I awoke one morning...

I had been jogging for ten minutes before I was side-tracked. I'm saying this now because I have no idea how long I was distracted for. I was passing through the town park, box of cupcakes in my hands, before I stopped by a large tree to catch my breath, seeing as Twilight didn't know when I was coming back. I set the pink box down on the grass and sat against the base of the tree. Sighing in relief, I closed my eyes and bathed in the warm rays of the morning sun. As I sat there content with myself, I could feel the lingering pain of my headache finally start to melt away. My serenity didn't last long as I heard the sound of flapping, followed by the screech of breaks and three little voices. Here we go...

"What is he exactly?"

"Should we leave him alone?"

"Naw, he seemed okay to talk to up the farm. We should be fine."

"I dunno, he looks like he's sleeping. Dash never likes it when I disturb her naps, what if he's the same?"

"Who said I was sleeping?" The girls jumped back, realizing I was awake, and started running in circles in an attempt to get away.

"He's awake! Run!"

"Ahhhh!"

"Retreat!"

Their mindless running didn't last for long as they ended up running into each other, unsure as to where the others were previously. I opened my eyes and saw a dazed and confused pile of ponies lying in front of me. Chuckling at the cute spectacle going on just a few feet ahead of me, I got up from my place under the tree to see if the fillies were alright.

"Are you three okay? There was a rather loud bump when your heads collided."

"Yeah, we're fine," Scootaloo said as she pushed Sweetie Belle off of her "This won't be the first time this has happened."

"Or the second." Sweetie Belle added in. She stood up and nudged Apple Bloom, causing her to get to her hooves. As this was going on, I had started to get curious as to why the three were out here in the first place.

"So what's brought you to the only human in Equestria? Do you seek other-worldly wisdom, alien explanations or just decided to say hi?"

"Well," Scootaloo started, "We just came from Sweet Apple Acres after trying to get our cutie marks in animal wrangling, but Applejack kicked us out after letting loose all the sheep. We were on our way to Fluttershy's house to see if we could get our cutie marks there, when Apple Bloom spotted you under the tree."

The crusader in question picked up from where her friend left off, "I thought we should come over and say hello, so I told Scootaloo to turn around and head over here."

As I listened to the two explain why they were detouring from their plans, Sweetie Belle had became inquisitive and walked over to the cupcake box. Still listening to the other two, I didn't notice as she lifted the lid of the box and gasped in surprise. She pulled out one of the cupcakes, before lifting it into the air and calling her friends. "Hey, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, come look at these!"

The other two dropped their conversation with me and hurried over to their friend. Sweetie Belle held up the cupcake for the other two to see. Their eyes sparkled in amazement before all three of them turned to me. I can already tell where this is going.

In unison, the three fillies pleaded, "Can we have one?"

I looked at the crusaders, unsure what to say. As I stood and watched them, their eyes grew larger and larger along with them pouting more and more as I waited. "Well, I brought these as a present for Twilight... I'm not so sure if I can let you three have any..."

"Aww..."

"Well... go on then. Only one each though. I want to give Twilight something when I get back to the library."

The three fillers cheered in success and quickly devoured the cupcakes. They were about to go in for seconds and empty the box, but I managed to snatch it up from the ground before they could do any damage.

"Hey! I said one cupcake each! I need something to give Twilight when I get back to the library."

The crusaders looked disheartened, before perking back up again to their usual selves. It looked like they were about to leave, until Scootaloo had an idea. "Hey Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, come here. I've had an idea for our cutie marks."

The three huddled in close and Scootaloo started whispering. The two others nodded, murmured and whispered back occasionally, giving me an odd glance every so often. All three of them nodded and high-hoofed before calling out at the top of their lungs "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER CUPCAKE DELIVERERS!"

"So Alex," Sweetie Belle asked, "got any cupcakes you need delivering?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." I said, lowering the box down to their level and opening it up. "These are some pretty important cupcakes, and they need to get dropped of at the library as soon as possible, are you three up to the task?" Just go with it and humour them. They couldn't mess up delivering some cupcakes, could they?

"As ready as we could ever be." Apple Bloom chimed in. Closing the lid, I handed her the pink box and watched as she placed it into the scooter wagon. Scootaloo hopped onto her scooter as the other two crusaders jumped in the back.

"Be careful with those cupcakes. Treat them with love and care as if they were your own kids. I don't want anything bad to happen to them."

