "it's", yet I keep making the mistake of using the wrong one sometimes..

27.12: A HUGE thanks to MrMusicalPony for making this more enjoyable to read!

"Eternal night"

"Hmm, Elements of Harmony. I know I've heard of those before."

"But where?"

***

"Spike! Do you know what this means?"

***

"The* Wonderbolts? The most talented fliers in all over Equestria?*

***

"Oh no.."

"Nightmare Moon!"

***

"What was that?"

Jonathan woke up from his slumber. Sitting up, he recalled the weird dream. Why had he seen a dream with Twilight in it? What were the Elements of Harmony?  Who was Spike? Who were the Wonderbolts? Who was Nightmare Moon? The dream had felt like a movie trailer, just bits and pieces from all around it, nothing solid. He had hoped a good round of sleep would do good but all it did to him, was raise more questions. He thought about dismissing the dream and filing it under just-a-dream, but somehow he couldn't do it. As if, something was keeping him from doing it. The dream felt important, somehow. "Damn dreams..."

He didn't know how long he had slept. Regardless, he felt much better than before. His headache was almost gone and he felt better overall. His stomach however, decided to disagree with a groan. "Right, I haven't eaten anything in a while." Jonathan said to his stomach, holding a hand on top of it. His stomach let out an even louder groan in response. "Alright, in a LONG while."

"Wow, I heard that from here!" Said a slightly high-pitched voice from the door. Nurse Redheart, Twilight Sparkle and a brightly colored cyan pony with wings, stepped in. To Jonathan, her voice sounded familiar somehow. And to his dismay, she also looked familiar with that rainbow-mane. "I haven't seen her before, so why I feel like I know her?" Jonathan thought. The look on his face didn't go unnoticed by the newly arrived trio.

"Is something wrong?" Nurse Redheart asked as she stopped next to Jonathan's bed.

"I'm hungry."  He lied. Yes, he was hungry, but he lied about what was really wrong with him. Last thing he needs is to scare off the only people.. No, ponies he knows in this foreign place.

"I can't believe you two didn't hear that stomach groan!" The cyan pegasus said. "I guess my hearing is more awesome than yours!" Her voice was full of confidence.

All three turned their heads to look at the rainbow-mained pegasus.

"What?" The pegasus said innocently. "Maybe you should give him, I don't know, some food?"

Twilight turned back to look at Jonathan. "Jonathan, this is.."

"Rainbow Dash." Jonathan said, abruptly continuing her sentence.

"How did you.." The surprised and confused purple unicorn was interrupted by the cyan pegasus darting past her. Hovering right in front of Jonathan's face, Rainbow stared into his eyes.

"How'd you know my name?" She asked with anger in her voice, eyes full of determination. "Are you a spy?"

"Well, I did hear your last name earlier, when Nurse Redheart talked to you." Jonathan answered as-a-matter-of-factly. "And guessing your first name didn't need much work, your mane and tail being rainbow colored."

"That," she said, lowering her eyes. "Makes sense." Feeling slightly humiliated, the pegasus flew away with a few flaps of her wings and landed next to Twilight.

Jonathan had no idea where that name had come up from. "What the heck is going on..?" He thought to himself. "Brain, please enlighten me? Pretty please?"

Nurse Redheart and Twilight both looked at Jonathan, both trying to come up what to say, him trying to hide another groan from his hungry stomach with his hands.

"Looks like your concussion has gone away." The white earthpony said after a few seconds of silence. Having averted her eyes from Jonathan, she was now looking at a clipboard she had brought with her. "You are free to go, I no longer have to keep you in observation."

"So, I can go and eat something?"

"Yes, and we would've brought you something to eat before but since you kept sleeping for so long and we didn't want to disturb you.."

"That's okay, I needed the sleep. My headache is almost gone." Jonathan said with a dismissing wave of his hand. "The only remains are probably from a slight dehydration."

"How about we treat you to some lunch?" Suggested the purple unicorn with a smile.

"Sounds good." His stomach let out yet another groan. "Sounds very good!"

W/N: There goes the second chapter, a lot shorter than the first though.

24.12: Again, fixing some mistakes that are left behind despite the multiple re-reads I do..

"Curse."

"This plant does not breed wrath, instead this plant just wants a laugh."

***

After the trio left the clinic, Jonathan's stomach reminded about his bottomless hunger yet again. They headed towards the closest restaurant, only to find it full to the brim. It was lunch time after all and all the workers were out on their breaks.

"I'd rather wait it over or go somewhere else." The purple unicorn said, taking a glance at the hungry human who was looking mildly irritated. He didn't respond. "Well, that's just me." She continued.

"Why not go to Sweet Apple Acres? I'm sure they have some of those delicious apple-pies ready and waiting.." Rainbow said, with unmistakable tease in her voice. Jonathan lighted up like a christmas tree.

"Which way? Which way?" He was jumping like a dog waiting for his owner to throw the stick.

Rainbow pointed her hoof towards a path, leading away from Ponyville. "That way.." She barely could hold off the giggles.

A second later, Jonathan was already running. Not able to contain the mounting tension, Rainbow fell to the ground laughing, with tears coming out of her eyes. "I wonder where he get's the energy to run!"

"Umm, Rainbow?" Twilight wasn't smiling. "Please tell me that path doesn't lead to the Everfree forest."

Rainbow's laugh quickly dried off. Looking at the slowly setting dust trail leading towards the path, her face darkened as well. "Oh horseapples."

"I thought so."

***

"Why can't you just fly after him?!" The purple unicorn was furious.

"I came to see you at the clinic today after my morning practices! I'm still tired from them and he's running insanely fast for a monkey!"

"Human, Rainbow! He's a human!"

"Fine, he's a fast runner for a human." They didn't seem to be catching him at all. "Wait a second, why can't you use your fancy magic to levitate him over?"

"My magic can't reach long distances! And after that incident, I don't want to use my teleportation spell again!"

"Wait, what?"

"Not talking about it while were trying to catch a hungry human from.. By Celestia." The sudden realization fell on her like an anvil.

"What if he touches the Poison Joke?"

They both suddenly seemed to gain slightly more speed.

***

Fluttershy quietly hummed a song while taking care of her animal friends. "You need to eat plenty of food so you can safely hibernate over the upcoming winter." Her sweet caring voice was quickly understood by the animals. Suddenly, the birds from a nearby tree started to flee. "What's wrong?"

She turned to look at the path leading towards the Everfree forest. A dust cloud was forming behind the small hill, beyond that was Ponyville. She quickly jumped up into the tree, fearing what-ever-was-coming was going to come and eat her.

A some sort of a monkey practically flew on the path to Everfree. Before she had the chance to comprehend that the danger was over, she saw two familiar figures coming over the hill. "Twilight? Rainbow Dash?" She got down from the tree and went to meet her friends at the path.

"What's going on? What was that thing that ran past me to the Everfree forest?"

"Oh no, we need to hurry!" Twilight's breathing was close to an asthmatic hamster.

"My prank went to the moon and now our new hungry mon-human friend is thinking there are apple pies waiting for him at that direction." Rainbow gave a quick brief on the situation. "And we have no idea what will happen if he touches the Poison Joke."

"Oh, my.."

***

Jonathan's mind was saying only one thing. "FOOD!" He immediately had started to run at the pointed direction, like a hungry animal let out of its leash.

However, after he had entered the Everfree forest, his intellectual mind started to knock on the door of his primitive, instinct ridden brain. "Umm, why do I have a feeling like I shouldn't be down here?" He quickly screeched to a halt, his thoughts no longer consisted of food.

"Wait, how do I know this?" He said to himself out loud. "How could a forest do anything.." He stopped speaking as he noticed the - familiar - blue flowers.

***

"Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.." Fluttershy repeated as she followed her two best friends into the dreaded Everfree forest.

"I hope it isn't too late. He has gone pretty deep into the forest already." Twilight said between her frequent gasps for air.

"The Poison Joke grows in this area, if you don't pay attention where you walk, you'll easily touch one." Fluttershy said, with a trembling voice.

"In that state, I think he couldn't care less about some.." Rainbow was interrupted by a loud scream coming from just ahead.

"..stupid plants."

***

A/N: Just a question, for those few who have read this far: Is it better to do approx. this long (~800 to ~900 words) chapters one per day/two days or do a longer (like the first chapter, 2000+ words) in between a longer time? (that one took me quite long to write, something like 12h stretched between 4 days. The last two = 2-3 hours per chapter.)

Again, feedback and comments are welcome and greatly appreciated!

PS. Mental note to self: Remember to re-read the text at least 10 times before publishing and keep reading it again and again to find the sneakier ones.

24.12: Few fixes.

"Modesty"

"By the Goddesses, don't let it be something horrible." Twilight prayed that was the case. She had no idea how a human would react to the Poison Joke or if the cure for it would even work.

"Jonathan! Are you alright?" Rainbow hollered. If something bad had happened to him, it would be because of her and her hastily carried out prank. Fluttershy's mind was occupied watching out for the blue flowers.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" The loud shout scared the trio to a halt. The pink-mained pegasus fell over like stiff-legged goat and the other two just kept looking forwards.

"At least he's still breathing." Rainbow said slightly relieved. "But he doesn't seem to be very happy about it."

"Come on! We have to check if he's okay!" Twilight wrapped the scared stiff pegasus in her magic and started to run again, Rainbow following right behind her.

***

"Urgh.."

Jonathan's mind went dark for a few seconds after he saw the blue plants. He woke up laying on the ground, next to the blue flowers. Lifting himself up, he noticed something was off. He could feel the cold air on every inch of his body. His mind started to drown in the embarrassment-avalanche. He let out a disturbed scream.

He was completely naked.

"WHAT THE HELL?"

***

"Jonathan! Are you al.." Twilight stopped running as she saw the human standing behind a bush, covering his most of his body. "..right?" She set herself down, panting, being exhausted from the long sprint and glad he appeared to be alright. Fluttershy had regained her composure and she was now standing on her own hooves.

"Umm, Jon?" Rainbow started, looking at the cowering, redfaced human. "Why are you hiding behind a bush?"

"And why are you blushing?" Fluttershy continued.

"I.. I really don't want to talk about it." He could barely answer.

Rainbow just stood there, thinking what he could've meant with that.

"You're naked aren't you?" Twilight and Rainbow both were surprised when the sentence came from Fluttershy. "Don't worry, I'll be right back." She took off with her wings and headed towards her cottage.

Twilight was still trying to catch her breath. She tried to think why he'd be embarrassed, it was natural to not wear clothes, right? Rainbow had fell down to break out another batch of her signature laughs. Jonathan didn't say anything or do anything, he just stayed behind the dark green bush with his head sticking out from behind it, face red as the evening sun.

After a few minutes, Fluttershy came back with a huge piece of cloth. She flew over to Jonathan's bush and left the piece of cloth next to it. "Here you go." Her sweet caring voice as beautiful as ever. "Put that on, and we'll get you some real clothes. I know someone who can sew up something for you."

Jonathan grabbed the cloth and rolled it over his waist like a towel. It didn't warm him at all, but at least he wasn't naked anymore. "Umm, thanks." He said, face still hot red.

"You're welcome." Fluttershy responded with a warm smile. She then turned towards the sitting unicorn and still giggling pegasus. "Now, let's go back to Ponyville to see Rarity, if you don't mind.."

***

They all were now walking on the path back to Ponyville. Jonathan tried to keep himself warm by rubbing his hands and jumping around. The autumn air was too cold to only wear a towel.

"How did you know that?" Twilight asked from Fluttershy. She still didn't understand why he'd be embarrassed over something so normal.

"Know what?"

"That he wanted something to put on."

"Well, the small glance I got on him when he passed me earlier, I did see clothes on him." She said, recalling the sudden event. "And now that he suddenly didn't want us to see his body,  I thought he didn't have them on anymore."

Twilight stayed quiet, silently admiring her friend's thought process. Why hadn't she come up with that? The voice of Applejack ringed in her head. "Beg pardon Rarity, but uh, we don't normally wear clothes.."

"And so, I went back to my cottage to get one of those big pieces cloth Rarity gave me."

