Strange New World

Tory was breathing hard and dripping sweat over Sapphire Glow when he finally rolled over and closed his eyes. It might not have been the best ever, but he had to admit, it did feel pretty damn good. Better than he expected given his current form.

Sapphire didn't roll over and try to cuddle him, but she was on her side, resting her head on a hoof and giving him a happy grin when he opened his eyes again. He gave her a small one in return as she said, “Now we just gotta do that on Earth so you can use your hands on me. That was great. Did you like it?”

“Yeah, that felt good,” Tory sighed and closed his eyes again. Equestria had officially melted his brain; she was very cute for a horse. Or maybe it was just her wearing him down after a month of persistence. Still…

“This is just platonic, right?” He turned his head to look into her yellow eyes. “Cause, no offense, I'm not looking for anything serious.” Not with a horse anyway, despite just having sex with one. He hid his cringe at the thought. Maybe his brain hadn't completely melted quite yet.

“Huh? Yeah, of course,” she said without missing a beat, like it wasn't even a question. She didn't say anything more, only let out a long, satisfied sigh and rolled out of bed to clean herself up. Good. They were on the same page. Maybe he should have asked that before being intimate though.

Did he really just do that? Both Lake and Roxanne would have a good laugh at his expense, but it was still… weird. He'd hooked up with other women knowing less about them, but this was still strange. The only thing keeping it from being creepy was that he was a horse right now, too, and he saw what she looked like as a human. If both those things hadn't happened, he probably wouldn't have been in her bed right now. No, more like definitely wouldn't have.

He smiled and felt his face go red as the unicorn wiggled her hips and swished her tail while she moved around the room. There was no point in trying to deny to himself how cute she was, even as a pony. Even without the extra stuff, this could very easily become awkward. She was really eccentric.

Sapphire Glow flopped back into bed a little while later with a yawn, and wasted no time in turning her back to him to fall asleep. It might have been a little disappointing that there wouldn't be any cuddling afterward, but it wasn't long before he was asleep and waking up again anyway. After a quick shower, he found himself as the last one awake. All three of Lake, Roxanne, and Sapphire Glow were sitting next to each other on the couch reading. Even Shimmering Diamond was in the room with them, albeit on the other side and with the addition of beer at nine thirty in the morning.

“You know, I didn't sleep at all last night, you two were making so much noise,” her mother said. “You have to keep it down next time. My bedroom is right above hers.” Both Lake and Sapphire Glow surprisingly laughed slightly at that. Roxanne didn't though.

“I didn't sleep at all either,” she said tiredly. “It was like I was right next to you two, I could sense everything that was going on. Just tell me to take a walk next time so I don't have to feel everything. Or at least not when I'm trying to sleep. Otherwise I'll get desensitized and wanna join in.”

That comment got Tory’s face fully flush red and Lake to practically guffaw. And then Roxanne started to laugh, too, probably at his embarrassment. He didn't bother saying he would keep it in mind as he took a seat next to the pegasus.

“Lake's reading stuff about his species,” Roxanne said before Tory could ask. “Sapphire's doing her usual and I'm reading about magic.”

“I think I'm starting to feel better enough to try flying again, higher this time,” Lake added in. Then he flexed his wings and said, “After I preen these things again.”

“Flying would be fun,” Roxanne agreed. “And yeah, it is weird that we've been horses for almost two months. Hopefully not much longer though since Tory’s getting upset. Sorry that you're a boring regular horse.”

Tory sighed, not even bothering to deny it. He didn't start talking about it either, instead asking, “Is there anything else we need to do, Sapphire?” He didn't want to get to the queen’s court only to have something missing.

“No, not really. Just looking over a map of the south of Equestria just in case. You guys can just relax though.”

Yeah. Relax. Like they had been doing anything at all for most of the last several weeks. Roxanne and Lake at least had something to occupy their time.

“If you're that obsessed with it,” Roxanne suddenly started, “You can go to the library and read about your species instead of complaining about it.”

Technically, he wasn't actually complaining. But he kept that thought to himself as he stood up to do exactly that. He reached out a hoof to Sapphire as he did and asked, “Wanna come with?”

“Nah,” Sapphire said nonchalant with a wave of her hoof. “I'm gonna stay here and read up on my spell casting. I need to make sure I'm in tip-top shape just in case I need it! Even if I did get an official summons, you never know how train conductors can act.”

“You can do that at the library though, right?” he pressed just a little bit further.

“I could, but not while keeping an eye on my desk for new messages,” she said quickly, without a hint of a pause. “Next time though, when I have the chance. It's way too important for me to leave now!”

