Chapters My alarm clock woke me up at ten, just like it had done for nearly every weekend of my life. "Yet another dream..." I told myself aloud, knowing no-one could hear me. I was glad I was the only person in the house as everyone else was out for the day or at work. "Must... get... food..." slurred out my mouth as I stood up and lazily got out of bed.
*THUD *
*ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: ZOMBIE SLUMBER FACE-PLANT *
"Ow, my face... fffff..." I looked down towards my feet to find a sky-blue feather on my bedroom's polished wooden flooring, so I bent down down to pick it up. 'Whu..?' was the only thought passing through my head as I brought the feather closer to my eyes for inspection, causing me to forget the pain in my nose after my previous accident. Why was there a feather in my room? Why was it blue? Something that could of been called an idea managed to crawl its way through my sleep dazed brain; finally hitting me. By now you should have guessed I'm not really a morning person.
"OHMYGO-UMM... CELESTIA" echoed through my room as I brought a hand to my mouth to silence myself. Was my love of the show really this bad? Was I tripping out? It seemed so at the current time, but what's an idea if it can't be put to the test? I chucked on my clothes - forgetting I was meant to dump them in for wash yesterday, sorted out my hair and noticed a few rainbow coloured strands in my comb while doing so; which further backed my hypothesis.
Opening the bedroom door, my ears picked up on some shuffling downstairs. "Please let that be who I think it is..." I whispered at the top of the stairs, not wanting to disturb whoever or whatever was in the kitchen. Tip-toeing my way downstairs, I peeked around the door frame to find the kitchen in a mess and an azure pegasus going through my cupboards.
"Ohmygosh!-ohmygosh!-ohmygosh!-ohmygosh!- Rainbow Dash!" I squeaked, hardly containing my excitement. It's fair to say that I was a little more than 'starstruck' at this point.
"Whoa, calm down there squirt. Why are you so excited to see me? We met a couple hours ago." Rainbow Dash turned around to meet me with an un-fazed look on her face, acting as though this had happened to her before.
"I... I thought I was dreaming..." I stuttered, going a little red in the face.
"Yeah, I have that effect on some ponies" she replied with a smirk. "So where's all the food? I'm starving." It really is Rainbow Dash.
"Um, there's some fruit in the bowl over there" I told her, pointing to the food bowl next to the microwave. What do ponies eat? Will I have to find food for Dash? These were some of the thoughts passing through my head as I glazed over, just watching the hilarity of the fumbling pony trying to pick up an apple with her hooves.
"Use your mouth if you have to, no-one really eats anything from there anyway." After shrugging, (don't ask me how she did it without lifting her forelegs off the ground - I'm still trying to figure it out myself) Rainbow Dash dived face first into the bowl and pulled out some of the elusive fruit.
"Is this your place? It seems like a lot for a kid like you to own", Dash enquired through a mouth-full of apple, while trotting casually into the living room as if she owned the place.
"No," I replied, "I'm too young to even think of buying or renting out a house".
After watching Rainbow Dash take a seat in my father's recliner, I sat down on the small couch opposite her so I could get a better look at the pegasus. After finding Rainbow Dash in my kitchen, my common sense hadn't exactly started working yet, causing me to forget my manners and just sit and stare at the blue pony.
Dash piped up after a finishing her apple and a solid minute of silence. "Would you stop staring at me like that? It's getting kinda creepy".
I blushed at this. Was I really doing that? I didn't want to make her feel awkward so I looked out of the window behind Dash to avert my gaze. "Sorry, I didn't realize I was doing it. It's not every day I wake up to find a rainbow mane'd pegasus in my bed."
"Oh, good point. I hadn't really thought of it that way" Rainbow replied, looking a little embarrassed on my behalf.
"I believe we haven't been properly introduced yet." I told her, wanting to distract her from my bad manners. "I'm Alex, human. I live here with my family."
"Well I'm Rainbow Dash - fastest pegasus pony alive and I come from Ponyville, nice to meet you." She held out a hoof, with a large smile on her face, as if to shake hands. I returned the offer and got up to shake her hoof. After such an odd event, we both started laughing at how silly we must of looked.
We both then sat back down in the respective chairs we got up from. My curiosity was getting the better of me as I found myself trying to figure out why Rainbow Dash wasn't fazed by this world. She was quite literally an entire dimension from home and yet, she was so calm. Was my earlier lie really that reassuring? Did she really believe I could find her a way home? Maybe , I thought to myself, she had already been here... Enough internal monologuing, I told myself. Just get on with it and ask her.
"You seem strangely calm for a pony on another planet, why is this?"
"Well..." Rainbow replied, "You seemed so certain earlier that you could get me home earlier that I figured 'why should I need to worry?' Plus, this world doesn't seem that much different from Equestria."
It felt like I had swallowed a boulder when she brought up the lie I told her when we first met. I started to guilt trip, and hard. No longer able to look at the equine without the panging feeling of guilt looming over me, I told her I needed some fresh air. "I need to go and think to myself for a while. Don't leave the house while I'm out, I'll be back in around 10 minutes - if I'm still not back then just stay here, I'll be back eventually."
Getting up and walking to the front door, I completely forgetting the fact I hadn't had breakfast. Turning around to remedy this problem with some fruit, I found Rainbow waiting for me to open the door. "I said stay here Rainbow, you wouldn't exactly go 'un-noticed' in this world", I told her with as stern a look as I could muster.
"Aww, why? You said you would show me around the place." She stamped a hoof in protest while pouting, but I managed to ignore it and ushered her back into the living room.
She did have a fair point, I did say I would show her around the area, but I wasn't exactly in the mood for doing it just then. I turned back towards the door and placed my hand on the latch. "Explore the house, get used to this place. It's going to be home for the next couple of weeks. One thing though, do not go in the room with the poster on the door, my brother doesn't exactly like other people in his room when he isn't here."
"Oh, okay. Try to cheer up when you start walking back." Rainbow appeared to be worried for me. I had only just met her and she was already caring for me - or maybe she was just being nice. It's hard to tell with people, but at least ten times harder with a pony.
"Bye then" were my last words to her as I left through the door. I needed time to think alone about what had happened to my morning. It's not every day I wake up to find a certain blue pegasus in my bed, although it was a nice surprise.
"And off I go" I said aloud to the world, closing the door behind me. I had no real destination, I just walked around town for a while and thought about my current situation. Eventually coming to the town park, I made my way to a bench by the local river and sat down to get a little more comfortable. I chose this spot as no-one ever came here - it was a brilliant place to think.
I had my favourite pony in my house without a care in the world, yet I still wasn't content with myself. I had lied to her to cheer her up when she was crying, but it was possibly the biggest lie I knew of. I knew there was no way I could get her home. Why am I feeling so bad about this? It wasn't like Twilight and the rest of her friends were trying to find a way here anyway, they cared for her as much as I did.
"Everything will sort itself out eventually. No need to worry," I told myself aloud. Talking to myself was one of the only ways I could think properly, as hearing my thoughts made them so much clearer. I sat there for another couple of minutes just staring into the river in front of me, contemplating about what had happened to my morning and trying to think things through. After looking at my phone for the time, I realized that I told Rainbow that I would be back one minute from now. Not wanting to worry the azure pegasus more than already had done that morning with my odd behaviour, I got up from the bench and started jogging home.
"I just hope she hasn't ruined the house while I was out," I murmured to myself. "The kitchen was bad enough as is when I found her..." Picking up the pace at the thought of a trashed house, I sped off home, hoping to find it in a liveable condition.
On my way back home I decided to slow down when passing the shops. No harm in taking my time, right? Any mess Rainbow Dash had made I could have easily cleaned up, and it's not as if she couldn't look after herself. I walked into the shop and strolled through the aisles, seeing if anything would catch my eye, but nothing intrigued me. I passed the energy drinks section to see if they had my favourite brand in-stock, as I usually cleared them out on Fridays. 'Wow, imagine Rainbow Dash on this stuff' passed through my mind as I picked up a few bottles. I walked over to the counter and thought that it was a good thing I didn't put these clothes in for wash yesterday, as I reached for the spare change in my pocket to pay for the drinks.
"That's £4.20, please"
"Here... you... go!" I replied while fumbling with the coins. Why was change always so fiddly?
"Have a nice day!"
I started jogging again after leaving the shop, with four litres of energy drink in a plastic bag, and made my way through the town. It was always such a quiet place Saturday mornings, which made my trip back home seem much more surreal than usual.
After passing through the back-streets and fields in and around where I lived, I eventually made my way to the front door of my house. I reached into my pocket to find the key to open the door, but then realized that I hadn't picked it up when I left.
"Rainbow Dash!" I called in through the letter box.
"Yeah?" I could hear the hoof-steps coming up to the door.
"Can you open the door for me? I've locked myself outside..." I replied, silently berating myself.
Hearing her snickering at my situation, she replied, "Yeah, okay, but how do I open it?"
"The handle needs to be pushed down, can you do that?"
"Of course I can, I can do anything!" I face-palmed at this.
"Can you get on with it then? It's getting cold out here." Living in England meant that the weather never stayed the same for more than a couple of hours. You have no idea how annoying it is.
"Yeah, hold on squirt, this thing is fiddly." I could hear her fumble with the handle. I'm not surprised she was struggling; it was designed for human hands, not for ponies.
The door slowly creaked open, and my eyes fell upon the pegasus. I still couldn't comprehend the fact the sky-blue pony was in my world.
"Er, you're staring at me again."
"Oh, sorry." I cursed under my breath at my stupidity. Again? Why do I keep doing this?
"Are you coming in or what?" Rainbow Dash was starting to sound frustrated, feeling the cold from the outside air. "What took you so long? You said you were gonna be back ten minutes ago!"
"I took a detour to the shops to pick up a few things, don't worry about it." After stepping through the doorway, I closed the door behind me, not wanting to get Rainbow Dash more 'chilly' (Get it? 'Chilly'? As in cold-hearted? Eh, forget it...).
"Is that what the bag is for then? Anything for me?" Rainbow perked up at the thought of me buying her a present. Come to think of it, a 'Welcome to another world' gift seemed like a good idea, why didn't I think of it?
"No, sorry. I only picked up a few bottles of energy drink - none for you though. I dread to think what would happen if you had any of this stuff." Rainbow Dash started pouting in an attempt to guilt me into giving her some of the drink.
As I ignored her, Dash only got more persistent. "Aww. Why can't I have any? It won't kill me will it?"
"Because in large amounts, this stuff CAN kill you. Considering you've never had any energy drink before, a litre to get you started off would be a bad idea; there's that and the fact I don't want to have to catch you when you shoot off at a thousand miles per hour." Rainbow started to eye-up the bag when I mentioned the ridiculously high speed.
"A thousand miles per hour? Hmm... I could use that..." She trailed off, thinking to herself about what she could do with that sort of power.
"Don't even think about it." I told her. There was no way I was letting her have any of the energy drink.
"But..." She was cut off by the home phone ringing. I rushed over to it and picked it up.
I'll tell you now, I'm a closet brony. As far as everyone else who I knew personally was concerned, I was just a regular teen. The trick was to know when to 'brony' and when to hide it, but Rainbow Dash was making the conversation over the phone possibly the hardest time I've ever had trying to hide it.
"Hello, who is it?" I asked down the phone.
"Morning dear, it's nice to know you're up." It was my mother (As for the 'nice to know you're up' comment - what can I say? I like to sleep.).
"What's that?" Curiosity getting the better of her, Rainbow practically shoved her face into the side of mine, trying to get a better look at the device.
"Shut up Rainbow Dash, I'm talking to someone," I replied, forgetting the phone receiver was right by my mouth.
"You shouldn't tell your own mother to 'shut up', I can kick you out you know."
"Crap. Sorry mum, I'm in the middle of a call to someone else on my mobile." I glared as hard I could at Rainbow Dash, but she wasn't un-nerved by it in the slightest.
"So what is it then?" Rainbow asked again.
"I'll tell you what it is after I'm done using it, now leave me alone, this could be important."
Rainbow Dash started to sulk. "Fine. Whatever."
I turned my attention back to the phone call. "So what were you saying mum? I didn't quite catch that last part." I hoped I hadn't spent too long talking to Dash, otherwise my mother could of gotten suspicious.
"We're going to be back by two, so remember to tidy your room and empty the dishwasher. Love you darling, bye".
"I love you too mum, bye." It felt so weird to say that in front of Rainbow Dash. I don't like saying 'I love you' to anyone really, it feels too corny for my liking. I sat the phone back down onto its charging stand.
"That's your mom? How does that even work?" Rainbow asked, still curious about the phone.
"That's not my mother, it's a phone. Humans use them to communicate long distances. Each phone has a code specific to it, and when another phone dials the right code the two make a long distance connection allowing sound to travel across it." Rainbow just looked even more confused than before.
I face-palmed yet again."We use them to talk to people who are very far away."
"Oh, you could of just said that in the first place. I'm not Twilight." Rainbow replied. "So what did your mom want?"
"She only wanted me to do my chores. I don't have that much to do, so when I'm done we could do something to pass the time. We have until two PM."
"I could help you with your chores? I pinkie-promise not to get in the way." Rainbow asked, doing the actions as she spoke. I smiled as I barely contained my inner-squee when she did this.
I thought about it for a second, and then remembered the mess Rainbow Dash made in the kitchen hadn't been cleaned up. "Did you clean up the kitchen while I was out?" I asked her.
"Yep, cleaned the whole mess right up in ten seconds flat." You have no idea how much I wanted to just get on my knees and worship Rainbow Dash right there, just for saying 'in ten seconds flat'. Come to think of it, I really should of just for the look on her face when she thought I had gone insane. I walked into the kitchen to find that she really had cleaned it up, better than what I was expecting her to do.
"Yeah, you can help me with my chores then. I don't know why you want to though..." I trailed off. She must of heard me as I received a reply.
"Just stuff to do. I'm not gonna sit around and do nothing 'til I can get home, I may as well be useful." She told me. I thought of this as odd behaviour, as she's normally considered lazy on the show. Maybe she was just trying to pay back my hospitality.
A couple of broken plates, a lesson about how wings make a terrible set of feather-dusters and a nearly broken arm later, Rainbow Dash and I sat back down in the living room again after an hour of housework.
"That wasn't too hard." Rainbow said aloud, stretching out her fore-legs and wings.
"You managed to tear a mattress and break a bedpost" I told her, "but it was the most fun I've had cleaning my room for a while."
"Well how was I meant to know that I had to lift the mattress and not the bed itself?" She asked me.
"Because I was still on the bed when you did it." Eeyup, four of the accidents above all happened in one move.
"I just did as you told me and lifted the corner," Rainbow snickered, as I cast another glare at her.
"Whatever. We have at least an hour and a half left, maybe a bit more. What do you want to do?" I asked Rainbow Dash, as we both were bored from our previous activities.
"You could show me around the town like you said you would?" Dash told me. She wasn't wrong about that.
I thought about the request for a minute, and agreed to it but on the condition that we went where I wanted, and not where she wondered off to. Rainbow Dash reluctantly accepted the offer.
She suggested we went on a picnic somewhere, and being the gentleman that I am, accepted it. I packed up a basket full of things we might need and things we wanted. "Are you ready?" I called to Rainbow Dash, who was still in the living room while I was in the kitchen packing up.
"Yeah, gimme a sec, wait at the front door," was her reply. She made her way to the door as I unlocked it. We both stepped through and headed to our destination. My usual thinking spot was where we were headed to, as I said before, it was pretty much always deserted.
Before leaving the house I told Rainbow Dash to fly up in the clouds, so she wouldn't get spotted, but it was un-necessary as the town was still deserted. She gained a better idea of the place though, which was a bonus in-case she got lost later and I couldn't find her. I made my way through the quiet town the same way I did the last time I headed out, occasionally looking up every so often to make sure that the blue pegasus was still in tow.
Strolling through the main entrance to the empty park, I looked around cautiously before shouting up, "Hey Rainbow, it's safe to come down now!" I watched as a cyan streak darted down through the sky and landed ten feet ahead of me, before I beckoned her over to my side. Rainbow Dash trotted over to me, before looking around the deserted area. It must of looked different from above was my only logical reason as to why she did that, or maybe she could see something I couldn't. I never asked her why.
"So this is it then? I was expecting something... ya know..." Rainbow trailed off.
"'Ya know' what?" I asked her; curious as to what she thought I had in mind.
"Something else. This is just a field with a small play-park in it. I was expecting something at least 20% cooler." She replied. OH HOW BADLY I WANTED TO HUG HER RIGHT THERE. All that was going through my head was 'HNNNNNNGGG' at the time, so that probably explains why she was staring at me with a 'what on Earth are you doing?' look plastered to her face.
Fan boy moment over, I finally had control over my voice and told her to look down at the end of the field; It dropped downwards and was practically invisible from the end we were at, so she darted off and found out what was down there before I could stop her.
From the bottom of the field all I heard was a disappointed shout. "THERE'S NOTHING DOWN HERE!"
I chuckled before calling back to Rainbow Dash, "WELL YOU SHOULD OF WAITED FOR ME TO CATCH UP THEN!" I started to stroll leisurely down the field while carrying the picnic-basket, taking in the sight of the large oaks surrounding the lower edge of the park, along with the neighbouring fields and houses. It was quite a peaceful place to be on a calm day; I've had many a fond memory because of this place - Hoping this would be yet another. Eventually making my way down to the bottom of the park, I saw that Rainbow had already found a spot to set up lunch.
"Here's a good spot," She told me, indicating to the ground beneath her. I nodded in agreement, and sat down the basket next to her. Pulling out the blanket we were going to sit on, I asked her why she wanted to go on a picnic. Her reply was that it was a good way to get out of the house, and that it gave us some time to get to know each other a little bit better.
While setting up the plates, I asked "So why do you want to get to know me better? If things go to plan then you should be leaving soon." When I mentioned her leaving she looked away in disdain. To be honest, I didn't really want her to leave either.
Lying down on the grass, Rainbow replied, "This world seems like a nice place. Other than the freaky weather, it's just like home. Sure, I miss everypony back in Equestria, but I could get used to this."
"You're accepting this place awfully quickly." I questioned her, "I thought you would of been more homesick than this - and by the way, the rest of Earth isn't so nice; I'll explain why later though... don't want to ruin the happy mood..." I replied, trailing off so she couldn't catch the last part.
She seemed a little apprehensive of telling me why she was warming to Earth so quickly, which was reasonable behaviour when I found out why. I eventually managed to get her to tell me, but sometimes I wish I hadn't. Remember the crash Rainbow Dash mentioned earlier? Well... I'll just tell you what she told me...
Equestria, Sugarcube Corner, before the Pinkie-Copter accident:
"C'mon silly, It'll be fun!" Pinkie Pie giggled, while bouncing around her latest attempt at Earth pony flight, with a confused Rainbow Dash and a dumbfounded Twilight Sparkle watching her.
"How did you even get the parts to make this? In fact, how did you make this?" Twilight asked, before realizing she was questioning Pinkie Pie and face-hoofed at her own blunder.
"That was easy-peasy! All I had to do was ask Mrs. Cake for some flour and...", Pinkie rambled on; oblivious to the fact her two friends were ignoring her.
Rainbow Dash looked over to Twilight with an apprehensive look on her face, before speaking aloud. "This thing's gonna kill us! Why are we even helping her again?"
"Because we're her friends Rainbow Dash," Twilight retorted before carrying on, " and we should always help our friends when they're in need. Think back to Applejack and the apple-bucking season"
"Fair point, but bucking trees couldn't KILL US. If we fall out of the sky in that thing, then who could save us?" Rainbow replied.
Twilight looked over to the Pinkie-Copter and Pinkie Pie concerningly, before turning back to Dash and replying "I think that's why you're here, Dash."
"Oh, oh yeah. That makes sense." The chromatic mare replied, wondering why she didn't think of it herself.
"...and that's how Equestria was made!" The party pony turned to her two friends, finishing her rant on the making of the Pinkie-Copter Mk2, and asked "So what do you think? Wanna help?"
Twilight and Rainbow Dash both turned to each other, before turning back to Pinkie and nodded simultaneously.
"Okie-Dokie-Lokey! Get in!" The pink pony bounced over to the driver's seat of her bizarre contraption, before settling into the hoof-controls, starting up the rotor-blades and doing last minute pre-flight checks. Twilight nervously shifted her way over to the newly added passenger seat and strapped in, casting a safety spell around the impromptu helicopter making sure that it shouldn't fail mid-flight. Hopefully. Rainbow Dash was already up in the air, waiting for the take-off, practising a few aerial acrobatics while she waited.