"That's, very smart thinking Fluttershy."

"Umm, thanks." Her pink mane fell slightly on her face as she blushed at the compliment.

***

Jonathan hadn't said anything during the whole trip. His mind was scrambling to understand where his clothes had gone, they were his only ones in this world after all. He still, however, couldn't shake the odd familiarity the blue plants and the forest had. Why did they feel so familiar? He had never seen or heard of them. "Dammit brain! Give me something solid already!"

"And why is Fluttershy so adorable?" Noticing what he was thinking, he quickly gave himself a mental shake. Every pony he had met to this minute while in here, felt somehow familiar. Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, even Nurse Redheart. Like he had seen them before, like he knew them to some degree, but everything seemed so vague he wasn't sure about what to feel at this point.

Before he knew, they had arrived at their destination.

"Here we are, at the.."

"Carousel Boutique." Jonathan continued Twilight's sentence again.

"What in the hay.. How'd you know that?" Rainbow said at the half-naked human.

"I just read the sign." He pointed at the standing sign next to the door. "See?"

"Oh, right." She said, rolling her eyes. "And stop continuing other ponies' sentences like that! It's getting creepy!" She snapped at him. "I've got to do some weather jobs, c'ya all later." After that, she took off to the skies.

Jonathan was left silent, he felt bad for the cyan pegasus. "Wow, I didn't know I was that creepy." He turned to look at the purple unicorn. "Sorry for interrupting you, twice." He said apologetically.

"It was indeed starting to get a little creepy." The purple unicorn answered neutrally. "Anyways, apology accepted." She continued with a smile. Jonathan felt relieved at the sight and smiled back.

"Umm, Twilight, if you don't mind, could we go in and see Rarity? So we can get Jonathan something warmer to wear? It's pretty cold out here and he's starting to shiver."

"Y-y-yes. That woul-d-d be ni-i-ice"

A/N:

26.12: Again, like in the other chapters, more fixes for the mistakes that got past me earlier.

(Comments, feedback and reviews would be very much appreciated!)

"Happiness"

The door bell rang as Fluttershy entered first. An almost instant response came from the shop.

"Welcome to Carousel Boutique! How may I help you?" Rarity said enthusiastically as she trotted out from the backroom, wearing her orange-framed glasses. She greeted her friends as they entered before the shaking Jonathan. "Goodness! Why aren't you wearing anything?"

Jonathan tried to answer, but was cut-off by Twilight. "Jonathan here touched Poison Joke and lost his clothes. Don't ask me how."

"By Poison Joke? How he ended up in the Everfree forest?" Rarity asked, confused.

"Rainbow Dash tried to have some fun with him." Fluttershy said, feeling pity for the still slightly shivering human.

"Jonathan's very hungry right now and so Rainbow tricked him to believe there were apple-pies waiting for him at the direction of the path, not paying attention that it headed for the Everfree forest." Twilight continued.

"He needs some clothes." Fluttershy stated. "If you don't mind that is."

"Poor dear, Jonathan was it?" Rarity's eyes lighted up, realizing what kind of opportunity she had in front of her.

Jonathan looked around the boutique, noticing the seemingly endless number of beautiful and colourful dresses. He turned to look at the white unicorn and saw the look in her eyes. "Oh no.."

***

Rarity didn't take long to learn to make a pair of pants and a shirt. They were similar to ponies' clothes, with some alternations and longer sleeves. She had hard time to stay with Jonathan's demands of 'simple' and 'not colorful'. After numerous colorful outfits and frustrated sighs, she had to succumb to his requests.

"Is this good?"

"That looks very good!"

"But it's so dark and.." She looked at the outfit she had made. With some advice from Jonathan, she had created a similar black hooded shirt with thicker covers to protect from the cold. The pants were also black and heavily stuffed, but had a few streaks of crimson in it. Rarity had insisted them to have some detail than just plain black. "..simple."

"They are perfect! Just my style." Jonathan said enthusiastically. "Thank you, Rarity. You did amazing job and you have never even made clothes for a human before!" He continued from behind the dressing wall as he put his new clothes on.  "And they fit perfectly!"

"No problem, dear." She said humbly. "I just hoped they would've been more, stylish."

"Everypony.." His speech faltered for a second as he noticed what he had said. "..has their own style, mine's just slightly darker." His thoughts however were thinking about something else "Did I just say 'everypony?"

"Yes, slightly darker." Rarity answered sarcastically.

"Hey, does anypony else smell.." Twilight said, sniffing the air. "..smoke?"

Silence filled the room. They all watched at the stream of black smoke, hovering closer from the kitchen.

"Sweetie Bell!" Rarity yelled and ran to the kitchen.

"Hi sis'! I heard that your customer was hungry and I wanted to.."

"Yes yes, now please give me some water before the house burns down, would you?"

The three visitors silently listened and glanced at each other.

"That's so nice of her." Fluttershy said softly, the little filly just tried to be helpful after all.

***

While Rarity was trying to save her boutique from a kitchen fire, the trio made a quick exit. Fluttershy left back to her cottage to take care of her animal friends. She was interrupted in the middle of serving food for them and she needed to continue. That left Twilight and Jonathan to travel to Sweet Apple Acres.

"I've been meaning to ask." Jonathan took the glasses off and inspected them in his hands. "How do these work? I mean, my eyes are negative and so I shouldn't be able to see any better with reading glasses."

"Well, that's simple! They are enchanted with a spell that detects and adjusts to the wearer's vision, be it plus or negative." Twilight said, seeming eager to tell him more. "Of course, like I said before, those are enchanted with a rather weak spell, so they can't adjust too far."

Jonathan let the enlightening information sink in, or at least tried to. "Very simple indeed. It's like I see magically enhanced glasses everyday."

Twilight ignored the sarcastic response. "How you see with them?"

Putting the glasses back on, Jonathan then gauged their effectiveness. "I can see quite well, but not as well as with my original ones." He squinted his eyes slightly. "The farther objects appear to be slightly blurry."

"Well, I could make you a more powerful pair if you want."

"You would do that? For me?"

"Of course! Every friend of mine should be able to see perfectly!" She responded with a warm smile.

"I.. I.. Thank you, Twilight." Jonathan smiled from ear to ear, feeling happy and warm inside after a long while.

"No problem, Jon."

A loud stomach groan was unleashed, Jonathan hugged his stomach in an attempt to silence it. "How about we get something to eat?" His stomach reinforced this with yet another groan. "Please?"

The late-afternoon sun was shining over Ponyville as they continued walking towards the Apple-family farm.

***

Right from the front gate, Jonathan could smell the freshly baked apple-pies. Applejack was outside hauling the last apple cart back to the farm after the last apple-buckings of the year and was surprised to see the duo.

"How'dy Twilight! How'dy Jonathan!" The orange mare greeted as she freed herself from the cart. "What brings 'ya to mah farm?"

Even though she was a few dozen feet away, Applejack could hear the stomach groan.

"Is that good enough for an answer?" Jonathan asked, hugging his stomach.

"Yea, Ah reckon Granny Smith has baked some pies fer dinner." She paused and took a lingering glance at the Apple-family house. "Wanna join us?"

"Would I?" Jonathan said, relieved to finally get his insane hunger away.

"Gladly AJ." Twilight responded. The new guests followed Applejack inside.

***

The evening went nicely. Jonathan predictably ate quite a few pies and a one too many. Big Macintosh and Granny Smith both took the foreign guest warmly in. Applebloom just kept hammering questions at the human and almost forgot to eat her own food. Jonathan was quite taken by the constant asking of the little filly, he had always been rather good with kids and as such, they shared a few laughs. They all had a good time.

"Thank you for the invite, Applejack. Be sure to give my thanks to Granny Smith as well." Jonathan said, feeling much better with his hunger gone. All three were standing outside. The evening went so fast that it was dark when Twilight and Jonathan were leaving.

"Sure, Ah'll tell her." She answered. "And Jon, Ah'm sorry fer the apple. Ah was just scared of never seeing anyone like you and.."

"Don't worry about it Applejack." He said to the awkward looking orange mare. "I think I would've done the same in your position."

"Thanks Jon." She said, relieved he didn't hold a grudge.

"Well, it's getting late. We should head back." Twilight said, glancing at the starry sky.

They said their farewells. Twilight and Jonathan started to head back to Ponyville on the dimply moonlit path.

"I can only say one thing." Jonathan stated. "I've never had so much fun in my life."

She smiled and felt happy that he was feeling better. "I had fun as well."

They talked about the evening and the dinner, before Jonathan thought about an important thing. "Where am I going to sleep?"

"Good question, I hadn't thought of that during the day."  It was already late evening. She didn't want to disturb anypony this late and there were no hotels or other accomodations in Ponyville. Those were the luxury of bigger locales, like Canterlot. "The only place remaining is my place."

Jonathan almost fell on his face, stunned by the straight-forwardness of the statement.

"I do have an extra room and there are no accomodations in Ponyville."

Jonathan gathered enough words to agree. "Well, it's a lot better than sleeping outside." He paused for a second. "Or in a barn."

The purple unicorn giggled. "I wonder how Spike reacts to you."

"Spike?" He asked. "Wait a second, that name was in the dream I had when I was at the clinic." He thought to himself. How had he dreamed of a name he now heard for the first time? And why on Earth did the name feel familiar like the other names did?

"Yes, he's my number One assistant and a very good friend. He helps me at the library."

"Wait, you live in a library?"

"Yes." She took a short pause. "I like to read books."

"I see..."

***

"Spike! I'm home!" Twilight called as she entered her home.

"You could've told me you live in a library that's inside a huge tree."

Snickering, Twilight slowly turned to look at Jonathan. "I didn't think it was worth mentioning." She said sarcastically.

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Everything here is worth mentioning, for me at least."

As he entered the library, Jonathan was taken aback by the sheer number of books and shelves. There had to be hundreds if not thousands of books here. Every single inch of free space in the shelves and walls were occupied by books. For a few seconds he didn't even notice the little purple and green dragon standing right in front of him.

"Hi! I'm Spike!" It said to him.

"Uh, hi?" A certain phrase came to his mind. "You're a dragon, right?"

"Spike, this is Jonathan." Twilight said.

"He's tall." Spike said, blatantly stating the obvious.

"I used to be taller, until I took an arrow in the knee." Jonathan said, his face remained neutral.

Both Twilight and Spike looked at him with confusion. "What?" They said in unison.

"Oh nothing, just a joke where I'm from." He gave a smile at the two. "Oh my God that was a bad one.."

"Riiight.." Spike stated, taking a few over-dramatic steps away from the human.

"Anyways, Jonathan. Let me show you to your room." Twilight said, waving a hoof.

Jonathan followed Twilight to a smallish room. It had one small round window and little decoration; just a full bookshelf, a warm carpet, a dusty writing desk and a bed. The bed was quite small; no way he could fit himself on it without one or two limbs dangling off the edge of it.

"I know the bed is small, but there is only one size." Twilight said, looking at the tired, yawning human. She yawned as well in response.

"It'll do just fine. I bet it beats hay." He walked over to the bed and sat on it, feeling the soft cushioning. "I won."

Twilight smiled. "Good to know." She yawned again. "I think it's time to sleep. Good night Jon."

"Good night Twilight."

She closed the door. Jonathan's guess was right, he couldn't lay on the bed without his legs dangling off the end of the bed. However, being tired after the winding day made his eyelids feel heavy and his free-floating legs didn't bother him that much. Closing his eyes, he wondered what new things tomorrow reveals and he quickly fell asleep.

A/N: Longer than usual. I just couldn't stop writing before I got to a reasonable ending scene. And with longer text the chance of mistakes are higher, I apologize for any that slipped my pre-readings.

And like always; comments, feedback and reviews are welcome and appreciated!

"Fallen Rainbow"

"ATZUH!"

Jonathan cursed at the fact he had caught a flu yesterday. Apparently walking half-naked in temperatures close to zero degrees tend to give you one.

The morning sun shined through the small window, shedding some light into the small room. The little warmth that the light brought inside felt nice on Jonathan's face, making his spirits slightly higher. Not only had he got a flu over night, he also had one of those weird dreams of his. Like movie trailers, they showed flashes of events that somehow constantly kept involving the ponies he had met. And he kept feeling like he knew them better than before. "So vague details, yet I feel like I know a lot about this place.."

