To Change the World

Chapters

Prologue- The tipping point.
Chapter 1- The intricacies of world jumping.
Chapter 2- Colorful introductions.
Chapter 3- Stranded.
Chapter 4- Straight out of fiction.

Prologue- The tipping point.

The Father of Monsters saw the destruction of Skyros in his wake, yet his thirst for power had been denied by their sacrifice. He stood undeterred, and aimed his sights on a new land, brimming with magic and potential. He expected no opposition, and found none at first…

Until the gates opened, and she stepped through. Here to save us. A monster of our own.

Princess Serena. The Birth and Fall of Dream Valley.

Another beautiful morning welcomed the ponies of Equestria out of their slumber. The sun climbed up from beyond the horizon, its radiance and magnificence unchallenged under the careful grooming of its alicorn caretaker, gently rousing ponies, and a multitude of other creatures alike. It had been yet another peaceful night under Luna’s everwatching care, but now, it was time to start the day. Another seemingly uneventful day from where Princess Celestia screened the horizon.

Summer would soon be over, fall bringing with it the first gales that ruffled the sun diarch's alabaster fur. The sea of endless green, spreading down from the steep slopes of Canterhorn Peak to kiss the horizon as far as Celestia’s keen eyes could reach, had begun its slow change of dress to its telltale browns and creams which her little ponies would have to remedy in their respective customary celebrations.

But the steady coming of the early autumn's chills wasn't gonna stop the Princess of the Sun from gifting a warm welcome to a new, sunny day to her beloved subjects.

At least, it shouldn’t.

And yet, the solar diarch was falling behind in her usual schedule. The ritual for commanding the star was long imprinted in her memory like her own name, and required only but a fraction of mental awareness to tap into the unimaginable amount of magical power required to move the celestial body she had been entrusted to watch over for countless centuries.

No, it was a more urgent thought that filled her waking self as her keen, rosy eyes completed the hundredth lap over the peaceful Equestrian landscape which she was so privileged to marvel upon from the tall reach of her balcony, high into the imposing shadow of Alpha Tower in the heart of Canterlot Palace.

Celestia’s feathers rustled restlessly. She pried the horizon and searched the land, waiting…

‘Any day now, my unusual friend. Any day now.’

Celestia had been waiting for quite a while now, years having passed since the wake-up call that rocked her world. Circumstances beyond her control prevented her from sticking her muzzle in too deep for the sake of Equestria balance, or even from taking any formal aspect of the search into her own hooves. Celestia was relegated to the act of biding her time and trusting an old spirit’s bidding, fretting every morning that the remainder roused her from her dreams, sending her sister on a fit in turn.

The exact date eluded her, yet something in her gut stirred the feeling that the time was quickly approaching. Perhaps even that same day! It was impossible to ignore any longer. Harmony had warned her so in her sleep, whispers mixing with the amalgam of threads and sensations which builds a dream on a restless night. The princess could no longer trust her own awareness of the matter.

It was a long game she played. The longest a mortal creature could conceive, much less follow at every step and spin like she had since the days of old Skyros.

Celestia needed to be ready. The time of half-guesses and shadow-play would soon be over. Her ponies remained blissfully unaware of what was brewing on the horizon, and Celelstia would have it no other way. It was adamant to be so. Imperative.

Soon, a tide of change would wash over her lands with unrelenting fury. Will her most prized pupil be up to the task?

‘Of course she will. She has proven herself so far,’ Celestia had no use for second-guessing herself when Twilight Sparkle was on topic.

The flash of teleportation preceded a set of hooves closing in on Celestia from the neatly-arranged confines of the solar diarch’s room. “Something on your mind, Tia?”

Her baby sister's voice snapped Celestia out of her careful scanning. Her attention drifted from her most-cherished pupil’s newly-grown castle, defying the radiance of her own rising sun with the sparkling aurora coronating the homely town of Ponyville, to meet with the concerned visage of the Princess of the Night.

Luna's questioning eyes clashed with Celestia’s somber ones. The youngest of the alicorn sisters was suspicious of the matters that plagued her sister, yet it offered no clue as to how to aid her in her distress. Her evil self remained banished in the moon she now commanded when the moment had struck her older sister.

The alabaster alicorn’s uneasy front was enough to ring alarms for the youngest of the alicorn duo. Few things could throw Luna, a millennial-long seasoned ruler, cold and collected as the night she brought, so out of the loop.

Yet, when Celestia’s telltale, motherly smile was not present to lift even the somberest of pony’s spirits, it was a clear indication that something bad loomed on the horizon.

“Sister?” Luna gently prodded once more, Celestia’s prolonged contemplation dressing her nerves raw. What could have possibly painted that shade of dread on her dearest sibling this soon in the morning? Luna had noticed Celestia lagging behind in her obligations to move the sun into position while she did so in turn with the pale moon, having sprung her concern into a quick visit. Luna didn't mind taking over her duties if Celestia was simply feeling under the weather, a strange occurrence to befall them since alicorns rarely feel ill.

Perhaps she was just feeling lazy that morning? Luna would take anything but the wary uneasiness seeping in waves from the alabaster mare.

No such luck for Luna, for her eldest sister's mood was not lifted by her presence. “It's almost time, dearest Lulu,” Celestia, serious as a heart attack, a hint of dread hanging on her lips, answered her sister’s call. “Any day now.”

Unbeknownst to the Alicorn of the Night, Celestia had been partaking in this small ritual every single morning for the past few months, screening the land for a clue as to his arrival, that would most surely precede her pupil’s inevitable letter pleading for advice. Letter she’d have to ignore.

Celestia knew Twilight as if she had birthed her herself. It made her feel utterly dismayed for the part she’d have to take on the upcoming play.

Yet, as the time grew near, so did both Celestia’s expectations and concerns, to the point she feared it would seriously interfere with her royal duties. Day court postponed, delegate meetings canceled, social events pushed for future dates.

Fortunately, Celestia was blessed for the return of her youngest sibling. She had Luna to pick up her slack if the need arose, but even such a tremendous event shouldn't take her mind away from her duties to her cherished little ponies.

This new nugget of information answered most of Luna’s questions around the reason for Celestia’s stiffness, but failed to extinguish the ice condescending in her chest, needing no further hint to hitch a ride on her sister’s meaning, for she too had been made aware of what was soon to happen, albeit taking it with a grain of salt, not that much of a fan for prophecies.

This was no prophecy, however. In words and before the very eyes of Celestia, joined by the very spirit Harmony that watched over this world, an unprecedented turn of events would transpire soon that would rock their entire civilization to its core. Alas, under the tide of change, both royals were meant to watch from the sidelines. For the time being, at least.

Luna spit on this choice of approach.

“Are you sure, sister?” Luna’s incredulity required steady confirmation, working a tired kink out of her wings before settling one over Celestia’s back in meager support. Some nights were indeed more eventful than others, she too was in need for her eldest sibling’s reassurance, specially through the incoming storm.

Celestia returned her tired gaze once again to the marvelous landscape stretching beyond the safety of their castle. Luna followed her lead, settling beside her bigger frame, drawing from her the same warmth radiating from the very sun.

Both princesses cast their flaming eyes toward the far-off settlement that harbored this world's greatest heroes in its homely routine. A recent altercation with a power-hungry unicorn had drawn Twilight and the Bearers far into the reaches of Northern Equestria, where only a scarce few settlers would dare the snows and the griffons prowling from the nearby border. The magic of friendship had prevailed once more, and a colorful bunch of misguided ponies had founded a new home once freed of their former oppressor, who had escaped the Elements’ capture and now roamed Equestria, eluding the Royal Guard’s best efforts to pinpoint her and bring her to justice, to both royals dismay.

Another log to add to the bonfire. Another pony led astray under their careful watch. On some days, both princesses, the oldest on a more consistent basis, questioned their continued right and ability to rule over the land they both saw born under their careful leadership.

‘That’s what we have groomed her for, after all…’ Celestia mused inwardly, eyes set over the sparkling, star-shaped sigil coronating her student's castle. ‘And now, we are sure she won’t be alone in that endeavor.’

Those tribulations would have to wait, for Equestria's greatest heroes won’t be able to enjoy this short period of peace after Starlight’s defeat for long, if Celestia’s seasoned gut was indeed on the case. Something big was approaching, something that would change this world forever. For better or worse, only time will tell.

A long, long game was to be played.

“Alexander told me himself,” Celestia mumbled stiffly in answer to Luna’s implied query, her wings twitching at her sides and brushing against her sister’s velvety coat, electing a similar reaction from the smaller alicorn who gazed up at her sister’s frown. “He told me all he could spare without endangering the stream. You know the rules as well as I do, sister.” She cited sagely with a knowing smile for her youngest sibling.

Luna, familiar with the implications streaming out from Celestia’s muzzle, furrowed her brow and scrunched her muzzle, unpleased with her sister’s dismissiveness. Still, she recognized where she was coming from. Star Swirl had been her mentor too. His endless lessons were imprinted on her memories just as they were preserved in countless tomes and scrolls all over Equestria.

“Even in death, he continues to unnerve us so.” Luna snorted with equal parts of humor and displeasure, a fillish side of her peeking out for a brief moment, not a fan of the old wizard's long teachings and arduous training sessions.

A fond grin stitched on Celestia's muzzle, bittersweet memories of past times flooding her in the company of her sister. “That he does, dearest Lulu...”

…

It came like an avalanche, without warning or ceremony, to squeeze the air out of their lungs. A shift in the Aëther tugged at Celestia’s senses, her deep connection to the world's magic gifting her with the sight of ripples shaking the ley lines like a thunderstorm enraging an ocean at peace. Celestia didn't need to search for the immediate origin. Only one place in all the land could attract so much trouble time and time again.

From the towering reaches of Canterlot, they couldn't see it happening this far out, but no hint of doubt filled the silent space between the two alicorns.

Celestia’s gut was right. It was time.

An alabaster wing enveloped Luna’s back over her own embrace, Celestia drawing her sister close in search of reassurance in a rare gesture. Luna offered no quarrel, her senses also flaring and pointing her at the small town of Ponyville, seemingly unperturbed from where the sisters watched events unfold.

With a deep breath and a steady mind, Celestia commanded the sun and tucked it in its place in the open skies, freeing her mind of the pending task. The solar diarch mentalized herself, already hard at work to rearrange her tight agenda for a visit in the upcoming days, but not as the princess everypony loved and cheered. She’d have to take her annual disguised walk though her realm sooner this year.

In the meantime, Celestia could only pray Twilight would hold the front and remain on course.

Her thoughts drifted one last time to their old mentor, his work and wisdom still paramount in this era, but unable to shine a wisp of wisdom pertaining that day, for since times immemorial this land had not lived through a similar occurrence.

“A shame for the old crook.” Celestia picked off her previous conversation with the tiniest of smirks on her muzzle, which did little to mask the apprehension clinging to her rosy eyes.

“Hmm?”

“Some serious competition is on its way...”

A story by AlexKidd11

TO CHANGE THE WORLD

“Twilight. Are you sure about this?...”

“Sixteen…”

Treading through the labyrinthine corridors of Castle Friendship, proper name pending, a young alicorn princess tiredly counted the number of times her faithful assistant, and younger first, had warned, pleaded, or sought to coax her out of what she’d envisioned to be the greatest, most jaw-hangingdiscovery of the last century. Perhaps the past millennia!

Yep. Her own words, out of her own mind, straight onto a staggering laundry list of parchment. A true groundbreaker in her very own lavender eyes, more than enough reason for the fire in her hooves that steadily carried her towards her destiny.

The rhythmic echo of a set of hooves and claws bounced unchallenged around the crystalline foundations of Twilight Sparkle’s newly acquired castle, a structure only befitting for a mare of her rank and title. Bestowed by Harmony herself after her and her friend's defeat of the would-be tyrant, Lord Tirek, it’d become the new home of the alicorn and the young drake. Kind of an enforced happenstance after their old library had been reduced to little but charred roots and a messy pile of spilled memories of easier times.

Only the alicorn could traverse its seemingly endless halls and corridors with the strut and confidence of somepony who might as well have been inhabiting it their entire life. Decisive hoofsteps closed her towards the Throne Room, or Thrones Room to be more precise, since six other chairs teamed up with hers to host her closest friends in times of need and crisis.

Well, not that necessarily apocalyptic. More like ‘friendship problems’ as she’d grown fond of referring to them, popping in and out all over the land every now and then. A new, decisive step in responsibility on the long, arduous road to bring the Magic of Friendship to everypony in Equestria and beyond.

As his smaller strides struggled to keep him up the pumped mare’s excited gait, Spike wasn't exactly running out of words to make his point across. “... Because it sounds like something we shouldn't be trampling with.”

“Seventeen…”

Like waves crashing against the cliffs of Horseshoe Bay, the young princess simply wouldn't be deterred by her little brother's insistent, vexing pleas, bringing her ears flat over her scalp in a feeble attempt to shut him out so that she could concentrate back on the hot topic. That hot topic being the complicated jumble of aëtheric equations she was weeding out for mistakes she might’ve overseen in her hurried preparations.

The count was at seventeen since that very same morning, and Twilight knew there were waaaa-hehehey more waiting for her where those came from. For that was the job of the young drake tailing behind her, to Twilight’s dismay, albeit implied gratitude.

“A-And Star Swirl's notes clearly indicate that should we mess up with harmonizing the aëtheric frequencies around the feed-back loop before pushing the funnel into the singularity point, we could unlea-mmmph!”

Spike’s eighteenth warning was dragged to an early, muffled funeral, courtesy of a good muzzle-full of trichromatic tail when the mare’s confident stride had ceased without warning. Spitting out blue, purple, and raspberry-colored hairs alike with a *sppffhtah!*, Spike watched as a sudden stroke of inspiration struck the equine-packaged genius that was Twilight like lightning hit on their angular roof. Theirs was the tallest building around, after all.

“Hmm...” Cocking her head sideways with a pensive hum, lidding her eyes to the dust particles floating in the empty corridor bridging the inseparable pair from their destiny, Twilight's neurons fired aëtheric equations, rune alignments, and thaumaturgical coaxial symmetry in a globulous blend only her gifted mind could strip apart and rebuild like a foal’s puzzle. In her mental works, Twilight extracted her twitching snout from between the loaded pages of the same book Spike was referring to, floating it in front of her while not hindering her traversing the insides of her palace via sheer memory and skill. A feat that she’d only recently managed to accomplish.

“Uh, Twilight?” An awkward minute passed by in contemplative science. Spike tugged on the mare’s tail in an attempt to land her back from Luna’s moon. “Equus to Twilight!”

The alicorn made a swift touchdown, but the news she brought from her trip to the stars were far from Spike’s preferred ones. “We can use Star Chaser’s quasi-protected spell-binding array to overlay and cancel any possible conflicting surges as the dimensional strings harmonize with the targeted frequencies in real time!”

A bit too proud of herself, Twilight freed her tail from the worried drake’s grip and sent him a cocky leer over her shoulder. “And later, you'll say I don't listen to you.”

“You're NOT listening to me!” Spike threw his balled claws up in riot, but Twilight was already lost back in her idol's notes, resuming her path for the Thrones Room, where she would meet with her closest friends any minute now. There was no way in ol’ flammable Tartarus she was going to leave them out of such a historical event!

Left behind to count his reflections on the crystalline walls, them looking back at him like an idiot, Spike's already sore throat squeezed out one last grumble, followed by a puff of smoke slithering out his flaring nostrils. Spike pumped his shorter legs as much as they could carry him and resumed his pursuit of the purple alicorn.

“... triple-checked everything. Like, dotting the I's and crossing the T’s triple-checking.” Spike caught up with Twilight, to find her talking to herself or, as the drake was quick to find, talking to him. Her nerdy obliviousness had prevented her from realizing she’d lost him some ways ago in favor of marveling once more upon the extremely complex, yet beautifully crafted collection of spells and enchantments that Star Swirl the Bearded had envisioned to create the Mirrors that once allowed him to breach Equus’ dimensional borders into completely unknown worlds. Out of the ancient wizard’s own horn, a string of magic she was more than happy to pull from for the sake of science and discovery, two topics she was more than willing to subscribe to since she was a little filly.

Twilight had learned about it some time ago, and now she wanted some of it. Oooo-ho-ho-oh, yes she wanted a piece of that, thank you very much! Even her dreams these past few weeks screamed at her to snatch a piece of that cake if she ever wanted a full night’s rest again!

You see, none of the mirrors worked anymore, half of them having been shattered before the reign of Celestia. The sage unicorn made sure of closing that chapter of his research and burying it a hundred hooves under before his mysterious disappearance, so many centuries ago. The damage dealt to the surviving mirrors was irreversible as far as the young princess had been able to assess. Her mentor, Princess Celestia, had reached a similar conclusion ages ago, yet it didn't necessarily mean that nothing could be learned from them.

Twilight was the mare to find a loophole in the issue. What am I saying? She already did just that.

“I could've already tried, and succeeded, if that ‘Starlight Glimmer’ hadn't called for our attention elsewhere.” Twilight trailed on unphased, peeking behind her to see her favorite, frowning dragon right where she had left him. Smiling cheekily, Twilight returned her attention upfront. And by upfront, I mean back to her levitating notes. “I've got the Princesses’ permission, too. Actually…” Twilight’s gate slowed down in a fit of contemplation as she rubbed her chin with a primary. “Princess Celestia was particularly adamant about it…” She hummed to herself, still at odds with the alabaster’s alicorn’s insistent approval of her methods. Considering how adamant Star Swirl had been on keeping the transdimensional bridges off limits forever, Twilight would have expected the Princess of the Sun to battle her a tad more about it.

“What do you mean?”

She didn't have a straight answer for the questioning drake. Feeling too much piling up already on her shoulders, Twilight opted to brush it off for later musings and focus on more important things. It wouldn't matter anyway once she had completed the experiment of the millennia.

“Don't worry about it, Spike.” Without skipping a beat on her reading, she used her telekinesis to lovingly stroke the dragon’s head crest, her heart warming in appreciation for his invaluable help in crafting this spell… and everything else he slaved to do for her. She’d be truly lost without his company assistance. Especially under their new home, which still felt far from the real deal to the mare.

Hmm, perhaps a vacation was in order for the two of them after this.

“Heh, I’d be out of a job if I didn’t.” Accepting the gesture with a rosy tint on his scaly cheeks, Spike took Twilight's word and filed that thought for a later time. It's not like he didn't trust Twilight. Heck, he could trust his big sister with his life and more.

On the other claw, several years living with Twilight and her… eccentricities had taught the young dragon a thing or two about Equestria’s newest princess, especially the ‘funny’ bits that her ever-curious mind could birth when Twilight was set on something, making reasonable things like overall safety and, you know, common sense, fall back to the ‘optional’ drawer.

Now within reach of the Thrones Room, Twilight sent a gentle kinetic wave to pry the twin doors wide open, feeling a rush of air ruffle her mane as her lavender orbs narrowed over a new set of equations. At the same time, she continued her incessant scanning of her own messy calligraphy, the product of an overworked brain forced to labor into the wee hours of the night. She harbored no regrets on the obliteration of her sleep schedule though. Only a wagon-load worth of caffeine in her system to path it up. Twilight didn't even like coffee that much, but she couldn’t deny its Faust-gifted properotes.

Spike followed in tow, his shorter strides carrying him toward his smaller throne tuckered right beside Twilight's. The alicorn, for her part, stopped right in front of a gap between her place and the Map, the centerpiece of her recently grown castle.

Yeah, grown, from a locked chest with six keyholes, one each for her and her five closest friends. A truly peculiar, yet insightful treasure hunt. On the outside, you'd think of it as a humongous, crystalline, tree-like construction grown overnight right over the grassy meadows of Ponyville’s southern reaches. A fitting shape, she’d thought at the time considering where she’d holed in her previous years in Ponyville, although Twilight was beyond understanding the how or why of such a gift being bestowed upon her so out of the blue. She was more than content with her old library, and her royal status hadn’t changed one iota of the sentiment after that eventful day.

The answer for it was the same as for many others without a proper explanation in this land.

Magic.

Twilight was good with magic. Correction, she was the BEST with magic. It was her Element, it brimmed in her very blood, in her very essence. Her skills in magic were fuel for her confidence, sealing her mind in carrying out her current project. Resting the overflowing book over the smooth surface of the map, filled to the absolute brim with her annotations as well as personal thoughts and takes on the matter, anything she could fit in; Twilight's last check concluded with a green light.

The game was on.

“Yep.” She congratulated herself. “I don't think there's anything else I need to add. Every failsafe is in place, every eventuality considered and ready to be countered, and anything that might have slipped, I'm sure I can muscle through.”

And, by ‘muscle through’, Twilight meant drawing from her honed skills as well as her newfound reservoir of magic, augmented a hundredfold after her ascension to alicornhood, to fix whatever occurrence that wouldn't fall into the masterfully crafted plan, which the mare was one-hundred percent confident would be absolutely nothing.

The experiment itself was simple in its basic layout. Twilight, who’d spent a good chunk of her free time researching Star Swirl's notes regarding dimensional magic, wanted to partially recreate his greatest work on the mirrors, but on a smaller scale, and from the comfort of her own residence. She wished not to travel to other realms… yet. Her hunt was for observational knowledge first, something a simple peek through a window from the safety of her castle should provide without the risks of a transdimensional monster rearing its ugly head to eat everypony and drake present.

She had a countermeasure for that too, just in case.

Only a window, not even a portal in the real sense of the word, contrary to what the mirrors were conceived for. The only thing coming through would be light, and sound too perhaps, depending on the stability of the singularity. And that transit of light will only be in one direction. Meaning that, from the potential native creature’s side, the rift should remain as inconspicuous as a light distortion in the air, similar to the visual effect of a wobbly horizon under hot temperatures being the light close to the warm surface.

She had been saving up for the occasion, on the side. Not bits, though. Her princess status came with a hefty paycheck, after all. Twilight had instead amassed magic in her body by forcing herself into an earth-pony way of life since the gangs’ return from Starlight's village, only a couple of weeks ago, saving up as much raw mana as she could fit within her body without blowing up her core. She’d once harbored the power of three alicorns alongside her own at the same time and played ‘topple the mountain’ with a mad centaur with them. She was used to the sensation of every single fibre of her body bristling with unspent energy.

Sadly, no derailed, magic-stealing centaur’s flank to whoop with it this time, just breaking a small gap between dimensions and sticking her muzzle through, metaphorically speaking.

No biggie.

It had been… an inspiring experience, not to say terribly inconvenient. Her heart went out to her non-magically versed friends. A.k.a, those without a horn in their foreheads.

In a blinding flash of light, a comically long scroll, depicting the entirety of the written monstrosity that was the dimension-breaching spell, materialized over the map, kept in place in the air as Twilight unrolled its contents. The end reached Spike's clawed feet all the way from where the alicorn kept it in her magical grasp, making the drake roll his eyes under the absurdity of Twilight's overkilling tendencies. The mare’s attention was set somewhere in the middle as she planted her haunches on her own throne.

“Geez, talk about going overboard...” Spike sassed to himself.

Twilight's sensitive ears flicked at the drake's snark. “Foolproof would be the word for it, methinks.” She fired back with equal amounts of bite.

“Exorbitant.”

“Flawless.”

“Exaggerated!”

“Unerring!”

“Dangerous!!”

“Pinkie!!”

“GAAAAHH!!”

Both siblings were sent reeling back down into their rears from the mass of pink that suddenly materialized behind their crystalline accommodations. Twilight shed a few stress-induced feathers as she climbed back into the air while Spike was launched over the back of his smaller throne, landing on his tail with a sharp yelp.

“Pinkie!!” Twilight cried in annoyance, forehooves tightly clutched over her fuzzy chest, trying their damndest to keep her beating heart where it was needed. Taking a seat on her haunches beside their latest arrival, she glared daggers at the giggling mare.

“Thaaaat’s me!” The pink menace saluted with too much pep for almost having dragged two of her closest friends to an early grave. “Aaaaaare we ready to par-tay?! Hm? Huh? Are we?”

“... Ow.” Came the flat reply from an out-of-picture Spike.

“Yay!!” Pinkie celebrated with a vigorous clap of her forehooves. Her short attention span, however, triggered to fall over the still unfolded scroll, a searing panic erasing all cheer from her features. “Oh no! Did I miss it?! I’m totally missing it!! NonononoNO!! THE POPCORN!! I NEED THE POPCORN!! WHERE IS THE POPCORN?!!!”

Like the tired exhalation leaving Twilight’s nostrils, the pink one bolted out of the room straight through the doors further from the still recovering pair, only to reappear a second later through the very same entrance Twilight and Spike had taken beforehoof with a steaming, comically large bag of freshly-popped popcorn in her grasp.

“Found iiiiit!~” Pinkie chanted in glee, trotting her merry, bubbly way to her own throne, but not before brushing by the pair and offering them some of her delicious treat with unnerving innocence. “Want some?”

“Heh. Don’t mind if I do.” All transgressions forgiven, Spike grabbed a good clawful of salty goodness and popped them unceremoniously into his fanged jaws. Twilight, for her part, simply rolled her eyes and sent a silent prayer to Faust for some much-needed patience. She loved her friends with all her heart, but some days…

“Oh! I saw AJ on the market on my way here!” Pinkie Pie announced once she’d settled in, rear legs resting lazily over her sector of the map while she munched on her popcorn at a pace that would surely leave her dry by the time the show actually started. “Said she was a couple apples short of finishing the last bushel, so she’ll be along soon!” Another squishy morsel disappeared down her gullet without a bite to seal it. “Mmm, could use some caramel… Oh, I also saw Rainbow Dash. She was napping on a cloud, who would’ve guessed.” Pinkie cited sarcastically, giggling to herself. She received no feedback from Twilight, once again lost in her work. “Yeah. I had to wake her up, though. She was gonna miss the party!”

“Not a party, Pinkie.” Twilight deadpanned, her running eyes glued to the intricate lines of rune work and spellcraft while pretending to be invested in the pink mare.

“Suuure it is!” Pinkie brushed off the alicorn’s bored rebuke like a pesky fly. It was a party as long as she had some say in it! “I had to wake her up with a water balloon!” Another round of mischievous giggles, this time accompanied by Spike's own chuckles. “Hehe, she was soooo mad.”

Speaking of the devil, or the daredevil in the case of the prismatic mare, a rainbow-streaked projectile came raining down the Thrones Room, shattering her personal favorite choice of high-end window illuminating the stance for the umpteenth time, to the castle owner’s visible displeasure.

Always the exact, same, window. Always!

As Rainbow flailed her limbs in an attempt to regain control of her trajectory, Twilight, resigning herself to yet another visit to the local seller down Horseshoe Avenue, didn't even bat an eye from her studying of the ridiculously-long scroll, more than used to Rainbow’s ‘heroic’ landings.

Firing her horn, Twilight needed but a figment of her magic to stop the prismatic mare dead in her wings, leaving a stunned, albeit intact pegasus hanging upside down in a compromising position a few meters over the Cutie Map, to Pinkie’s front-row amusement. A simple dip of her glowing horn, and Rainbow was reoriented vertically and horizontally in stiff succession to face an unflattered Twilight folding the kilometric scroll in her hooves.

“Hehe… Sorry, Twilight” Rainbow apologized sheepishly with a nervous scratch of her messy mane, held aloft within the alicorn’s magical grip.

Satisfied with Rainbow's apologies, or perhaps not, her deadpan glare was hard to read; she released the pegasus from her telekinesis. The prismatic mare was unable to coordinate her wings to spare her the few remaining meters of free fall into a cumbersome touchdown over the pristine surface of the Cutie Map, taking down with her the beautiful outline of Manehattan under her rump.

“Ooooff!” Rainbow grunted, safe and spared of another sprained limb, with only a few chunks of broken glass clinging to her mane and tail, which she promptly rid herself of with a vigorous shake. “No need to be so sore about it…” She grumbled under her breath, breathing through a corner of her muzzle to lift her bangs back to their already-messy selves.

Twilight made her point by ignoring her, yet Spike was doing a poor job of biting down on a bout of laughter. In consequence, there was one pony left to break down into rambunctious laughter at Rainbow’s expense.

Rainbow’s ears twitched and a vein bulged in her forehead. Not because of being made fun of; she could take her landings in stride and pop a new one afterwards; but because Rainbow had been hunting down that same mare that now leisurably ate popcorn while enjoying a morning show without a care in the world.

Rainbow became a homing missile, and was all over the pink mare with the fury of the elements under her wings.

“Hey!! You! I'm gonna have your tail for waking me up like that!” Rainbow spat at Pinkie's face, while the target of the pegasus’ rage simply shrugged her shoulders and plopped another delicious popped kernel into her muzzle.

“You were gonna be late for the party, silly!” Pinkie retorted with her usual spring, to Rainbow’s quickly-draining patience.

“Not a party.” Twilight repeated over the bantering with the same enthusiasm as a bag of bricks.

“I wasn't gonna be late! I had an alarm set!” She pointed out with flared wings.

“Your cloud had an alarm? Oooh, where can I get one of those?!”

“Wha-?” Rainbow quickly brushed Pinkie's usual ‘pinkieness’ aside. “No! I… uh. It was just a short nap, I'd have woken up on time!”

“It's ten in the morning, Dash.” Twilight, having kept a distracted ear on the bickering pair, felt the need to point out the prismatic mare's unusual napping routines.

“So what?!” Rainbow rebuked proudly, with a hoof on her chest as she took back into the air. “I finished cloudbusting duties in ten, seconds, flat.” She fell back into her usual boasting self, landing on her own throne across Twilight’s after a short summersault. “Not much going on after that, so I thought, ‘Why not’?”

A purple eye zoomed in from over the messy pile of notes to dare the prismatic mare to repeat that statement. Rainbow caught her mishap on the fly, rubbing her foreleg sheepishly as she shrunk a bit in her seat.

“I-I mean, not much going on before this... Whatever it is that you wanted to show us.” A muzzle-splitting yawn betrayed Rainbow in her poor attempts to evade the young alicorn’s wrath. “Ugh, couldn't you’ve called for us, like, NOT at the crack of dawn?” She protested exaggeratedly with a sleepy smack of her gums, leaning back on her throne as if ready for another shameless nap.

Twilight opted to pursue the ways of peace that morning, and refocused on wrapping up this last-last-minute recheck to begin warming up her magic, for she knew she would need a good chunk of it pretty soon. Even if her friends could prove to be a bit too much too early in the mornings, she couldn't fight down the smirk stitching on her muzzle. She loved all her friends and their antics, each of them different, each of them special in their own ways. She was far from being a blank sheet herself, her own quirks having been laid out in plain sight more than once.

Twilight loved them all the same. It was one of many things she’d learned about the Magic of Friendship. Things that, as impossible as it was for the young bookworm to picture at first, you would not be able to find collected amidst the endless tomes and scrolls of Canterlot Library. She had to learn about it hooves-on, and not a day passed in which she wasn't thankful for it.

Twilight wanted all her close friends gathered here today. Not so much as to bear witness to her ingenuity, but more of a matter of trust. For Twilight felt that, in the company of those five mares, and not to forget her little brother and faithful assistant, nothing seemed impossible to achieve, not even opening a window to an alternate reality and wave ‘hi’.

She couldn't help but wonder what things she might find on the other side as she finished running her eyes through the last group of notes and equations covering the thaumaturgic resonance calibrations for the incoming flow from the Aëther she’d need to tamper and shape. Would they find ponies on the other side? Perhaps an exact mirror of this world, where the other Twilight was attempting the exact same thing at the exact same time? Heck, if talking about wild chances within an infinite multiverse, it could perfectly be an alicorn version of Rainbow Dash attempting the same feat!

Twilight didn't know whether to laugh or shudder in fear at the thought of an alicorned Rainbow Dash.

Star Swirl had made a conscious effort to omit any and all details pertaining his short ventures into the alternate dimensions he was able to open the mirrors to, most likely to prevent any future curious minds from following in his hoofsteps, both metaphorically and literally.

A small chance might also have painted whatever Star Swirl found beyond the barriers of this universe too haunting or dangerous to even speak of it again, much less write it down for posterity, but Twilight found that possibility unlikely at best.

Star Swirl had been a prodigy among prodigies, the most gifted mind in the recorded story of Equestria. He alone had contributed half of the total sum of knowledge around the field of magic ponies enjoyed nowadays, both in the theoretical sense and the practical. Most unicorn scholars and researchers in the field of thaumaturgy had done little more than study, deconstruct, expand, and refine the bases that Star Swirl had founded during his long years as an academic, with Twilight herself being but another brimming enthusiast.

She could still remember the day she finished that old, uncompleted spell from the old unicorn sage, gaining her her wings and title as the prize for her efforts.

Even to that moment, a year or so having passed since that unforgettable day, Twilight still felt conflicted over her new responsibilities. The worming thought that constantly made her question whether she was even worthy of them in the first place was present in every choice she made around her princess duties.

A bad case of impostor syndrome could not compare to what Twilight had felt on her first days as a true royal proper, taking a very cramped and hurried crash course in methods, behaviors, ways and compromises from her mentor Celestia during the short weeks she had to move to Canterlot, until both agreed that Twilight would excel more at her new responsibilities from the place she‘d grown to love. Place where she’d learned more about friendship in a few years than many could claim to have learned in their entire life.

Now, Twilight had another chance to make her mentor proud. While not falling into the realm of friendship exactly, Twilight still was confident they could learn tons of new things from these windows she aimed to open. New civilizations, new knowledge to discover, new friendships to be made if all things went accordingly and she graduated her spell from window to portal.

Too soon to tell yet. She had to make it work first; there’d be time for cavilations and possibilities after the ‘Congratulations for breaking the rules of space-time yet again!’ party Pinkie had no doubt already organized for the lot of them for that very same afternoon. Thank goodness she had cleared her schedule in hindsight.

“Um… hello, girls.” A meek voice could barely be discerned over Rainbow’s and Pinkie’s bickering. Twilight needed not to extract herself from her work to know to whom it belonged.

“Good morning, Fluttershy.” Twilight waved an inviting wing for the shy pegasus to approach her. “You’re just in time.”

Taking the alicorn’s invitation, Fluttershy trotted into the Thrones Room with her usual, reserved gait before sharing a warm nuzzle with Twilight, both mares making a point of ignoring the squabbling duo for the sake of having an adult conversation.

“My, that looks… um, complicated.” Fluttershy felt like commenting on the contents scribbled on the levitating notes.

She was unable, however, to continue failing at trying to make heads or tails of them any longer, for with a neat pull of her magic, Twilight tucked them all into a neat pile over the map, just beside the tome and the scroll that contained the juicy parts.

Feeling a bit cocky herself, Twilight shook her head with a dismissive giggle. “No, not really. I’ve had worse to deal with.”

“She hasn’t…” Spike flatly noted from his place, earning a tail-slap at the back of his head for his efforts. “Hey!”

“So!” Twilight perked up, pointedly ignoring the drake's fuming to engage in some small talk with Fluttershy. “How is Harry doing? I hope he's recovering satisfactorily.”

Warmed by Twilight's concern regarding one of her animal friends, Fluttershy nodded sweetly. “He is! Those books you let me borrow have been a big help, Twilight. I can't thank you enough…” She concluded abashedly, hiding herself in her mane.

Some things would never change, Twilight could easily tell. “I'm always happy to help, Fluttershy. You know that.” Twilight reminded the shy pegasus with a rub of her back. “You can keep those books for as long as you need.”

“Thank you, Twilight,” Fluttershy replied timidly. A nasty case of intoxication ailed her biggest of animal companions, most likely from a polluted source of water Fluttershy needed still to locate in the Everfree Forest. Zecora was away on one of her ingredient-collecting trips, so it’d been up to her and the knowledge Twilight could spare to bring her fuzzy friend back from under the weather.

The two mares continued chatting amicably, including Spike in their conversation since they didn't want him to be left out. A few calm minutes passed which Twilight greatly appreciated, since the conversation worked wonders to distract her from the fast-approaching moment and budding nerves nipping at her horn.

Not much distracted, though. She had to make sure to keep her head in the game. An arduous task since the back and forth emanating from Rainbow’s and Pinkie's scuffle was eating at her patience like a bunny nibbles on a carrot.

“One sec.” Twilight requested with a strained smile, needing only a thought to teleport the loudest of the two, Rainbow, up to perch on the hanging-roots adornment, a ‘welcome to your new home’ kinda gift from her friends, hanging prone from the tall ceiling of the room.

In a blink of an eye, Rainbow found herself suddenly whisked away from the target of her ire to perch above the gathered ponies like a crow judging the noisy equines from their branch. ‘Hey! What gives?!”

“You were too loud,” Twilight replied dryly while Fluttershy giggled into her hoof. Pinkie and Spike weren't so reserved, folding down into laughter at the amusing landscape.

Rainbow was growing weary of being the target of their unabashed merriment. “But why do I get to be banished?!” She demanded with a flick of her tail.

“Because you can just fly down afterward, Pinkie can’t.” Twilight explained briefly, rolling her eyes at the exaggerated use of ‘banishment’. She could always go and ask her mentor how to land the prismatic mare on the moon next time, if she wasn’t gonna be a flank about it.

“Tsk. Whatever…” Pumping her wings, Rainbow glided down in a fit as the hanging, colorful strings of little crystals twinkled in her wake. Plopping her rump down with a tantrum, Rainbow put on her best frown and fumed for a full ten seconds before Pinkie buried the axe of war with a sweet offering of her salty treats.

Keeping her eyes narrowed in a pout, Rainbow pondered the terms of peace. “... Are they buttered?”

“Puh-lease.” Pinkie almost felt offended by the question, wiggling eyebrows teasingly.

“Cool.” And with that, the two mares were as chummy as ever. “Fffanksf!” Rainbow spoke from behind a muzzle full of popcorn, a seemingly-endless fountain of them for how much Pinkie had already wolfed down. Knowing how Pinkie worked, an infinite bucket of popcorn might as well have been the case between her hooves.

Another set of voices alerted a grinning Twilight of the arrival of the last two missing mares. Rarity was sharing an amicable chat with Applejack, the former retelling some curious exchange with a customer in her boutique as they traversed the main corridor of the castle towards the room everypony else had gathered in.

“... so I finished taking the measures of her trunk, and I simply realized there was absolutely no way I could fit that rhomboid-themed, cross-stitched pattern across the seam as she wanted without the entire tail of the dress sagging down on her flanks!” Rarity recollected with her usual flair and drama. Applejack, used to her friend's theatrics, listened with a bemused smirk as she fixed her renowned hat on her blonde-maned head. “And, you know me, dearest Applejack. I am NOT one to trample a pony’s desires when it comes to their perfect dress, but I couldn't simply go and tell her flat out that half her ensemble was going to end up being stuffing since, well. There wasn't that much meat to go around back there!”

Rarity played with one of her curls as she then sheepishly admitted she had tried her best to convey said message in softer terms, with partial to no success from her customers' offended reaction and promptly storming off and out of her boutique.

Rearing up a hearty chortle, Applejack followed Rarity into the Thrones Room. “Oh, my. That gal’s sure tah be madder than a hen in a pile of Goldie's apple jam! Ahahaha!”

“Good morning, girls.” Twilight greeted the giggling mares. Sharing a brief hug in turn, everypony was finally accounted for in her castle.

“Good morning to you too, darling. Le grand jour is finally here, is it not?” Rarity commented as they broke the hug, wearing her own expectations on her sleeves. “Oh, and to think what kinds of vestments the creatures from beyond might wear. Perhaps I could make a line out of it? I absolutely must come up with a breathtaking set for the big inauguration!” The hardworking fashionista could already picture her in her creative mind.