"You ready yet?" The cyan pegasus called out impatiently to her friend, halfway through another loop in the sky.
"Yeah, let's go!" Pinkie giggled to her friend. After rising 20 meters into the air to meet up with Dash, they set off over Ponyville and took in the sights. For the chromatic pegasus, this was just another day of flying over the small town, except she had two of her friends with her in a machine that only Pinkie could of dreamt up. For Pinkie Pie, this was yet another sugar-fuelled experience with her best friends that she cherished so dearly. For Twilight, it was a sudden realization of her hidden fear of heights.
Having passed over the town, with Pinkie Pie pointing out every landmark she could see and recognise when they went over-head, they finally made their way to the Everfree forest. They were to meet up with Zecora, as Twilight wanted to pick up a few herbs and magical plants found only in the Everfree that the zebra said she would gather for her equine friend. It was also an excuse for the unicorn to pick up some of her favourite tea that the zebra was famed for brewing.
Flying closer and closer to their destination, Rainbow Dash took the time she had to try and pull-off a few tricks around the Pinkie-Copter attempting to show off as per usual. However, with this being the Everfree forest and nopony in control over the weather, no-one could have expected the following.
A sudden gale of wind blew the pegasus off-course, and caused her to slam directly into Twilight, breaking the unicorns concentration on the fail-safe spell. The shouting ponies in the back had distracted the main pilot, causing her to stop peddling and the rotor-blades to stop turning. Falling out of the sky, the three friends could only hope for the best as the ground started to catch up with them at an alarming rate.
Earth, Post-Crash
"... After blacking out, I woke up in your bed. You know the rest from there." Rainbow Dash finished her telling of the story, with a few tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes, but I still couldn't understand why she didn't want to go back to Equestria.
I sighed, before asking "That still doesn't explain why you don't want to go back home though. What has crashing got to do with it?"
Rainbow Dash had tears rolling down her checks by this point, before she cried out "BECAUSE I CAUSED THE CRASH! IS IT REALLY THAT HARD? IF I WASN'T SHOWING OFF THEN WE WOULD OF MADE IT!"
I was taken back by her sudden outburst. This wasn't like her at all, but then again, being in my world was unlike anything Rainbow Dash had ever done. By now, she was full-on sobbing and I couldn't think of anything. I racked my brain for ideas, going through everything she had told me, anything to make her think it wasn't her fault would of been good right now. I was thankful for the fact the town seemed empty; I hadn't seen another human all day. Thankfully I remembered one thing that Dash had told me when we first met.
I reached over and nudged her shoulder to grab her attention. "Hold on a sec, it's not your fault. Didn't you say that you heard..."
Not wanting to be seen crying like a little filly in front of others, Rainbow Dash opened her wings out and flew off and away. I watched as she darted up into the sky, wanting to avoid any contact with others. The pegasus must of been feeling pretty bad, because even when she was up in the clouds I could still hear her sobbing. I was too shocked by her shouting at me, not expecting Rainbow Dash to do anything like that, to do anything. I just watched as my favourite pony ran away, and I couldn't do anything about it.
'Fuck' was all that was going through my mind as the whole event unfolded before me. What am I going to do now?
I stared blankly up at the sky, just letting what had happened tick over in my head. It's a good thing I was already sitting down when Dash shouted at me; otherwise I would have fallen over in surprise at her out-burst. Why did she shout like that? All I did was ask her why she thought it was here fault that the Pinkie Copter crashed; no one can predict the weather over the Everfree Forest. I just hoped she would be alright, I would have gone after her but I can't fly, it's not every day I have to deal with stuff like this.
I quietly packed up the picnic gear I had already laid out, while occasionally hearing a sob or two from the sky. After I finished packing up the stuff I walked out to the middle of the park, looking at where I thought Rainbow Dash might of been. I called up to her calmly, "IF YOU NEED A PLACE TO STAY FOR THE NIGHT, YOU KNOW WHERE I AM." I hoped that she might reply but all I received was more crying, and I think I heard her say 'go away' at one point, but it could of just been a quiet sob. As I said earlier, I'm no good at this.
I started my walk home, in the hopes of clearing my head, but all I could think about was Dash. Why was I caring so much? This could have happened to anybody. Sure, yeah, I'm grateful that the universe picked me, but why me? My thoughts were pretty much just this on my way home, until I reached my front door; it was open.
Two words just happened to echo throughout my neighbourhood at that moment. The first is one way of describing the appearance of Swiss cheese, the other a rather rude name for final out-come of eaten food. I seemed to be doing a lot of shouting that day.
I darted inside, searching each room downstairs hoping to find everything still in place and nothing missing. Luckily nothing had been taken, but I could of sworn I heard some foot-steps up stairs... foot-steps? They sounded more like clacking against the wooden flooring almost as if the intruder was wearing wooden clogs. I light-footedly made my way into the kitchen and pulled the largest knife I could find out the cutlery drawer, removing it from its plastic cover and placing it down lightly onto the table. Won't be needing that , I thought as I made my way back out of the kitchen as stealthily as I could. Having reached the bottom of the stairs, I muted my breathing and listened out for more sounds - anything that might have gave me an advantage when confronting the intruder.
I rested my back against the hallway, so I didn't have to stand for long (What? I'm lazy. Deal with it.), which was a bad idea because as I put my weight against the wall the thin paint cracked. Damn interior decorators.
I heard the intruder angrily whisper to a partner in-crime. "Shhhh... I think somepony's downstairs!"
Damn, that means there are two of them , I told myself. I started my way up the stairs, listening out for any more sounds that the thieves were making. I edged my way around the balcony as I looked around to see which rooms had been left open, thankfully it appeared that the 'house guests' had only entered my room. The only thing of any value in there was my P.C., but it was a terrible computer I wouldn't really mind getting stolen - If they could get past the password then they were in for a shock... I'm not going into detail on the matter. After edging my way to the bedroom door, I raised the knife and peeked through the gap in the hinges. Dear Celestia was I in for a shock.
"SURPRISE!"
"WHAT THE F..." I dropped the knife, narrowly missing my left foot. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT? I NEARLY LOST MY FAVOURITE FOOT! I NEED THAT TO WALK!" I was too enraged by the fact I nearly lost a limb to notice who I was shouting at, while Pinkie Pie slowly receded from me in terror with every word I screamed. The other intruder was mortified at my shouting, staring wide-eyed at me. I eventually calmed down enough to notice the fact that Pinkie was nearly on the verge of crying, and that I was shouting at the party pony in the first place.
Oh my god. I'm a monster. I've just shouted at Pinkie Pie. "I'm so sorry Pinkie; I didn't realize it was you! Please don't start crying, Dash has already done enough of that today... Please forgive me." I begged for forgiveness, while what I just said was setting-in for the purple mare in the room.
"Wait, did you say 'Dash'? Where is she?" Twilight asked excitedly, the thought of seeing her missing friend seemed to make her forget about the one I was apologizing to just then.
"Yeah, she's feeling pretty bad about herself right now though, I would have stayed with her but she wanted to be left alone... Wait a sec... Twilight!?" Having three ponies was too much for me, so I did what any fan-boy would do and blacked out. How manly of me.
I woke up some time later unsure as to what had happened, only to find myself on the guest bed and unable to move. I cast my eyes down to see a purple aura lightly glowing around my body. Explains the movement issues. I scanned the room, taking in everything I could see. Door, bed, bedside-table/drawer, Pinkie Pie, clothing drawer... Wait, Pinkie Pie? Oh yeah... I mentally face-palmed and remembered what had happened earlier.
"So who are you, how do you know us and where's Rainbow Dash?" I was surprised at how scary Twilight had managed to sound when she asked me those questions; it seemed so out of character.
"I'll tell you everything when I re-gain control of my body. I pinkie-promise that I won't hurt anypony"
"You can't win me over that easily. For all I know you could be concealing more knives or harmful weapons." Twi was seriously good at the whole interrogation thing. She was straight to the point.
I whined back, "but I pinkie-promised!"
Before Twilight could say anything, Pinkie butted in for me. "It did Pinkie promise, Twilight! I would let the thing go, we want to know where Dashie is!"
"It may know where Dash is, but what if it tries to attack us? We don't know what it's capable of," Twilight replied, in a matter-of-fact tone.
Ugh. 'It' was starting to get annoying. "Before either of you two ponies start talking again, 'it' is actually a 'he', and 'he' would prefer to be addressed as such. If you want anything out of me, You're gonna have to drop the spell. I promise I won't hurt anypony."
The purple unicorn just stared at me blankly. "You think you can win us over that easily?"
"Yeah, pretty much. There's that, and the fact I know where Rainbow Dash is. What will I have to do to convince you?"
Twilight contemplated my offer for a few seconds, before speaking up. "Prove to us that you know where Dash is, and I'll drop the spell."
I just couldn't help myself and smirked. This was a doozy. "Look in the drawer by the bed, you should find one of her feathers," I replied, "I think she's moulting." I kept everything of personal value in that draw, and the feather I slipped up on that morning was no exception.
Pinkie attempted to open up the bedside-table, but eventually gave up due to a lack of hands. Twilight just sighed, before opening up the drawer using magic. Sure enough, the sky-blue feather was revealed.
"That enough proof for you? I'd like my hands back please."
Frustrated, Twilight removed the spell binding me to the bed, allowing me to sit up properly. "Right, now I can move again you can get your information. Was trusting me really that hard?"
"You shouted at Pinkie and nearly reduced her to tears, why should I trust you?"
"Aww come on! I said I was sorry! I nearly lost a foot, surely that's enough reason to shout at somepony!" I was picking up the species-based mannerisms rather quickly.
"I suppose... But you didn't have to keep screaming at the top of your lungs." Twi did have a point, but I wasn't thinking straight when I shouted.
"Fine" I sulked while turning to the pink pony. "I'm sorry for shouting at you Pinkie. I didn't mean to nearly make you cry"
The mare giggled. "Apology accepted!"
"Can we forgive and forget now? You two are ponies I don't want grudges held with."
"Yes, please, do go on." Twilight seemed to lighten up after my apology, which was a good thing.
"Do you want the short answer or the long explanation? Dash didn't seem like she was going anywhere when I left her, so I think we should have enough time," I asked hoping they would want the long answer, just so I could put on my story telling voice and make the whole thing sound ten times more awesome. Unfortunately for I, the unicorn just wanted to get it over and done with so she could see her friend sooner. "Well, long story short, I'm Alex, Rainbow Dash woke up in my bed after you crashed, I cheered her up, we did some stuff, we went out for a picnic - her idea by the way, she got upset when I asked about the crash and now she's blaming herself for the whole thing. Right now she's up in the clouds above the picnic area, want to go see her? She could do with the cheering up."
"Yay! We can finally see Dashie!" Pinkie bounced her way out of my room, and all the way down to the front door, only to notice that Twilight and I had not followed her. She called up the stairs frustrated, "You two coming or what?", waiting for a reply.
"Yeah, give us a second!" I called back to her. There was one thing I wanted to ask Twilight before we left, and that was how they got in the house.
"That was easy, a simple unlock spell did the job" She replied. Forever over-powered, was there any magic she couldn't do?
"I thought so. We better not keep Pinkie waiting, let's go." We both made our way downstairs, to find an annoyed pink pony waiting for us.
"What took you two so long? I was getting bored," Pinkie asked.
"Eh, I only wanted to know how you two got in. Let's go meet up with Dash." I replied, as I opened the front door for the two mares. "Ladies first" I told them aloud.
On the way up to the park, I had so many questions for Twilight, but I didn't want to give away the fact that I knew pretty much everything about them before they got to know me better - If they stayed long enough. The one thing I was dreading was having to see them leave, without anything to remember them by. I just hoped Dash was still there when we arrived.
Bonus Chapter! Deleted Scenes
Author's Note
Now, for all of you who are into this sort of thing, this is the bonus chapter. It's almost completely unrelated to the actual storyline, and could be considered an alternate to the actual plot that I never finished. Here you will find my notes, cut-out scenes and my thoughts on why they didn't make it - None of it has been spell checked by the way, so if you spot an error, ignore it. It's also a place for me to thank all of the readers who have read this story. All of these notes originate from my phone, where I started writing the story in my spare time. This is also going to boost my word count by a ridiculous amount, which I kinda feel bad about doing.
This is the pre-pre-read of chapter one. I'm going to cut out parts too similar to what is already in the current chapter. It's filled with terrible spelling, horrific grammar and a few things I can't remember writing - Probably due to not being sober for the large majority of writing it. What? I didn't have any form of education for six weeks, so I used my time time wisely and got wasted.
***
I live a typical life as a sixteen year old, school work is heavy, most of my time is spent on the internet and I play a lot of video games. The only real difference is that I'm a brony, a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Most people would think that's a pretty weird thing for a teenager to like and I agree, but a quick check of the web and it's quite common. In fact, bronies have quite the age range. Ever since I watched the first episode out of curiosity, I've been hooked. This, however has left me wanting too much. The thought that my life would be so much happier in Equestria has crossed my mind often, but the thoughts of leaving my loved ones behind is too much. This is quite a pathetic thing to hear in reality, but it's gone far enough for me to hug my pillow at night, pretending it's one of the characters from the show just to comfort myself. On some nights it's bad enough for me to cry myself to sleep.
This leads me on pretty well... [You guys have read this part, it's pretty much exactly how the official chapter goes, so I'm skipping ahead]
I sat her down on the guest bed in my room and hugged her tightly. "Hey, it's going to be alright, I'll get you home one way or another" I look her in the eyes and lie to her as I had no idea how to get her back to Ponyville. In all honesty at the time, I didn't care if she went home or not. I was selfishly living my own brony dream. Rainbow Dash, the cyan pegasus, was in my room and the best part was that I was holding her in my arms. She seemed to cheer up after I told her this wasn't the Rainbow I know. "What happened to the coolest, awesomest, most radicle pony in Equestria? This isn't you Dashie" "Hey! Only two people I know can call my that, and you're not one of them!" She tells me with a teary smile.
[You've read the part about the comb, so by the magic of the author, I call thee 'skipped'!]
Girly moment over, I ask "So what are we going to do with you then" "I don't know... you could show me around the area?"
***
Yeah, bad isn't it? That's why I dedicated half a day to editing it as I typed it up from my phone. Personally, I don't really like it that much as Rainbow's character seems to accept Alex awfully quickly. I know that he was just trying to be a good host and treat his favourite pony well, but it's a little unlike R.D. to just suddenly become friends with someone (The same can be applied to the official version, but I don't want to go and change it so it fits the characters better without ruining the story. If I wanted to make Dash act more like Dash that chapter, I would say it would of taken until chapter two for her to warm up at least). The part about the crying is also pretty weird, so I left it out for the sake of not sounding like the OC NEEDS ponies to survive.
Chapter two, how I suffered when I wrote this. I just happened to be struck by a large bout of writers block when I was writing this, which unfortunately affected my school-work as well. It's not as bad as the un-edited chapter one, but required three re-writes to become what is now know as 'Kitchen Curiosity'. Damn, I feel professional just by writing this.
***
Chapter 2 - 1
My alarm clock woke me up at 10:00, just like it was meant to on the weekends. I lazily opened an eye to find that one of the best moments of my life was just a dream ant that my pillow had just ruptured in the night. I managed to slink my way out of bed to get to the top of the stairs, just to hear my mother in the kitchen. "Ugh, why are you even awake?" I said aloud. The one thing I hate in the morning is to wake up and know I have to be social. I made my way downstairs and walked into the kitchen. Still half-asleep I made my way to the cupboards and gathered everything I needed to make breakfast, not noticing the third living thing in the kitchen. "What?" I asked, as my mum and another voice giggled at me. "What? What's so funny?" I asked louder yet again, expecting an explanation as I poured the milk into my bowl.
"Turn around" I hear the second voice say. My neck cranked around, to give my eyes a chance to register who the voice actually belongs to.
"Morning sleepy-head" passes through my ears while my eyes lock onto a set of rose coloured ones.
"WHAT THE FU..." screams through the house as my brain actually registers that a certain cyan pegasus was ACTUALLY still in my now-not-so-humble abode.
"Oww... my ears..." Rainbow whined.
"HOooooly shi..." is my reply as my brain lets me know that I wasn't dreaming earlier. "Sorry..." I reply to Rainbow Dash as she looks at me with a frown on her face. "I... wha... Sorry. I thought what happened earlier was a dream".
"Sleep well then, Alex?" I hear my mother say, startling me WAY more than it should have. I turn to her and realize my own mother was in the same room as Rainbow Dash.
"HOLY shi..." I scream again. Fuck, Mum and Rainbow Dash are in the same room passed through my head, along with around ten more curses and swear-words.
"She's told me everything that happened in your room this morning".
"Umm... Morning mum." I was wondering if I was still asleep. "How many people are there in this room, dear mother?"
"Two", is her answer, "...and one pony". Ugh, why me?
"I take it that you two have already got acquainted then?"
"Yeah, your mom is a nice person, you should have told me sooner" Dash replied.
More snickering came from Rainbow and my mother's direction. "So how... why are you up early, Rainbow?" I fumbled for words as my brain was having a melt-down. I attempted to ignore the two as I went to eating my breakfast, trying to figure out a way to explain this to mum.
"She's told you everything?" I asked my mother.
"Yep, nice to know that you're kind enough to treat Dash well after finding her in the guest bed in such a way". Thank Celestia Rainbow didn't tell her absolutely everything. Being a proper gentleman, I explain, I would help all women in distress no matter what species they are. After notifying my mother of this, she seemed to ease up on the giggling. "Rainbow Dash?"
"Yes, Alex?"
"We need to talk later."
"Ok, can't see why not?" Rainbow told me, with a large grin on her face having recovered from my shouting.
An hour after waking up to find my mother and favourite pony in the kitchen, I was sitting in the living-room with the two. "So where are the others?" I enquire, to which my mother's reply was that my farther had work today, my older brother left early to go see his girlfriend. "So we're the only two people in the house then?"
"Yeah, and your pony friend here" I'm told, as mum gestured over to Rainbow.
"Please don't tell anyone mum. The less people who know, the better".
"Less people who know what dear?" She replied with a wink.
With my bizzare morning over, I headed upstairs to find Rainbow lounging in my bed. She noticed me enter the room, and said "So when am I getting a tour of the are?"
"Tomorrow morning, on my morning cycle"
"But that means getting up early!"
"no-one will be awake then, meaning you wont get spotted." [End of this chapter]
Chapter 2 - 2
Dash pipped up after a solid minute of silence. "So... what's this world like?"
"Umm... I'd rather not say right now. I'll tell you later though." I said worryingly. Shit - Curious about Earth already. Compared to Equestria, Earth is Hell. How could I tell her that without ruining her first time here? "I will tell you one thing though."
"Yeah, what is it?"
"Don't ever use a computer. Don't ask why, but if anyone wants to show you the 'internet', decline the offer. Unless I'm there it's always a bad idea."
Her face screwed up a little as she tried to comprehend what my warning meant. "What's an internet? Or a computer?"
"That thing over there" I said, pointing towards the machine in the corner.
"It doesn't look that bad" Dash replied, curiously looking at the computer in question.
"It is. Just trust me on this one" I told her, with a stern look upon my face. It seemed my comment ended that conversation - I was glad it did really. What I wanted to know was why she wasn't as fazed by her situation as she was when we first met. Did she really think I could get her home? "Why are you so calm about all of this?"
"I've been here before, just..." Dash trailed off. I must have struck a nerve as her smile shrank a little. "I knew this man... He raised me as his own..."
"PLEASE. STOP. I'VE READ THIS BEFORE." Tears started to from around my eyes as the saddest fanfic I've ever read was actually true. I felt so sorry for Rainbow Dash right then, I instinctively did what I did to anypony I had met - hug them until they felt better. My inner squee nearly exploded from it though.
"Better again?" This was becoming too common. "Yeah, thanks. Again."
So let me set the scene for you. I've woken up with Rainbow Dash in my bed, thinking it was a dream. Then I went downstairs to find it actually happened. Now I'm sat next to the pegasus with my logic and mind slowly receding from a lack of real. So far, this morning has been fun!
"You gonna move back over or just sit there with that look on your face?" Rainbow smirked, obviously feeling better after I dug up some memories.
"Hey, you should just be glad I've been acting so nice. I'm such a grump in the morning", I teased, getting her to relax even more. After shifting around in the couch we were sharing, I was more comfortable.
"I thought I told you to move?"