The stallion settled his hoof back on the ground. Tory tried to keep any disappointment he felt to a minimum. He didn't have anything to be disappointed by anyway. It was actually something useful she was concentrating on, and he was just going to read that dumb pony tribes book again. It wasn’t like she needed to come, even if it seemed like she had nothing to do.

“I'll go with you, if you want, man,” Lake offered. “I'll just need to preen these feathers first,” he said, stretching them out. “It should only be a couple of hours max. I can practice flying on the way.”

It was more like four hours before Lake was ready to go, a very relaxed look on his face as he and Tory stepped out of the house and down the street. He looked a little sleepy too. Not tired or exhausted, just sleepy and relaxed.

“Are you sure preening was all you were doing?” Tory teased. “Roxie told me what else you were doing when we first got to Sapphire's house.”

Lake’s orange face blushed bright red, still relaxed but now masked by embarrassment. “Yeah,” he answered quickly, to Tory's growing grin. “Preening just—it feels nice. Like, birds in the wild preen when they're stressed sometimes, right? And I need my wings working right to practice flying!”

He demonstrated by doing a little hop and lifting into the air, maybe eight or ten feet before settling back down again. Lake actually had been practicing, surprisingly enough. His friend was usually too afraid to go on rollercoasters. Either he was getting braver or didn't think they'd be leaving Equestria any time soon.

“I'm not very good yet, so that's all I can do right now.”

Tory asked about neither. “That is pretty cool, I'll admit. But then most things are cooler than being a boring horse.”

“I'd take being a boring human over anything right now. Roxie, too. I think she has trouble sleeping or concentrating when there's too many emotions around.”

Yes, Tory knew that, and Lake got uncomfortable with his wings, which somehow was meant to make Tory feel better about being boring in an alien world as alien creatures. It didn't really.

The world though was no more alien today than going on over a month and a half ago. All that was truly different was the creatures and the magic system. Beyond that, the sidewalk they stepped down with suburban housing could've been any in Pennsylvania. The lakes were blue, the grass was green, the air was fresh—hardly alien at all. Just weird.

He wondered what everyone would think of this, when they were back home. Earth as a whole. How does an extremely similar planet with the same communication system as Earth arise? Or did Equus come first and humans were copying? Maybe parallel universes or alternate dimensions? Why not? Magic was already real. Except for him. Mostly.

“Did you… really have sex with that mare last night?” Lake finally asked Tory the obvious question, voice low so no one would hear. Thankfully Tory could control his feelings of embarrassment better as Lake continued. Not that he needed to reply when the answer was just as obvious.

“That's… weird. Really, really weird. I don't know if I'd say disgusting like I would have before, but…” He stopped and shivered, spreading his wings and shaking his feathers as he did. “I'm not there yet. Not at all.”

“Except we know they're all humans, too,” Tory said simply. “We saw that in the portal. They look like us, we look like them.” It did take a bit of concentration to keep blood from his cheeks.

I'm not her fling… am I? He wouldn't be angry or upset if he was, but he wouldn't necessarily be happy with that. Casual was fine for him. Maybe not too casual though.

Lake had a look on his face Tory couldn't quite read as he shuffled his wings and stopped. “Well…” He trailed off a long moment before looking back up. “She likes you, you know? She told me, so maybe you're made for each other.” He wanted to say more, but breathed deep and became less anxious instead. If Lake didn't wanna say whatever else he had on his mind, it probably wasn't important anyway.

Another boring day it was, same as most of the days had been for the last nearly two months. But Tory was slowly settling into a rhythm. He didn't know if he'd ever gone so long without the internet or video games, but it wasn't as bad as all that. There was always stuff to do, even if the things he did weren't very productive. It was almost better than Earth considering they could convince strangers to take them in for weeks.

He didn't dwell on that thought for very long. He still thought being back home would be better. Maybe Sapphire would be there and he'd show her about ‘hands’, assuming it truly wasn't just a fetish she had. Maybe even if it was. But still, seeing her talk about something other than magic and science would be great, too, though she'd likely be just as excitable and eccentric on Earth.

That might not be the worst thing in the world.

It was a bunch of junk he learned about, in the book about earth ponies. He already knew they were strong from what Sapphire told him. They apparently had better hearing than average, similar to bat ponies—bat ponies? Unicorns, bird ponies, bug ponies, regular ponies, and bat ponies. That's what existed here that he knew of so far. What next, dog ponies? Dinosaur ponies? There were ways Equus was still alien to them.

Slightly more interesting was how earth ponies did have magic like the others. Their magic was apparently in their hooves though. That meant they could build up a farm and fertilize plants just by touching them, or even stepping on them. Or potentially clear out danger by walking on a well worn path so monsters could be scared away by the magic.