AJ knew of what big inauguration Rarity was talking about. “Y’all still hooked on opening the boutique in Canterlot?” Applejack asked, searching for her own throne beside Twilight’s. “Load of prim and pampered nonsense tah me, if you ask me.”

“But of course I am, darling.” Rarity waved her hoof dismissively, taking her place beside Applejack. Fluttershy followed her friend's example and glided across the room to her own designated place, the throne and the cutie mark imprinted above it shining briefly every time their occupant planted their haunches on them. “Only tomorrow, I have a visit scheduled to browse the place, and a meeting with this mare I know will be perfect to lend me a hoof with dealing with the… meilleur du meilleur. This is Canterlot we’re talking about! And sadly, I can't be in two places at once!”

“You should ask Twilight. I’m sure she can figure out how in a jiffy.” Pinkie suggested in her jumpy obliviousness.

Ego stroked and all, Twilight offered a short explanation of why that, albeit feasible with enough time and preparation, would still not be a good idea. She kept it short and simple, tired of her friends’ fast dismissiveness of her geeking sprouts. She needed a nerd friend or two beside her BBBFF to vent the storm of thoughts and ideas that followed her everywhere she went. Talking to herself in front of the mirror had grown old a looong time ago… and a tap creepy in retrospect.

“Ooooh!! Perhaps we can use the mirror poo-!”

“NO!!” Five ponies and one dragon chorused in unison, making the poor pink mare shrink in her seat with a sheepish chuckle. Nopony present wanted to relieve the tsunami of Pinkies that had toppled Ponyville to its roots that one time. A collective full-body tremor testified as much.

“Very well, girls… and Spike.” Twilight winked down at the little dragon just about when he was gonna call her up. “It’s time.”

“Eeeeeeheheee!!” An over-excited Pinkie chanted, bouncing up and down as if made out of rubber. Her energy was contagious, and soon all of the ponies were sharing in Twilight’s enthusiasm.

“This is gonna be awesome!!”

“I wonder what kinds of critters we will find...”

“Bet none of their apples are gonna taste as jolly as mine do.”

Giggling at her friends' eagerness to share in this experience with her, Twilight sadly had to take the wind from AJ’s sails.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Applejack.” Twilight elucidated, earning a confused dip of the farmpony’s hat. Clearing her throat, Twilight saw this moment as the perfect one to settle down the basics of the experiment, as well as some safety rules for her and her closest friends' sake. “So, this is how it’s going to be.”

Closing her eyes, Twilight concentrated, tasting the magic inside her as well as around her, feeling the aëtheric currents whispering back and forth. She was ready, and the conditions were ideal. No abnormalities in the flow of magic, nothing out of place as far as her senses read. The map wasn’t reacting in any way, as she feared it might’ve done as a warning of sorts for her not to delve into this particular discovery.

With this, Twilight knew she had Harmony's blessings too. She was ready; she had memorized the spells and assembled them in her mind with the ease of a foal sorting a four-piece puzzle. She was the Element of Magic. Magic was her gift, and her control over it was only matched by her mentor’s milenia of experience. She’d show them once more what she was capable of, how she was truly deserving of the title of Princess.

Show time.

Twilight opened her eyes wide, now shining completely white with magical output as she laid the ground layer of her spell. Soon, a huge runic circle materialized to hover above the mesmerized ponies, multilayered inscriptions denoting the intricate nature of the spell matrix, their meaning lost to the assembled ponies and dragon sans for the purple alicorn.

A resounding hum filled the room and made the ponie’s bones quiver. The magic-charged air tasted like ozone on the mares’ tongues. The atmosphere became one of wonder, the hanging expectation only interrupted by the sound of Pinkie’s vigorous munching.

Twilight paid no mind to it; she was focused on seeing this spell to the end. Her friends were with her. Thus, she was unstoppable.

Twilight’s voice reverberated with power behind her alicorn might. “I’ll search for a weak spot in the dimensional barriers. I’ll try to aim for a dimension drifting close by and latch on to it. The specifications of the spell should help me find a world as close in properties as this one, meaning no holes in the vacuum of space or ripe in the center of a star.”

“Yeah, that’d be something…” Spike muttered, squeezing the spade of his tail nervously between his claws.

“You don’t need to worry, Spike.” Twilight reminded her younger sibling for the millionth time. “It won’t even be a hole in the sense of the word. Just a window. I'll allow only light to pass through at first. We will only be able to see, not hear, nor will anything material come through. So no sweets, garments, or apples to taste… Sorry!”

A smidge disappointed, the ponies understood the necessary precautions Twilight needed to undertake. Perhaps, assuming that this first attempt proved to be successful, she could widen the scope and allow for very short and localized exchanges with the dwellers of beyond. Also, assuming friendly relationships could be established and a semblance of trade agreed upon, this might usher in a whole new horizon for ponykind to explore! Still, she wasn't gonna start the exploration of new worlds by becoming a thief!

… Well, perhaps a book or two if she had the chance. Twilight was sure nobeing would mind.

Not losing her grip on the charging spell, Twilight addressed her friends with an overflowing sense of fondness. “Thank you all for joining me today. You guys being here is all the help I could ever want. However, I’d also like to ask you to keep a close eye on what we’ll find. I’d really like to hear your own thoughts and put them all together. Unbiased research is the best research!”

While not quite following Twilight’s little mantra, everypony and dragon was more than willing to lend a hoof, and claw. Heck, Twilight must’ve been crazy if she thought for a second somepony was gonna fall asleep during the show.

All eyes went to Rainbow for a brief moment, but the prismatic mare was too absorbed into the spectacular construct that floated over their heads to notice.

A few more common-sense rules were then delivered by a tempestuously-excited Twilight; the usual ‘Sit tight, keep all limbs inside the cart, and remember to have a good time!’ speech the ponies all nodded back to in understanding.

“Alright! Everypony, hold on to your flanks!” Twilight called vigorously, small jitters making her full body twitch with bubbling expectation. What wonders awaited them beyond the physical reaches of their world? Oh, she had been dreaming about this for weeks now, her mind barely able to cope with the amount of knowledge minutes away from being absorbed, meticulously cataloged, and posteriorly dissected for the betterment of Equestria, by your one resident, trusty Princess of Friendship.

Knowledge was her life’s goal, to learn about everything there was to learn, no matter the topic or the complexity. Everything tugged at the purple mare’s infinite well of curiosity one way or another. What most ponies labeled as boring or deeply unnecessary, she thirsted for fit in her never-shrink repertoire since her days as a filly. Twilight was painfully aware her pursuit of knowledge had distanced her from many aspects of her filly days, like having a steady group of friends to hang out and bounce ideas or experiences, or simply partaking in the most basic social events.

She’d walked a long road since those lonely days, and knew better now that she had the best friends a pony could ask for in the whole wide of Equestria at her side. Through thick and thin, they had bested the worst Equus could though at them time and time again.

Still, lesson learned, her new, improved self had not dwindled her life-long interest in the slightest amount. If anything, it had only worked to fuel it to new heights with her friends, and now her own subjects, in mind. All she did was for the betterment of the ponies of Equestria. She felt that she could provide more than ‘friendship’, even if friendship was NOT a force to be taken for granted in the slightest.

‘And, if Celestia wills it, I’ll lead our friendship efforts towards the creatures we might find beyond!! Eeeeeee!! This is going to be historic!!!’

Twilight was bursting at seams from excitement. The ground base for the spell was ready to support the next phase. Twilight could feel the channeled magic shifting and molding under her command, primed and ready to tear a gap in space-time a hundred times more localized and powerful than the distortion field generated during a simple teleportation jump. The shifting amalgam of runes and circles spiraled and changed before the gawking ponies’ awe-struck eyes, their obliviousness of its purpose not dwindling the breathtaking experience one bit.

‘Alright, Twilight. That’s step one completed with no fail safes triggered... As expected,’ Twilight granted herself as much. ‘Step two: search and reach out for the most promising target.’

Since she was delving with a proverbial blindfold into the search, Twilight didn't know what to expect as her magical sense brushed beyond the limits of their dimension. The feeling of teleporting had become so routinary to her that she could barely describe any prominent sensations that stood out from the usual 'squeeze your innards out your nostrils ’ momentary feeling that followed her through every warp. Not necessarily uncomfortable or dizzy after so many jumps, and far from painful besides knocking over somepony by accident when you exited. But nothing noteworthy about it either.

Twilight reached with her sixth sense, attuned to the magic that every unicorn worth their horn learned to at least tip into. She felt for the easiest road for her spell to follow and latch on. For a unicorn, or alicorn in her case, it was hard to describe what they experienced while tuning into the flow of magic with their horn. It was similar to what a blind pony would answer if asked to describe how they ‘see’ the world. Colors, sounds, smells… Not quite the senses that guided Twilight in her search. It was more a matter of presence and absence, of forces tugging and pulling. Touch would come closer than any of the previously mentioned, but it still remained an overall abstract experience.

Twilight screened the void between dimensions in contemplative silence, fleeing the severing cold of the nothingness on her own fur, shuddering hard from the sensation yet remaining strong. The intricate amalgam of concentric patterns and runes drawn from the very magic that permeated the land followed her silent commands, its contents and inclinations changing with each new iteration the alicorn tried.

A game of light and shadows had dominated the Thornes Room, From outside, a passerby pony would’ve thought the princess wass throwing a one-pony party. The buildup of magic was so strong, all ponies could physically feel the pressure on their chest.

However, skin-raw nerves melted down to eager impatience as the high of the ride dwindled down a notch with Twilight’s prolonged search, making the ponies slump down a bit in their seats as they waited, and waited, and waited some more. A streak of boredom ended up flashing before a certain prismatic mare, but all of them knew better than to interrupt Twilight when she was this deep in her spellcasting.

“... Eeeee! I’m so excited!!!” Pinkie, the only pony still fully on the ride, couldn't can the short outburst, being chided with a collective hush from the group.

The sheer radiance from the spell engrams painted all over the room outshone the very morning sunlight filtering through the upper windows of the spacious room, crashing and shattering into the array of colors each decorated window possessed. It reached the point that it felt like night had caught up with them all of a sudden. In place of a starry night sky and that night’s full moon, they were rewarded with a far more intricate landscape, undeniably mesmerizing as small wisps of magic appeared and died in the blink of an eye all over the room as the spell ran its course.

“I simply must admit, dear,” Rarity needed to add her two bits. “This is absolutely breathtaking!” She confided in her giddiness, drinking in the sights while her horn reacted to the high levels of gathering magic. She let inspiration run free, translating Twilight's work into designs and patterns for her own future creations.

Twilight spared a figment of her concentration to swell a bit under Rarity’s praise. Not everything was good news for the alicorn, though. The search was taking more time than she’d predicted. In addition to the available paths quickly diminishing in number, she’d glimpsed some reasonable candidates to open the rift into, but none close or stable enough for a proper window to be maintained for more than a few, scarce seconds. Twilight wanted nothing more but the need to wing it at the end, so she kept with her thorough screening.

Just as she was starting to feel concerned about her quickly-draining, yet still-ample reserves of magic needed to keep the party going, something… tugged at her senses. Perhaps that wasn’t the word for it, she couldn't quite put her tongue over it, but it meant good news all the same. Twilight felt it strong in her bursting core and joyfully celebrated to herself. The magical circles shifted and turned in quick succession, new runes scribbling themselves in their wake while others banished into the Aëther.

Twilight latched into the path laid prone before her sixth sense, finding the resistance offered more than reasonable to overcome with the power of her horn. It was almost too easy, she mused to herself. Twilight could've bet her castle that something was helping her, attuning her senses and driving the bridge closer with barely a thought needed from the alicorn. She blamed it on her stellar work conceiving the screening spell, spell that formed only but a small fraction of the monumental, multilayered work that was the whole thing chipping at the walls between dimensions.

Twilight didn't give it further thought. With bigger fish to fry, she opted to trust in herself and her work, since the window of opportunity could very easily slip from under her hooves the moment the dimensions shifted again.

“Found it!” Twilight announced to the group, receiving congratulatory cheers from her friends, only spurring the alicorn on to see it done to the end.

‘Step two is over. Now for the tricky part.’

Tricky would be a serious downplay of the magnitude of that next step. Bending the laws of physics to get you from point A to point B within the boundaries of this world was already a trivial thing for her skill, breaking and bending only the bare necessary laws to see it happen. The teleportation spell itself contained more fail-safes and contingency layers over it than the actual part of opening a mini wormhole and jumping through.

This, however, would require not only ungodly amounts of magic, but all her concentration and a bit more than what she could spare, perhaps. That's where the next layers of her spell came into play. Above anything else, Twilight had to ensure the stability of the gap, closing it prematurely at the first sign of anything escaping the safety margin she drew herself. The spell would allow her to dissipate safely any strings of magic the Aëther might feed back into their plane out of the settled pace and, in case everything went straight to the wall, Twilight could invert the warp in space-time to mass-teleport her and all ponies (and dragon) present out of the Thrones Room to a safe distance away, leaving her castle to bear the brunt of any potential aftermath.

Honestly… she wouldn't cry a river over it if her castle was blown to smithereens. Perfect excuse to grow a new tree-brary to nest in. It also helped that her castle in question was located on the southern outskirts of Ponyville, far from the general populace. Injured ponies were NOT on her agenda for that day.

“Okay, girls. Brace yourselves! Here it comes! Nnngg…!!”

A strength only feasible for an alicorn was required. Twilight pushed herself to her absolute limit to muster it. The alicorn took a mental run before launching a metaphorically-speaking arcane spear straight into the breach of the space between the two dimensions, two focal points of space-time becoming a passage through which Twilight hoped to get a good glimpse of what awaited beyond the confines of their world.

The concentric runic circles saw their contents changed one last time before shattering into a stunning work of light show, the remnants of the screening spell coalescing into flickering particles and tendrils of light, all of them raining down like confetti and drawn systematically into a fixed point a few meters above the Cutie Map where the singularity slowly solidified.

Anyone familiar with the subject would have been ripping their mane out in chunks, for such law-breaking phenomena was well known to be the epitome of destruction in the known universe. However, Twilight’s control remained absolute, barely a breeze being lifted up under the singularities’ influence, whipping the ponies’ manes and tails carelessly into the current, all of them too transfixed to pay it a single thought.

‘It's working it’s working it's workiiiing!! Celestia, I did it!!!’ Twilight chanted inwardly, peeking through her lidded eyelids to get a glimpse of her creation, marveling with deep pools of lavender at the product of long weeks of back-breaking studying. She allowed herself a few seconds of self-celebration before closing them back and bringing her entire focus once more to the game.

The true weight of the strain in the continuum started then to manifest. The craziest of mirror shows transpired in the room as the singularity solidified further, chipping and clawing at the dimensional barriers while self-containing the effects under its gravitational influence… In laymare’s terms, preventing space-time from blowing itself outwards. If a pony were to look to their side, they would be able to see the translucent shadow of their own back play in front of their eyes, since the gravitational pull was strong enough to bend the very light emanating from it into a circular orbit looping around it. Seconds, minutes, hours… time stopped making sense inside the room.

“This is soooohohohow wacky!” Rainbow, having noticed said phenomena, chanted to herself as she saluted her own mirror self at her left.

Twilight felt the spell take over the brunt of the work more and more with each second it solidified a constructive casing over the singularity. Feeling reassured of her progress, Twilight simply let go and allowed the rest to unfold as planned, the brunt of her participation done for a much-needed time-out.

Cutting the flow of magic from her core, she took a big gulp of air to regain her steady breathing, her magic reserves having suffered from a prominent, albeit staged drain. The only thing left for her to do was guide the bridge into its inevitable conclusion, pitching in where the spell might drift off and consolidating the gap the singularity was drilling into the fabric of space-time.

“Almost there, guys!!” Twilight called over the flashes and roar of the very space breaking and folding in front of them. The humming had grown to almost painful levels, the amounts of magic summoned and swirling around the focal point rivaling that of the magic summoned by the alicorn sisters when moving their respective astral bodies.

What had begun with a single spot of light hanging in the air above the map was soon stretched into a thin wound in the fabric of the continuum, its contents still of pure white light but soon to be upgraded to alien landscapes and, even better, civilization if Twilight hit jackpot. Around the ample room, waving tendrils of raw energy materialized and clashed back into oblivion against the singularity’s self-induced event horizon.

It was only a matter of seconds before the first rays of sunlight, born from a totally different sun, warmed the eager ponies in an unimaginable, wordless invitation into uncharted waters.

‘It’s working. Oh, Celestia, it’s working!!!’

Twilight was beyond herself. She had done it again. Since the day she’d finished Star Swirl’s unfinished spell, she hadn't felt such elation for an accomplishment. She was redefining the limits of knowledge, and rewriting history with every whip of her horn that preceded a correction in trajectory and pace.

The consolidated fissure had reached the height of a standing pony at the moment it began to grow in width. The ponies could almost see it. Covering their ears from the roar of the spell, they could almost feel the rays of an alien sun tickling the sensitive hairs of their snouts, all of them hanging at the edge of their thrones.

‘Come on come on come on come oooon!!!” Twilight was growing borderline mad with impatience, needing to put her wings into motion so as not to fall muzzle first into the edge of the map. At her side, Spike had curled into a little ball of scales, the light show too much for the young drake to handle.

Any second now. Any moment now as the humming grew to the point the ponies could physically feel it dragging them down into their seats.

‘Come on come on come on, it’s almost there!! Come on come on come o-’

*CRACK!!!*

A failsafe triggered, the spell warning Twilight through the ripples of the Aëther that something had gone wrong. Another one followed before the alicorn could register the first warning. The feedback loop was deteriorating at an increasing pace, its hold on the singularity disintegrating faster than the alicorn could keep pace with it. The freed energy fell back to feed the growing fissure, pushing the magic deeper into the rupture against Twilight’s commands.

‘No… Nononononono no no NO!!!’

Perhaps Twilight had grown too confident in the ability of her masterfully crafted spell to take the brunt of the feedback. Perhaps too many sleepless nights of work had produced a miniscule mishap in her careful spell-assembling. She’d reasoned that a confined, physical mind couldn’t take the entire magnitude of the dimension breaching by itself, hence the uppermost layer of the spell assuming the drillwork for the mare. She only needed to deliver the initial push and guide it; nothing more, nothing less.

Now, her masterwork was literally disintegrating in front of her shrunken eyes. That wasn’t what tugged at her heart and filled her veins with ice though, but the presence of her friends, who were quickly catching up on the fact that something was not going accordingly.

“T-Twilight?” Fluttershy whimpered, her sacred voice barely audible above the roaring of the unstable rift, her flowing tail curling around herself.

Twilight was unable to look at the pegasus in the eye and tell her that everything was under control, since a powerful wave of raw power shook the entire castle and its inhabitants all over the place, the ponies being catapulted out of their thrones as raging wings began lifting up in an out-of-control funnel.

“Oh no. Nononono this is bad! Bad bad bad!!” Rainbow’s keen experience in weather phenomena sponsored her to cry out in apprehension, quickly shaking the brief dizziness away and launching herself into the air, hoping to diminish the strength of the funnel by flying laps against its flow. She was up in the air and bolting around the room before Twilight could warn her of the dangers that doing so might pose. Desperate ties, desperate measures.

There was no time for warnings, either. Twilight had to take back control. Since the magic making up the spell frame was shattering and being drawn into the singularity, she wouldn't be able to reverse the flow and repurpose it for mass teleportation into a safe distance. Her safety and, most importantly, that of her friends, was solely in her hooves now.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid Twilight!! Buck!! How could I’ve missed that?!!’ The alicorn mare scolded herself with hars mental slaps, but not dwelling much in her punishment since time was of the essence. Twilight powered up her horn and took notice of the aëtheric currents flowing erratically around her, building a mental image of the situation before deciding on the best course of action. She deemed the spell frame too deteriorated for any hope of salvaging, meaning she had to focus on stopping the singularity before it could grow out of control. Best case scenario, it’d only blow up half of Ponyville along with it, present quines and drake included.

Worst case scenario, it’d grow out of control until it had swallowed the entirety of Equus with it. Funny, she hadn't considered that outcome.

Oh, Twilight was due for some words with Celestia when she caught ear of this.

But before that funny talk could ever arrive, Twilight only had to overpower a singularity currently obliterating the space-time between dimensions and rein it in until the instability proved too much to keep the feedback loop going, and then forcefully dissipate the outcome of the instability back into the Aëther.

Heck, there was a high chance of causing an aftermath inside the pure-energy dimension where all magic came from that might even stretch so far as to reach the Wellspring. A unicorn or two was in for a nasty headache after Twilight was done.

And, all of this, under her own power.

Twilight had to swallow her previous snark. She’d never had to deal with anything worse than this.

Another tremor shook the glass-like structure that housed them. Fluttershy whimpered in a little, trembling ball while Rarity clung to her both magically and physically, anchoring both of them to the ground. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen, yet her screams of fun and elation clashed horribly against the abhorrence of the unfolding situation. Applejack fared no better, doing her mightiest to hold onto the map and her hat simultaneously, sadly failing at the latter after one nasty gust of air knocked her balance out momentarily.

Rainbow, for her part, ran herself dragged in an unsuccessful attempt to counter the force of the funnel, panting and wheezing at her efforts before the winds proved too much for her and she was lost into the funnel, spiraling hard enough to make the Dizzitron feel like your average carrousel.

“TwiliIiIiIiIight!!”

Spike’s cry of desperation, as he too dug his little claws into his crystal throne so as to not be absorbed into the funnel, was the straw that broke the purple pony’s back. Drawing from her remaining reserves, Twilight threw all caution into the winds that roared in her ears and tried to brute-force her way into the deteriorating singularity. She was an alicorn, the Element of Magic. A stupid out-of-control breach in space-time wasn’t gonna trample her magical might!

Her magic took hold of the breach and, as if stitching up a nasty cut, she began to apply pressure over the unstable singularity, opening pathways for the energy to escape while stabilizing the ruptures the singularity created.

It took ALL of her mental prowess and magical output but, after a minute of intense struggle and desperation, Twilight began to feel some progress being achieved. The mare greeted teeth to the point of chipping them and pulled harder, her horn smoking and about to melt from her forehead if she kept it for much longer.

“Just… a… bit… MORE!!!”

Twilight's efforts, while impressive and unwavering, would be halted dead in their tracks as a sense of weightlessness overcame her senses. For the second time that day, she felt something fall out of her control. This time, it was a tad different, if not more controlling. Like the guiding hoof that had eased her search for a candidate dimension, a presence took over her attempts to end the spell. This time, however, it wasted no breath in subtleties to take over things.

Twilight felt herself lose control over her own magic. A rainbow glow flashed before her peripheral vision, stealing the breath from her lungs and filling her up with a sense of identity she couldn't put her hoof over. Where had she felt this before? A small part of her could've sworn this wasn't the first time she was filled with this presence. Far from it, it reminded her of every time she had to wield the Elements of Harmony, taking the brunt of the girls’ own magic as it mixed with her own to mediate the humiliating defeat of more than one foe that dared to threaten Equestria and its inhabitants.

Twilight had become a passenger in her own body, yet was still able to feel the rift’s nature changing before her eyes. Puzzled beyond reason, she could do little besides hold on and watch, stumped out of her feathers as the properties of her spell, meticulously conceived and assembled by her, were being repurposed for reasons unknown.

‘W-What's going on?!! I can’t control it!!’

It didn't take long before the presence withdrew, nor did it change the unfolding catastrophe that was quickly unveiling before the group of terrified ponies. As quick and sudden as it had appeared, the weird sensation left the alicorn mare to regain control of her spellcasting once more.

Driven by instinct, Twilight wasted not a single thought on it and latched her mental prowess to the unstable flow of magic and resumed her previous attempts, the presence leaving in its wake a sense of urgency foreign to her own bubbling emotions. Almost as if wanting something to happen before the rift collapsed, and having succeeded in ensuring so.

Yes, that’s what it’d turned the singularity into. A rift, prim and proper between this world and the other. Not a window to peek through, not a gentle brush against the dimensional walls, but a gateway through and through in all senses of the word.

Twilight, however, did not realize this ‘small’ tidbit at first, too overcome in her straining efforts as she was. And, even if she had noticed the change of nature, it wouldn't have mattered in the short run. Her sole purpose was to dispel the magic safely and spare her closest friends from becoming new, colorful decorations to paint all over her walls.

It took her loooong, strenuous minutes, but the might of the alicorn princess remained unquestioned. Blinding flashes of wild magic, summed to the deafening roar of the funnel that still breathed life to hurricane winds all around them, blew over Twilight like a minor nuisance in her rock-solid stance, wings flared to keep her steady while she focused on nothing else but the flickering gash of magic burned in her corneas. Her horn ached like Tartarus, her eyes crying tears of strain and effort.

Twilight’s prowess surpassed the instability of the singularity. Piercing like a hot knife through the feedback loop, she tore the flow of magic asunder, using her own castle’s crystalline frame to channel the excess of magic safely toward the earth beneath them.

The map, surprisingly, took the brunt of the cascading output, shining impossibly radiant as the entire building was shaken to its core. The winds slowly died down, the unstable singularity flickering madly as if clinging to its last seconds of life before collapsing into itself with an ear-splitting boom, throwing everypony and dragon against the walls of the Thrones Room, while the memories-filled hanging roots swayed with the threat of crashing down all around them.

With the last dying wails of the singularity bouncing around the ample corridors of the castle, only Twilight had remained on her hooves. Panting, heaving madly, and tendrils of sweat clinging to every square centimeter of her coat. She felt as if she’d just finished the Running of the Leaves’ track ten times over, with all four legs and wings tied, wearing her brother’s full ceremonial armor on top.

She’d done it, though. Exhilaration and pride warred with blood-chilling shame, with a tremendous sense of disappointment as the arbiter. No time for that now, as she had more pressing concerns to attend to, and a hefty round of apologies to deliver before she could lock herself in her room and sulk for a full day or two before tearing her work apart in search of the mistake.

That is, if Celestia didn't confiscate it and bar her from ever delving into it again.

Perhaps that’d be the smartest choice.

“G-Girls?… Girls!! Spike!!” A frazzled Twilight called in a heap of worry, attempting to reach the nearest pony, only for her legs to give up under her, grating her a taste of the map’s radiant edge on her muzzle, making her herbivore teeth clank against the crystalline frame. “Ouch…”

A collection of pained groans at least told Twilight her friends were alive and unscathed… relatively unscathed, anyway. Rainbow had ended up tangled in the ceiling string-like decorations, hanging from her rear limbs in a very unflattering position. Applejack's hat was also trapped near the speedy mare, out of her reach. The now hat-less earth pony owner shook the kinks out from her aching limbs before bringing herself up to her shaky hooves. Her earth pony strength spared her of everything besides some nasty bumps and tumbles.

The same could not be said for the less physically-adept members of the group. Moaning drowsily, with their heads still swimming in thick puree, Fluttershy and Rarity untangled themselves clumsily from the mess of limbs, curls, and feathers they’d ended up being dragged into, the former’s wings having caught some of the funnel’s updraft, culprit of their nasty tumble.

Pinkie had ended up perched high in one of the colorful windows' stools that crowned the upper perimeter of the room, seemingly unphased with a lively grin on her muzzle as she drank in the sights from her vantage point. From the collection of battered mares and one still-missing baby dragon, and wagons-worth of notes and diagrams scattered all over the place like a late-September road littered with dead leaves, Pinke had one thing to say about the picture.

“So pretty!” She celebrated loudly with an echoing clop, earning herself another collective round of groans from her battered friends. Her keen sense of hearing, however, caught an out-of-place note amidst the group’s pained symphony. Soon, her eyes followed herer wars in pinpointing the origin. They landed on something that grounded her curiosity, although she couldn't quite make it out from where she was hanging from. “Heeey, what’s that?” She squinted her eyes at the slumped shape, partially hidden behind Applejack’s throne.

‘What's what?’ Twilight’s slurred mind parroted, the mare trying to thread her thoughts in some semblance of order while nursing down the mother of all headaches with a quick spell. Her nostrils twitched, registering a smoky scent, making her heart skip a beat before she realized it was her own, overstressed horn smoking a little.

… Ouch indeed.

‘I’m so going to hear about this from Celestia…’

With the reassurance that all her friends were at least breathing and conscious… Twilight didn't know what she would’ve done otherwise; she endeavored in the search for her little brother, who hadn't answered her roll call.

She didn't have to search long, for Twilight found the drake curled into a trembling ball of scales and spikes, pressing himself up against the map’s root as tight as his little frame physically allowed. Biting her lip and mentally slapping herself hard for having spooked the being she loved the most besides her big brother, Twilight took the dragon into her gentle grasp and sunk him into her fluffy chest, a fuzzy fortress to shield him from further harm. Twilight threw her forelegs around Spike, setting back on her throne and taking a moment to breathe while reassuring his little brother that the danger had passed, and apologizing profusely for the traumatizing experience.

“I’m so sorry, Spike. It's over now.” Twilight cooed, feeling her apologies empty, but unable to offer anything more solid at the moment.

Sniffling a bit, Spike extracted his crested head from the fluffy embrace to gaze up at his older sister with teary eyes, twisting deeper the dagger already poking at Twilight's heart.

“I-It's fine. I-I wasn't scared.” Spike tried his best to stallion it up as the proud dragon he was, but he wasn't fooling nopony, much less his older sister.

“I’m sure you weren't.’” Twilight emitted an empty chuckle, playing along and smiling warmly at the drake, happy beyond measure that he was fine before squeezing the ever-living daylights out from his smaller frame, nuzzling the green head-crest that had won him his name.

“Agk!” Caught off-guard, Spike did his best to reciprocate, but Twilight's new-found earth pony strength was preventing him from little more than fighting down scarce gulps of air down the ol’ pipe.

“Uh, Twilight? Sugah?”

The southern, dragged-out drawl from Applejack spared the young dragon from an early, fluffy grave as Twilight broke the embrace in search for the farm mare. Peering up from beyond the map rim, she found all five mares having regained their hoofing and assembled around a point beyond the circle of thrones, all gazing down at something with cocked heads and a shared sense of unfamiliarity, but the map’s height prevented Twilight from catching sight of it. Rainbow had untangled herself and, ruffling her feathers into their proper place, was the last to join the group of gawking ponies with a puzzled snort, returning Applejack’s missing hat.

“Huh? What’s that?”

Another echo of Pinkie's previous inquiry from the newest member of the Wonderbolts. Running one last exploratory search on Spike to make sure he was, indeed, out of danger, Twilight’s quickly-cast spell revealed no visible damage on his scaly body, internal or otherwise. Her baby brother was one tough drake.

Twilight rested the dragon down on his claws and rose from her throne, too drained to lift herself on her wings, opting to take the long way around the map to join the girls.

Her mind ran wild with possibilities, climbing up a treacherous wall in the road to piece together what had gone awry with her arrangements of spells. And what was that strange presence that had dominated her? Had it worked out things for better, or for worse? She was not going to ping the responsibility for this historical buck-up on anypony but herself, but the strange, unwelcome notion simply had taken root in her mind.

She’d delve into it later, but further elucidations would have to wait, for what initially amassed to be a small twinge of trepidation soon surged into a sea of angst that melted through her steady resolve like a volcano’s pyroclastic flow. Twilight pushed all thoughts of her misfired spell aside the moment she found the target of her friends’ immediate curiosity.

Like a ragdoll’s, the alicorn’s wings sagged and flopped down at her sides. Her breath hitched in her throat, and her heart went on strike to deliver her a stroke on point. Pinprick-like orbs gazed with incredulity from within the free space between her restless friends at the image of a lone creature slumped into a heap on her floor.

A creature she quickly recognized very well from her numerous endeavors into ponykind's scarcely-recorded, almost forgotten past. Sprawled messily over her floor as it was, Twilight fired the connection in an instant, for his overall frame and constitution was an instant match in her mental library, as if the clothes masking the entirety of his body weren't a small-enough suspicion.

Twilight knew the story of Dream Valley, the birth and subsequent demise of the first big pony civilization before they began to colonize continental Westria as a whole. And, cardinally, she knew of the strange creature, arrived from a realm unknown, who aided the ponies in such an endeavor, bringing the fate of Dream Valley to its inevitable conclusion.

‘... A human.’

“Hey, it’s moving!”

Following Pinkie's announcement, the creature, slumped down awkwardly in its bipedal archetype, found enough of a footing to drag itself to a resting position against the nearby wall, droning a long, resounding wince emanating from within clenched, omnivorous teeth.

Hanging hazardously from its back, what Twilight could only guess was some kind of saddle bag barely clung to the left shoulder, a part of its contents having spilled out in an unorganized clatter around it where the zipper had failed at its purpose.

‘No, not it. Him.’ Twilight corrected herself.

The descriptions in those old tomes were detailed enough to grant her some clues about the creature’s identity as he slowly brushed the spots from his eyes and tucked his legs against his chest, his breathing coming in short, pained gasps while the world slowly pieced itself out around him.

Short, brown hair, twisted and tangled as a byproduct of the wild ride he had just been through. Rounded, flat nose drove a bridge between two small, chocolate-brown eyes dancing in their sockets with the dizziness of a roller coaster ride’s aftermath. A flat mouth, not a semblance of a muzzle anywhere, stretched over his features in a long, pained hiss, a set of four canine teeth peeking through the corner of his lips.

No fur beyond a short mane and a sickly amount of hair clinging to his face in the shape of a stubbly beard. The rest of his body was covered completely in clothes of foreign identity, but Twilight needn't peek around to know it harbored no natural coat of any kind.

Big, bulky frame, narrow hips, flat chest, facial hair, short mane… This one was a male, a young one at that, but Twilight could only throw her guesses blindly. She took a whiff of the air, registering a similar scent that most stallions exuded, cementing her initial analysis on the creature’s sex.

Breathing old, dusty descriptions into life did sum up to an eye-opening experience for the well-read mare. Alas, far from feeling joy or elation after cementing a legend with proof and facts, a pit of infinite depth settled in the alicorn's stomach as she slowly came to terms with what had just transpired within the walls of her castle.

Not a window, but a rift. And it had worked.

‘No… Nonononono NO NO!! Faust above!! That’s impossible!!’

“Is it alright?”

“What the hay is that supposed to be?!”

“Are those… clothes?”

“Oh my, I hope nothing is broken. You poor thing!”

The creature finished rubbing the spots out of his eyes, his entire body shaking from the crash of adrenaline under the clothes, the aftermath of the ride acting up to spike each and every one of his survival instincts and send them into overdrive. The ponies had begun to become restless in their small circle, none uttering a word as they followed each of the creature’s slugged movements, seeking to unearth the strange being's nature and intentions.

Twilight had to step up before things escalated further with her friends and the disoriented human… well, more than what they already had. Wiggling some room with her wings in between Applejack and Fluttershy, Twilight stood a hesitant beachhead at the apex of the semicircle of ponies, running a wild search within her ample mental repertoire for a protocol, a set of instructions… a manual? Anything that might reveal the next step she needed to take.

Needless to say, she came up with nothing but an empty mind and profound sense of dread. She’d have to wing the first ever-recorded contact with an extra-equestrial being in their current age. Just like that, out of the horseshoe.

While the purple alicorn chipped at her hooves with a raw wagon of nerves running her rugged, the human felt himself reconnecting with the waking world. The unfamiliar creature's breath hitched down to a series of short panicking gasps and winces when his dancing vision cleared enough to paint his blurry surroundings in glorious two and so diopters, but clear enough to see the impossible unfolding before him.

He casted a few, darting glances around himself. He drank in his unfamiliar surroundings before his entire frame stiffened like a popsicle when met face-front with a collection of strange, miniature equines of sorts, all standing in a circle around him, eyeballing him with unsettlingly big, expressive eyes. Waaaay too expressive for an animal, yet he felt like the newest piece of their local museum.

Back to Twilight, she was ready to blow the entire box of fuses under her strained smile.

‘Celestia’s mane, Twilight!! Pull yourself together and do something!!’

“Uh…” Twilight, running on a blank sheet, sought to at least enact the simplest form of contact with the creature, before she lost her cool and crumbled down into a pathetic pile of apologies and nerves and more apologies.

The human, for she had recognized him to be, fixed his smaller eyes on her, shrinking down under the control of some instinctive fear.

With a careful step, Twilight dressed herself in her warmest, most inviting smile before exchanging the first words between their respective species since eons past.

“H-Hello there, um… Are you okay? Can you understand me?”

Far from her intended goal, the human only recoiled more from the princess’ gentle advances, trying to press himself against the wall and up his unsteady feet so as to escape her slow approach as if a hungry cheetah about to pounce on his neck. The castle’s crystal composition prevented him from a swift run, making him slide back down his butt with a grunt of strain. Twilight took notice of his deep apprehension and rooted herself, reasoning best to wait for a positive reaction from him before trying again. She was unsure if he could ever understand her, much less answer in kind.

Her friends waited assembled around her, leaving the panicking human without a clear escape route, as he was quick to realize Seven heads cocked to the side curiously when the human reached for a pocket inside his disheveled jacket, extracting in a jelly-like grasp what they all easily recognized as a pair of glasses tightly clenched in his blunt claws. A colorful myriad of eyes widened in wonder when they saw the creature use his claws to gently, but surely open them before resting them over his eyes, blinking hard and shaking his head to dispel the cobwebs he believed still clung to him, playing games on his field of vision.

Opening his eyes back to the world, the human was met with the exact same nightmare as the one his blurry vision had provided just prior. That couldn't be right. Simple, he just had hit his head hard on that tender spot behind the ear, and was now seeing things while lying prone over the sidewalk. Perhaps a bus had run him over in his absorption over the phone screen. This was just all a crazy concussion-induced dream. Soon, these weird horses will blur out and become concerned passersby helping him up. And this strange, crystalline room will become the tunnel he had been crossing under.

Yeah. He was sure of it, the only conscious thought he was able to build as panic took hold over him. He tried again for good measure, taking off the glasses and whipping them clean on the seam of his shirt before placing them back over his nose.

Alas, no amount of blinking would dispel the alien landscape unfolding before him, making the tremors dominating his body redouble with the intensity of an earthquake, preventing him from air and reason.

The human recognized the purple pony… talking purple pony’s question in perfect, crystal-clear english. She was seeking communication. Armstrong's speech, on the day he landed humanity on the moon, became a source of inspiration. There was only one thing a human could come up with after landing on his ass in a new world, words which would go down in history!

“........ Huh?”

In an ancient cavern, erased from text, word, and living memory until very recently, an ancient spirit stirred in her slumber. This world, this land she tended for, had experienced its fair share of excitement in recent times.

The spirit foresaw this, and acted accordingly. Yet, unlike her sisters beyond the mirrors, the spirit would not leave any thread unattended, leave any chance to the wind.

An old command resonated within her, older than the world’s history, older than reason itself. Her purpose was as many as it was one. And to achieve it, she wouldn't stay idle. Her sisters, at first, had tried for none. Then, they tried for one. When that failed, they tried for many. All tales ended the same. Far and in between were the occasions where the pieces did not leave the board, the Lifebringer’s work remained true to the path.

She would not stand idly and sway to the whims of fate, as her chosen, physical form would lead one to believe. The Game had been played by her rules since the dawn of magic, and will continue to do so until the Lifebringer deemed it otherwise.