"Why would I? This is the best chair in the room" I replied with a smile. She didn't seem to pleased about her loss of space and moved over to the large sofa in the centre of the room. "Aww... I was enjoying sitting next to you..." I put on the best puppy-dog face I could muster up in an attempt to get her to move back.
"Not gonna work squirt" Rainbow replied, causing me to drop the act. [the chapter ends here. I felt that the 'My Little Dashie' reference was a good idea at the time, but thinking back to it, it was a bad idea. Actually, can anyone notice the INCREDIBLY subtle 'MLD' references I've been putting in throughout each chapter? There's almost one per chapter - see if you can spot them!]
***
These could of potentially been the cannon storyline, but I changed my mind after each time I 'finished' the chapter. It seemed too... Unlike... I can't think of the reason why I didn't use them, they just didn't seem to work with what I was feeling. That's writers block for you. There was also the factor of introducing the OC's mother, which I didn't really want to do as it would of played havoc with a part coming up in chapter 6. SPOILERS.
Chapter three was a pain to write, but not as bad as chapter two because the writers block had started to clear up. This isn't really and entire chapter so to say, just a section of it that didn't make it. You will be able to note similarities in the official chapter though. It takes place after Alex has just walked through the door with the plastic bag on show.
***
"So what's in the bag?"
"Only some energy drinks" I told Rainbow.
"Really? Can I have one?" Rainbow Dash poked at the plastic bag with her hoof, causing it to swing in my hand.
"Sorry Dash, but there is no way I'm letting you have any of this." Thoughts of Rainbow Dash managing to create a Sonic Rainboom just from walking were going through my head. The 250ml cans would get anyone buzzing, but Rainbow Dash after a litre of the stuff would be bad - I shuddered at the thought.
"Aww, why not?" Dash asked, pouting her lower lip in an attempt to guilt me into giving her a bottle.
"Because this stuff is dangerouse in large amounts. Considering you've never had any energy drink before, a litre of this stuff", I said while pointing to the bag, "would be lethal - That and the fact I don't want to chase after you when you shoot off at a 1000 miles per hour."
All of a sudden Dash squinted her eyes at the bag. "100 miles per hour? Hmm..."
"Don't even think about it."
"Think about what?" Dash replied, snapping back to her usuall (INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE) [Yeah, those are the actual words I typed out at the time] self.
***
I didn't like the way this turned out. Rainbow Dash seemed more out of character than I had wanted, along with the fact I couldn't think of a way to describe her in one word. From pretty much here onwards I did all of my writing on the computer and have no other notes to copy up from my phone, resulting in no more notes/chapters like the ones above.
Well, I bet most of you stopped reading after you passed the half-way mark of the unedited chapter one, but for those of you who made it this far: I congratulate you! You've managed to read through the entire bonus chapter! I would like to thank you for making it this far.
Anyway, on a more serious note, I would like to thank everyone who has read my story. I genuinely didn't expect it to be accepted by the community this well, and was surprised when I saw that my poor attempt at chapter one had passed the initial inspection. Every time I saw a positive comment (which you need to post more of by the way) made by anyone I smiled and was encouraged to write more. I usually expect little of everything I write, so I'm not kidding when I said I smiled. I do hope that this story makes Equestria Daily, but the chances of that happening are slim until I finish the whole thing due to the 3000+ words per chapter requirement. I plan on writing a whole lot more for this, and maybe boost the word-count of each chapter to 2000 if I ever get the time, as what I've written so far is just the beginning. I'm not lying when I said 'life gets changed' in the description.
Just after stepping out of the front door, I realized that the two people I had following me weren't actually people, and were cartoon ponies just waiting for dissection at the sight of the next human being. "WAIT A SECOND," I called out, "Don't move a muscle anypony! We don't know if there's anyone else out here. Twilight, can you cast a cloaking spell or something like that?"
There was no reply. I turned around to find Pinkie Pie and Twilight staring sheepishly at the ground. "Yeah... about that Alex..." Twilight finally replied, "There won't be any other people here to find us..."
I looked at them, trying to decipher what Twi had said. I hadn't been expecting that sort of answer. "What do you mean, 'no other people'? What have you done?" I asked inquisitively, curious as to what the unicorn had done.
"Well, you know how we got into your house by unlocking the door and tracking Dash's feather using a tracking spell?"
"Well, I knew the part about the unlocking. Why, what's the tracking spell done?" I replied.
"I may have used a spell to mask other things that could off-put the tracking spell... and accidentally wipe out any sentient being that hadn't come into pony contact in the process..."
My logic hit a brick-wall right there, and went straight through it. Twilight Sparkle had eradicated the entire human race, but me. I'd say my following freak-out was acceptable at the time.
"You mean... Did I hear that right? The. Entire. Human. Race. Gone... WHO THE HELL DO I HAVE TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH NOW? I'M THE LAST HUMAN ON THE PLANET! I CAN'T MAKE BABIES BY MY SELF! THAT'S A WHOLE PLANET I'D HAVE TO REPOPULATE! Oh... this is bad... very bad... very very bad." I may have gone into shock, as the next thing I did was burst out laughing.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA... I'm the last human on the planet! I can do what I like with no-one to stop me!"
"ALEX! SNAP OUT OF IT!" Pinkie called out, before slapping me in the face with her hoof - which I can definitely say hurts more than a hand.
"Ow, that hurt! Thanks anyway..." I replied, "but you've still wiped out my race..." I suppose me nearly losing my mind wasn't on the agenda for today. "I suppose we should get to finding Dash then?"
"It would certainly be more productive than just standing here and listening to you go crazy." Twilight retorted. She was right; we did need to get going.
"Well then, let's go," I replied. I started making my way off to the park, along with two ponies eager to meet up with their misplaced friend.
After making our way through the entrance of the park, I looked up. Rainbow Dash was no-where to be seen, so I tried calling out for her. "YO RAINBOW DASH! YOU HERE? I'VE GOT A COUPLE OF PONIES WHO WANT TO SEE YOU". No reply. I turned to the two ponies behind me, and looked at them with a shrug. They just stood there wondering where their friend could have gotten too. "Well then...You two have any idea where she could have went?"
They both continued to look around the place, ignoring what I just said. "Hey Twilight, this place look familiar to you?" Pinkie asked her friend aloud, continuing to ignore me.
"It does Pinkie. Why does it seem so familiar..." Twilight replied, before I snapped them out of it.
"EARTH TO PONIES. RAINBOW DASH ISN'T HERE." For just a few seconds more the two mares kept on looking around, until what I just said had sunk in. People think I'm slow to understand things...
"Wait, what? Dash isn't here? You said she would be here!" Twilight was starting to get frustrated again - Something I didn't want to happen.
"Well it's not like I told her to stay here. She was feeling bad about herself so I gave her some space, I only told her if she needed a place to stay for the night then she was always welcome at my place. Can't shoot the messenger." I hoped my carefully worded reply was enough not to get bounded by another spell.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right. It's not unlike Dash to do this sort of thing when she's upset." Thank Luna that I wasn't already paralysed by a spell by now.
I recalled past events of the day and came to a basic conclusion. "She should know her way around town after the last time she was here, so she shouldn't of gotten lost. That means she's either hiding or wondered off somewhere. You two have any ideas?"
I nearly squee'd at Pinkie's concentration face, the way she scrunched it up was so adorable. Twilight on the other hand (or hoof), just stood there with a serious look of contemplation on her face. It was going from one end of the spectrum to another. Eventually the party pony spoke up.
"Nope. Not a clue."
Twilight was the next to speak. "Is there anywhere Rainbow wanted to go when you made your way up here with her earlier? She may have tried finding her way back to whatever caught her eye."
I churned this information for a few seconds until an idea formed. "Well, she did want to see where I bought the energy drinks from... We could try the shop in the high-street?"
"Sounds like a plan" Twilight replied.
"Let's go!" Pinkie declared.
A quick walk to the shops later, we found ourselves at the door to my local energy-drink supply. The automatic doors opened up as we stepped nearer, revealing that the cashiers had vanished. Some rustling was heard from behind the shelves as the doors opened up, but soon ceased as we stepped inside.
"Shh... I think she knows were here..." I whispered to the two mares standing behind me. I tentatively made my way around to the back to find a horrific sight.
"NOOOOOO! DEAR CELESTIA WHY?"
Twilight and Pinkie quickly rushed to my side to see what I was screaming about, quick to find out what was wrong.
"THE HORROR! THE HORROR!" I shouted aloud as I fell to my knees. It was all too much for me. The sheer sight was intense. The unicorn and earth pony just stared at me in bewilderment.
"Alex, what's wrong? It's just a pile of empty bottles." Twilight asked.
"She's drank all the energy-drinks! She didn't even leave a single bottle! What am I going to do now? I just hope she hasn't found the storage room yet..."
Pinkie Pie must of took pity on me, as the next thing I knew I was being crushed to death in one of her hugs. "Don't worry Alex! Pinkie Pie will turn that sad frown upside-down!"
"Can't... breath... let me... go..." I struggled to get the words out, as Pinkie's hug was nearly crushing my ribcage. I felt myself drop to floor as her vice-like grip was loosened. I inhaled deeply, inflating my lungs before speaking up. "Right, so we know Dash has been here, she might actually still be hiding here. I suggest we split up and search for clues." Damn right I just referenced Scooby-Doo. Deal with it.
Twilight had already come up with a plan. "I'll go with Pinkie Pie. Alex, take the left hand side of the shop, Pinkie and I will cover the right and we'll meet back up here." The two ponies trotted off down the aisle, leaving me standing there by myself.
I walked off past the shelves and picked up a foam bat from the toy section in-case Dash got nasty. I gave the pseudo-weapon a check-over to make sure that it wasn't capable of damaging anybody. Good thing I can't hurt her with it. I'd never forgive myself. After confirming my new toy was safe for batting away at rouge pegasi, I started walking back down to the end of the aisle.
I called out for the missing pony. "Hey Dashie... Come out, come out where ever-you-are..." As soon as I finished my sentence, I heard a quiet rustling from behind the shelf on my right. I removed a few items of food carefully enough as to not make a sound and created a small gap for me to see through. I peered through and watched the chromatic pony shake furiously. Her eyes were blood-shot, her mane was frazzled and her teeth were chattering. She looked like she hadn't slept in days. Taking pity on the pony, I started to talk to my self again, "Oh, this is not good... I told her that drinking too much would be bad..." In an attempt to try and calm the mare down I called out to her, "Hey Dash, Twi and Pinkie are..."
She darted off, startled by my presence. At least I tried. Back to searching. I walked further down the aisle, eventually coming to my first corner. I looked around the edge and could see Twilight and Pinkie Pie starting their way down the next alley way of shelves. I just hope that Dash looks slightly more sane when they first see her... This kept on happening for a while, getting to end of the shop and go back up to the other, so I'm not going to go into much detail on it.
"I wonder if Alex has seen her yet."
"I don't know Pinkie, from the sounds of how Alex reacted to the pile of bottles on the floor, it sounds like she's done something bad. I just hope she's alright" Twilight replied, still thinking about the human's over-reaction.
"Me too..." The part pony responded quietly, worried about her friend.
After a while, I met up with Twi and Pinkie back at the entrance of the shop. They told me that they had seen Rainbow Dash on a number of occasions, only to have her run or fly off whenever they made an attempt to get near her.
"We did try to talk with her, but she just up'd and ran off every time. How long is she going to be like this?" Twilight asked, concerned for her friend.
"I'm not so sure", I replied, "I've never seen anyone drink that much before. It might be a few hours to a couple of days; it depends on how fast she burns off the energy."
Just then, the three of us heard a buzzing sound, almost like that of a humming bird's wings, coming straight for us. We turned around to see a blur of blue speed past us and collide head-first into the automatic door before it could open with a sickening CRACK. I would say the last time I took a hit that hard involved a car with a modified sleigh/skateboard combo attached to the back. I get up to some pretty stupid shit with my brothers. Anyway, back to the story.
Dash slumped into a pile at the base of the door with a groan escaping from her mouth. Needles to say that the two conscious ponies and I rushed over to her side. As if to add insult to injury, the door opened up with a 'beep' only a second after the azure pegasus passed out.
Twilight held Rainbow up by the head and shook her in an attempt to wake her up. "Dash? Are you okay? WAKE UP!" Sighing at her failed attempt to wake up the pegasus, Twilight turned to me and shrugged (I still don't know how they do it without lifting their legs. Damn pony anatomy.) "You have any ideas?"
Pinkie blurted in before I could get out a word. "PICK ME! PICK ME!"
I turned to the pink pony. "Go ahead; I don't have any idea..."
Interrupting me by running off before I could finish, Pinkie ran around the corner before working her fourth wall breaking antics and returned with a one-man band marching kit. I covered my ears in anticipation, expecting an incredibly loud blare from all of her instruments, and was not disappointed. That pony can be loud! I'm not kidding! I'm surprised my eardrums worked after that. Twilight already knew what was coming and had covered her ears with her hooves, but from the look on her face she I could tell she wasn't expecting that from Pinkie either.
Sadly, the attack on my eardrums wasn't enough to wake the unconscious pegasus and only provoked a small moan from her. Pinkie was about to try it again before I stepped in. "Whoa! Wait right there Pinkie! I think she would like to be able to hear after this! I suggest we get her to my house before we try anything again, at least that way when she wakes up she'll know where she is."
Twilight spoke up before Pinkie could protest, "I'm going to go with Alex on this one Pinkie. Getting her to a safe place seems like a good idea, plus I'd like to be able to hear after this trip too."
The way Pinkie pouted afterwards was just adorable. I don't think I've ever seen eyes get as large as hers were. I had to resist the urge to give in to another audible assault and picked up Rainbow Dash to carry her on my shoulders. Those ponies were heavier than they looked, as I struggled to lift her up. I turned to the other mares and asked, "Right, now I've got the pony, should we get going?"
The two ponies nodded and we made our way through the now-open doors. I was glad that we had found Dash, but every moment was just another step closer to her leaving. As much as I cared for her, I didn't want her to go home.
Finally getting to my front door, and finally getting Pinkie to stop talking, I gently laid the blue pegasus on my shoulders down on the earth while I pushed the door open. Being the only person on the planet meant that locking things wasn't really a problem anymore. "Come on then, ponies first" I told the other two mares. 'Always the gentleman' I told myself as I watched them trot inside. They looked out of place in this world, still wearing the cartoonish outlines and features from the show. They really didn't look much like the real ponies from Earth, but the general idea and image was still there.
I picked up Dash again, although expecting the weight made it easier, panting a little as I rested her on my back. I walked inside to find that Twilight and Pinkie had settled on separate armchairs in the living room, and made my way into the room to lay down the still-sleeping pegasus on the large couch in the centre. I then sat down in my father's recliner, letting myself take in the view before me. To my immediate right I had Twilight Sparkle, who appeared to be ogling at the computer in the corner in an attempt to figure it out. More over to the centre of the room was Rainbow Dash, still sleeping after her rather loud slam into a door. She was actually kinda cute when she was sleeping, nearly causing me to audibly 'dawww' when I looked at her. Pinkie Pie was sat directly in front of me in the armchair I was using while I was talking with Dash earlier, although the 'sitting' was more of a 'fidgeting' really. That pony never sat still.
"So...", I said aloud in an attempt to break the silence, "What do we do now?"
"Umm... Now we wait?" Twilight replied, unsure of what to do herself.
Luckily, we didn't have to wait long as Dash was starting to stir. The three open pairs of eyes all darted towards the sound of a small groan escape the unconscious pegasus's lips as she woke up.
Pinkie Pie called out, "Hey Dashie!", startling the sky-blue pony; causing her to fall of the couch she was previously sleeping on. I think I heard Twilight stifle a giggle as we watched.
"Uuurrr... Ow, my head... What happened?" was all Dash could manage before she climbed back on the couch and rested her head on the armrest.
I looked over to the pegasus. She was looking pretty rough. "You took a pretty big hit to the head after drinking far too many energy drinks. As much as I don't want to say it, 'I told you so'."
"Whatever" was all she replied. I lightly chuckled to myself at this, her lack of caring was almost inspirational.
After watching everything, Twilight decided that it would have been best if she spoke up. "So Dash, how've you been during your time on this planet?"
Dash slurred her words, still a little dazed from waking up. "I've been fine Twilight, other than the bump to the head it's been alright... Wait a second... Twilight!? How did you get here?"
I was surprised that I hadn't asked this question yet myself. "Yeah Twilight, how did you get here? You never explained that much really. Spill everything."
"Well, getting here was easy," Twilight explained, "it was actually finding Rainbow Dash that was the hard part. Finding the right spell to travel across a dimension or two only required one of the princesses to help. Finding Dash took a nearly a week of solid research."
I blurted out my reply, surprised by the time difference. "A week!? Dash has only been here for a few hours! How could she have been gone for that long? This... how... what?" Great, yet another mental breakdown in front of more ponies. Ponies make no logical sense; don't ever question something with an origin from a cartoon. Trust me on this, your brain won't like it.
"Oh, is that so? I thought that time would have been parallel between dimensions..." Was Twilight's reply. 'Is that so?' I mentally spat the sentence in disgust. I wanted to spend more time with Dash, and if they thought that I've had a week, then I want a week. May as well try milk this for everything I can.
"Awww... I wanted to spend more time with her...." I replied with a pouted lip, keeping my cool, "How long do we have until you ponies need to get back to Equestria?"
Twilight thought about my request for a few seconds, before replying. "Well, judging from how long it's been since Pinkie and I got here, I'd say that it's already been at least a few hours back home. Everypony's probably getting worried about us, now you mention it, we should probably get going."
My heart dropped down a set of stairs or two at that point. Was there anything that I could have done at that point? Yes, yes there was. Let's just say, a plan had formed and I was about to put it into action. Picking up my inner-emotions a notch or two and putting on a remorseful face, I asked Twi another question. "Damn, that's a shame. Well, could I at least see you ponies off?
"I can't see why not," Twilight replied, "You have any objections Pinkie?"
The party pony's ears perked up at the sound of her name. "Nope. If anything, the more the merrier!"
Twilight looked over to Dash, who was half-asleep on the couch. "You have any reason for Alex to not come along and see us off, Dash?"
Dash just murmured a reply sounding vaguely sounding like a mumble of agreement. After sighing at Dash's attempt at a reply, Twilight turned to me. "Well then, I guess you're coming along after all. Good thing too, as I couldn't remember the way to the park..." She told me sheepishly.
"The park?" I questioned, "Why do you need to go back there? Can't you do it in my back garden?"
"There's a lot of recoil from the teleportation stone Celestia gave me to get back," Twilight answered, "and the park is a large enough open space to allow me to use it and not damage anything."
A smug grin crept across my face. Brilliant, large recoil means large casting area... I stood up from my father's recliner and made my way to the front door. I would of continued on, but my stomach gave a rather audible growl from a lack of eating. "Sorry about that" I told everypony/everyone, "I haven't eaten all day. Mind if I grab something to eat for the way up?"
Twilight sighed, and from what I could tell, she was tempted to facehoof at the same time. "Ugh... Fine, but be quick about it"
I quickly darted into the kitchen and grabbed some fruit from the fruit bowl, still in the same place Dash had struggled to acquire an apple from earlier. Peeling back the banana skin, I couldn't help but whisper 'to the moooooooon!' to myself as I walked to the front door again. Opening it with my free-hand, I gestured for the ponies to follow. We made our way back to the park yet again, although this time I was making sure that all four of us weren't coming back.
After making my way through the entrance of the park for what felt like the one hundredth time today, I led the ponies to the centre of the open grassy area. I saw Twilight pull a rather simple looking grey stone with a few engravings upon it out from behind her back (Like I said earlier, cartoon physics - How do they work?) and set it down upon the ground. I was told to stand back a few metres as to avoid getting caught in the spell. Edging my way ever so slowly away from the ponies until Twilight said that I would be safe, I said my good-byes and waved the ponies off. After the three had said their own fair-wells, Twilight's horn started to glow its usual purple, slowly getting brighter and brighter until it was getting hard to look at without squinting. Pointing her head towards the stone, she let out all the magical energy she had built up in one blast. I saw my chance and started to run towards the group while they were too distracted to notice, and dolphin dived into the energy that had enveloped the three ponies.
I landed face-first on the hard wooden flooring of what appeared to be Twilight's library. Sitting up I found that I was indeed in the library, along with what appeared to be Spike in his basket, sleeping. Twilight wasn't wrong about the time difference, if it wasn't for the moonlight coming through the upstairs window, it would have been pitch-black in there. I stood up carefully, as to not disturb the sleeping dragon, and made my way to the red oak door and stepped outside. My plan had worked! I was in Equestria! It was only after my personal celebration that I realized that Pinkie, Twilight and Dash were no-where to be seen. I looked around the area, stopping to only find a note on the door I had previously walked through.
