A Mare Walks Into a Chicken Tendie Restaurant...

It had been almost a week since he first met her, and since then his thoughts were occupied with little else than “white-furred unicorn”, “white-furred unicorn who likes me”, “white-furred unicorn, black saddlebags, aquamarine mane, beautiful” and so on. The day they first met she promised to meet with him again on… well, the date would be today. God no doubt threw him a very generous bone by doing 99.999% of the work, having a girl not only approach him, but be interested in him. As such, Anon has never been more excited for anything in his entire life, and took every opportunity to not only look the best he can, but mentally prepare as well.

His thoughts and current line rehearsals are interrupted by receiving a text from her number (thankfully, he remembered to bookmark it):

“Cya at 1. Btw thanks for offering to get me a combo”

…Did he offer to get her a combo? Maybe he did, but just forgot when he went full spaghetti. Doesn’t matter, really, he had already planned to buy her a meal like a true gentleman, to offer her one of his free combos for the month was no extra effort. He also elected to wear, instead of his prior unfashionable combo of the ironic punny t-shirt and camo cargo pants, a flannel long-sleeved shirt he had and blue jeans, perfect for the approaching winter. Not too formal, not too casual. It’ll just be a charming, sweet meal between friends.

The time finally comes, and Anon pulls into the Raising Cane’s parking lot at 12:55 PM: it always helps showing up early, and as Anon didn’t have much on his plate besides posting on the chan, there was no reason he couldn’t respect the mare’s time and show how much he cared. Putting himself out there, so to speak. Fortunately for both, barely a minute after parking his car (and still before 1PM), Stella trots up around the corner of the building, her face stoic as ever.

“Hello Anon,” she greets, waving a white hoof and looking the human over.

“Hello Stella,” Anon responds, opening the door for her. She gives a light smile and enters the establishment, before her face shifts back to her usual deadpan. Less than a minute in line and both orders have been put in, using up all of Anon’s free meals for the month. No big deal, he can always choose to invite her somewhere else next time. Anon goes to the drink dispenser to receive his artificially colored red nectar with no ice, seating at a table for two before Stella enters shortly thereafter, seated at the table human-styled again, her cup filled not with her previous choice, but…

“You also got Hi C with no ice?” Anon asks his friend, who nods affirmatively, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I was inspired by your example,” she responds. “Being willing to partake in your friends’ favorite things is a great friendship lesson.”

Anon, though utterly confused by this seemingly absurd outburst, overlooks it, still in awe that anyone (much less of the opposite sex) is willing to confide in him, speak openly about such random topics, and break barriers. He was not upset in the slightest over her being… a literal unicorn. In fact, that made it much more exciting. Of course, the familiarity of her specific appearance causes him to raise some questions that he decided would be better left unasked.

“I’m honored that you see it that way,” he awkwardly chuckles out, before thinking of a devious trick. He tears a tiny bit off his straw wrapper, leaving it about 3/4ths wrapped, before putting the opened part on his mouth and blowing it, shooting the wrapper right at the bullseye: It hit Stella square in the horn. Got ‘em!

She blinks and jumps slightly at the hit. It’s a good thing she wasn’t using magic then, an interruption to her horn like that would have caused her to lose her focus. “Very funny, Anon. I’ll have to get you back next time,” she says with a light smirk, having already unwrapped her straw and drinking her own Hi C.

“Anyway, I wanted to ask you some questions,” Anon says, “starting with, where are you from?”

“Ponyville.”

“Never heard of it,” he continues, playing into her questions and making a great deal to show off how interested he is, “is that somewhere in Tennessee?”

“It’s in Equestria.”

“You must have traveled an awful long way to get here, in that case.”

“…you could say that,” she says, refraining from bringing up exactly how she got there.

“What’s it like in Equestria- I mean, Ponyville?”

She raises a hoof to her muzzle and presses, in an exaggerated thinking pose. “Well, for starters, there’s far less noise. Way better than this old place. Also, everypony’s rude here for no reason.”

“I can see where you’re coming from, Stella,” he grunts apologetically, doing a double-take at her mention “everypony”. Must be regional dialect, no biggie. If the single upstate New York town of Albany uses the phrase “steamed hams” to refer to hamburgers, there’s no reason why any other place would use “-pony” as a word finisher instead of saying “everybody” or “everyone”.

“Do they have Cane’s in Ponyville?” Anon asks, showing his interest and seeing where she paused for a moment.

“No, and I have to say the food is one thing this town does right,” she lightly smiles again as she magically raises her drink to her lips. From there the unicorn mare spent some time talking about the ins and outs of life in Ponyville, from the average daily life of a citizen (he was especially pleased to hear that most ponies work only a few hours a day, and some don’t even work every day), to hearing her speak of her fellow countryponies (dropping a handful of names of some she interacts with regularly, such as Roseluck, Golden Harvest, and Berry Punch) to the multitude of great festivals and feasts the entire town participates in, such as Hearth’s Warming Eve, Nightmare Night, the Winter Wrap-Up, the Summer Sun Celebration, and more.

