“Luna…”

“Luna…”

“Luna!”

Said lunar Princess snapped awake.

“I- wha- huh- what’s-”

“Luna,” Celestia said calmly. “We’ve arrived in Ponyville,” she explained, standing up and stretching her legs. Luna glanced out the window above her seat to find a small station with only one platform which their train occupied.

“Perhaps you should have stayed in Canterlot to rest?” Princess Cadence offered. Luna scoffed at the idea.

“Absolutely not,” Luna said, miffed. She was the princess of the stars and moons— and an equal sovereign of Equestria. To fail to greet an interstellar visitor would be akin to throwing away what destiny had so generously granted her. The train car door swung open, and all three members of royalty stood to make their way out.

The Ponyville train station was a single platform, attached to an open-air ticketing booth. The Ponyville ticket master was staring as they passed. Hushes fell over the market crowds as the royal entourage made its way past stalls and stands, all freezing their transactions to watch as the group passed. As the three royals made their way to the familiar Golden Oaks library, the crowds resumed but where there had been an amicable drone of casual conversation, there were now the hushed whispers of questions and gossip. Luna stole glances at the other two Princesses present as the group maintained their easy gait. Cadence and Celestia seemed wholly unbothered. Princess Luna herself wanted to break into a trot and move more quickly. Part of her knew that would garner more attention and quickly squashed the idea of hurrying. Luna was absorbed in her thoughts to such a degree that only when Celestia knocked on the door of the Golden Oaks library did she realize where she was. A muffled scramble could be heard on the other side of the Library’s door when a somewhat frazzled lilac alicorn mare opened the door. She smiled wide at her fellow royals.

“Princesses!” Twilight greeted enthusiastically with a bow. “Come inside, come inside!”

Staying the light-hearted reprimand for her former student Celestia, followed by Cadence and Luna, walked into the modest library interior. The circular interior of the library was only interrupted by a stairway leading to a living space and a stairway leading to a basement. Bookshelves were carved into the trunk's interior, and a lectern allowed for reading in the main chamber. A ladder that traveled on a perimeter track rested in between the rearmost shelves. Unexpectedly, an obstruction blocked off the stairway to the living space. A green and purple baby drake watched from his elevated position, secured in his fortress of cushions. A pot protected his cranium, and a frying pan served as his weapon of choice.

“Princesses!” He called them when he noticed their arrival.

“Oh thank goodness you’re here! Twilight has this idea in her head that she should have invited the alien here to “make friends,” more like it’s going to make FOOD… of us!”

“Spike, these fears are completely unfounded! I’ve just sent them a letter, inviting them to discuss… well, everything! There’s so much to learn and-” Twilight was cut off.

“Twilight?” Celestia began, gaining Twilight’s rapt attention. “Have you considered, that maybe this visitor can’t read our language?”

Twilight’s words stopped, and her bright demeanor fell. Silence reigned.

“Perhaps a more direct approach should be taken,” Luna offered. “An excursion into the Everfree perhaps?” Twilight gasped in excitement.

“Of course!” She exclaimed, dashing to a different part of the library, bowling over Spike in the process. Various items, papers, books, quills and ink, and lots of parchment began to glow with a purple magical aura before zooming around the room into various saddlebags, and some into Spike’s arms.

“Then it is decided,” Luna spoke again. “We journey to the Everfree, and meet with the visitor.”

“Patience sister,” Celestia said. “We have no reliable method of communicating, but perhaps somepony else does. Twilight,” she asked the smallest present alicorn who immediately snapped to attention. “Could you get Fluttershy to join us? I understand the element of kindness has an innate ability to communicate with animals.’

“She does, princess!” Twilight responded. “We can stop by her cottage on the way,” she continued, a noticeable bounce in her step as she made for the door. The royal procession and Spike departed from the Golden Oaks library and made their way Southwest, travelling along cobbled roads and receiving looks all the way. A mixture of confusion, concern, and surprise. Finally, they reached the edge of the town proper, and the cobbles came to an abrupt end. A worn dirt path carried them to a small clearing between the edge of the Everfree and Ponyville proper. Just in front of a small brook was a picturesque cottage. Animals of all shapes and sizes lived together. Songbirds of every color flitted between birdhouse and feeder. No animal flinched at the group’s approach. All much too relaxed to care. Twilight knocked on Fluttershy’s door. A moment later it opened slowly and a small voice greeted her.