Jonathan got up from the bed and stretched his back and legs a bit. He could hear a conversation through the door, Spike and Twilight had already woken up. He opened the door and right away saw the majestic, white alicorn standing in the middle of the round library room, talking to Twilight.

The alicorn saw Jonathan come out, her eyes seeming to gauge the sneezing human. Twilight jumped at the sneeze and turned to look at Jonathan as well. "Bless you."

"Thank you." He replied, trying to look for something to wipe his nose with.

"Twilight, would you give us some privacy, I'd like to talk to your guest." The white alicorn stated.

"Of course." She gave a slight bow of her head and trotted towards the kitchen, levitating a napkin to Jonathan on her way there.

Jonathan silently thanked her and sneezed again. He moved closer to the alicorn, and after seeing how Twilight behaved around her, he thought that using some manners would be a good idea.

"Hello, my name is.." He started, giving a formal nod.

"Jonathan. Yes I know, Twilight told me." The alicorn interrupted. "Please excuse my manners, I'm Celestia."

"Nice to meet you, Celestia." Why did that name have a familiar ring to it? "You wanted to talk to me?"

***

"I'm sorry to say, but I have to go back to Canterlot. Royal duty calls."

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Celestia"

"As well. Farewell Jonathan."

"Farewell."

The alicorn disappeared in a flash of light. Jonathan was left slightly baffled by the sudden disappearance. "They can teleport?"

Jonathan sneezed again. His nose was running and his face felt like it had been beaten. "Damn flu." He walked to the kitchen, where Twilight was eating her breakfast and reading a thick book at the same time. Somehow, he didn't feel surprised by the sight. Jonathan snickered after he saw the purple dragon, standing on a stool in front of the stove.

"What?" Spike questioned, slightly creeped out by the staring human.

"Nothing, I just never imagined to see a small dragon in a pink apron." He said with a grin on his face

Spike looked down at the piece of clothing. His shoulders slumped and he let out a sigh. "It's the only one."

"Oh, it's not so bad Spike." Twilight stated, sounding more sarcastic than she probably had hoped. The runny-nosed human chuckled at the comment.

"Ha ha." Spike responded. "Anyway. Jonathan, what would you like to have for breakfast?"

Jonathan didn't know what they ate for breakfast in Equestria, so he went for a cheap and easy solution. "I'll have the same as Twilight."

"Coming right up!" The dragon exclaimed like short-order cook. Jonathan broke out into a series of sneezes.

"Apparently the walk in the cold didn't do much good." Twilight said to him.

"No, it certainly didn't." Jonathan responded, wiping his nose.

Twilight turned her attention back to the large book in front of her. Jonathan's thoughts went back to the conversation he just had with Celestia.

It wasn't that special, except for the fact that he had just spoken to the leader of Equestria. She had inquired him the same things any leader would ask an outsider: "Where are you from?", "Why are you here?", "What kind of person are you?" Well, the last one wasn't exactly correct, but she did ask questions that would have fallen into that category. He didn't blame her for trying to gauge if he was a threat to Equestria and its residents. In the same position, he would have done the same.

He had told her the same thing he had told to Twilight and the others back in the clinic. No idea why or how he got here and only after she asked, he told the short and painful history of his past life. It wasn't something he wanted to talk about, or remind himself of. Celestia's posture changed to a more relaxed one after his history was revealed to her. Still, she as well seemed very familiar and important, but he just couldn't grasp what it was.

"Ding-ding! Your breakfast, Jonathan." The sudden words from Spike broke Jonathan's train of thought.

"Shame you can't smell anything, because that smells delicious!" Twilight exclaimed, taking a deep sniff and letting out a pleasured sigh. "Give me another set Spike!"

"Coming right up!"

Jonathan did feel a bit bad for not being able to smell anything. After seeing the look on Twilight's face, he wanted to smell it as well. However, now his thoughts and desires went for the contents of a certain cup that was levitating in front of Twilight. "Oh my God, you have coffee?!"

"Umm, yes..?" The purple unicorn said with a raised eyebrow. "Why, do you drink coffee?" After she saw the look on Jonathan's face, she got her answer. "Spike, stir up a cup of coffee for Jonathan as well."

***

"Even though I can't taste or smell anything, I say that was delicious!" Jonathan said before sneezing. With stomach full, he was ready for the upcoming day. "So, what's on today's program?"

"Today? Today you stay here and get better from that flu." Twilight stated, not taking her eyes off the book in front of her.

"But I don't even have a fever!" He said, like a child wanting to go out and play. "At least not a high one."

"No, you will stay here. We don't want you to get yourself..." She was interrupted by a loud crashing sound coming from the library. "What in the world?"

They all three went to investigate the sound, to see a rainbow-tail sticking out under a pile of books. Looking at the scene, and the amount of books tossed around, Twilight could guess she came in with quite a lot of speed. "Rainbow, you okay?"

No response.

Getting worried, Jonathan went to the book pile and started to shift the books away. "Dash, answer me!" Anxiety building up, he started to throw the books away. A horrible thought came across his mind, but he dismissed it quickly. She has gone through many crashes like this, this was no different.

The cyan, rainbow-mained pegasus was laying there on her side, eyes closed, wings open and ruffled. Jonathan gently pushed her, but got no response. Starting to panic, he put his hand under her nose and was relieved to feel a rush of air. She was breathing.

"She's unconscious."

"We should get her to the clinic." The concern for her friend escaped Twilight's voice.

Jonathan lifted the unconscious pegasus over his shoulders. He was surprised how light she was, and he wasn't a very strong guy. "Let's go."

"Spike, you stay here and keep the library going." Twilight said at the door. "And clean up this mess." The purple dragon sighed at the last words.

Outside, Jonathan saw an oddly placed hay bale close to the library. He didn't think about it much, but it seemed familiar somehow. As if he had seen it before.

***

"Wha-, what happened?" Rainbow asked as she regained consciousness on the clinic bed.

"You crashed with quite a lot speed into Ponyville's library and you were knocked out by the impact with the shelves." Nurse Redheart explained to the awakening pegasus. "You have a slight concussion and you had a dislocated joint in your wing. You can leave, but I don't recommend flying any time soon."

"N-no flying? For how long?" She was petrified after hearing the bad news. Looking at her injured and wrapped wing, she tried to lift it, only to wince in pain.

"Three days should suffice, after which the healing spell will have done its job."

The now grounded pegasus looked horrified and Jonathan could understand why. Flying was the thing she enjoyed the most and.. Wait, how he knew the pegasus' desires and likes like that? And back at the library, how he knew she had crashed before? "Dammit, this is getting creepy.."

"New trick, huh?" Twilight asked, trying to lighten up the pegasus' spirits by changing the subject.

"Yea. I think I used a little too much speed."

"A little?!" Shouted the surrounding trio in unison.

"Okay, a lot." She admitted, with a small awkward smile.

Jonathan felt like this had happened before. "Wow, déjá vu." He thought, feeling creeped out by it.

The room's door slammed open as a ball of pink flew past and entangled her hooves around Rainbow. "Dashiee!"

"Ow. Hi Pinkie Pie." She barely managed to say around the tight hug.

"I was just about to come surprise Jonathan with a party because he's new around here but after I saw you being carried away from the library I got worried why you were carried away and so I got here to see if you were okay and ohmygosh I almost forgot about Jonathan's party I must go and prepare my Party Cannon!!" The pink pony let go of Rainbow and bounced away through the door.

They all watched the open door in silence, nopony still couldn't understand how she could talk so fast and so long with one breath.

Rainbow broke the silence, several seconds after the pink one had left the room. "Pinkie Pie, you are so random."

Jonathan turned to look at Twilight, her library was going to become a party-house yet again. "What the hay..? How I knew that?"

Twilight turned back to look at the pegasus. "Well, apparently there's going to be a party at my place, wanna join?"

"You bet!" The pegasus already seemed happier as she jumped off the bed onto her hooves. Having forgotten about her wing, she tried to spread them and take flight, only to wince in pain again. "Oh right, no flying."

"I can carry you if you want." Jonathan suggested. "I carried you here without a problem, surely I can give you a lift back."

Rainbow rolled her eyes and smiled. "I can walk just fine now." She turned to look at Jonathan in the eyes. "Thank you though, for carrying me here."

"No problem, Rainbow." He responded with a smile. "Always ready to help a friend."

Jonathan, Twilight and Rainbow all left the clinic. The pegasus glanced at the clear blue sky, with a frown on her face. "This is going to be a long three days."

"Dont'cha worry nuthin' RD." Said a familiar voice. "How'dy Twilight n' Jonathan."

They both greeted Applejack, Twilight could guess why she was here. "AJ, you received an invite from Pinkie Pie didn't you?"

"Yup, some sort of a party fer.." She stopped to look at the sneezing Jonathan.

"Don't worry, I know already." He said to her, wiping his nose.

"..Fer Jon. Welcome party or somethin'."

"Well, we should head out there then. Let's go!" Rainbow said enthusiastically.

"Fluttershy and Rarity will probably be there when we arrive, they got their invites as well." Applejack stated, as they walked back towards the party-library.

A/N: These chapters just keep getting longer and longer (and start to have more and more mistakes left in because of it).

I apologize for any that were left in, I always try to trim these chapters as well as I can before publishing.

Like always: Comments, feedback and reviews are welcome and appreciated!

"Destiny"

"Forever..."

***

This was Jonathan's first party in his lifetime. As such he had absolutely no idea what to do in a party. "Have fun!" Pinkie Pie had said to him, as if she had read his thoughts after the late guests entered the bass-heavy dance music filled library. "Have fun, huh? Wonder what that means." The only thing he had considered fun in the last few years had been video games and good TV-shows, having fun with others was unknown to him.

"Hey guys!" Spike hollered as he squeezed through the party-crowd. "Pinkie Pie is starting 'Pin the Tail on the Pony', wanna play?"

"Sure, why not. It's not like I know what to do around here." Jonathan answered, feeling a bit out of place in the party. Even though he was glad he was in friendly company, he didn't feel at home in a party. Too much noise and, well, ponies.

He glanced over the crowd to see Pinkie Pie waiting at the other side of the library. The pink pony seemed to shake violently, like as if she was having shudders.

Trying to make his way through the mass of guest-ponies to get to Pinkie's game, Jonathan was having very mixed feelings. He was puzzled how Pinkie had managed to invite and fit so many ponies in the library. There had to be dozens if not a hundred of them here.

The deeply horrified feeling was caused by the familiar ponies he kept seeing among them.

A very bright, light turquoise mare with a lyre for a cutie mark.

"H-Heartstrings..."

A pale-cream coated pony with a distinct dark blue mane with pink highlights, three wrapped pieces of candy as her cutie mark.

"B..Bon-Bon..."

A plum pony with a mulberry mane, having a bunch of berries and a strawberry as a cutie mark.

"B... Be.. Berry Punch..."

A white unicorn with a neon-blue mane and wearing a pair of sunglasses, bobbing her head to the music's beat behind the DJ's desk.

"Vi.. Vinyl Scratch..."

A grey coated pegasus with a light yellow mane, her cutie mark consisting of a group of bubbles. Her eyes seemed to be misaligned.

"D... Derpy... Derpy Hooves."

"All.. All these ponies.." The horrified human started to panic, frantically looking around. "How.. How I.. I know t-them?" Everywhere he looked, he kept seeing familiar ponies, colors, cutie marks... "H.. How can this be possible?" His brain started to get overloaded by the sheer amount of confusion and panic. "What is going on?" His breathing frequency began to reach dangerous levels. He was hyperventilating. "Why do I..."

"Jon!"

***

"The fire of friendship lives in our hearts, as long as it burns we can not drift apart."

**"The querrels arise, their numbers are few! Laughter and singing will see us through..* Will see us through.."*

"We are a circle of pony-friends, a circle of friends, we'll be 'till the very end!"

***

"..an!"

"Jonathan!"

"Jonathan!"

