Ah, a day off, something that I’ve been getting pretty often. Despite working in a fast food place full time, which is only twenty five hours in Equestria, I always seemed to get weekends off. So, after waking up, a quick breakfast made by Chrysalis, and a hop and a skip outside, and I was sitting under a tree and reading a book. Since I’m gonna be stuck in Equestria(I think I will, Celestia has yet to speak with me about that, so I'm probably stuck here) I might as well brush up on some history.

So instead of going to school, I found a book in a bookstore about Equestrian history. It was pretty interesting to say the least. For instance, Celestia and Luna have apparently ruled over Equestria for thousands of years, and possibly longer; the two of them were older than most calendar systems. The most recent calendar system being two thousand years ago… holy shit.

I cannot imagine being alive for that long. Like holy… One lifetime is long enough for me, thank you. While eighty to ninety years is a raindrop in the oceans of time, that’s still a lot of time for a living being that’s capable of complex thoughts beyond ‘I am here and I do a thing to keep being here’. And that is more than enough time for me to leave the Earth a better place than when I found it.

Or Equus, as this planet was called. God, I am not going to get used to that at all.

There was this thing called ‘pre-unification’ that sounded really interesting. It was a time when unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi hated each other. It all seemed cool, but there was little to no information on it in this book. I’ll just find a book about it hopefully, or ask Celestia and Luna about it. Because I’m sure that Celestia sees me as a friend when I’ve barely managed to spend time with her. Same with Luna, and it’s a shame really, I want to be friends with them, but I’ve got no idea if they’ll want to be friends with me.

I am just another pony in the sea of drones. There’s nothing special about me.

Wow, I sat here for way too long without reading. I closed my book and put it in a saddlebag I had bought recently. It was probably… noon by now, and I’m famished. Now, I could go home and ask Chrysalis if she could whip something together, but Chrysalis said she was making dinner tonight and that it would take most of the day to cook. So… Pizza. Pizza sounds delicious right now.

I walked out of a pizzeria with a satisfied smile on my face. I hadn’t checked what was inside the pizza box I was given, which was kinda small, but I did order a personal pizza. I trotted along, looking for a good spot to sit and eat. You see, Canterlot seemed to have several outdoor food courts, all of which had restaurants with stuff that sounded delicious.

Deep fried daisies sounded weird. But I suppose ponies can actually stomach flowers without dying, so perhaps it actually tasted really good. I wouldn’t know since I more than likely won’t buy any of them.

One place even had tacos, but my brain has been craving a plain cheese pizza, and this was it!

I sat down at a table and opened up the box to be… what the fuck? This wasn’t pizza! That’s just bread with cheese, that isn’t even melted, without any sauce! There wasn’t even a shape to it, it was a fucking blob of dough and cheese! What the- okay, maybe it tastes good. I took a bite out of the pizza and hummed. Okay, this is good, really tasty. The cheese and bread were of high quality, but this wasn’t pizza. I ate the rest of it, hopped up, chucked my trash in a trashcan, and ran to do some research.

Okay so, as it turns out, the usual New York Style pizza that I grew up with, just doesn’t exist. In fact, what I ate earlier was pretty much the gold standard for pizza in Equestria judging by this cookbook I found in a library; like really expensive pizza that didn’t have sauce, or was even cooked by the looks of things. In fact, this cookbook advertised this recipe as ‘better than Mama Pons’, the restaurant I got my pizza from.

I put the book I borrowed back onto the right spot on the shelf, and trotted out the doors to the library.

I’m going to introduce ponies to New York Style Pizza. You see, my grandpa once ran a pizza shop long before he passed away. Best pizza ever by the way, and on top of that, I used to help out on occasion and even threw pizzas together before my grandpa threw them in the oven to be made. I know a thing or two about proper pizza, and I think I still remember a thing or two when it comes to pizza cooking.

I walked into a grocery store to buy the ingredients needed.

I set up a food cart that I had managed to rent, which had a built-in, portal oven in a food court and put up a ‘coming soon’ sign. I had quickly thrown together a vegetarian pizza and stuck it in the oven and waited. Meanwhile, I made more pizzas, plain pizza, anything that didn’t have meat or pineapple on it(pineapple on pizza is a sin. Fight me, you won’t), and set a timer for every pizza in the portable oven.