Dear Spike,
We've done it! Rainbow Dash is home and to celebrate we've headed out to Sugarcube Corner to throw a 'welcome home!' party. Please remember to be in bed by 9:00.
Love, Twilight
Ahhh... I thought to myself. I must have arrived later than the ponies. Using this new information, I figured that it would have been best to lay low and stay out of site for a while. No need to disrupt the locals now, is there? Making my way around the edge of Ponyville, passing various houses and homes, I found myself at the edge of the Everfree forest. I knew that it was supposedly one of the most dangerous places in all of Equestria, but that still didn't stop me from venturing into the area like it was just another piece of over-grown shrubbery. Having lived in the country-side for the first twelve years of my life, and a father who grew up without any form of technological entertainment, making my way through the forest was just like a walk in the park - A park filled with things that could kill me, but that didn't really put me off.
Having walked for the best part of an hour through the forest, avoiding anything that moved or looked like it wasn't a plant, I caught sight of a small hut that was off in the distance. 'Perhaps I should pay Zecora a visit in the morning' crept through my mind as I walked a little nearer to the zebra's home. Figuring I would be safe from visitors in the night this near to Zecora's hut, I pulled down some branches and leaves off the trees and made a small hammock to sleep in for the night.
Equestria, here I come!
I awoke the next day, still tired from my slumber. Opening my eyes I found that it hadn't rained during the night, which was a good thing as being soaked through isn't a nice feeling when you're wearing the only pair of clothes you can get your hands on. Looking up from my hammock, I surveyed my environment. Tree, tree, tree, something vaguely Fluttershy-shaped, tree, another tree and finally Zecora's hut.
Ahhh, time for my visit, methinks. Stepping out onto the marshy floor of the Everfree forest certainly felt different to the usual wooden flooring I had gotten so accustomed to back home. Tentatively, I made my way through the thick under-growth until I had found myself at the edge of the small clearing surrounding the zebra's home. Looking up to see where the sun was in the sky in an effort to figure out the time was a fruitless task, as the canopy was too thick to see through. Well, let's just hope that she's awake then...
I made my way through the final ring of shrubbery until I was in plain sight for all to see. If Zecora looked out the window just then, I would have certainly been spotted. I shuffled carefully to the door while raising my hand to knock upon the bare wood. As soon as I started to move my wrist, the door opened and... I may of lightly punched the zebra in the face.
The sudden assault upon her snout caused Zecora to rear up and push me over into the dirt beneath me. I scuttled back a few feet while blurting out apology after apology. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please don't trample me! It was an accident!"
Zecora lowered her front hooves after hearing my begging, and stared down at me with a sincere look in her eye. I removed my arms from in front of my face to see her looking down at me with a smile. "Umm... Sorry about that. I was stumbling through this forest in an attempt to find my way out. You wouldn't happen to know the way would you?"
Still keeping the smile upon her face, the zebra asked me why I was in the forest. "Ahh, the way out I know for sure, but what in Equestria caused your detour?"
I had to think about this one for a second, what would be a good excuse? 'I come from a land where magic is dead along with its only sentient population becoming recently extinct and I wanted to see what life would be like in a land filled with magical talking horses' didn't seem appropriate at the time, so 'I'm lost' had to do.
Zecora then proceeded to invited me into her home, (I'll tell you now, it's WAY smaller than it looks. If I was a foot taller then my head would have hit the roof when I stood up.) to which I humbly agreed. Having sat myself down on one of the minuscule stools that a pony would call a chair, I looked around the place. It looked just like it did from the show, except that I was there this time and not behind a screen. Having acquainted myself with the place already, I figured that now would be a good time to start asking questions.
"So, what's your name then? It wouldn't be gentlepony of me thank my host without knowing her name." Smooth move. Act like you don't know anything at all, and you'll get along fine.
"My name's Zecora oh one who roams. I welcome you to my small home." Zecora replied.
"Well then, Zecora, thank you for the hospitality. May I ask, what's compelled you to such a kind act?"
Zecora thought about my question for a second, with a rather sorrowful expression on her face, which slowly turned to that of a smile as she recalled past events. "I was once an outsider like you, shunned by most, liked by few. It was after events caused by poison joke that I became friends with all the pony folk. I do not get many a guest, so one like you I must attest."
We talked for what felt like hours, discussing whatever came to mind. Realizing how long I spent with the zebra, I decided that it would have been a good time to get going. Standing up to stretch my legs, I told Zecora of my intentions. "It's been nice talking to you Zecora, but I must get going. Things to do, ponies to meet. We should do this again some time."
Zecora looked up at me taking in my full height before replying. "Ah, yes you're right, a lot of time has passed. Let's hope this meeting will not be our last."
I was starting to think I had spent too long in Zecora's hut and inhaled one too many fumes, as I caught her winking at me out of the corner of my eye. "Errm... bye then." I replied nervously, slightly startled by her actions. I headed to the door with a very brisk walk, trying to avoid any more eye contact with the potion brewer. Placing my hand on the door handle I stopped everything as my mind came to a blank, door handle? Hand-le. Why is this in Equestria? Before I could finish riding my train of thought, a set of hoof-steps awoke me from my day dream and I turned to see Zecora watching me with a worried look.
"Something wrong?" She asked.
"Um, no. I just remembered something, that's all. Bye." I replied, while turning the handle and stepping through the doorway. I closed the door behind me gently as to not make any sound while thinking about the out of place handle. Looking up through a minuscule gap within the forest canopy, I could see that it was nearing mid-day. Time to head out then.
Having trekked for half an hour through thick shrubbery and narrowly missing a sleeping manticore, I finally found myself on the main pathway leading out of the forest. The exit was only a couple hundred feet away, but the sounds of farm animals reminded me that a certain butter cream-coated pegasus lived by the entrance to the Everfree.
Damn. Fluttershy's bound to see me if I just stroll on out there into the open. Zecora's unlikely to tell anyone about me so she should be fine, but Fluttershy'll be likely to tell someone. Thinking about my current situation, I let out an audible 'hmm' while walking down the path. Stopping only a few metres away from the exit, I listened yet again to the variety of sound coming from the collection of animals, straining my ears to see if they could pick up the gentle voice of Fluttershy.
Nothing but animals, so where was the pegasus?
Even with my new reassurance, I still creped around the edge of the small hovel trying to remain as hidden as possible. The most attention I received during my walk past the animal-lovers home was just the un-approving looks of the birds sat in the trees around the back garden, nothing to really worry about then. Still creeping away from the cottage, I looked back to see what it really looked like. It looked just like it did from the show, so what was I expecting? The door handle from Zecora's hut must of caused me to start questioning things more than I should of. Having made my way past the timid pegasus's home, I started heading off around the edge of the town trying to remain out of sight.
Ponies are strange creatures, I'll tell you now. Having remained hidden on the outskirts of Ponyville gave me ample time to survey its inhabitants. I must have just sat there hiding in a hedge for at least an hour watching ponies go about their daily business. From my studies I managed to count one hundred ponies, with 61 being earth ponies, 11 being pegasi and 28 being unicorns. No two of them looked exactly identical, so that must of just been the animators of the show being lazy.
Having starved off boredom with statistical analysis, waiting for the right time to move went by pretty quick. By the time it was the afternoon; most ponies were done with their day-to-day chores and had returned home to relax from a long day of work, which gave me a large window of opportunity to carry on making my way through the small town. Having passed through the area already, making my way back to the library was easy. Getting there without being spotted however, was not. Hearing the sound of somepony's voice, I dived into the nearest trash can.
"Hey, you. Why are you hiding?"
Say nothing. Act like they never saw you...
"I saw you dive into the trash can. I know you're in there."
So much for that plan... I poked my head above the rim of the surprisingly empty waste container to get a better look at whoever was calling for me. A young, red coated, unicorn colt with an atom for a cutie mark had trotted over to my hiding spot, causing me to duck back into the trash can, and tapped the metallic cylinder with an inquisitive hoof.
"Come on, I'm not going to hurt you. Come out from there, there's no reason to hide."
"Yes there is", I replied from within my hiding spot, "It's a little late for a colt like you to be out, shouldn't you be at home?"
It took him a while to reply, obviously trying to think of a reason for being out later than he should of been. "Hey, not cool. I had stuff to do that took longer than I expected it to. What reason could there be for hiding in a trash can anyway?"
"How well can you keep a secret, little one?"
"Huh? What's that meant to mean?" Sometimes I think these ponies are purposely acting dense.
"It means can you keep a secret? If you can, I'll tell you the story of the trash-can pony and why he's hiding in it."
From what I could hear, the colt stamped on the ground a couple of times in excitement. "I like stories! Keeping a secret is easy! Please, tell me why the trash-can pony is in the trash can? Is his special talent sorting rubbish? Mine's science, but that's not important right now. Tell the story!"
I paused for a few brief seconds, adding tension to the currently non-existent amount already in the air, before standing to my full height making sure that the sun was behind me as to cast a dark shadow over my face. I looked down upon the young colt, before speaking with a deep and booming falsetto with my arms held out wide.
"Trash can pony is not of your world!" DUN DUN DUUU!
The colt stood there for a minute, processing the sight before him. After looking up and down from my hidden face to the empty can I was stood in, he looked me in the eye (Well, what he could see of them) before replying with a frown upon his face. "That's a terrible story."
Shrugging of his criticism, I replied "It was meant to be a distraction anyways. You can't tell anypony that you saw me, right? I'm not supposed to be here - I'd tell you why but that story is far too long to tell it right now.... Actually, if you keep me a secret, I'll tell you that story some time. I promise it's way better than the trash can pony one."
He sat down on his haunches, contemplating my offer. He eventually spoke up and raised a hoof. "Deal."
I shook hands/hooves with him and stepped out of the impromptu hiding place. Standing on the real ground, I shook off what litter that had stuck to the bottom of my shoes. I would of asked why he wasn't curious as to what I was, but I didn't want to waste my time. The sun was nearly completely over the horizon and him being a colt probably meant that he didn't care what I was anyway. "It's been nice meeting you, young one. I have to head off to the library now to meet a certain pony and I can't be late. There's a very important topic we have to discuss. Don't forget our deal."
"Bye mister, and I promise I won't forget."
Walking away from the little pony, I turned around after a few paces and waved. He returned the gesture as I made my way to the library, now under the cover of night. I had a certain bone to pick with Miss Sparkle about the eradication of my species, a very large bone indeed.
"Alex?"
"Ugh... go away. I'm busy."
"Alex. Get up, now." The purple dragon was stood by the wooden couch, wondering how I could have slept on something that resembled a large chunk of wood. I, however, refused to open my eyes. I wanted sleep, so I was going to do anything I could to get it.
"No. I was having a nice dream until you interrupted it. If I fall asleep now, I might go back into it."
"Fine then, you leave me no choice." Spike picked the longest claw he had on his hand and jabbed it into my back. Needless to say, I shot up after that.
"AAH! You little... That hurt." I rubbed my sore side in an attempt to ease the pain. "Why do I even have to get up, has something happened?"
"No, Twilight just wanted me to make sure you were up before half twelve."
"So what is the time then?"
The young dragon had to think about this for a few seconds while mumbling numbers under his breath. His eyes lit up by the time he was done adding up the time. "Half nine. Why'd you ask?"
Before I replied, I stretched out my arms to pop a few joints. "I have three hours of sleep left and you woke me up?"
Spike shrugged. "I thought you might want to get up early, chill out man."
I brought a hand to my head. "I fell asleep when the sun rose. I do not like getting woken up earlier than I have to. I'm going to talk with Twilight about this, you know."
Waving off my reply, Spike muttered a 'whatever' before returning to his daily tasks. I proceeded to rest my head back on the oak armrest and got some more shut-eye.
I opened my eyes. All I could see was a bright white. Nothing more, nothing less - just white. Blinking my eyes to help them adjust to where-ever I was, they eventually focused enough to tell me that I had woken up in my bed. Scrutinising all the details of my environment, I eventually came to the conclusion that I had just been dreaming. I sat on the edge of my mattress, going through the false experiences I had lived in an attempt to see which ones were worth remembering. Ten minutes of sorting through dreams, I finally decided that I shouldn't dwell on the matter and went downstairs to get breakfast.
Opening the cupboards to reach for whatever I felt like eating, I pulled out a bowl and grabbed a cereal box. Setting my culinary implements down upon the kitchen table I looked around, it was quiet, as in really quiet. Someone else should have been in the house. Ignoring the absence of everyone, I made breakfast and ate up. Just another day then...
Having had breakfast and gotten dressed, I finished all my daily chores before heading up town to buy some energy drinks. A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me as I walked through the automatic doors of the shop. Looking over to the counter, no one was at the till. I called out over the many shelves of the store, "Hello? Can I get some service?" Hmm... No reply...
I was about to just walk out of the shop with the items before I heard a buzzing sound, like that of a humming bird's wing. I've heard that before. Oooohhh shiiii... I turned around to see a sky-blue blur slam into me, knocking me out.
"What the..." Ow... Why does my head hurt?
I opened my eyes, only to meet the long, dark planks of wood that made up the floor of Twilight's home. Rolling over to lie on my back I stared up toward the ceiling of the library, wondering what had happened in the past few days to lead me to this point. Eventually getting up, I walked over into Twilight's kitchen to see if there was anything worth eating. Nothing in here, or in there... what about in here? Nope. More nothing. Having opened up every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen all I could find was pony-based food, that of which I didn't eat.
"Hey Spike! Is there anything in here that I can eat?"
The sound of small footsteps could be heard as the young dragon walked over to the kitchen doorway. He looked in and found me standing by a group of open pantry doors, idly looking over their contents.
"You're looking at a whole load of food right now. What's wrong with it?"
"It's all plants. I don't usually eat daffodils and grass." I replied, "Anything other than pony food?"
"What about dandelion pancakes? Everypony likes those." Spike suggested, as he pulled out a bag of flour to start making the breakfast in question.
"Have you ever considered making it without the flower?" I asked.
Spike just looked over to me as if I was asking the dumbest question in the world. "How am I meant to do that? You need that to make the batter itself."
I face-palmed. "I meant take out the dandelion so it leaves just the pancake. Has anypony ever considered doing that?"
"Um... No. Now that I think about it, nopony ever has." It was as if he had an epiphany on the spot. "That's an amazing idea!"
Haha! Free pancakes! "So are you going to make a batch then?"
"Can't see why I shouldn't. Wanna help?"
"Why not?" I replied. "What do you need and where is it kept?"
Having baked Equestria's first ever batch of plain pancakes, Spike and I were eager to start working our way through the mountain of batter. Both grabbing a fork from the cutlery drawer, we sat down at the table and looked upon the pile of pancakes. I hovered my hand over to the batter and scooped up a piece. Turning to face Spike who had already scooped up some pancake, and with the most solemn expression I could muster, I spoke. "For science."
We both placed the batter into our mouths and chewed slowly. I swallowed while watching Spike, who seemed to be enjoying the pancake. "So what do you think of it then?" I asked.
He looked back over to me before replying. "This is pretty good. I'm still amazed that nopony has ever thought of this before."
"Well..." I replied, "We still have loads of pancake batter left. Up for a big breakfast?"
"Sure... Hey, I bet I can eat more of these than you could."
"Ha." I scoffed, "Is that a challenge?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Why yes it is." The young dragon sounded confident that he could out-eat me. I looked back at the plate of pancakes in front of me. This should be easy. "Challenge accepted."
"3..."
"2..."
"1..."
"GO!"
Walking down the long, well-trodden path to Rainbow Dash's home, Twilight took a moment to pause and think about her following actions. Should she really tell Dash that the human had followed them to Equestria? Shrugging at her own thoughts, the purple mare carried on down the path. Stopping occasionally to wave to a friend or somepony she knew, Twilight had finally made her way to the floating collection of clouds that were the self-proclaimed-best-flyer-in-Equestria's home.
The unicorn called up to her friend. "Rainbow Dash! I'm here with the newest Daring Do novel for you!"
Like a bullet, the sky-blue pegasus shot out of her upstairs window to meet her friend. "Where is it?! I've been waiting weeks for this!"
Twilight levitated the new book out of her saddlebag and hovered it over to Dash, who grabbed it in her mouth. The pegasus then signalled for her friend to follow her back to her home. Enabling the cloud walking spell, Twilight slowly made her way up to the front door and waited for Dash to open it. Once inside, the sky-blue pony placed the book onto a magically enchanted shelf to stop it falling through the cloud. "So Twilight, how's it hanging?"
"I have actually had a pretty interesting evening last night." Twilight replied, "A certain someone had turned up during my monthly meeting with the Princess."
"'Someone'?" Rainbow Dash questioned the unicorn, "Don't you mean somepony ?"
"No, I know what I meant. The someone in question was Alex."
Surprised at the fact that the human had been found in Equestria, Dash replied, "What, you mean the guy who I ended up in bed with on a different planet?"
"Yes, that 'guy' as you referred to him as. I have no idea how he managed to follow us."
Dash shrugged, "Maybe he just jumped into the spell when it went off?"
"That would be a plausible idea, but then he would of came through at the same time we did. So what caused the delay?"
"I dunno. I wasn't the one who studied magic for half their life. You're the egg-head Twilight, you figure it out."
"You're an idiot..."
"Ugh... How am I the idiot? You accepted the challenge."
"Why did we even make so many? Oh Celestia..." I clutched my stomach, groaning at the excess weight I had put on from eating too much. The eating contest had went smoothly until Spike and I had reached our fifteenth pancake each, then it became a struggle for the both of us to finish off the last few.
"Oh turnips..." Placing a hand over his mouth, the baby dragon rushed to the toilet. A slight retching sound could be heard as Spike emptied his stomach.
"HA! I win! In your fa... oh dear..." Covering my hand with my mouth to stop the pancakes going the wrong way, I ran to the toilet door. Slamming my first down on the door in desperation to let Spike know what was about to happen, he knocked back, before telling me to go find somewhere else to throw up. Turning back around to try and find any other places to show the world the wonder of partly-digested food, no available place could be found. The kitchen sink was there, but I doubt that either Twilight or Spike would want to clean that up. With it being my last option, I ran to the front door and threw it open before running behind the library. The small flower garden growing behind the large oak that was the library needed replanting after I had finished.
Walking back inside, feeling considerably lighter, I found Spike in the kitchen cleaning up all the things we needed to make the large batch of pancakes. Spike turned around to acknowledge my return before returning to the washing up. "So where'd you throw up anyway? The library doesn't stink, so I assume you went outside."
"Yeah. About that," I answered, "whose flowers are planted out in the library garden?"
Spike stopped what he was doing and turned back around to stare at me. Wide-eyed, he replied, "You haven't... Please tell me you didn't throw up over those flowers..."
Having taken the time to reflect on what had happened, the flowers did look quite nice. "Um... why? Were they important?"
"Those were Twilight's prized melior venefi!"
Confused by the exotic name, all I could muster for a reply was "What?"
Face-palming, Spike explained the name behind the plant. "melior veneficus is Latin for 'better magic'. Twilight uses those to help her concentrate when making new spells."
"So they were valuable then?"
"They only bloom once every five years! Yes, they're valuable!"
Great, another thing Twilight can hate you for. "I'll go see if any of them survived..." Taking this as a chance to leave the area, I made my way back out of the library and headed for the edge of town. I figured now would be the best time to explore Ponyville and avoid the wrath of the librarian when she returned.
I must have been at least half a mile away from the library by the time I heard Twilight scream. She was furious . If it wasn't for the fact that I was this far away from her, I wouldn't have burst out laughing. I had to take pity on poor Spike though; he must have needed a set of new ear-drums at the end of it. By the time I had caught my breath I had been spotted by yet another local, who seemed to be just as curious about me as the last one.
"Oh wow! A laughing monkey!"
SHIT. My head shot up and turned to face the newcomer. A cream-coated pony with a pink and blue mane was watching me chuckle to the sound of the angered librarian. I recognised her from the fan content as Bon Bon, the supposed partner of human-enthusiast Lyra. Play it cool, she thinks you're a monkey.
"Umm... Ooh ooh ah ah ah?" To add to the image I scratched under my arms and swung them as Bon Bon giggled at what she thought was a chimp in clothing.
"What a funny monkey, he must have escaped from Fluttershy's enclosure. I should really go tell somepony about this..."
