To Change the World

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...’