Opening his eyes, he stared into a pair of worried purple eyes. She was standing over him. He had lost consciousness and was now laying on his back.

"Oh thank god you are alright!" She said, relief escaping her voice. "You kept looking around like a lost foal and you looked so horrified!" Twilight exlaimed, not taking her eyes off from him. "Then you just fell down!" Her voice almost cracked at the words. "What happened Jonathan?!"

Jonathan now understood everything. The sudden naming of Rainbow Dash. The feelings how Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie felt so familiar. The feelings like he knew them. The feeling like he knew this place.

The feeling like he knew Equestria.

They all locked into place, like the last piece of the puzzle.  There was no going back. He had lived for three days in this world. For three days, he had felt more happiness and love than he had felt in years.

He had lived in the world of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

"Jonathan!" Twilight broke Jonathan's thoughts. "We are worried about you!" The crowd of ponies, including the friends of Twilight; the Elements of Harmony, were standing around him with worried and concerned emotions.

How was he going to break this to them? Should he keep it for himself and just live along like he didn't know anything? No, he couldn't hold such a lie. Should he just tell them, rip it off like a bandage? But how would they react to it? They would banish him somewhere and...

"Jonathan!" Twilight pushed him with a hoof, breaking his thoughts again. "Answer me! What happened?!"

"I.. I don't.. know." His mind disagreed. "Don't go this way Jonathan.."

"I.. I..." He desperately tried to look for words. "I don't know how to explain this to you."

"Explain what?" She looked confused.

He took a deep breath, and braced for what ever was going to come after the next words. "That I am.."

"A brony."

A/N:

1.1: Fixed Vinyl Scratch's name, was accidentally DJ-P0n3 and a few more fixes.

21.1: DERPY IS CANON! (name changed from Ditzy Doo to Derpy Hooves)

"Diversion"

"A what?" She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at the human under her. She had no idea what he had just said.

Jonathan closed his eyes, hoping he wasn't in this situation and that he had some way to get away from it. It didn't help that his nose was fully clogged by the flu and losing consciousness didn't help in getting well from it. Feeling overwhelmingly tired; he wanted to lay on the floor, eyes closed and just rest. He didn't feel like thinking about some explanation for what he knew would change his life, again.

The purple unicorn was still baffled by his, literally out-of-this-world answer, but after Jonathan closed his eyes, her confusion dissipated. He was still ill after all. "Jonathan?" Twilight put her hoof on his forehead, and she felt the heat. "You're burning up!" Jonathan grunted in response, completely out of it due to the quickly rising fever.

"He's sick?!" A shocked voice exclaimed from somewhere in the surrounding crowd.

"Everypony, run!"

Soon, the whole library was empty. Except for the six friends, Jonathan, Spike and a lot of litter left behind by the former party crowd.

"Some.. Somehow I called that." Jonathan mumbled, turning himself on his side. The hard and cold wooden floor wasn't very comfortable to lay on. However, he knew Ponyville's citizens would react like that to a disease, be it any kind; a case of hay-fever or the dreaded cutie-pox.

"Wow, didn't know they were afraid of a simple flu as well." Rainbow claimed, looking at the open library door.

"After Apple Bloom, it ain't a surprise." The orange mare commented.

"How rude! Leave someone alone just because he's ill." Rarity said, taking a glance at the human laying on his side. "And without any fashion sense."

"Excuse me but um, could we get Jonathan to bed?" Fluttershy asked. "If you don't mind."

Twilight quickly wrapped Jonathan with her magic. "Of course."

"Wait." Jonathan protested.

"What is it?" The purple unicorn lifted the ill human on his feet.

Jonathan slowly nodded his head at the direction of the pink party pony, who wasn't looking like her usual self. Her hair had fallen flat and she was sitting on her rump with a frown on her face.

"Pinkie?" Twilight called, but didn't get a response from the pink pony.

"This is not good..." Jonathan's mind said to him. Even with the fever hindering his thought process, he knew he had to solve this before it got worse. "Pinkie. It wasn't your fault they left your party."

He didn't want to cause a case of 'Pinkamena', or leave her friends to go through the same; or something that was certainly impossible. He shuddered at the thought. "Why did I read it?" Not letting his thoughts wander more, he gave himself a mental shake. He still had to fix Pinkie. "It was my fault that the guests left and I should've told you back at the hospital that I was ill."

"Even though it was a short one; I thank you Pinkie for setting this up for me. It means a lot to me."

The pink pony slowly raised her head and looked Jonathan in the eyes. For a moment, they just stared at each other in silence. A rush of relief went across him as her face quickly lighted up and her mane puffed back to its normal state. "Don't worry Jon! This party was just a preparty-party, the real party is still to come!"

Jonathan smiled, she was her normal self again. "Good to know Pinkie."

"Now Jonathan, to bed!" Twilight ordered, opening his room's door to emphasize her point.

He could see the bed through the open door, and it seemed to call for him. "With pleasure."

***

What's worse than having a flu? Having that flu turn into a mild case of pneumonia. After Twilight noticed Jonathan's nasty cough, still high fever and constant chills the next morning, she immediately hauled him to the clinic, against Jonathan's protests. He wanted to keep sleeping.

"Now Jonathan, you take one pill twice a day for the next two weeks." Nurse Redheart informed, as she nudged the small and white plastic bottle.

"Sure sure, can I go back to sleep?"

"Yes." Redheart answered and turned to look at Twilight. "Make sure he drinks a lot of water and eats something as well."

"I'll make sure of it." The purple unicorn glanced at the shivering human. She felt tired, for having stayed up the previous night going through her books. Even though she didn't find anything, she felt like the word meant something important among humans. Not knowing made her feel annoyed, she desperately wanted to know.

"You might get infected as well if you keep staring." Jonathan said abruptly, breaking Twilight's thoughts.

"Don't be silly, you can't get..." The unicorn halted her attempt to counter the claim. Twilight had stared at him for a moment, drowned in her thoughts. He probably thought she was mad or something. "Sorry."

"Anyways, can we go back to the library?"

Twilight levitated the pill bottle into her saddlebag. "Of course."

They both turned to leave, saying their goodbyes to Redheart. Jonathan broke into a series of nasty coughs on their way out, thinking of wanting to banish the flu to the moon.

***

At the library, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had come to see how Jonathan was doing. They greeted each other and they all went inside where the house-sitting baby dragon had seen the future, and had made hot cocoa, much to the sick human's pleasure. Drinking anything warm made him feel better right away by taking away the shivers.

As Spike carried the tray to the table, he couldn't miss Rainbow's bandaged wing. "Wait, if you can't fly, you can't get to your cloud home." Puzzled, he scratched his head. "So where did you sleep over the night?"

"Applejack offered their guest room."  Rainbow turned to look at her orange friend. "Did I thank you for taking me in?"

"Like ten times."

For a while, they conversed about yesterday. Rarity and Fluttershy had left for a quick-stop at the spa and Pinkie  had went straight back to Sugar Cube Corner. Nothing special happened after the party crashed, so Twilight wanted to change the subject. She turned to look at the human, her heart jumping as she saw him. "Jonathan?"

AJ and Rainbow turned to look at the human as well. He was just staring at the cyan pegasus, with a tear slowly falling across his cheek.

"Jon?" Rainbow called, starting to feel awkward.

He didn't hear her. "No, she wasn't on Earth, abandoned in a cardboard box..." Jonathan had fallen into an emotional pit, his mind desperately tried to tell him it hadn't really happened. His memory of the emotional story came crashing back after seeing Rainbow today. A nudge from Twilight broke him free from the emotional death-spiral.

"Jon? Are you alright?"

"Yea, I'm fine." He wiped the tears away, trying to think of something else.

Applejack didn't believe him. "Why were you cryin'?"

Jonathan had no idea what to say. He certainly wasn't going to tell them the truth, that'd be the worst possible thing. Their reaction would not be anything good. He settled for a half-truth. "Just a painful memory."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Twilight said, sounding very professionally concerned for some reason.

"No need to get 'psychiatrist' on me, thank you."

"That wouldn't be first time she tried that." Rainbow said and turned to look at the purple unicorn with an amused expression. "Remember when I was demolishing AJ's barn?"

Twilight jumped at the words, blushing slightly. "Wha-? You know why! I was desperate at the time!"

"Sure sugarcube, it was a misunderstandin' n' all..."

The three friends continued their friendly argument. Jonathan had dropped out of the conversation, having more concerning thoughts in his mind.

"How am I going to live here, if I keep getting into these situations? I don't want them to know that I know practically everything about them..."

A/N: Have to say, this was hard to write (and the future will be even harder..)

Just as a reminder, I originally planned to end the story in the last chapter, 'Destiny', but after seeing the comments, I wanted to continue (and also because I like to write). So I'm basically floating at the wide ocean, with almost no idea where to head next...

The referenced fics are made by their authors. If you haven't read "My Little Dashie", go and read it. *Now*.

"Revelation"

"Good morning Jon!" Twilight exclaimed, after taking her eyes off the big tome of a book she was reading. It looked more like a cinder block than a book due to its sheer size and thickness. The table's legs seemed to pray for mercy as they appeared bend on Twilight's side.

The now half-healthy human yawned in response as he closed his room's door behind him. "Mornin'."

It had been three days since he got the antibiotics from Redheart. In Equestria, medicine appeared work with magic as well as with traditional medicine. He still had a slight fever and the cough, but not the relentless shivering.

With sheer luck, he hadn't run into another close call with his hidden knowledge and memories. After the last time, he had been trying to shove them away at every opportunity and decided to seclude himself in his room. He was happy in Equestria, unlike in the 'real world'. Everypony were nice and friendly to him. Some even cared for him, like he was their friend. He didn't want to ruin it.

He hadn't felt anything like this after his parents died four years ago. A drunk driver had slammed right into them at high speed on a straight road. Jonathan's only source of happiness and love in the world he knew, went away in an instant. He was 15 years old back then and he had to cope with it all alone.

Many times, he had considered suicide. There was nothing left in the world for what he could live for. He desperately wanted to see his parents; the only two persons, who loved him in the dark and cold world. However, he didn't want to disappoint his parents by giving up. He had fought through the merciless bullying and loneliness before, he could fight through this one as well.

For years, he locked his emotions away in a chest in the back of his mind. He continued to live on, not really enjoying one bit of it. The computer games helped a bit by distracting him from reality for hours on end, but they didn't make him feel better.  One day, about 4 years after the life-changing incident, he stumbled upon something in the world-wide-web. Something magical. Something, that opened his locked emotions after many years. He had found a new light of comfort in the never ending darkness.

He had found a cartoon. A cartoon, that made him happy after four long and painful years.. He found My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

"Jon?"

The human surfaced from his thoughts, mentally shaking the sad waters of his memories away. "Yes, Twilight?"

The purple unicorn didn't avert her eyes from the book. "You should eat something, it's pretty late in the morning already."  She said, waving a hoof at the kitchen.

Jonathan went to the pointed direction and took what was left of the breakfast and a cup of luke warm coffee. At least there was coffee in Equestria. It'd be a torture to live without it; with the constant head ache and sensitivity to high pitched sounds. Considering that the ponies he had met so far all spoke with rather high pitched voices, It'd be a crime against 'being-in-withdrawal'. He came back and took a seat opposite of the purple unicorn. The table did seem to be a little higher on his side.

Taking a look at the newspaper for the first time, Jonathan noticed something peculiar. It didn't surprise him though, it was rather expected actually.

"Equestria Daily, huh?" He said with slight amusement. He had read it before, though not as a newspaper.

Twilight lifted her head at the words. She seemed surprised. "You can read Equestrian?"

Jonathan lowered the paper and glanced at the baffled unicorn. "We call it English."

"Interesting..." She seemed to dive back to her thoughts, writing down notes as she turned the pages of the tome. Jonathan continued to read the newspaper and enjoyed his rather cold breakfast.

Twilight kept reading the book. She still didn't know what he had meant with 'brony', but she now had yet another question to puzzle herself with. "How could it be that we share the same language?" She thought. What disturbed her the most, was that there were no mentions of humans in her books.

