Feb 31

Since arriving in Ponyville, he had lived a rather blessed life.  A rather boring life, really.  He had a tidy little apartment over a tidy little store, and he had discovered that he rather liked the taste of bitter apples and honeyed dandelion tea.  He spent his days wandering about the town, occasinally adjusting this clock or that lamp, and performed other such duties as one of the town's few officials.

True, the bigger cities would have had far more interesting things to do, and there were ruins that he meant to look into.  But that's what he told himself about all the places he had intended to visit before he was stranded in Equestria, and if he had learned anything in his youth, it's that quantity sometimes can't make up for quality.  Ponyville was just fast enough to be vibrant, just slow enough to be savored, just near enough to visit any time he fancied, and just far enough to be insulated from the world when he didn't.  In short, it was...  cozy.  Gezellig, even.  He had been using that word a lot since he arrived, and if anyone asked what he meant, he could wax poetic for minutes about all its nuances.

Despite his best efforts, there was even romance in his life, if the unrequited admiration of a schoolteacher and a mayor could be called 'romance'.  Neither of them could quite comprehend why such a sweet, eligible stallion would shy away from their advances, and neither of them had stopped yet.

So, even if he was stranded far from home, far from his family and a long way from his friends and companions, Time Turner was content.

As the mailmare, Derpy was also content.  Which is not to say her life was as neat and gezellig as Time Turner's.  Rather, her life was anything but tidy, usually thanks innocent accidents of her own creation.  Still, she got to meet everypony, she got to see everything there was in town, and almost everyone was glad to see her when she came flying along with her sachel.  (Except Rainbow Dash.  She didn't know how she kept rubbing her the wrong way.)

It was windy, just barely moist, and sunny out, the sort of afternoon where you just threw yourself on a thermal and wasted a day flying around and thinking about things.   Although it was a mail day, a light load and a warm wind meant she could spend most of the day simply flying about, going as fast or as slow as she pleased.  She was in her usual rounds - taking the short route above Ponyville's main square to get from the market to the agricultural outskirts - enjoying the eddies caused by the buildings - when she saw something weird on the horizon, a spike of gold and white light that lasted for only a few seconds.  Then, a few moments later, she felt it; a sudden buffet of high pressure radiating out from the apple farms in the outside.  Funny, normally that sort of sudden spike would be accompanied by a forming cloud, or...

...or an explosion.

Light, pressure, but no sound?  It didn't fit the profile exactly, but that was enough to worry about that the blond pegasus immediately swooped out to the outskirts of town.  In her haste to defend her fellow citizens, the mailmare was oblivious to the windows which snapped open and shut in retaliation against her wake.

In the distant edge of Sweet Apple Acres, in a patch that had been marked 'future expansion' for three generations due to how hard the rocky soil was to work, there was a terrible light.  Then, as suddenly as the light appeared, it left.  But someone was left behind in the explosion's wake.  And their life was suddenly neither boring, nor were they rather content.

The grey pegasus appeared, her wake causing a blanket of dry leaves to splay themselves all over the creature.  "Hello...?"  Landing right next to the creature, the mare looked down over it.  "Are...  are you okay?"  The fact that this unusual creature might represent a danger to her only began to dawn as she looked it right in the eye.

The creature that had been deposited in Equestria was no native to that plane.  It bore the vaguest of similarities to an Earth pony, in that the limbs and head were in the same order.  But the similarities ended there.  There was no coat, although there was a large blonde ruff of a mane.  Where the coat should have been, only skin the color of milk that had set out a little too long.  Its arms ended in dexterous hands, like a dragon would have, except the claws were more like canine nails.  Its eyes were small and its mouth was a little large, like a less intimidating manticore.  It had no tail.  The mailmare couldn't tell if its legs ended in paws or hooves, because they were shod in thick canvas.  And it was rather larger than a pony - rearing onto its hind legs, it would be able to look an alicorn in the eye.

Without opening its eyes, the strange thing arched its back, and immediately winced and groaned, letting itself slide back down very slowly.  But it was stirring, its breath picking up as consciousness started to return.  "I...  I'm not," it whimpered in resposne.  "I...  I'm hurting everywhere."  It tried to smile with that huge mouth as it opened its eyes - and gave another groan as its tiny blue eyes fought against clouds of tears to find Derpy's big yellow eyes.  "Are you a paramedic?"