And monsters. Of course there were monsters here. This place was like Earth in many ways, but maybe only after two months was Tory realizing just how alien it was. Hydras and minotaurs and dragons and a whole list of other things. It was like fairy tales shoved into the modern world, except with horses—ponies.

There wasn't much else beyond that that caught his attention, save for a quick aside about his body being built so that he resisted damage that would hurt other ponies. Hopefully he wouldn't have to put it to the test like Lake did, but then that would almost be better than his uselessness otherwise. He really shouldn't have been dwelling on his lack of exciting powers quite so much.

Besides, he was gonna be famous when he got home. The interviews alone were gonna make for some of the most interesting content on the planet. So long as the ‘getting home’ part didn't drag on endlessly like it had already.

Before getting home though—or at least into a train that hopefully had a way there—there was another week that went by. The four of he, Lake, Roxanne, and Sapphire finally finished all their community service, and they were given papers that told them their service was completed. Sapphire Glow packed up some of her things and stuffed clothes for the other three in the bag she would take to Canterlot while Tory handled Lake's phone to capture another video.

“Probably will be the last one for a while,” he said as he used his nose to click record, sitting on his haunches to hold the thing. “Your phone's at nine percent battery.”

“That means if you choke, everyone in the world is gonna laugh at you, Lake, cause we won’t be able to reshoot,” Roxanne teased. “No pressure though!”

Tory got a shot of Lake sticking his tongue out at her before doing a little hop and rising slowly into the air with a steady flap of his wings. As he did, Tory followed his movements while providing commentary.

“We've been here for about seven or eight weeks now,” he told the camera, doing a quick spin to show off Sapphire Glow’s neighborhood for a few seconds. “The ponies here have been nice enough to let us stay with them. Apparently friendship is magic in this world, somehow, but it has helped us get out of some tough spots. Right, Lake?”

Lake nodded to the camera, starting to get to be out of breath at about twenty feet up and slowly sinking back down again. “Stopped those two from getting arrested. Not me from getting stabbed though. I still have the scar, even if it doesn't hurt anymore.”

Tory did his best to pan the camera over his side to get the wound as Lake carefully settled his hooves back on the ground. “It's not all friendship, it's true,” he said, now turning the camera to his own red muzzle. “I think it's fair to say it's like Earth, America specifically. The biggest difference here is that some of the creatures here can do magic. Some of us can, too, actually.”

He turned the phone back around and panned over to Roxanne. With a large grin, she lit up her horn and picked up a couple of rocks to juggle carefully. “Telekinesis,” she smirked. “And changeling powers, like this.” Then she changed into Tory, down to the smallest detail, even mimicking his voice. “I'm Tory and I'm so sad that I'm just the leader of the group and have to be a strong durable stallion instead of constantly reading everyone's disgusting emotions.”

“Yeah, that about sums it up pretty fairly, Roxie,” he shot back. Then he turned the camera back over to himself, saying, “We've got train tickets to the capital of this country, called Canterlot, to try and get back to Pennsylvania faster. I don't know if we'll be able to get footage of the ruler, but we'll try our best anyway. It shouldn't be too hard.

“The other main option we discussed with Sapphire Glow is potentially traveling a distance to find another portal. She and one of her friends say there are other portals in this country, and we have no reason not to believe them so far. We'll see how it goes with the princess, Twilight Sparkle, first though. Hopefully well, so we can upload this footage and let everyone know about this. We'll try to capture more film if we can.”

With that, he clicked the button to stop recording and gave it to Lake to turn off. Yeah, hooves weren't that great for doing much outside of walking.

“Hope that didn't bug you too much though, man,” Roxanne said, jumping on his thoughts. “It was just a little joke,” she told him as she shapeshifted to look like the white unicorn they'd come to expect from her.

“Besides,” she continued with a wide, playful grin, “how can you be the most boring when it only took you two months to fuck an alien?”

Even Lake got in on the teasing in a rare moment. “You're the reason why NASA has to put out articles telling people not to do that,” he laughed.

“I don't think NASA accounted for the fact that she looks like—I mean, that she is a human while she’s on Earth,” Tory said without missing a beat. “Besides, it was only the one time.” Although he knew that didn't make a difference from the perspective of their teasing.

“It's gonna be real awkward when you come back to Earth with alien horse babies,” Roxanne said with a smirk as she shrugged her shoulders. “That's all I'm saying. And yeah, I'll take a walk tonight, so I don't care. I kind of wanna talk to that changeling again before we leave tomorrow, just in case I can't find him again.”

“I wanna gonna go with you,” Lake jumped in, too. “I need to tell him thank you anyway.”