She thought about asking Jonathan about it, now that he was healthier, but dismissed it. He didn't seem to be eager to talk about it and she didn't want to ask something potentially emotional or awkward. Last thing she wanted him to have was a mental breakdown. "I'll ask him later." She turned her attention back to the tome in front of her.

***

After taking the second antibiotic of the day, Jonathan reluctantly went over to the book shelves. When you are living in a library, there isn't much else to do than to just read books. During the last three days, he had been reading so much he started to see ghost-letters. He scanned the shelves for another book to read, until his eyes stopped at a big book; "The history of Equestria."

He still didn't know how he got in Equestria. He remembered what had happened along the week before he got here. On the first day, he had found the show. In the following days, he had watched all the episodes to the halfway point of the second season. Along the way, he had found the artistic brilliance of the brony community. Music, drawings, PMVs... He missed listening to the fan-music and remixes. "Why didn't I have my mp3-player with me when I got here? I could really use it now."

The last thing he remembers, after the fourth round of watching all the episodes, he hoped he was in Equestria. After that, he went to bed as normal, only to wake up in a forest. He had felt so lost, so afraid. He had felt the same once before, right after his parents' sudden deaths. How would he go on? What should he do? How would he survive?

His thoughts went back to the old times, the times when he had felt genuine happiness. His parents were the dream parents any child could have. They didn't treat him like a prince by giving in. Instead, they educated him, taught him manners, taught him to be kind to others, they told him to do your best and even if you didn't succeed, it would all be alright. They supported him through the years of elementary school.

Jonathan had always been a quiet and introverted person, he didn't like to be in a crowd or in a social gathering. Of course, he was the perfect target for the bullies. Teachers tried to help him and stop the horrendous bullying but their efforts weren't enough. The adults of the schools seemed to be only ones who felt sympathy for him.

"Spike, I'm going for a walk." He wanted to be alone, to have some time to think. He knew a quiet and beautiful place, where he could go.

***

"You know Twilight, you need to eat something as well sometimes."

The purple unicorn jumped at the words. "Wha-huh?"

Spike was standing next to her with an amused grin. "You've been reading there for the whole day."

Turning her head to look at the window, she only saw darkness outside. She had spoken to Jonathan just before noon, so she had to have been sitting there for at least six hours. "You know me, Spike. Reading can be quite intensive and so I lose my sense of time."

"And sense of hunger." The purple dragon pointed at her belly, as it groaned loudly.

"Yes, unfortunately so." She levitated the giant tome to the gap between the shelves. The table let out a creak of relief as it stood level again. Twilight took a look around, and was surprised to not see Jonathan. "Where is our human friend?"

"You mean Jonathan?" Spike answered, sarcasm seeping through his voice.

"Of course I..." The unicorn halted. Her expression went from confused to a level one with a slight pout. "Just tell me where he is."

"He said he went for a walk. That was about an hour ago."

Twilight was baffled. "Why would he go for a walk this late?"

"You're asking me?" After Spike didn't a response to his question, he turned to see that his lifetime friend had already gone away. "Fine, I'll make dinner. Be sure to come back before eight!" He shouted in the empty library.

***

"Where in Equestria could he have gone to?" Twilight said to herself as she searched the streets of Ponyville. It wasn't very wise to let Jonathan wander around alone. What if he got lost? What if he strayed away from Ponyville?

At the path leading to the school, she met the cheerful teacher. "Hi Cheerilee. Have you seen a human anywhere?"

"Yes, I saw him sitting on top of the hill overlooking Ponyville." She said, pointing hoof at the hill. "Why, is there something wrong?"

"It's just, I don't want him to be alone. This isn't his world after all."

"Understandable." Cheerilee said, feeling slightly surprised how much her purple friend seemed to care for him. "I'll head back home to check out today's tests, there are quite a lot of them."

They both said their good byes. Twilight continued towards the hill, which was the same one where they had watched the meteorite shower some time ago. It did have a great view both over the sky and Ponyville and its surroundings, so maybe he  just wanted some time alone? Just relaxing and watching the stars?

She continued to trot to the hill, coming up behind Jonathan. He was sitting there, deep in his thoughts and looking at the clear starry sky. For a few seconds, she wanted to leave him, he must be here for a reason.

"Nice view isn't it?" Jonathan said, still looking at the sky.

Twilight jumped, how had he heard her coming there? She had made sure to keep quiet. The purple unicorn sat down next to him, and gave him a questioning look.

Noticing her expression, she apparently didn't expect him to hear her. "Gaming hearing. I can hear the smallest peeps in silence." The human said, turning back to look at the stars. "Even if I don't want hear them. The small sounds my child-hood house made during the nights tended to keep me awake for hours."

Twilight had her guess right. He was here thinking over his past. This wasn't her place to bother him. "I can leave if you want."

"No, I like the company." He said abruptly and lowered his head. "For once."

The purple unicorn tilted her head, feeling confused and concerned at the same time. "What do you mean?"

Jonathan let out a sigh and closed his eyes. "I didn't tell everything about my history back at the hospital..."

"Secret"

Taking a deep breath, the human tried to keep the tears away. He had never told anyone his life-story. Thinking it through in his mind was different than telling it to someone. He had thought it through so many times, it had dulled out after a while. This was something new. "After that, I don't know what kept me going."

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Jonathan."

Twilight now knew the human in a different way. He had suffered alone for years, trying to shove his emotions away and trying to not give up. Why did he have to go through all that? Why didn't he get any friends? She herself had dismissed friend-making for studying when she was younger. When she thought of those times now, she felt stupid for doing that. Friendship was something magical, something that everypony should have. Thinking of losing her friends sent cold shivers down her spine, but to live your whole life without any friends other than your parents and then lose them? She felt something in her throat. "I can never understand how you feel."

"I've come to an agreement with my emotions a long time ago." He said, his body disagreeing with small tears of sadness. Wiping them away, he turned to look at Twilight, with a more serious face. "There is one more thing I need to tell you about."

He could not keep this for himself anymore, not any longer.

"You remember, a few days ago, when I blacked out at the party?"

Tilting her head slightly, she was having mixed feelings of curiosity and worry. "Yes, I do. I was worried sick for that."

"Well, the reason for that was..." This is it, there was no going back. He turned to look at the night sky, not able to look her in the eyes. "...my memory for the week before I got here came crashing back."

Twilight was confused. "Why would you keep that a secret? Wouldn't it explain why you got here?"

Jonathan gave out a sad sigh. "It did tell me why I got here." He turned back to look at the unicorn sitting next to him. She looked so naïve with those big purple eyes. She had no idea what was to come. "The memories also told me a lot about Equestria."

"What do you mean?" She said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

Jonathan hanged his head. "Oh my God, how am I going to explain this...?" One thing he was sure of; this wasn't going to end well.

"On the second day here in Equestria, I felt more happiness and warmth than I had ever felt in my life. You and Rainbow cared about me enough to try and stop me from going to the Everfree forest. Even though her prank went side-ways, it was funny.

Then Rarity generously made clothes for me, even though the result wasn't good for her, it was incredible for me. I felt so happy for what she did for me.

And at the dinner at Sweet Apple Acres; I have no words to describe the warmth and comfort I felt being there with you and the Apple family. Everything I had dreamed of, happened in one day here, in Equestria. I felt, like I had a family."

He lifted his head to look deeply in those big, purple eyes. "I felt, like I had a real friend."

For a moment, they stared at each other until Jonathan lowered his eyes. "After that day, my memory started to come back, day by day, hour by hour, until the party evening. When I blacked out, I could see a scene, like a vision."

"In that scene, were you and your five best friends, standing on a stage in front of a crowd of ponies and singing an anthem."

The purple unicorn's eyes slowly widened, as she listened to him. "How... How...?"

Jonathan grimaced at her tone of voice. She was shocked, probably horrified. "After I regained consciousness, I remembered everything. I still don't know how I got here, but I remember wishing that I lived here." He paused for a few seconds. "The sudden naming of Rainbow back at the hospital, that was my subconscious. I just blurted it out." He tightened his fist, trying to continue. He wasn't going to let this go on any longer.  "I know everything about Equestria, about you, about the Elements of Harmony. I know you defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord..." He didn't want to continue, this was too heartbreaking for him. Gritting his teeth, he slowly stood up.

"I know, that Equestria is an entertainment venue in our world."  He turned his back to the petrified unicorn. "I'm so sorry..."   He said silently, and tried to stop the feelings of regret and sadness from overtaking him.

He walked away, silently sobbing as he left his first friend behind him.

***

He felt lost. He didn't know what to do anymore. His secret was out. There was no going back, no matter how much he wanted to. He had wanted to live in Equestria; in the world filled with happiness, warmth and comfort. He wanted to live with the emotions he lacked in the real world.

It wasn't the same anymore. How could they let him, an alien who knows everything about their world, live among them? "Why did my memory come back...?" He said to himself. The only place where he could have lived happily, was taken away from him, by himself.

"Why in hell did my memory come back!?" This time shouting loud enough to cause it to echo along the rocky walls of Ghastly Gorge, that loomed grimly in front of his feet. It looked like a pit of darkness, with no bottom to it. He slowly took a step closer to the edge. "I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry mom and dad." He closed his eyes, tears flowing down on his cheeks.

"I failed you."

He took a step over the edge, on the pit of endless darkness.

***

"Why in Equestria do I have to do a weather patrol this late? There is nothing to report back about!" Rainbow said to herself, flying with great speeds at altitude. It was late and cold, she had just recovered from her injury, and they put her to an evening shift over a pointless area. "Someday I'll buck that featherbrain's flank..." She said through her teeth. "At least I can train while I'm here."

She swooped down, pulling up from her dive at the middle of the dark canyon. Memories of her race with the pets came to her mind. "Through Ghastly Gorge! Dun Dun Duuun!" She said to herself. She hadn't been so dramatic before, but she couldn't have resisted that one. It had been fun after all, even though she had injured her wing. She continued to fly and dodge the rogue branches along the dark canyon.

Suddenly, she heard an echo coming along the canyon. "Why did my memory come back..." After the next turn, she saw a black form, standing at the edge of Ghastly Gorge, some distance in front of her.

The tall form stepped over the edge. "What the hay?!"

Rainbow gave a hard flap of her wings and quickly gained more speed. The form slowly descended towards the darkness, where the moonlight didn't reach. Knowing how deep it was, she knew nopony would survive that fall.

Not able to judge the distance correctly in the dark, she reached the falling form with too much speed. With no chance to slow down, Rainbow met the heavy form with a hard impact and propelled them both towards the darkness.

***

The door of the library slammed violently open and a purple unicorn galloped inside. Spike was arranging some books and fell down from the ladder, shocked by the loud entrance.

The purple dragon rubbed his hurting head. "Ow. What's with you?" The unicorn ignored him and kept frantically searching the shelves, throwing books around with her magic. "Umm, Twilight?"

She kept going through the books shelves, taking books from their slots and reading the label, only to throw them away with a frustrated groan. "No... No... No..."

"What are you looking for?" Spike asked and lowered his head to dodge a flying book.

"Not now Spike!" Twilight snapped at him, not slowing down her relentless search.

Spike continued to watch her mess up the library. He'd have to clean it up soon enough, but what was she looking for so badly?

The unicorn stopped and levitated a book in front of her. "This is it..." She mumbled to herself and galloped out from the library with the book levitating next to her.

Spike looked around the library. The floor was filled with piles of books, thrown around by his mentor. He gave a defeated sigh and started to pick the books back to their shelves.

***

"Thank you Rarity for helping me." Fluttershy said as she stepped out the boutique.

"Don't worry dear, glad to help your animal friends!"

They said their good-byes. Fluttershy started to trot towards her cottage. She had asked Rarity to make her squirrels a few warm sheets for the winter. The particular squirrel family didn't have a good tree to live in. The trunk was quite thin, so they needed some help to overcome the cold. She would have housed them in her cottage, but it was already full.

She saw her purple friend gallop away from the library. "Twilight?"

The unicorn stopped next to her, panting slightly. "Fluttershy. I need you to find Rainbow Dash."

"What? Why?" The confused pegasus asked.

"No time to explain, we need to find her so we can find Jonathan!"