"No...  I'm a postal worker."

"Oh."

"Can you move?  At all?:

"I don't know.  I can't see yet.  Tell me: did I break anything?"

With a little cringe, Derpy quickly looked over the creature.  Its clothes were heavy, and concealed most of its skin; but its limbs looked okay at least.  "Not your arms or legs," it said, "But I can't see your ribs or spine or whatever."  Did pony-dragon-manticores even have ribs?

A deep sigh.  "I thought postal workers were paramedics..."

Derpy shook her head.  "We're not veterenarians, either...."  Ignoring the confusion, she pressed, "What are you?"

"I'm...  I'm a student."

Derpy laughed - the sound was comforting.  "I guess that I shouldn't call a vet, then.  Sorry!"  She continued her question, not aware that she had started and completed a different train of thought while working on the old one.  "I mean, what sort of thing of are you - what's the word?  Like, peagasus, or gryphon, or unicorn."

Below, the creature sighed with a bit of pain.  "My...  species?  I'm a human."

Derpy blinked.  "Never heard of them.  Are they from the Everfree Forest?"

"No."

The mailmare sat down, confused.  "Well, I can't go get a pony doctor, and I can't call a vet."  Derpy's special talent at random connections kicked in, and she smiled.  "I know!  I'll go get Time Turner!  He's REALLY smart.  And he likes to say he's that other kind of doctor, so he probably means he's a human-doctor.  Stay right here, I'll make sure to bring him to you!"

"Wait!  Don't...!"  But there was a rush of wind and the unmistakable sound of rapid wingbeats, and the human was alone again.  The terror that something had been broken internally had been planted in its mind by the well-meaning mailmare, and all attempts to stand up had been fruitless.  Disoriented and motionless, it was now terrified it was going to die.  But as it passed out again, its last thoughts was:  "That might be the last person I ever talk to, and I don't even know her name..."

Having dumped the last of her rounds on the first mailpony she saw, a colt who had been off-duty that day, Derpy came around to the tiny apartment that Time Turner lived in.  Catching herself at his second-floor balcony, she rapped quickly on the door.

"Ah...  hello, Derpy."  A broad smile, and his door opening wide.  "Do come in, I was just brewing up some tea."

Derpy shook her head, and her eyes went with it - her usual concentration to keep them 'aligned' ruined by her worry.  "There isn't time...  there's someone in need of help!"

Time Turner stepped fowards through the balcony door, concerned.  "There's always time, Derpy," he corrected; "and if there's not, we make time.  Now, tell me what's wrong, so we can make it right."

Rapidly, Derpy explained about the explosion, and the sudden appearance of the creature.  But it was the appearance of the creature that got his eyes to open.

"It said it was a human-"

Time Turner siezed the pegasus by the shoulders; his hooves shook a little, and his voice dropped lower than she had ever heard out of him.  "Derpy - this is probably the most important thing I will ever ask of you.  Humans are special, and humans are very rare in Equestria.  Do you know where he is?"

"She.  At least, it sounded like a she."

"She?"  A sudden burst of hope, and memories of old faces.  "What was her name?"

"I didn't ask..."

"Someone's hurt and you don't even ask their name?"

The mailmare wilted in his gaze.  "I was only trying to help..."

"Well, you are helping.  But next time, you need to worry more about making sure they're safe and not panicking.  Do you know where she is?"

"Yes, in the rocky patch on the north side of Sweet Apple Acres."

"Alright.  Now, let's get to Sweet Apple Acres as fast as-"

"Right-O!" she yelled, grabbing his hoof and tugging him up and over the railing.

"DERPY!"

The pegasus immediately blinked, her wings still tugging at the earth pony's forehoof.

"I'll need to use the front door."  The earth pony frantically indicated the distance between the balcony and the ground with the front hoof he had free.  The mare was not able to lift his weight; her grip and his hind hooves hooked onto the railing all that kept him from a nasty fall.  Sheepishly, she stopped stretching the stallion out, and the stallion was down the stairs, flying as fast as time.