There were three pizzas in the oven.

I took down the ‘coming soon’ signs and put up a ‘free samples’ sign. It usually would cost three bits a slice, which there were ten slices a pie, and cost about eighteen bits to make a whole pizza. I needed to profit somehow, but for free samples, I would be giving ponies half slices. Now three bits a slice wasn’t too bad when a full pizza was only twenty-four bits to buy a whole pie.

I even made pizza boxes for those who wanted full pies.

Immediately, somebody, a unicorn mare, walked up to my stand and sniffed at the pizzas that were sitting behind glass and a warmer. “Those smell funny,” the mare commented. The mare was a unicorn, with cream colored fur, and a reddish mane that was pretty long, with a purple streak running through it, but a little curley. Sitting on her head was a light brown sun hat that nicely complimented the rest of the mare’s colours.

And she was wearing glasses, that was oddly adorable.

“I’m giving out free samples, trust me, this is a new style of pizza that I’m trying to popularize.”

“Well… I do like pizza, so if somepony is trying something new with it, I’ll try a slice.” I handed the mare a half slice, with a spatula, on a plate. The mare’s eyes widened. “That is a generous portion for a free sample.”

“Three bits and you get a slice double the size of that.” The mare’s eyes got even wider.

“That… sounds like too good of a deal to be true, something about this has to be wrong.” The mare said, holding the olate with her magic. Without another word, the mare took a bite and her eyes widened. As she pulled the slice away, the perfectly melted cheese began to pull away, giving a nice stringing look as the mare pulled her head back from the slice. I offered some napkins, and the mare happily took some and wiped her lips.

“That… is delicious. What in the name of Celestia? It smells so strange, yet tastes so good!” The mare quickly scarfed the rest of the pizza slice. “Three bits… for a whole slice?”

“And even better! You can buy a freshly made, full pizza for just twenty four bits, so it’s perfect for parties!” The mare pulled out twenty four bits exactly. “Do… You make custom pizza?” I nodded. “Can I buy a full pizza with green peppers, olives and… what do you recommend personally?”

“Honestly, olives and green peppers are a tried and true combination on pizza… My personal tastes are… a bit unsavory for ponies. So my personal recommendations might sound disgusting.”

“It can’t be!”

“I like to put meat on my pizza.”

“Okay, that sounds gross,” the mare agreed.

I quickly threw together the requested pizza, and stuck it in the oven. “Your pizza will be ready in about twenty minutes. Twenty five if you want a crispier crust… which I would fully recommend; it’s nice and crunchier! Heck, the cheese gets even meltier!”

“I’ll wait the full twenty five minutes!” The mare said.

“Cool, give me a name for the order and I’ll call it once your order’s done!”

“My name is Moon Dancer!”

“Moon Dancer!” I put the pizza, now fully made, into a pizza box, and wrote something on a sticky note. The unicorn’s ears perked up before she trotted over from her seat in the food court. While Moon Dancer’s pizza was cooking, several other ponies walked over and got free samples and gave similar reactions to Moon Dancer.

Almost all of them bought a slice after having their free sample.

Though it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, a few ponies said my pizza was awful. But that’s fine because that’s how it is back at home. Either you love pizza, or you hate it. Or you just eat it if it’s there and you need the calories. Eitherway, I didn’t mind, since people had their tastes… Even if it makes me a little sad every time somebody says my pizza sucks.

A common comment was that my pizza smelled funny because of the sauce I put on the pizza.

“On the sticky note are some reheating instructions, just in case you got some pizza left over.”

“Thank you!” I waved to Moon Dancer as she walked off with her food. Looked in my register for a moment and smiled; I already made enough to pay off for the food cart I rented, and I could probably buy it! I think I just found my side job. A small smile formed on my face as I looked up from my cart… to see a line. A long line.

The line was for my cart… I don’t think I even have enough ingredients for everybody! I popped three pies out of the oven, before getting to work.