"Rainbow got a late weather patrol shift over Ghastly Gorge. She had asked me to check her wing after the shift but she didn't come. It was supposed to end a half an hour ago and... " The pegasus faltered as she realized what this meant.

"Oh no. Come on! We need to get there!"

***

"Jonathan!" Twilight shouted, looking at the darkness of the canyon. They had found the human's foot prints leading up here, but there were no prints leading away.

Fluttershy feared the worst. "Y-you don't think he...?"

"No." The unicorn didn't want to think about that. She had only one thing in her mind. "We need to find him."

"B-but how? We can't..."

The faintly audible high-pitched voice came up from the darkness. "We're... Here..."

Twilight let out a relieved sigh. "Are you all right?!"

"My left hoof is hurting and I'm trapped under him. He seems to be unconscious. Also, he's too heavy for me to move him."

The purple unicorn seemed to think for a few seconds, until her horn flashed bright purple and she disappeared.

Fluttershy let out a scared eep. "Twilight? Where did you go?" Her question was quickly answered, as she saw light coming from the bottom of the canyon. She peeked over the edge. "Twilight?!"

"Get help! We need to get them out of here!"

The pegasus took off and flew towards Ponyville. "Oh my goodness... Oh my goodness..."

Rainbow watched her purple friend read the book, her horn slowly gaining more and more brightness. "Twilight, what are you doing?"

The unicorn didn't respond. Her horn glowed brighter and brighter, until it blinded Rainbow all together. She felt the weight of Jonathan being lifted off her. For a moment, she only saw white light and heard the hum of Twilight's magic.

The light went away. Still disoriented, Rainbow slowly got on her hooves, avoiding her front-left one. Twilight was panting and laying down next to her. The three hoofed pegasus tried to see in the darkness, to no avail. Her eyes were over saturated by the earlier bright light. Looking up, she barely could see the moonlit edges of the canyon. "Twilight, could you shed some light?"

The unicorn kept panting. "I... I... remembered something I read... some time ago..."

"No no, I mean make some light, so we can see something."

Twilight's horn started to glow and hum. Like a candle in the darkness, it shed purple light around them. Rainbow turned to look at Jonathan, and she let out a shocked gasp. "Twilight..." She could not believe her eyes., but one thing she was sure of; the lying form wasn't the Jonathan she normally knew.

"...What did you do?"

A/N: 9.1: Yey! More fixes after publishing! I'm giving a bad impression, aren't I?

"New Beginning?"

"...What did you do?" The cyan pegasus kept staring at the dark form. It looked like a pony, but its body wasn't colored solidly.

The unicorn tried to catch her breath. The spell she had used, had taken all her strength and she barely could keep up the magic-light on. "I.. I used a spell... An ancient spell..."

"What the hay kind of a spell turns a monkey to a zebra?!" The pegasus yelled, the shout echoing along the Ghastly Gorge.

"Human..."

The pegasus gave an angry and frustrated huff. "Whatever!" She moved closer to the laying unicorn, confusion and anger mixing together in her voice. "What kind of a spell is that!?"

Twilight closed her eyes, giving small sigh. "A... A forbidden one..." She regretted doing it. It had been a split-second idea and she hadn't thought it completely through. "Black Magic."

Just hearing the two words made Rainbow's spine crawl. "If it's forbidden, then why did you do it?"

The unicorn was left silent. She really didn't know why. Right after she got her thoughts together after Jonathan's unbelievable revealment, she had immediately thought of this particular spell. She had read about it once before, when she found it from the basement. It had been hidden behind the back wall of the basement's bookshelves, covered in years and years worth of dust. "I don't know why."

Rainbow had moved next to the striped form. She definitely hadn't expected Jonathan to change to a zebra, but there was something more concerning in her mind. "Twilight!" She supported herself with her wings, as she put her healthy hoof under his nose. "He..."

"He isn't breathing..."

***

"Twilight?"

The unicorn was staring to the far distance, her horrified mind going through a hell of emotions.

"Umm, Twilight?"

Her ear twitched slightly, but she didn't care. Nothing mattered to her right now. Except one thing, one emotion.

"Twilight?"

Regret.

"Twilight?"

The purple unicorn snapped her head towards the speaker. "WHAT?!"

Fluttershy eeped in fear and slowly backed away. "I... I j-just w-w-wanted to ask you, a-are you o-okay?"

"Okay?" Twilight said levelly, and stared in the frightened eyes of the pegasus. "Okay?!" She stood up from her chair and approached the scared stiff pegasus. "Am I okay?!" She shouted, receiving a quiet whimper of fear from Fluttershy.

"I almost killed him!" Her shout echoed throughout the halls of the Ponyville clinic.

Silence ensued, as Twilight continued to glare at the cowering pegasus. The sounds of sobbing broke the purple unicorn from her trance. Twilight realized she had just shouted at the kindest pegasus in Equestria, at her best friend.

"I'm..." She now felt even worse. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy." Twilight extended her hoof to comfort her friend, but the pegasus backed away. The unicorn lowered her hoof in defeat. "I'm sorry..." She turned her back at the sobbing pegasus and slowly walked away, tears of regret falling down her cheeks.

***

"Twilight?" A soft but firm voice asked.

The purple unicorn recognized the voice, it was a matter of time before She came to talk to her.

"My faithful student, are you alright?" The majestic alicorn stood next to her student, head lowered to the same level of the sitting unicorn. Twilight had come back to the same hill, where Jonathan had told his story, just few hours earlier.

The purple unicorn lowered her eyes towards the green and chilly grass. She wasn't alright. She already felt awful after Jonathan's life-story, she felt even worse now after she had almost killed him. Not to mention shouting to Fluttershy. Twilight closed her eyes, her lips curled to a frown and tears started to flow down her cheeks.

Celestia sat down next to her student, and took her into a warm, motherly hug. "It'll be alright." The alicorn whispered to her sobbing student's ear.

For a time that seemed like eternity for Twilight, they just sat there, both embraced in a warm and comforting hug. The purple unicorn let out a sniff. "I'm sorry..." She whispered.

"For what?"

"For..." She bit her teeth together and took a deep breath, trying to fight off another series of tears. "For using the forbidden transformation spell."

Twilight felt her mentor tense up at the words, but relaxed quickly. The unicorn hugged her teacher tighter. "I'm sorry..." Her lips quivered and she broke out to another series of sobs, resting her head on the warm neck of the alicorn.

Celestia knew the spell; what it did, how it affected the recipient and what it would cause later. "I forgive you, Twilight." The after effects of the spell were everything but good. Her student must have not known those facts, otherwise she would not have used it.  "I forgive you..."

After seeing how her student had reacted to Jonathan's condition, Celestia hoped she could do something. Seeing her favorite student suffer was one of the worse things she had experienced.

"I heard what happened between you and Fluttershy."

"I..." Twilight choked up, unable to talk through the storm of emotions.

"She understands, and I do too."

The purple unicorn felt a weight lift off in her chest. She sniffed and pulled her head back to look her mentor in the eyes. "How about Jonathan? Will he be okay?"

Celestia lowered her eyes. She knew Twilight had done it just because she wanted him to forget all those bad memories and emotions, to let him start a new life here in Equestria. The spell wiped the recipient's memory completely, leaving only the portions that make the person like he is. Memories shape what we are. In this spell's case, it forcefully blocks out the memories, leaving them to shape the person deep in the person's subconscious.

It was a very risky, and thus forbidden, spell. Even Celestia Herself could not perform it without the risk of killing the recipient outright. She was amazed how Twilight had managed to do it, but she was Her favorite student after all.

"Princess?" The purple unicorn called, the alicorn seemed to have lost in her thoughts.

"Twilight..." Her student had tried to do what her heart had said. The way she did it however, had been the wrong one. "Jonathan..."

"Jonathan doesn't have much time."

Her eyes widened in the climbing fear. "W-What do you mean?"

"The spell's effects will kill him in a year."

***

Jonathan slowly came to on the hospital bed. Giving a tired grunt, he forced himself to a sitting position, which felt slightly unnatural. "Where am I?" Puzzled by the situation, he moved his hand to scratch his head, only to feel something hard hit his head. "What the...?" He looked at his black hoof, and black and white forearm. His eyes widened.

He couldn't remember anything. Absolutely nothing came to his head, as he tried to dig his memories for what could have caused this. His personality and identity was left intact, and that identity belonged to a human.

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

In panic, he rolled himself off the bed, hitting the hard clinic floor with a thump.

The door of the room opened and Nurse Redheart galloped inside. "What's wrong?" She looked at the bed. The sheets were gone and she heard some odd ruffling sound.

"Wh... Wha..." Jonathan whimpered in shock on the floor, tangled in the white sheets of the bed.

When this new patient arrived last night, they said they didn't know his name. They said they had found him from the bottom of Ghastly Gorge, unconscious and not breathing. How he had gotten there was a complete mystery.

Looking at the zebra frantically moving his hooves, Redheart feared he had suffered brain damage from the lack of oxygen. "Hey? Are you alright?" She asked softly, moving closer to the panicked zebra.

Jonathan stopped trying to move his arms and feet. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the snow-white pony. "Wh.. What did you do to me?" In fear, he furiously tried to move himself away from the white pony, his hooves banging and sliding on the tiled floor. "Wh... Who are you?"

Redheart cocked her head in surprise. She had seen zebras before; or one zebra exactly, but she did know who ponies were. Lowering her head, she applied a warm smile. "Shh, don't worry. You were brought here last night unconscious." She said softly. "You weren't breathing. We took care of you. You are safe here." The nurse pony tilted her head slightly. "I'm Nurse Redheart. May I ask what's your name?"

The zebra had calmed down, Redheart's soft voice had that kind of an effect on ponies. She had become a nurse for her ability to talk and calm patients down. It was a great gift and highly appreciated skill in the profession.

He took a small look on himself, the contrast between the black stripes and the white fur seemed slightly mesmerizing. "I'm..."

He turned back to look at the white earth pony. "I'm Jonathan."

Redheart took a step back in shock. The Jonathan she knew was a human, from another world, who mysteriously had ended up here. Now a zebra claims he has the same name? If it was really Jonathan, how he didn't remember her? If he was really a zebra, he wouldn't ask 'what did you do to me'. What had happened to him?

"Why you look so horrified?" The zebra asked, sounding afraid.

Redheart gave herself a mental shake. "Your name just sounded familiar, sorry." She rarely lied, but now she felt it was necessary. "I have to ask Twilight about this..."

Jonathan didn't really believe her answer, but he concentrated his thoughts to get familiar with the new body, shoving the feelings of fear and shock away. "Okay, so left hand is left front-hoof..." He slowly managed to untangle himself from the sheet. "This is going to take a while to get used to." He said to himself.

He still felt horrified by the fact he was a zebra. A four legged, striped horse. However, he also felt slightly intrigued, despite the sudden transformation and complete memory wipe-out.

The white earth pony kept looking at the zebras efforts to turn himself on his stomach. She was still trying to understand what could have happened to him. It had to have something to do with magic, which caused more concerns. "What side effects it had? What would it cause in the long run?" She pulled the clipboard from the slot at the end of the bed. Going through the initial examinations, she didn't find anything out of normal. He was healthy. He was a zebra at its peak health and condition.

She however couldn't resist an amused snicker as the prime-condition zebra fumbled on the floor, trying to get up.

"What's so funny?"

Redheart wiped the grinning smile away. "No-nothing." She knew why. Learning to walk on four hooves was natural to ponies and zebras alike; but to a human that has been transformed to a zebra, it was probably going to take some time. "Let me help you."

The nurse pony helped Jonathan to get back on the bed. He had already got hang on how to move his extremities, but it would take a lot of time to learn to walk, or even stand. Jonathan sat uncomfortably on the bed, glancing at the white earth pony. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She gave him a small smile. She turned to leave, only to remember one thing at the door. "I know somepony who could help you with that."

Jonathan raised a brow, as if he didn't know what she had meant.

"Apparently the lack of oxygen caused you to lose the ability to walk. I know a pony who can teach you to walk again quickly and efficiently." Redheart gave an amused huff. "Or 'in lickedy split', like she would say."