Her gift was foresight, her reach was limitless. An endless sea of possibilities. She conveyed with her sisters beyond the reaches of space and time. She felt this world’s fate stir and change on her roots. Her sisters did not agree with her, yet the time for action was nigh.

The spirit made a mistake, she was forced to do so. This one will have to do.

With the addition of the last player, a new chapter of Game was ahoof. With him, came the tipping point, the dawn of a new era.

Before her, it begins. Just like it had begun, and will begin anew.

Your time has come, Traveler. Fulfill your destiny…

…

And the world would change forever.

Author's Note

Hey there. For those coming from TSOL, welcome to the promised prequel. To those new, go check this fic's sequel first if you want some noteworthy G5-based HiE content. Reading the sequel first is recommended, albeit not mandatory (specially since it's not finished yet)

Chapter 1- The intricacies of world jumping.

“........ Huh?”

“Wow, that was inspiring…” Rainbow Dash deadpanned with a disappointed ruffle of her wings, earning a chiding tail slap from a disapproving Applejack, who rubbed a hoof over her ear so as to clear any cogs preventing her from making sense of the weird… monkey-thing gazing up at them with fear-struck eyes.

“Are you quite sure he understood you, darling?” Rarity stepped in with her own puzzled tip of her head, squinting her eyes as she buried her attention more on the clothes covering the creature's entire body than the quaking human in question. “Mmmm, perhaps he has a concussion?”

Oh, simply nothing but good news flying around! Twilight's stomach made a bad churn. She could feel the contents of that morning's breakfast knocking on the door on their way out, feeling overwhelmingly surpassed by the rising tide of her inadequacies. Words were stolen from her, an unheard-of event. She didn't know what to do except take a page from Discord and cosplay as a statue in the Royal Gardens while eyeballing the poor human, who was one small pony talking perfect English away to piss himself from sheer fright.

Was he injured? Her snout twitched, catching no scent of blood around any of the gathered creatures. Internal bleeding, perhaps? Yeah, that would be fun to remedy without professional help or hindsight. Was he even fully conscious and aware of them? The way the human was darting his small eyes all over her friends around made it look as such.

Twilight didn't need to open an investigation to understand that this ‘specimen’ had been expelled from the rift against his will. Most likely, he was simply an inhabitant of the same world that she’d been trying to screen. Now, to Twilight, it made a lot of sense that that particular dimension had been the easiest one to latch on and pierce, since according to the old stories of their kind, this wasn't the first time their worlds had met.

Or at least, a world from which a human had come. Was this human even from that same world? Twilight’s fleshy hard drive, humming loudly behind her aching horn in a mind-shattering headache, was running out of space trying to fit the millions of questions plaguing her.

“Girls,” Fluttershy stood up from within the group. Her boundless kindness and insight into creatures big and small was doing the talking for her, while the rest of the mares could add little more than wonder and cautious weariness.

However, Fluttershy was not a mare to stand idle and allow a poor creature to suffer alone if she could remedy it, regardless of its looks, or any potential danger it might bring her. More and more to her, this languid creature was on the brink of passing out rather than posing any real danger to her or her friends.

Exuding a surge of confidence and initiative normally alien for the usually shy mare, she bridged the gap between the disoriented human and their entourage, planting her haunches on the floor just shy of a hoof’s reach from his slender rear legs, or at least that’s what she believed them to be. Perhaps just legs, there’d be time to debate terminology later.

The yellow mare sibilated over her shoulder back to the stunned ponies. “This poor thing is gonna pass out if we don’t ease up. So, pleeeeeease, step back… i-if you don't mind…” A shimmer of her normal, retracted self breached through, bringing down her long mane to partially hide her face. Alas her concern for their newest guest quickly overthrew her shyness. The human, watching her in a steady approach towards him, kicked dirt back into high gear and tried to put as much distance between them as the wall allowed, settling back down when the small pony sat herself in front of him, finding insufficient perch to aid him up on his trembling legs.

He sensed no ill intentions from her, but weariness dominated his every action and thought, a poor state of mind blurry anu actions taken.

The human was too absorbed in taking in his surroundings while making sure to track every individual hair of each and every one of the miniature horses eyeballing him like a piece of meat to notice his consciousness slowly-but-steadily detaching from his body while a strange, claggy feeling began slithering up from his limbs and toward his chest to choke the air out of it. It was almost as if he was suffering from nitrogen poisoning, an experience he was familiar with.

Twilight, like the rest of the mares, was initially floored by Fluttershy’s initiative, a sense of shame blindsiding her and punching her gut hard, making her wings sag and ears droop on her scalp. She was the Princess of Friendship, for Luna’s sake! If there was one pony in this wide, green land who was supposed to welcome and reassure new visitors, interdimensional or otherwise, it was her.

Instead, her legs remained rooted as she watched from the sidelines like an ordinary passerby enjoying the latest catastrophic event befalling their cozy home of Ponyville, stiffly joining the mares and dragon in Fluttershy’s request for some space as they widened the tight circle they were unaware they’d assembled around the human.

The pegasus mare in question tried her best to address the creature with her most soothing, critter-friendly voice, the one she’d use only at first before bringing in the ‘Stare’ when the baddest, meanest denizens of the Everfree Forest were reluctant to play nice. While physically unable to press himself further into the wall, the creature at least wasn't lashing or clawing his way out, as had been the unfortunate case of some of Fluttershy’s most troublesome patients. She knew very well that no creature was more dangerous than a cornered one, and that's exactly what the human’s most feral instincts were screaming at him to unleash.

On the other hoof, Fluttershy could also clearly discern the spark of intelligence in the creature’s eyes behind his foggy, black-rimmed glasses; assuming the fact that he was wearing glasses and clothes over him like your average Manehattinite pimp-pump was any real clue as to his sapience.

That didn’t mean she was going to treat him any differently, though. A creature in distress was a creature in distress no matter what they looked like or what they happened to wear over them. Fluttershy could only hope her wisdom on the caretaking of critters could aid her, and by extension, him.

“There, there,” She cooed softly, lowering herself onto her stomach in front of the creature's folded legs, wearing her most gentle-est smile as a wing reached outward slowly to pet one of the human’s legs. “It’s alright. There’s nothing to fear,” She sent a hoof to his other leg, hanging it in the air as she waited for a silent approval from the human before patting the limb gently, thrilled when she found no semblance of aggression in his teary eyes. Fluttershy took in the feeling of the cloth covering the limb on her frog. The fabric felt unfamiliar to her, an educated guess since Fluttershy also knew a thing or two about sewing. Her friend Rarity would clue them more into the matter for sure, her task was to assure this creature’s good health first and foremost.

The human fixed his glasses up his weird snout while gazing down at the unsettlingly adorable horse, feeling the hard surface of her hoof gently patting his shin with the reassurance and kindness he’d give to a scared dog under a shower of fireworks. He knew not whether to feel relieved, humiliated, or creeped out of his wits under the adrenaline rush that kept firing in and out of his system.

In truth, a scared, cowering dog was exactly how he felt. Yet, none of the thoughts storming in his swimming head, with the might and insistence of an Atlantic hurricane, could be formulated into words, leaving him an eyestruck and paralyzed mess under the equine’s sudden care, and the rest of the horses’ weary scrutiny.

The human took notice of the wing petting his other leg just at the same time Fluttershy noticed the way he favored his left arm while holding himself up in his semi-seated position against the wall.

Something was indeed wrong with him. “Oh my, does it hurt here?” Fluttershy felt as if she’d gained enough trust to close on him a little further, but her assumptions were proved wrong when, at the first sign of movement, the creature lashed back with a pained cry as he tried to escape her reach.

Her assumptions about his injured arm struck home when, in his attempt to flee, he put too much pressure on his right arm, which gave up from under him as if it were made of jelly, making his escape last for only a brave second before he found himself kissing the floor unceremoniously. His dark, compact bag slithered all the way down from his shoulder while he groaned in agony, his mind ready to dive in for a full swim of obliviousness when that strange sensation pressing down on his chest became too much to ignore. The feeling of his limbs abandoned him with a flick, and the swirling pressure in his chest became one of pain, making the one pulsing from his right arm feel like just a little scratch.

He could’ve sworn he was dying there and then if he hadn’t known better.

“W-Wait…” Fluttershy stammered, blindsided by his sudden lash-out. The pegasus sought to try again, gentler this time, slower, taking all the time the creature needed, but she was sadly interrupted by a patience-drained Rainbow.

“That’s it! I’m getting the tin heads!” She announced firmly, unfurling her wings in readiness to take herself aloft and out of the cramped room. A pang of searing dread snapped Twilight from her stupor, the consequences of anypony besides the present ones learning of the magnitude of this accident painting a haunting image for her and her future. Humiliating depictions of her possible future flipped through her mind like a fast-paced slideshow of embarrassment.

She was sooohohoho going to be shipped off straight to magic kindergarten this time, and she could count her lucky stars if Celestia didn’t cage her under Dimeritium while in class. Her overloaded mind was dragging the alicorn into strange corners of her psyche.

Twilight fumbled over her hooves in a feeble attempt to stop Rainbow, but was simply too drained from her spell casting to put any form of opposition. Thankfully, Applejack beat the alicorn to the task.

“Hold yer horses there, sally,” The farm mare bit down on the prismatic tail and dragged the speedy pegasus down onto her rump with a sharp yelp and an aching dock. “Ah don’t think that there’s a good idea.”

“Why not?!” Rainbow rubbed her rump as her raspy cry made the collapsed human flinch in his collapsed state. Fluttershy was already over him, ignoring his previous reluctance to her proximity while fretting over his slumped form in an attempt to rouse him with soft nuzzles and reassuring words. “It could be dangerous!”

“He’s not dangerous.” Twilight chimed in between the mares, to the surprise of the bickering mares while keeping Spike close to her, both for his safety and her comfort. The confidence behind her words was put into question by the way her half-unfurled wings twitched in readiness to put the Foal Range between her and her little brother and the human at the first whiff of aggressiveness.

She only had old stories and faded tales to draw her assumptions from. Some had painted the previous, and only human to ever step foot on Equus as dangerous and unpredictable, while others shared a different view, a more positive one. One thing was clear in the alicorn’s mind as she took in his poor state, making her feel even more like a flank than she already did over the entire situation and the strain she put her friends under.

“Especially not like this…” She stressed the human's current condition, feeling a soul-wrenching sense of guilt washing over her, carrying the rest of emotions in its wake.

‘What have I done?... Oh, Celestia, what have I done?!!’

“Still! We have to do something!” Rainbow cried, feathers ruffled and her tail lashed angrily behind her, with Applejack rebutting her bull-headedness against the prismatic mare’s impatience, dragging them both into another of their verbal duels around the topic of how best to deal with their most recent guest.

While Rainbow held her grounds despite her weariness, Twilight paid no heed to the bickering pair. More likely, she couldn't. Things were happening too fast, unraveling in a spiral that would swallow her whole if she didn't take the reins. There was no way she could have possibly planned for this eventuality. It simply didn't fit the parameters she had established.

But, even in spite of that, Twilight felt a crippling chill creeping over her hooves while her breaths became more labored and strained the further her royal-sized buck-up sank into her heart, shattering her resolve into a million pieces.

“... -IRLS!!!”

A sharp cry for attention silenced both the alicorn's raging mind and the strong-headed mares’ bickering, a heavy stillness filling the room afterward when nopony dared to even flinch. Fluttershy, having tried to win her friends’ attention several times now, was past being her gentle, shy self, sporting a frown only reserved to rein in Discord when he stepped out of line with his pranking and ‘harmless’ chaos. “This nice creature needs medical attention, fast! I need to go to my cottage for my supplies! I-I don’t think they’ll know how to treat him at Ponyville General!”

The ponies’ collective attentions were herded back to the slumped human, his deteriorating state injecting a new shade of urgency into the already strained atmosphere. Fluttershy had managed to partially move him to his side, but that’s where the good news ended. His chocolate-hazel eyes were glazed over as his lungs took in deep, broken gulps of air through his mouth. The only free contact for air, since rivulets of blood cascaded down both his nostrils. Tremors rocked his bipedal frame, paralyzing fear no longer the sole reason behind the quacking.

Something was terribly wrong with him. Twilight was quick to deduce it as a consequence of his forced journey through the rift. Whether it was his crossing the dimensional barriers, or the nasty tumble that welcomed him to her castle, Twilight could only hazard a guess.

Firing up her horn, she parked the question and her gut-wrenching dread for her free time and ran a screening spell, ignoring the aching of her horn. It was the same one she’d cast earlier to check Spike for any internal damage. The little dragon rode on her back, terrified out of his scales and clinging onto her withers for dear life while daring the occasional peek from behind her mane.

Twilight closed her eyes and allowed her sixth sense to fill her, drowning the rest of the physical world out. She fired the spell, and the information it returned almost made her trip up on her own horn. The good news was the spell hadn’t shown any traces of internal damage as far as his similar, yet still-alien physiology revealed to her.

On the other hoof, however…

‘... T-T-That’s not possible!’

“He has no core!”

Twilight found her own discovery mirrored by the only other magic-sensing-equipped pony in the group. Finishing her own spellcasting, Rarity too had now learned about this bizarre trait of the creature.

“Twilight, he’s void! I can’t sense any magic in him!” Rarity sought an answer from their most magic-literate friend, yet she was met with a blank look that perfectly matched Twilight's take on this new discovery. The old, faded tales spoke of the sudden arrival of a human female, as well as the most distinctive traits that painted her as alien amongst the ponies twilight used to bridge a connection with this one. But the absence of magic being one of those defining characteristics was not amongst the already-thin descriptions around her. Twilight had attributed it to their magic being deeply passive, or simply latent, like a griffon’s or even a mule for that matter!”

Against her beliefs, this human was as devoid of magic as an office potted plant. Heck, even a potted plant had at least something going on! But this? No!

This… This actually explained quite a bit about his deteriorating state.

Twilight changed her spell to screen the aëtheric currents filling the room, revealing a tangled mess of conflicting surges and patterns, not strong enough to manifest in any physical sense in from of light or changes in the air, but it would take a while for the ambient magic to harmonize after that earlier light show. And, to her utter alarm, the swirling magic running rampant treated the human as if he was nothing but furniture. It passed and reverberated around, inside and outside him in random bouts, uncaring, with no trace of a magical core to absorb it or dissipate it safely, much less harmonization of any kind. It was an unnatural phenomena unfurling before her.

The magic was harming him. It was the only explanation she could come up with for the wet bout of coughing that followed his prominent nosebleed, trembling limbs threatening to give up once more from under him.

What was more magical than an alicorn princess in a room full of magical creatures under a very much magically-grown castle made up of magical crystal, grown from a magical crystal tree in a world full of motherbucking magic?!

Yeah. This human was as good as dead if she didn't act fast! But why? Megan had shown no signs of any negative reaction toward magic when she appeared in Dream Valley, had she?. Was it something the story had chosen to omit, or was she perhaps some kind of magically-attuned kind of human?

‘Horseapples! I don't have the answers!’

No time to play detective. Twilight could only come up with one temporal solution, far from her preferred choice of a welcome ceremony. It was time to princess up.

“Fluttershy,” The timid pegasus, on the cusp of crying tears for the suffering human writhing on her hooves, was the first one to be commanded. “Fly to your cottage and bring everything you need back here. If you see Doctor Fauna on your way, tell her that her presence is demanded here, on my personal authority if she needs it.” Not waiting for an answer from Fluttershy, Twilight turned towards Rainbow and Applejack. “Rainbow, go outside and find the nearest guard platoon. Then, bring them back here and make sure that they bring a nullifying collar with them,” She then took a lightning-fast peek at the human. “Griffon-sized… Hurry!”

“What?!” Rarity rose up in protest, hearing about the nullifying collar and not liking it one bit..

“Now hold on just an apple-pickin’ minute here…”

“AJ,” Twilight ignored the farm mare’s attempt at a rebuttal. “I need you to carry him downstairs to the dungeons.”

Yes, the tree-like castle had come with its very own set of cells down in the basement, none having needed to be used until this day, though. “Find the cell with the silver-blue-reinforced bars at the end of the block. It’s Dimeritium-coated. Put him inside that cell and wait for us,” Twilight strained her neck to peer back at the still-clinging dragon. “Spike, go with Applejack. You’re a strong dragon, and she might need your help.”

“B-But, Twilight…” Spike mewled, digging his claws harder into her mane.

Her heart squeezed shut in her chest from Spike’s fearful wimpers. Twilight reassured her little brother with a tender nuzzle on his head crest before gently levitating him off her back and near the aforementioned earth pony mare. “It'll be alright, Spike. I’ll join you both in a bit.”

“Um, Twilight?” Pinkie butted in, having lost her spring and remaining unusually silent this whole time. With an awkward grin, she tried her best not to call out the over-stressed alicorn. “Not to sound like you're acting a teensy tiny bit paranoid, buuuuut…”

“I know what I’m doing, Pinkie!” Twilight cut off Pinkie where she stood with a bossy glare. “I stand by my statements. I don’t believe that he’s dangerous. I’m just trying to help him, not lock him up out of the horseshoe. I need you and Rarity to collect all of his… stuff, and leave it in my bedroom. Please be careful, though; we don’t know what any of his stuff might do!”

“But, sugarcube… What about the platoon of guards?”

Twilight knew how that might cast a contradictory light on her statement. “The rift is gone, but the magic hasn't yet harmonized to normal wavelengths. I fear it’ll solidify back into another feedback loop and open another rift… And this time, I won’t be able to choose what dimension I want to latch on to.” She locked her eyes with the mare’s green ones. “I simply want them stationed here just in case another gap opens. I don’t want anything from the void between worlds slithering through without our knowledge.”

All ponies present felt a sense of foreshadowing dread wash over them. Star Swirl had been keen to stress that was too scared from what he found to paint depictions of the world he managed to connect his mirrors to. However, he did go to great lengths to point out that the space between worlds was, contrary to what he expected, inhabited, and far from a welcome place.

Luna should know about it; the parasite that took hold of her for a thousand years came from that very same place.

“A what in the where now? Wouldn't it be best to simply toss…” Rainbow voiced, only to be met with a commanding leer from Twilight, her patience already wearing thin for further rebuttals. “Y-Yes ma’am,” She curtly conceded, flying out through that very same window she’d smashed on her way in, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake.

Bearing down on Fluttershy next, the silent command was wordlessly communicated to her. While reluctant to part from the creature's side, Fluttershy saw the reasoning in Twilight’s strategy. “Hang in there for a bit longer, please? I promise that we’ll help you.”

With those reassuring words, and an invigorating rub of the creature's short mane, Fluttershy carried herself out of the room on her wings, flying faster than the normally easy-going pegasus was known to partake. Twilight, meanwhile, didn't catch any semblance of a reply from the groggy human. He remained there, leaning against the angled wall of the circular room with a blunt claw over his chest, gripping it tight as if trying to keep everything alive and beating inside him. The other one feebly searched through what Twilight guessed were his pants, patting the cloth at his sides and his butt until seemingly finding what he was looking for, a shade of victory flashing before his unfocused eyes.

“Rarity. Pinkie.” Twilight firmly ushered the mares, not taking her eyes from the human and his movements for a second, who’d now extracted an unfamiliar-looking device from one of his back pockets. Twilight’s curiosity was piqued when he attempted… something with it, perhaps summon a response of sorts from the device by pressing the stubbiest of his foreclaws to the side of the rectangular device.

Whatever the human was hoping to find, a disappointed frown was the only thing that answered his call over the blackened screen, making Twilight wonder what he was trying to achieve in the first place.

Sighing in resignation, he returned it to his pocket before another stinging pain hammered his ribs and caused him to break out into a nasty-sounding fit of coughing.

Pinkie and Rarity obeyed the alicorn without protest, even if they might’ve been harboring private concerns over the human. The unicorns’ dexterity in levitation magic made quick work of the cluttered collection gimmicks and unfamiliar objects, taking them very carefully into her magical grasp and returning them to the abandoned bag. Twilight discerned a bunch of loosely scattered notes not from her own pile, and papers whose contents she wasn't fast enough to discern. Summed to those, an object that uncannily resembled one of the gaming pads from her big brother’s console back at their home in Canterlot, and a pair of long, thick cables that were sporting some inscriptions on their resin or resin-esque surface. Finally, she caught sight of another rectangular device, also black and relatively big in size peeking out from the unzipped side of the bag before Rarity’s magic tucked everything back inside it, closing the zip dexterously.

“Come along, Pinkie,” Rarity ushered the pink party mare, who was in the middle of the hunt for one last device the alabaster unicorn had missed. Taking hold of it from behind Rainbow’s throne where it’d ended up landing, she eyeballed the this-time familiar object with her telltale pep before a light bulb shone over her spongy mane.

“Oooh, Vinyl has one of these too!”

Twilight noticed the resemblance too. They looked similar to the pair of ‘headphones’ that Ponyville’s resident disc jockey would be seen sporting every hour of every day, lost in her ear-splitting ‘wubs’. Not Twilight’s first choice of music, but you know what they say about flanks and likes…

Hooking the pair of headphones over her ears, Pinkie's bubbling expectations came to a disappointing crash when no trail of notes emanated from the earpieces to grace her ears with some kind of extra-equestrial music.

“Aww… no wubs.” Pinkie’s mane deflated a bit before hoofing the headphones to Rarity. Storing them inside the bag with the rest of the stuff, the unicorn ushered Pinkie before marching together outside the Thrones Room. Rarity took the chance to carefully examine the stitching and material that made up the bag, unable to recognize both of them, spiking her own curiosity while Pinkie trailed along, bouncing beside the unicorn and sharing her own, peculiar input to Rarity’s mumbled observations.

“... I trust you know the way,” Twilight then returned to the last remaining two.

“I do.” Spike puffed up, stitching a proud grin on Twilight’s features. The little dragon and Applejack tag-teamed to combat the human’s size as they tried to help get him up and moving.

“Haupff!! Yer a big feller, aren’t ya?” AJ puffed out with strain as she bore the brunt of the human’s weight during the slow and painful progress of lifting him.

Twilight’s hunch was proven correct when she assessed the human's natural, albeit unbalanced stance as a bipedal one. The way his legs folded and back supported him sealed the argument.

The human had towered over them by quite a large margin; an average pony’s head would come in around his lower chest at best, hypothetical horn not included. His clothes weighed down over him into a more natural setting. It was clear that they’d been designed with his two-legged stride in mind. Twilight couldn't help but be mesmerized for the entire second she forgot about her massive screw-up before her mood soured again. She shouldn't be marveling at the sight of a new, alien creature in her castle. He was suffering because of her, after all!

Something she noticed that darkened the colors even more was the fact that the no longer human put up any kind of resistance or reaction to the pony and dragon helping him up. His glazed eyes, ragged breathing, and hunched stance made Twilight think he’d somehow entered some kind of trance or catatonic state as his grip on reality diminished with each passing moment the magic poisoned his alien physiology. More than enough reason for her to act on her own side of the plan.

“Take care, guys. I’ll join you shortly.” Twilight announced before flaring her wings in preparation for lift-off.

“W-Where are you going?!” Spike cried, unaware of her absence in this part of her plan while hurrying to catch up with Applejack and the struggling human.

“There’s something I need to do first. I won’t be long!” Twilight promised, sending her baby brother one parting, reassuring smile before catapulting herself into the heavens, using the smashed window as her impromptu exit before climbing high into the skies.

She had some magic, as well as some steam, to blow off.

Feeling his head fins ripple in Twilight’s turbulent wake, Spike felt utterly lost as to how to proceed. His big sister had always been an anchor of sorts for him. She always knew what to do, and she always came up with an A and B plan in the blink of an eye. She was the smartest of them all, and with good reason.

But now, Spike couldn't remember ever seeing Twilight looking so… so lost. Even while she tried to keep a cool head, she wasn't fooling anypony, much less him, who’d lived his entire life at her side. Spike knew Twilight was winging it at best, swallowing without time to chew things out. In her eyes, he saw the lack of trust the alicorn harbored for her own plan. But, did somepony here have a better course of action?

“Spike!” Applejack hollered, already halfway into the main corridor, using her frame to support the creature’s lancing one, a small trail of crimson being left in their wake as blood kept pouring from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. Underscoring the mare’s call, raspy, labored breaths were everything that came from the human. In his debilitated state, he simply let go, seconds away from passing out where he stood. The feeblest flickers of life were all that was keeping him up and running, but he was unsure how much he’d make it last before succumbing.

With a startle, Spike broke himself free from his bubble and hurried behind the pair, too late to notice the trail of blood before his claws stepped in it, leaving a second crimson trail in the shape of his claw prints to upset the human’s steady one.

The trot down to the dungeons was one of tense silence, save for the occasional fumble and grunt as Applejack and Spike needed to help the creature up from his bloodied knees both of the times his legs had given up from underneath him. His breathing seemed to have stabilized somehow, as had his bleeding, which had stopped on their way down the spiral staircase.

His gait, however, had done nothing but worsen, to the point that Applejack needed to drag his exhausted body into the cell Twilight had advised them of. Being Dimeritium-reinforced, Applejack could feel the unsettling pull on her innate magic, as the magic-nullifying metal tried to rip it away from her, sending an unpleasant shiver down her spine and all the way to her tail.

Brushing off the nauseating sensation, Applejack walked into the cell and carefully lowered the creature onto the bunk hanging from the wall before taking a much-deserved breather. She couldn't be confident of with all the garments covering him snout to tail, but the farm mare was willing to bet her hat that this creature had some serious meat on his bones, regardless of his superior height. She hoped that trait came with a healthy appetite to boot, and that said appetite didn't include ponies in its menu, for while trotting beside him, she had most surely NOT missed his small fangs every time he winced and clenched his teeth in pain.

Liking the back of her hoof, AJ tried to clean the worst of the dry rivulet of blood kissing his upper lip. She’d trust Twilight in her reassurance that this being… whatever it was called, posed no threat to them. And, in case he did, Applejack had a fire-breathing dragon at her side to convince him otherwise. She’d take her chances with her own Bucky McGilacuddy and Kicks McGee back there to buck some manners into him if the need arose.

“Is he going to be alright?” Spike, keeping the cell door open for them, asked with a worried tilt of his head, green, slitted eyes cutting the gloom of the scarcely-lighted cell block.

Applejack needed a moment to ponder, answering back with nothing but the honest truth. “I’m… not sure, sugarcube,” She eyed the pained creature on the bunk, belly up and limbs sprawling down the bunk. His breathing had at least tune down to a more even pace, gorging in his newfound rest as much as the mare did.

With a knot of sympathy in her tummy, Applejack knew that neither her strength, nor her expertise in apples, was not going to add anything more to his recovery. It was up to the rest of her friends now, and if there was a group of ponies she could trust with his life, it was the girls. “I’m gonna stay here an’ keep an eye on ‘im. Y’all skedaddle now and see if Rarity needs some help.”

The prospect of aiding the alabaster unicorn would’ve normally lifted the young dragon’s spirits up to Cloud Nine, but Spike couldn't seem to draw from any kind of joy. Too many things assaulted his young mind to be able to manifest anything besides concern. Concern for the strange creature bleeding all over their floors, concern for his friends who had all miraculously walked out of that madness-magical mess with only a few bumps and bruises to prove it. And, most importantly, concern for his older sister who, in light of this accident, was surely going to be chewed down to her bones and spit back out by the princesses. Especially Princess Celestia.

“Y-Yeah, I… uh,” Casting one last glance at the resting figure, Spike carried on with his new task, opting to trust in Applejack's ability to rein the creature in with her lasso should he try anything unexpected. “I'll leave you to it.”

Leaving behind the musty, darkened corridor of the cell block, Spike pumped his short legs up the long set of stairs and onto the ground floor of the castle, mentally drawing the necessary path he'd have to take to reach Twilight's room on the first floor’s east wing, and hoping he wouldn't get lost three times on the way, as used to be customary of him to do every time he wanted to go downstairs to grab something to eat.

The farm mare sat on her haunches in front of the Dimeritium-reinforced cell, away from the magic-stealing metal’s influence where her earth pony might would’ve been dwindled. Applejack remained as still as stone, pouring her full awareness into the creature in search of any indication of ill intentions, salivating over her grasp on the lasso in her muzzle, waiting with her hat tilted down in business.

She remained stationary for several minutes, with the trickling of filtering groundwater from some nearby crevice counting down the seconds before the strange creature would try to lunge at her or aim for a hasty escape, even though he wasn't exactly a prisoner according to Twilight's commands.

The light shining from the everlasting torches illuminated only a scarce portion of the cells, painting a shadow of his chest slowly heaving up and down while the rest of him remained as immobile as the mare guarding him. For a brief moment, Applejack could've sworn that he’d died in the time it took her to blink the spots from her eyes after too much time digging them into his shadowed outline. To her utmost reassurance, his pained, albeit steadier breathing told her otherwise.

For as much as she wanted to remain on edge, Applejack was having a hard time believing this creature was in any position to bring them harm of any description, and laid down a bit on her zealous guard.

The farm mare was more than accustomed to dancing with the occasional creep from the Everfree Forest that dared to snoop around her orchard, so it was normal for the members of the Apple Family to be the most wary around anything unfamiliar getting too close to her loved ones. Considering her friends were honorary members of the Apple Family, her suspicion taken on the creature would remain until she was proven otherwise.

Fluttershy would aid him, and soon he'd be on his merry way. That's what the farm mare envisioned as a simple one-two, but quickly remembered the small detail pertaining to the creature's origins. AJ didn't need Twilight's brains to reason the well-read alicorn wasn't going to be trying that stunt again anytime soon.

Spitting out the salivated length of rope from her muzzle, as it was starting to hurt her jaws from clamping over it without any hint of action, Applejack sent her first look of true sympathy over their newest arrival.

“... I'm afraid yer gonna have tuh stick it up with us fer a little while, partner.” She spoke in a gentle voice, feeling her heart reaching out to him, unsure of expecting any kind of answer from him. “We're good folk, so you needn't worry. You play nice, and we'll see ya home in a jiffy, deal?”

“... Nnnnggggmmfff…”

A chuckle rocked Applejack's chest. That's all she was gonna get from the tall fella, it smelled to her.

She could only pray that her friends would hurry, and that there was something they could even do for him. Whether he’d play nice or go around trying to gnaw on somepony rear, the cowmare wanted to hear it from his muzzle.

That is, if he even could.

‘... Does he even speak Equish?’

High above Ponyville’s skies, a purple projectile was precipitously climbing in a straight line towards the endless blue and the blinding sun, trying her hardest to put as much distance between her and her castle as her ruffled wings would grant her.

Twilight knew that it was best to do this until she’d burned off all the excess magic she’d accumulated in her core, tiring herself even more in the process, yes, but she didn't want to risk it more than she already was. Her friends could handle any unexpected event that might step in their way while the mare was making herself safer.

Deep down, however, the true, unmasked force driving her wings into overdrive was one born from shame, and a need to flee away. To run far, far away, where her friends and mentors wouldn't find her, where Twilight wouldn't have to face the disappointment that surely awaited her, or the scolding that would follow to drive her down all the way. She had bucked things up good and proper, perhaps her biggest mess since the day her neurotic side drove her to enchant that doll and drive half of Ponyville’s residents under the spell’s influence to an all-out war. Some ponies still wouldn't let her live it down to this day. Twilight couldn't imagine what would come out of this one the moment other ponies learned about it.

Of the things that she could be sure about, the first and foremost would be kissing her princess status goodbye. No ruler of the land should be granted such a tremendous amount of responsibility after such a selfish catastrophe. Twilight could count her lucky stars if her alicornhood wasn’t stripped from her right behind her title. And, to top it all off, she’d sooner use the lack of wings to throw herself off of Rambling Rock Ridge than face the moment that a censorship bill on her magic-using permits left Celestia’s muzzle, to prevent her from attempting any form of magic above using telekinesis to wipe her flank.

A bergantina's worth of knots weighed her stomach down, making her feel as if she’d just wolfed down a baker's dozen of Applejack’s infamous ‘baked bads’ and washed them down with expired milk. Tears clung to the corners of her eyes, being carried off into mist within the rushing winds as she cut through them all to join the puffy clouds that parted in her path.

If magic was indeed toxic to the human, she was the LAST thing he needed to be close by, much less to offer any help to him through her magic. Twilight felt her own selfish desires to shift the blame rising against her mental defenses, forcing her swiftly cast all thoughts of repercussions aside. She was a grown mare, and she would deal with her mess up according to how her betters saw fit to apportion to her, as much as it made her heart want to leap out of her throat and knock back sense into the mare.

Until the moment for that arrived, her utmost priority should be helping the human she’d just stranded in their world, both in the short and long run, for Twilight would under no condition attempt to bridge the dimensional barriers to find him a way back anytime soon. At best, she’d try again after stripping her spell to its basics and finding the reason everything had gone to Tartarus. And, once she’d done that and parched it, she’d hoof the specifications of her spell to Celestia and let her take charge of his return. There was no way on Faust’s green Equus she was going to be the reason for another buck-up of similar dimensions, she had enough under her belt already.

Two world-threatening scenarios per year were their norm, and she’d just filled the second slot that morning. The princesses would know what to do with him. They always had the answers her endless hours of book-delving couldn’t provide her with.

“GrrrrrrgggGAAAAH!!!”

Twilight flung herself face-first into a nearby cumulonimbus cloud, both seeking to hide herself from the world as well as using the best substitute for her pillow to scream, bite and cuss to her heart's content. She had more than just simple magic to vent explosively from her system.

The poor cloud was subjugated to an unfair, royal-sized treatment from one utterly and unilaterally pissed-off alicorn. Pissed at herself, her ineptitude, her selfishness, and at fate overall, ‘cause you can always curse fate and it won’t make you feel any better. The nimbus, big and puffy enough to cast a considerable shadow over the homely town above which it floated after escaping the local weather mare’s hunt, was reduced to a pathetic wisp of white powder barely big enough to withstand a panting Twilight once she’d concluded her ‘tender’ treatment in her efforts to take her ire out on the punching bag that her new pegasus properties allowed clouds to become.

“Stupid! Stupid! Moronic! Brainless! Doltish! Dull-witted! Dumbflank! GAH!!” Each time Twilight mashed her muzzle and hooves into the cloud, a lightning bolt escaped the other end. The ponyvillians were lucky that the cloud had drifted away from the population’s nucleus, although Cheerilee would have her own choice of questions as to why the top of the Ponyvlle’s school bell now looked, and smelled, like a charred, smoking burrito.

During her flight and the little tantrum with the poor cloud, Twilight had managed to burn off most of her excess magic and collect herself into something more akin to her usual levels, if not a bit under. She felt like she could do better, but reasoned that it was best to keep at least something in the tank, just in case. She’d need to wear lead horseshoes and skip-hop with every step she needed to tread around the human she’d inadvertently dragged into their world.

At any signs of magic poisoning, she’d put several walls of her castle between the two. At least, that way she wouldn't meet his eyes once he had battled the dizziness to understand what the hay had just happened to him, and who was to blame for it.

The tale of Dream Valley had taken residence in her, tainting every thought she could amass about the human while Twilight brought her breathing under control, laying belly up on the fluffiness the cloud provided. She let the climbing sun blind her and force her eyes shut in a rare moment of peace, while her ears flickered under the ticklish caressing of the cloud supporting her head. The shapes her oversaturated cones painted over her shut eyelids were strange, dancing and tilting in a gradient of colors, but not distracting enough to make her shed an iota of angst.

The figure of the human female from the tales of ponykind’s early beginnings was a tainted one, even while remaining basically unknown to everypony except the few bookworms and ancient history geeks deranged or bored enough to even read that far into their collective history. Manuscripts and scholars agreed on her general looks and overall take on the ponies, painting the figure of Megan as a two-legged being, capable from the sweetest of gestures to the most unthinkable of acts.

Some attributed the destruction of Dream Valley to her, while others argued that she was the only reason ponykind even came out of what they thought was their promised land in their earliest dawn. The further and more convoluted the tale disentangled, so did it become blurry and inconsistent.

Twilight knew better than to put all her eggs into one basket, the basket of old legends this time. Her own instincts and a cool head would do the speaking for her, not a raw-nerves dressed mare.

Alas, she wasn’t exactly feeling cool-headed at the moment. Quite the opposite actually, with some tendrils of steam becoming too hot under her flaming self to remain attached to the cloud and wisping away. A few minutes more, and Twilight would’ve drilled a literal hole in her fluffy companion. A couple more after that, and she’d burst out in flames like that one time.

Gosh, it felt like a lifetime had passed since then. And, in all that time, Twilight had made all manner of colorful mistakes, most of them ending in well-meant lessons she carved into her heart and the reports she’d sent Celestia weekly… or bi-weekly if it happened to be due, to her friends' insistence.

Yep, that had been one major whoopsie. But this, this, put even her own crown to shame.

“Ooooh. What am I going to do? What am I supposed to do now?!” She chanted over and over to herself, pulling down on her eyelids and kicking her rear legs. She hoped that repetition would somehow give birth to an answer out of sheer willpower and stubbornness. There’s this thing about madness being defined as constant repetition and expecting different results, but Twilight's hooves couldn't get a better hold in her panic-induced state.

The harsh reaction that the human had presented after he crossed the bridge between worlds… Faust above, he was bleeding all over her castle!! But, her spell told her that he was unharmed on the inside. Possibly. Probably. Could she even trust that spell to work on a human? Could she even trust magic to work on him overall? Perhaps her use of magic on him had only worsened his condition!

It pained Twilight to no end to admit it, but, just as her mastery in magic was undisputed, so was the fact that she was a four-left-hoofed mare without it. Her friends, Rarity included, were a hundred times more resourceful than she was when the problem fell beyond the reach of magic. And no amount of brains and books were enough for Twilight to step out of her comfort zone and open her mind to non-magical workarounds and options. That’s why she trusted her friends to care for the human until she could come up with a better solution. That, and the fact that as the most magical-infused of them all, her nearby presence could pose more of a liability than anything a helping hoof.

Any questions about the human and the world he dwelled from, which were already plentiful enough to fill a small chest, would have to be delivered through non-magical means, such as old, boring letters while she served a sentence in Magic Kindergarten. Sadly, there’s only so much you can fit in a letter, and Twilight was not a mare known for her patience when it came to learning new things.

“Ha!” She cried raspily through teary eyes. “That’s assuming he even wants anything to do with me after he learns of what I’ve done to him.”

Another corner of the issue Twilight dared not carve into. If her friends and the princesses were going to be upset with her, she couldn't even imagine the human’s reaction when he learned she’d virtually stranded him on his flank in a completely foreign world, in essence more than likely poisonous to him in many ways as she’d only recently observed, without the slimmest notion of how to return him safe and limbed within the feeble chance of an opportunity presented itself for a loooong while, if ever.

Even worse, the human still had to pull through before even seeing that slim chance come to fruition, and things were not looking green for him.

“... Sniff. No, not magic kindergarten. I’m heading straight for the Moon…”

“Egghead.”

“GAH!!”

In her startle, Twilight sent her wings flying, dispelling the last remains of the cloud from under her back and plunging herself into a freefall, before flapping up to meet Rainbow with an unamused scowl and crossed forelegs, the speedy pegasus barely able to keep it in behind a crooked muzzle.

“Pffff-BWAHAHAHAHA!!”

The prismatic mare lasted for a full three seconds of stone face before rolling over in the air, cackling like a mad hen while Twilight simply huffed and flicked her hanging tail, waiting impatiently until the laughing fit had run its course. Oh, she’d get her back. Twilight had a long list of pending pranks to cash in, but as of right now, she was far from being in the mood for Rainbow’s usual nonsense.