Scootaloo called out as the three fillies rode off into the distance, "Don't worry Alex, these cupcakes are in safe hooves. We'll make sure they get to the library without a scratch!"

As the girls disappeared over the horizon, I sat back down under the tree and continued with soaking up the morning suns' rays. Closing my eyes, I got some shut-eye before I decided to do anything else.

I was having a rather peaceful dream as I slept under the tree in the park. It was the first dream I had in Ponyville that wasn't me re-living that start of a normal day back on Earth. As I was sleeping, my mind filled with the images of Ponyville I had seen over the time I had been there. However, in some places details had been missing. It was things like ponies and everyday items I had seen during my time in Equestria, but at one point whole areas of the village had disappeared, almost like they had been swallowed up by an empty void.

My dream had run on all the way up until I was jogging through the park with the box of cupcakes, but instead of meeting the crusaders, I had settled down under the tree undisturbed. There was a loud crack, almost like the boom of thunder, and I turned my head up in the dream. Nothing had happened until I felt the searing pain of my headache come back, along with waking up almost instantly. Before my eyes I could see a large tree branch lying on the ground with a dishevelled Rainbow Dash next to it.

"So Dash, I see you decided to drop by."

"Hey, not cool," The mare replied. "It wasn't my fault the branch broke."

"So what were you doing up in the tree anyway?" I asked as Rainbow ran a hoof through her mane, brushing it back into place.

"Er... Napping. Why'd you ask?"

"Just wanted to know why my headache's back." I replied, rubbing my bruised head. "I was also sleeping pretty well for the first time in days. You have no idea how much I miss my bed right now."

"Yeah, that thing was pretty comfy now you mention it." Dash lightly trotted over to my side and sat down next to me. She leaned against my side and sighed.

"You okay, Dash?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You look like something's bothering- When did it get so cloudy?" I looked outwards over the horizon and noticed the sky had turned a dark shade of grey. The rumble of thunder could be heard as the raindrops started falling. Pretty quickly the rain had became heavy and the only thing keeping us dry were the leaves of the tree overhead.

"Looks like I'm not getting back to the library any time soon. So, wanna hang out for a little bit?"

"Why not? I have all day seeing as my shift on the weather team's ended already. By the way, that joke was terrible."

Smirking, I came up with the perfect reply. "Why, wasn't it punny enough for you?"

Dash face-hoofed as I laughed at my own joke. I couldn't help but snigger when I looked over to her, causing her to groan in disappointment. "From now on, leave the jokes to me."

"Alright then," I replied, "I wasn't planning on keeping it up for long anyway."

Dash and I sat in silence as we listened to the rain. The pitter-patter of water against the leaves along with the seldom clap of thunder made for a relaxing setting. I'm not so sure why, but I could only think of one thing to say in an attempt to carry on the conversation. "So Dash, how's Fluttershy?"

"She's fine." Dash replied, "Why do ya wanna know?"

"It's just that she didn't seem to like having to talk with me until you mentioned Earth. I know it's part of her name, but is she always like that with new people?"

"Well yeah. She's been like that ever since I met her. Sometimes even I have a hard time getting her out of her shell."

"So how long have you known her then?" I asked.

"Since we were fillies," Dash replied, "Now I think about it, I've known her longer than anypony else in Ponyville. We went to flight school together." The mare paused for thought, thinking over what she had just said, before turning to me and carrying on. "Do humans go to school?"

"Yeah, we have to, although we get taught the boring stuff such as math, literature and science. Ponies got all the fun stuff, like flying and magic."

"I can't say anything about magic, but flying, it has to be the greatest thing there is! The wind in your face, the strain in your wings and the sights you can see..." I could see the spark in her eyes as Dash told me the wonders of flight, "Sometimes I kinda wish everypony could fly, just so they could know how it feels."

I was going to say something in response, but the cold had gotten to me and I shivered, causing Rainbow Dash to sit upright and look concerned. "What's wrong, are you cold?"

Rubbing my arms in an attempt to warm myself up, I shook again while replying, "Yeah, a little bit. My shirt isn't really doing much to help, seeing as it's barely done up."

Smiling, Rainbow Dash snuggled in closer so I put an arm around her. Looking up with the tender smile still on her face, she asked, "That any better?"

"Yeah, thanks." I answered. I looked out over the park and could see the rain was still falling thick and fast. I didn't mind though, seeing as I had Rainbow Dash huddled up next to me. I was about to ask her why she choose the tree I was under to nap in in the first place, but I was interrupted by her gentle snoring.

Looks like it can wait.