She started to trot away before waving good-bye to me, oblivious as to what I actually was. Relieved by her absence I sighed, Thank Luna she's gone.. , and was about to start making my way around town until the very same pony came back with a group of friends, eager to gape at a chortling simian.
"So where's this monkey you were talking about?" asked a grey stallion, with a four-leaf clover for a cutie mark.
"Yeah, I wanna see this monkey!" asked another pink pony with diamonds for a cutie mark.
"Yeah, where's the chimp?"
"Calm down, calm down... The monkey is right here." Bon Bon spoke aloud, silencing the small crowd. I was standing there watching them stare at me, expecting me to do something ape-like. Always the crowd pleaser... I mentally sighed. Starting up the monkey antics and swinging my arms, I let the crowd revel at the sight of one of the most humiliating moments I've had the misfortune to live through. Eventually a couple of pegasi left the pack, which lessened my embarrassment for a brief few seconds, until they came back with more ponies.
The crowed kept growing and growing until I couldn't see out of the alleyway I slinked into before the whole 'monkey-business' had started. Figuring now was a good time to move out of my improvised stage, I ambled into the street still playing the part of the chimp. I danced my way through the streets as the performing monkey, getting reluctantly more and more into character as I swung around a small fountain in the centre of town. Eventually a couple of members from the crowd started throwing a bit or two into the fountain as I performed, calling out and cheering me on. How the heck did I end up doing this?
As I went back to my roots, more and more members of Ponyville had started to gather until the town square had filled up. There must have been over 150 ponies watching me by this point, which made the whole thing seem more awkward than I had intended it to. It was tempting to just swipe the bits from the fountain and take my leave there and then, but deserting my cheering audience would have felt unwarranted seeing as they were now essentially paying me to perform. Oh well, monkey I am, monkey I act.
The crowd slowly dissipated over the next quarter of an hour until only a handful of ponies were left. I took this as a chance to pick up the bits and made my leave, before getting interrupted by another pegasus.
"So Alex, how have you been?"
"Alright, I guess. This whole monkey thing was getting boring though... Wait a sec... Rainbow Dash?!" She must have seen the whole monkey act. Great.
"Yep. The one and only," the sky-blue pegasus replied. "I see you've been making some money while you're here."
Groaning, I replied, "How much of that did you see?"
Placing a hoof under her chin, Dash replied, "I think I threw in the tenth bit... could have been the fifteenth... I'm not so sure."
"You mean you've been watching me for the entire time? Well, thanks. You could have mentioned something earlier. That was over quarter of an hour ago."
"Aww come on! It was hilarious!" the pegasus protested. "You honestly think that I wouldn't want to watch?"
"Do you even know why I had to do that?" I hissed back, annoyed at Rainbow Dash for not speaking up earlier.
"Umm... No."
"So you never thought that the prospect of a new alien species being introduced into Equestria wouldn't cause panic and alarm?"
Dash shrugged. "Not really. I thought you were only doing that to make some bits. How much money did you make in the end?" I expected that question from Dash, trying to change the conversation when it started going sour.
"I'm not so sure, but there was enough left to easily fill up my pockets at least three times over." Reaching to grab a handful of bits out of my left trouser pocket, I felt something plastic and smooth. "Hmm... that's odd."
"What? Found a peanut in there?" Dash snickered at my expense. I didn't care at the time as I pulled out the foreign object from my pocket, revealing it to be my phone.
"How have I not noticed this before? It's been three days..." Getting lost in thought, I looked the device over in my hands. It seemed intact.
Giggling, Dash let out another pun. "Maybe it's because you were too busy 'monkeying around' to notice!"
"Very funny." I replied, "Can you stop with the monkey jokes?"
"Why, are they driving you bananas?" This time Dash collapsed onto the floor into a heap of laughter. I took a quick glance over to her before returning my attention back to the device in my hands. I held the power button down until the phone had vibrated, letting me know it was starting up. The home screen slowly loaded into existence, showing that I had no signal what so ever. Well that's disappointing.
Pocketing my phone, I turned my glance back over to the hysteric pegasus. She was still cackling away at her own joke before calming down enough to stand upright again.
"Are you done yet?" I asked, still slightly annoyed at the terrible puns.
"Yeah... I haven't laughed like that in a while. Oh, wow, All that laughing has made me hungry. That reminds me, I have to go meet up with Twilight for lunch, you wanna come along?"
"Umm... I'll be fine. I had a big breakfast anyway... Go ahead without me." The memory of Spike's reaction from when I told him about the plants had re-surfaced when Rainbow Dash mentioned Twilight. I felt that avoiding her for the day would be a good measure for keeping my ability to hear.
"Eh, you're the one that's going to lose out on the free lunch. Anyway, catch you latter, kiddo."
Damn, I'm getting hungry.
After skulking around Ponyville for the rest of the day, I had managed to build a pretty strong mind-map of the town. I came across a few places I recognised from the show, such as Sugarcube Corner and the Town Hall. One area I explored vigorously was Sweet Apple Acres, occasionally picking an apple or two from the large orchard. Having had my fill of apples for the time being, I decided to move closer to the farm house in order to gain a better look at the Apple Family Home. Even for ponies, the residence was huge. It was larger than my own home, which caused me to take a step back and really take in the size of the place. I had been admiring the farm house for a little too long though, as I heard the all too familiar accent of the cow-pony Applejack.
"Well I'll be, that's the monkey Twilight was on about earlier. The little varmint deserves a beatin' for what he did!"
"Beating? Hold on a second..."
A second wasn't long enough. By the time I had processed what the farm pony had said, she had already cleared at least thirty feet. Scrambling to my own, I ran on in a hopeless attempt to out-run my pursuer or find somewhere I could hide. My first thoughts turned to that of the orchard itself, but having worked on them for many years would have meant the Applejack could find me in there without breaking a sweat. Veering my direction to the right, I sprinted to the large open barn and dived into a pile of hay. It wasn't my wisest of decisions, but at least the earth pony couldn't find me in here, right?
"I know ya in here! It's just a matter of time!"
Well, there went that plan. I sat in the hay-bale and waited until the orange pony had turned her back to the exit and I, before jumping up and out of there as fast as my legs would carry me. I ran past the front of the farmhouse and back around to the other side of the building, into the orchard. Apple tree after apple tree blurred past as I ran on, ducking and dodging past branches that were in my way. The farm pony was hot on my tail as I dived through the gaps between the trees, swerving one way and then the next to try and shake her off. Applejack would just not give up, which was becoming a problem as my adrenaline rush was starting to fade.
The need to stop and rest was growing stronger with each step. I turned one last sharp corner before jumping up into a tree. If being a monkey got me into this mess, than being a monkey some more should help me get out of it. I looked down to see the pony-tailed pony gallop by underneath the branch I was perched in, before letting out a sigh and resting my head against the trunk of the tree. Taking this moment to catch my breath, I picked a few more apples from the orchard and ate to regain lost energy.
Getting too greedy, I reached out for an apple on a branch that was just out of my reach. Merely centimetres away from the tips of my fingers, I reached out that little bit further and fell from my place in the leaves. My not-so-manly scream had alerted Applejack, causing her to run as fast as she could towards my position. Having barely stood up from my fall, I had just enough time to watch a hoof travel through the air and connect with my crotch. Good thing I'm single.
The scream of agony was enough to cause the confused farm-pony to wince. She watched as I fumbled around, eyes shut-tight in pain, attempting to make my way from where-ever I was. I darted towards what I thought would have been the clearing I had ran through earlier, but instead my head smashed straight into the solid trunk of another tree, knocking me out. Before blacking out completely, my last thoughts were something along the lines of 'Karma's a bitch'.
I woke up in a room I did not recognise. My first thought was that of the dream I had while unconscious, which was just a re-run of the last one. My next thought was why was I in a bed? I passed out in an orchard, not in a hotel. Surveying my surroundings, I realized I was in what appeared to be a guest bedroom. The walls were barren of detail, other than a few shelves in the corner, the cupboards were empty as if they had been left for a new house-mate (Or just a pony with no clothes... Eh, cartoon logic) and the bed was remarkably clean, bar the fact I had just been sleeping in it. In fact, the only details that told me that I was in a home at all was the window on the far side of the bedroom, showing a beautiful view of the orchard and a small portrait of the Apple family on the bed-side table.
Picking up the picture frame, I studied the photo inside with great detail. Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, Applejack and Apple Bloom were all standing in front of the farmhouse with Winona sat down next to Apple Bloom's left flank. It was quite a happy little picture that reminded me of my own home back on Earth. Reminiscing time over, I removed the photo from its frame and placed it in my pocket as a memento. They'll have a copy of it somewhere... I think.
A small creak emanated from the corner of the room. My first instinct was to face who or what had made the noise, but I had a pretty good hunch about who it was. I turned my head slightly, as to look at the door from the corner of my eye. A large red bow could be seen poking through the open door frame, along with a large orange eye. It was tempting to just call out Apple Bloom right there but I did not want to scare the filly, well, not yet anyway.
I turned to face the window and watched the birds fly by, keeping my ears pinned as to track any more sounds made by the curious filly. Quite hoof-steps could be heard as the young mare edged herself closer and closer to me. Turning my head again, I could see that she had fully entered the room. The longer I waited, the closer she trotted. By the time she was just a meter away from where I was sat on the bed, I had come up with a plan to tackle-hug the unsuspecting crusader. I wasn't anticipating her next move though.
"Mah sis is real sorry 'bout what she did earlier. She didn't realize you were no monkey."
I winced when I remembered what had happened earlier, never before having felt such a pain. With my disguise busted, I abandoned my plan of glomping and wanted to know how they saw through my cover. The chimp idea was good enough for nearly every other pony I had came across, so why were the Apples any different? "So how'd you figure out I wasn't a monkey? Did you notice that I didn't have a tail, or was it the hairless face?"
"Naw, you were talking in your sleep. Monkeys can't talk."
"Hehe..." I nervously chuckled. I always talked in my sleep when I was a child, I guess going to Equestria must have brought it back up again. "What was I talking about?"
"Somethin' about Rainbow Dash. That's when we figured out you wasn't a monkey." (Heh, what can I say? I like Rainbow Dash) I grinned slightly in an attempt to alleviate the awkwardness of my current situation, but Apple Bloom just saw straight through it. "Don't worry mister," she said, "We won't tell nobody." Thank Celestia for that.
Rather than sitting there in the inelegant silence with the young filly, I asked her how long I had been out for, to which she told me nearly an hour. I went to reach for the phone in my pocket to check the time, but my trusty brick of a device couldn't be found. Starting to panic, I looked around the entire room while Apple Bloom just sat there and watched. That phone was my last physical memory from Earth, meaning it was something I didn't want to lose. Giving up after a frantic bout of searching, I sat back down on the bed and let out a sigh of defeat. The young mare must have caught on to what I was searching for, as she asked me a question.
"You lookin' for that flashy, beepy thing that was in yer pocket?"
"Flashy-beepy-thing? It flashed and made noises? Where is it?" How on Earth could that of happened...
The young filly got up and started to walk to the bedroom door before signalling for me to follow. I stood up and kept behind Apple Bloom as we made our way through the Apple family abode, going through one hallway after another while passing various rooms, eventually coming to find ourselves in the kitchen. I looked around and spotted the device on the kitchen table before rushing to pick it up and check the screen.
I had a text message.
Back in Ponyville, news of the human had reached a certain pink pony's ears after over-hearing two of her friends talking about what they had been up to over the past few days. As soon as she heard that he was in Equestria, Pinkie Pie did what naturally came to her - organise a welcome party.
Hiding in various hedges and bushes in an attempt to make her way back to Sugarcube Corner without getting spotted, the party pony found herself in her bedroom having finally made her way home. Opening up the secret door behind her closet, Pinkie Pie glanced over her secret supply. From Nightmare Night to Hearts and Hooves celebrations, there was everything you could have possibly needed to celebrate any event imaginable. A welcoming party was but a trot in the park for the party planner extraordinaire.
Packing all the required streamers and banners into her saddlebags, the sugar-fuelled mare bound her way downstairs to set up for the event. Within minutes the party had been set up. Balloons adorned the walls, streamers hung from every corner of the room, cake and other party foods had been set up for the occasion and to top it off a huge banner, stretching from one side of Sugarcube Corner to the other, had been hung across the ceiling with the words 'WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA!' adorned upon it.
Almost as if she knew someone was watching, Pinkie spoke aloud, "This is going to be the. best. party. EVER!", before darting off-screen to hand out invitations without giving the author a chance to follow. Damn these ponies and their ability to warp physics.
"Bye Rainbow Dash!" Twilight waved to her friend as she slowly made her way back down to solid ground. Landing on the ground with a light 'thump' as she put all of her weight onto her hooves, the librarian started to head off home to the library. Taking the short way back as to head through the Ponyville central park, Twilight had to go through several back-streets and alleyways, occasionally spotting what she thought was Alex only to dismiss the thought as he was still at the library, right?
Shaking her head for the umpteenth time after spotting what she thought was the human again, the purple mare was finally standing at the front of her home. Opening the door with magic, Twilight made her way inside to find the the library was empty and Spike was no-where to be seen.
"Spike? Are you home?" Twilight called out, unsure as to where her number one assistant could have gotten too.
"Umm... I'm out back..." Spike replied with an uncertain tone to his voice.
"Spike, is everything alright out there?" Dumping her saddle bags onto the living room couch, Twilight tentatively made her way through the kitchen and out to the back of the library. "Where's Alex? Gone out exploring?"
"Heh, you could say that..." Spike was standing in front of the flowerbed attempting to cover the horrific scene as much as possible, but the smell of the situation had gotten up Twilight's nose.
"Errgh, what is that smell? Has something happened to the melior venefi?" Gagging, the unicorn brought a hoof up to her nose and brushed Spike out of the way with magic. They say the resounding screams could be heard for miles.
"SPIKE! WHO THREW UP ALL OVER MY FLOWERS?!"
"It was... pancakes... Alex... eating contest..." Spike fumbled for words, shocked by Twilights reaction.
"I DON'T CARE WHO DONE IT, GET THEM CLEANED UP! AS FOR THAT HUMAN, I'LL DEAL WITH HIM LATER!" As the flames consisting of Twilight's mane subsided, she trotted off in a huff towards the back door of the library. Slamming the door shut with nearly enough force to rip it from the hinges, the infuriated unicorn prepared herself for her weekly meet-up with Applejack hoping that she could take her mind off her 'problem' with a few glasses of cider and a long chat. Ugh, I hope Applejack has kept a bottle or two behind from the market. Maybe I can black out and forget about that stupid ape...
Trotting through the main gate of Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight took a deep breath in and savoured the crisp country air. Ponyville itself was very clean of pollution, but the lack of inhabitants and abundance of trees made Sweet Apple Acres all the more refreshing. Calmed by her surroundings, the unicorn made her way to the back of the barn house and to the entrance to the orchard to meet her equine friend.
"Hey Applejack!" The purple mare called out.
"Howdy Twilight, How've you been? Y'all look awfully rugged for wear, somethin' eatin' at ya?"
"Ugh," Twilight sighed, "I've been better. A stupid chimp in clothing decided to throw up all over my flower bed."
"Ya mean the one with yer prized concentration flowers? It amazes me how rude some folk can get now-days."
"Tell me about it." The two made their way inside and into the Apple family kitchen, where two glasses had already been set up along with a large jug of apple juice. Twilight sat down and peered at the jug, before asking for another drink. "You wouldn't happen to have anything stronger than apple juice, would you Applejack?"
Surprised by her friends request the cow-pony replied, "Well I'll be, Twi. I don't expect that sort of thing from ya."
"I want to forget about what's happened to my flowers and everything else that I've had to put up with over the past few days. You have no idea what I've been through..."
Messages From Beyond Pt.2
I opened up the seemingly impossible-to-exist message and read its contents. The more I read the more twisted and distorted my view of reality became. Everything was fading as though I was waking from another dream, although this one seemed far too real for my liking. The ground beneath my feet tore open with a mighty crack and revealed to me the fires of Hell itself. The flames engulfed everything and the world burned as I scanned over the text. The language I was reading was not my native tongue and even looked alien in appearance, but somehow I understood every word of it. I was horrified by what had been revealed to me as the universe around me dissolved into a bright white plane of existence. It was as if I had been sent to limbo myself.
Honestly, I'd like to say that happened, but all it read was 'WHERE ARE YOU?'. It was a little bit disappointing really. Flicking through the inbox of my phone, the sender of the message had remained anonymous. Hmm... Who was it then? My internal monologue was interrupted by Apple Bloom, reminding me that I was still in her family kitchen.
"So what are ya doin' in Ponyville? Cuz' you don't look like you're from round these parts."
"Just visiting. A little something had came up back at home, so I needed to fix over here. You wouldn't happen to know how to trace unknown numbers, would you?" It was worth a shot. For all I know the CMC could have tried 'Cutie mark crusaders telephone operators'.
"Uh..."
"That's a 'no' then?"
The young filly nodded. I pocketed the device in my hands. "I have to get going then. Twilight might be able to explain this..." I cringed as the thought of having to talk with the librarian surfaced, especially after what I had done. "Bye."
The young filly waved me off as I walked out of her home, as I planned the exact words for my following conversation with Twilight.
It turns out that my actions as a monkey had earned me a free 'get-through-Ponyville' pass. As soon as I approached the edge of the small town, I was welcomed by another one of the locals. This time it was the cross-eyed mare known as Derpy.
Having walked the long path from Sweet Apple Acres to Ponyville, I had walked past a couple of houses that looked a little run-down. I did however; notice a mint-green unicorn building the foundations to what looked like a log cabin. I had slipped past her, keeping to the shadows of the surrounding trees, only to collide head-first into a ditzy pegasus as she dived in through the branches and leaves.
After picking herself up from the ground, the star-dazed mare eyed me up. "Hey, you're the monkey from earlier! You were really funny." She giggled as she remembered my poor attempt at a disguise.
"Um... Thanks, I guess?" I replied.
"Oh wow, you can talk!" I've never seen a talking monkey before."
I looked around the area in which the cross-eyed pegasus had crashed into me. A few letters were fluttering in the breeze as we talked. "Are these yours?" I asked as I grabbed an envelope floating past my head.
"Yeah, they are. I was just about to drop off some mail to Sweet Apple Acres..." The grey pegasus paused mid-thought, before digging around in her saddle bags. To my surprise, she pulled out a letter with my name on it. "This is for you!" (I believe that's what she said; it was a little muffled through her clenched teeth). She then gathered up all of her post and flew off, presumably to her next stop.
I looked the envelope over. It was barren, bar from my name and a stamp. I tore it open, only to find a ticket. It looked like it was for the Friendship Express. I read the information on the paper in my hands, the ticket headed to Canterlot at mid-day as of tomorrow. I pocketed my mail and carried on getting back to Ponyville. The text I received was odd enough, but now someone wants me to head to the Equestrian Capital? Something was going on, and I was determined to find out.
I was able to walk through town without a single hitch in my plans. With everypony believing I was still a chimp, all I had to do was begrudgingly get back into character. Although I was now accepted by the citizens of Ponyville, I still kept to the back streets and alleyways I had became so accustomed to over the past few days. With the layout of the area memorised, making my way to the library was easy. I was stood for what felt like the umpteenth time at the large oak door of Twilights' home. Rather than feeling like I was about to walk into a place of calm and learning, the door seemed more a like a symbol of fear as I raised my hand to knock upon the wood. The librarians' reaction seemed more scary than funny as I played it over in my head, wincing at the thought of what pain was and could be inflicted on me in the following few moments.
Having finally summoned up the courage to strike the door, I knocked. Three times was all it took for a reply.
"Who is it?" Spike called out, alleviating me of some of my worries. Clearing my throat was enough to tell the young dragon that it was I standing at the entrance, causing him to say "Oh. It's you." before opening the door.
"Hey Spike," I spoke hesitantly, unsure if he was mad at me for leaving him with Twi after my 'little incident'. "Is Twilight in?"
"Yeah, yeah she is. Have you come to apologize for the flowers, and leaving me to clean them up?"
"Yes, I have. Sorry man. Hey, at least I didn't throw up on anything inside the library."
The reptilian shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. Come on in, I'll go get Twilight from upstairs."
I made my way over to the couch in the centre of the room. Merely hours ago I was sleeping here welcomed as a guest, now feeling like I no longer belonged. I watched the purple dragon walk up the stairs, before returning with the mare in question. If looks could kill, I would have been burnt alive.
"You." The unicorn spat out the word. "You're going to regret..."