“Hello Twilight-” Fluttershy cut herself off. “Oh, um, hello princesses,” she said with a low bow, her long pink mane covering her face.

“Hi Fluttershy, we need you to help translate what the alien is saying. Will you help? Yes? Great! Come on!” Twilight said quickly before using her forehooves to yank Fluttershy from her college, The pegasus’ protests were drowned out by the sound of her hooves being dragged across the grass.

Twilight began cantering towards the everfree, dragging Fluttershy with her. The other princesses were quick to follow. The atmosphere darkened as the group crossed the threshold into the forest proper. They made their journey in silence, only broken by an occasional whimper from Fluttershy.

Their trek went uninterrupted, the unnerving quiet had even gotten to Twilight's mood, dampening her excitement considerably. Leaves shivered and rattled with every errant breeze, and the forest was eerily calm. While nothing in the Everfree could ever be reassuring, at least nothing was trying to kill them.

Snap

Everypony froze and their ears pricked forward. Spike clutched onto Twilight’s leg.

Crunch crunch crunch

The crunching of grass was getting closer. The density of the trees caused the sound to bounce, making it difficult to pinpoint.

Crunch crunch crunch

It was behind them, they all spun around to see… nothing.

Crunch crunch crunch

Still, the noises came closer. “We have become the prey of our own quarry,” Luna remarked grimly. Her horn began to glow.

“Auntie Luna, we don’t know that for sure,” Cadence said, but her wavering voice betrayed her true feelings.

The low hanging branches and tall brush parted to make way for the creature. Exactly as the three fillies had described, it was tall. Really, really tall. At least three hands taller than Celestia herself. It’s carapace was metallic and dark. It was lanky, and its arms seemed too short for its legs. It seemed to have a head, but as described, no face or facial features to speak of except for two eyes and an antenna. However, its eyes looked white rather than blue. Its arms ended in appendages that seemed to dull to do any actual damage. Near the union of its legs there were a multitude of items, and it had a large box on its posterior side. Upon its anterior side there was a belt halfway between the union of its legs and its upper half. The belt had many pouches but what caught everypony’s attention was the knife. It was large and in a hard sheath, black in color. The exposed handle was brown and grooved, and the knife had a strange cross guard. One side had a hole and the other was missing.

The group and the creature stared at each other for a moment before the creature slowly moved its hand towards the knife. The ponies tensed. Slowly, but with sure and clear movements, the creature grasped the handle of the blade and removed it with a shik from its holster. The blade was made from dark metal, and looked similar to the carapace. Its lower half was serrated, and the upper was smooth. It tapered to a wicked point and grooves ran along the flat of the blade. The creature then lifted the blade for all present to see, before it dropped the blade unceremoniously, where the point sunk silently into the forest floor. Luna’s horn powered down, and the group let out a sigh they didn’t know the were holding.

The creature reached for its head, one of its appendages covering its face and the other reaching for the antenna. The antenna twisted with a click, and something behind its head moved. The creature pitched forward slightly, removing its helmet before it brought its actual face to bear.

For an alien, its face was strangely pony-like. It had no coat to speak of, but it did have a very short mane of sandy blonde hair. Its exposed skin was pale and its eyes were a murky green. They appeared small and beady compared to a pony’s, but like a pony, it had exposed sclera and defined eyebrows. It didn’t actually have a muzzle, its face was rather flat, but it had a protruding button like nose with nostrils underneath. It had two large ears, that made a strange cave-like shape and were attached to the side of its head but had a free portion at the bottom. Its lips were more defined than a pony’s. Its chin protruded out in front of its neck just above where- what Twilight decided was rather armor than a carapace- covered the rest of it. Its expression was neutral, assuming that ponies expressions were similar.

“Greetings starfarer, I am Princess Luna. Sovereign of Equestria, a nation of Equus,” Luna took the initiative. She stood tall and proud, well as tall as she could compared the visitor. The creature didn’t respond.

“Do you… understand me?” Luna asked. The creature didn’t do anything but stare.

“We may be here for some time,” Luna observed with a sigh.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight said, drawing the attention of all. “Can you try talking to them?” she asked, gesturing with her hoof. Fluttershy was hiding behind her mane, but made some silent agreement and slowly shuffled over to the alien. FInally she arrived in front of it and began mumbling without looking up at it.