I am stressed the fuck out. There are so many ponies, so fucking many of them, and they were all staring at me. I only have enough ingredients for one more pizza, which is in the only and only about a third of every pizza. Oh god, what the fuck. Yes, I am used to working fast, but like, I usually worked behind a wall while spewing burgers out at a record speed. Right now, I have to face whoever the hell I am serving while working. It’s getting to the point where I think I might just have a heart attack because of how stressed out I am.

Why did I have to be successful on my first day of pizza selling?

I scrambled to quickly cut the last pizza up after it was done cooking, taking bits from customers, and giving them what they paid for. Before I knew it, I was down half the pizza in minutes, and my mane was drenched in my own sweat. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes before reeling back and letting out a sigh as I was down to two slices. On the brightside, I have introduced ponies to pizza at the cost of my mood. And then it was done, I was out of pizza, with no toppings, no cheese, I was even out of pizza sauce I had made from scratch. I let out a sigh of relief, only to watch everybody who couldn’t get a slice sigh in disappointment before going off to one of the other restaurants in the plaza.

I couldn’t take the look of disappointment on those ponies faces, so I walked around my cart, and went to a table. I sat down and rustled my mane as I kept my eyes on the table. Sweet, holy mother of god, what the darn diddly fuck. I’ve yet to even see if I made a profit or not, and I don’t know or care at this point. If I made enough to pay off the fact that I had just rented a food cart, and bought a hundred bits worth of ingredients, then I’m happy and likely not doing this again.

Not without something to block my line of sight from the customers at least.

I need something to calm the nerves; some tea will have to do. I fucking hate tea, but I just need to relax and get my heartrate to a normal level.

I walked back over to my cart and opened up my register and began to count my bits. I knew what my expenses were, the cart was thirty bits, the paper plates were about ten(I still have a good amount of paper plates), and all the ingredients for the pizza were roughly fifty bits. So basically, if I had just made a hundred bits today, then I'd be happy. I stopped after reaching the last bit, now it was my turn to be shocked,

I had made nearly five hundred and fifty bits. Five hundred bits in a fucking day, and about ninety bits was going back into paying for everything I bought to do this. Holy shit. This is a good side hustle; it’s more than what I make working at Hayburger with tips, almost double! Okay… maybe I will do this again, but maybe with somebody to help me. Or maybe just buy more ingredients so I won’t get so stressed out. I definitely won’t get stressed if I have enough to make everybody a slice.

“Fruit?” I looked up from my pizza cart to see… Why is Princess Celestia here? I was in the middle of cleaning up the cart before I had to return it by the end of the day, and the literal Pony Sun Goddess was standing in front of my cart. You know, just a casual Princess standing at my cart like a normal customer. It was shortly after three in the afternoon and I was closing up shop before dinner rush.

I severely underestimated how much pizza I would’ve sold today. I only had enough for ten or eleven pizzas; eighty to eighty eight slices in total.

“Hey Celestia,” I bowed my head before turning my focus back onto cleaning.

“Why were you selling pizza? I thought you’ve already found a job you were happy with.”

“Oh I did, and doing this stressed me the fuck out, but apparently ponies like proper pizza. Not that cheesy bread shit. I’ve yet to have anything to calm myself down, but that’s nothing a few breathing tricks couldn’t help with.”

“If you would like, you can come with me to the castle, and we can chat over tea.”

“Sure, I’ll share a cup of sugar with some tea in it for you, Princess.” That got Celestia to grin. “Lemme clean this real quick and return it before I forget though.”

“I believe I can lend a hoof,” the Princess said before her horn lit up… and my cart was as good as new. Huh. Perhaps magic wouldn’t be too bad to learn. “Now let us return your food cart to your renter, and head down to the castle.

I reclined back into the chair I was sitting in after taking a sip of tea.

“Oh yeah, that’s what I needed!” I finally felt relaxed for the first time in the last two hours.

“I suppose running a business would take a lot out of you, wouldn’t it, Mr. Fruit?”

“Just call me Fruit,” I corrected before taking another sip. “But it wasn’t just running a business that was stressful. Making pizzas is always fun, it’s just the line of ponies coming in and expecting something. Every single pony in that line looked so excited to try something new, they were expecting something out of me, and I simply couldn’t provide what they were expecting because I didn’t have enough to give them all something. And I felt not only stressed because of how many eyes were on me, but awful because I was wasting quite a few ponies’ time.” I punctuated myself with another sip of tea.