“What do you want, Rainbow?” Twilight snarled at the pegasus through gritted teeth, feeling the vein in her forehead ready to pop out.

“S-Sorry, sorry. Aheh.” Rainbow apologized, spitting a few last laughs while wiping her eyes, wet with her amusement. “I just came looking for you. The guards are in position guarding the Thornes Room. You wanted this, right?”

Twilight then noticed a rune-carved metal collar hanging loosely from one of Rainbow’s fetlocks. An inhibitory collar. Currently deactivated, it followed the same principle as a ring for a unicorn's horn, but sized up for larger, hornless creatures like griffons or diamond dogs, even though the latter had little innate magic that needed to be blocked out. Nonetheless, it was as good a temporary measure as any, or so Twilight hoped. It’d chase the ambience magic from the human and prevent it from pooling inside, tearing him asunder in the process.

“Good,” Twilight grumbled, taking the offered collar in her hoof since magic would have little effect on it. “Have you seen Fluttershy returning? I think I’ve loosened enough magic to at least stand nearby without making things worse.”

“Actually…” Rainbow rubbed the back of her mane as her wings kept her aloft. “The girls are all downstairs with the creature already. You’ve… uh… you’ve been up here for a while…”

‘Great…’ Twilight deadpanned inwardly, resigned to the fact that everything was going to go wrong today.

“Then let’s not waste another moment,” Twilight uttered in short, letting gravity take hold of her and plunge her on a free dive toward the ground, aiming her muzzle at the unmistakable shape of her castle while letting her wings carry her in the stream.

“H-Hey!” Blindsided by Twilight’s suddenness, and far from liking being left behind, Rainbow pumped her wings to catch up behind the purple alicorn.

The short glide back took the winged mares above the bustling streets of Ponyville, lined with numerous thatched houses and more than one colorful business. With the early hours of the morning quickly flying by, the market was in full bloom with the town’s residents skipping from post to post, filling their bags with as many goodies and delicious treats as their hearts desired.

In other words, your usual rural landscape, nothing but good news to Twilight, for it seemed her failed experiment and little stunt in leaving the confines of her castle in a heap hadn’t raised a mass flood of panicking ponies, either storming her place in demand of answers or fleeing the town altogether. However, some wayward chatter reached the mares on short fragments. Ponies were wondering what the heck had been that tremor that had shaken the town.

‘Good. Better to keep that accident and the human out of the public eye for the time being. At least, until the princesses can take a look at him.’

Twilight prayed Celestia would continue being the neverending well of wisdom that had always sponsored her since her days as a filly under her personal tutelage. The scandal that would ensue was the least of Twilight's concerns. In her irresponsibility, she’d appointed herself as the mare in charge of not only fixing her mistake and returning the human to where he belonged, but of guaranteeing his safety and wellbeing until then.

Being a princess meant that she'd have more than enough resources to tackle both issues at the same time. What tugged at her withers the wrong way was how the human would likely take the news. If there was something that plagued the alicorn more than any spawn from Tartarus ever could, it was disappointing somepony, especially her close friends.

And now that she had an otherworldly visitor at her metaphorical doorstep, Twilight would rather she become friends with him than the opposite. Both for her innate desire to learn what little or much the human could spare, and because she knew the best medicine he could use right now was a friend or two at his side.

‘Yeah, right. ‘Cause I’ve been such a ‘friend’ to him…’

In a sense, Twilight felt as if the human was now standing in the exact same place she’d stood when first arriving at Ponyville a lifetime ago, but with clear disadvantages compared to her first meetings with the mares who would later become her family away from family.

If nothing else, it made it all much more personal to Twilight, a task hardening her resolve and blissfully clearing her thoughts of everything but that new sole purpose she’d assigned herself. Perhaps she was unworthy of it, but she’d take it nonetheless, out of sheer sense of responsibility as a ground base.

Twilight landed at the stairs leading to the main entrance, with Rainbow fast on her hooves. In quick succession, the alicorn didn't spare a second and teleported them both without warning into the musty corridor that divided the entirety of the castle’s underground cellblock in two halves. Never in her short reign had Twilight imagined that any of the cells would’ve needed to be used. Thankfully, it wasn't exactly to hold a fiend at bay until proper judgment was delivered…

She hoped.

The echo of her teleportation bubble bounced around the stone walls and columns lining every steel-barred hole, ample enough to fit five ponies comfortably on one go if the need arose.

Alarmed by the crack of the spell going off, the ponies learned of the arrival of the last two members of their group, the rest of the mares plus one baby drake having joined Applejack once Fluttershy had returned with Doctor Fauna and her own set of medical supplies for non-equine patients.

In the same way Twilight was feeling regarding her own elucidations and theories on the human, both Fluttershy’s and Fauna's collective knowledge regarding the care of animals could only be applied as far as similarities went between this strange creature and the fuzzy and feathered critters that shared the land with them.

“Girls! Is everypony here?” Twilight called out, dipping her head into the last row of cells where she’d instructed Applejack and Spike to bring the human. She only had the poor illumination of the torches to guide her eyes, since the Dimeritium-reinforced cell would prevent her from casting any sort of spell and, hopefully, would also grant the human a reprieve with the absence of ambient magic harming him, reason why she wanted him down on this depressing depths.

“Over here, sugarcube!”

Twilight and Rainbow followed Applejack's call, the latter squirming uncomfortably with twitchy wings. Her pegasus instincts rejected close spaces. Rainbow still didn’t understand how Fluttershy could tolerate the walls closing in in her cozy cottage.

Twilight, for her part, swallowed an uneasy gulp when coming in contact with the Dimeritium’s magic-stealing influence. With her magic rendered more or less loom, she could clench it if needed with twice the normal magical input, Twilight braved the last few steps into the cell to join her friends.

The accommodations were a bit cramped with all the ponies and the drake filling the space around the human, who had shunned his previous arrangements to plant himself against the far wall of the cobbled cell. Fluttershy and Fauna sat on their haunches in front of him, just shy of brushing his crossed legs, a manner of sitting that painted Twilight as very uncomfortable, if not outright painful. Yet he seemed more at ease than before.

‘How are they bending like that? Ouch.’

Pinkie was more than happy to hold a big, warm-lighted torchlight over her head to grant the two critter professionals some much-needed illumination. Rarity and Applejack stood attentive and curious on their hooves at the edges of the semicircle, the former doing her best to avoid soiling her pristine coat and tail against the musty, depressing walls closing them, her mind already at work clearing a spot in her tight schedule for an emergency spa visit as soon as her hooves could trot her there.

The pink mare craned her neck back to peer behind her, and tapped her rear hooves excitedly. “Twilight, Rainbow, look!” Pinkie chanted with merriment and gusto, nudging the torchlight towards the human’s direction, making the light point directly at his beady eyes for a moment and forcing a grimace on his mouth as he squinted. “He's awake!”

True to Pinkie's lively words, the human at least stood, or better said sat, more aware than before, on top of the fact that he wasn't bleeding anymore, as far as Twilight observed under the bright light of the torch.

Her eyes needed a moment to adjust. He did not have apparent difficulty breathing beyond the steady, albeit deep rising and falling of his chest. Twilight patted herself on the back, her on-the-spot plan having worked like a charm.

It also meant that the collar she was currently carrying in her folded wing should also work to keep the magic from harming him outside of this small safe spot, as this special cell seemed to be succeeding at the task for the moment.

The human, nervous streams of sweat trailing down his brow and cheeks, for the musty ambiance was also starting to warm up with so many fuzzy creatures in an enclosed space, remained very still under the experienced mare’s careful scrutiny. While Fauna had snuck a stethoscope under his clothed chest and was counting the beats in her head with a pursed tongue, Fluttershy attended to the being’s right arm, kept away from supporting his weight while the shy mare exhibited no trace of her regular hesitation. She was gently, but thoroughly testing his arm’s range of mobility in search for dislocation or internal tissue tearing of any kind. Thankfully for the human, what they previously believed would be a serious injury, seemed nothing worse than a nasty bump and some tender flesh. Still, a grimace of pain would flash his fangs to the torchlight every time Fluttershy motioned the limb with her wings to its stretching limit.

Twilight drank in his alien anatomy during the short oasis, this time focusing on the field of movement. Overall, she drew many similarities with her little brother Spike, who was also present beside Applejack, a claw resting on her foreleg for support. The human’s limited range of mobility and limb-bending capabilities was a mirror of the young drake’s with what little Twilight had to work with. She blamed their similar bipedal posture as the culprit. She was nonetheless disappointed with the rich number of clothes hiding most of him, although she, just as their resident fashionista, did not skip a careful look around his choice of ensembles.

Twilight found what painted her to be an unzipped jacket of sorts, dark blue with a few pockets on its flaps as well as the chest, a white shirt peeking out from underneath the cozy-looking coat. By the thickness of it, Twilight wondered if the human perhaps originated from somewhere cold, knowing he had no fur under all that silk. His choice of thick cargo pants strengthened her theory. Sewn in a dark cream color, numerous pockets also filled their length down his folded legs. Some were empty, while others sparked Twilight’s imagination around what sort of human gimmicks they could be hiding.

On his rear claws… Twilight was unsure as to how to refer to his rear not-hooves, the human wore a pair of sneakers with a brand symbol that neither Twilight nor Rarity recognized. All in all, they looked stylish enough, but one could only wonder why he needed to wear a pair of those outside of the winter season or terribly arduous landscapes where one’s hooves would be compromised.

Had Twilight caught the human in the middle of climbing a mountain or something? The questions kept piling on and on.

“Um, is it doing alright?” Rainbow, also having taken a hot second to better take in the sight of the human, asked them both, trotting for a place beside Applejack and drawing from her closeness to fight off the innate claustrophobia that plagued all winged creatures worth their feathers… or membranes, take you pick.

Well, all besides Fluttershy, but she had always been a unique case, preferring the ground to the skies.

“He’s lookin’ dandy tah me, Rainbow,” Applejack answered with a bit of a lip, unbothered by the pegasus’ closeness. Having been keeping an eye on the strange fella until her friends had assembled, she could testify that his state had at least seemed to improve a tad under her watch. She’d headed off for a moment to get him some water, the way his breath was coming out like sandpaper being ground all over his muzzle hinting at her of the urgent need for some. The half-full glass and the small jar she’d brought from the kitchen remained to be touched, though.

“I can also give the green light from here,” Fauna called once her de visu examination was over. Having checked his heartbeat, lungs and blood pressure, she also added a quick search for any hidden bleeding and a quick-yet-undisguised examination of those teeth because those predator canines could simply not be ignored. “Hmm, omnivore, it seems.”

Satisfied with her findings, Fauna looped her stethoscope back around her withers, sending a silent prayer thanking Faust for the well behavior of her newest patient, since not all critters reacted well to her pricking and prodding. “Although, I am taking a bunch of liberties here on his vitals. I can confirm a steady pulse and no liquid invading his lungs. But, if you want my opinion on whether or not he’s running a fever, or if there’s something else that’s broken, there’s only so much I can do from here.” Fauna kept a sympathetic frown over the creature, who long ago had lost the will to even return the gesture, simply gazing into the nothingness with hazy eyes as the critter experts ran their tests on him.

He might have been out of danger where his body was concerned, but more than one pony could agree that the striking lack of life streaming out from him was both unnerving and pretty concerning. That was something neither Fauna nor Fluttershy could chip in to fix.

‘Celestia, he looks as if he’s being drained by a changeling.’ Twilight pictured, noticing his pale features and wandering eyes. About the tone of his fur-less skin, she could only draw a line. But in this state, she might as well just tie him to a couple of posts, put up a pedestal, and present him as the entrée piece of her own garden of statues to rival Celestia’s.

“I’m also good on my end,” Fluttershy followed the veterinarian, concluding the short physiotherapy session, caring more about his physical well-being than his emotional state for the moment. “I don’t feel any broken bones, and he seems to be able to move his limb all the way in all directions with only slight discomfort. But… um, there is some swelling on his shoulder, and the skin is turning a bit purple and tender.” Fluttershy’s droopy wings were a mirror for her aching heart that suffered for this new, strange creature. “I guess he took a nasty hit when he came out of that portal.”

At her words, a flicker of life returned to the human. For a moment, Twilight could’ve bet some semblance of understanding was the force behind that small twitch that rocked his body. His attention was not on the immensity of the vacuum separating them anymore, but on the yellow mare who, in her gathering of her own medical supplies, hadn't noticed the spark of awareness in the chocolate eyes fixing on her for a brief spell before falling back to their rag-doll state.

‘He… He can understand us?’

“That’s great news!” Pinkie broke the purple mare’s train of thought in her celebrations. Quick as lighting, she passed the torch to Applejack, tying it up to her hat with a string of ribbon she’d pulled out of somewhere before falling shy of glomping the human if not for Rainbow's quick intervention in keeping her tail rooted. “Did you hear that?! You’re going to be fine! Aaaaaand, you know what that meaaaans~” Pinkie sang with dancing eyebrows, to the slight befuddlement of the human who barely acknowledged her presence.

“Pinkie, dear. I don’t think that this is the best moment for any sort of party planning.” Rarity gently chided the over-sugared mare, not needing to attend to the amusement park that was her mind to guess what was already itching to come out.

“Ah agree with Rarity here, sugar.” Applejack, needing to rebalance her hat with the newly-added weight while making her look as if she were wearing a poor choice of miner’s hat, placed a calming hoof on Pinkie’s back. “Ah believe some introductions are ‘n order first. There’s also a bunch ‘a things we gotta clear out.”

“Awww…” The pink missile deflated like a balloon before the human’s feet. Seeing her energy seeping out for the moment, Rainbow let go of her puffy tail, spitting a few pink hairs from her muzzle in the aftermath.

“Pugh! I’m with AJ on this!” Rainbow butted in roughly, her instincts clawing at her nerves for some sky above her head. Or at least, a very tall ceiling. “But, whatever we do, can we pleeeeease do it somewhere less depressing… and cramped?” She pleaded as far as her tomboyish nature would allow to lower herself. You wouldn’t catch Rainbow ever being as afraid of something like a simple, stupid, highly-enclosed… wing-unfriendly… breath-stealing trap like this one…

Nope, no you won’t. She just needed to use the little fillies room, s’ all.

Pinkie was of the same mind too, citing that gloomy cell absolutely NOT the place to throw out her ‘Welcome to Ponyville slash You survived your first dimensional jump huraaaay’ party. Ooooh, this new creature was a literal sea of possibilities to the pink mare. There were exactly six hundred and eight flavors of cupcakes his poor, uneducated tongue had yet to taste. Pinkie was positive about it, and thus would see it remedied!!

“W-Well…” Just as Twilight was about to chip her two bits against Rainbow’s proposition, Fluttershy spoke her mind, her thoughts still on the recovering creature, still as ghostly and absent as when the purple alicorn first found it. “Do you feel well enough to move around?”

Fluttershy asked, hopeful for an answer of any sort. Her gift of understanding her little fuzzy friends, as if she was talking to the pony next to you, would normally prove invaluable in a situation like this. Yet the shy mare barely managed to gain a half tilt of his head, his chest heaving back and forth with strenuous effort. If those two well-experienced mares couldn't find whatever it was that still ailed him, Twilight wasn’t sure she could add anything else that would not call for the use of magic, assuming that had been the driver of his poor condition to begin with.

Another short, tension-filled silence choked the air from the cell as all present perked their ears expectantly. That was until Rainbow's patience finally ran dry with a snort.

“Bah. I’m tired of this. You gals can fret over him all you want, but I’m outta here.”

“Rainbow, wait!” Twilight hollered just as the prismatic mare was about to hoof it out of there so that she could wing it ever further. The truth was, Twilight saw no other way but to rely on her magic to see this human returned to health. She couldn't think of any other alternative out of the horseshoe. She’d wrack her brains, and call in for all the existing shortcuts and looparounds that her mind could conjure if that's what it took to cast the least invasive magic-requiring spell on him. Just a gentle, superficial arcane brush, with no more push than a unicorn foal’s first wayward bolt of magic out of a sneeze.

Whatever it took. She just had to help him.

“Applejack,” The farm mare perked up under Twilight’s call for assistance. “I’m going to need you to help him back up.”

“B-Buh Twilight!” Applejack cried, yet the alicorn’s mind was set.

“Trust me. I have an idea… Another idea” She assured the orange-furred mare who for a moment felt twilight was toying her in circles. The alicorn then addressed everypony and drake present just the same. She’d have an idea, soon enough, she was sure. Her friends needn't be aware of that minor detail, though.

Reaching behind her, Twilight removed the inhibitory collar from under her wing and slowly presented it to the human. For whatever reason, he seemed to acknowledge her presence more firmly than the rest, but in the means of his body tensing up, some sort of trigger firing inside him, making him flinch and squirm back uselessly against the wall. Seeing this reaction, Twilight would've preferred the silent, detached treatment over this.

The whimper that left his flat muzzle made a very uncomfortable lump find its way into Twilight's throat, the nature and significance of the collar absolutely NOT missed by the beady-eyed human.

“Oh, nononono!” Twilight was quick to assess what had scared him. She’d be shedding her feathers too in buckets if their roles were reversed. “It won’t hurt you, see? I’m not collaring you like that! It will help you.” To prove her words, Twilight undid the latch of the collar and placed it around her own neck. The size was a bit too small to fit properly around her withers, but it should be enough for the human's more slender, shorter neck. “It’s an inhibitory collar. It’s made from null-stone-Dimeritium-alloy. Like these cell bars, nutwith special overhang runes to trigger its effects at will. It’ll absorb the magic intended to go into you and dispel it. It’ll keep you safe outside. Promise.”

It was Twilight’s hope that, even if a language barrier prevented words from being understood, the sentiment of her message somehow found its way into the human. That she meant him no harm. That she wished nothing but to help him, to amend her mistake.

The human for his part contemplated her offer. Asked any other time, he’d have admitted how, besides the fact he was seconds away from pissing himself out of sheer panic, he couldn't help but find this entire situation both enlightening and tremendously humiliating. These talking… fucking talking ponies pretended to put a collar on him. He would bet an arm that a leash was gonna follow it very soon. A tiny part of him wanted to fight for the notion of the roles needing to be reversed. From him, he was meant to hold the leash, not be the one collared by it.

He was beyond sensible reason, though. The fact that these stuffed animals were basically telling him sweet and simple that he was going to be chained up, and most likely paraded around, made him no less enthusiastic of his current situation, but at least confirmed they had it in mind to keep him alive for the time being… he thought.

Actions spoke louder than words, and the human had no words to offer in return.

Twilight saw his prolonged silence as approval of sorts, yet her hooves would not budge the moment she registered a very much pony-like scowl tug on his brows. Having her magic indisposed inside this specially-concealed place, designed to contain threats of levels similar to hers, she’d have to get close and personal to loop the collar around his neck. And the human was not making any invitation to take care of the humiliating task by himself.

Gulping down the ball of nerves, Twilight forced her legs to move, a trembling hoof carrying the collar in front of her while her friends stood on edge behind her, the most physically adept of them ready to jump in at any suspicious twitch.

The human’s larger frame meant she’d need to get waaay closer than what she’d prefer. His crossed legs served as support as she balanced herself on one foreleg, moving the open collar by its front so that the loose rear part would come to loop around his neck. Enough exposed, furless skin peeked free from the seam of his clothes to make it feasible.

Sweating profusely, Twilight clenched her eyes and drew from all her mental resolve to see the task completed with some semblance of dignity, yet the way her rear legs quaked, with her teeth following that example, didn't paint this maneuver in what you’d say was a heroic light.

‘Pleasedon’tbitemepleasedon’tbitemepleaseCelestiahavehimnotbitemeI’llbegoodIpromise!!’

*Click!*

Just as her mind was beginning to send phantom signals telling her that her neck was being ripped open, the collar was fixed in place, resting snugly against his raw skin. Twilight managed to get in closer than she’d expected, her muzzle brushing past the right side of his face since she needed to make sure the lock was secured in place, or the runes wouldn’t fire up, which they did with a soft hum.

Twilight could feel his long, deep breathing tickling her left ear, his chest climbing up and down against her own. Her snout was taking a sample of his scent without a conscious command from the mare. His scent was undoubtedly masculine, yet different from the stallions she rarely held any close contact with besides professional business… Very sad.

A dominant taste of salt, followed by what she could only describe as a mixture of clovers, metal, and something completely unique to him. Far from displeasing, if not a tad captivating, but unmistakably alien.

The alicorn did not dwell on it for even a second longer beyond what she absolutely needed to make sure everything was in order. The moment she was done, she pulled back with the celerity of her speedy pegasus friend on an intercept course for a mug of Applejack’s cider.

To her dismay, and the ponies' surprise, the human reacted, truly reacted, for the first time since having been dragged down to that depressing cell. A hand flew to her withers faster than anypony could react, freezing the mare in place just as her snout brushed the tip of his triangular nose.

Twilight’s heart raced out of her chest and ran a few laps between her shaking legs. All her herd-animal instincts fired in unison, her horn jumping ahead of her mental commands and trying its dammest to conjure a teleportation bubble to put two-thirds of Equestria between her and the human.

Alas, she was as defenseless as a stranded kitten without her magic without overtaxing her magic with reserves she did not currently possess. Twilight would have to trust her friends to reach her before the human could chomp down on her.

Said thing didn't come to pass as the seconds slowly trickled by. The human kept Twilight in place while her friends remained at the edge of their hooves. The scowl on the human’s features had graduated into a hand-chiseled glare, his chocolate eyes fixed on the mare’s pinprick ones. His breath tickled the sensitive hairs of her snout, the mare now able to taste it in her own breathing. This kind of sudden closeness would’ve thrown any mare on her hooves should a dashing stallion have been on the opposite end. Sadly, for Twilight, she understood these were the last moments she’d draw breath.

‘Yep. That’s it for me. I hope one of the girls will take care of Spike for me…’

“T-T-Twilight!” The same drake that filled her last thoughts called out to her on the verge of tears, and a heart attack his little heart barely managed to deal. He was being kept behind a protective foreleg belonging to the resident fashionista, whose horn also glowed a feeble, useless shine.

A growl or a snarl would’ve been expected to come from the human’s throat before the end, a prelude to the impending jugular tearing. Yet, to the befuddlement of one positively frightened alicorn, the time to meet her creator wouldn't come from his hands. In his piercing glare, he searched for something in her eyes, something Twilight could not put her hoof on, but fixed her lavender orbs on his smaller, no less expressive ones. Some many emotions rushed back and forth between alicorn and human, it was an indescribable experience.

A hot minute passed over, where not even the tip of a tail flitched. Having found it or not, Twilight couldn't be sure, but the human released her suddenly, and a tad rudely.

Twilight fell back on her rump, her rear legs and wings kicking into overdrive to drag her sorry flank away from the dangerous creature. The spark of intelligence still shone in his eyes, yet this primal show had erased any semblance of confidence Twilight thought she’d built with him from the mare’s mental chalkboard.

Spike threw himself over his older sister protectively, growling at the offending creature with smoke billowing from his nostrils and fire ready to be breathed from his throat. The human, unflinching against the dragon’s protective display, was too ready for a change of scenery. He felt his right shoulder and dimmed it well enough.

Using his arms as leverage, brushing off the pain emanating from his right one on which he had, indeed, landed, the human rose to his feet. His towering height quickly imprinted on all ponies present, making them collectively take a cautionary step back as far as the cell’s clamped space spared.

“Fry my rump with lightning, that’s a tall fella,” Rainbow mumbled under her breath, Rarity nodding wordlessly at her side.

The human’s dominating stance lasted a full three seconds before another wave of nausea made him reconsider. Haunching down and shifting back his center of weight, his rear and back held his size against the stone bricks while he squeezed his throbbing temples with a throaty moan. For a moment, Twilight feared he'd collapse on them there and then, visually erasing the progress of the last half an hour.

To her relief, or perhaps dismay, her mind was still on the fence about everything, the human pushed through the nausea, fighting it down with some hard bumps of his balled claws against his forehead. Said treatment seemingly had healing properties, for he blinked the last of the spots away and was ready to get a move on, his right arm hanging down somewhat awkwardly while the left motioned towards the open door of the cell.

The crown jewel of that morning came when, against their previous beliefs and, to their utmost and undivided surprise, the human made it well-known that he had, indeed, been following since the very beginning.

“... Lead.”

Chapter 2- Colorful introductions.

Five ponies, one dragon, and one human, sit on a bar.

The five ponies say nothing, seated around an arrangement of pillows and a sofa, forming a circle in the free space at the center of the Friendship Castle’s library. Five sets of eyes were fixed on the lavender sixth, silent pleadings for leadership falling deaf nonetheless in the princess’ ears. One of the ponies is missing, in charge of whipping up some quick refreshments for the present company, a task she’d taken to with gusto, even with the human’s peculiar choice. The rest are statues, rustling restlessly in their seats as a still, contemplative atmosphere weighed down like the Friendship Express on a Monday morning rush over their shoulders.

The dragon said nothing, for he felt there was nothing to be said under the present circumstances, falling leagues from anything of resemblance he might’ve experienced in his short life. He gazed up at the sole anchor keeping his world in place; His older sister, his role model, his lifelong companion. Spike sought guidance in her well-renowned, boundless well of knowledge for the next step to be taken. The awkward expectation seeped in with every breath and made him sweat bullets under his scales, bringing bothersome musings of ill tidings and upsetting the fire in his tummy. The alicorn remained speechless to his pleading, slitted, green gems.

The human said nothing. In truth, he enjoyed the nothingness traveling between him and these disturbingly adorable ponies, who until very recently had been fussing all over him like a flock of concerned pigeons over a piece of bread. The pink one was missing. Good riddance, he was seconds away from clonking her out on her tail on their way from the cell block. His fuse had burned away with a snuff at the fifth mention of a welcome party for him, amidst countless exclamations and screeches pertaining to how EXCITED she was that he was here and how much fun they’d be having together in this place, which they seemed to call ‘Ponyville’.

… Ponyville. The ville of ponies. My, he wondered if there was a ‘Humanville’ back on Earth. Oh, yes. He was no longer on Earth, a kinda obvious detail.

Like a hawk perched on its branch, he kept his sights on a close, searing glare patrolling each pony and the overgrown gecko filling the space around him, for he was the sole occupant of the couch he’d been graciously gifted to plant his aching ass on. Fuck. Served him right for having sat on the stone floor of that accursed cell for too long. He’d take no chances in this place, reading everything in front of him just as he tried to keep tabs behind him in case the pink one returned unnoticed to plunge a dagger into his neck or something. That pinkie mare painted him as a loose cannon for some reason after the total amount of zero words he’d exchanged with her

Also, why were all ponies female? Was it because of the rainbow of colors that were their coats? Shouldn't they be looking either a shade of brown, black, or white? At least two of them subscribed to what the human understood as normal. However, there was also one LEVITATING stuff with a flick of their horn, so what even made sense anymore, and what didn't?

Still, the human personally thought that the puffy-maned mare turning violent was unlikely. Against his initial beliefs, he hadn’t been shown any signs of ill will from these fantasy creatures. In fact, the polar opposite was the case; All of them had joined the winged and horned one (pegacorn?) in their explicit, vocal proclamations of welcome and good tidings. To top the cake, all of them preached under a PG-13 parody of the old pinkie promise that they’d make him feel at home during the time he was there with them… not that they had pinkie fingers to dwell over. The purple one seemingly was leading said effort while her companions pitched in with their own, unique ways, as they all had colorfully described in a surprising show of empathy.

The ambiance as they initially treaded into the library had been filled with joy and excitement, a sea of ideas, propositions and possibilities flying back and forth, with a childish sense of wonder fueling each of the equine’s flames…

That spirit of discovery had lasted for a hot minute until the colorful horses realized that they weren't eliciting any semblance of a response from him, if not outright making his frown sink in more with each friendship proposition they’d fired out. They could no longer take his silence as a lack of communication; They knew he could understand them, and answer in kind too, a miracle at work ensuring that no language barrier prevented them from communicating, like Twilight had feared at first.

Nope, the human simply did not share in their collective enthusiasm. One by one, the stream of offers for a private visit to some orchard, a heartful pleading for an exchange of cultures by the purple equine, a challenge to a race for some reason, an inquiry about his species’ traits, and educated comments about his choice of clothes… all had trickled down into the tense silence they all now basked in.

The human used the stillness in the air to spare a moment and explore his surroundings. He recognized the nature of the place they’d been asked to gather in. Towering shelves carved into the very crystal of the walls, filled with an endless amount of books surrounded them from every direction beside the ornamented doors they had paraded in through. He would have to check up on them at a later time… or perhaps not.

“Ahem!” It seemed that the purple one was in for a second round to tackle this bull. The human could only wonder what that kids-drawing-turned-pony had in store for him this time, for she had been the most inquisitive of the lot in the short minutes it’d taken them to reach this library.

“Um, I can understand how we all might not feel… uh, chatty,” The purple horse grabbed the figurative bull’s head with a sheepish grin, her wings rustling restlessly at her sides, making the human wonder how those, in turn with her horn, had ended up attached to her. No sort of disguise or mechanical prosthesis could ever reach that level of realism from where he came from.

“You can say that again…” The blue Rainbow with the gay-pride banner dyed on her mane and tail scoffed with a dull snort.

The purple mare sent a chiding leer toward the aforementioned pony before fixing back on the human. “Okay, um... How about names? I’ll go first,” She cleared her throat and offered a… hoof. A hoof of all things came to rest above her fuzzy chest as it puffed out a bit where she stood.

Were equine legs and wrists supposed to bend like that?

“My name is Twilight Sparkle. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The purple horse greeted him with a tiny bow.

“She’s a princess!” A shout came from someplace inside the castle, the culprit being that pink over-sugared missile, making Twilight groan dejectedly, for she’d rather have kept that tidbit about herself a secret. For the time being, at least; She didn't want him to feel intimidated or something, assuming the human had a concept of royalty in their world.

The human’s eyes widened a tad with this new information. The purple horse was apparently a pretty purple pony princess. He found it hard to believe from, well, aside from the general irreality of the situation, her lack of a crown and matching regalia, as well as the very un-royal way she had tugged down on her eyes in frustration, after the pink mare’s unwelcome clarification.

If that pony was indirectly implying the need for proper royal etiquette and titles when addressing her, she had another thing coming.

A second of nothingness rolled by before the mare named Twilight peered to her left, where a sky-blue pegasus lay sprawled over the comfy puff that housed her, her wings hanging lazily at her sides while belly up, exuding as much life and excitement as her pet tortoise would on a good day.

Rainbow sensed the holes Twilight was digging into the back of her withers. A silent, albeit deafening demand for her to play along with the game of names. Rainbow snorted loudly and recomposed herself on her elbows to dignify the human with a bored, lidded leer under her multicolored bangs.

“Name’s Rainbow Dash.” She introduced herself dryly, making Twilight’s intense leer heat up into a proper glare. Rainbow, shrugging with her wings, promptly ignored her, speaking her mind instead. “And this is becoming boooooring as haaaay. I got places to beeeeee...”

“Rainbow!” The orange mare, sporting an adorable cowboy hat and the southern drawl to complete the set, scolded the slacking pegasus for her blunt rudeness, the latter rearing up in defense with a scratchy voice.

“Whaaat?! We’ve been here, like, forever, and all we’ve gotten out of Big Lug over there is just a bunch of glaring.” Rainbow returned the gesture with her own set of lidded brows, making the human sit a bit more rigidly on the pink-and purple-accented couch. “Perhaps I ought to go and teach him some manners…”

“Rainbow, please!” The one named Twilight Sparkle… seriously, what kind of name is that?... stood between the two heated mares, using her wings to separate the renowned hot-heads before things could escalate badly. “Now is not the time for this.” With unfurled wings, the big pony pushed them apart and stood tall over the flinching pegasus.

“... Tsk, whatever.” In a childish tantrum, Rainbow slumped back on her cloud puff and shut out the world around her, choosing instead to count the number of books on the shelf closest to her, so as to kill some time. The creature was already yesterday’s news to her the moment he swatted her offer for a friendly race like a bothersome fly.

Roaring tornados, he didn’t even have a tail to swat a fly with! What the actual HAY had Twilight dragged in from beyond the rift?!

Dragging her pursed muzzle and disapproving scowl over Rainbow for a few moments more, Applejack followed Twilight’s request and cooled down her southern temper. She used the chance to introduce herself next with an apologizing tone. “You’ll have that excuse Rainbow here. She’s not known fer her courtesy… Anyways!” Dipping her hat like the cowmare she was born to be, Applejack flashed her best salesmare beam at the human, not letting his uninviting frown deter her from making a good impression. “My name’s Applejack. Proud member of the Apple family, here ‘n Ponyville. It’s ah mighty pleasure meeting ‘ya.”

Wouldn't you know that? The human actually liked that horse with the cosplay. Or, in better words, he tolerated her the most from the gathered equines. He could remember hazily that pony being the one to help him down in that depressing cell for his, quoted, ‘own safety’.

Right on their asses it was, he’d seen enough movies and read enough books to know what all this ‘for your own safety’ bullshit was all about. Deep down, he couldn't really blame them for taking precautions, but it didn't cast a better light on his captors either.

The human offered a curt nod of acknowledgment, and that was all the orange mare was gonna get from him.

“My name is Rarity Belle, but please, Rarity is just fine.” The alabaster unicorn with the curls was next from her refined, even perfumed choice of pillows. Their sewn adornments and highlights could only try to dream of the refinement and beauty the white horse was trying her dammest to poetry. “It is quite a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She bashed her hoof suavely, flashing her pristine eyelashes all the way with repeated, unsubtle blinks with her eyes.

Applejack had to roll her eyes under the rim of her hat and snort, causing Twilight's left eye to twitch a little bit in turn. Why couldn't her friends simply introduce themselves like normal ponies for once?!

Not only her trans-Atlantic accent, but the way she cocked her blue perls teasingly at the human, the way her curled mane cascaded partially over her marble features as if to mask her goods in an implied dare to uncover the rest. Also, the way she rested, lying comfortably yet refined on her belly, forelegs crossed placidly in front of her while she made sure to keep her upper trunk high and proud for the human, making sure to fix her unblinking gaze on him to transmit way more than mere words could.

… Creepy.

From his apparent inclination to wear an ample quantity of clothes, Rarity had made an educated, albeit blind superficial assumption regarding his tastes and preferences, drawing a common line between both of their seemingly shared passions for fabric. Rarity was simply too much of a lady to pursue her fellow mares’ rough, uncivilized attempts to rouse some answers from their newest visitor. She’d win the creature over the best way she knew how, and then milk him for every last tidbit of information regarding his otherworldly ensembles, which she made an easy guess of identifying as practical and baggy at first glance.

Now the human had to admit that this tiny horse with fake eyelashes had an attitude on her sleeves and quite a pair of ovaries to back it up. He’d give her that. Alas, to the unicorn’s shame, the only thing her… unabashed introductions managed to invoke in him was a sense of creepiness he could've bet his ass he hadn't felt since the day of the first communion with that weird girl with the braids… yuck. The mare was selling alright, but he wasn't buying the way she batted her rimmed eyelashes at him.

Note to self, put some precautionary distance between him and her at all times.

It was now the turn of the creatures gathered at Twilight’s right, starting from her number one assistant, who hopped from the pillows he shared with the alicorn to introduce himself with as much dragon pride as his little frame possessed. “My name’s Spike.” He proclaimed loud and proud, a thumbclaw over his chest as he puffed it out. “I’m a dragon, in case you haven't noticed.” He graciously informed, adding an unmistakable flash of his fangs and a swish of his spaded tail behind him.

Twilight bit down on her lip, secretly fawning over the adorableness of his little introduction. That was her baby brother alright, she wouldn't crash his bravado and spotlight today.

The human on the couch held a totally different opinion.

‘If that’s a dragon, then I’m the Beast Titan.’ He pursed his brow in contemplation. Two sides warred inside him: a childish side of him blowing its nuts out from the sole reason of having an, albeit self-proclaimed and pretty unconvincing, living, breathing FUCKING DRAGON flashing him his best winning smile. The rest of him, however, remembered his lab partner Elias’s pet iguana, the one with the nasty habit of biting fingers off, being ten times more menacing and imposing than this little guy.

Still, male company amidst a shore full of clams was always a welcome turn of events… Fuck, that was kinda low.

It was now the last remaining pony’s turn, and Fluttershy was not a mare to brim under the spotlight. Any trace of initiative and boldness had promptly vanished the moment Fluttershy had learned of the creature's capabilities of both understanding and speech, lifting him to the same cognitive level as any other pony. Whatever fence separated her fuzzy little friends from your run-of-the-mill pony in the Triggering of Shyness Department, the human had made an exemplary jump over it with an added inverted double corkscrew.

Now, the human was no more innocent or inconspicuous than a manticore in estrus stalking the Everfree Forest, with the difference being that Fluttershy wouldn't have riled a single feather in cuddling and fawning all over that manticore.

The human felt as if he should at least thank her for her concern for his well-being. However, the most he’d ever gotten from her was a short, mumbled, barely audible inquiry about his species' peculiarities before the yellow horse had shut herself off behind her mane. While the saucy unicorn’s mane cascaded fabulously over her powdered cheeks, Fluttershy used her rich mane as a proverbial wall between the dangerous world and her, making her look like a tiny ball of feathers and fluff from where the human sat waiting.

With the cutest ‘eep’ that’d ever graced the human’s ears, Fluttershy knew it would be extremely rude to try and make herself invisible in front of everypony. Yet, her inherent shyness kept her tied to that post, begging her to remain small and out-of-picture. It was safe and, most importantly, polite.

With these two forces playing tug-of-war inside her, Fluttershy refereed a compromise to keep both sides satisfied. Thus, with a treatment agreed upon, she untangled herself from the little ball and peeked a trembling, sea-green eye from behind the curved reaches of her lavender mane. A pretty one too, the human surprised himself admitting.

“I’m… Fluttershy…”

A cricket sounded somewhere in the distance. As it happened, the human ears managed to tell that sound apart better than whatever the butter pegasus had mumbled in her retreat. Where had that sweet little pony fussing all over his well-being gone?

The loosely pressed collar itched a storm on his neck. ‘For your own safety’, the purple leader had claimed. The human scratched at the reddening skin under its embrace and waited for the shy horse to dig herself out of her mane and repeat her name a tad louder for his inferior ears to catch.

Nothing of the sort happened. The more his expectation and impatience grew, and her friends tensed on their respective arrangements, the more nervous Fluttershy grew until she retreated with a whimper. After a minute, the tension climbed to the point where her friends understood that all they were going to get out of her was a subsonic squeak.

“Her name is Fluttershy. She's a tad shy, I’m afraid.” The one named Rarity graciously stepped up for her best friend with a supportive, albeit a smidge disappointed glance cast over the butter furball. Poor Fluttershy was like a broken metronome. Sometimes, you’d see her sticking it out like the fearsome mare Rarity knew was well hidden somewhere within her best friend. Overall, her shyness and meekness towards other ponies had improved dramatically since they first met.

But, when it came to meeting new ponies… there was still some ground to cover. First impressions were always key.

‘You don’t say…’ The human deadpanned, both inwardly and outwardly. Sadly, considering the bored, leering expression he’d been wearing since the ponies parked their rears in an intervention circle around him, it was obvious that the ponies couldn’t really tell the difference.