“Um, hi m-mr. Alien, I’m Fluttershy,”

The alien blinked as if in surprise and knelt down to Fluttershy. It grunted something. Twilight began scribbling furiously. Alien language! Real, alien language! It sounded almost guttural and had a growl to it. But it didn’t sound inherently harsh. Flutershy repeated herself. The alien nodded. Fluttershy proceeded to introduce everyone present. The alien nodding after each name and descriptor. The alien then stuck out an appendage, one of the dull claws pointing at Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy,” it said in perfect Equish. Everypony stopped, stunned. It rose to its full height and pointed at Celestia. “Princess Celestia,” it then switched to Luna. “Princess Luna, Princess Cadence, Twilight, Spike,” it finished off. It then pointed to itself and made a noise. Fluttershy tried to repeat the noise, and it corrected her. She tried again and it corrected a second time. After the third time it seemed like it had found the pronunciation acceptable.

“Very good vocal mimics,” Twilight muttered under her breath.

Her horn caught the attention of the alien, who made his way over. Something on his arm beeped. A silver band that fit snugly between two pieces of armor had a blinking, blue light. The alien brought it up to his face, and tapped it. Twilight’s mouth fell open when in the air, right in front of her, appeared a graph. Not just any graph, a magi-graph. She recognized the wave pattern from the multitude of academic journals and periodicals she had read. The alien had come to study magic! Twilight let out an involuntary squeal of excitement.

The alien’s appendage appeared right in front of her face, as if asking her to pause. She complied. The alien stood and brought the silver band up and angled it so that the top of the band was tilted towards her. A blue light enveloped Twilight’s body, and she froze. The others present were apprehensive. After about thirty seconds, the light shut off and what appeared in the air was a black and white image of a muzzle, and a reference picture of Twilight in the upper corner. A blue square appeared on the reference image and began slowly moving.

Twilight watched in utter fascination as the image of the muzzle began to change, morphing into the inside of a pony’s nasal cavity, hers specifically. But the alien had an objective. He was focusing on her horn. She saw the conical structure melt away to expose the nerve. On some level she was a little uncomfortable staring at what was originally only possible with cadavers or something that was supposed to be incredible painful. But those thoughts were shoved aside by the sheer magnitude of what had just occurred. A full body scan able to look through tissues layer by layer. That could revolutionize non-magical medicine! All others looked on too, fascinated by what seemed to be something entirely mundane for the alien. It seemed to notice this, and turned the band towards himself, performing another scan. Twilight began bouncing from hoof to hoof in excitement, realizing she was about to see alien anatomy in extreme detail.

The scan stopped, and the images appeared again. This time, the images encompassed the entire body, and changed continuously, moving from head to toe. Twilight had quite a few notes at the end of it all.

First, the alien had a large brain. Bigger than a pony's easily. While she couldn't decipher the alien script that was shown along with the images, she could guess they were labeling materials. Some of the pictograms looked like more detailed versions of molecular illustrations she had seen in The University of Manehatten's material science periodicals. Second, its eyes were definitely smaller than a pony's. Third, it was, as far as she could tell, a mammal. Its short mane on its head was evidence of that. Fourth, its skeleton seemed to be purpose built for a vertical posture. The upright position had not been a defensive one that had been adopted in response to meeting the royal entourage plus Fluttershy. Fifth, it was probably male. Those structures had made her face heat up slightly before she mentally reprimanded herself. This was a first contact scenario! Language and understanding came first.

“Oh, these are for you!” she said excitedly, pulling out several books on Equish language and magically shoving them into his hands. He leafed through the first one and set the stack down.

"Fluttershy, can you-?" Twilight began, but stopped when the alien started moving.

He grabbed the first one and scanned the book. As the scan progressed, digital pages filled with Equish script appeared and then disappeared to by replaced with the next page at an impossibly fast speed. He then proceeded to do that with the next book, and the next, and the one after that. After the last book had been scanned, he handed the stack back to Twilight, who was distracted. She was drooling over how quickly he could copy and store books. She snapped out of her stupor with a sheepish look, before grabbing the books and refocusing on the alien. He was pressing buttons, his eyes flitting back and forth, the lines of alien script were constantly changing and running circles around the familiar Equish. Finally, he spoke something in that strange growling language into the device, before something else returned. He looked it over a few times before opening his mouth.
“Hello, it is nice to meet you all. My name is Lieutenant Matthias Hendrix, of the Navy of the United Empire of Earth” he said.

Author's Note

Sorry I'm late. You ever have those moments where you can envision a scene, but just don't know how to get there? Yeah, that was this. Thanks for reading though, please rate and review.