“I think you might just have stage fright and anxiety. It is good that you wish to provide for your customers, but you need to remember that you are one pony. You cannot provide for every single one of them.”

“Easy for you to say, your highness, but you pretty much ran a whole kingdom on your own-”

“With a lot of delegation Mr. Fruit. Sometimes, asking for help is the bravest thing a pony can do; you can admit that you need help and are willing to accept help.” Celestia cleared her throat, and only then did I notice the bags under her eyes. “I have been working hard with several magic theorists, seeing if we can find a way for you to return to your home. Unfortunately not only would conjuring a spell to do so be difficult, but so would finding the exact universe you are from… or in other words, I doubt you’ll be able to go home at all. Nopony that I know of could come up with such a spell, let alone such an accurate one at that.”

Celestia’s wings drooped a little, and I caught her gazing at the table. So I logically hopped out of my seat, sat next to Celestia and started rubbing her back. The Sun Princess jumped at the sudden touch, before allowing me to keep rubbing her back.

“It’s not too big of a deal, your highness.”

“But don’t you wish to go home?” Celestia asked, looking down at me.

“I did, but honestly, I would just go back to the same miserable life of working in fast food while hoping I can actually become a therapist without ever becoming one. I can very easily retire in Equestria after working for forty years, but back on Earth, I wouldn’t even be able to think of that. Heck, I don’t even own my own house, I have to live in a dinky little apartment and still only just manage to scrape by. And while I am renting a house from you, you filthy scammer,” I poked Celestia’s rig cage, which made her giggle, before continuing. “I can probably buy a house somewhere if I knew where to look.” I paused for a second.

“But seriously, thank you for the insanely generous rental offer. A bit a year is… insane to think about.” A smile formed on Celestia’s face. “Plus I probably shoulda found the time to tell you that I am actually… content with life now. I’ve got a roommate who’s lovely to hang out with, I got a job that I like with a potential side business on the way, so I’m pretty okay with staying in Equestria.”

“Auntie Celestia? Are you in here?” Mine and Celestia’s attention snapped to a pink alicorn. She had a similar physique to Luna, though a bit shorter. The main thing that stood out was the mane, mostly due to how… not physics defying it is. Yellowish green, dark pink, and purple made up the colors of the mane, but it wasn’t flowing like Celestia’s. In all honesty, this alicorn was really pretty, yet a little more understated than her aunts if what she’d just said is anything to go by.

This alicorn looked more approachable.

“Ah Cadance, how is planning the wedding going?” Celestia asked. What wedding?

“It’s going…” Cadance’s eyes fell on me. I waved before going back to my tea. “Well. Who are you talking with?” The princess then started to smirk. “A potential lover, Auntie? If so, not only is it about time, but I see you’ve chosen quite the handsome fellow to become your next husband!”

“What the?”

“Fruit Punch,” Celestia went on, ignoring her niece’s teasing. “This is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the Princess of Love. Cadence, this is… a friend of mine, Fruit Punch.”

“Aw, we hung out once and we’re just friends?” I asked. “I thought I was hitting first base today, but I’ll try again later!”

“Fruit, you insufferable little pony.” Celestia facehoofed.

“Psst.” Cadance whispered to me: “Her ribs are ticklish.” Now when presented with the opportunity to tickle a goddess, what must you do? I grinned before rubbing Celestia’s rib cage, and the alicorn began to squirm, but made no effort to move me.

“This is an attempted m-murder! C-cease this tort-torturous practice at once!” Celestia laughed. A small grin plastered itself on Cadance’s face as I kept tickling her aunt. Hearing Celestia laugh was kinda nice to hear, not gonna lie. I might do this again at some point, it’d be a chance to hang out with this lovely pony, and it’s fun!

By the time I had stopped, I had a Princess laying her head on my shoulder, and a Princess of Love laughing.

Celestia, despite having the ability to completely destroy me in the blink of an eye, is fucking adorable.

Author's Note

fun gamer fact:

in the original story, i did have chrysalis point out that Fruit Punch may or may not have stage fright and (potentially) anxiety. So i figured I may as well use this here!