“It sounds like a wonderful place,” Anon says with a smile on his face, “everyone living together in the liturgical seasons of the year! It reminds me of a couple celebrations they held nearly a thousand years ago in Europe, but just imagine trying to get people together for that now,” he adds with a scoff. “I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like participating in such an event.”

“If you ever come to visit, I bet Ponyville would love to have you,” Stella continues in her typical deadpan voice, barely a hint of expression on her face.

“Well geez, as much as I like traveling, I’m not entirely sure about planning a whole trip right now,” he shifts an arm behind his head in discomfort. He’s absolutely correct, though. International flight? Grab a plane ticket for upwards of a thousand dollars, and that’s not even factoring paying for a hotel or hostel, finding out what to eat, what to do, and so forth. Far too often it gets too convoluted and painful that Anon would rather not think about travel at all and resign himself to the simple pleasures, like a box of Cheez Its and a video game. After all, what in the world is out there that he’s really missing, and that would justify hundreds of hours of planning for a fraction of that time in reward? Now if such an opportunity was handed to him, of course he’d think differently.

“Haha, we’ll see about that,” she responds, causing Anon to squint in confusion, before the chicken wagie calls their names, causing the gentleman to stand up and chivalrously collect the meals, both his and the lady’s, to their table: Stella’s 4-piece combo exactly the way it comes, while Anon swapped his coleslaw for extra fries.

So went their conversation for about an hour over their combos. Anon miraculously managed to keep the spaghetti inside his pockets for long enough to avoid weirding out his new friend, though part of him can’t help but feel she’s got a decent portion in her pockets too. He’ll test it another time, but not today.

Anon would have considered the topics discussed “normie”, but he also read somewhere that normie interests are the best way to test the waters, so to speak. Ask people about their job, where they’re from, what they like to do, their family, and so on. As far as Anon could gleam, those answers were that Stella is an official on the payroll of the royalty, as already mentioned she lives in Ponyville (but does a substantial amount of work both there and in some place called Canterlot, which he assumed was the capital city), she prefers sedentary hobbies such as reading, but Anon was pleasantly surprised to hear her mention “stuff not everypony likes”, in her own words. She seemed quite bashful to bring up the fact that she likes books written by a “Lyra Heartstrings”. By her own pony standard, she appeared to be a contrarian in terms of her tastes in literature and television, but he knew better than to immediately make up his mind based on that decision alone. Since Ponyville is worlds apart from him, he could only guess as to what the shows are like there. What he considers normie in his hometown just as well may be the small cult hit media there, and the mainstream stuff from Ponyville just as easily could translate to esoteric fiction in his world, enjoyed only by the chosen few who “really get it”. Regardless, he made sure to treasure that in his mind, wondering if it would come in handy later. The machinations in his mind are already turning as to how he could introduce her to Evangelion. No way Equestria has THAT. His spaghetti overpowered him once again just as she was finishing,

“I don’t really like her.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to overstep,” Anon chokes out, barely slipping back into reality, “we don’t have to talk about your family.”

“It’s okay.”

And there again the two of them sat together, their silence now one of much less awkwardness. Rather than feeling pressured to say something but being unable to, they began to enjoy each other’s company, almost as if fate’s hands parted the metaphorical Red Sea and brought the two misplaced wanderers together.

…Or so he thought.

“Thanks for coming out to meet me again,” she says, breaking Anon out of another one of his trances.

“Oh? Yeah, no biggie, just uhh…” he chokes up, unable to find the words.

“Just doing the right thing”? That sounds totally fake, she wouldn’t buy it.

“Anything for you”? Coming on too hard.

“Well, you asked, and I offered.” BOOM! Speech has increased to 37.

“Let’s do this again next week,” she says with another very slight smile.

“Oh, wait!” Anon pipes up, causing her to drop her face back to stoic, “why don’t next time we meet at a different chicken restaurant?”

“Is it as good as this one?”

“Personally, I prefer it to Raising Cane’s. But just like this time it’ll be on me. Have you ever been to Zaxby’s?” he asks, proposing the change of venue not just because his Raising Cane’s free meals have run out for the month, but this may be a good way to push his boundaries and show her he’s not just all talk.

“No.”

“Then I’m happy to be the first one to take you!” she nods again as he continues, “I’ll text you the address.” A formal message exchange later, and a second date was planned.

“Well, I had a great time, but I’ll be going for real. Bye, Stella!” he waves her goodbye (and she does likewise), walking back to his car and checking his phone messages one last time before driving home.

Thanks again for the meal. I liked hanging out with you.

<3

…