"Ah-ah-ah. I've come to apologize," I said while interrupting her, "I'm sorry for what I did earlier. I didn't realize the value of the flowers at the time, so it was purely accidental. If I knew that they were valuable, I would have picked a more suitable place to empty my stomach. I'll do whatever I can to make up for it"
Twilight calmed down considerably, but I could still see the hate in her eyes. I was hoping my following question could divert her attention away from the hatred of me to something else, with that something else being my phone.
"If I told you that I had something from my world to study, would you be interested?"
"Oh." She replied casually, attempting to wave off my statement as if it was nothing. I could tell that she was intrigued by my offer. "So what would this 'thing' be?"
I pulled out my phone, flicking through menus to get to the mysterious message I had received. I held the device up to the mares' eye-level, allowing her to get a better look at the text. "So what's so special about this?"
I pocketed my phone before replying. "I received it while out cold at Sweet Apple Acres. Last time I checked, Equestria has no mobile reception, so how did I get this?"
"You mean to tell me that wasn't already stored on the phone when you arrived?" Twilight seemed as perplexed by the text as I had been when I first read it.
"That's exactly what I'm telling you. How could something like this travel across a dimension without any magical help? While I'm on the subject of questioning you..." I reached into my other pocket to pull out my train ticket, "I got this today as well. It's destined for Canterlot tomorrow."
Twilight was confused as I handed (or hoofed) her the envelope and its contents. She grabbed onto them using her telekinesis, causing a light-purple glow to form around my hand. I pulled away, slightly agitated by the strange sensation of the magic.
She looked over the envelope rather quizzically, viewing every detail. She stopped looking over every little thing when she noticed the stamp. A satisfied 'ahh' escaped the librarians' lips she solved the puzzle. "This was sent by Princess Celestia."
"Huh?" I asked, un-knowing as to how she figured that out, "How did you come to that conclusion?"
Twilight levitated the mail up to my face and showed me the stamp, this time I gave it a more scrutinized look. A small, white image of Celestia's silhouette could be seen on a black background. "That's the royal stamp. Only one of the three princesses can send a letter with one of these on. She must want to talk with you about something important."
A royal stamp? "I take it that that image changes for each princess, right?"
I grabbed the letter out of the air. As I looked it over yet again, Twilight spoke up. "Exactly. It's one of the ways the princesses can send letters without them being intercepted. Only a few ponies know of those stamps."
"But why would Celestia want to talk with me? The last time I met her I was shouting at you and she slammed the door in my face as she left."
Twilight shrugged. "I wouldn't know. The last time we talked about you was last night, and that was before we knew you were here."
"I guess I have to find out tomorrow then." I was considering leaving there and then, but when I looked out of the observatory window upstairs Luna had other plans. "Hey Twi, I know that after everything that's happened you probably still hate me, but could I stay here again tonight? It's already pretty late out and I don't want to venture to my hammock in the Everfree at night."
"I can't see a problem with it," the mare replied, "Just make sure you get up early tomorrow."
"Huh? Why do I have to get up early? The train leaves at twelve."
The unicorn grinned. "You have a library to organise in the morning. As a way of 'paying me back', you have all of Spikes' duties for a week." The young dragon, who had been listening to the whole conversation, celebrated a silent victory as he was relieved of work for the next seven days.
I opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Twilight started making her way up the stairs to her bedroom. "Anyway, I'm heading off to bed. Spike, you may have the day off tomorrow but you still need to sleep. Off to bed with you." I smirked as the dragon stopped his celebrating and grumbled something in protest too quietly for Twilight to hear.
As I watched the two head upstairs, I laid out on the wooden slab of a couch yet again. Getting comfortable, I yawned before falling asleep. I had a long day ahead of me.
The sound of hoofsteps trotting down the stairs and all the way up to the couch resonated all throughout the peaceful library. The librarian, entrusted with the hundreds of books surrounding her, quietly made her way towards the sleeping human on the couch. Gently lowering her mouth to his head, she calmly whispered into his ear.
"Oh Alex..."
Enjoying the for once tranquil awakening, the human smiled before replying. "Yes Twilight?"
Clearing her throat, the mare answered. "GET UP!"
"Aahhh!" Grabbing his right ear as it rang, the human retorted, "What was that for?"
"Spike told me of how hard it was to wake you up yesterday so I figured that would be the best plan of action, and from the results, it worked."
I mumbled a few curses under my breath as I watched the librarian trot back upstairs. "Anyway, what's the time?"
Calling back, Twilight replied, "Five in the morning. You have half an hour to get breakfast before you start re-organising the shelves along the bottom floor," before rather innocently adding "I hope you know your ABC's."
How old does she think I am, four? Seizing the chance for a witty comeback, I spoke up. "I may have pancakes again today; the ones Spike made yesterday were soooo good that I had to taste them twice!" Ha! Try coming up with something better than that!
Dumbstruck by my childish reply, the unicorn stopped half-way up the stairs before recollecting herself. She shook her head in disappointment before carrying on with going up the stairs. I watched her every step, swaying her tail and swinging her rump as she climbed. Letting the images pass through my head a couple of times, I realized that now was neither the time nor place for such thoughts and headed to the kitchen to get breakfast.
Opening up the same cupboards as I did the last time I was searching for food, I noticed that a whole new batch of apples had been stowed away in the pantry. Taking a couple, along with raiding the fridge for milk, I had breakfast sorted in no time. Walking back into the main area of the library, I sat down where I had previously rested and surveyed the shelves before me. Taking a bite out of an apple, I thought to myself that what lay ahead of me was no easy feat and that it all had to be done by twelve. All of this because of them flowers...
Chowing down the apples in a matter of bites and chugging the milk, I set to work on my monumental task. There must have been at least 200 books per shelf, all waiting for me to organize them by name and by genre. Starting with the shelf closest the front door, I pulled the books from their place and set them on the ground. English and Equestrian were very much the same language, except that the letters themselves were reversed for the latter. Reading each word involved some sort of mental effort, but after the fifth or sixth book title every name and sentence I read felt as though I had been taught the language from birth.
A few shelves later, working in a clockwise pattern around the room, I had found myself gazing at the first in the series if the Daring Do novels. Picking up The Quest for the Sapphire Stone , I flicked through the pages having already had the story narrated to me by Rainbow Dash. I chuckled as I remembered the episode Read it and Weep , as it was one of my personal favourites. Placing the book on to the floor, I removed the next book in the series and started reading. Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet was a good read, a good enough read for me to spend the next hour going through the entire series. Each book was better than the last up until I was interrupted by Spike.
"Hey, shouldn't you be organizing the shelves?"
"Um..." I looked up from my book and watched the young dragon. Standing with his arms crossed, he didn't look too pleased about my slacking off. "I should be organizing the shelves, but Daring Do came up. Ya know how a good book can make you lose track of time, right? Well..."
"Whatever," the purple dragon face-palmed, "Just get back to work soon. You need to be on the train by twelve."
"But it's only six-thirty." I protested, "I have ages."
Gesturing to the walls of the library, Spike spoke, "And you have all of this work to do. You're going to take at least four hours."
After adding up the hours, I came to the time of half past ten. That still gave me at least an hour and a half to goof off. Not wanting to argue with the reptilian any longer, I put the book down and got back to work.
My maths wasn't too far off, as I finished my work at quarter to eleven. Placing the final book on the shelf, I returned back to the adventure section and picked up the book from where I left off. Daring Do and the Alicorn's Shadow was the seventh book in the series, telling of how the heroine has stumbled upon the final battleground of Celestia and Nightmare Moon. To quote the book, “Some of the traces of the evil mare still lingered, emanating a dark aura and freezing time to an eternal twilight”. I don't want to give out too many spoilers as I was already on the last chapter.
Finishing the book, I had neatly burnt through my time up until eleven in the morning. Seeing as I had the rest of the day to read, I got up to leave the library. Leaving a note to tell the dragon and seemingly absent pony of my intentions, I left the building and made my way into town. Today was sunny, so I felt like spending it outside.
Having become accustomed to the dim yet elegant lighting of the library, sunlight lingered on the edge of my eyesight as everything eventually came into focus. Slipping behind the large oak of a building I fell into the familiar route of Ponyville's back-streets and alleyways. Being a small town I wasn't offered too much cover while navigating my way to the train station, but I was given just enough to stay out of sight. I passed various houses, occasionally glancing inside through open windows to see what I would find. Nothing interested me in the slightest, but I did spot a familiar young colt that I had encountered a few days ago.
He was sat down with what appeared to be a book. Engrossed into his literature, he didn't spot me poke my head through the small gap in the glass panels. With my head in his room I noticed that it was awfully bare, lacking in details expected in a young boy’s room. The first thing that caught my eye as I looked around to my right was the bookshelf. It was tall, taller than I was and it was completely filled. From what I could tell, the young colt was quite the avid reader. The next thing I noticed in his room was a nameplate above the door that read 'Stardust', surrounded by a few planets and stars.
So that’s your name then... I would have carried on probing my way around the colts’ room, but a clock on his wall told me that I was going to be late for my train if I didn’t get moving. Stepping back into the alleyways I navigated daily, I carried on towards the train station with the ticket in my hand and the destination on my mind.
Ponyville’s train station wasn’t the largest of platforms, harbouring three or four separate locomotives at a time. Being located on the far edge of the small town this was the first time I had actually been near it, rarely spotting it as I made my mind-map of the area. As I stepped closer and closer towards the station, the first thing I noticed was the lack of ponies. It seemed I was the only one there. Upon further inspection, I saw two royal guards standing outside the entrance. It looked as though they were waiting for somepony, or someone. They must be waiting for me. I’ve never had a royal escort before, this should be fun...
I stepped out into the open which caused the guards to spot me. The guard on the left called out my name and stood to attention until I answered.
“Who wants to know?”
“We’re here to escort you to the princess’s royal castle in Canterlot to discuss your presence in Equestria.”
The brief answer got me suspicious. ‘Discuss my presence’ lacked enough detail for me to properly trust the guard. “Is that all? I won’t move a single step until I’m given more information about this ‘meeting’ I have to go to.”
The guard to the right leaned over to his comrade before whispering something into his ear. The other guard let out an exasperated sigh before handing over what looked like ten bits.
“I’m sorry to inform you sir, but that’s all we have been told. All other information has been withheld until further notice.”
Still wary of the guardsponies, I walked with them through the station and up to the platform where the train was already waiting. Stepping on board, I had to duck through the doorway to fit inside. Taking the seat nearest the exit, I watched as the two ponies sat down and made a note of their inventory. Better be safe than sorry. Who knows what they could be up to... Normally, I would be very trusting of anypony I met, but the absence of everypony else had got me nervous. For all I knew, they could have been kidnapping me.
As the train lurched into life, I watched Ponyville shrink into the distance. The small town had disappeared over the horizon before I spoke up. “So why was the train station deserted?”
The guard, now down by ten bits, looked up from the table he was staring at and replied. “Princess Celestia had the area vacated as to not disturb the locals. She figured that an alien presence would cause an upset to Ponyville.”
Well, there’s no need to worry about that... I thought back to the monkey incident before replying. “Smart move. Who knows what could happen if news of a blood-thirsty, cold-hearted slayer of worlds got out?”
This time both the guards looked at me, wide-eyed and on edge at what I had just said. I burst out laughing before telling then that I was of no harm and it was a joke. They calmed down, but they were still agitated by what I had said. Every so often one of the guards looked in my direction to see if I was up to something, but I kept on looking out of the window and watched as Equestria rolled on by, taking in the scenery of the land. Something tells me that this is going to be a long trip...
Luckily for I, the train journey wasn’t too long. The large majority of it was staring out of the window and vague attempts at a conversation with the two guards. Most of the time they would either ignore me or give a brief answer such as ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It was like this for all of my questions, up until I asked about the bits from earlier.
“So why did you give the other guy ten bits?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I have fifty of them in a single pocket, and I have a lot of pockets.” The monkey act did have one pro, and that was Ponyville citizens are willing to throw money at whatever makes them laugh.
“We had a bet going on. From what the princess did tell us, we knew that you were either going to follow us without a question or demand more information.” The guardpony spitefully started his next sentence. “He bet that you would want to know what was going on.”
“Fair enough,” I replied while throwing the guard some money. It’s not like I’ll need it any time soon.
The guard caught the bits as they fell onto the table in front of him. He stared at them, bewildered, before asking why I was demonstrating such generosity. “Uh, thanks? Why though?”
I shrugged before replying, “I don’t need them. Just make sure you know what you’re putting money on before you make such a rash decision.”
The guard pocketed the bits as the train rolled into the station. The chime of the whistle sounded as we came to a stop and the carriage doors opened. Stepping off the train, the first thing I noticed was that this platform, like the one I was previously at, was empty. I looked to the guard and asked “Same reason as the other one?”
We started walking before the guard nodded and replied. “The whole trip from here to the castle is like this. Celestia wants to make sure that as few as possible ponies know about you. It’s also the reason why we were hired for the task. “
“Oh really, why’s that?”
“My brother only talks to me and I rarely talk with other ponies. Having the job of a royal guard means we have little contact with anypony else. This is probably the longest conversation I’ve had with anypony, other than my brother, since I joined the guard.”
“That’s...” I stammered, “That’s actually quite depressing.”
The guard just shrugged my comment off as if it was nothing. “You get used to it eventually.”
We spent the rest of the walk up to the castle in silence. There was nothing to move the conversation forwards after what the guard had told me, so I kept my mouth shut and thought about what he had said. It’s fair to say that I re-evaluated my view Equestria as a happy-go-lucky world, where sadness can be cured by the magic of friendship, into something more... Earth-like in appearance.
Stepping up to the large gates of the castle, I watched as they swung open with an almighty creak. The guards signalled for me to follow them again. I looked up at the marble palace of the princess’s and made a note of how white they were. Either this was the result of the animators not putting in minute details such as cracks and stains, or a team of dedicated groundsponies keeping the place in tip-top condition. From what I had seen and heard, it was probably the latter. After ogling the courtyards for a minute or two, the guards and I had entered the main hall of the castle – You know, the part where Celestia keeps the elements, Cadence got married, e.t.c...
Anyway, I was stood in the large hall along with Celestia and Luna. The two didn’t seem too pleased to see me. We stood in silence for what felt like hours until I made an attempt at a conversation.
“Your highness...”
The sun goddess interjected. “Please, it’s Celestia and Luna. Eons of formalities wear off on you eventually.”
“Fine,” I sighed, “Celestia, why am I here? From what the guards have told me, you want to discuss my being in Equestria.”
Luna spoke up. “Quick to the mark, is he not?”
“Quite,” Celestia replied. “We have summoned you here to discuss your presence in Equestria, or more to the point, your lack thereof. We’re here to inform you that you are to be sent home as of next week.”
“A week?” I questioned. “Why not sooner?” I know you shouldn’t question a good thing, but why later rather than sooner? I couldn’t find any sense in the decision.
Luna answered my question. “It shall take approximately seven days to get the portal to your realm open again and make sure that all connections to Earth have been severed. Even if the smallest of things gets left behind, the portal will not properly close.”
“So you two just want me out to patch up the universe? Surely it can’t be too bad, nothing’s getting sucked into oblivion by a wormhole or something, right?”
The two princesses stared at me in amazement before turning to look at each other. Luna was the first to break the silence. “One... one shouldn’t make such assumptions.”
“Nor should they spread such a rumour,” Celestia added. “Please Alex, for the sake of Equestria you must not tell a soul about this. You don’t understand the uproar that would rise if word got out.”
I never had an immortal goddess beg to me before. It certainly was an odd experience. “So nopony knows about this? Not even Twilight?”
Celestia replied. “I feared that she would have another one of her breakdowns. The whole time travel incident wracked her nerves enough, so learning the fate of the whole of Equestria would be too much for her to bear.”
Wise decision. “So what am I meant to do in the mean time? Just sit here and idle for seven days?”
“I’m sure there are ways in which you can entertain yourself. There’s probably something you can do in Ponyville,” Celestia answered.
“Like what?” I replied. “I can’t exactly get a job as a human now, can I?”
“I’m sure there’s something one could do with those... hands... of yours.”
“Luna.” Celestia shot daggers at her sister. “Now is not the time for such a thing. I’m sorry for her immaturity.”
“What?” Luna replied innocently, “With appendages like those the human could go into carpentry or some other skilled handiwork."
I laughed it off. “There’s no need to worry about it, I’ve heard worse from Twilight as she slept.”
My slightly revealing statement about Celestia’s favourite pupil had disturbed the two princesses as they backed up a little. “Eh...” I muttered to myself as I made the situation more awkward than intended, “Perhaps I should get going now?”
“Perhaps you should...” Celestia responded, frowning. I turned and headed for the exit, to find the guard I was talking to earlier was waiting for me already. It turned out he was watching the whole thing and just collapsed into a fit of giggles when I approached.
“Shouldn’t you be waiting OUTSIDE the doors?”
“It’s my brother’s shift.” The guard replied, still chuckling. I just stepped over him and pushed the door open for myself. I stood outside and waited in silence with the other guard as the laughing slowly subsided. Soon the other guard was out in the lobby with us, grinning every time he looked at me.
“So who’s this ‘Twilight’ you mentioned? Anypony special?”
“She’s just a mare I’m staying with as long as I’m in Equestria, she’s also another species entirely before you get any ideas.”
“So she’s single then?”
I sighed. It was almost tempting to face-palm as well, but I had other ideas. “She’s also the sister to the head of the royal guard. You might know him... Shining Armour?”
The guard quickly shut up and stood to attention as I mentioned the name of the captain. I thought so. "Anyway," I continued, "Would there be any chance of a tour around the castle? It's not like I'm going to be here any longer, so I may as well make the most of my time here."
"I'm not so sure we can allow that," the guard replied, "We have only been ordered to escort you from here and to the train station."
"I can make it worth your while." I said, pulling out a bit or two and inspecting them under sunlight of the large open windows. The guard thought about my offer for a second, before hesitantly accepting.
"I can't see any harm in a quick tour around the castle. Anywhere in particular that you want to visit?"
Pfft, seven days. "Where are the teleportation runes kept?"
I was stood outside a large chamber, vault-like in appearance. The walls surrounding me were a dulled grey compared to the pristine white of the castle walls. Standing to my right were the two guards as they explained why they needed access to the storage room and to my left, the exit in which I had walked through only moments ago.
"We have been authorised to remove and charge a teleportation rune as of Celestia's bidding. All intentions and purposes have been withheld from our knowledge."
"As you have said before," the chambers' guard replied, "but I need to see some form of proof before I let you in."
Must I do everything myself? I stepped up to the guardspony and rested my arms against the desk he was working on. He looked away from the other guards and turned his attention to me. "And what do you want?"
"How rude," I said, "I expect better from a royal guard."
"Well, working down here by myself all day leaves no practice for social interactions."
"Understandable," I replied. "Is there any way we could gain access to the chamber without any permission?"
"I'm afraid not. Without any evidence of authorisation, you and your guard buddies here have to turn around and leave."
Why must I resort to this again... I pulled a bit out of my pocket and could see that I had caught the guards attention. Flicking the coin through my fingers, I started to talk with the guard again, although in a much more subtle tone.
"Well then, how much would it cost to buy a teleportation rune? It's not like it will go missing, is it?"
"I'm sorry sir, but I can't be won over through bribery. You're going to have to try much harder than that."
"Fine." I answered. "I'm not going to enjoy this, and I really mean that, but it's my only option." I did what I thought I would never do. It went against all of my instincts. I never want to do it again. I pulled my fist back and knocked the guard out in one swift, straight punch to the head. I hit a pony.
As the guard slumped into an unconscious pile on the floor, I slammed my still clenched first down onto the big red 'open' button for the large vault door. I slipped inside as the other two guards caught wind of my actions and rushed to help their fallen comrade. Inside the chamber, I saw what looked like a multitude of magical items, varying from the teleportation runes I sought to mystical scrolls to what looked like a shotgun on the far side of the room.
Ignoring the absurdities, I grabbed and pocketed one of the runes. Turning to the exit, I saw the two still conscious guards waiting for me. It's fair to say that they looked pretty pissed. I would have made an attempt to out-run them like I did with Applejack, but they were blocking the only way out. So backing away slowly, I tried to bribe them yet again.
"I'm sure there's some from of agreement we can come to now, gentlemen. There's no need to over-react to such a small incident."