“And IIIIIII’m Pinkie Pie!!”

Ever-tactful Pinkie manifested by means Lovecraftian back from the kitchen without anycreature noticing, or else they'd have warned her NOT to ass jump to the already-jumpy human, regardless of how much Pinkie loved to surprise new ponies, with or without parties involved.

No ponies were surprised, though, by the way the human rocketed from the couch as if a scorpion had just pinched his ass. Pretty comical apparently, at least according to Rainbow’s obnoxious guffaws as she held onto her tummy for dear life. The rest of the mares facehooved collectively and resoundingly as the human clawed at his heart, a mind of its own having grown and with intentions to take a break from its beating just then.

Twilight, a spike of adrenaline rushing her, had to fire up her magic and summon a gust of wind to counterbalance the human, sparing him from tripping over and onto the coffee table she’d levitated to host the collection of treats Pinkie would whip up for them, currently being carried on a tray on the mares back. How Pinkie managed to keep them from falling while spooking the human was beyond Twilight. She’d stopped asking the hows and whys of Pinkie a long time ago.

“Hehe, sorry.” Pinkie apologized with a meek giggle, yet the way her eyes brimmed with energy lacked any semblance of regret. “It's just that I’m SOOOO excited to meet new ponies!! And you’re not even a pony! That’s like… TWICE as exciting!!” The sugary mare pranced in a cute dance. The rest held their collective breaths, fearing the tray with their snacks would spill all over the floor in her excitement. A mess somepony would have to clean afterwards.

… No such thing occurred. Pinkie’s ways were mysterious indeed, but the cucumber and cheese sandwiches, lemonade, and a cup filled only with honey as per the human's request, remained glued to the tray, as if the tray remained glued to her back.

One human couldn't have cared less by Pinkie effortlessly ignoring the laws of physics.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?!!”

His sudden boom flattened all pony ears present, freezing Pinkie mid-skip in yet another defiance of gravity, an optional thing for the mare on rare occasions. The startle had him panting like a rabid dog with adrenaline rushing in to flood his system. The human was seconds away from punching the snot out of that pink cunt for almost giving him a heart attack.

“Now now, there’s no need for such uncouth behavior.” Ever-tactful Rarity, smelling his aggressive intentions, reacted to step in between them. A warm, tingling sensation filled the human's right arm, stickily descending from his elbow and down to his hand.

The unfamiliar feeling was enough to spare Pinkie the human’s ire but at the price of his eyes widening in fright when they found a translucent, pale-blue, glowy aura of sorts bathing it. A gentle hum waved and pulsed in time with the alien energy swallowing his arm, applying enough force to overcome his musculature without a visible point of reference. Something that, according to his wide knowledge of the elemental rules of the universe, was impossible.

The human followed the pulsing chiming and the trail of sparkles to find the source of the strange energy in the horn of the alabaster unicorn. The human realized she’d somehow frozen his arm where it hung, without batting a single one of her long eyelashes.

… That purple horse had said something about magic. In retrospect, it was a unicorn keeping him rooted, and he’d seen the pegasus gently pet him with a very functional wing, so it wouldn't make sense for those horns to be just simple props.

Yeah. It made sense to him in retrospect, but the discovery of genuinely and unmistakable MAGIC being manifested didn’t make his surprise any less… colorful.

“¡¡S-S-Su puta madre!!”

For the second time in the last… two minutes, give or take, the human found the springs to jump half his length up into the air. Since his arm was still held in place by Rarity, what should have been a glorious demonstration of leg power ended up ranking a three-out-of-ten, with the three points coming on him smashing his face down on the ground the moment Rarity's telekinesis canceled his momentum, making him bounce back down like rubber.

“Mierda!!” The human cried; while it was in an unfamiliar language to the ponies, it was enough to denote murderous displeasure. He emerged from the drop with a throbbing temple and an even sorer nose. Whatever had assaulted him after passing through the rift seemed to have spared him for the moment, but it didn't mean he wasn’t still tender overall, and cranky as fuck.

“Rarity!!” Twilight interceded with celerity, canceling Rarity's spell that still kept his arm aloft in an awkward bend. “What did I say about magic?!” She icily reminded the flinching unicorn with a scowl.

“I-I’m sorry, darling.” Rarity fumbled with her fetlocks meekly. “I was just simply looking out for dear Pinkie here…”

“Heh, but I thought the collar kept magic off of the big lug,” Rainbow wiggled in her snout with her own unsolicited observation, not bothering to mask her amusement.

Twilight rolled her eyes tiredly and snorted her frustration. She thought she’d made it crystal clear that no magic whatsoever, not even the most innocuous of spells, should be cast on him without her express permission, or else they might harm the human more than the ambient magic. The collar prevented free magic from seeping into his body and coming back out in any shape or form, but that didn't mean spells could be cast on him, especially of the restricting kind! The collars were only meant to be worn by prisoners, after all.

The human finished nursing his throbbing nose only for it to send him straight into another round of hyperventilation. As he was about to throw a fit at the white mare, another force, albeit more gentle and measured, tugged at the collar of his jacket, forcing his attention. Gentle and measured did not equate to feeble for, before he knew what had gotten its claws on him, he was suddenly back on his feet. The culprit was a certain pink mare and her earth pony inherited strength. He was colored surprised beside, you know, being in the initial stages of a mental meltdown.

“I’m so sorry!” Pinkie wailed with teary eyes and droopy ears, genuinely crushed for having spooked him. She should’ve been more sensitive to his condition. The last thing she wanted was to turn his first day in Ponyville into the Haunted House attraction she and the Cakes threw at the bakery every Nightmare Night. “I just… I just can’t help myself sometimes…” Pinkie admitted from her heart, her droopy head coming to crash on the human’s belly as her mane deflated like a balloon before his very eyes. Fart sound and all!

His gaping bemusement lasted only for a shake of a pony’s tail before life was insufflated back into the pink mare. Her mood did three one-eighties in a row as a profound sense of surprise elicited a deep gasp from her, making the human flinch in readiness for another assault.

“Wait a second!” Pinkie exclaimed so that the birds nesting on the castle's star-like ornament could hear.

“What?!” The human yelled defensively but was promptly ignored by Pinkie as she squinted her baby-blue eyes and pouted her lips with a pensive hum.

“Hmmm…” Pinkie pondered something, making the human squirm nervously while his legs ignored his commands of flight. She fixed her attention on the white shirt peeking out from the flaps of his unzipped jacket, a hoof coming in to scratch under her chin. Twilight and the rest already feared the worst, except Rainbow, who found a thrill in seeing the human squirm under Pinkie’s shenanigans.

“Pinkie! Don’t do anything weird!”

Pinkie took Twilight's word to heart… and proceeded to sink her muzzle into the human’s belly for an encore, gently pushing him back, but lacking the force to drive him back down onto his butt.

An early bird pony tackling their groceries on the market street in the heart of Ponyville could’ve heard the face-slap Twilight treated herself to.

‘Pinkie Pie…’ Twilight growled from her hoof-flattened muzzle. This was supposed to be a simple round of introductions! A mere formality! ‘Hi! My name's Twilight! What's your name?’ Everypony has done at least one of these in school on their first day! Why was it so hard for them?!!

The fuming alicorn was about to rise from her seat and drag Pinkie back by her tail when a revelation rained down on the pink menace. “*GASP!!!* He’s chubby! Like me!” After which she then proceeded to tenderly nuzzle the human’s belly.

For some strange reason, images of his grandmother’s cat when getting angsty for some treats came to the human’s mind. It was fifty-fifty between this and clawing his face out back then. Was this mare on the same page? Should he be thinking about covering his face?

“PINKIE!”

Twilight’s outburst crossed out both possibilities at once when she rose from her pile of pillows and ensnared Pinkie with her horn’s magic. The protesting mare floated away like a cat on an air jail punishment with a pout on her lips. Had the human misrecognized these ponies as equines instead of some weird breed of feline?

The pink mare’s rump collided with a small mountain of pillows, her short attention span zeroed now on the tray of treats she’d left on the coffee table prior to her peculiar apologies. Twilight, sighing as the crisis averted itself, flapped her wings to stand before the recoiling, creeped-out human. Twilight noticed his left eyebrow twitching with a manic streak, announcing him to be on the brink of losing his fuckin’ mind, for the alicorn was of a similar custom should one have consulted Spike on the subject.

“S-Sorry about that, she didn’t mean anything by it,” The princess stammered, tucking her wings in and trying her best to mediate the situation, unable to remember the last time she felt so embarrassed in her friend’s steads. She’d have some words with the gang later, but it’s not like she’d read about behavioral acts and rituals when encountering an alien species either! “Um…” Unable to even meet the human’s towering gaze, Twilight pondered with saggy ears how to patch up this mess, if there was even a way of achieving that to begin with. She wanted to make absolutely sure that the human at least understood he was safe amongst her and her friends, and that she wouldn't allow anything bad to happen to him as long as she had a say in it.

And, to make this work, she needed him to trust in them. Trust in her.

Alas, when she unglued her eyes from the multi-fazed pattern of her crystalline floor to transmit the message, she found herself pleading to empty air with all her friends peering behind her.

Twilight followed their line of sight and felt her bangs spike up like Spike’s crest when she found the human beating a hasty retreat, headed for the library’s exit with his self preservation instinct doing the thinking for him.

These crazy-ass ponies, and that weird whateverness that the fucked up white unicorn had trapped his arm with were gonna be the end of him. He needed to put ground between him and them if he wanted to ever see his home again.

‘Go go go gogogo fucking GO!!! Fuck!!! I need to get the fuck out of here right this insta-GAH!!”

His attempts were thwarted by a blinding flash of light, followed by a cackling similar to thunder, if not a tad more sparkly. The light show blindsided the human into another few missed beats of his already overstressed heart.

The purple horse had somehow materialized in front of him, unfazed. The human sent his eyes back to find empty space where he’d rudely left her with the words on her muzzle and back to the pleading, purple orbs of the alicorn.

“Please!” Twilight skipped the pages back from the beginning of the script, chastising herself for having used a powerful spell near him, but the situation demanded it. “Please, don't try to run! It could be dangerous, for you and for the ponies out there!” Especially the platoon of guards currently patrolling her castle, who no doubt would be more than a bit twitchy and trigger-friendly at his sudden appearance, but Twilight opted to skip that part of her warning.

Twilight’s attempts were solid, yet the human had had enough for one day. “Get out of my way.” He stated, neither asking nor pleading, for he had no time to play games with this tiny pony. He was fed up with their childish nonsense and was in urgent need of answers and a way to get the fuck out.

Twilight stood her ground against his demand. He could see herself reflected in the black of his quivering eyes. Behind the shadow gazing back at herself, she could attest to the primitive fear the human was trying to disguise under an angry, frustrated façade. A quickly crumbling façade the longer this disaster of a meeting progressed at that.

But Twilight couldn’t let him outside to roam free just yet! It was a matter of security, both for him and for Ponyville’s inhabitants. The last thing Twilight wanted was to provoke a wave of mass panic within the already skittish and distrustful ponies. Their close proximity to the Everfree Forest had sadly drilled the lesson of wariness around everything that didn't walk on four legs and sported a cutie mark on their flank.

Zecora was a testament to that distrust. The alicorn could only imagine how the citizens would react to the human and the permanent scowl on his features.

To her displeasure, and to the human's dismay, Twilight would have to bring her hoof down on this matter. She stood a bit taller and firmer, an unmoving cliff against the human’s harsh glare.

“I-I’m sorry. But I can't allow that,” Twilight drilled into him with authority, flaring her wings and drawing from her royal prowess in the process.

Any other pony would've flinched, or at least reconsidered under the word of an alicorn princess, if they didn't outright fall down to their knees as a start. To Twilight's dismay, she wasn’t dealing with a pony, and her little number was completely lost to the human.

“You told me that I wasn’t a prisoner!” He accused, tugging at the metal collar which continued to itch like crazy the more his nerves caused him to sweat and fret like a pig on a summer’s day.

“You’re not,” Twilight responded as she toned down her voice and reassured him of his freedom, being painfully aware of the irony of the statement at the time she was physically and verbally weeding out that very privilege. “However… it’s in our best interests, all of our best interests in fact, that you remain here where I can guarantee your safety. I also need to determine whether magic is truly poisonous to you or not, hence the need for a magic-nullifying collar which, I admit, is meant to be worn by magically-gifted fiends when we imprison them. Which you, are, not!” She punctuated every word with a stomp, her own brand of bossy scowl clashing with the human's own scowl.

The human wasn't exactly feeling like he was hearing it from the horse's mouth, pun totally intended, and was more than ready to force the issue by any means past the disturbingly cute pony blocking his path, wings unfurled and horn at the ready.

Faust must have been watching the scene unfold and decided to grant Twilight a small mercy. A soft tug grounded the human just as shit was about to hit the fan. Gently biting on the sleeve of the jacket right where that unicorn had previously restrained his arm, Fluttershy was silently beckoning him to comply with what Twilight was heatedly pleading.

Under her meek exterior, Fluttershy was one brave pony, and nopony could say otherwise. She’d proven that time and time and again, and this time wouldn't be any different. Curling under her mane was always a safe bet when dealing with social drama and whatnot, that much was true.

However, Fluttershy still peeked out from under her ample mane and recognized the fear growing in the creature's eyes. Just like Twilight, she was privy to his true, poorly-hidden emotions, if not more so than the alicorn’s. Able or not to talk and reason like a pony, Fluttershy would rather see her cottage burn than turn a deaf ear to a creature’s suffering.

The yellow pegasus’ heart screamed at her to do the obvious. What this creature needed was love and understanding, just like her smaller and weaker critter friends after a close dance with the Everfree Forest’s larger and meaner predators. This situation wasn't going to solve itself by testing whose temper burned the hottest and longest, and she was going to put a stop to it right now!

Fluttershy’s Stare was well known by everypony in Ponyville. This time, however, the mare would have no need for it, choosing a more tender, even deadlier approach. The human’s tested defenses, summed up to the gentle force dragging him down, were no match for the pegasus’ big, pleading eyes and pouty muzzle.

Twilight rendered swiftly and utterly baffled, left to ponder exactly where she’d failed that Fluttershy had succeeded. The caring mare had the human wrapped up under her wing and she gently guided him back to the couch, softly headbutting him with the might of a sneeze right into the imprint his butt had left in the cushions. The human, for his part, had barely registered the trip back, feeling his heart doing all sorts of tricks and hijinks in his chest. He was reeling under an overload of cuteness, Flutterhy’s deadliest tactic to this day.

To drive her point home further, Fluttershy hopped onto the free space on the couch beside him, making herself comfortable in his presence with her forelegs nearly tucked over his legs while her upper half leaned into him. The warmth and reassurance in her smile were enough for the human to be completely bewitched under her spell, making it an easy job to forget the tight spot in which he remained.

“Heh, that's Flutters for you,” Rainbow called with a lopsided smirk, unimpressed with the pegasus skill with critters big and small, even if this languid, talking specimen barely fit the description.

Twilight, imitating her pet owl in her bafflement, thanked Fluttershy for her intervention before dragging her tail back to her seat. She made sure to remember to take a page from the pegasus' book for further interactions with the human in the future. She wasn't going to turn her snout up at what she saw working like a miracle.

“So, mister big creature,” Fluttershy had beaten Twilight to the proverbial finish line and taken the reins of the meeting, granting a much sought-after reprieve to the alicorn, who was in serious need of collecting her thoughts, having forgotten to even ask the name of his species. “Can you tell us all your name?” She requested with the sweetness of an angel, and the looks of one too if the stumped human hadn’t known any better.

He was floored by this particular pony's tenderness and gentleness, both at present and while she was doing a check-up on him earlier. He felt inclined to comply for the first time since the gathering in the library, knowing there was simply no way to ignore that mare’s smile, no matter how hard you tried.

“... Alexander.” He answered almost out of reflex, lost in Fluttershy’s big, deeply expressive eyes. They were at the edge of riding down the slope of the uncanny valley, but not quite there.

“What kind of name is tha-OUCH!” Rainbow was about to be a pain in the flank before a telekinetic tug on her ear from Twilight made her think otherwise.

The mare in question tasted the name on her tongue. ‘Alexander? Hmm… Nope. Can't find any similitude in root, at least as far as pony names are concerned.’ She concluded, unimpressed from the void in her ample repertoire. He was from another world, after all. The last thing Twilight was expecting was small trivialities to match between them.

“Very well! Ahem!” Twilight chirped, taking Fluttershy’s metaphorical baton and addressing the next order of business. “Now that names are out of the way, I'm sure you'll have tons of questions for-”

“Where the hell am I?” Alexander cut her off, his right arm hovering awkwardly right over the space the yellow pony had taken, still bathing him in a warm smile. He was torn as to whether he should rest back on the couch’s rim, over her fuzzy back, pet her, squeeze her like the adorable living plushie she was, or shove her out of his lap with a kick to the stomach.

There was no way he was going to opt for the last one, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he should.

Albeit more rudely than Twilight would've chosen, she saw how that would be his most pressing topic. Nonetheless, she was more than happy, and ready, to shower him with an abbreviated, although not less insightful summary, of the wondrous land that was Equestria and its inhabitants.

Yes, she’d been rehearsing for the eventual time where two cultures would meet in her game plan. Number two-hundred-and-fifty-six on her list, in fact.

“That's a magnificent question!” She claimed excitedly, barely able to believe she was the one to break down the intricacies of Equestria to a completely alien species, not simple off-continent delegates or something.

… Scratch the abbreviated part, Twilight needed to be thorough and tactful and put on the best of impressions, or she wouldn't be able to sleep that night. “Well, for starters, the town this castle is located in is called Pon-”

“Actually, fuck that,” Now this time Twilight knew that the human was being a pain in the flank on purpose, prompting her brow to knit itself into a frown. “I don't have time for this. How do I get back home? Like, now?”

A myriad of awkward glances were shared between the gathered ponies and dragon, all of them finding sanctuary in Twilight who, with a sigh of resignation, filed her small presentation away for a later time to address the MOST pressing of questions first.

‘Welp, it was bound to happen sooner or later… Horseapples, why couldn't it have been later?!’

“Um, well… y-you see… the thing is…”

She hadn't rehearsed this eventuality, as it happened. Twilight hadn't a straight answer to give him. Not one that wouldn't paint her as the main and sole culprit of his current situation, which she was. Twilight had already done her best to avoid revealing that small, ‘inconsequential’ tidbit for the time being, should it provoke things taking a turn for the worse and messier.

Alexander did not let the mare’s fumbling hesitation deter him. “How did I come here?! What the fuck happened?!”

Alexander was getting pushier and edgier the longer Twilight dragged her oh-so-convincing insecurity on his face. Twilight almost felt how he must've been reading her mind on the spot, for Alexander was aiming for the exact answers that would paint the proverbial target on her back. The way her tail swished nervously behind her and her ears twitched with a mind of their own should've told the human everything he needed to know, had he known beforehand about equine body language, an insight he sadly or fortuitously lacked, depending on whose point of view it was.

Applejack, an impartial onlooker of the tight position Twilight was inevitably going to dig herself into, stepped up in an attempt to ease the stirring flames of the human's no-longer-existing patience. Yet, the farm mare could not escape her Element from doing the talking for her.

“You see here, sugarcube. Twilight was trying to do a magic thingymagimmmph!”

In another flash of teleportation, Twilight was onto Applejack to pry her muzzle shut before the Element of Bucking Honesty could spill the beans all over the ashamed princess.

Twilight laughed feebly like a mentally-impaired mare in the middle of a job interview, trying her dammest to ignore the spooked looks of her friends, and especially the human, were scrutinizing her with while she struggled with the squirming earth pony.

“W-What my friend Applejack here is trying to say is… um…” A big gulp was required to swallow down the lump forming under Alexander's intense gaze. His icy front was funnily contrasted with the way he’d inevitably ended up surrendering to the inevitable and having begun inadvertently petting Fluttershy's withers, to the mare's visible pleasure, the sight booting Twilight out of her script momentarily. “Ahem. What I was trying to say is that we don't yet know the details of your arrival here.”

Ohh, she was digging a biiiiig, nasty hole here for herself. Twilight could feel the disapproval in the way the girls were bathing her in surprise and reproach.

“Explain,” Alexander demanded curtly. He quickly caught himself treating the pegasus to a very condescending round of pets in his eyes, apologizing briefly to the mare and trapping his hands together in a tight ball. Fluttershy’s disappointed whine was not lost to him, only feeding the flames of confusion around these colorful cat-ponies-or-what-have-you.

Twilight had scarce, precious seconds to cook something up. Standing in the middle of the crossroads, she opted for the safest bet on a knee-jerk choice. A pint of truth and a touch of lying, the cocktail named ‘Life.’ It would make her sound convincing while covering her flank. She had a good reason to keep the human in the guessing game, or at least that's what she tried to tell herself, despite the soul-crushing guilt she felt at doing it.

The truth was unavoidable regardless of her best attempts. Her curiosity should’ve gotten the better of her, yet the fear of retribution won the match. She had the lion's share of the blame and, considering how the game of twenty questions with the human was playing out, Twilight had become wary of his potential reaction. The human was to be treated as a stray arrow until she’d had the chance to dissect him (figuratively, she wasn't that far gone yet) and learned what made him tick. An approach insensitive as buck to her own ears, but it was by ear how she was playing everything.

Once she’d cracked the egg and found a way back to his world inside, she'd come clean before him and take her punishment as the grown mare Twilight prided herself on acting like. Most of the time, at least.

Although, with her being a princess and all… No, Twilight wouldn't shy away from taking whatever the human had in store for her. She needed to mare up to her mistakes if she was to one day reach her mentor's place and wisdom for the betterment of the ponies under her wings.

Talking about wings, the way they rustled at her sides, in tandem with her folded ears and darting pools of lavender, made Twilight the worst player at Cluedo to ever live… at least, the worst ever pony player.

Alexander remained blissfully oblivious in his ignorance, ready to board the express train down to Madness if that purple three-year-old-kid’s-drawing-of-a-horse kept beating around the bush with him. As far as he was concerned by her behavior, she might as well be suffering a stroke when she fidgeted, or needing a quick break for a number two from the way her rear hooves skidded over the floor.

A barely-coherent fabrication was then assembled by the cornered princess. Words trickled out as she conjured the materials on the spot. She rode the edge of her ample knowledge of magic to lose the human in a complex labyrinth of formulas, principles, and assertions while driving her point home beside her alleged innocence. The aberrant mixture birthed from her fast-paced trail of excuses would've made any senior in the High School for Magic and Research throw themselves from the highest tower of the royal castle in embarrassment.

Even Twilight’s friends cringed as they too digested her pathetic dissertation. They had no hopes of keeping pace with the well-read mare either before or after her spell had gone awry, but they knew Twilight well enough to find her speech nothing short of a load of horseapples being thrown, one after the other.

“... and since the aëtheric strings have yet still to harmonize to resume an even flow of magic back into the Wellspring, according to Professor Arcane Athuros’ third principle of magic conservation, it would be unwise to prod the damaged fabric of the continuum to probe for a way back.”

With a sheepish smile, and feeling herself shedding several stones of fur and feathers, Twilight had answered Alexander's query regarding his arrival, as well as the means of a prompt return, in her own way. She dotted the entire quandary with an unabashed ‘maybe’, pertaining to his desire to seek a path back to his homeworld as soon as possible.

A deafening silence highlighted each rivulet of sweat that trickled down the young royal's forehead. Twilight didn't break character while her friends simply sighed and shook their heads tiredly, knowing well how she’d just written herself into a tight spot with little chance for a happy ending. Applejack in particular was peeved at Twilight’s approach over the spineless reveal. Alas, the alicorn remained at her side to make sure to rope the Element of Honesty into compliance, one way or another.

“... Bullshit.” Crass and rude, Alexander was not sold by the show of faux intelligence.

“W-What?” While unfamiliar with the cuss, Twilight could feel the hostility of his accusations hammering her down into the floor tiles. “I’m not lying!” No, she wasn't; She was only telling half the truth, however.

“Mmmmph!!” Applejack tried her dammest to speak up, yet she'd need to grow a horn and wings of her own to match Twilight’s stubborn resolve.

Alexander held into his glowering, not another word being uttered as his arms crossed over the butter pegasus’ sprawled body. The silence, however, carried all the clues necessary to make his displeasure known.

Twilight quickly got fed up with his unwavering front. The two could spend all day bashing foreheads, and she happened to have a thick one too when she became cross.

“Look. Do you even know a single thing about magic? Hmm?” Twilight sneered, leaving a half-suffocated Applejack to steal air greedily down her pipe. While remaining true to her zero-magic policy around the human, she wasn't going to tolerate being called out in such a fashion, especially when she’d stated plainly and clearly her desire to help him.

Trotting with authority, Twilight’s jab clung to the air like an omen. Alexander would not dignify her with a response, however, yet the mare was quick enough to glimpse a sliver of doubt in his brown eyes.

“Thought so,” She sassed, coming down hard on him and standing a hair from his weird-looking snout while she tried, and failed,to gain the upper hoof on him. His superior height, even while seated, made it hard for Twilight to amass any semblance of an edge. The fact his balled hands trembled to the point of making his knuckles creak like the doors of AJ’s barn didn't slip from Twilight’s mind, either.

“... Okay. Why don’t we all take a deeeep breath,” Seeing as she wasn't going to temper the human by herself, Twilight made the case about everypony present being a means to spread the fire to manageable levels. Leading by example, Twilight put Cadance's breathing exercises into the spotlight. Her second best means to chill down and feel herself again never failed her.

The first one was wolfing down half of Ponyville's stock on hayburgers with a diet soda on the side. Her mare friends would forever grow envious of her alicorn metabolism and have it not translate to a pudgy belly and humongous flanks.

“I need to go home. NOW!” Alexander stressed again, yet a thousand times repeated wouldn't land him any closer to his world’s shores.

“And I will do my best to see that you get home!” Twilight once more reaffirmed for the mule-headed human, her tone denoting her frustration. “But this dangerous, magical phenomenon we're dealing with? The only thing we're going to achieve rushing headfirst into this is getting ourselves killed! Or worse!” Now of that, Twilight was being one hundred percent honest.

All this talk about magic and leylines and the Aëther flew over Alexander’s head like a summer's breeze. His nerdiness granted him the chance to follow the mare in terms of similarities and parallelism he could draw from all forms of fantasy media consumed. But that was the sum of it. Fantasy. No fundamental law of the universe could hold against Twilight’s speech and implications as far as he was aware. And, Alexander's line of work made him aware of many things, as it happened.

One thing stood out clearly to him. He wouldn't find help in that obnoxious purple horse. Or, at least, not with the celerity he required if he wanted to see his friend and family ever again. The seconds were ticking down, and Twilight’s colorful arrangement of friends wasn't looking likely to chip in for his cause, either. None of them had added anything of substance besides awkward whistles, and bored laments from gay pride over there.

‘Fuck it. I'll take it on my own hands like fucking always.’

“I need my things,” Alexander nailed a scowl on the purple pony, standing up without notice, dragging poor, unprepared Fluttershy down the couch since he’d completely forgotten about her existence. That pony was so quiet, it was hard not to. “I know you took them,” He pointed an accusing finger at Rarity, apparently having followed some of the story while spending the morning bleeding his guts out of his nose. “Where are they?”

Offended beyond measure, Rarity abandoned all pretenses of remaining a pillar of charm and refinement, sending her snout high in the air. “Well, excuse me!! I was just simply trying to help! You seemed so busy soiling those prudy garments you undignify yourself by wearing, you… you ruffian! Hmph!”

By soiling, Rarity meant hanging on at the brink of death as Alexander had felt every system that kept him from kicking the bucket shutting down the more blood he felt he lost until his eventual turn to claim his spot beside Harambe arrived.

In the end, it hadn't been that bad, nor was he really feeling all that symptomatic from the aftershock. But, with a plate of scrambled eggs as a mindset that Alexander was currently suffering from, everything sounded and felt out of proportion.

On a side note, the human had a mind to shove a lesson so far up that stuck-up pony’s ass that she’d taste shit. For fucks sake, those curls, the baby blue on her eyelids, and those fake eyelashes that wouldn’t fool a blind man high on trippis. What the fuck was her point?! She was a fucking horse!! A horse doesn’t care about that bullshit!!

This entire situation was nothing short of ridiculous. Ludicrous even. Maddening. IMPOSSIBLE!! WHAT IN THE FOREVER-PARTY-DANCING-HELL WAS GOING ON?!!!

Alexander lacked the fuse to remain rooted while Rarity called him names. “Grrrr, I'll give you ruffian, you overpriced slu-OSTIAS!!”

With yet another blinding flash, his hands, primed and ready to squeeze down on some equine neck, found themselves dragged down under a new source of weight. An unfazed Twilight had teleported his bag from where she’d asked Rarity and Pinkie to store it for the time being. The aforementioned mares had ensured that everything pertaining, and possibly dangerous, to the human was stored inside, making the black, Adidas bag’s seams strain like a pregnant pony carrying triplets, and weighing accordingly.

By an inch was the bag and its contents spared from a nasty crash the moment Alexander locked in and fought against the pull of gravity. His prior assumption had been erroneous, born from the sudden surprise and freefall, the sentiment trampling over the immense relief to see his belongings returned by a most unusual means.

‘... No. This is lighter than I remember...’ Alexander realized for the full ten seconds he remained trapped under that notion. More important things had demanded his attention. It’d been a long day despite barely catching up with the midday sun, and he was far from feeling himself to make educated guesses.

With his worldly possessions secured against his chest, Alexander didn't even dignify Twilight with a simple ‘thanks’ before planting his rear back onto the couch, not sparing a thought for Fluttershy as briefly flew up with a startled ‘Eeep!’. Pumping her wings, she lost the confidence to try again and decided to grant the glowering creature some breathing room.

“You freaks better not have fucked anything…” Alexander grumbled under his breath. Sadly, he’d underestimated a pony’s superior sense of hearing. One mare in particular didn't take a shine to his rude observation.

‘“Hey!! Who are you calling a freak?!” Rainbow parked all pretenses of being bored to tears to stand up for her friends, who reeled back with shock, and a touch of hurt.

“I'm calling you a freak, Skittles!” Alexander spat out, sparing the rainbow-maned mare an icy glance before returning to his belongings. If a reason for thought had been present to rein in his spiraling anger, Alexander would've realized how insulting his current hosts was a poor move, and probably not one in his best interests. Alas, he was pissed beyond measure and scared out of his wits to give a flying fuck about that.

The horses could nicker and whiny all they wanted while he got shit done.

“Me?!” Rainbow's wings flared out, a taste of ozone emanating from her feathers at the pace the pegasus burned bridges faster than Fluttershy by her side tried to rebuild them. “The only freak here is you!! You… w-weird, sickly-looking monkey-thing!!”

Her raspy insults entered one ear and came out the other. Alexander was simply beyond petty games, having had his own share of verbal jousts to know when to pry further and when to let it simply die by itself. Skittles there had a short fuse and was trigger-happy, that much was plainly evident. He had no time to entertain such archetypes.

“Rainbow! Please!” Twilight begged, losing control like a mere leaf under a hurricane’s winds. No matter how hard she tried, the only thing this meeting was achieving was fueling Alexander’s frustration and landing him further from reason, painting him as the unfriendliest, most rude human from the rich list of two specimens Equus had had the privilege of hosting.

“He started it!!” Rainbow snorted, mashing foreheads against the young princess.

“Now hold on a minute here, Rainbow…” Applejack stood to support Twilight.

All ensuing arguments and chatter were drowned out alongside the rest of the world in Alexander's ears. A heated exchange called all ponies present into a circle at the center of the room, each of them adding their own take to the flaming pile of shit about him, none of them painting him in any sort of good light while loudly debating as to what to do with this creature of such an ill-mannered temper. All ponies except Fluttershy, who preferred to remain on the sidelines, refraining from piling in while plainly disappointed with his conduct.

Alexander unzipped his bag and called it a jackpot. A visual overview revealed everything he was carrying with him right where he’d left it, on top of all his electronics and other possessions seemingly intact. Knowing how easy it was to nick a screen with a hard-enough sneeze these days, the fact that his devices, in tandem with the glasses he’d balanced on his nose had survived the journey in pristine condition was nothing short of an act of God, not that he believed in one or anything.

With the ponies distracted in their bickering, Alexander seized the moment for a quick roll call.

‘Phone? Dead, we already knew that. Tablet?... Also kaput. I hope the portable battery carries enough juice for them both… Hmm, fuck, no luck there, either. At least the laptop has something going for it, I think. Headphones?...’ He brought the black, crome-played earpiece to his ear and pressed the ‘ON’ button. A soft chime followed to his delight. ‘Fucking A…’

Mouse, USB-C chargers, a few pocket-sized books, small suitcase, pack of bubble gum, metal canteen on the exterior, elastic net, casing for the glasses, notebook… All your tell-tale belongings for a college student such as Alexander. The anomaly had caught him on his way to meet with a colleague, dragging with him the clothes on his back and the things he’d carried in the bag as his sole material possessions.

His first order of business was now done. Alexander was unsure if these ponies had any semblance of an electrical grid he could hook his devices to, much less hope that the voltage and amperage would just conveniently be the same, and not outright fry his electronics in a sizzling light show. Not a desirable outcome, he’d have to find a safe alternative, and fast.

In his hands were the only tools he had at his disposal, his only chance for achieving any breakthrough on his way home should the ponies not stand by their word and sit through this with him. The only person he could trust now was the sole person present in the room. Himself.

The notion failed to prevent the pressure from continuing to build up inside him. Like a pot about to burst, that whistling chime, annoying as fuck, drilling at the back of his head. His situation was slowly settling down, taking a heavy toll on his psyche. By the time he was feeling detached from this Earth, or whatever this planet was called, Alexander was latching onto his bag more than holding it, reeling against a creeping icy haze tuning down the colors around him. Blood rushed to his ears to drown everything out except the erratic breathing hammering in his chest.

He was trapped, alone, most likely on his last legs if he was to collapse again. The ponies had forgotten about him for the time being, too busy throwing hooves and words about this thing or another.

Their heated discussions flew completely over Alexander’s head. The hot topic of his arrival had been kicked out of the scene and replaced by petty callbacks, quips, accusing hooves, and a healthy share of blame to pass around. All ponies, except yellow shy over there, bore down on one another before converging over a shrinking Twilight. They warred about the human's uncouth behavior and, most imperative of all, what the hay were they supposed to do with him.

Poor Twilight tried her best to keep up. Rainbow wanted to straight-up throw hooves with the human and teach him a thing or two. Applejack did her best to rein the buck-friendly pegasus in whilst chewing up Twilight for the blatant carousel of lies she’d spewed out in terms of her participation in the human’s arrival. Alexander was thankfully too lost in his own crisis to notice Applejack’s accusations, to Twilight’s visible relief the moment she darted her eyes towards Alexander for a brief spell.

That relief, however, wouldn't withstand Pinkie’s forceful butting-in, hoofing back to old classics and assuring everypony that a party is what everypony needed to chillax and lift that cuddly-looking-creature-whatevs-called grouchy spirits.

The alicorn princess was cornered, flanked on all fronts by countless demands, running her ragged. Not one of them harbored any form of utility as they piled up on top of her, squeezing down on her chest until her breathing started to become problematic. A shrilling beep drowned her friends’ pleas to her folded ears.

At that moment, Alexander and Twilight were of the same mind. The pressure built up and up and up…

“ENOUGH!!! EVERYPONY!!! STOP TALKING!!!”

There was only so much Twilight could take in a single morning.

Chapter 3- Stranded.

“ENOUGH!!! EVERYPONY!!! STOP TALKING!!!”

While a far cry in terms of volume and commandeering prowess, in comparison to Twilight’s mentors, the ol’ reliable Royal Canterlot Voice was ear-shattering enough to enact the alicorn princess' will and command undivided attention, at the cost of her friends’ ringing ears.

Everypony and dragon flinched as if they’d become electrified. A hint of fear revealed itself as they hunched back from the flaming, panting alicorn. Twilight’s boom had been enough to kick back Alexander from the brink of the pit of desperation he’d been precariously hovering over, as well as literally sinking him into the cushions. The multiple voices assaulting him went dead quiet, as did the rest of the library, all falling into an eerie silence, only broken by the crockery and cutlery from the untouched treats resonating under the strength of the alicorn’s shout.

‘... Ho-o-oly SHIT! That was fucking loud! Fuck!!’

That day, Alexander bore witness to an occurrence never before initiated by Twilight. Since her ascension, never had she needed to use the Royal Canterlot Voice, much less raise her voice to her friends in such fashion at all.

Twilight panted with her open muzzle as if finishing a triathlon with her hind legs bound together. Wide, unsettled eyes held no answers, only despair and a sense of overwhelming pressure. Her mane was disheveled, and the human could swear a few wisps of smoke slithered up from the edges of her mane, but it could’ve been his foggy glasses playing tricks on him.

All in all, Alexander felt the smallest pang of sympathy for the mare, a blindsiding sentiment carving a crack in his hard, ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude towards the ponies. He recognized the symptoms the mare was suffering from, making his lips crook in a grimace.

Don’t get him wrong. Alexander remained no less pissed with the ponies and his utter bullshit streak of bad luck, but the knot in his gut knocked hard on the upper department’s door and filed a report pertaining to his actual chances of survival if he were to blow off the lids of that one particular purple horse.

In his musings, something warm and wet graced his lips. The unmistakable taste of iron soon followed, and he brought a finger over to brush against the small river of blood cascading from his left nostril.

‘Again?’ Alexander pondered with dread. However, he felt nothing else assaulting him beside the inconvenience, sniffing hard to clear his sinuses of any lingering blood before it could dry up and irritate his skin. ‘Well, at least I’m not falling on my ass again…’

“T-Twilight?” Poor Spike was floored both physically and emotionally by his surrogate older sister's scary attitude.

The young drake’s shaky call shattered the bubble trapping Twilight in her madness. Clarity of vision chased away the red halo in her eyes, and Twilight drank in the world around her in a more tempered state of mind. She sniffled hard and sheathed her wings, recording the girls’ shattered resolves and fearful stances, widening the circle between them. Twilight had let her emotions get the better of her once more, lacking the strength to even try and justify herself.

Twilight needed time to think.

“S-Sorry about that,” She mumbled with a drooping head, taking a big gulp of calming air before laying down her request. “Look, this is getting completely out of hoof! We aren’t going to make any progress if we keep going on and on like this!”

Scraping a hoof on the crystalline floor, Twilight prioritized the bigger issue and began to address the proverbial elephant in the room, who was now giving her his undivided attention. Twilight’s eyes narrowed as they took note of the rivulet of blood Alexander had forgotten to clean away in his startlement. If she kept this up, no magic-dispersing collar was gonna spare him. She felt as if she was poisonous around him as a new, unwelcome feeling settled in her chest.

Her mind was nonetheless quickly made up.

“Spike,” She beckoned her faithful assistant with a flick of her tail. “Please, escort Alexander here into one of our guest rooms in the west wing. I believe he needs time to check his belongings, and I’m sure he could also use a shower and some away time from our bickering.”

She addressed the drake, but her words carried across to the human. This sudden offer of hospitality was a far cry from what he’d expected, more so considering how much of a colossal dick he’d been to them all in the short time they’d interacted together.

Nonetheless. you wouldn't find him complaining. He realized that he could really use both a rest and a shower. He had all the time in the world later on to repay her hospitality.