"I'd appreciate that, thank you." Jonathan gave a small smile to her. The thoughts of his sudden transformation still hanging over him like a dark cloud. "I have to learn to walk first..." It sounded horrible to him, having to go on without knowing what happened to him, but somehow, he felt good. A small part of him didn't want to know. He felt nice in this new, but foreign body and the residents here seemed caring and nice. Why'd he go and ask mad questions, when he could just live on?

"I'll tell her to come see you tomorrow."

Redheart closed the door behind her. Jonathan was left alone in the silent room. Not feeling like sleeping, he started examine his new body; how it moved, how it felt. The tail in particular was an odd sensation.

"This is going to take a while to get used to..."

"Startup"

Jonathan was figuring out how he was going to eat the breakfast in front of him. Naturally, he had tried to take the sandwich with his hands, only to squish his nourishment with his hooves. Eating straight from the plate felt too primal. For a moment, he kept dumbly looking at the daisy-sandwich. "Wait a second, daisies?" With both hooves, he carefully lifted the already squished top piece. "Yet another thing to get used to; being a vegetarian."

"Ah never figured Ah would have to teach somepony to walk and run. Let alone an adult zebra."

The striped one turned to look at the mare and gave her a smile. "Apparently you are the pony Redheart mentioned."

"Yes, Ah'm Applejack. Nice to meet 'ya," she gave him a subtle dip of her hat.

"Nice to meet you too," the zebra gave a greeting nod. He turned back to look at the sandwich in front of him, as his stomach gave a small groan. "I also appear to have forgotten how to eat."

Applejack gave an amused huff. "Ah remember somepo-someone who went through almost two days without eatin'," the mare said as she stopped next to the zebra's bed. "It was actually quite comedic. He even got himself prank'd by RD." Remembering the evening at the farm made her smile. He had seemed so happy.

"Good to know I'm not the only one to have gone through hunger," he said around the tongue sticking out from his mouth. A striped hoof carefully pushed the slightly squished daisy-sandwich off the plate and over the edge. The sandwich landed neatly on the other hoof.

"Conqrats'! You just learned how to eat with hooves!" The orange mare cheered.

The zebra pushed the whole sandwich in his mouth, his cheeks bulged out like balloons and crumbs fell on the bed. "Fy fe fay, I'mfh Fonafhafn."

"Don' speak with ye'r mouth full. Ah can't understand a word ye'r sayin'."

He chewed for few seconds and swallowed. "By the way, my name is Jonathan."

Applejack's eyes widened as she took a small step back.

Jonathan saw the look on her face. "What's wrong?"

The orange mare rapidly shook her head. "N-nothin'! Ye'r name, umm... Just sounded peculiar." Her eyes darted all over the place and her expression remained even. "Yea, never heard that kind of a name!" She pulled an awkward smile on her face.

The zebra looked at her with slightly narrowed eyes. The reaction was the same as it had been with Redheart. "Alright then."

"Good! No, umm... Nurse Redheart said ye're fine so we could start the trainin' now if you want."

"Sure, why not?" Jonathan enthusiastically moved to the edge of the bed.

The cowpony had sunk into her thoughts. "He can't be Jonathan! Ah saw him yesterday, in his own human body! This has to be a coincidence of some sort..." She didn't even react to the soft thump.

"Applejack?"

"Wha'?" She turned back to look at the bed, and found it empty. "The hay?"

"Could you help me out?"

Raising a brow, she walked around the bed and found the sight quite amusing. Smiling, she took a step closer to the fumbling zebra. "We could start by get'n on ye'r hooves..."

***

Nurse Redheart knocked on the door of the Ponyville library. The more she had thought about Jonathan, the more worried she had become. The zebra she met has to be the Jonathan she knew. After her shift had ended; she had asked around town but if he was still here, the citizens of Ponyville would have seen him. The story how Twilight, Rainbow and Fluttershy had found him didn't help her suspicions.

"Hi, Nurse Redheart!" Spike exclaimed from the doorway. "What brings you here?"

Redheart gave him a smile. "Hello, Spike. Is Twilight here?"

Spike's eyes averted to the side. "Umm..." He bit his lower lip and looked over his shoulder into the library.

"Spike?"

He jumped at the call and turned back to look at her. "She's not here. She went to Canterlot with Celestia yesterday."

With narrowed eyes, Redheart kept looking at the rapidly-blinking dragon. "Now, Spike; I know you are lying." she kept a pause and saw him tense up. He was indeed lying. "This is important, Spike. It's about Jonathan."

"Well umm..." He glanced over his shoulder again and fidgeted with his fingers. "After she came back last night, Twilight said she wanted to be alone," Spike whispered. "I respect her word but after I heard her crying in the bedroom..."

"What? Why didn't you ask her what's wrong?" Redheart asked, trying to keep her volume down.

Spike put up a more serious face and looked Redheart in the eyes. "Because I respect her wishes." He averted his head down, giving a quiet sigh. "But now she's been in there for the whole day. I kept hearing sobs from inside all day... I slept on a book pile last night because I didn't want to disturb her." He raised his head to look at Redheart again, his expression giving out his concern. "Maybe you should talk to her."

Redheart followed the dragon inside. "Twilight?" she waited for few seconds, but got no response. "Twilight? It's me, Redheart. I came to see you," again, no response. Looking around the silent library, the concern started grow inside her. "Spike," she turned to look at the dragon. "Did she-"

A sniff made Redheart turn her head towards the stairs leading to Twilight's room. The purple unicorn was standing at the lower end of the stairs; wiping her eyes with a hoof, with her mane messed up. "Twilight? What's wrong?"

The unicorn raised her head and revealed a pair of reddened purple eyes. She looked in the blue eyes of Redheart. "I..." She closed her eyes and sniffed again. "I..." Taking a deep, shaking breath, she lowered her head. Her voice trembled, "I killed Jonathan."

***

Applejack trotted along the streets of Ponyville. She felt proud of herself for teaching the zebra to walk in a day. He now could stand and walk, but trotting and galloping were too much for one day. The training didn't go flawlessly though; he tripped on his own hooves quite a few times and thus he faceplanted on the tiled floor.

Thinking about the zebra, or possibly Jonathan, made her bit her lip. "Ah have got to go see Twilight. Maybe she knows where Jonathan is..." She turned around the corner and saw the huge tree of the library rising up at the end of the street.

Applejack raised her hoof to knock on the door but stopped as she heard muffled voices from inside library. Lowering her hoof, she pressed her ear to the cold wood of the door.

"What do you mean you killed Jonathan?"

"The spell I used will kill him in a year."

Applejack blinked her widened eyes as she pulled her head away in dismay. "This can't be true..." The opening door made the three turn their heads.

Twilight's horror got worse as she saw her friend step in. "Applejack..."

She raised her head to look at the unicorn. "Is that true, Twilight?"

Twilight lowered her eyes before shutting them. "Yes. I'm afraid so."

"Ah just taught him to walk!" Applejack yelled and pointed a hoof at the direction of the clinic. "Why and what did you do to him?!"

Twilight's eyes flashed open and stared down at Applejack. "I didn't want him to suffer anymore!" she yelled.

"But, Twi-"

Twilight raised a hoof to silence the cowpony. "Last night, Jonathan told me everything. His life had been a nightmare, and the last four years of it had been a living hell." She paused for a few seconds. Her lip curled into a frown and quivered slightly. "I remembered a spell I read some time ago, a spell that would turn him to a zebra and make his horrible memories go away." She shook her head, setting tears flying away from her eyes. "But I didn't know the spell would also kill him in a year, and..." her voice drifted away.

Twilight grumbled to the floor, sobbing and covering her head with her hooves. "I... I just wanted him to live a happy life..."

she said around the weeps before bursting into tears.

Redheart went next to the crying unicorn and laid down next to her. She embraced Twilight to a hug. "Shh, it'll be alright," she whispered.

"Ah..." Applejack lowered her head and sniffed. "Ah will get the others. You shouldn't be alone." She turned around and galloped outside, the tears feeling like cold streams on her face in the chilly air.

***

Jonathan rapidly blinked his eyes to get the morning blur away as he sat on the soft clinic bed. Looking around, he noticed he hadn't been served breakfast like he had been yesterday. It wasn't a surprise to him. After all, he wasn't a patient anymore. Luckily the clinic had let him to stay for one more night. "I need to find a place to sleep in. I won't be sleeping here anymore." He turned his head to look outside. The sun shined on the chilly autumn morning without any clouds in the sky. Most of the passers-by wore some sort of winter clothing, water vapor coming out of their noses with every breath.

Yawning, he moved to edge of the bed. "Alright, do it just like yesterday..." He lowered his left hind leg towards the tiled floor. "Okay... Going well so far... Aaand... Touchdown! Now the other one..." The hoof slowly descended and made contact with the cold tiled floor. "Yey, now the front hooves..." He pushed the bed with his hooves, boosting his upper body in the air. He turned on his hind legs and twisted his body. The front hooves hit the tiled floor in a slight angle. "Oh damn." His hooves slipped to the side, resulting in a hard faceplant.

For few seconds, Jonathan only saw stars and his head rang loudly. He gave out a frustrated huff. "I need to get outside. This tiled floor is starting to grow on me." He shook his head and pushed himself up. Still slightly dazed by the head impact; he swayed from side to side as he walked to the door.

Walking along the hallways and following the signs to the main exit, he hoped to meet Applejack or Redheart on the way. He didn't know anything about this place, how was he going to get a place to sleep in? Seeing the other ponies wearing winter-clothing hinted at sub zero temperatures; at least during the early and late hours. Sleeping outside wasn't an option. "Maybe there are motels or some other accomodations?"

The realization hit him almost instantly: he had no money and he couldn't possibly get enough to pay for a warm bed in a day. "Great... So it's off to beg someone to keep me from freezing to death." Looking around, he noticed he had arrived at the atrium of the clinic; judging from the amount of seats and the nurse standing behind the reception desk. The room was well lit by the natural light coming inside and the exit doors were right ahead.

"Umm, sir?"

Jonathan turned around. The nurse pony behind the reception desk waved at him. He raised a brow at her.

"Sir, you need to sign a form before you can leave," She said before taking the clipboard in her mouth and showing it to him.

"Oh, alright." Jonathan walked to the desk and looked at the piece of paper. "By signing this you... bla...bla... Yeah, pretty simple." He extended a hoof towards the pen-holder. The hoof banged on the holder, tipping it over and spilling the pens all around. "Heh, sorry," he gave the receptionist an awkward smile.

Jonathan fumbled with the pen as he tried to keep it between his hooves, leaning to the table with his body and standing on his hind legs.

"Sir..?"

He dropped the pen again. "Damn..." He looked up at the nurse, who seemed to be amused and frustrated at the same time. Jonathan couldn't read which one was dominant. "Yes?"

"Wouldn't it be easier to write with your mouth?"

Jonathan raised a brow and turned back to look at the pen on the floor. "Huh, how's that going to work?" He raised his head again and saw another mare writing to a clipboard; the pen was indeed in her mouth. He turned back to look at the receptionist. "Yes, it would be."

He took the pen in his mouth, trying to balance it with his tongue and keep it in place with his teeth. "Well, this is an interesting way to write..." He lowered his head toward the paper.

A few seconds later he raised his head. "Thone." Realizing the pen hindered his speech and probably made him look silly, he spat it out. "Done."  He patiently kept looking at the nurse, as she inspected the document.

"Mister Johathuan..." She eyed the zebra over the clipboard. "You may leave now."

Jonathan blinked a few times in surprise, was his writing that bad? "Alright, thank you." He turned around and headed for the exit.

He could hear an amused snicker from behind him. "Zebras..."

Pretending not to hear it, Jonathan continued outside. The cold, morning air felt refreshing as he took a deep breath. Glancing around, he saw many ponies with winter clothes but to his surprise, he didn't feel cold at all; despite not having anything on. He looked over his shoulder at his striped body, the black and white giving a nice contrast in the sunlight. "Good to have fur, it feels so warm!"

"Mister, why are you lookin' at yerself?"

