I rose from a dreamless sleep slightly before dawn. It was an oddity I'd noticed since I first woke up here, but I never seemed to dream. It was a far cry from what I was capable of back in Equestria, but to be fair, I'd probably just find myself having nightmares about Tirek and dying if I did dream. That's the last thing I ever want to relive.

There was the vaguest recollection of listening to the rain one moment, and then opening my eyes to the morning twilight the next. Slowly, it dawned on me that I had, at some point, rolled over to face the window. More importantly, though, the comforter on the bed, which I'd fallen asleep atop, had been draped over me. My sleep-addled brain struggled to wrap my head around how that could have happened, right up until I sat up. It was only then, when I looked to the nightstand that I understood.

Tucked beneath the notepad were my now laundered clothes and a hairbrush. Those had most certainly not been there when I went to sleep, so I could only guess that my new host had dropped them off while I was sleeping, saw that I was completely uncovered, and wanted me to keep warm. On the one hand, it was a rather sweet gesture, but on the other, I wasn't exactly fond of people messing with me while I slept. It was why I got very good at sleeping in trees.

With a yawn, I got up from the bed and immediately stripped it down. If there was one thing that had been successfully drilled into me, it was how to properly make the bed. With military precision that even a change in species couldn't ruin, I carefully affixed the white bed sheets so that they were smooth with crisp hospital corners. Next went the comforter, the same attention to detail paid that went into the sheets. Finally, I fluffed the pillow before smoothing out the case and centring it at the head of the bed.

Satisfied with my work, I changed into my own clothes, which didn't seem to look nearly as bad as they had last night. I wasn't personally familiar with folding human clothes, but I made an attempt to fold the pyjamas with the least amount of creases before sitting them atop the nightstand. The least I can do is fulfil my end of the bargain, was my first thought as I grabbed the brush provided and got to work on slaying the three weeks worth of tangles in my hair. It was a bit painful, but it was a worthwhile endeavour if for no other reason than it made my bangs look and feel nice and fluffy.

Once I was content that I was in a state somewhat approaching a normal human being, I grabbed my notepad and stylus, and then headed off to take care of the morning ablutions. But for the fact I had no PT gear, I might've slipped out back to do some exercise, but I was more than a little conscious of just how easily the human body could work up a sweat, and I didn't want my freshly laundered clothes to immediately get sweaty and I'd likely need a fresh shower.

From the top of the stairs, I took note that a newspaper had been pressed through the front door's mail slot, and a nearby wall clock proclaimed it to be just before five in the morning. There was one more pair of shoes in the entryway that hadn't been there last night, but there was no indication that anyone else was up yet. Not wanting to be obtrusive, I quietly made my way down the stairs and picked up the newspaper. Paper in hand, I made my way through the dining room and into the kitchen.

Their coffee maker didn't look all that different from anything I operated back in Equestria, but then again, there's not much you can do to change a pretty solid design. Sure, you could probably streamline the design to make a machine designed around single-serving pre-packaged grounds, but... well. Nothing is more entertaining than watching a hyperactive Ordinary Seamare bored out of her horn drink an entire pot of dark roast and then try not to vibrate across the main deck while Captain Aerial Bombardment is watching. That wasn't the sort of fun a mare could get from single-servings.

Once I looked over the machine to be sure I had the right measure of it, I found the bag of grounds, put a fresh filter in the machine, and set the pot brewing. Thinking about it, I had no idea whether or not anyone else would be up this early, but in case there were, I found and set out three mugs in addition to the one I'd use.

Until the coffee was done, I was free to sit down at the table with the newspaper. Some of it wasn't all that impressive. An animal shelter on the east side of Canterlot was running an adopt-a-thon. Typical fluff piece. A missing girl's body was found in the Shasta-Everfree National Forest. Tragic. Mayor Maria Mare was buckling under pressure to disincentivise homelessness. Hopefully that woman grows a spine; the shit they mention in this article was tried and failed when they attempted to gentrify Manehattan when I was a filly.

There was, however, a somewhat interesting opinion article. A school on the east side that suffered a gas line explosion on Thursday night, which left a crater in the front of the school and partially collapsed the front of the building. It was apparently preceded by a junior's prank going awry and igniting a gas leak. Nobody was hurt, despite mass hallucinations caused by the gas, but the school was definitely looking for support from the community in getting it fixed up.

At least, that was the base point of the article. The anonymous author of the article claimed that it wasn't a gas line explosion, but rather the result of what they described as the school bully 'turning into a demon, and fighting magical girls' in front of the school... that the gas line explosion was just a cover story to protect the demon at the behest of the interdimensional sorceress who defeated her. There was even a blurry photo of a humanoid shape in the air in front of a school, with wings and a spade-tipped tail and everything.

Right beside it was the photo of a teenage girl. Although her facial features were completely blurred out, with the leather jacket and the red and gold locks, it was easy to see that it was the same teenage girl I saw just yesterday going into that warehouse. Clearly someone was a bit upset with their bully, but I was kind of surprised that this paper would risk a lawsuit by running the story.