… Actually, no. He didn’t.

“Also, you better not forget this and make Pinkie Pie angry,” Twilight added with a wink.

“Yeah!” The aforementioned mare cried with a frown to reaffirm twilight’s words.

Powering up her magic, Twilight levitated the human’s choice for snack over to him: a simple cup filled with honey, along with a spoon that had both been forgotten under the commotion, into his lap. A hesitating hand coiled around it, fearing any backlash from the magenta aura surrounding it, but finding none beside a soft tickling upon his fingertips.

‘That’s fucked up…’ Alexander registered the sensation.

As the human focused on the alien feeling, Twilight carefully observed the way he used his digits to grasp the cup. She'd run a careful analysis on those digits of his later on, to see how they differed from Spike’s claws. But, that would be for another time.

“The rest of you,” The wide circle of mares left the unsure-looking human with a sullen stance, drooped ears denoting the hanging aura of shame remaining at their previous outburst. Twilight was simply under too much pressure for them to continue feeding the fires even more. Smiling warmly, and with a heavy heart, Twilight assured them she harbored no ill feelings while apologizing for her own ebullition. “I think it’s better if we all give each other some space for the time being. We’ll reconvene later when I have a clearer picture of what’s going on, and after we’ve all had the chance to digest it.”

“But, darling…” Rarity, not one to leave her fellow magic-wielding mare on the ropes, pleaded for reconsideration.

Alas, Twilight stood undeterred. For as much as she knew she could count on her friends for anything the world might throw at them, she needed time and space to come to terms with what had just happened while figuring out a steady schedule to see this human back to where he belonged. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at that, and without a single scratch on him. All that, while keeping all of this from everypony except those present before her…

No, that was simply unfeasible. She’d add ‘town-wise introductions’ to the schedule.

“I’ll be fine, Rarity.” Twilight nuzzled the fashionista with tender appreciation. “I just need some time to myself. I wouldn't want to egghead you guys to tears,” she said with a chuckle as it infected the rest of her friends, yet the spirit was not quite there. Still, the mares and Spike complied, but not before being reminded to keep tight-lipped about all of this for now.

“Seriously. No. Pony. Not your parents, not your sisters, not the spa mares…” Twilight spared a lightning-fast knowing look at Rarity, making the unicorn squirm at being caught red-hooved. Alas, there went her plans for the afternoon. “In the meantime, I’ll write to the Princesses. They’ll know better than me what to do.”

‘Oh, more pony princesses? Perhaps these ones will actually have a crown and, you know, might be actual royalty.’ Alexander mused sarcastically, for he still thought Twilight was pulling his leg with her princessly title.

Pretty pretty Pony princesses, just like his baby sister’s toys or something. What the actual fuck? How does this all make any sense to any sane human?

It made the same sense as them being able to talk, much else to think like an evolved sapient being. That is, none whatsoever.

Alexander threw his backpack over his shoulder and fixed the straps to free his other hand. He took a little spoonful of honey into his mouth after a solid minute of consideration while Twilight was roped in by the other ponies. The reason why he’d asked only for honey was missed by the ponies; Pinkie simply thought about his similar height to Harry, and how his request must’ve translated to his palate or something. She’d no doubt make him a honey cupcake the same moment Alexander shoved his rump into Sugarcube Corner.

Alexander, in his own elucidations, had a mind behind his peculiar request. If his haunch was proven right, perhaps he’d be granted a slow end without at least going hungry.

‘... Mmmm. Sweat. That’s a good start, alfa-gustducin is at least triggering.’

Six ponies, one dragon, and one human, all ended their shared interactions for the day as the fashionista trotted away with unwilling spirits, reluctantly listening to her smarter friend’s plea. Albeit a bit miffed by his crass treatment, a halo of mystery yet surrounded their most recent guest. Rarity felt an eerie pull towards him, unsure of how it translated. She couldn't quite put her tongue on the origin, but something in her horn told her that this strange fella had more than a few cuss words and angry glowrings to offer. She’d pay close attention to him from now on. And she’d sell her boutique if it meant that she’d get a hoofful of those clothes he seemed so clingy about, to dissect and study at her pleasure. She’d compensate him adequately for the inconveniences, of course, as no less befitted a mare of her status.

The farm mare followed, disappointed, her previous image of the creature when she’d aided him down in the dungeon shattered. Her disappointment was aggravated by Twilight’s inability to come clean with her dealt cards and admit her share of the blame in the matter. Both guest and host had acted in an unbefitting way, and now all ponies were in cahoots with a secret to share, a secret that she feared might rock the tiny, cozy town they all lived in peacefully asunder. Only the future would tell. But, for the time being, the farm mare would keep her distance and see how things played out. She had a family to care for, after all.

The pink party pony pranced away in her usual gleeful manner. So many things to plan! So many preparations to tackle! Gosh, she could almost taste the molasses in the air with so much stress and mean words flying around, bloating the library to its seams in the pressure back there. She knew full well what everypony needed, and she knew that she was the mare for the job! A lot of things had to be taken into consideration, though. Never had she thrown a party for such an… exotic pony since grumpy Gilda. As she skipped along with a merry tune, Pinkie only had one thing bouncing around the walls of her mind. Why had Alexander asked for honey?

The tomboy pegasus couldn't have vacated the premises any faster, preferring to bolt out the same way she’d arrived rather than take the boring door. She was beyond pissed. Who did this weirdo think he was to call her out in such a fashion?! She was no stranger to some witty jousting and good-mannered tongue-lashing, flying quips back and forth to sharpen the mind, only to end up in a pile of laughter at the end of it. But that?! That was simply rude and uncalled for! That spindly monkey had better watch his six, lest a storm cloud slip away from her vigilance and rain a bolt or two down onto his tail-less flank if he continued treating her and her friends like dirt! A flight around Ponyville would work wonders on her tantrum. She also had some napping to catch up with.

The shy pegasus felt torn on the inside. This new creature was a sea of contradictions in the short time they’d shared. She was well-versed in reading the emotions of ponies and critters alike. His angry, ungracious façade hadn't fooled her for one second. She knew very well where those sentiments emanated from. Many of her animal friends also hid their fear under a mask of explosive rage. There was a gentleness in the way he’d pet her mane and back, albeit unconsciously. The ghost of his blunt claws still made her fur tingle where they’d combed. A gentle treatment, a far cry from how he’d taken Twilight’s… um, ‘creative’ explanation of his arrival, or how defensive he stood during their introductions. Unruly or not, Fluttershy wasn’t going to quit so fast on getting to know this new creature. If she could manage to tie down Discord, this scared, lost being should be a walk in the park compared to that… she hoped.

The dragon and the human walked together. The former led while keeping a close eye on the towering creature keeping in step behind him. The latter followed without a word, a familiar weight on his back but a small reprieve that did nothing but worsen his already exhausted body. The dragon and the human were of a similar mind, with no exchanges of words or thoughts happening between the two, caging their respective storms within the confines of their minds. Neither knew what to make of everything, and neither could guess the next step to take behind the fog that clouded everycreature's reasoning. The dragon would perform his duty and lead the creature to his accommodations so that he could rest, while the baby drake partook in a similar activity. His chores for the day could wait. This morning called for a pile of comics twice his height and a bucketful of ice cream. Whatever it took to make his scales stop trembling.

The alicorn remained with her tail briefly tucked under her in the newfound solitude of her library. Her personal temple, her small haven of peace. The only place she knew could always come back to when the situation grew dire and everything else had failed. The clip-clop of her hooves and the swishing of her angsty tail set a harrowing pace as the mare scanned countless shelves, home to an unfathomable amount of books, all hers for the reading.

One of them would hold the answers she sought. She’d tried friendship as a first recourse, for that was the title she upheld, and she’d abjectly failed at doing that. The princesses were away and unaware, and the first impressions would be the last impressions with some of Twilight’s friends from the way Alexander had acted.

A human. A human of all creatures. Due to his arrival, the time for tales and myths was over, and Twilight stood at the center of it all, guilty of unleashing it. Her brief, distracted search was a fruitless one, a gesture born of routine, to empty her of all pretensions and notions aside from the hunt for the tome she wanted. If only to pass the necessary time to be refreshed and ready to take up on the promise she’d made to Alexander.

The alicorn hoped some moments of reflection and rest would improve his overall demeanor. She wholeheartedly wished to become friends with him, even if her gut told her that she was undeserving of such an accolade. Just imagine all the things she could learn from him, and all the things she could teach him in return!

Celerity was the order of the day, but that didn't necessarily equate to burning the only bridge that still held them together. Thrtr would be some very awkward days spent at the castle if the alicorn failed in turning Alexander around to more amicable grounds. Twilight was fed up with the deafening silence of her empty corridors and ample rooms. Not even the patrolling guards or the occasional maid sent from Canterlot to spruce things up made it feel any less empty or cavernous.

How could Princess Celestia stand it? The last thing Twilight needed was to tread on the tips of her hooves every time she and the human would be in proximity to each other, on top of everything else.

No. She’d make a friend out of him yet. She’d learn of his ways and his people’s ways, and in turn, Twilight would bring the human up to speed on the ins and outs of pony society, for whatever length of his stay might help him. There was no way in Tartarus she’d kept him holed in her home, gazing at his reflection in the walls and growing mad like she felt like she did sometimes. That meant Ponyville was in for quite a surprise very soon.

‘Those ponies better not start with all that ‘evil enchantress’ crap they labeled Zecora with. They ostracized her to the point of making a hermit out of her, for feather’s sake!’

That very thought made Twilight queasy. If the human had reacted to an open and undisguised offer of friendship the way he had, Twilight dreaded how Alexander might stand under the collective judgment of a town’s worth of ponies which, bordering the Everfree Forest as they did, had made them far too weary and untrusting of everything non-equine, on top of ponykind’s already generally-untrusting nature.

A flash of teleportation ruptured the otherwise peaceful atmosphere with a crack of thunder, but Twilight was too absorbed in her musings to pay it any mind. What she had no choice but to address with a scowl was Discord’s obnoxious purring as he teased and wasted no breath to annoy the fur out of her.

“My my… a little birdy just twittered some veeery nasty things about you, Miss Sparkle.” The draconequus’ goatee made Twilight's ear twitch as he unleashed a load of mischief to stir the dough. “Has our newest princess been behaving?”

“Discord…” Twilight, her eyes rolling like the sun and moon orbiting this world, simply had no energy to deal with the eldritch being right now, either now or for the rest of the year.

“Because, you see…” Discord ran his talons over the alicorn. “I was having this, oh, simply marvelous exchange with the ferrets living under our bridge. Who would have thought they were as hooked on Beethooven's work as I was?!”

Twilight resumed her pacing with a snort, knowing that her sought-after moment of peace and reflection was now a lost cause. Yet, her hooves wouldn't stand idly by and listen to Discord’s nonsense, either. Twilight needed to do something, to take her mind off of the human. Reorder her books by author, and then reverse index them by category? Trot around the White Tail Woods for a spell and clear her wits? Heck, she’d go as far as COOK something without burning down the kitchen! Anything would serve her! Anything, except putting up with the embodiment of Chaos itself.

“But, then!” The slithery creature coiled himself around the mare’s barrel, filling Twilight’s field of vision with his breathtaking looks and mare-rocking charm, should you’ve asked him his opinion on himself. Jitters dominated over Discord as he reminisced about that morning's events from his perspective. “Ooohohoho, sweet, delicious chaos streaming out from this eyesore you call a castle! Seriously, dear, have you considered some renovations?”

Now to that, Twilight took a healthy dose of offense. Deep inside, however, she also was of the opinion that the humongous, crystalline, tree-like outline of her castle was perhaps a bit too eye-catching and pompous, not that she’d ever admit it to the draconequus invading her personal space.

“I'm busy right now.” Twilight grumbled through gritted teeth, teleporting herself a good distance away in the library, leaving behind Discord to coil like a spring around empty air. A delicious cheesy grin ran from ear to ear. Discord always loved ruffling the young royal’s feathers as a hobby.

“Dimensional magic, my dear Sparkle!” Discord called loud and clear for the mare across the library. Even through pinned-down ears as she squirmed, caught red-hooved. “And not just any kind! Didn’t dear Celly warn you about the mirrors when she glued those prop wings onto your barrel?” Discord slipped with icy wind to add another layer over Twilight’s heart.

Said wings were itching restlessly, screaming at their owner to launch with the fury of a tornado so that she could send that nosy, mismatched pest straight to kingdom come.

The draconequus was only spurred on further by the mare’s stirred coals. “My, I can only imagine what the princesses will have to say when I inform them of your little, uh, ‘experiment’.” Discord snaked through the air to catch up with the paralyzed alicorn, her breathing having resumed its erratic pace as a myriad of scenarios played out in her head. “Of course, I expect them to follow along and assure me everything's under control since they undoubtedly would’ve sanctioned your little party tricks on this beautiful morning.” Discord brought his muzzle close to Twilight's ear once more, sending a very uncomfortable shiver down her spine.

“... Haven’t they?”

No, they didn’t. Celestia was aware of Twilight’s interest in pursuing the field, and gave the inquisitive mare a moderate green light, with the emphasis on moderate. But the alicorn had not informed her of that day’s first attempt… or its outcome.

It was supposed to be a surprise. A testament to her resolve and dedication to spreading the magic of friendship through the lands of ponies and beyond. WAAAAAY beyond. The young princess couldn't think of anything more ‘beyond’ than what she’d sought to accomplish that morning.

Twilight admitted to herself that she’d grown complacent, and had bitten off more than she could chew in her misguided rushness. But, her heart was in the right place, and the princesses would see that it was. She’d also cleaned up after herself, to the point nopony except Twilight and the Bearers would ever learn about anything she didn't personally disclose.

“Tsk Tsk Tsk….”

As if reading her mind, with a very real possibility he was doing just that, Discord called Twilight's bluff with a mischievous purr.

Reeling from the draconequus’ breath, Twilight breathed a little easier and finally opened her flaming eyes to the real world, but only because Discord had pulled away to joyfully celebrate, flying slender laps and twirls around the ample reaches of the library.

“And what a spectacular outcome!! You, my pretty, pretty princess, might have patched up the dimensional rift on the fly. Congratulations on that, by the way,” Discord fired passively as he dusted his lion claws with leisure, only to spring right back at the one-pony party. “But you didn’t patch it up fast enough, did you?!” Discord was all over herself in a flash, nailing his yellowish eyes full of mischief into her blood-shot lavender ones. “A human?! You've dragged a human of all creatures through the rift?!”

“I haven't dragged anypony!!” Twilight snorted in a fit of angst. She'd take the blame for her actions and the consequences that followed, but not another step further! Alexander’s falling through the rift had been a sick play of destiny for the unfortunate human, that she had no part in… beside being the catalyst of it all. A more pressing question came forth. “How do you know he's a human? What do you know about them?!”

“Ah Ah. I don't know, Princess Twiggles…” Discord stayed true to character and relentlessly kept chipping away at the mare's patience. In her exasperation, Twilight managed to summon magical strength into her exhausted core from sources unknown with the sole purpose of blowing the toothy smirk off his face. “I'm not sure I should indulge naughty princesses like you…”

“Discord…” Embers stirred back to life inside the mare. She'd take Fluttershy’s scolding happily any day if it meant blowing off some steam in creative and no less explosive ways all over the irksome draconequus, who had made a sport of unnerving her to unthinkable levels.

Discord kept his shit-eating grin until he could start to physically feel the pressure of the air thickening the more Twilight cooked in her anger. “Psh, fine,” He rolled his avian claw and made himself very comfortable midair, mismatched arms behind his back as he seemed to reminisce about the days of his youth. “To answer your first question, how could I not know that the creature you kindly invited here was a human?!” Discord did a double-take at the mare's words. “Wait a second. Did you say the human’s a he?” Twilight' dignified him with a stiff nod. “My, today truly is my birthday!” Discord chanted with a swift spiral in the air. “Males are even more chaotic than female humans. This is just perfect!”

Twilight waited with a lack of patience for Discord to wrap up his celebratory run, pondering his words about humans being chaotic by definition. She failed to conclude to herself whether that would pose even more problems to add to the current pile or not. Twilight couldn't deny how the first contact with him had left everypony with a sour taste, a true definition of chaos if there ever was one. Judging from Discord's daunting celebration, the chance of further interactions with Alexander playing out any better than that morning’s dimmed with every passing moment.

“As for your other question.” The aforementioned creature swayed like an autumn leaf back to Twilight’s side. “I’ve stumbled upon humans in my travels through the multiverse. They are quite interesting creatures, you see? Very fun to play with. Heh, they’ve given me many, many, many names during my frequent visits before, you know, I ended up as a stone-flavored popsicle. Although, they never seemed to get the horns quite right…”

As Discord rubbed his mismatched horns with a twinge of disappointed reminiscence, Twilight’s feeble hopes of returning the human to his home dimension sunk to rock bottom with a deafening blow to her gut. Multiple dimensions, according to the Avatar of Chaos’ words, hosted human beings, and she had no clue as to which of them was Alexander's, on top of her current inability to open a steady gate without blowing up her castle and the town it bordered in the process.

Faust in heaven, it'd take months just for the spatial disassociation hovering over the Map Room to fully heal before she could try to cut it open again!

“Could you send him back to where he belongs?” Twilight sunk herself to the depths of requesting the draconequus’ help, taking the punch to her pride in stride. The human’s wellbeing was more important than her spotless career… ex-spotless career now.

“And where does he belong, Twilight Sparkle?” Discord fired with a grin that made every strand of Twilight’s fur stand on end. “Also, why would I want him to leave? Not only does he lack a magical signature I could trace back, but do you really think he could survive a trip down the cosmic interstate? He might be chaotic, but he isn’t moi!” With a snap of his claws, a laundry-list-sized scroll unraveled from his claws to reach Twilight’s hooves, filled on both sides with abundant, and messy, claw writing. “And all of that speaking as if I don't have soooohoho many things planned with him. Oh, just think of the sweet chaos we can unleash togethe-GUH!!!”

Sooner would Twilight see herself ten hooves under than allow Discord to pull that plan off. Tugging hard on his goatee, it was her turn to invade the draconequus' kinesphere with a smoldering glare, leaving no room for equivocation.

“Now listen here, Discord! Alexander is under a lot ofemotional distress right now, on top of coming to terms that I have STRANDED him in a foreign world! He's scared out of his mind, alone, and possibly reeling from magical poisoning. Me and the girls barely managed to keep him under wraps, and all that has bought us is his ire. So, I'm going to make this perfectly clear to you.”

“Hmm, Alexander? That is a curious nam-”

“LISTEN TO ME!!” Discord knew better than to budge a single claw to wipe the spit out of his face. “Until I say so, preferably never, you will stay well away from the human! The LAST thing he needs is you toying around with him. I don't know what he's capable of, and I don't care what you might or might not know about his kind in other worlds. Stay. Away. Or by my crown, I will trap you under a very different kind of stone, permanently.”

You see, Twilight never fully pardoned Discord for having turned her friends against her during their first butting of heads. The sentiment was only aggravated after his betrayal during Tirek’s rampage, costing her her beloved Golden Oaks Library, and a lively amount of pain and strife as she battled against the empowered mad centaur, scarring the very landscape as they threw hooves together. Now, the Foal Range was one peak fewer, and her resentment was only rekindled every time Discord attempted one of his ‘localized, harmless parades of chaos’. The only product that came out of them was scaring or upsetting more than one pony and creating a mess that she and the girls would have to clean up every, single, time.

It was telling how far Discord had failed to ingratiate himself to the alicorn’s good graces, regardless of Fluttershy’s numerous attempts to buy her friendship with the reformed draconequus. All she’d managed was a degree of cautious tolerance. Now, the mess she had on her hooves was big enough to necessitate that he didn’t partake in his trademark meddling.

“Y-Y-Yes, ma'am.” Discord squeaked in resemblance to the mice living under his caretaker's cottage. The last time he’d seen Twilight this utterly cross was… well, he couldn't remember the last time! Nonetheless, he was well aware of the mare’s track record, and harbored no doubt that this particular purple alicorn, who’d bested him twice now, could very easily find a way to put him out of his misery, even if by a technicality, that already should be kind of impossible, him being already a spirit of sorts and all.

All things considered, Discord favored his life more than the fun it carried to tease the never-ending lights out of Twilight. With a gulp and a jittery nod, Discord would keep his distance for now per her request. Even looking from afar would be fun. A human was a certain promise for some interesting times coming around the corner.

“O-Oh! Why, would you look at the time!” Discord rolled up an invisible sleeve on his lion arm and pointed at a crude drawing of a clock on his wrist’s fetlock, the handles pointing at exactly eleven o’clock. “Flutteshy must be wondering where I am! Bunny censuses are right around the corner, and we have to prepare the pens! Ta ta!”

With a crack of thunder, Discord escaped with life and limb from the ire of one vexed alicorn, plunging her back to the solitude of her library, where she would continue to stew in her own frustration. The hunt for a book that would hold the answers resumed, yet the spirit wouldn’t follow her any longer.

Her once-decisive gait had slowed down to an unsteady pace. Countless tomes holding centuries-worth of collective knowledge came off as blank to the mare. Remorseful, lavender orbs scanned at the confines of her most sacred temple and, for the first time in her life, understood that no answers awaited her from within the pages it harbored.

A tear trickled down her cheek, quickly followed by another, and another after that. Twilight stood in the middle of it all, head low in a reflection of her spirits, no amount of daylight able to lift the gloom swallowing her.

Who was she trying to foal? She had no answers, she had no plan. She was lost, and her friends could not aid her in this. Celestia would be stark-raving-mad at her or, even worse, disappointed. She’d condemned the life of another innocent being. Or, at least, there was a very real possibility she’d just done that.

‘Celestia, what am I going to do? What am I supposed to do?’

The clouds she’d abused in a fit didn't have an answer for her, nor would her library either.

Sniffling loudly, Twilight dragged herself back to the couch the human had previously occupied, his harsh words ringing loudly in her ears even now. His scent lingered on the velvety cushions. The very same one Twilight had noticed while she placed the collar that would hopefully spare him from the worst of this world’s ambient magic. For reasons she didn't have the mental fortitude to dissect, Twilight slumped over the couch and remained very still, letting that unfamiliar scent taint her musings as she drowned the rest of the world away, her tears never stopping as her cheek became soaked in her sadness. Far from a sense of excitement, the world now rained down icy spikes straight into her soul.

He looked so afraid, so fragile during the worst of the magical poisoning. He’d hung at the brink just before her very eyes, and only by a miracle had he pulled through.

Twilight would have to tread carefully, push herself to her limits and beyond. Otherwise, it wouldn't be the first time she’d have snuffed out the life of a creature from beyond the reaches of their world, as Luna could very easily attest in her return from the Moon. However, it’d be the first one who had shared his name. Alexander.

Now, that was something worth noting in history’s records.

“Um… here we are…”

The short walk up to the second floor of the castle's west wing felt like an eternity for poor Spike. Never before had he felt more like a dragon out of magma. The young drake led the tall, imposing creature towards the guests’ hall, where the spirit of Harmony had deemed the rooms for potential visitors to be located at the time she gifted this castle.

Sadly, the most action this section had seen in reference to hosting distinguished members could be summed up to griffon couriers, who more than once had sought shelter from a wayward storm catching them tail-feathered from the Everfree Forest, simply to spare them some coin in renting a room at an inn for the ‘sake of cooperation between their nations’ or whatever excuse those coin-suckers came up with. There was also a visit from a diplomat from the Neighponese archipelago, who asked Twilight for a night in her castle on their way to Canterlot since they’d missed the last train for the day.

Twilight’s golden heart prevented her from turning a blind eye on a creature in need, and Spike was painfully aware how much she welcomed some noise in their home as a remedy to prevent the wide corridors and empty halls from swallowing them whole.

The guest he’d been asked to lead to his room today was, by far, the most exotic of them all, as well as the one who’d brought the most amount of noise with him. Only, Spike felt it in his spines how this kind of noise was far from the one Twilight thirsted for.

Peering behind him as he stood before the door of a randomly chosen guest room, Spike found the creature dutifully tailing him without protest. His eyes were lost somewhere else while his body carried him on autopilot.

The poor lighting from the windowless corridor was enough to cast an unnerving halo around him. Spike stood undecided whether to fear this alien or not. He hadn’t given them straight reasons to antagonize him, beyond acting up a bit like a prick and a pathologic shortness of patience, but it’s not like Spike could blame him for throwing a tantrum considering his situation.

You see, Spike was a subscribed fan of comic books, and overall a fan of fantasy and science-fiction stories. In more than one tale had the lead character found themselves in a strikingly similar situation this creature had landed, quite literally, on his butt to. Each character responded in a different manner, but all of them followed the inevitable thread of the story to its conclusion, meaning that downplaying or overall oversimplifying everything was a necessary resource so as to not clog the flow. That implied a lack of serious or deep exploration of a character's true feelings past the initial shock.

This day they’d all lived though, however, was NOT a product of fiction, as his green, slitted eyes had attested to. An ambitious experiment from the most talented pony Spike had ever known had gone awry, ending with the stranding of an extra-equestrial creature on their very doorstep. The same being who Spike had been asked to show to his accommodations for the time being until Twilight found a way to reverse the problem after a poor attempt at first contact.

… It was surreal, almost to the verge of comedy, absurd enough to come from some novice writer's attempt to ride the crest of a wave long since broken.

That brief notion failed to quench any heat from the matter at claw, if not accentuate the severity of it to him. Laughable and impossible as his very presence played and sounded, there was a very much life ‘n blood creature waiting restlessly behind Spike. Having heard the dragon’s brief comment, Alexander waited in eerie silence, shuffling some kind of saddlebag on his back while the crystals of his glasses twinkled under the scarce lighting.

“...”

“... Y-Yeah. Uh, let me show you around...”

Not needing to use a key, Spike put his stubbly legs into motion and commanded the door open. A rush of stale wind brushed along his cheek crests as his reptilian eyes grew accustomed to the even darker interior of the room. Spike rushed to put a remedy to the gloom by lifting up the curtain and opening a window for some much-needed fresh air.

Alexander, for his part, remained still as the statues in Caterlot’s Royal Garden. That is, when a spirit of chaos wasn't breaking free from one of them. The roar of conflict echoed through his entire being, alien sights mixing with familiar traits, and all of them warring together to construct the image of his surroundings, as well as forming a solid opinion on those with whom the human had made poor acquaintances of.

How much time has it been since he was dumped into that room with the numerous thrones? Three hours? Four tops. And yet, what few chances Alexander had had of peering out into the surrounding landscape as they trod along the castle revealed that the sun had barely crossed its zenith.

That wasn’t right, which was another thing to add to the pile. Alexander took great consideration of the little details. Almost as if riding the curve of an uncanny valley, Alexander spent the silent moments in the company of the lizard analyzing his surroundings and taking notice of where certain elements struck him as familiar and where others yet differed. The overall height of everything was shorter, an occurrence he blamed on the ponies’ lower height and quadruped stance. Door knobs were all of the handle category, while stairs felt a tad shallow on the legs. This entire place resembled the general outline of one of the many palaces he’d visited in his home country, but entirely made out of fucking crystal.

Like, all of it. He wouldn't be surprised if the toilet was made out of purple glass too, a chilling promise for his delicate buttocks. And that’s assuming these ponies had something similar to what a human was accustomed to. Whatever it was they used to dump their bodily waste into, he’d have to make use of it too. Like, pronto. Last night’s marathon of studying and gallons of coffee to sustain it, summed with today's excitement and worry, were taking their toll on him.

In addition to the much-needed bathroom break, Alexander felt utterly exhausted, drained of any semblance of spark, and too out-of-picture to even try and formulate any more questions. The ponies had granted him accommodations for the night, and he was not going to battle them on the matter. The bag on his back, which he’d previously thought to weigh less than usual, now dragged him down like finals week.

However, regardless of his tiredness, Alexander gave no visual clue that he was taking up the drake’s implied invitation. He was too busy tracing his movements as the young dragon fretted to make the room look as presentable as possible in its semi-abandoned state. Again, lack of use rather than a lack of visitors. It was often that Spike would ignore this side of the castle on his bi-weekly cleaning rounds.

Alexander absorbed the contents of the room. A curtain-bearing window, leading out to a breathtaking landscape of rolling hills and towering mountains, arranged in a V-shaped valley facing Equestria’s green south. Cornering it, and tuckered against the wall, a simple queen-sized bed stood. Queen-sized by pony standards, however, meaning that a good chunk of his legs were going to dangle from the end. The sheets were of a simple purple-and-dirty-white diamond pattern. Purple seemed like a trend around here, perhaps pertaining to the status of royalty that the purple horse claimed to be in possession of. Facing the opposite wall, a simple wardrobe awaited, with no notorious decorations or engravings soiling its simple, welcoming nature.

Another smaller drawer cabinet accompanied a working desk at the foot of the bed, with a peculiarly shaped chair tucked under its low frame. Considering the way a pony would sit and how their back would arch against the frame, the shape made total sense, but Alexander was running on fumes and unable to spare that notion a single thought.

On the furthest wall from the entrance, a simple door led to a bathroom, or that’s what the human prayed it did. The last thing he wanted was to wake up bleary-eyed in the middle of the night to accidentally stumble inside his neighbor’s room if these were the same kind of accommodations. Alexander had already suffered a fair amount of surprises to last him a lifetime without needing such further confusion to add to it.

The rest was empty space, left to be filled by his imagination. In summary, a functional suite meant for occasional, non-lasting stays. He was nonetheless disappointed to admit it was ten times better than his own den at the international students’ residence. When did England, where he studied, become Japan in terms of space? And when did Japan become England in terms of food? Why was everything a pile of shit overall?!

Now, those complaints seemed so pointless…

“Sooo…” The drone from the young drake shook Alexander from his daydreaming. The human found Spike standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, balancing back and forth on the balls of his clawed feet, making everything seem huge in comparison to his smaller height. He had apparently finished dragging his little tail all over the place to check that everything was in order as befitting to present to welcome a guest. Alexander had even missed him slithering into the bathroom and out to check the stocks in terms of courtesy mane and coat products, amongst other toiletries, granting the human confirmation that it was, indeed, a bathroom behind that door.

Fumbling with his thumb claws and filing his stare at everything except those small, predatory eyes of his, Spike awaited for some form of acknowledgment from the creature.

Slowly, stiffly so, Alexander took the first step into the unknown. He drank in his new surroundings and continued drawing parallelisms with his previous room at the Imperial College London’s residence.

Alexander paced in the room, eventually coming to stand beside the dragon for a brief second before heading for the desk to rest his belongings on it. Just like any other day after suffering long hours of class and even longer hours of lab work for his master’s thesis.

“This is where you’ll be staying for now. Not that we have any better rooms than this...” Spike, having wiggled out of the creature’s way, tried to engage in a bit of conversation before the silence claimed his cheek spikes in a fit of madness. Nothing but the honest truth. Beside Twilight’s and his own room, everything else looked very much alike throughout Castle Friendship. If the weird monkey-thing was searching for luxury, he’d have to fit his tailless rear on the first train smoking and look for it in Canterlot Castle, assuming the guards even let him get that far before clapping him in irons.

Alexander pondered Spike’s words. He held no grounds to act a bitch about it, considering they’d basically provided it to him for free… as far as he knew, anyway. It’d be a fun surprise to learn he’d have to pay back for it later with hefty interest payments. Now that'd be soulless enough to befit one of his kind, Alexander conjured humorously.

The room would serve him well, for now.

“Thank you,” Alexander added courtly and without ceremony, addressing the dragon by voice since his attention remained lost somewhere else in the room. “It’ll suffice, I guess.”

Gone was the snarky edge of his voice alongside his foul mood. A tremendous relief for young Spike, making the young drake deflate a bit with a long sigh of relaxation.

“That’s good. Yeah… good.”

That’s as far as Spike would go. The stickiness running between them was thick enough for the drake to plunge in for a nice spoonful. Human and dragon both returned to their previous arrangements, with one weighing his chances while the other toyed with his claws in a manner he’d inherited from his hatchling days and which he’d never truly gotten rid of during tense moments like this.

“... I’m sorry,” Blissful communications cut through the fiddly air like an arrow. it came from the human. Spike did a double take at his sudden apology, coming in as lifeless and barren as the amount of spirit he exuded.

“Huh?”

Alexander did not reassure the young drakes’ puzzlement immediately. Parking his attention from the landscape beyond the window, the human dragged his feet the short way to the bed, having grabbed something from the interior of the bag and stored it into one of his pant’s pockets. He needed a millennia to plant his butt over the spreading, upsetting its otherwise pristine arrangement.

Spike’s slitted eyes widened when they caught the creature parroting him with his claws in a very similar gesture as he crossed them over his lap in a contemplative manner.

‘Now, that is a sad first for me!’ Poor Spike was downtrodden to find in the midst of a town full of ponies.

“My behavior down there was… unwelcome. I apologize for it,” The human insisted with the conviction of a sneeze, making Spike shudder unwillingly when he found himself the target of his undivided attention. “It was unbecoming of me.”

While sincere an apology, Spike simply couldn’t read the human’s emotions. He’d grown up amidst ponies, and ponies were what he’d learned to read until most of them were like an open book to him. It was hard not to analyze him and, in his upbringing, Spike had taken many pages from their book as he grew and matured into the dragon that he is today.

This creature, however, had no mobile ears he could read, his eyes too small to be considered a proper gate for the soul, no visible tail to denote his general restlessness or excitement, nor did he have a snout to snort through when a foul mood hung above them. No wings to ruffle at his sides when an uncomfortable thought reared its ugly head, nor did he have a horn to spark unwillingly when a trigger was reached in his mind.

And yet, a glimmer of sympathy flickered into existence inside the fire of the drake’s belly, making it roar under a new life. As much as all his draconian instincts hammered at him to cut this exchange short and bolt the hay out of there for his surrogate sister to take over, Spike surprised himself with honest sympathy being targeted toward the creature. Not for what it was today, but for what it could’ve been for the drake. For what he’d felt the day when he ventured into the Dragonlands in search of his draconic heritage, only to find himself an alien amidst his own scaly brethren.

Was the same feeling of emptiness at blame for the human's upset behavior? Was that the reason he put up a rude front while Spike, in turn, had put up a fake bravado when the harsh truth of things had come raining down on him like merciless hail?

Spike’s mind was made. Against his better judgment, he forced his clawed feet in the direction of the bed instead of towards the door where he knew that he’d find safety. Alexander followed his every twitch in a weary fashion but didn’t prevent the drake from climbing up the height of the bed with strain before planting his tail and butt beside him.

Unsure of what to make of the purple lizard, the human waited stiffly for the young drake to speak his mind. All that had come from him was a prolonged sigh before he’d begun to tap his claws over his knees in introspection. Spike racked his brains in search for the propers words, but Twilight’s knack for improvised speeches and words of wisdom didn't seem to have rubbed off on him. In the end, he’d let his feelings do the yapping for him.

“Look,” Spike marched onwards with a small swish of his tail. Feeling the human’s towering gaze fixed on his nape, the drake breathed some bravery into himself before continuing. “I-I won’t lie and say I fully get how you must be feeling right now. But,” A shadow flashed before his green eyes, a memory of a time when he questioned who he was and where he belonged. “But… I do understand feeling like a complete outsider. I mean, look at me! I’m a dragon living among ponies; That’s not a normal occurrence around here! Yeah, I may still be small and cute and blegh,” He dipped a claw inside his maw childishly, missing the smallest of smirks that by a miracle appeared on the human’s lips with curiosity. “But… I don’t miss how some ponies still tread wearily around me, or act scared when I speak up for myself without a pony accompanying me. And… I know the way they’ll see me after I get my wings and grow bigger. There’s a part of me that will always feel like I don't belong here.”

A few moments passed, with only the drake’s deep breaths in the otherwise silent air, conveying an amazing amount of sentiment in his thousand-yard stare that Alexander was surprised to recognize.

“I know it doesn't compare to your situation, but I want to think it’s in there, somewhere…”

“... Perhaps.”

Spike’s ridges flared up to attention, a sense of thrill overcoming him after having earned an honest-to-Faust reaction from the human. As the drake’s thousand-yard stare shattered, Alexander took the metaphorical baton as they both looked at the empty space filling the center of the room.

Reassured of the effectiveness of his message, Spike launched into delivering the second, meaningful half of his little speech.

“Buuuut,” He picked up the threat in a livelier tone. “I was immensely lucky to always have family and friends to remind me otherwise. I hatched and grew up with Twilight and her family. Heck, I might not be a Sparkle by blood, but I sure as Tartarus am a Sparkle like any of them, and I know they feel the same way.” A warmth fanned the flames on the drake’s belly, fond memories of his early years under the tender care of Twilight and her family flooding him. “And… the time I spend with the girls only adds to that feeling. We’re all one big family, and I couldn’t think of a better group of ponies to help you through this… just as they helped me.”

“I have a family already,” The human riled up bitterly. “I have no interest in joining another.”

“Fair, I guess,” Spike replied, understanding where he was coming from, but not allowing his bluntness to deter him. As he leisurely kicked his legs against the bed’s rim, Spike knew just the words to sell the human. “Still, I’m hard-pressed to think of a better group of ponies who’d want to see you again after all this… you made quite the entrance earlier, after all. Just saying, those mares have quite an impressive record on friendship.” A small claw came to rest atop the human’s hand, spiking a rise in pulse on Alexander that the dragon was able to sense. “They might be a little… overwhelming at first, but don’t let first impressions make you close yourself down on friendship with them. Not to toot my own spikes, but it's kinda a trademark around here. Just sayin’.”

Alexander’s dip of his head made Spike smirk at his visible lack of clue. Oh, he’d see what he meant soon enough. Far from a promising one, the human had nonetheless made quite a striking impression on the girls, and Spike knew them well enough to bet his hide that that morning wasn’t the last the human had seen of them.

Tapping over the human’s scale-less hand twice, Spike felt like he’d accomplished his mission and skipped down to the floor. The raking of his claws against the crystalline surface saw him out of the room with a brisk skip, rejoicing in having made some progress with the human, albeit foal steps in the right direction… but, not before sending one last knowing look over his shoulder for the stunned Alexander. “You’d be good to trust them. I sure know I do.” A sudden reminder made him snap his claws. “Oh, right, before I forget. Breakfast’s around eight. Don’t ask Twilight to do the cooking. Please. The weather department's fed up with sending out clouds to put out fires in our kitchen. If you need anything… uh, just holler for me, I guess. Sound carries too well around this castle sometimes...”

A pretty useful perk except for the night Spike had to bury himself under half the castle's pillows to drown out Twilight’s colorful… exclamations when she’d stumbled upon a raunchier-than-usual segment in those romance novels she liked to partake in. Spike could feel another shiver coming up his spine at that intrusive thought.

That mare was in need of an emergency coltfriend.

“Yeah… Also, please try to remain inside the castle grounds for the time being. Um, ponies do tend to act a bit skittish around new creatures… Oh, by the way, what are you supposed to be? Like, what do we call your kind?” Spike surprised himself, having taken so much time to pop the obvious question.

“... Human,” Alexander replied blankly.

“Hooman… huh. Never heard of ‘em. Whatever, just stay inside and don’t cause a ruckus. Twilight and I will try to break it to the town gently so we don’t cause another Zecora incident. Trust me, you don't want one of those happening to you,” Spike cited with an ashamed flick of his tail.

