Home. Home is where the heart is.

I never thought I would be happy seeing the inside of castle ruins appear before me but the fact they are here brings me joy. My joy is interrupted by my legs failing me and I fall to the ground. No sooner do I get my bearings, than I hear shouting.

"Freeze! Hands up!"

"On Your knees!" I snap my eyes open to find five rifles trained on me. My hands fly up.

"Stop, Don't shoot!" I'm Eric Scott! Investigative photojournalist!" The soldiers exchange looks before one speaks up.

"Show us your PRESS card," he says. I slowly move my hands to the inside of my jacket to the pocket on my left and to my relief, it's still in there. I hold it up so they can see it.

"Menhenick, verify it."

"Rog," He says as he makes his way over to me, rifle stiffly pointed at me. He takes my card out of my hand and carefully studies it. He takes his sweet time looking it over and before long, he tosses it on my lap before lowering his rifle.

"God damn, it really is you," Menhenick says as he goes to help me up. Before he can touch me, a voice bellows.

"STOP, DON'T TOUCH HIM!" My eyes snap to what I believe to be Menhenick's commanding officer. "I want him searched, quarantined, debriefed ASAP." God, I hate it when I'm right.

Today is certainly a first for me, I must say. Actually, I'm one of the only people who can say it's NOT the craziest thing to ever happen to them. Far from it, in fact.

"May I ask what's going to happen to me?" I ask. "You already searched me and took my camera, bag, and equipment. What else could you want from me?" I ask one of the blokes in protective gear. He takes a seat opposite me and calmly says

"For now, you need to be quarantined and debriefed. You must tell us what is on the other side of that wormhole."

"Portal." I correct the hazmat bloke. He turns to his partner and he writes something on a clipboard. "And anyways, all the evidence is on the card you took from my camera. You can clearly see equine beings in another world."

"Yes, and you made first contact. All we want is an answer to a few questions. Firstly, are they hostile?"

"No," I answer instantly. More scribbling on the clipboard is done as I continue. "Their leader wishes to make contact with the prime minister. She wants to start communicating as soon as we are able."

"I see. Secondly, what is that mark on your arm?" Bollocks, better see if my poker face holds up.

"It's a tattoo," I say. They give a skeptical look. "Got it before I left. It's just the sun."

"Alright, Thirdly, How long were you in that world for?"

"A day and a half." I reply. They exchange a relieved look before answering

"It's been a day and a half since you 'got lost in a cave in', as the team assigned to you reported. It's good to know time flowed as ours does. Now, one last question. Do you have any lasting ailments originating from that world?"

Oh, I could name all of them. Not now, Daybreaker. I need to concentrate.

"None," I reply.

"Then we are done. Now, here's what we want you to do. Delete. Everything. "

"I'm sorry?"

"Delete. Everything. The ramifications of another world being common knowledge would be monumental."

"I'm sorry WHAT? Are you having a laugh? Mate, this is HUGE. The public have a right to-"

"The public won't have the right because they won't know. They will know when they are ready. As far as they are aware, nothing happened. We have confiscated the SD card contained in your camera. You may have the camera back after the SD card is destroyed."

WHAT. THE. HELL? DESTROY IT? NOPE! NOT HAPPENING! Think man think!

Greetings Eric. I hope I have gotten a hold of you at a good time? Celestia!

Nope! The situation is dire. They want to cover up what happened.

I had a feeling they would do that. Can you persuade them not to?

I don't know how!

Try whatever you can. From here on out, you have my blessing to release it.

Thanks Celestia! The line goes dead. Ok, have to hustle.

"I think you'll find that destroying that footage would be detrimental to the relationship Equestria wants to form!" I spit out. Hey, there's an idea! "If this footage were to be destroyed, that would be spitting on the kind gesture they gave me. I'm no diplomat but if someone who you gave permission filmed your house and then destroyed the footage out of a need to cover up you had been there, wouldn't you be cross? They allowed me to film and document that whole castle and get shots of their leader. Who also happens to be a new friend of mine."

"That's enough. Perhaps we need further testing. She could have brainwashed you."

"Bollocks to that! You lot want to-" I stand up only to be pressed back into my seat. The door swings open as a man wearing a military uniform walks in.

"Stand down, Eric Scott. Look, we have run tests on everything. You are clean. No radiation or other contaminants. You may go, on the condition that this footage be released three weeks from now. No earlier. If you agree, we will give back everything we took." I take a while to ponder the deal. 3 weeks? That should give me time to edit it down to a YouTube documentary. And I could send this to the news, and not just the internet at once.

"How can I be sure you haven't touched any of the footage?"

"You can watch all of it on your flight home. We will fly you back home and to your family."

"Fine. Deal. One more thing."

"What?"

"Equestria's leader wants to start communicating. She told me as she saw me off."

"Get the prime minister on the line. Mr Scott, thank you for your time."

"DADDY'S HOME!" I shout as I set my bag down. I hear thundering steps as Lucy sprints out of the front room.

"Eric! Jesus Christ, what happened? Where were you? I was so worried!" Screw it, she'll never believe me.