I'd moved on to the weather forecast when I heard the back door, which opened up to the kitchen, open up. In shuffled a rather sleepy young woman with indigo locks streaked with violet and magenta, pausing only long enough to remove her sneakers by the door. She was wearing a lab coat over a grey hoodie and blue track pants. A smudge of black grease marred her cheek, just beneath the thick frames of her glasses.

My eyes darted across her figure, and I quickly came to a conclusion. Those must have been a pair of her pyjamas I was provided with last night. The shirt definitely seems like it wouldn't be as loose on her.

She seemed somewhat disoriented by the fact that the light was on here in the kitchen, and slowly looked around. Her eyes first focused on the newspaper spread open atop the table, before drifting over to me. Sudden fear flashed across her face, and she staggered backwards, away from the table. Her hip bumped the counter furthest from the coffee maker, and her hand came to rest beside a knife block. Seeming to realise this, she quickly grabbed a large kitchen knife and held it up in front of her.

"W-who are you, and how did you get in my house?" she croaked, her voice little more than a whisper. Not exactly the best first interaction, but I supposed these things happened. "G-get out before I call the police."

Inwardly, I sighed. I can't exactly fault her for being scared. There's a stranger in ratty clothing in her home, reading the newspaper. If she did the teenager thing of only half listening when she got home, she might not have even realised her mother told her about me before she went out to that garage lab. At least, I'm assuming she was in there all night.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noted the coffee maker was done. Slowly, taking care to not startle her, I reached over to the note pad and pen I'd set down and scratched out a quick introduction. Hi, you must be Twilight Sparkle. My name is Eventide Construct. For some reason, Ms. Cadance and Mrs. Velvet decided I'd be staying here. I can't exactly speak, but can I interest you in a cup of coffee? Once it was done, I leaned down and slid the pad across the kitchen floor to her. She looked at me with suspicion as she crouched down to pick it up, never quite letting me leave her sight.

As she read the note, I neatly closed and folded the newspaper, and then slowly rose to my feet. I'd seen interactions with the police before, and at the time noted the way people put their hands up, palms toward the officer to show they were not a threat. Mimicking that posture, I slowly sidled over to the coffee maker and began pouring myself a mug of coffee. Once I had a mug of the glorious, bitter life nectar, I glanced at her and she shook her head, so I backed away to take a seat at the table once again.

"What do you mean you can't exactly speak?" she demanded in a slightly more confident voice as she dropped the pad to the floor and slid it back to me with a sock-clad foot. The fear began to leave her face as another emotion began to overtake it: curiosity.

With a smile, l momentarily removed my flight goggles from around my neck, before tilting my chin skyward so that the light would catch the scar across my throat. Repeating the same gesture I used with Cadance the previous evening, I tapped the scar, and then covered my mouth. She seemed to get the picture, but just to be sure, I grabbed the notepad and scratched out another message for her before sending it across. I simply can't make any of the noises that require vocal cords; you could stick me with that knife and I wouldn't even be able to cry out in pain. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that someone removed them.

She slowly set the knife back in the block and then carried the notepad over to the table. She sat down in the same spot her mother took the previous night and then slid the pad over. Twilight still eyed me with suspicion as I slipped my goggles back around my neck, but her body wasn't as tense. Maybe she realised that she had a few inches on me, or decided I wasn't a threat, but she finally decided to relax enough. "Still, I can't understand why Mom and Cady would just bring you here out of the blue." There was a short moment where her attention slipped towards the door to the dining room, but then she remarked, "This hardly seems like proper procedure for foster care, if that's their intent. We don't really even know anything about you."

I shrugged and sipped at my coffee as I thought out a response. Twilight certainly seems the type to be concerned with understanding the why and how of things. Carefully, I scratched out a response. I legitimately don't even know why they were so quick to take me in either. Fact is that given that I was effectively given the choice to either come quietly, or enter the system. Legally, it's questionable. Ethically, it's kinda worrying. Personally, I'm not entirely sold on the idea myself. As an afterthought, I added, I'm nonetheless grateful for the opportunity to have a hot bath and sleep in a proper bed for the first time since I first woke up alone and confused in this city three weeks ago.

There was something satisfying about watching her read over my response. You could practically see the cogs turning in her head as her mind picked apart the individual portions of my statement—my admission that I had no idea why I was here, the implication that I had no history with the city prior to three weeks ago, and my attempts to show that I'm not a threat. "Where were you before that?" she asked, steepling her hands in front of her face. "Surely you must have some idea what happened to you."

She's definitely a detail oriented person, I decided as I contemplated what, if anything, I should tell her. I sat the mug down atop the table and pushed at the handle with my finger, causing it to turn. But based on that motor grease on her face, she can get too into things and potentially miss the sky for the clouds. If she decides to look into things, I don't think she'd let go.