Alexander was as lost as a raindrop in a storm. The drake was speaking to him as if he was up to speed on current events in this place, something he understood he’d have to fix very soon if he wanted to get any progress underway in getting back home.

“... Sure.” Came his brief response, doing his best to not act like a loon as he absorbed the dragon’s implications. Alexander was in agreement that a herd of panicking ponies was best to be avoided, especially if there were more of those unicorns with them to fire death rays at him or something. That is, assuming they possessed said ability. For whatever reason, the ponies came off at him as too cute for that kind of warfare… were they, however?

“Good!” Spike clapped his claws together, closing this metaphorical chapter on their interactions. “That’s all that comes to mind right now. Um… I was gonna say goodnight, but it’s still around twelve in the morning, so… Um… have a good rest, I guess? I’ll come find you at lunchtime if you’re feeling up to it.”

Alexander would take what remained of the microwaved honey for the time being. Yeah, they’d microwaves apparently. He didn't need to suffer an allergic reaction and choke to death on his first day. Another thing he jotted down was the use of time the dragon had just remarked. It’d be a small miracle if these ponies used the same twenty-four hour clock as his human peers did on Earth. A very welcome change on top of them sharing a similar language to communicate.

Even if it was fucking English…

‘I bet Stuart would be having a field day with them speaking English if he were here.’

“... Okay.”

“Great. So… I’ll see you around, yes? See you later.”

Receiving a brief nod of confirmation from the human, Spike smiled a fanged grin and made himself scarce from the room, wiggling his tail out so as to not catch it with the door as he closed it behind him.

The rhythm of his claws faded away as Spike exited the guests’ corridor to find Twilight and offer his assistance before preparing lunch. For the first time since landing in this strange land, Alexander found himself truly alone. Without colorful ponies to distract him and keep him on his heels, he could no longer ignore the flood of thoughts and emotions from running him over.

To boil things down to the basics, he was alone, stranded, with no means of assistance or a clear way home, on an entirely different world than Earth populated by, at the least, colorful, tiny, talking ponies of various fantastical breeds, and at least one kind of ridiculously small dragon with the promise of getting much bigger and possibly meaner in due course.

In conclusion, a half-cooked, stereotyped abortion of some fantastical world from a series-B isekai manga adaptation, consumed preferably, but not exclusively, by Japanese kids in their twenties with a thing for big-boobed girls and a need for huge-ass swords to compensate for their insecurities.

Alexander might've been a top lonely wanker with a thing for video games back in his prime, but like hell he was fitting for the loser-prototype main character requirements that made the gender what it is. In other words, things weren't going to fit neatly in place with the liberty of poor writing and low budgets to excuse the plot moving forward.

Just as the young dragon liked to partake in, Alexander also had an ample history of fantasy and science-fiction media on his back to draw from. But, contrary to the inconveniences of trying to fit days, weeks, or even months of world-building in a two-hours long movie or an average-sized novel, he’d have aaaall the fucking time in the world to experience how this particular world would make his time on it short.

Allergies, pathogens, air composition, organic molecules structure and components, gravity, which he already had a suspicion was not quite the same as that on Earth; indigenous creatures, sapient creatures of all things on this green earth.

What in the Kentucky-fried-chicken-FUCK was he supposed to do?! How was he supposed to deal with it all?!

Another round of tremors rocked Alexander to his unsteady foundations. This time, there weren't any yellow, pretty ponies around to lay on his lap and force serotonin out into his bloodstream.

Alexander felt his breath coming in short. Almost out of reflex, he sent a hand into his left pant’s pocket and extracted his phone. While the portable battery was dead, and no standard European sockets were in sight, he’d managed to recharge some semblance of life back into it by hooking it up to the laptop while he and the dragon had talked. Alexander pressed and held the ‘ON’ button and waited for the familiar XiaomiOS logo to flicker to life.

The boot-up sequence took shy of half a minute before the lock screen appeared on the screen. A picture of him and his family perched on the wooden railing of Santa Monica Pier during last summer’s family trip masked his decayed reflection. The hour marked half-past three in the afternoon, yet the sun shone with too much intensity for matching the hour. In what hemisphere had he even landed? On what latitude, for that matter?

Alexander pressed his thumb at the bottom of the screen. His fingertip was recognized and the phone unlocked itself to an opened conversation on WhatsApp, with Hell Bells by Aerosmith paused on Spotify in the background.

His eyes turned watery as they read what at first had seemed yet another morning conversation with one of his colleagues at London Imperial College.

Stuart (British Cunt) Last seen Today at 08:37

Alex. 8:25. Masca vidrios. Estoy de camino, no me hagas esperar.

Stuart. 8:25. In English, twat. You’re in MY country now. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Alex. 8:26. Me unf unf tu mama and sista look and like mucho!

Stuart. 8:26. Much better. Hurry your arse up. I’m gonna prepare some PROPER tea before classes and I ain’t waiting for you.

Alex. 8:26. Fuck your tea, crumpet. I want a gallon of coffee, dumbass!

Alex. 8:27. Whatever a fucking gallon is… 🤡

Stuart. 8:28. I’m gonna tie you to a chair and you’re gonna learn what good tea is!

Alex. 8:28. Suck on my fish and chips you tattie-eating troglodyte.

Stuart. 8:29. Whatever, dude. Just hurry the fuck up!

Alexander’s grip failed, letting the phone fall flat on his lap to later clatter down to the floor. His entire body felt numb, as if on a stormy cloud. But instead of feeding the whirlwind in his mind, everything felt as if were relegated to a backstage performance. His experiences trickled down to a crushing weight while the rest of the world became blurry and insignificant. Reality, his reality, was heavy enough to steal the air from his lungs and grind his bones down to fine dust.

Yeah. Alexander could hurry his ass all he wanted. It wouldn't land him any closer to home.

One human sits in a bar, alone with his ghosts. The drink tastes like ash in his mouth, the lack of company is a welcome reprieve. He ponders, and ponders, and ponders…

In his pocket, a clock, a countdown has started, yet the human cannot glimpse the end.

Funny how, even with the mist clouding his reason, the thought shone unchallenged, like the early sun burns through a morning haze.

“... I’m going to die.”

The joke was on him now.

Chapter 4- Straight out of fiction.

Twilight felt herself unwillingly dragged from peaceful, long-awaited slumber. Floating in a blissful sea, the dreamscape had been unnaturally quiet that night, both for her and the ponies of Ponyville who joined her at the hour of rest.

How was Twilight supposed to know about this? The young royal was being trained both by her old mentor Celestia, as well as receiving some lessons from the youngest sister, Luna, especially lessons pertaining to the realm of dreams and its care. That worked in Twilight’s favor since she had been forever fascinated by the whys and hows of dreams and the landscape they stitched together, of which Luna was master and sole inhabitant.

… Well, it stirred Twilight’s interest like pretty much everything else. That mare was a bottomless pit of curiosity.

Her short sessions with Luna had allowed Twilight a degree of control over her own dreams, as well as getting a general awareness of the mood of the dreamers closest to her. Far still from the dream walking and manipulation abilities the Princess of the Night was known and praised for. For the most part, Twilight would use it most to know when Spike was having a sugar-induced nightmare after wolfing down a bucket-full of ice cream before bedtime, and the nights following yet another monster attack over poor, unsuspecting Ponyville, were always hard on the young alicorn with so many nightmares poisoning the nearby dreamscape.

Not this time however. The town had slept like a new-born foal with a belly full of milk. Blissfully unaware, only just feeling the first rays of a new day slowly carving past their eyelids and through the oniric landscapes where each pony lost themselves. Not a single nightmare or bad dream throughout the night, almost as if an extra-equestrial creature hadn’t crash landed inside Twilight’s castle through as a consequence of a rift in space-ti-

“HORSEAPPLES!!!”

Twilight was very much awake now. In her jumpstart, the alicorn catapulted herself in a amess of fur and feathers straight to the roof of her canopy bed, only to bounce back into the mattress and up a few times before finding herself tasting the earthy, refined specks of the rug Rarity had gifted her to spruce up her room, and to prevent the chills from crawling up her hooves straight out of bed. Perhaps she should get some slippers… dragon themed. Spike would sure love them.

Rump in the air and muzzle sunk in the itchy hairs of the soft fabric, Twilight’s wings hung at their fullest in an awkward manner, like a swan having executed a rough landing over a frozen pond. Her chronic bedmane worked in tandem with her disarranged feathers to paint the portrait of somepony who had NOT enjoyed a good night’s sleep, contrary to the actual truth.

Twilight blinked hard like her old friend Owlowiscious a couple of times, both to clean the crust from her eyes as well as come to terms with her unflattering position. The mare kissed the last ebbs of sleep goodbye as yesterday's events, and the sense of extreme urgency that sponsored them, commanded her waking body to move her flank of her room in search of the human, which she did in an uncoordinated heap of limbs and feathers.

The rest of the previous day, after having shown the human his temporary accommodations per Spike’s confirmation, had been filled with a rather lack of event. Spike had gone up to find the human for lunchtime, only to find him collapsed on his bed asleep. Rather than wake him up, Spike thought it best to let him sleep the morning off in favor of a clearer mind to tackle the afternoon. Twilight was in agreement, and had stored his portion of the broccoli quiche Spike had graciously whipped in the fridge for Alexander to munch on later.

That moment didn't arrive. Twilight had spent the better part of the afternoon trying to fit her royalty-sized buck-up, as well as an appropriate plea for help to the princesses, in a single, undisclosed letter, and failing terribly at that. Concerned by Alexander’s absence, she had climbed the reaches of her castle to assess if there was something wrong with the human, fearing the collar had failed and all she’d find was a very-hard-to-explain corpse tainting the floor crimson. Now those kinds of thoughts were the last thing the alicorn’s racing heart needed, but Twilight worried nonetheless.

To her utmost relief, she found the human right where Spike claimed to have left him, sprawled on the bed and facing the wall, not bothering to cover himself with the linens. Whether he was still asleep, or simply ignoring her, Twilight lacked the courage to pry, opting to simply let him rest after such an eventful day.

Perhaps humans needed more hours of sleep than her? Was he even a diurnal creature for that matter? Faust, Twilight must have messed up his rhythms badly if that was the case! No wonder he had been pooped every minute of that day, dimension jumps aside and all.

Those and many more inquiries anchored down an overstressed Twilight with every wingbeat that carried her like a bullet across the ample corridors of her castle. She was still unaccustomed to the sheer size of it, and the sense of emptiness as a consequence. Since Spike prided himself of being able to single-hoofedly keep the castle running in her stead, Twilight didn't feel the need to fill it with personeel like Canterlot’s own battalion of maids and guards and overall maintenance ponies to keep the shine and chase the dust.

Speaking of the drake, Twilight could trust him to undertake the morning’s chores without reminder. She hadn't checked the alarm clock on her hasty awakening, but she was positive it was sometime before her usual waking hour and, consequently, before Spike’s.

The little guy had returned from his task in seeing the human settled in surprisingly uplifted spirits, considering how spooked he had remained throughout all the light show and the following introduction. His brisk strut on his return had prompted Twilight to question her young assistant on the matter. With a tad more pride on his chest, Spike simply commented that he and the human had had a brief talk, and that Alexander was sorry for his behavior. Color Twilight surprised. Perhaps all it took was a bit male-male understanding to ground the human. For once, Twilight would not question the methods in favor of the results.

The reassurance for the human’s temporary wellbeing, allowed Twilight to delve muzzle-first into a busy afternoon and following evening of producing a rough workflow with hopes to begin her efforts in carving a path back to the human world, Alexander’s particular human world. Efforts had concluded in an exhausted princess crashing into her bed and waking up with the same embers under the hooves as the ones which had carried her to her room until the mare was cocooned in the confines of her bed.

‘Gah! Curse these slippery floors!!’

Twilight missed a stop or two skidding over the jaded floors, inertia landing her a bit far-off from the human’s room. Twilight didn’t even bother to make herself look presentable before knocking on the door. She’d butt heads with Rarity and her long drones about lady decorum and yuck later. Alexander’s wellbeing was far more important than the state of preening of her feathers or the neat arrangement of her bangs.

… Well, perhaps her bangs needed a touch. A quick spell made work of straightening them up.

Twilight knocked again under the lack of answering, a tad stronger this time. Her heart dropped to her stomach when, the moment her hoof tapped on the door, she found it unlocked. The door opened a crack, revealing no towering bided gently snoring on the bed, nor sulking on the chair. Her ears flickered, finding no signs of an occupant in the bathroom either. Either he was strikingly quiet or, the most realistic possibility, had left the room, and was now possibly wandering her halls of her infuriatingly-labyrinthine castle alone and scared and crying for help and…

“Crap!!”

Off like an exhalation the purple mare flew, this time headed for Spike’s own room with a feeble hope that the drake had beat her to the morrow and had already roused Alexander for breakfast. Her heart hammered fast in her chest as Twilight jetted on a straight line towards the east wing of the castle, where her bedroom and Spike’s shared space with the empty accommodations of a nonexistent castle personnel, making this place look even more desolated. Twilight’s friends had assured her time and time again it’d grow on her eventually but, after a year or so, Twilight still clung to the memories of her old, cozy library.

“Spike!” Twilight hollered once reaching the dragon’s dorm. She had no time to waste and asserted her dominance by crashing inside. Her cry made Spike’s awakening a mirror of the alicorn’s, although he had no canopy to bounce him back like a tennis ball, and only his old basket to cushion his fall.

“T-T-T-Twilight!!!” Spike wailed out of breath, feeling as if he just had lost half his weight in scales.

“Where is him?!”

“They’re not mine, I swear!! I'm just holding them for Button, promise!!” Spike swore with all of his little heart.

A speck of miscommunication seemed to have blurred messages between the siblings, rendering Twilight with a cocked head of puzzlement and a trembling Spike crashing back from an adrenaline rush, clinging to the sheets of his old basket.

To the drake’s dismay, Twilight was quick to spark the connection with last month’s incident involving Spike and some choice of… colorful magazines she caught him hiding under his basket.

On cue, the smallest glimpse of a wrinkled corner peeked from under the wooden threads the dragon rested over, priming Twilight to flare her nostrils with a motherly scowl.

“Spike!”

“W-What?! It’s true! They’re not mine this time!” Spike rose up his claws in defense.

“Then why are they under your- Bah, no time! Have you seen Alexander?!” The alicorn stressed, filing the scolding for a more appropriate time, dragging herself back to more pressing matters.

“Uh… Was I supposed to?”

“Urgh! Yes! No! He’s not in his room!” Twilight was on the brink of a meltdown, apocalyptic scenarios conjuring unwillingly to fan the flames. Snorting and cuffing the carpeted floor, Twilight wiggled on the tip of her hooves to face the door and levitated a startled Spike onto her back. She noticed how the little dragon was gaining weight the more he grew. There’d be a day he wouldn't fit on her croup. “We gotta find him before somepony else does!”

Prior to tuckering in for the night, Twilight had dismissed the platoon of guards from the Thrones Toom after finding the state of the lingering resonance satisfactorily stabilizing. The fear of another wayward rift was now gone. Not to disrespect their dedication and professionalism, but Twilight’d rather not have an armed platoon of guards prowling around, only to stumble with Alexander and decide to practice acupuncture on him with their spears.

Regardless of the gesture, a well-placed sense of responsibility kept Twilight at the edge of the cliffs. She pumped everything from her legs since Spike’s presence restricted her indoors flying capabilities, darting out the east wing and down the central set of stairs, heading for the main hall where she’d start the search, as it led to virtually all parts of her castle.

The blood pooling on her ears made it hard for Twilight to command them in search of the human. Spike held on her withers for dear life, the needles prickling on her mane for being pulled by his claws not registering in her flailing thoughts.

‘Please! Oh pleasepleaseplease don’t let him have gone outside! The ponies are going to throw a fit and another if they see him out of the blue!’

“Twilight! Wait!”

Twilight heeded Spike’s call over the adrenaline. The mare skidded on the floor, her poor grip landing her muzzle first against one of the crystal columns lining the sides of the hall’s central corridor. Yet another unceremonious landing on the same morning.

“... Ouch.”

Her muzzle was starting to grow sore with all that morning's adventures, shifting her mood to a tad more cloudy, only aggravated by Spike’s poor attempts to bottle his guffaws behind his claws.

Twilight shook herself back in the game and claimed her little revenge by swatting the unsuspecting drake on the nape with her tail, producing a dry ‘ouch’ with a similarity to her own that only two siblings could procure.

The alicorn wanted to find what had gotten the drakes attention. Her snout was the one to unmask the truth before her other senses, and guide her steps towards a pair of doors heading for the castle’s kitchen and dining room at their left. The tantalizing smell of food being cooked floated the sniffing pair to the former where, to Twilight’s immense relief and surprise, they found Alexander sitting idly over the kitchen’s aisle, an assortment of ingredients arranged without apparent order in front of him.

‘Oh, thank Faust almighty…’ Twilight heaved as she felt herself deflate a little.

Alexander noticed the pair trot through the doors he had forgotten to close behind him. He found Twilight peering awkwardly from the other side of the kitchen, and the small lizard riding her back, for reasons beyond his understanding. The only acknowledgement the pair received from him was a brief, wordless nod before he retasked his attention to the stretched arm he was resting over the glass-like surface of the aisle. The sleeve of his jacket pulled over his elbow, allowing Twilight to once more marvel upon his light-cream skin and the sickly amount of fur it hosted..

It didn't take but a blink for the atmosphere to become the same shade of awkwardness as the day prior’s.

‘Well, this is awkward.’

Twilight forced herself to fight through it. She motioned her hooves to carry them both to the human’s side, her snout unconsciously sampling the air and classifying their smells with their belonging ingredients. She didn't mind that the human having raided her fridge, although perhaps raided was a bit of an exaggeration. As far as her nose told her, and what she could find distributed over the aisle, Alexander had taken an egg, from which only the broken shell remained, a tomato, a slice of bread, garlic, and a small glass filled with oil.

A pressing inquiry pending from yesterday’s lack of communication was blissfully answered for Twilight. Whatever Alexander had in mind for breakfast entailed vegetables, which she now could easily assume he was able to consume. During the short analysis Fluttershy conducted on him while Alexander remained slumped inside the reinforced cell, she had concluded his denture to match that of an omnivore, similar to her bear friend Harry, albeit much less menacing, to everypony’s consolation.

… Would it be offensive if Twilight were to mention it in front of Alexander?

A sudden, inconsequential thought. Twilight, her palatar in particular, had hoped for a moment Alexander would be willing to share a small nugget of human cuisine, if that was indeed what he was engaged with.

To the mare’s befuddlement, the arrangement of ingredients wasn't being put to use in any way. As they laid in disarray over the aisle, Alexander sat on a stool waaaay too small for him, but he made do. Twilight took a note to remedy that later. He remained unmoving, sans the regular tip-tapping of a pencil being bounced against the hard surface between his fingers.

Twilight found its design identical to their own counterparts. It seemed practical things remained practical across dimensions, she was happy to observe. Right beside his stretched arm, a crude drawing of the same facing up was drawn in a black page of a notebook, joined by some arrows and scribbling Twilight couldn't quite make out from where she was peeking.

‘My, that’s some messy calligraphy.’ The well-read mare lamented inwardly, noticing the small size and messy apparel from the humna’s clawwrigh- heh… hoofwriting?... paw-writing?... Whatever. She was expecting something better from those blunt, fleshy claws of his. There was a reason she preferred Spike jotting down the important stuff instead of her own horn calligraphy, which was NOT scruffy in any sense of the word, and Twilight would have the hide of any pony who claimed otherwise.

It wasn't her fault her mind raced faster than her horn!

“Yo.” Spike was the first to come out of the shell while Twilight pondered to herself. “Are you gonna be using those? I had pancakes in mind.” The drake offered, climbing down from the alicorn’s back in search for his personal stool he used to reach all necessary places in the pony-sized kitchen.

“...” The human remained pensive, scribbling something deon with his free hand before addressing Spike. “Buenos días. And, yes. Preferably. But I have to check first.”

There was it again, that strange accent Twilight couldn't for the life of hers put a hoof on. Alexander spoke fluent Equish, yet another small miracle to draw from their not-so miraculously encounter. Twilight could understand him perfectly, yet it drove her up the walls not being able to pin a resemblance, since she basically knew ponies and creatures from all the far sides of Equestria. It wasn't like it was a critical trait to consider, but it made her wonder nonetheless, yet another tidbit to add to the pile of mystery towering around the human.

“What are you checking for?” With the spirit of curiosity warming her chest, Twilight magicked a stool of her own at the human’s side and climbed on it, letting her tail swish eagerly behind her while she made sure to tuck her wings in close so as to not bother the human with her proximity.

Alexander had kept a very close eye on the levitating stool before the mare had planted her haunches on it. It still eluded him by a wide margin. The ponies had called it magic, but Alexander stubbornly refused to call it nothing else than bullshit.

Alas, lo and behold, it kept happening before his very-much-awake and awestruck eyes. The more he chewed it over, the more he was sure he was simply under a deep coma and experiencing an abortion of all those fantasy pieces of media she had grown consuming since his youth, for what Twilight was demonstrating with the ease of domestic experience was ten degrees of impossible. He wasn't even going to question how the same pony gazing up at him with childish curiosity held the ability of reason and speech in the first place, a trait exclusive to humans until very recently. The last time he had seen a talking unicorn was in a trashy sequel of an even trashier movie streaming on Netflix. And yet, Alexander felt closer to being starring in an unaired chapter of Rick and Morty by the sheer ridiculousness of everything surrounding him.

“... What?”

“You said you were checking something? What is it?” Twilight repeated with the beamest of smiles, nosing her snout closer to the open notebook, taking note of the craftsmanship, another striking resemblance to the ponies’ very own, if not a tad bigger and square-patterned on the sheets. Twilight still decanted for the practicality of scrolls all the same.

“...” How was Alexander supposed to explain it to her? This adorable pony might have a huge-ass library to call her own, but the human was unsure of the actual length and depth of their knowledge. Best park the technicalities and speak in layman’s terms. “I’m testing your groceries for allergies. I hope you don't mind.”

With a puzzled cock of her head, Twilight drove herself to try and connect the human’s words with the drawing on the notebook and the way he kept his arm stretched and facing up. She found a series of dots carved in pairs over the length of the drawn forearm, as well as narrows pointing outwards from them to what she now could more easily discern where the names of the ingredients he had collected for testing. It appeared their written Equish was also similar enough to bridge two cultures.

It clicked on her soon after. He was performing an allergens test on his skin. Smart, albeit risky.

“Oh… Is it safe to do so like this?” Twilight dragged her concerned eyes to meet his expectant ones.

“Not really.” The human answered honestly, scratching the back of his head. “But I have to make sure. All these look and smell the same to the ones back home. But…”

‘But this is an entirely new world.’ Twilight mentally finished, praising the human's quickness of action. ‘That’s kind of smart, actually.’ She found herself pleasantly surprised Twilight could already picture what each of the girls would be doing had one of them ended up with the roles reversed and landed flank first into the human world.

“Yeah…” Alexander left the conversation to dry in the air, resuming his analysis on the exposed skin of his forearm. “So far, nothing to worry about.” An itch on the neck brought him to scratch the raw skin under the collar he had kept on just in case Twilight wasn't a loonie or playing a dark joke on him and this ‘magic’ was indeed poisonous to him. “I am also able to smell pretty much everything, and they smell just like they’re supposed to. The N1-N2 neuronal pairs are responding to your food, and the honey you gave me yesterday also tastes like it’s supposed to. The structural motifs seem to be there. at the least. Uh, thanks for that, but the way.”

A pensive look dominated his features, his brain riding a train of thought. “... Hmm. So far, I have grounds to believe the biological molecules in here are more or less the same as on Earth, or at least share the same functional groups, assuming that my olfactory receptors are indeed sensing the various structural motifs rather than vibrational energy-levels through quantum coherence mechanisms, I think Brookes paper called it that. That means, ex ante, my body should be able to recognize and proteolyze your food’s innate molecular chains if it can bind and classify them accordingly… Although, there’s also the possibility you’re entire food chain’s based around L-glucose and D aminoacid isomers, in which case I’m utterly fucked…”

Alexander, scratching his chin out of habit, quickly caught himself on the use of technicisms he had just only reasoned best to avoid, foul language included and accentuated. “S-Sorry, force of habit.” If he was indeed in the presence of royalty, he’d better check his mouth if he wanted to spare himself from a quick visit to the gallows.

Was that even a thing here? Equine necks seemed a bit too girthy for that method to work… Fuck, where did that come from?

“Uhhh…” Spike, who was already deep in mixing the ingredients for pancakes in a bowl, halted his master craft to gaze up at the human as if he had grown a second head over another second head.

Twilight, for her part, was simply floored, neurons firing like crazy. “C-Can you repeat that?” She asked shakily, feeling her fur stand on end with an electric current of pure, undiluted thrill emanating from deep within her to fill the mare with energy.

“Um,” Fuck, Alexander should’ve known better than flapping ike trap as if he was still at the pathway computational lab, braining it with the big heads in white coats. It was a sad trait of his to rant like this everytime he slipped into professional mode, talking in tongues. With an apologetic grin, he cleared his throat. “Sorry. Force of habit… again. Just that everything smells and tastes as it should, so it should be safe for me to eat… I think.” After which the human shrunk a bit on his seat.

Oh, that was NOT what Alexander had just ranted about. Well, it was exactly what he had intended to convey, but the choice of words was at blame for Twilight having almost lost her balance on her stool the way her tail had begun to wag behind her. She knew of only ONE pony to conduct an educated reasoning on the spot on a similar fashion, using accurate and adequate language as well a logical coherence to deduce a possibility out of a hooves-on approach, only to act abashed and skittish when needing to put things into laymare’s terms for the rest to follow.

And that pony was herself.

Twilight had smelled a glimmer of intelligence on him during the initial, rocky introductions. However, if her snout was indeed on the case, Twilight had just become the receiver of a birthday gift months in advance. The BEST kind of gift!

“No, n-no! That’s not what I meant.” Twilight danced her hooves frantically, seeking to correct her inquiry. “I understood you the first time.” More or less. “It’s just… H-How did you come up with that conclusion? And how did you know to use the appropriate terms?! That is a very academic choice of language!”

‘Please say it, please say it! Pleasepleasepleaseplease…”

Alexander could almost feel the expectation oozing from the pony in waves. A moment of debate crossed him before answering. “Um, well… I’m a scientist… It kinda comes with the job, I guess.”

“Oh, colt…” Spike face-clawed in the background. That human was toast.

Buck birthdays, Twilight’s exhilaration overpassed that than a million new books, or the completely reconstructed memories of Star Swirl could ever awaken in her. Of all the creatures who could’ve crossed the rift! A scientist!!

To Alexander, for his part, a cold punch to the guy painted it evident how he had made a terrible mistake. That bouncing pony was going to change the magic-cancelling collar for a very tight noose the way he was misinterpreting Twilight’s budding inquisitiveness with accusatory demands of some kind of witch hunt. It made sense in a world full of magic. His way of blurting out cold science was gonna earn him an early trip to meet the savior, victim of a twisted, reversed-roles kinda way of the burning witches alive back in the good ol’ days.

“F-Forget I said anything!” Alexander cried in a feeble ruse, closing the notebook and pulling down the sleeve of his jacket. Ice on his veins made him shudder under the alicorn's intense, inquisitive gaze, lavender pools impossibly wide. “I-I was just being stup-”

“A SCIENTIST?!! YOU'RE A SCIENTIST?!!! YESYESYESYESYES!!!!”

The hammer was cocked, and an alicorn-shaped bullet was free to celebrate a one-pony party all over the kitchen, darting around as if her tail was on fire, scaring Alexander out of his stool and borderline making Spike spill the pancake batter all over himself.

“Twilight! Self control!” The dragon chided, securing the bowl with the mix in his stubby arms.

Spike’s warning registered on the mare like a spellbolt on the chest, bringing her dead on the air in a very Pinkie-like fashion. Twilight crashed down literally and metaphorically from the high to drink in her surroundings. While Spike stared up at her with a disapproving frown, Alexander was down on his ass and against the aisle, shaking free like a leaf while pinprick eyes gazed up at the electrified alicorn in fear.

Twilight was down on her stomach not a second later, apologizing profusely. “Sorrysorrysorry!! I just, I… eeeehehe! This is so exciting!” Everypony knew it was a losing battle for the mare, yet Twilight had to push on. “No. No! Bad Twilight!” She cloncked herself on her withers… only to rise up and fall down on a cute, overjoyed dance with her wings flailing wild at her sides. “But this is just sooo great news! YesyesyesyesYES!!”

Respect for personal boundaries was a major absence in the room. Alexander’s world became purple, and smelled of lavender curiously, since Twilight bore her muzzle down on him to the point where nose and snout met. The fury and intensity of a storm carried the mare in a hover above the human. “Did you say scientist?! As in… as in… um, a scientist? You investigate?!” There weren’t that many ways to convene it, but Twilight would exhaust each and every one of them to carry her inquiry across.

“N-N-No?” Alexander, shriveling under the mare’s inquisitiveness, squeaked like the mice Spike had to chase out of their pantry with his flame every now and then. All traces of that cocky bravado from yesterday was lost in the wake of a passion-driven Twilight, a true force of nature to be reckoned with.

“Yes, you did!!” Ha! That silly human wasn’t gonna play her for a mule. Faust above must’ve been on the human’s side that morning. Twilight left the stunned human where he laid, pulling back for some much-seeked breathing space. She was still not done, though, there was no stopping this over-sugared train now. And she hadn't even had breakfast yet. “Okay okay, back on Equus now. Deep breaths, Twilight. Deep breatheeeheheheNO! Stahp! Affoooo… Affoooo…” She commanded herself with a flap of her wings.

Had Alexandor not been on the brink of pissing himself there and then, he’d have found the mare’s bouncy eagerness an endearing show to boot. The way she sucked air into her lungs and out in an exaggerated fashion was pretty comical, making her appear like a big, bipolar birth puffing up and down.

“You’re gonna have to forgive her.” Another jolt brought Alexander to skip a beat when Spike nudged him from his side, offering a claw to help him up. How was the small drake gonna help Alexander up, who towered four times over the small drake, was beyond the ragged-looking human. Nonetheless, he took Spike’s offer and found himself back on his feet in a heap, surprised by the drake’s unexpected show of strength. Perhaps he was actually a dragon and not a big lizard some naughty kid had painted in purple and green as a sick prank of sorts.

“W-Wha-?”

“This, I mean.” Spike sweeped a claw at a still-recovering Twilight with a bemused smirk. “She gets the zooms like this on occasion. She loves learning new things, and has a LOT of questions for you, I bet. Heck, so do I,” His friendly demeanor made a drastic turn when he sent a cold warning with the heaving mare on the receiver's end. “But unlike somepony, I know better than to act like a little filly on the day of her Cute-ceañera!!” Spike chided with a smokey snort.

‘Cute…-ceañera…? As in, ‘cumpleañera’? What the actual fffffu…’

“Ah!” Twilight finally realized she was making a fool of herself and collected her marbles. “Hehe, s-sorry. That was rude of me…” With folded ears, the mare made herself scarce at the other side of the aisle where nopony would notice the embarrassed taint on her cheeks, and where she could get her tail to stop wagging with a mind of its own. Seriously, she’d chop that thing to the root one of these days!

“Pssh,” Spike rolled his eyes in good humor and climbed up the aisle. “Now then, new guy. Let’s see you work your magic while I wait for the dough to settle.” The dragon proposed with an undertone of friendly rivalry. He was numero uno chef of the castle, and he wasn’t about to lose the title to Alexander on his second day!

Alexander tracked the drake’s claw to the assortment of ingredients, lucky having been spared from the alicorn's outburst and waiting to be turned into a scrumptious meal. From the other side of the aisle, the upper-half of a pair of fuzzy ears peeking from over the rim perked up, followed by a sweet-faced Twilight cutely resting her chin over the surface. Twilight wasn't gonna miss the human’s cooking attempts for the world, neither will Alexander notice the blank piece of parchment and quill she was secretly holding beyond the males’ sight.

Aside from reinforcing Alexander's feelings of inhabiting a cartoon for kids on the psychiatric wing of the hospital, it rubbed him the wrong way how this pair of numbnuts were making a great deal of a deal of… well, everything. There was complicity between these two, making painting a guess as to how long had the two of them known each other. The smaller size from the drake was by no means a testament to his assertiveness, Alexander noticed, as he had just witnessed the little guy rein down a full-grown mare with a horn able to shoot death rays (possibly) and fucking fly too! Color the human surprised.

‘I mean… I’d also wear my pair on my sleeves if I could breathe fire… C-Can he breathe fire?’

“... I was going to make tomato toast…” Alexander announced dryly, bouncing his eyes back and forth between the dragon and the eager mare. The spotlight was on him, bringing him to squirm under their undivided attention. Seriously, why so much expectation for a piece of stupid toast?!

“*GASP*I know what that is!” Twilight chanted with the energy of the filly Spike accused her to be. “Lemme help!” She requested boldly, wanting to make it up to Alexander for having spooked him for the hundredth time in less than twenty four hours. A lavender glow surrounded the slice of bread Alexander had used part of the crumbs to test for allergic reaction against this world’s version of starch. “Spiiiiike?”

Reading his older sis like an open book, Spike snorted amusingly, the mare’s playful behavior contagious as the feather flu. To his better judgment, Spike decided to humor her. “Watch this.” The drake invited Alexander, who stood still against the aisle, seeing his breakfast pried away by magical means.

‘It’s not possible… It’s simply NOT possible!’

Spike stood tall over the aisle and pounded his chest twice, as if stirring the mix needed to light up his fire, which shook Alexander out of his clothes as the dragon rushed two short plumes of green flame from his nostrils, signaling what little hairs clung to his arm.

‘... Yep. He does breathe fire. Fuck me.’ What little doubt the human still harbored over the alleged dragon’s draconic heritage was promptly roasted down to ashes by his green, very-much-tangible flames.

“Ready.” Spike gave Twilight a claw’s up. The mare across the aisle steeled her focus and prepared. Clenching her haunches as if about to pounce, her tongue peeked from her muzzle as a glimmer of determination shone in her pools of lavender. Magic began gathering around her horn, a series of spells being mentally assembled in order which she’d need to cast in quick succession.

“On three, Spike! One!”

“Two!” The drake followed, his tail swishing behind him.

“Three!”

That morning, Alexander became a spectator at a circus parade. He bore witness to a show of coordination and dexterity that’d shame the Circus de’ Soleil itself in its prime. Not by the complexity of the number, but for the means it was carried.

Fucking, honest-to-God, magic.

Twilight commanded her levitation and catapulted the slice of bread onto the air, high above their heads where a severing spell cut the bead into two symmetrical halves. It was Spike’s turn to use his flames to very acutely and methodically toast the bread on its curve, bathing them in emerald fire of the precise intensity and for the exact amount of time to see the slices out sporting a crunchy, golden shade on their crust. The toasted bread had only just landed back neatly on the plate when Twilight took possession of the sole tomato as well as the garlic. Her horn fired repeatedly in quick succession. Alexander’s eyes became saucers when the vegetables were peeled, sliced and crushed into a neat pulp before crashing down under their own weight exactly over the upturned bread with an even proportion alongside both surfaces.

All in all, a ten-outta-ten Mediterranean breakfast in the time it took him to take a picture, had his frozen thoughts reminded him of it.

Twilight cut off her magic and stuck her chest out with pride before, in light of the blown-away human, taking on a theatrical bow with trusty Spike in tow, their number having come to an end.

“... Oh, wait!” The mare had forgotten the last detail. Once more, Alexander found her horn glowing up with swirling energy, the little glass containing the oil following, encased in the same aura. A healthy amount of oil was poured and spread with the same manner of levitation over the tomato mixture, whose tantalizing smell had already begun to water all assembled creature’s mouths.

“There.” Twilight put the dot before taking another, shorter bow. Trotting around the aisle, she reached the human’s side and rested her chin back on the rim to gaze up at him with a cocky leer. “Cool, huh?” She teased with no little amount of pride behind her skills.

If Twilight was in search of praise, she’d find none on the human, for he was completely lost on the perfectly assembled toasts waiting for him on the plate. Alexander jumped back and forth between his breakfast and a smirking Twilight several times, wearing a proverbial poster on his face that spoke deafening volumes of his incredulity.

Twilight found his loss for words amusing and chuckled heartily. She left the human to ponder the ins and outs of her dexterity in magic to join Spike with a knowing wiggle of her eyes. Ruffling his head spikes, Twilight nuzzled her little brother lovingly and congratulated him on the control of his flame. Spikee batted the mare away with rosy cheeks and resumed his pancake-making before the batter could grow stale. That tomato toast made his fangs grow watery for sure, but Tartarus would freeze over before he’d pass on a tower of his own pancakes.

“This is absurd.” Alexander needed a hot minute before reaching a solid conclusion.

Not the choice of praise Twilight would’ve preferred. Nonetheless, she stood puzzled by his opinion and trotted back to his side. Planting her haunches into a free stool at his side, Twilight found the human eyeballing the slices of toast with the same intensity and incredulity of a pony who finds a corpse in a dark alley. Breathless, and a tad perturbed, both sediments originating from a place Twilight couldn't put her feather on. Why was he reacting so strongly?

“What do you mean? It’s just toast.” Twilight spoke as-a-matter-of-factly, folding her forelegs to hold her chin with her tail swishing lazily behind her.

“I know it’s just toast.” Alexander rebutted heatedly, borderline glaring down at his awaiting breakfast. “B-But this. That!” He pointed an accusing finger at her now-sparkly horn, making Twilight go cross-eyed in following him up to her forehead. “That is not possible!” He slammed his fist over the aisle, making the plate clatter and almost spilling his breakfast.

Twilight shied back, fearing having summoned another outburst from him. However, only a sense of eerie assimilation followed Alexander as he folded over the stool to rest on his elbows.

“... And you made toast with it.” He mumbled blankly, struggling to come to terms with what he had just witnessed, and the absurdity of the facts breathing truth into them. He wasn’t delusional. Shy from being the one experiencing the longest, most convoluted comatose dream in the history of mankind, all of this was undoubtedly unfolding before him, challenging everything he thought he knew.

“Um, yeah? I made toast.” Twilight meekly reaffirmed.

“... How?”

“Excuse me?” Twilight wiggled her ears.

Alexander straightened back to sit tall. The sparkle of curiosity in his brown eyes was a shared sentiment with Twilight’s own. Alas, while the mare’s brimmed with innocence and goodwill, the human’s glazed over with a layer of demand.

“How did you just make that happen?” He pointed to the toasts. “What the actual fuck was all that you did with your horn?!”

Twilight could feel his presence towering over her. “I-I told you. I can use magic to-”

“Yes! I know that!” Alexander ran her over with another slam on the aisle’s pristine surface. His hands flew back to tug at his hair, another headache looming over him like a cloud about to take over. “How does that work?! The magic, what… What’s it supposed to be? That goes against each and every one of the laws of physics! You can just make stuff float with your mind! It’s absurd!”

“Uh, she kinda just did.” Spike butted in nonchalantly. An oversized chef hat and hearts-patterned apron had found their way on him to dress the dragon appropriately for the occasion.

The wellbeing of his psyche was imperative to preserve intact. Alexander opted to ignore the laughable stamp of Spike cosplaying from Master Chef, His undivided attention was required over the mare who, with folded ears and a crooked grimace, pulled a ticket for her turn to be at a loss of words.