The two guards kept their ground and kicked at the floor a couple of times. Snorting a final breath before the run, they charged head-first in my direction. I'd like to say that I managed to pull off some form of ninja trickery and back-flip over the guards to run from Canterlot as an outlaw and a free man, but sadly I can't. The guard whom I so willingly bribed earlier collided with my chest, winding me and sending my flying back into one of the chamber walls. Struggling to get up, I was barely on my feet before the other guard knocked me down again. Standing over my barely functional body, the guards placed a pair of hoof-cuffs around my wrists and tossed me onto their backs.
Today just isn't my day...
I had never been in a cell before, let alone the Canterlot dungeons. Sat in the far corner of my hold, I watched as a few guards walked by occasionally. Every so often one of them would look at me and sneer or mutter something under their breath, too quiet for me to hear what it was they said. Fortunately, when they searched me for any dangerous items before they chucked me in jail, they managed to miss the teleportation rune. All of my other possessions were confiscated and kept under lock and key at the other end of the underground hold.
"So this is it then?" I said, talking to no one in particular. "I sit here and spend the rest of my days in Equestria in a cell? Lamenting about how I should have chosen my decisions more wisely, instead of taking brash and stupid actions? Perhaps if I keep this up long enough, the guards will let me out after so much incoherent rambling? I mean, just hearing the same annoying voice over and over again must get infuriating eventually. I can keep this up all da..."
The warden, clad in a darker shade of the guards armour, eventually got up and replied after so many minutes of my nattering. "I get it! You want out! You wouldn't be in here if you didn't assault a royal guard in the first place!" Success. Rarity's right, whining can get you places.
"But I wouldn't be annoying now if I wasn't in a cell."
"Not my problem, kid."
"Yeah it is."
"No it isn't."
"Yeah, it is."
"No , it isn't."
"Yeah , it is ."
"NO, IT..."
"I CAN KEEP THIS UP ALL DAY."
"SHUT UP!"
"AAAALLLL DAY."
"I'M IGNORING YOU NOW." Damn it. I thought I was getting somewhere. The warden huffed and returned to doing whatever it was that he was doing, sat just outside my field of vision at the dungeons entrance. This was a good thing though, as it meant I could inspect the teleportation rune without fear of getting it taken from me.
The rune didn't look too out of the ordinary, seeing as it was as simple as a grey stone. It had a few markings engraved on its surface in a circular pattern, but they made no sense in my eye. Turning it over in my hands, the other side neatly matched the other symbol for symbol. I kept turning the item over in my hands, slowly loosing track of my surroundings as I became more engrossed in its simplistic design, trying to make more sense of the symbols. This rock doesn't make any sense. Seriously, how can a rock like this shift matter through time and space?
The clacking of steel against the cobblestone flooring brought me out of my trance as another round of guards went by the iron bars of my cell. They were bringing another prisoner to his cell, although this one was a gryphon. Now that's something I didn't expect to see... I hid the rune from sight as they went past, although they seemed too engaged with their new captive to take any notice. I let out a sigh of relief as I watched the tail of the last guard go by before taking the rune out from behind my back. It was only after taking a second look at the rock that I realized how dumb I was being and put it away again.
"Hey warden, are you still ignoring me?"
"Jail Break."
"How? I'm stuck behind bars."
"No, my name's Jail Break you idiot."
"That's kinda ironic when you think about it."
"How?"
"Jail-Break, the dungeon warden? Get it?"
"I don't follow."
"Oh. Forget it..."
"Hey kid, I never got your name as the guards dropped your barely-conscious plot down here. What is it?"
"It's Alex. Why do you ask?"
"You already knew my name. Fair's fair if I knew yours."
"I guess so."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Never mind... it's a dumb question."
"Go on, I can't see any harm in asking."
"What's it like, ya know, being a human? Walking on two legs all day gotta get tiring after a while."
"What is it like to be a human? It's not that different to being a pony. We share a multitude of jobs, we both have families and friends of our own. Diets are a little different though..."
"Oh really? Humour me."
"We eat meat. A lot of meat. Some of us are vegetarians though, seeing as 'meat is murder'... Damn hippies."
"Don't worry about it kid, we're used to seeing the occasional meat-eater here in Equestria. Look at the gryphon in the cell next to ya."
"That thought never occurred to me, seeing as it never popped up in the show..."
"In the what?"
"Nothing, nothing... What else would you like to know?"
"What are human families like?"
"Well, that depends on the family. Not all humans are the same, kind of like ponies. You're all unique in the fact that you get cutie marks to signify your special talent marking out who you are, humans are unique in the fact the no two of us are alike and think independently."
"Go on..."
"Some families are happy; they work together, play together and work well with one another. Some other families fall apart because they just wouldn't care or love each other. Then you get my sort of family. Never really close enough to bond properly, but always there if something ever came up."
"So you're not all that different from us ponies after all then?"
"To put it simply, yes."
"Hey kid, food's up."
"Whoa, a steak? Just for me? I thought ponies were vegetarians."
"If it was up to me, you would have got gruel like any other prisoner. You're only getting that because of our little gryphon friend in the cell over there."
"He's not very talkative, is he?"
"Guards that found him stealing in the slums of Canterlot said he was a mute."
"Maybe he just doesn't feel like talking?"
"S'pose that could be it. Anyway, you gonna eat the steak or just stare at it?"
"I'm going to savour every bite. It's been days since I last ate something like this."
"Enjoy it while ya can then, it's probably gonna be a one off."
"Hey Jail Break."
"What now, kid?"
"Any chance I could get a shower?"
"What... why?"
"Truth be told, I haven't washed in four days."
"That's disgusting. Why didn't you have one sooner?"
"Have you seen how small the bathtubs and showers are compared to me? I'm nearly two feet taller than the general population."
"I'll see if I can find anything. Wait here."
"Where else am I meant to... aaand he's gone."
"I still smell like old hay and... *sniff* *sniff* ...wet dog. Are you sure there's nothing I can clean myself with?"
"Hey, I looked and couldn't find anything. Most prisoners would have to stay filthy, just be glad I even looked."
"Huh. Thanks anyway."
"You're... welcome?"
"Hey Jail Break, when am I getting out? I really need to get back to Pony..."
Just then, my phone went off. I had voice-mail. The sudden alarm startled Jail Break, causing him to fall off of his stool on which he was perched. I couldn't help but laugh at him as I explained why the safe in which my stuff was kept was making sounds.
"That's my phone going off. I really need to see what that message is, it could be important."
Walking up to the bars of my cage, Jail Break leaned in and peered into my eyes. I could tell he suspected there were other reasons why I wanted my phone back.
"How do I know it's not a weapon? Or a means of escape?"
"Just give it to me and I can show you."
I watched as the warden opened the safe with his magic, levitating the phone over to my hands. What he said next was engraved into my mind and haunts me in my sleep. Steely eyed, he spoke.
"Fine kid, but if you pull anything shifty, I have a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for ponies like you. If you stay in the cells now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
I let out a squeak of terror as the device dropped into my hands, too scared to actually do anything with it. I just watched as the guards face slowly cracked up into a grin, followed by a smile and then out-right laughter.
"Oh sweet Celestia! The look on your face! I've been waitin' for months to use that line! That was priceless!"
"Oh har-de-har," I said as I came out of the initial shock, "was that really necessary?"
"Consider it payback for laughing at me when I fell off my stool."
"Whatever," I replied while scrolling through phone menus, "Just let me activate the countdown timer while I see what that message was."
Looking at my inbox, the voice-mail had no sender, from which I could tell the sender was the same person. Great, not this again. I held the phone to my ear and pressed call, playing the message.
"Alex ---not much time ---limited signal ---it's so bright ---where are you?"
I stopped the playback at that point. The message was too distorted for me to properly understand it. At most, all I could make out was the urgency in the sender's voice, but I couldn't recognise them. Putting the phone in my pocket, I turned to the guard. "Well that was disappointing."
"Why, what did it say?"
"Nothing I could properly make sense of, it was too static-y to hear properly."
Sighing, I sat back down again. I was expecting the message to be something ground-breaking or so astounding that it would get me out of the dungeons, not fill my head with more confusion. The warden trotted back over to his stool and was about to sit down, but a new guard walked in and asked for my release.
Oh thank Celestia...
"On behalf of Princess Celestia, I am to liberate this prisoner and escort him to Ponyville."
Finally...
"And what's the reasoning behind this?" Asked Jail Break, glancing between the guard and I.
No more sitting around...
"He is to be placed under the care and supervision of Twilight Sparkle, the princess's student and element of harmony."
No more bored-... wait, what? "Did I hear that right, Twilight Sparkle?"
"Yeah you did kid," Jail Break replied while walking back over to me, "Shame, I was just beginning to like ya." Pulling out his keys, he levitated them into the lock and opened the cell. "Looks like you're free to go."
"I'm not so sure if I want to," I replied, getting up and walking slowly over to the cell door. I was about to just walk on out of the cells with the guard until I remembered my other possessions. "Hold on a sec, what about my bits?"
"There was me, thinkin' he forgot... Let me go grab them for ya, wouldn't want to forget something like this... he he..." As the warden walked over to the safe, the pocket with my phone and rune in had started to heat up. It wasn't that noticeable at first, but by the time the warden had the sack of coins in his mouth, it was hot enough to cause pain. When the warden had finally came back the heat had became unbearable. I was about to grab the bits from Jail Break and ditch my trousers in case they set alight, but before I knew it everything had gone white and I felt like I was jumping through a portal again.
My eyesight materialized before I could realize what happened and I was plunged into darkness. The stark contrast from light to dark confused me to the point of falling over. I could hear slight shuffling and whispers, before somepony jumped on to my chest and let out an almighty scream.
"SURPRISE!"
"AAAAAAHHH!!!"
"Alex!"
"Pinkie?!"
"Alex?"
"Pinkie."
"Alex!"
"This isn't a game! What is this?"
"Why it's your welcome to Ponyville party!" After shoving her off my chest, the pink mare gestured around her, showing off the various decorations and celebrations hung around the library. Everywhere I looked there were balloons, streamers, party food - everything you could need to host an amazing party and I had been dropped straight into the middle of it. Ponies littered the room, idly chatting away about whatever came to mind. It was until after my shouting display with Pinkie that their heads started turning. Slowly, one by one, each pony stopped and stared at me with a piercing look in their eyes.
"Um... Hi?"
In unison they all cheered, "Welcome to Ponyville!"
With the initial greeting over, I made my way over to the refreshments table, getting the odd 'hey!" and 'Welcome!' as I walked by. Not one for much social interaction, I just leaned against the table while the occasional pony would walk by for punch. Some of them would say hello, others would question my species and one mint-green pony in particular seemed obsessed with my hands. It wasn't too long before a familiar fashionista came over and said hello, slightly startling me in the process.
"Good evening... Alex, is it?"
"Um... yes, I guess? Miss Rarity, I take it?"
"Oh how charming, you know my name before we've even met. May I ask, where do you know me from?"
"I've heard it around town..." And definitely not from a children's TV show...
"I must say, I loved the performance you put on the other day. I haven't laughed that hard since I was a filly."
Oh great... "Well I'm glad you enjoyed it," I replied half-heatedly, "I aim to please." Looking down at my clothing, which was ragged from days of use, I had an idea. "Say Rarity, you wouldn't mind doing me a little favour, would you?"
"Oh and what would that be, dear?"
"I've heard about your Carousel Boutique and your impressive handiwork. Would there be any chance of you making me a new set of clothing?"
The unicorn paused for thought, before cheerily replying. "Oh I'd love to. I've never had such an interesting model to work with. When would you be able to come around for measurements?"
"Tomorrow. So you would do it for me? How much will it cost?"
"Free of charge. I see this an opportunity to experiment with a new style of clothing, perhaps a whole new range of fashion!"
The white mare bounded off giddily before I could get another word in, leaving me by myself again. Music was playing from various speakers around the room, accenting the party atmosphere. I sat and observed the library for a while before Cheerilee walked over and broke me out of my trance.
"Hello there and welcome to Ponyville!"
"Thanks," I replied, "So what are you doing over here then?" Smooth.
"Just came over to say hello to Ponyville's new resident. Why, is it a crime nowadays to be friendly?"
"No, there's nothing wrong with saying hello. I just found it odd that you'd want to talk to me, that's all."
"Well, why wouldn't I want to say hi to somepony that managed to make the whole town laugh like they did?"
"Ugh. Is that what I am to you ponies? A performing monkey?" Being regarded as a chimp and nothing more was starting to get on my nerves.
"Oh by any means no!" Cheerilee replied, slightly startled by my small outburst. "I for one know that you're definitely not a monkey. Working as a teacher you have to know these things," before adding, "Just what are you anyway?"
"Hasn't Twilight told anypony yet?" I asked, "I'm a human."
"A hu-what?"
"Hu-man. Tall, bipedal creatures with opposable thumbs. Often found on planet Earth."
Cheerilee, confused by my reply, questioned my answer. "But we're on Earth right now. How can you be from here if you just got here?"
"If I told you it was 'wibbily wobbly, timey wimey stuff', would that be enough of an answer?"
"No," the teacher replied, "no it wouldn't."
"Honestly I don't really know," I lied, not wanting to tell her why I was here, "It's something you'll have to ask Twilight, or somepony that understands inter-dimensional travel and the mechanics behind tearing open doors to different universes."
"Wait, so you're not from this planet? Wouldn't that make you an alien?"
"Technically yes, I suppose. I spent a while trying to understand everything that's happened over the past few days while in the Canterlot dungeons, I didn't get anywhere useful."
"You were in the Canterlot dungeons?" Cheerilee replied, backing away from me slightly as she questioned how safe I was to be around.
"That's what happens when you punch a royal guard in the face and knock him out. Let it be a lesson to you; don't ever assault a member of the royal guard."
"What about the royal guard?" A new pony asked. Turning around, I saw Mayor Mare trotting towards us with a cup of purple punch in her hoof. "I'm sorry about the intrusion, but I just wanted to say hello to our newest member of Ponyville."
"Well thanks," I replied, "So what's the mayor of Ponyville want with somepony like me?"
"A little grouchy, aren't we?" Mayor Mare replied before Cheerilee leaned over to her and whispered in her ear. The mayor whispered something back to her, causing the two to giggle like little school fillies.
I cleared my throat before speaking up. "I'm still here you know."
"We know," Cheerilee replied before a look of realization spread across her face, "How'd you know she was the mayor of Ponyville? Neither of us mentioned it before."
"Umm... I could tell from her appearance. Somepony with such a distinguished look has to be of a high priority. I mean just look at her mane and her neck-tie-thingy..."
"Oh, why thank you for the compliment." Mayor Mare replied, her cheeks reddening as she talked. Regaining her composure, the tan mare continued, "I've actually came over to offer you a job. Seeing your performance yesterday, I've decided to offer you the position of town entertainer..."
I interrupted the mayor, asking about the job. "And what's in it for me before you carry on."
"A steady income, you'll meet the locals and become fast friends with everypony. Sound like a deal?"
Thinking about my offer, it sounded perfect. A chance to meet everypony in Ponyville, make them laugh and get paid to do it. "What the hay, sure I'll take the job." YOLO! I held out a hand to shake on the offer, but Mayor Mare already had a pen in her hoof and a wad of papers in her mouth. Somewhat muffled by the contract, the mayor started saying something about 'signing here, here and here' as she handed me the pen.
Not one dumb enough to sign anything before reading it, I took the papers from the mayor's mouth and scanned through them. It all seemed good until I noticed the finer details such as my hours and the shoddy pay. "You want me to work an eleven hour shift at eight bits an hour?! What am I, a dancing monkey?"
"Actually," Cheerilee butted in from over my shoulder, "Yes you are. It says right there." She pointed to the text at the bottom of the page, reading it out aloud as she went over it with her hoof. "Employee to wear uniform at all times, provided by the workplace. Uniform includes: One tail, one set of ears, one (fake) monkey fur suit."
"Also," The mayor added, "Eight bits is actually quite high. Most ponies around here barely get half of that. You should be grateful."
"Oh..." I replied remorsefully. I would have probably just sat there for the next half an hour looking depressed if Applejack hadn't walked over to the refreshment table to get a snack.
"Howdy Cheerilee, Mayor Mare. You two enjoyin' the party?"
Cheerilee turned her attention away from my contract to reply to the cow-pony. "The party's wonderful. Pinkie Pie sure does know how to throw them."
"Well, I'm glad you're having fun. It took us a coupla hours to set up everythin', so I'm glad the effort didn't go to waste... Say, there any chance I could talk with Mr Happy over here in private? There's somethin' I feel we need to discuss without everypony findin' out."
The two mares gave each other an awkward look before they mixed back into the crowd of ponies. As the two walked away, the mayor called back, asking me to meet her in her at her office tomorrow to 'close our deal'. Her voice faded the further away she trotted, becoming too quiet to hear over the party music playing in the background.
After the two other ponies had gone, I was left with Applejack. She told me to get up, before walking over to the kitchen and signalling for me to follow. Mystified by the orange mare's actions, I pushed my way through the sea of party go-ers. As I made my way through them, I received the same greetings I did the last time I walked through the crowd. Pushing open the kitchen door I found Applejack waiting for me inside the empty room.
"So AJ," I said as I pulled out a chair to sit on, "What did you want to talk to me about?"
"Well..." The cow-pony started, "I just wanted to... dagnabbit, why does this have to be so hard?" Flustered, she sat down on her haunches and looked to the ground.
"Applejack, what is it you're trying to say? Is this about what happened at the farm?" Wincing as I brought the memory back up, I had to suppress the urge to cup my parts out of instinct while Applejack replied.
"Yeah, yeah it is. I just wanted to apologize for what I done. You sounded mighty hurt before you knocked yaself out on the tree trunk. I've only heard that sorta scream from stallions when somepony catches them in their... well, ya know..."
"I'll have to admit it hurt, a lot, but don't worry about it. I'm not exactly one with the ladies back home, so it's not all that important."
The mare looked up at me expectantly, like a puppy begging for food. "So ya forgive me?"
"Yes, but I'm not letting you off the hook that easily." I put my hand into my pocket and felt the teleportation rune, it was still warm from its previous use along with my phone, which felt like it was about to melt from the magical/electrical discharge. "Could you keep hold of something for me while I'm here? I'm not exactly supposed to have it, and Twilight would kill me if she knew about it."
"Yeah, anything to make it up to ya."
I pulled the rune out of my pocket, which caused my phone to cool down considerably. Holding it out to Applejack, she took it and slipped it under her hat. "Just what is it I'm keeping for ya anyways?"
"A little something I picked up in Canterlot. It's also how I turned up out of no-where earlier, but if anypony asks, Celestia herself teleported me here. Got it?"
"Yeah I got it, but I'll tell you now, I ain't the best at keepin' secrets. Why're you goin' through all this effort for a rock when there's hundreds of them around Ponyville?"
"Because I'm going to need it when I return back to Earth in a week. Please Applejack; don't let anypony know you've got it. You owe me, remember?" I hated manipulating the cow-pony like this, but I had to do what I had to do. "Anyway, we should get back to the party; ponies are going to start wondering where we've gotten to."
Applejack nodded before getting up and walking over to the kitchen door. I followed as she pushed it open, filling our ears with the music coming from the main lobby of the library. The orange mare mingled back into the crowd as I went back over to the refreshment table, although this time I socialized with the ponies around me. I was just about to start a conversation with a brown stallion with an hourglass cutie-mark, but a sudden thought rushed its way to the front of my mind.
I have to clean all of this up in the morning. Oh Celestia why?
Lyra, Headaches and Cupcakes
An hour had passed since my 'little chat' with Applejack. Not much had happened since I left the kitchen, other than Pinkie Pie managing to clear half of the party food in one gulp after Dash dared her to do so. She wasn't so pink afterwards, more a green until she walked back out of the toilet. What can I say, that girl can party.
Anyway, an hour or so had passed without much going on, up until Twilight decided to interrupt my game of pin-the-tail on the pony.
"Alex, I need to talk to you about something, something important. I just received a letter from Princess..."
"Give me a second, I think I'm near the playing board... aaand there we go!" I lifted my blindfold to find a rather unamused librarian with a pin stuck in her flank. "Well... I am playing pin-the-tail on the pony so surely I get some points for this, right?" The group of ponies watching me play broke out into laughter, but it quickly subsided as Twilight's stare remained fixated onto me. I couldn't help but groan as she continued to bore a hole through me with her gaze until I said something.
"Well, what is it?"
"I've received a letter from Princess Celestia concerning you and your trip to Canterlot," leaning in closer, Twilight carried on, "why didn't you tell me you tell me she had placed you under my care when you got here...?"
Thank Celestia she didn't mention the dunge...