Sighing, I decided to do something I'd likely regret; I'd tell her exactly what I told Cadance. I'm going to be honest. The only reason I have the slightest idea what country or state I'm in is from people-watching and newspapers; and even that has little meaning to me. Up until three weeks ago, it's like I was living in some sort of delusion... Magic and talking ponies don't exist, and I certainly couldn't have been living in a world of them as a pegasus until then. Honestly, the more I thought about it, the more my life in Equestria did seem too unusual to possibly be real compared to this world. Maybe it was just the time spent here made the memories seem less vivid, but I was suddenly less sure of myself. Maybe it would be better for me if I acted like I didn't believe those memories to be real. So that leaves the question of how I really got here, and what's up with my memories.

She blinked as she looked from the note-pad to me. "Magical talking ponies?" Twilight asked, as if seeking clarification? She almost seemed... amused? "What, you mean like that Filly Funtasia show that's popular outside its target demographic on the internet?"

Two hours later, Mrs. Velvet and an excitable dog found us both at the kitchen table conversing animatedly. Well, she spoke; I simply kept writing in the notebook and passing it over. At some point, the exhaustion from whatever all-nighter she pulled out in her garage started to set in, and she reluctantly started helping me finish the carafe of coffee. So we were significantly wired, despite how sleepy she looked.

Honestly, despite discussing what could have happened to me, and how my memories and interests related, the discussion somehow ended up going in the direction of increasingly unlikely scenarios for the cause of my strange memories, and then dissecting those scenarios. It wasn't intended in any serious manner, but rather as a means of just blowing off some steam. One of the more out-there ideas that Twilight suggested was that I maybe I was some vat-grown human-experimentation subject in memory alteration, that I was surgically silenced because I wouldn't shut up, and then had my memories replaced with nonsense from a brony. Honestly, it was no weirder than my suggestion that I was a wash-out for a secret child-soldier program created by a foreign government, and I had a bad reaction to whatever brainwashing or indoctrination technique they used, and the 'Equestria' memories were a coping mechanism.

If I'm being real, the girl was leagues ahead of me in terms of creativity. Maybe it's just that she has a better understanding of technology, biology, and science, but her ideas always seemed to have a bit more weight to them than anything I came up with. Then again, given that I was effectively coming up with ways to dismiss my memories as fake just to have something to talk about, it might've just been the internalised dishonesty at that moment that made the words feel hollow to me.

More interesting to me was how quickly she was willing to calm down and accept that I was here. It was possible that she simply liked it when she was presented with a mystery to be solved, and what was I if not a mystery wrapped up in well-worn clothes? Alternatively, she was merely humouring me and she's actually just trying to gauge whether or not I'm a threat, or 'just crazy'. I don't exactly wanna be paranoid about her, though. Especially if I do end up staying here. Excessive paranoia never helps.

When the dog rushed over and started jumping up to get her attention, the young woman reached down and started stroking his head before turning to regard her mother, who stood in the doorway clad in a terrycloth robe. "Oh! Morning, Mom!" Twilight exclaimed as Spike hopped up onto her lap. I simply waved and gave her a smile before heading over to the coffee maker with the empty coffee pot. "We didn't wake you, did we?"

Mrs. Velvet just shook her head and watched me as I set the pot brewing. "Not at all," she assured us as I wandered back over to the table. "I'm just surprised. You aren't usually an early riser on the weekends, and I wasn't sure when Eventide would wake up."

My cheeks flushed as I wrote down a quick answer. I'm usually an early riser. Normally about this time I'd be swimming in the lake after my morning jog. They both looked shocked at that, possibly because it's kind of implied that I've been swimming naked in a public park, despite that being problematic because of the human nudity taboo. I just shrugged and looked between the two of them. What's on the agenda for today?

A yawn escaped Twilight. "I plan on catching a nap," she admitted, as she wilted under her mother's gaze. "I was up all night going over the latest sensor data regarding strange energy disturbances." Her visage became thoughtful. "Oh! I think I have an old tablet around here somewhere. It'll need to be charged for a few hours, but that should give me time to look into apps, or barring that, call in a favour."

A... tablet? As in a stone tablet? Or is this some kind of medicine?

The older woman's gaze softened as she regarded her daughter, before switching back to me. "You and me," Velvet declared, "will be going clothes-shopping, and then meeting up with Cadance for lunch. Then we're going to have to take care of some tests and paperwork." When I gave her a curious look, she continued to explain. "If we are to treat this as an emergency placement, we're going to have to show a social worker that we are providing you with all the necessities and requirements. Food, shelter, clothes, healthcare are just the basics... But we have to find out what your aptitudes are, and whether it would be better to put you in the public school, or if you would be better served attending Crystal Prep with Twilight."

Author's Note

Have some not-so-subtle references to Shinzakura's Seven Days in Sunny June contributions to the Berylverse.

Now, since the Shadowbolts tag kinda gives it away, we know ahead of time that our girl Eve is going to end up at Crystal Prep, despite her failings in World History and Sociology. Where do you think she's gonna shine most?