A New Life

After the introductions a comfortable silence fell over the table. As we eat I start to realize the weight of all the eyes on us. I glance around and notice the varying types of stares on us. Some looked on with anger or malice, ‘did we do something to upset them?’ I wonder. Other ponies looked at us with caution, some normally cautious and some actually fearful. The rest of the ponies look at us with either disinterest or indifference.

“They really don’t like us do they?” I ask silver.

“They just don’t trust humans.”

“Rightfully so.” numbers 1, 5, 9, 10, 14, and myself say in relative unison.

Silver looks at us with surprise, while some of the other members give us confused looks. Mark takes the lead in explaining what we meant. “Not all humans are bad, obviously. But there are such things as shitty people, not to mention the government and whatever they’re planning. Even we humans don’t trust each other most of the time.”

“1’s right.” I say looking at silver. “You should never trust someone you just met, but that doesn’t mean we think you should discriminate against our entire race. Honestly my main concern was why no one in here is trying to hide the fact that they dislike us so much. After all, they are solders, you'd think they'd be trained not to show their emotions.”

“Huh, that’s so normal.” Silver mumbles under her breath, bringing her hoof up to her muzzle to whisper her thoughts into it.

“Uh, what?” I ask, giving Silver a questioning look.

“Oh.. nothing. Sorry. I just, well. I expected you to be a lot more mad about ponies not liking you, rather than wonder about their discipline. Honestly I had forgotten that all these ponies are trained to remain stoic until you pointed out how little they seem to care.”

“I don’t entirely blame them. They don’t exactly have any way of knowing who we are. Should we all introduce ourselves at some point?” I turn and look at 1 waiting for an answer.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt. How about everyone else?” Mark glances up seeing if anyone objects. “Wait, why do we have two empty seats? Doesn’t this makeshift table seat exactly 16 people?” Silver gives him a slight jab in the side. “Sorry 15 people and one pony.”

“Yeah you have a point.” Marco says standing to look over everyone, he lets out a long sigh before sitting down. “Where are Jack and Amy?”

“Oh of course it’s them.” Mark says letting out a sigh of his own and pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation.

“Who are they?” I ask, glancing up at the annoyed leader.

‘Number 7 Jack Crown, and number 8 Amy Crown. They’re a married couple that arrived at the same time. How did we not notice they were gone? *sigh* They’ve always had a bad habit of wandering off and getting into trouble as long as we’ve known them. Part of me was hoping it would stop once we got here, apparently I was very naïve.“

“Yeah, they’ve gotten into some real shit before.” Marie says, glancing up from her food. “This one time they actually managed to get into the wardens room and he caught them going through his browser history.”

“Oh yeah I remember that.” Blake says. “Although I’m not sure what they thought they would find, it was a military laptop after all. It definitely wasn’t worth getting Pony Practice for.”

“What’s Pony Practice?” I ask, giving the others a curious look.

“I was this thing the general would do.” Mark says, getting on the ground to demonstrate “Basically you had to go the whole day on all four when you walked, and you had to keep your fist clenched so you couldn’t grab anything. He always said it was acting like a pony to get an appreciation for how hard they had it. Honestly though it actually worked, I definitely have a lot more respect for ponies after doing it.”

“Is that even legal?” I ask stupidly before correcting my self. “Never mind. I forgot, top secret government site protecting a portal to another world. It doesn't matter what's legal.”

Suddenly we all hear a loud crash come from the other side of the mess hall. “Watch you’re going human.” A stallion says, venom dripping from his words.

“Sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention.” Comes a woman's voice. At the sound of the commotion we all get up to go see what’s happening.

“I don’t care how much you were daydreaming, you need to pay more attention and be more respectful while in this castle.” The stallion takes a step forward and looks down to appear more imposing. As we make our way through the crowd we can see two people sitting on the ground in front of the stallion.

On the ground sits a woman with bright blue dyed hair, a bright neon pink shirt and black leggings. Frantically looking her over to make sure she’s not injured is who I can only assume is her husband. The man has short black hair, beige pants, a black shirt with a dark grey overcoat, and a pair of thin glasses.

“Hey she didn’t mean it alright, just leave her alone.” The man stands up to look the stallion in the eyes.

“Oh look at the big man standing up for his weak woman.” The stallion says mockingly. “I don’t care how things work back in your world. Here regardless of your gender, you’re not tough or scary, Human.”

“And why does that matter?” I ask waking up in front of the couple to look at the stallion. “This is Canterlot is it not? Here strength and power aren't how you get ahead. Here it’s all about status, respect, and tradition. What would the princesses say if they saw you actively picking a fight with one of their special guests? I’d suggest finishing your lunch break and letting this go.”

“Oh look, this one thinks that just because he knows a few of the rules that he gets to order us around.” The stallion looks around at the guards standing behind him, backing him up. “I don’t care who you are or how important you think you are. No matter what, at the end of the day you’re still a filthy human.”

“HEY!” Mark calls out, stepping through the crowd. “Just because we’re human doesn’t mean we’re bad people.”

“All humans are the same, you’re all just power hungry animals who just want to take our magic.” The stallion accentuates his point by stomping hard on the ground with his fore hooves.

“HOW DARE...”

“What’s your name?” I ask with a blank exception, cutting off the leader as I glance up at the large stallion.

“And why do you want to know? Are you gonna go tattle to one of the princesses on me?”

“No, of course not. If memory serves it’s proper to greet a pony formally when meeting them for the first time. I’ve realized that we’re getting off on the wrong hoof and I wish to fix that. My name is Anon Filler.” I kneel down and bow to the guard pony. “May I ask you for your name?”

This action seems to confuse the large pegasus, but his expression quickly turns to one of cocky satisfaction. “I suppose I can tell you my name. I’m Fine Tip.”

“Thank you, Fine Tip.” I raise from bended knee and look up at the stallion, my exception darkening into one of cold command. “Now that we are acquainted, do you mind elaborating on that accusation of us wanting to take your magic?” I ask, glaring with narrowed eyes.

The stallion gives me an odd look before answering. “Over a thousand years ago humans came here in search of magic and tried to steal ours and take it for themselves.”