“Sorry if it doesn't really help with jealousy,” Roxie finished, sheepish now.

No, it didn't, but then, he wasn't really that jealous. It was more annoyance than anything he felt about being more boring than his friends. How many millions woke up every day and dreamed of this? Minus the weird relationship with an eccentric horse girl.

He didn't waste his alone time with Sapphire Glow though. After his two other friends headed out, he went upstairs with Sapphire, moving a little more slowly and quietly with her than last time. This time, after all was said and done, she had ended up on top of him, wearing another giant wide grin on her face. Tory tried to push away the fact that by virtue of their being a second time with her, it moved from a hook-up to being something like friends with benefits. Wasn’t he thinking before about how it shouldn’t be too casual?

He couldn’t not think about it though, of course. He was feeling a thousand times more self conscious about it now that it was on his mind. That, along with other things. He couldn’t hide his expression as Sapphire’s own shifted to confusion.

“Something wrong?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrow. She didn’t move from on top of him as she spoke.

“This isn’t, like… weird for you, is it?” he asked carefully. It was the best he could come up with to say while avoiding thinking too deeply about it. “Us… doing this?”

Her confused look only became more intense. “No? Why would it be?”

“Uh, because I’m supposed to be a human?”

“Yeah, so?” she asked quizzically. “What does that have to do with anything?” He could feel his self consciousness growing into uncomfortableness, and shifted from his position under her to stand near the bed. He was pacing slowly back and forth before he even realized it.

“Humans are super cool,” she started, “but you’re a pony right now, just like me. And I was a human, just like you. I bet it’d be a lot better if we were humans, sure, but it’s not like—”

“That’s only part of it,” he interrupted, stopping in his tracks to stare at the floor. “Like, this isn’t weird at all to you?” he asked, looking up into bright yellow eyes. “A bunch of strangers staying in your home for weeks for free and being… aliens, I guess?”

“No… why would it be?” she asked again, more slowly this time. “Do humans not let other humans stay in their homes? Because that’d be a deviation in human culture I’d wanna write down. Actually, while we’re on the subject, do humans—”

“No, that’s not it either!” he spoke up, starting to get frustrated. “Like… this! People from other worlds? In your home? That you barely know anything about but you’re having se—that you’re spending time with? That’s not weird to you? At all?”

“No.” She said it with a flat, confused tone, like he wasn’t making any sense to her at all. “I mean, I guess it’s a little weird, but not more than having a dragon in my house. Actually, probably less so than that! Ponies and humans are way cooler than dragons, and cause less of a mess! But don’t tell the princess I said that. She wouldn’t like it.”

He really shouldn’t have been letting Lake and Roxanne’s stupid jokes get to him. Lake even said it wasn’t as bad as he would’ve thought before, even if he thought it was weird. And it made sense. He was a horse—a pony—and so was Sapphire. On Earth, they were both humans. She could talk to him, he could talk back. It wasn’t any weirder hooking up with her than it would’ve been someone from, like, Australia.

Except now his face was going red as she got out of bed, too, and intentionally lifted her tail for him as she walked past him to the hallway bathroom. He shouldn’t have felt any particular way about that. Where were all these insecurities when she was flirting with him and getting him into her bed a week ago?

His brain was getting completely rewired the longer they stayed on Equus.

But then, she didn’t really look like a horse—to a certain extent, sure. But she looked about as much like a horse as a human did a chimpanzee. Similar in a lot of ways, but different as well in many ways.

Why not rationalize, if that was even what it was? He was already sleeping in her bed.

“Besides, I already know a lot about you,” she called as she left the bathroom, closing the bedroom door behind her when she returned and settling into the bed. “I’ve kept a lot of notes about you and humans in general. Plus, you’ve been living here for weeks, Tory. You’re not a stranger.”

He decided he would accept that explanation, and closed his eyes as he climbed into her bed and settled beside her. Overthinking it was ruining what was a good night anyway.

He let out a long breath, doing his best to fully move past it. “Well… that felt good, anyway,” he told her as he looked over her shoulder to see a book in her hooves and her horn glowing to make a light. “Did you, uh, wanna cuddle for a while?”

“Huh? Oh, no thanks, sorry,” Sapphire told him without even thinking. He tried not to feel any particular way about it. She was obviously preoccupied, clearly enough that giving an explanation for why would’ve been silly. It still kind of stung a little bit though, even though he clarified this was only casual.

It certainly didn’t help with any feelings about him being boring. Didn’t Lake say she told him she liked him? It certainly didn’t feel like she disliked him, but… maybe he was still overthinking it. He asked her if it was casual, after all.

“That’s okay,” he said quickly as he turned over. “Good night then.”