"I was in another world with talking ponies, unicorns, and pegasi."

"And I fought an entire pub! Bollocks! what REALLY happened?" she says playfully. I hold up my camcorder and gently shake it.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I plug my laptop in and set all my SD cards out. Thank Christ I numbered these. I plug a random one in and press play on the video. It's of when I walked around Ponyville. Lucy looks back, baffled.

"You really did.. Go to... another world..." She quietly says.

" I even made friends with their leader. The most powerful being in their world. Say, you ever want a free day out with the kids? Equestria is lovely at this time of year! Their leader has allowed me to come and go as long as I just say." At this point, Daybreaker pipes up.

So this is earth? I have to say, your home is perfect for an ape such as yourself. I sigh. Yeah yeah, earth houses are not as grand as equestrian houses, sue me!

"Hey Lucy, you good?" I ask. Her eyes have gone wide. She shakily points at the glowing light in front of the TV. I shoot up and get Lucy behind me. A purple circle appears and...

"TWILIGHT?" I shout in surprise.

"Hi, Eric!" She happily says. She is wearing saddle bags and is looking around "Where are we?"

"My home. And you're in the process of scaring my wife." Twilight looks around in surprise. Her eyes meet Lucy's.

"Oh geez I'm so sorry!" Twilight says.

"Apology accepted," Lucy says. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Twilight chuckles as she levitates something from her saddlebags and places it on the sofa.

"Returning something Eric forgot!" as she places-

"HEY MY PHONE!" I shout as I snatch it up off of the sofa. "Thanks for returning it, I guess?"

"No problem!" Twilight says with glee. "Say, while I'm here, Could I stay the night? Princess Celestia needs a day to recharge her magic."

"Sure. Take the sofa. My kids are thankfully on a week camp with their school so we have time to chill"

"Thank you! So, what are you planning on doing today?"

"Rewatching YuGiOh. I just decided that. Talking about Atem to Rainbow and Rarity has gotten me itching to rewatch it. We're skipping all the filler." Lucy sits next to me and I fire up the telly. Theres no need to continue showing the footage. Lucy has seen Twilight now. Twilight hops on an armchair and I press play on the first episode.

My name is Twilight Sparkle. I am an alicorn princess and yesterday was incredible! I arrived at the home of Eric Scott to deliver his phone back to him! His wife was more than a little surprised to see me but with Eric there, she soon calmed down. We watched a television show called YuGiOh before settling down to sleep. Can you believe it! He went to sleep at 1 am! That's far too late! To make things worse, Eric was up at about 10 a.m! How does he and his wife get anything done?

I awaken on what appears to be his couch with a blanket draped on me. Eric or Lucy must have done that. I levitate the blanket off of me and fold it up before setting it next to me. After having a good stretch, I decide to explore a bit. From what I can gather, this place is quite different from the world of Canterlot High. Oh? Looks like there's a photo on a shelf. I levitate it down and take a look. I see Eric and Lucy in beautiful outfits. This must be on their wedding day. I place the photo back and turn my attention to the Television.

Is this one of those video games? How does it work? I poke it with my hoof a few times until I give up and wander around some more until I smell a familiar smell. Coffee? I follow the smell until I see an open door. I poke around the door to see Eric and Lucy sitting and standing around. Eric, while holding a mug to his lips, notices me. he throws his hand up while sliding a chair out with his foot. I hop into the chair as Lucy sits down next to Eric. She passes me a cup of coffee as a question comes to me.

"Eric, would you ever want to return to Equestria?" Eric takes a minute and after he gently places his mug on the table. He turns to Lucy.

"Yeah. That place is, for lack of a better term, magical." Great! Eric wants to come back! As I celebrate in my head, a familiar noise can be heard from the room I came from. The three of us all head in to see a familiar portal has opened up where it had last night.

"I'm guessing that's your ride home?" Lucy asks.

"Yes. It feels like-" I'm cut off as the portal clears up to see a window into Princess Celestia's throne room, along with my friends waiting for me. Pinkie Pie is waving frantically, I assume to get Eric's attention. I say goodbye to Eric and Lucy and gently fly into the portal.

"ERIC!!!!" Pinkie shouts "When are you coming back!? We need to throw your 'Welcome to Equestria' party!" Eric laughs as he waves to everypony. As I glide through the portal and land in the warm embrace of my friends, I turn to face Eric and Lucy. Lucy looks at us in shock as Eric finishes laughing. He finishes and replies.

"Soon! Count on it! See you later!"

Author's Note

AND THATS A WRAP.

Holy cow I have been trying to get this done for AN ENTIRE YEAR! MAYBE MORE! I have to say, I'm happy with how this has gone. Though, my next story is going to be a while away. Not because I'm gonna take my time (which I will) but because I'm gonna get the whole thing written and then release the chapters weekly!

Thank you all so much for following Eric's journey to Equestria! It means a lot to know that there are folks out there wanting to read my stories. With that said, SEE YOU ALL IN THE NEXT ONE! Oh, and if anyone wants to see Eric's character ref, let me know and I'll add it in these notes.