Twilight didn't know how to explain it to him with simpler terms than the ones you’d use on a foal, never having been required to chew it up to su ha degree to anypony. Magic was a thing she, alongside countless other creatures, simply could do. A second nature. Everypony was born with an innate connection to magic. It was theirs to wield and mold to the whims of their imagination. Yes, unicorns possessed the assets and skill to do so to a higher, more visibly-tangible degree than pegasi and earth ponies, but the point remained.

In light of Twilight’s visible discomfort. Alexander found he was coming a bit strong on the mare who had just spared him five minutes of cooking time. A big gulp of air worked him down a few degrees. A vigorous rub over his face was required in case he wasn’t fully awake yet and his eyes were playing tricks or something.

“Fuck… Look. Whatever that was that you did, we humans… we don’t have that shit where I come from. It’s… It just doesn't make sense to me. The closest you’ll get to that is working some CGI and clever staging, for entertaining purposes only like movies. B-But… It’s not… It doesn't’... Fuck!” He had just glimpsed the impossible happening before him.

In his youth, Alexander had attended a few magic shows, one of them belonging to the category of ‘close-up magic’, where you’d see a magician playing tricks and making stuff appear and disappear in front of a stunned audience, mere meters from your gawking face. Alexander understood the mechanisms behind the trick and how it plays with perception and deceit to fool the audience, although lacking all the skill and dexterity of pulling it out himself. That’s what he understood for magic, the ability to trick a people’s senses to make the possible seem impossible.

That morning, in the kitchen of a tree-like, huge-ass castle-palace-abortion; a weird mix between unicorn and pegasus, two kinds of mythological creatures glued together in tandem with a god-forsaken dragon, had just pulled a magic trick of their own. And made toast out of it. Fucking TOAST! WITH MAGIC!! TRIVIALLY!! Levitating ingredients and slicing them up while a fire-breathing DRAGON cooked the bread on the spot!!

The way the siblings had played it, it was a simple and routinary endeavour, a team in perfect sync, pulling out a funny morning show that’d might entertain a foal or two. From where Alexander stood, that party trick shunned anything David Copperfield could’ve pulled in his life. Because this was truly and incontrovertibly impossible.

‘It’s impossible… It can’t be…’

The flock of crows screeching as one made it hard for Alexander to stitch a single thought. He hung precariously over the edge of hyperventilation when a warm presence pressed down on the arm that hermetically abducted his denying head. Alexander broke from the shell and pinpointed the origin, finding a purple hoof resting gently against his skin. Warm and fuzzy were the sensations the human registered. Alexander latched onto them for dear life, rooting him in the present instead of drowning in a whirlwind of broken thoughts.

It… felt soft against his skin. He could even notice the smallest drum of a pulse belonging to the mare’s frogs gently working to level his frantic one.

Attached to the hoof, Twilight waited with patience, and worry. Another golden star on her record, for she had bucked things up yet again. Twilight should’ve known better than cocky-flashing her magic powers without easing the human into the matter first. It’s not like they had a chance yesterday to properly cover the basics either, and that was exactly what Twilight hoped to accomplish over breakfast. However, she had jumped the gun and started things by the tail end, trampling what little progress she felt had managed to amass with the unsettled human.

“I’m sorry.” Twilight mumbled, her features drooping alongside her drive. “I didn't mean to scare you … I just wanted to help.”

There it was. Right. There. A spark of familiarity, of recognition, tugging at Alexander’s heartstrings, sinking him into a pile of shit the moment he registered Twilight’s crushed demeanour. No matter how ridiculously fantastical everything around him came off at him, those teary eyes were something he could very well understand, he could sympathize with. Alexander took note of her folded ears, and the way her wings shagged at her sides. The way her tail had stopped swishing amicably behind her and the sparkle erased from those big, lavender orbs of hers, bright enough to carve deep into his soul and make mash with it.

At the corner of his eye, Alexander kept tabs with Spike as he kept adding flap after flap to the growing pile of pancakes while not bothering to mask the close tabs he was keeping on us in return. The last thing the human wanted was to upset the dragon and become the receiving end of a nice roasting, but the young drake kept his distance, perhaps opting to let things play out.

Deep down on his core, Alexander weighted his feelings with a right to feel unsettled as the main drive. Impossible things kept happening around him. Any other person most-likely would have already thrown themselves out of the tallest widow by then!

Alexander once more drunk in the visage of a spirit-broken Twilight, and something inside him shattered. Unthinkable feats or not, it didn't give him a right to act like an asscrack in front of the people… uh, ponies, who wanted nothing but help him, who took the time to shelter him and feed him and walk the baby steps with him, regardless of how flashy those steps were.

Even if it was making some stupid toast, this mare was now feeling genuinely sorry for a ridiculous misunderstanding. Only a minute ago, she was on the top of the world celebrating the fact that Alexander was a scientist like the second coming of Christ.

Familiar, human-like sentiments, emotions, displayed by creatures Alexander only knew of myth and legend.

It still sounded unreal. Unfathomable. Yet, the more time he shared with the ponies, the more he came to terms with this new reality, the more his stance solidified. Stranded, and these adorable creatures, who commanded a power beyond his comprehension, were his only ticket back home, for he knew as much as dimensional rifts as he did of magic. None.

… Perhaps it was time he started acting the part. He’d cling to the role until his resolve crumbled, or the grim reaper claimed him first. No form of cushioning will make it go down the pipe any easier on a single go, but Alexander needed to stay strong. He needed the bits to be chunked into even smaller bits ,and those be fed to him with the same softness and pace as you’d feed a toddler formula.

‘I’m a fucking piece of art, aren’t I?’

Alexander hovered a hand over the crestfallen mare for a brief moment of indecision before gently grabbing her fetlock. His fingers traced lines between the slightly-longer fur fluffing her hooves, tugging Twilight from her gloom before applying a firm squeeze around it.

“Sorry about that.” Alexander declared the moment violet eyes climbed from the gutter back to meet his. A hint of tears lining Twilight’s eyelashes made him even more like a back-alley garbage can than before. “I know you were trying to help. And I appreciate it. I appreciate everything you guys are doing for me.” Words poured straight from his heart. All bums and turmoil aside, willingness to help was the main and sole sentiment the human had been bathed with, topped with wishes of friendship on a total stranger like him, especially from that mare and the dragon.

Alexander recollected briefly on his life on Earth, and was sad to admit he’d have a hard time finding a person open and willing enough to share a similar sentiment with out of a whim, and without asking nothing in return. “Sigh. Just, please, be patient with me, okay? Don’t take anything I say to heart. I’m having a n impossible time digesting… well, everything.” A free hand came to rest over the collar still attached to his neck, half hidden by the hoodie of his blue jacket. “I’m not gonna flip the table and lie through my teeth saying I’m not scared shitless here… Let me just get on with breakfast and I’ll get out of your hair. There’s stuff I have to get a start on sooner rather than later.”

With a parting squeeze, Alexander pulled back and cocooned himself back under a blanket of melancholy. The hoof hung to dry in the air, a paralyzed mare unable to transmit signals from her clogged brainspace. Twilight spirits were lifted by his gesture, yet a remnant of guilt forever would sink its claws onto her heart.

Twilight remained as a stone, watching the human stick to his word and tear down lively on his breakfast, congratulating her and Spike for the craftmareship behind a mouthful of delicious tomato toast. The way wolfed down his meal, and the way he chuckled at Spike’s witty retort, defending pancakes over any other kind of food, were enough a pill to dull the daggers and the constant reminder of blame and responsibility over Alexander's stressed take on her world. If only for a short time, Twilight would not bite the delivering hoof.

The fur on her fetlock tickled under the ghostly dance of his claws. Twilight was sure that those things could not be labeled as claws or talons under any pretense. They were too soft and gentle to be referred to as such, although she couldn't help but be pleasantly impressed at their firmness. Taciturnly, Twilight rested said hoof down onto the crystalline surface, an unwelcome chill dulled by the human’s lingering touch. She kept her eyes over her fetlock, feeling nothing wrong aside from a pleasurable tickle where he had grabbed her. For a moment, she had fretted his contact to be enough to overpower the protection of the collar and send Alexander into another coughing, bleeding spree.

Nothing of the sort. It felt… nice. Normal. Just a friendly gesture. Nothing to sing songs about.

Twilight simply couldn't get it out of her head. Like a broken record, it kept playing. Why was it commanding so much of her attention? Was it the feeling? The meaning behind it?

‘... I’m being stupid right now.’ Twilight chided herself, feeling she was putting too much stress over a simple gesture.

The alicorn wholeheartedly appreciated his apology, and jotted a mental reminder to act with more tact and precaution from then on. She was also a greeny to this, as inexperienced as anycreature who could claim a caretaker position for an other-wordly creature living under their roof, currently tearing at her food with as much gusto as Spike chugged down his own share of the pancakes. Twilight waited for her on a separate dish with a sticky, half-filled bottle of maple syrup ready to be put to good use.

What an eventful morning it was tying up to be. Spike had joined Alexander over the aisle, sitting directly on it at his right while Twilight remained parked on her stool, peering into the empty space between the two males, who had entered an educated debate around preferences of breakfast and which was best, with Spike’s culinary wisdom clashing against Alexander’s poor, college-dweller one, yet bolstered by many a scientific fact about this ingredient and that property which completely blew over the drake’s spiked head, and barely registered on Twilight's attentive ears, so lost was she on her own rumbling. Nothing to worry, she’d ask him to repeat them later with a scroll and quill in front of her. She wasn’t that much in the mood for scribbling stuff down, and her stomach called for her too.

For the first time, Twilight gazed upon the human under a different light, and felt a new kind of warmth settling on her chest. This was the first time she’d seen him so lively. Spike worked his charm to take Alexander’s mind off the nest of vultures that held him prisoner. Three creatures of three different kinds, having breakfast like an easy group of friends. The sense of homely gratification overrode that aura of experimental assessment and cautious wonder, under which every motion and word birthed by the human, was analyzed and deconstructed under a microscope.

A weight disappeared from the mare, and all further questions were parked for a later, more fitting time. Oh, she had tons of them, enough to cover every topic on existence twice over and then some. Twilight also was more than ready to answer anything the human might have in store for her. She was the mare for the job in that department!

He better have some for her, else she'd seriously question his claim of being a scientist if he was lacking a curious spirit. What kind of scientist at that? If humans didn't have any magic, what things would they study?

Humans had no magic whatsoever…

Twilight’s was moments away from truly considering the weight of said claim when snout betrayed her and, under this new lightness of mind, that remaining toast was looking simply too muzzle-watering to ignore.

Twilight powered her horn to the minimum output so as to remain concealed, and sneaked the toast right from under the human’s nose. Twilight, feeling magnanimous, signed a treaty for the exchange of two of her pancakes, a fair trade, which she placed right where the remaining toast was. Alexander was too immersed with the drake to notice the theft while Twilight munched on the treat, humming in delicious happiness when the refreshing flavours caressed her tongue and filled her tummy. That stressful evening meant dinner had barely made the trip down past the permanent knot of her stomach.

‘Mmm. Now I can say one thing about these humans already.’ Twilight mulled giddily as she took another bite, happy to let the colts be colts and paying half an ear to their ranting while resting her cheek on a hoof. ‘That being, that they have some good taste… Mmmph.” Another muzzlefull went down the gullet. ‘... Wait. How did Alexander find the kitchen again?’

Breakfast was filled with hearty conversation, rolling over without further strive beyond Alexander’s discovery of the mare's theft of his remaining toast. He was easily appeased by Spike’s own recipe of pancakes, which the human had unsurprisingly labeled as the simply best thing he had ever tasted that could contain such levels of cardiac-arresting sugar, inflating the drake’s already-swollen ego up another notch. Twilight wondered whether he’d be able to walk straight with that big head of his now.

Silly shenanigans aside, the three of them had enjoyed a nice meal, and were ready to tackle the day in their own respective chores and responsibilities. However, the Princess of Friendship had another proposal in store for them, one to be played on several fronts at once.

Her idea boiled down to a simple, nice stroll through Ponyville, an idea Alexander was opposed to at first. He dreaded the reaction of the ponies from the town at his sudden appearance.

In truth, the human was ten times more scared of the ponies and knee-jerk reactions that the ponies would ever be of him. If he had to draw a prediction from how the brief round of introductions with Twilight’s assortment of friends had played out, it would be that this nice walk around Twilight proposed would quickly become a battlefield Alexander wanted nothing less than to tread through.

There was also the small matter of him acting like a douchebag in front of his new accountants, eliciting proportionate reactions from the mares. Perhaps his superficial analysis was not one-hundred percent unbiased, as long as he kept his manners with the townsponies.

Twilight could see where Alexanderwas coming from, her own hermit ways having cost her a similar sense of antisocial paranoia before meeting the girls. Times when the promise of books, and the mysteries they guarded, outweighed any class and form of social interaction Celestia tried to force-feed her in the form of meetings, parties, picnics or magic symposiums.

However, the human, as well as the ponyvillians, needed this meeting to happen, regardless of how rocky it might play out. Twilight would back him every step of the way in case things turned hairy and the untrusty ponies needed a stern reminder.

The sooner everypony learned this strange-looking fella was as kind and mellow as any of them, the sooner they could seriously cease playing hide and seek with a town and delve on their respective ends in the search for a way back to the human world. Spike offered his services to act as moral support for the trip, and promised he’d bite the fetlocks of anypony that dared even a nasty glance in their direction.

Alexander appreciated the gesture… in a semi-perturbed way, although he was sure Spike was only kidding… he hoped? Sadly, the drake’s obligations inside the castle shackled him within its labyrinthic insides until he was finished for the day.

Dismayed, and with drooping spikes, Alexander was not gonna stand idly while his spirits shattered and promised some time together with the drake to get to know each other better. That was all motivation Spike needed to bolt his tail outside in a plume of smoke, leaving a deadpanned Twilight to tackle the dirty dishes. He absolutely had to complete his chores in record time if he wanted to introduce Alexander to his comic book collection AND teach him how to play O&Os in a single afternoon!

Deadpanning, Twilight assessed the tower of dirty dishes and kitchen utensils. Nothing that a quick succession of spells wouldn't fix. Twilight's glowing horn saw to it, yet another breathtaking manifestation of her magical prowess to render Alexander stunned where he sat. With a flick of her horn and a merry tune, the assortment of dirty dishes and utensils were scrubbed, rinsed and subsequently dried with a quick warm gust of air before they were neatly allocated into their respective shelves and drawers.

In less than it took Alexander to clean his glasses for the eleventh time since waking up, the kitchen was neatly spruced up to look no different than how he had found it while everyone at the castle was still asleep. Not a single dirty spot, not a sole speck of flour was left for the forensics team to tag them curl pits.

For Twilight it was a trivial matter on yet another beautiful morning, time she took to mentally revise her appointments or princess’ duties for the day. For as much as she’d have loved to share the entire day with the human to bombard him with an endless barrage of questions pertaining him and his world, her royal rump presence was called elsewhere.

The Major requested her organizational skills in regards to the upcoming Running of the Leaves festival. While still a few weeks away, no time like the present it at least tackle the permits and preliminaries and start drawing that year's path under the toasting canopy of the Whitetail Woods.

Twilight was more than happy to assist, as always, having become a usual attendee to the annual race herself. However, a huge-flank big elephant remained nonetheless in her kitchen to be addressed, making every other appointment or obligations sound trivial for the alicorn.

‘No. That wouldn't be fair. The citizens need me as much as him.’

What kind of princess would she be if she started picking favorites or growing her own agenda, parallel to her princess' obligations? As long as Alexander remained in her castle, outside of prying eyes and snooty ponies, he'd be fine for a few hours.

Yep. A resounding schedule in her eyes. She'd assist the mayor and run a few more errands. Then, she'd grab take out for the both of them, a warm up before what she hoped would be an enlightening exchange between two different civilizations. And over hay burgers no less, because why not? She couldn't think of anything more ‘nowadays pony’ for him to get a taste of their local cuisine. If you can call a hamburger local cuisine, much less food.

… Whatever, she was a sucker for those things. Blame it on her alicorn metabolism if it’d ease your mind, she'd treat the both of them and that's that!

Twilight proceeded to confine her new plans for the morning with Alexander. While still a bit reluctant at first, he understood his situation didn't make the princess any less an adult with numerous responsibilities. It would be unfair of him to command so much of her attention.

“That's all right.” Alexander posed no further quarrel to the mare’s meek apologies. “I want to get a headstart on a few things myself. I… um,” He fronted at the same door Spike’s tail had disappeared through. “I think I can find my way back to the library. I'd say that's the best place to start familiarizing myself with everything. Something tells me it’d be better if I took the time to do so.”

While true, his reasons were misleading while voiced to the mare. His innate curiosity wanted nothing more than to devour all those books in her library, and absorb as much of everything around him as he could fit on his mind rotten by bad memes and late night porn.

First things came first, however. The fact that he had enjoyed a surprisingly amenable breakfast with his two hosts did not change the fact that he was on the proverbial clock, and the noose tightened around his neck the more time he wasted with trivialises. It made him pose like a cold, unsensitive fuck, but time waited for nobody.

‘There's a lot of stuff I need to check before I can reach a solid grip. I'll take the usual road from there and crack it like an egg.’

Mutual arrangements were settled. Twilight could now leave for her obligations with a weight lifted from her heart. She reminded him one last time to holler for Spike should he need anything, and that she had commanded the castle devoid of guards and otherwise personeel beside the drake, so he needn't be jumping at shadows wild traversing the corridors.

Waving her hoof farewell, Twilight took a few steps into the corridor before teleporting out of the castle, leaving Alexander to blink hard and remove the spots on his eyes, fining only empty air were the alicorn once stood.

“... That's so fucking bullocks.” He mumbled to no one.

Teleportation, levitation, light projection, sound, elemental manipulation. Only but a handful of the ample repertory of spells the gifted mare could call forth with practiced ease. A trivial matter for you run-of-the-mill unicorn, but more than enough to sweep Alexander off his feet. This time, in a ball of levitation no less.

There was no such thing as magic, Alexander kept repeating to himself in the solitude of the kitchen. He lacked the proper time to carefully break it down and build it up again in a way he could understand either. Twilight had confided to him that his accidental arrival had been via means of wild magic during yesterday's hurried explanation. Magic going wacky and a couple of broken universal laws having their wicked way to drag his ass past the limits that defined realities, and landed it on Twilight’s doorstep.

His previous night of poor sleep had been filled with nothing but constant turmoil, trillions of unanswered questions robbing him of his rest. No tangible conclusions followed Alexander in his awakening, leaving behind a faint trace of some of the weirdest dreams he could remember ever expanding.

In his faded recollection, Alexander remembered having dreamnt of a fucking blue unicorn-pegasus horse specimen like Twilight, only bigger and with a grim face. A bit too soon to start dreaming with ponies, he mused, but who could tell at that point. Those small equines had made a big impression on him.

The means to his journey back home awaited him in the library Alexander was currently heading for. Or perhaps not, he wouldn't be betting an arm on either case. But, before his chance to devour a humongous couple of books arrived, another issue took immediate priority.

Alexander hadn't outright asked his hostess, but it didn't take a Nobel prize to understand that no such thing as an electrical grid zigzagged behind the walls of the castle to feed the lights and power the house appliances. What was the sense of having one with them having magical powers in store at their beck and call? It wasn't exactly obviousness that drove in the conclusion, but the fact Alexander hadn't snipped a single socket in his room during a failed attempt to charge his electronics. Neither had he found any on the kitchen when he first entered, yet the fridge, and the numerous appliances Spike was making use of for his pancake making, purred and functioned under an unknown source of power, allegedly, magic.

Nor electricity. Magic. He couldn't charge up his phone with magic, could he?... Unlikely.

Before heading for the library, Alexander had to make a quick stop back to his room to grab his bag, a temporary means of safekeeping his possessions, clogged and cluttered as they were.

With the use of them, he'd hitch a ride on the purple mare's back and see himself back on his homeworld in a jiffy. Twilight had promised numerous times to aid him, a feeling of responsibility tainting the mare’s set mentally. And that pony did look the most knowledgeable of the lot he had been introduced to… or at least she stood to him as the one to take the reins from the assortment of mares. Was it because of having both wings and horn? Was that the reason she was called a princess, or was it perhaps inherited?

Gosh, it was so easy to forget that tiny horse was a pony version of some royalty. Alexander couldn't deny it, he was pleasantly surprised by Twilight’s striking contrast from the tight-up, snooty, stick-up-their-ass archetype of nobility.

Yep, he was going to trust a fucking pretty pretty pony princess from a kid’s toy set to build him a means to ride the interdimensional currents back to his family and friends who, most likely, still won't have noticed his disappearance. Except, Stuart, since he has been expecting him the previous morning. No matter of ringing for the police or filing a disappearance warrant was going to help Alexander back to his loved ones. It'd be in his own hands and wits to see his family again.

Alexander found everything neatly tuckered in place in his dorm. The human, the overstuffed bag on his back, retraced his steps back to the ground floor with noticeable difficulty. That castle was a true menace for the weaker mind. Blink once and you'd be lost forever going in circles and circles until you either starved or froze over.

Seriously, why was the floor so fucking cold? You get some sort of omnipresent illumination out of the crystals or something walls but no central heating? That's just bullshit.

The empty library welcomed Alexander the same way it had done so the previous day. Packed to the brim with books, that telltale smell of faux leather and paper that characterized every library was empowered on this one. Artificially, Twilight's personal touch. Not that Alexander would know at the time.

It nonetheless had a soothing effect on him. Physical books were becoming an odd rarity on Earth the more technology and its commodity and simplicity dominated the human lifestyle. He couldn't remember the last time he had gone to an honest-to-God library for whatever reason, much less the last time he had actually checked out a book.

Back to the middle ages it was for him, apparently. No satellite connection meant no internet to cry and beg to in hopes it solves all your issues. While Alexander was sure it was law of nature for at least one indian-guy tutorial to exist somewhere on the deepest bowels of YouTube able to explain how to open an interdimensional portal and survive the trip, he was left only with the offline tools at his disposal, not that those were few and meaningless either. No internet to save his ass might’ve been a pickle in times past where people thought the sun revolved around the earth and homosexuality was a contagious disease and all.

Alexander, praised be the CPU, had other kinds of tools at his disposal.

“We might live in 2029, but I'm sure Musk’s satellite flotilla hasn't reached this world. Yet. Give it time though, but time is not what I have right now.”

But why that sense of celerity? Why was hastiness broadcasted on each and every one of his actions? Yes, he wanted to return to Earth for obvious reasons, but reuniting with his lost ones was not the primary fuse to spark the fire under his feet.

There’s this saying about the devil hiding in the details or something. In his case, an invisible, yet unyielding devil.

Alexander, in his customary lonesome, spoke his thoughts out loud in the beginning of the search for a place to hunker down and get a headstart on things. “Fiction makes everything sooo convenient, or at least mildly interesting for plot reasons. Space traveler lands on a foreign world and goes ‘¡Ostia!, you have breathable air, fucking A for me!’ The colors are all as they should be, and the alien girls happen to possess the necessary body assets and an odd number of holes to engage in passionate alien sex!” According to Star Trek, your one and only reliable source for space exploration.

The hammered irony wasn't lost on Alexander, however, seeing that all those three conditions he whined about convenience actually applied to this world’s inhabitants by some sort of strange, transdimensional coincidence.

Yep, even the third one. Especially the third one, as Alexande had been licgintg-fast to find. Seriously, was the nudity parade really necessary? The poor human had been simply too blown out of his mind to pay any serious consideration when that blue pegasus was laughing her tail off in a very unashamed, explicit display of her femininity.

But that didn't make a lick of sense! Just as he wouldn't have paid it more than passing ‘eugh’ when a Earth horse counterpart moved used the tail to swat a fly close to him, mindlessly flashing him the goods, Alexander needn't feel abashed with these ponies’ inclination for wearing their birth day suits Sparing some mind-blowing differences, they were striking mirrors to Earth’s equines, by yet another weird coincidence.

Fat chance for Alexander. He was all the same creeped and confused and creeped again, to the point he simply didn't know where it was polite or not to look… That blue pegasus rolling over her pillows in guffaws, that pink pony and her energetic bouncing… Twilight…

Jesus Christ! Why was his mind going to those corners right now?! He needed to focus!

“Fuck, I’m in for the mental ward headfirst at this rate.” He shook himself vigorously. A table with four, pony-sized chairs neatly tuckered would suffice for the time. Alexander was unsure whether this library was private grounds or a public space. Either way, he was completely alone with his thoughts, and he’d have it no other way. His total number of zero pony friends he currently assessed worked to him like a charm. He had no time for trivialities.

Alexander settled into the most tuckered corner of the immense library for good measure, just in case a pony suddenly barges in asking for the potential late fees for a five-month missed deadline. On that same note, did the ponies have some source of currency? He had been leeching off Twilight without even pondering whether he was being a rude ass or not to do so, but the mare hadn't called him off for self-inviting himself into her wares either.

“... Okay. Let's see what we have here… Mierda. Only fifty eight left.”

While his phone remained a steady eighty two, his laptop had somehow lost half of his charge on the trip, as had his headphones, but he didn't give a fuck about those right now.

“Fuck, the NIM is gonna suck on that battery-life like the girlfriend I don't have on my dick.”

Bad, mid-twenties’ jokes and sass were the only thing keeping him steady by that point. Alexander scratched his two-day beard and brought order to his priorities. He needed electricity, with the sufficient voltage to charge a laptop and everything under its power requirements. While using a oh-so-magical-and-cool spell might have posed a serious shortcut with a lighting or two sent on his way, the most likely scenario out of the attempt was gonna be a pile of crispy electronics, and one pissed off human. And fried electronics smell like ass. Not a desirable outcome.

“Hmm…” He needed something simpler, albeit feasible within the reach of his skills and available sources. The NIM could lay down the groundwork and solve the technicalities for him. But the laptop wasn't gonna grow a pair of hands and assemble the thing he needed by itself, no matter how much he pleaded to ASUS.

It clicked him soon enough. “... A Stirling engine.”

An old science class project of his for the local fair, from his days in highschool, when your worst fear was failing the math's test or the disk for your STILL-yearly COD game ended scratched to the point of passing as a Jackson Pollock painting. The good times. Also, fuck Microsoft.

It was more practical and immediately-applicable than harnessing water or wings for electricity. Sun and heat were easier to acquire and guarantee, especially while indoors. It would suffice him if he could unearth the process of building it, taking the now-huge assumption that the general laws of thermodynamics operated here the same way they did on Earth, magic-shmagic or not. Surprised out of the tree as he was with magic, the fact that fundamental laws of the universe could be trivialized and ignored so easily pissed him off for some odd reason. It was almost as if playing cheats with the universe. The last time he had heard of a similar concept was from those X gurus selling you a course on how to become your own boss.

‘I mean, they should still work. I believe I’d have combusted spontaneously by now if not.’

His pet project had managed to light up three bulbs in parallel before catching fire back at the local 2022 science fair. He got an A+ out of it nonetheless. The one he needed to build would require to generate an output at least five times more potent. Which would require an upgrade in size, quality and materials and design passed recycled junk.

Booting up the laptop, Alexander cleared his throat before firing the NIM on startup mode. “NICOLE.” A soft chim signaled that the AI locally-installed model was listening. “I need specifications for building a homemade Stirling engine powerful enough to power an ASUS ROG G20 laptop with minimum charge input. I want to make it out of home-available or easily-crafted materials if possible, but still durable enough to last for a while. Write detailed instructions and draw diagrams as necessary. Keep it understandable, sil vou ple.”

The mid-late twenty twenties were the age of AI on Earth. Neural Interface Models such as the one he was using had replaced old-fashioned LLMs a while ago. Same principles, ten times the power and power consumption too. Alexander would be lucky if he could milk the entire list of details copied before the computer went caput, possibly forever if he didn't get it right.

The laptop’s fans began to spin like crazy as the computer mulled over the request before spitting the instructions out. Alexander tsked with clenched teeth. unable to do nothing else but fish his notebook and begin copy pasting the old, fashioned way. This maneuver was gonna shrink three hours of standard-consumption battery life in twenty minutes, and that is if the planets should align correctly.

While the AI formulated detailed instructions, materials and design, Alexander surrendered to his curiosity and, before starting to summarize and categorize the laundry list into his notebook, he wandered for a brief spell around the nearest shelves in search of something useful regarding his other major concern besides the way home.

Not living a fucking Isekai meant he wasn't wearing plot armor under his clothes… who were already begging to smell. A shower might've been an intelligent idea the other night. He'd take care of it later. No lazy writers on crunch were here to write his adventures taking the necessary liberties for the sake of getting the fucking work done and go home to cry on a corner.

Alexander was breathing air, standing non-pancaked against gravity, and his blood wasn't boiling under the absence of a 1G atmosphere. That alone was the mother of all miracles at work. A mathematical improbability big enough to make the entire of Cambridge’s Faculty of Mathematics quit in the spot, and then commint collective suicide.

He had eaten food, slept under cloth linens, and drunk water without puking his liver out in a gore of blood and fluids the more eosinophils and mastocytes secreted inflammatory substances to fight off an allergy that wasn’t real. That was a miracle square to the power of ten.

Atop all of that, he had landed on an inhabited world, that is, inhabited by sapient beings who for some sick twist of fate looked like cute ponies out of a Christmas’s toy campaign ad. But instead of the toys in which you had a cord to pull from, these unbridled equines happened to understand and speak fluent English. ENGLISH!! They spoke fucking English because why not? You get all the aliens trampling the US in the movies! Of course they would’ve eventually learned how to speak fucking English from all the times they ashed New York!

The sum of his possibilities was a concatenation of miracles that, like an industrial tunneling machine, chipped and clawed at his weakening resolve. Alexander remained over the fence whether treating this experience as the real deal and not the trippiest, most ass-cracking journey cheap marihuana can buy you. He hadn't ever tasted a joint in his entire life! Yes, fucking looser, but that’s the truth!

An exemplary collection of coincidences and chances thrown to the whims of fate. What a fucking golden ticket Alexander had found on the chocolate bar. One thing, however, would elude the work of the sick deity playing with the human. Or perhaps it was all part of the game, how was he supposed to tell?

The autochthonous microorganisms and pathogens were gonna crawl up his ass and throw a rave on his tender insides. They'd find no competition and tear him asunder in a matter of weeks. Alexander had two or three tops if he was lucky, depending on the general consensus for infection rates he might’ve been exposed to through means of air, water or food.

The funniest part? He wouldn't be able to get shit done with forty-two Celsius killer fever and a contain stream of coughing shackling him for a nice, rough fuck to a bed before he choked on his own blood pooling on his lungs.

… Alexander was in a hurry. Actually, chances were that he was already dead if Earth's medicine proved unable, or unwilling, to mend the cocktail of death he’d be carrying inside on his return. The world had already undergone one global pandemic in recent times. Alexander needn't become the reason for the second and definite one.

A brief punch of hopelessness rooted the decayed human on his steps. Was it already too late? Had he been doomed from the get go? It wouldn't be the food, the air, the sun, or the inhabitants chaining him to a dissection table and playing with his innards. The smallest, bitchiest of foes any living needed to face and adapt would trample him over like a downhill freight train without brakes.

It was maddingly infuriating. Alexander could recite by memory the exact mechanisms and steps in which the pathogens will invade him and his body will try to fend them off. All he could add to the fight was a damn thing, except ending it first making use of the kitchen’s toaster and a nice bubble bath.

Actually, he couldn't. That toaster didn’t run on electricity. Fuck him sideways for that.

A soft chim, followed by an easy-going, feminine voice told him that the computer was done. The only thing Alexander had managed to find were books about history and politics and yada yada, all talking, or referring to a degree, to a place called ‘Equestria’.

‘Equestria? I mean… They are ponies. Kinda unoriginal though.’

Alexander was back on the desk and typing back some corrections,requiring also some clarifications for the AI. In the meanwhile, Alexander used the free pages of his old lab notebook to begin on his side of the deal.

“Hmm… Gotta make it Alpha type. That's the design with the simplest pieces to assemble, but needs more space to be screwed in later.”

He needed a Stirling engine to conjure the raw power and a magnet tagged with some wire to build a homemade alternator to transform that kinetic energy into electricity. That would be harder to acquire, especially in his assumption on this society’s lack of electrical needs translating to the lack of part’s he'd require. He’d chop off his dick and feed to the duck if he could find neodymium around these parts.

On Earth, you could buy most stuff right off your neighborhood's hardware store. Amazon could deal with the rest. Here, he'd need to commission everything to a… well, to a pony, he guessed, with the nonexistent money had. Talk about feeding more wood to the fire!

Alexander would have to pray that the purple pony reamied as generous as she was talkative. If she had the time to call herself a princess, then she'd have the pockets to back up her claim and throw him a bone at least. Twilight was free to stick her snout in his work to her heart's desire if that was the prize for her sponsoring efforts.

And, who knew? Perhaps Twilight did have a spell to conduct electricity on a desired voltage through a wire, and all what Alexander was doing was a waste of the nonexistent time he was running out of with each breath he took and every stroke of the pencil over the square-patterned sheets.

A drowning man will clutch at a straw. In his case, the tail of a pony. Alexander would be playing the gambling game with his chances for the foreseeable future. Nose dived into the work, the human basked in the peaceful silence the privacy of the library provided.

He welcomed the work, a nice distraction to cage his mind from wandering. Wandering aimlessly had been a recurring activity since his arrival, unable to settle on a single place, strings of answered questions and prospects chiseling on the human until making a pitiful ball of nerves all throughout the night. The initial blow had taken time to settle, and it had been sheer exhaustion the one to press down the off-button on him.

Now, with a more concise objective in his sights, Alexander would walk the baby steps one by one and gasp each milestone on the road. Ensure the functionality of his devices, make use of them and the purple pony's knowledge to build up his own. Dissect the intricacies of the magical anomaly at blame and make it stable for his return.

Four steps. Four steps stood between him and home. The more time rolling past him, the harder it'd become for him to conquer them all. Subsequently, the more sickness claimed his body, the more he'd have to rely on the mare to pull her own weight added to his, should Twilight remain true to her word and not sell him off at the drop of a hat.

Heh, mare. That's what she was. A mare. Not a girl, or perhaps yes a girl, in a different sense of the word. Mares, and stallions too he guessed too, if that blue pegasus’… reproductive assets were as mammalian as they indeed looked.

And a male dragon too! He said it before, and he'd repeated it a thousand times again. A motherfucker, fire-breathing, flesh and blood dragon!!! What else was out there?! Should he had kept his players guide for WoW on the hard disk, because fuck him with a swordfish!

Alexander’s worst enemy at the time was his borderline-childish curiosity getting the upper hand and posing a challenging distraction. The poor human could almost hear his peers at the laboratory tying him to a cross and burning him alive in a chorus of ritualistic chants to Darwin should he remain cooped inside this castle-shaped prison for the duration of his short stay on the pony world. The urgency felt enough to not spare even the smallest peek at the outside world and learn all he could, for learning was what the human had made for a living. Yes, he had a metric ton of books at the library to compensate for that matter, but you know what they saw about an image and a thousand words.

Some time passed in eerie silence. The laptop lasted for as long as the human had predicted. Alexander barely scraped the time to copy everything noteworthy on paper before the machine died, landing him into a slightly more precarious position than before. There was no way on Earth he’d be able to tackle advanced calculations and constructing big data on paper alone. He was a fucking computational biologist, for crying out loud! Yes, a smart cookie at that. But if God wanted him to run math of the scale of interdimensional breaching on his head, then He should’ve made Alexander born Indian and star on American talent or something!

Dismayed, but not deterred, Alexander continued penciling away on his notebook.

An hour passed. Then two. Then, he completely lost track of time. It was hard to tell time with accuracy in this place. Hand by hand with the apparently-lessened gravity, the prior day and night had struck peculiarly long to him, although Alexander blamed it on the emotional rollercoaster having blurred minutes and hours together.

The alarm clock waking him that morning sealed the deal over his suspicion. The hour that his phone showed, and the position of the sun breaking under a chromatic collection of colors filtering through the stained-glass windows, didn't match. The booming alarm had rang at 8 am like always while not even the first glimpses of oranges and creams painted the skies. The day had indeed been longer in number of hours. At least two, but he couldn't be positive of it. Once more, not everything was gonna fold in place tidily around him for his convenience. He was in a different world, things ought to be different.

He could deal with 26 hour days without much issue, circadian rhythms be plastic. Not that there was much sunlight infiltrating the place to begin with.

Heh, just like at the casino!

“I’d sell my car for the chance to be at a casino right now.” Alexander mumbled to himself through his distaste of all kinds of games of chance. “A casino full of HUMAN ludopaths and hot waitresses serving you shot after shot ‘till you've spent your kid's college budget on the Crazy Jack’s spinning wheel.”

A wet plop, followed by a sudden stain of red, broke him from the trance of tirelessly working. His wrist ached like a bitch, and the eyes behind the blue-rimmed glasses stung with a hundred needless, having forgotten to blink for a long while. And to think he used to tank an entire night in front of the computer skin without whining like a bitch.

Another droplet of red fell over the diagram depicting the rough shape and dimensions of the rear power piston, blurring the contents over a small annotation regarding the diameter necessary for the cylinder to achieve necessary drag.

Puzzled, Alexander beckoned a finger to brush his nose to find it bleeding again. It had happened once the previous night too. Thank his shity luck he had passed out on his side, else he’d have been for a rude awakening with the taste of iron all over his palate. Alexander tugged at the collar keeping him from becoming a crumpled, radioactive mess, to make sure it was still there. Alexander was unsure if to catalog magic as some kind of form or radioactivity or something else. He was becoming used to the uncomfortable feeling of the metal ring rubbing the wrong way against his reddened neck. And the added weight on his shoulders too. Both were easy to forget, like you stop noticing your clothes over your skin almost immediately after dressing in them.

Some kind of protection device according to the purple mare. Meant to keep him safe from the very same magic that brought him to coo and wonder with the spirit of a child on their first trip to the circus. This magical energy was all around them. The ponies simply tapped into it to make use of it.

Where was it in the EM spectrum? Closer to X-ray or gamma, the human cheaply elucidated. It wouldn't be so harmful to him otherwise. However, he could see Twilight’s horn glowing every time she casted a spell, so perhaps it was somewhere squeezed inside the visible spectrum? But how in the world could it amass the necessary energy to manipulate gravity and stuff? Perhaps magic stemmed from some unknown form of light projection and solidification?

Wherever it belonged, two things stood out from its numerous properties:

One, it had to be a form of energy exclusive to this world of colorful ponies, else the humans of Earth would have already discovered, and weaponized it as a first recourse. That’d be fun to watch and suffer for sure.

Second, either due to his unfamiliarity of it, or the levels in which it bathed the world around him, the magic seemed to be poisonous to Alexander, at least to a degree. A deadly degree, he feared. Yet another reason to speed up the run. If the pathogens didn't finish him swiftly and crudely, chances were Alexander would meet the Maker under a nasty case of leukemia.

You saw all those sci-fi movies of humans trying to colonize other planets, and it was plainly obvious how much of a bitch was surviving on anywhere that wasn't our own, green and blue cradle. This world would be no different in the long run for Alexander. Miraculous twists of fate would carry him no further.

The human didn't belong here. Wiping his nose, Alexander immersed himself back on the task. He didn't belong here. He needed out.

Fast.

‘Let’s hope I’m not fucked from the start...’