Jonathan turned his head around to look at the speaker. It was a little filly; with a red mane and a pretty bow on her head. He gave her smile, trying to find what to say and wondering if she felt cold in this weather.

"Come back 'ere, sillyfilly! Don't you go botherin' strangers!" Came a shout from some distance away. Jonathan saw the mare looking at him with narrowed eyes.

"Yes ma'am!" The filly ran to the green, elderly mare and followed along beside her. The mare gave one last look over her shoulder before continuing to walk along the street.

Jonathan shrugged. The reaction the mare had given him had been somewhat expected. So far, he hadn't seen any other zebras, which probably meant they weren't very common sight; also taking a note on the receptionist's reaction. "Racism? Don't be silly..." He let out a huff, puffing water vapor in front of him.

He looked around, thinking what to do next. He had no money, no place to sleep in and no other contacts than Applejack and Redheart. "If I was a video game character, this would be the start of an epic..." he halted on his words as his eyes followed a young mare passing by, "...plot." Realizing what he looked at, he turned away and shook his head. "C'mon! You have more important things to think about!" He felt his cheeks getting hotter. Starting to think how he could get money in a place like this, he began to walk at a random direction.

A/N: Wow, it took way too long to get this done. I sincerely apologize for taking so long! I'm not completely sure when I have the time to write the next one, but I don't think it takes the same 3 weeks like this one did..

(Should I add a comedy tag... or put a "teen" rating for that last one...)

"A Half Empty Glass"

"That is one big tree." Jonathan said to himself out loud, his eyes scanning the trunk of the tree. Almost all of its leaves had already fallen, but it didn't hinder its ability to astonish the ones who saw it for the first time.

He had wandered around the streets of Ponyville, trying to look for job applications or any errands to do. To his dismay, he had found none and the day was almost over. The lower the sun went, the more he got worried of his situation. The temperature seemed to drop at every passing hour and he could feel it through his thick fur. It didn't feel so warm as it had just six hours ago.

Standing still; the cold started to bite harder and harder. "I need to keep moving." He took one last look at the majestic tree, before putting one hoof in front of the other. He had asked around Ponyville about Applejack and where he could find her. The town's folk gave him brow lifts and narrowed eyes at the question, but they told him about an apple-farm called Sweet Apple Acres. She was the only pony who could help Jonathan right now.

Jonathan had asked for Redheart back at the clinic an hour ago. The answer hadn't been what he had hoped for, "A day off for personal reasons." He had hoped to talk to her, but the staff didn't feel like sharing Redheart's address or location for that matter. The warm clinic bed had been the best he could have hoped for yesterday and she could have taken him in for "observation" over the night, just to be safe.

The lone zebra let out a huff. "Observation..." He shook his head rapidly, making the improper thoughts go away. "Focus, dammit!"

He walked along the street, towards the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. At least to the direction he was told to go, he didn't know if the instructions were truthful. The citizens he had asked from had all told him to go the same direction, so it probably was the real thing.

The streets were quiet, with only a few ponies scrambling for their homes. To their warm homes. The lights from the houses shined to the street from the windows. Passing by a small house, he got a glimpse inside from the window.

Inside, around what appeared to be the dining table, sat a young unicorn filly with a blond mane and light purple coat. She smiled from ear to ear and impatiently bounced on the chair, as a gray mare with a same blond mane carried a plate of muffins to the table. As the mare lowered the plate, Jonathan saw her misaligned eyes. Despite them, she seemed very happy.

The filly jumped off the chair and leaped for the mare. They both embraced each other in a warm, loving hug and Jonathan saw the filly move her snout.

"I love you, mommy."

Jonathan felt something squeeze his heart, like it had stopped for a second. He averted his eyes, and felt a tear fall down his cheek. "Why am I crying? I should be happy for her. I should be happy for them." Jonathan raised a hoof and wiped the tear away. He hanged his head with a sigh. "Why am I sad?"

Head lowered, he continued walking along the street leading out of Ponyville, as snowflakes slowly descended from the sky. They felt like little needles as they hit his back.

***

"Damn..." Jonathan said to himself. The farmhouse was already dark. "I can't take the risk... If Applejack isn't there I'd be in big trouble." Even though the citizens had been mostly nice towards him, they still gave him some weird looks. They seemed to avoid him; going far around him on the street like he smelt bad or something. "Do I smell bad?" He turned his head and tried to sniff his body. Nothing out of ordinary, except that he smelt like a zebra. "That's... normal, right?" He asked from himself. It was still a mystery to him how he ended up being a striped horse.

Jonathan raised a hoof and tapped the side of his head. "Why I can't remember anything?" He knew he was a human, he felt things, he knew what the feelings were; "...gratitude,  happiness and... love?" His heart twisted again. He felt deep sadness and grief, with no idea why. His face had taken up a frown and his vision started to get blurry. "This is so absurd."

A cold chill broke him from the question, which may never be answered. He was still standing in the middle of the farm's yard, out in the below zero temperature. The farm-house was dark, the residents had probably gone to sleep or were absent. He slowly turned his head from left to right, scanning his surroundings in the moonlight. The few falling snowflakes glowed like little stars as they fell down. His eyes stopped at a large, building-like silhouette some distance away from the farm-house.

Jonathan stood next to the large building. "A barn." If luck was on his side, it was warmer inside the barn than outside. He opened the barn's door sligthly, and felt a very slight rush of warmer air. "I hope it's warm enough in there to keep me from freezing to death..." He went inside and took a quick peek outside, before closing the door.

***

"Twilight, how are you feelin' 'bout this?"

The unicorn let out a sigh. "AJ, I'm fine." She turned to look at the mare next to her with a small, reassuring smile. "It has already been two months. The worst part is over."

Applejack shook her head. The worst wasn't really over. It was to come in upcoming months. Her friend knew it, she just didn't want to think about it. "Well, it's Heart's Warming eve now." She turned to look at the zebra, who was laying down on the couch in front of a fireplace. He looked so calm and relaxed while watching the flames and listening to crackling of the wood. "Oh look, RD is at it again."

The unicorn turned her head. Rainbow sneaked towards the couch, head and body close to the floor like a predator stalking its prey, with a wide grin on her face and eyes of determination. Not a sound was let out by her hooves as she approached the couch from behind. Her movement was smooth, a perfect example of her agility. She raised her head, her eyes slowly inspected the zebra laying in front of her. Her nostrils widened, as she started to take a deep breath.

"Almost, Rainbow." The zebra said without taking his eyes off the fireplace.

The pegasus' eyes widened. "Oh c'mon!" She flew over the couch and landed in front of Jonathan. "How did you know I was there?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief and with narrowed eyes.

He slowly turned his head to look at the pegasus. His expression remaining flat and hard. "Your hooves aren't made of dough."

Rainbow let out a huff of frustration. "You and... your riddles!" She took air, slowly hovered away. Jonathan let out a snicker and smiled.

Applejack grinned at the pegasus flying towards her. "Ah knew you wouldn't manage to do it this time either, Rainbow."

Crossing her hooves in front of her, Rainbow continued to hover next to Applejack and Twilight. She gave a pout and glanced back at the zebra. "I just don't get it." The living room of Twilight's library was silent, except for the crackling of the fireplace and barely audible flaps of Rainbow's wings. The pegasus turned back to look at Applejack. "I can't make him jump, but Pinkie..."

"SURPRISE!"

"WHAT THE HELL!?" The yell was followed by a thump.

"...always succeeds." Rainbow gave deep sigh of defeat and landed next to Applejack, her head lowered.

The zebra laughed as he got up from the floor, the party pony smiled from ear to ear next to him. "That was a good one, Pinkie! Flawless timing!"

The pink pony laughed. "I know, right!?"

Twilight smiled at the sight. "At least he's having fun."

"Ah agree," Applejack said, also smiling at the two laughing friends. She turned to look at Rainbow, who also had a small grin on her face.

"Dinner's ready!" Spike yelled from the kitchen.

Twilight glanced at the kitchen and looked back at her guests and one resident. Despite her feelings, she knew she had to accommodate Jonathan. He had no other place. Fluttershy's cottage was too small, Applejack's farm was a bit too far away, Rainbow lived in a cloud, Pinkie wouldn't let him sleep and Rarity... Well, she didn't want her customers make wrong assumptions. Twilight had to live on, like nothing had happened. At least around Jonathan, she had to act like it.

"Twi'?" Applejack asked, her head slightly tilted. "You alright?"

The unicorn raised her eyes and looked at the cowpony. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you."

"You looked like you phased out there... With a frown." Rainbow said, concerned of her friend.

Twilight put up a small smile. "I'm fine."

"Can we go and eat? It might not look or sound like it, but I'm starving!" Jonathan said as he walked next to the trio, still snickering at the party pony bouncing by towards the kitchen.

"Sure, let's go!" Twilight exclaimed.

The door was knocked. Twilight knew right away who it was from the way of the knocking and from who was missing from the Eve party. "Excuse me." Walking towards the door, she opened it with a small flick of her magic.

The rush of the cold wind brought Rarity's words inside with a chill, "I sincerely apologize for being late, Twilight!"

Jonathan shuttered as the cold air rushed inside. He had almost forgotten how cold it was outside right now. Living inside a huge and apparently very well insulated tree for almost two months straight might be the reason. His host was very kind and intelligent, but she seemed to be prone to emotions. For example, after she first saw him; she almost burst into tears. She hasn't told a reason for it to this day, at least to not him. Jonathan however felt better not to ask about it. Whatever it was, it had to very emotional for her.

"Jon?"

Twilight's voice broke him from the concerning thoughts. Jonathan raised his eyes to look at her. For an unknown reason, every time he saw those big, purple eyes; he didn't feel like looking away. "Yes, Twilight?"

Letting out a snicker, she smiled. "Are you going to join us?" she raised a hoof at the table as Spike put the last plate down on the it.

"With pleasure!" Jonathan exclaimed with a smile.

Just few minutes later, the dining room was filled with clinging of cutlery and the chewing of food. The six friends, a zebra and Spike all enjoyed their meals around the wooden dining table.

"Shpike, zhis ish delihcioush!" Rainbow said around the food in her mouth.

"Rainbow Dash! Don't speak with your mouth full!" Rarity commented firmly, cocking her head back as crumbs fell down from Rainbow's mouth.

Stopping her munching, Rainbow raised her head to look at Rarity. "Shorry!"

"No worries, dear." Rarity said, giving a smile with a narrowed eye.

"Glad you like it, Rainbow." Spike said before taking another small gem in his mouth.

"I still can't believe you can cook this amazing food, yet you eat gems." Jonathan commented with slightly narrowed eyes and a shaking head.

"Spike has always had a taste for food," Twilight said, smiling proudly at her number one assistant.

"I've been meaning to ask from you, Spike; how- ouch..." Jonathan raised his hoof to his head and leaned on it slightly as he closed his eyes.

Twilight furrowed her brows in concern, the others turning to look at the zebra with similar expressions. "Jon? You alright?"

Jonathan waved his hoof. "It's nothing, just a headache." Taking a deep breath, he raised his head and slowly opened his eyes. "It seems to come and go. It's not a very hard one, but when it comes in a second it hits you like a rock."

The six ponies gave each other looks of concern. Twilight's thoughts went straight to the probable cause of Jonathan's headache. She shifted her wide open eyes down. She felt something in her throat and gulped. "This can't be good... How long will...?"

"Twi?" Jonathan called.

The unicorn raised her eyes to look at his light green ones. "Relax! Don't show emotions! Focus!"

"I'm fine, don't worry about it." He said with a smile, head slightly tilted to the side.

Twilight forced a smile on her face. "I'm sure you are." A war ravaged in her head, as she pushed the thoughts away.

"Now, let's continue eating before the food get's cold." Jonathan said, glancing around the table and turning back to look at his almost empty plate. The others took one more concerned glance at each other and at Twilight, before continuing.

A/N: Again: I sincerely apologize for the time it took to write this. I had a bad case of "writer's block" for the past week and before that was school related stuff...

Fortunately, after the writer's block went away, I had a case of the opposite and I've now planned the rest of the story through. Now it's just about writing it, but... Confound the schools! It takes my time from writing! (And curse my natural laziness...)