"...and what in Equestria were you doing in the Canterlot Dungeons?!"
...Aaand I'm screwed. As the thought passed through my head the group of ponies around me grew quieter than they were before. Unsure what to say, I paused on the spot.
"Umm... I was visiting?"
"We're going to have quite a long chat later. Just wait until after the party."
"Yes ma'am."
Twilight turned around and was about to walk away, but before she could move anywhere I stopped her. "Hold on Twilight, there's a little something on your flank." As I pulled the pin out of her backside, Twilight let out a small yelp before thanking me. She carried on walking, leaving me with the group of ponies I was with in silence. When I turned around I found the group of ponies I was laughing with earlier avoiding my gaze whenever I looked at them.
"Aww come on! I said was only visiting!" Gee, thanks Twilight for embarrassing me in front of my new friends.
Moping like the teenager I am, I trod off in a huff and left the ponies behind. Stomping up the stairs and into Twilight's bedroom, I slammed the door behind me and dived onto the mattress before throwing the pillow over my face, silencing the party going on downstairs. I must have sat in the dark like this for a while, as I heard someone come into the room.
"Hey Alex..."
"Mpph Mpph."
"What? I can't understand you."
"Mpph Mpph!"
"Take the pillow off your face, then try talking."
Lifting the pillow up just enough to make me understandable, I repeated my last sentence. "Go away." I dropped the pillow back down and waited for the pony to leave the room, but all they did was walk over and push it off. I was met by a large pair of golden eyes, highlighted by a mint green coat and a caring smile. Normally I would have been freaked out by such a sudden invasion of my personal space, but something about the pony's smile kept me calm.
"Wow... I've never seen a pair of such beautiful eyes before."
Grinning, the lyre-flanked pony pulled me up by the shoulders and onto the edge of the bed. I sat there expectant, waiting for her to do or say something. She looked into my eyes and I gazed back, allured by their angelic charm. She then whispered something into my ear, just loud enough for me to hear it.
"I've waited so long for this..."
Throwing me back down onto the bed, Lyra stood over me on all fours. There was a wild look in her eye as she reached for the bottom of my top and ripped it off me. Calling her out on her actions, I told her to stop.
"Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on right there, missy. If you wanted the top off, you could have asked. I don't have another set of clothing."
Giggling, the unicorn pointed to my trousers. "Take them off, now."
Not wanting to disappoint the mare, I reached for the zip. I was just about to pull it down, along with the rest of my clothing, before Bon Bon marched in.
"LYRA! YOU DIDN'T!"
The green mare, shocked by the newcomer's arrival, nearly jumped out of her skin. I was still fumbling around with my flies to notice though. "Aww come on Lyra, What's wro- Oh, hello there! Care to join us?"
"Care to join you!?" Face-hoofing, Bon Bon turned her anger back towards Lyra. "What have you done to him?"
"Nothing, I swear!"
"Lyra, I know when you're lying to me. You're not looking at me eye-to-eye."
"Oh fine!" The unicorn called out, "I spiked his drink during his game of pin-the-tail on the pony..."
The infuriated sweet-maker butted in. "And..?"
"...Followed him upstairs when I thought nopony was looking... I'm sorry, Bon Bon."
"Ugh. It's not me you should be apologizing to, it's the delusional monkey you're in bed with! Honestly Lyra, this human obsession has gone too far. Get off of him and come downstairs, where I can keep an eye on you."
"OK..." The disappointed mare replied. As she was stepping down off the bed, she brushed her tail underneath my chin. I saw her turn her head around just enough to wink at me. Still intoxicated by whatever Lyra had spiked my drink with, I called after her as she left through the bedroom door. Soon after my comment, I passed out on the bed.
"Hey Lyra, call me!"
"Oww... My head... I thought there wasn't any alcohol at that party..."
With my head pounding, I refused to get up from the bed in which I so comfortably called my own. I brought a hand up to rub my searing forehead as the headache got into full swing. With it being too much of a distraction, the headache prevented me from falling asleep. Tossing and turning under my covers, I kicked them off and opened my eyes. Thankfully the curtains were closed, saving my headache from getting any worse. I sat up on the side of the bed, my bare feet touching the cold floor of the room. After everything set in, I realized that I had woken up in different room in which I had passed out in.
"Where the hell am I!?"
Shouting was probably the stupidest idea I had at the time, as it only worsened my headache. Wincing in pain, I forgot about the new room and walked over to the curtains. I pulled them open to get an idea to where I was, causing the early morning sun to fill my field of view. Screaming in pain, I dropped to the floor and closed my eyes. Why did I have to wake up? All the screaming and commotion from my room caused Twilight to burst in through the door and find me curled up in a ball, clutching my throbbing head.
"Alex, what's wrong?"
"Sunlight, that's what's wrong! Ahh... my head..."
"Oh my... What did you drink last night?"
"Punch from the punch bowl. Keep it down, you have no idea how much my head hurts right now."
Giving me an empathetic look, Twilight whispered while asking me another question. "Oh, sorry. You're absolutely sure that was all you drank?"
"Well," I replied halfway through a moan of pain, "One of my drinks tasted funny after I put on the blindfold for the first time... Oh no..."
"What?" Twilight asked, forgetting to keep quiet.
"Where's my top?"
"It was on my bedroom floor. I saw it in there along with you, looking like you had blacked out. I moved you and it into the guest bedroom when the party was over. Anyway, what's your top got to do with it?"
That answers one of my questions. "If what I can remember is right, that has a whole load to do with it... I think Lyra spiked my drink."
Twilight snorted at my accusation. "Really? Lyra? She would never do such a thing. Anyway, if she did, Bon Bon would probably kill her."
"Oh no, that's not the worst part..." I ushered Twilight in closer and carried on, " I told her I'd meet up with her again..." As I told Twilight of my worries, the thought 'don't stick your dick in crazy' passed through my mind.
"Oh, is that all you're worried about? Lyra's a nice mare, you shouldn't get so fussed over it."
Sitting up against the bedroom wall, I answered the librarian. "I can see two holes in your logic Twilight. One, she's already dating Bon Bon. Two, she's a pony. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly from around here." I brought my hands up to my head and massaged my temples, easing some of the pain from my hangover.
"And what's that supposed to mean? Is there anything wrong with equines? Also, there's nothing wrong with having multiple partners in Equestria, isn't that how the ponies of your world work too?"
"Yeah, but not the people!"
"Well, how do they work then?"
Twilight stumped me with that question. I raised a finger and was about to start ranting at her, but when my mouth went to form words my brain wouldn't work with it. "I... I don't honestly know. I've never been in a real relationship before. All I know is that humans just don't work that way. We see something wrong about having more than one partner, and the ones that do have two or more usually end up with none if they get found out."
"From an evolutionary standpoint, that's a terrible idea."
"Hey, I'm not the one responsible for how humanity works. If you're that bothered by it, go tell them yourself."
"If you're going to be rude and snarky about it, I suggest we just drop the conversation... But before we do, you never did say what was wrong with ponies."
"You know what, I'm leaving. Perhaps going for a walk will alleviate my headache, seeing as your constant nattering isn't doing it any help. Goodbye. I'll clean the library later." I got up and walked out of the bedroom door. I had made it down the stairs and all the way to the front door before Twilight stopped me.
"Alex! Hold on!"
"What is it now?" I called back. "I'm wait-" As I was talking, a purple beam of light shot from the guest bedroom and hit me square in the back. As the spell took hold, I could feel my headache getting fainter and fainter with every passing second. Soon afterwards, my top was levitated out of my room and downstairs, right above my head. Twilight dropped it in front of me and I caught it, buttoning up the few remaining buttons left on the shirt from last night. It didn't cover up my chest entirely, but I wasn't too worried about it seeing as I was in a world where everypony was always naked.
"Oh, and Alex, don't forget about the chat we're meant to have about you and the Canterlot Dungeons!"
"Whatever!" I called back, opening the door and walking outside.
Wanting to make it up to Twilight for my behaviour and being a pain in the flank, literally, I headed on down to Sugarcube Corner from the library to go pick up some cupcakes. When I pushed open the bakery door, I saw Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy talking with Pinkie.
"Hey Dash, I wasn't expecting to see you here, or Fluttershy actually. So what's brought you two to Sugarcube Corner?"
"Oh hey Alex, we're just picking up some cupcakes for later. Hold on... You haven't met Fluttershy yet, how'd you know her name?"
"Oh... Um..."
Before Rainbow Dash could get suspicious, Pinkie butted in, "You overheard someone at the party talking about her, didn't you Alex?"
"Uh, yeah," I looked over to the pink mare behind the counter and watched her wink at me. Note to self: Thank Pinkie later. "So, how are you three anyway?"
"Cool."
"I'm sorry, I couldn't quite catch that, Fluttershy. Could you repeat that?"
"I've been good..."
I leaned in closer to the timid pegasus. "Say it again?"
This time the pegasus let out more of a squeak than a sentence. "I've been good."
I was about to ask her again, seeing as I couldn't hear Fluttershy no matter how hard she tried, but Pinkie chimed in saving everyone from another awkward moment.
"Cupcakes! You came in for cupcakes, didn't you Alex?"
I turned back to the mare before I replied. "Yeah, yeah I did. What's Twilight's favourite type of cupcake?"
Pinkie paused for thought, placing a hoof under her chin. After a few seconds a light bulb appeared out of thin air, but it quickly fizzled and dimmed out. "You know, I can't actually remember... Dash, you know what Twilight's favourite type of cupcake is?"
"Can't say I do, Pinks. You really should have asked her before you left the library, Alex."
"I wanted to have it as a surprise, so asking her wouldn't have been the smartest idea. You two are both sure you don't know-"
"It's vanilla frosting with a lemon twist. Smooth and plain with a zing of flavour, just like Twilight." Surprised by her interruption, Pinkie, Dash and I all turned to face Fluttershy, causing her to try and hide behind one of her wings and apologize profusely. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I interrupt? I'll just keep quiet, and not say anything..."
"Oh no, Fluttershy, It's absolutely fine. Thanks, even" I turned back to Pinkie and placed my order. "So, a box of six vanilla frosted cupcakes with a lemon twist, if it's no problem."
Pinkie walked into the kitchen behind the counter. It had only been a few seconds before she came walking back out again with a pink box balanced neatly on her nose. She set them down on the counter and spoke up. "That'll be three bits."
I reached into my pocket and found it empty. I didn't pick up my money before the teleportation rune sapped my phone battery and warped me to the welcome party. Pulling my hand back out of my pocket, I told Pinkie to forget my order. "Ah... About those bits. I don't have any money on me seeing as I left it all up in Canterlot. Just forget my order and sell them to the next pony who comes in."
"You know what," Dash cut in, "I'll cover you for this one, Alex. After all, you did take pretty good care of me back on Earth."
"Huh, thanks Rainbow." The pegasus dropped the bits onto the counter and I picked up the box. I was about to say bye to the three ponies and leave, but Fluttershy came out of hiding and asked me a question.
"Wait, it was you who saved Rainbow Dash? Oh, I guess I should say thank you for taking care of my friend. I don't know what I would have done if she didn't come back."
"Think nothing of it," I replied, "I would have done the same for anypony." I watched as the shy little pegasus smiled, it being the cutest thing I've ever seen. Nearly losing myself in the adorableness, I regained my composure and started to leave. "Well, see you three later then. I have a gift to go drop off. Bye."
I walked out of the bakery door and onto the path home, for the time being. Not wanting to waste time, I picked up the pace and jogged back. Best get this to the library as soon as possible. The quicker I make it up to Twilight, the better.
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.
Heart Breaking and Money Making
I was walking down through the centre of Ponyville, clad in my new shirt and still-soaking pants. I had to pass through the open market on the way to the town hall and received a few friendly 'hello's' as I did. This was fine, and I even said 'hey' back to a few ponies, but what startled me was when I heard the familiar southern drawl of certain cow-pony as she stood by her stall.
"Hey there, lover-boy!"
"Oh, Hey Applejack" I turned around and saw the orange mare smiling more brightly than usual.
"Care to share what's got you grinning like a mad pony?"
"I just thought it's real sweet of you to do something like that to try make it up Twi, but I never knew you had those sorta' feelings for her."
"What are you on about?" I replied, unsure as to what Applejack meant.
"Getin' the cupcakes delivered by the crusaders, along with the special message you told them to pass on."
"Oh that ," I replied, "I thought that would cheer her up." I was going to carry on and ask her about the 'special message' the crusaders allegedly told Twilight, but a loud growl from my stomach said otherwise. "Hehe, guess I forgot about eating today."
"Well, you're stood by an apple stall. Anythin' catch your eye?"
"I wish I could AJ, but I don't have any money since I left it all up in Canterlot. Some other time maybe?"
"Ya know what," Applejack replied, "I may not be the element of generosity, but I can't just let a starving friend go hungry. Take a couple."
"Really?" I asked, surprised by the offer.
"Eeyup. It's not like missin' two apples will affect today's market. Ever since the rain cleared up, the town's been more busy than usual to make up for lost time."
I picked up two apples and pocketed one, before taking a bite out of the other. I was about to ask Applejack what she meant earlier by the 'special message' I supposedly told Twilight, but before I could I was interrupted by a couple of customers. I took this as an opportunity to leave, seeing as the mare was busy and I had places to be.
The walk from the centre of Ponyville to the Town Hall was a short one. I had met a few more ponies on my way, all of which were friendly enough to say hello. As I stood outside the large open doors, I could hear chattering coming from the inside. As I poked my head around the corner, I saw that the mayor was in a heated meeting with a rather slick business pony, what it was about I don't know.
"You're going to have to wait a few minutes sir, the mayor is currently occupied."
I turned around and saw the receptionist of the town hall. She was a light brown earth pony with a black mane and had a quill for a cutie mark. She was sat behind a small desk that was covered in stacks of paper.
"I could see that myself," I replied, "Say, you wouldn't be able to tell me what that meeting's about, would you?"
"Filthy Rich came in this morning asking to start up another business in town, and he needed to pass it through office before he could get planning permission set up."
"Does it always get that loud?" I asked.
"Sometimes. Mr. Rich loses his temper easily when it comes to important things like this, he's been like that ever since his filly was foaled."
"I'm not surprised. From what I've heard she's-"
I was going to carry on talking, but Filthy Rich stormed out of the mayor's office. He looked over to us and I noticed a slight twitch in his eye. He exhaled sharply and regained his cool composure before walking out of the town hall.
"I... I guess it's my turn now?"
I turned to the receptionist. She nodded silently.
I was sat in the mayor's office, admiring the various trinkets and items that adorned the room. Behind the desk was a wide crystal-clear window giving me a view over the most of Ponyville, the large ornate desk itself being made of rich mahogany. The mayor was sat in rather fancy office chair, contrasting against the small wooden frame of a seat I was given myself. She finished up writing her final papers before turning to me.
"So Alex, what's the nature of your business here?"
"Umm..." I replied, confused as to why she asked the question, "I'm here about the job offering? You know, the one you gave me?"
"Oh I know, this is just the standard procedure whenever I have somepony in the office on official business. If I could skip past it I would." The mayor scrawled onto a blank form in front of her. "What's the date?"
I went to reply before she interrupted me. "Oh that's right, the calendar's right there, silly me."
She wrote some more details down onto the paper and out the quill down. She looked back up at me and spoke. "So Alex, you've had time to think about the job, what do you say?"
"Well, on the one hand, er, hoof, I get paid to make ponies laugh with poor acting skills and terrible jokes, on the other I have to dress up as a monkey and work all day... decisions decisions..."
I raised a hand to my chin and attempted to look like I was seriously contemplating the offer. The mayor watched on expectantly as I put up the charade for a minute or so before asking if I had come to a conclusion. "So, what will it be?"
"Tell you what," I replied, "Make it five and a half hours a day at six bits per hour and you've got yourself a deal."
"But that's half of the original work time for 75% of the payment! Make it four bits an hour and you've got the job."
"Lowest I'll go is five bits. Take it or leave it, I don't really need the job anyway."
The mare sighed in frustration. "Fine. Five bits at five and a half hours it is. That would be two shows a day."
"Good," I answered, "I didn't know how you were expecting me to perform for eleven hours a day anyway. I'm not an endless barrel of laughs." I held out a hand to shake on the offer, but the mayor declined. She was probably a little peeved that I had cut my work time down, but in the long run I was right. The mayor crossed through a few words on her form before turning it around to me. She handed me a quill and told me where to sign, pointing to various points on the paper. I made my marks and put the quill back down on the table.
"By the way, we're going to need some measurements for the work clothing. We've found an old Nightmare Night costume that we can re-size and have ready for you tomorrow. You wouldn't be able to stay a while longer to have them taken, would you?"
"Ask Rarity," I replied, "she's already got them for an order I placed with her this morning."
"Well then," The mayor said, "that should be all. You start tomorrow morning. Remember to be here on time, you'll make a bad impression on everypony if you arrive late on your first day."
"Bye then, and don't worry, I'll make sure to get here on time." I waved off the mayor as I walked out of the room, but she was too busy concentrating on her paperwork to notice. How rude.
With everything that I had to get done in town finally over, I had made my way back to the library. I was going to knock on the door, but I decided to push it open instead. Inside I found Twilight, sat on the wooden couch in the centre of the room. The pink box of cupcakes was sat next to her with its lid open and had crumbs scattered around it.
I pushed the door open a little bit further, making the hinges creak as they moved. Twilight's ears pricked up before she turned to me and smiled. "Oh Alex, I wasn't expecting you back until later. How was your day?"
"Eventful, to say the least."
"How so?" Twilight replied.
"I get my new set of clothes in three days and have to act like a monkey in front of the entire town again. How was yours?"
"Mine's been fine. Thanks for the cupcakes by the way, they were delicious. How'd you know vanilla frosting was my favourite?"
"Lucky guess," I replied, "I take it they were still in one piece when they got here?"
"Yeah. The crusaders did a great job of delivering them, along with the message they came with."
That was the second time today somepony mentioned a 'message' today whenever the cupcakes were brought up, and I still had no idea what it was about. "Message? What message?"
"The one you got the crusaders to pass on? The one about wanting to 'love and care for me' and having my kids-"
Never. Again. Crusaders. "Sorry to disappoint you Twi, but I think there's been a little bit of a misunderstanding..."
"-I know we argued about it this morning, but I never knew you felt that way about me." Twilight paused mid-sentence before turning a shade of red. "Is that why you didn't want to answer me when I asked you about it?"
Oh great. Whatever you say is going to make you look like an idiot. I looked around, trying to find a way out of the conversation. It was then I saw Spike over by the bookshelves, looking at me sympathetically. "Uh Twilight," he said, "I don't think you were listening."
"Listening to what?" The librarian asked.
"Alex said there was a bit of a misunderstanding. I think he meant that the crusaders weren't supposed to deliver any message."
"Is that true?" The unicorn turned back to me, with the most innocent gaze I had ever seen.
"Yes," I replied, "I only asked them to send the cupcakes." Twilight's expression saddened as she spoke.
"Oh. Sorry. I guess I got a little excited over nothing..." She turned around and walked up the stairs with her tail between her legs, closing the door behind her as she entered her bedroom.
"Oh wow. I feel terrible," I said aloud. Spike walked over from his place by the bookshelves and sat down on the couch Twilight was previously on.
"She was going on about it all evening," Spike started, "She's never had a special somepony before, so as soon as she heard the message from the crusaders she got her hopes up."
"That's not making me feel any better," I said as I sat down next to the young dragon. "That's two mares I've upset today. I wonder if it'll be three tomorrow..."
"Two?" Spike replied, "Who was the first?"
"Dash. We argued earlier because I didn't want to tell her something. She ended up flying off in anger and leaving me alone in the rain."
"Wow man. That's pretty bad."
"Tell me about it..."
I lived a typical life as a sixteen year old. School work was heavy, most of my time was spent on a computer and I played way too many video games, which probably should have rotted my mind a couple of years ago. The only real difference you could find with me and the rest of society was the fact that I'm a brony - a fan of the show 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'. Most of the people I know would think that's a pretty weird thing for me to like but hey, since when has normal ever been fun?
Ever since I watched the show out of curiosity, I'd been hooked. heck, I managed to watch every episode that had been aired in under three days, I love the show that much. As a typical brony I've always wanted to visit Equestria and meet the mane six, play for the day and just forget my worries, but when it comes to thinking things over I always took it too seriously: what would happen to my family, would I be missed, etc... This is quite pathetic to hear from a teen, but my I had taken it as far as hugging my pillow at night pretending it was one of the mane cast just to feed my needs. Some nights, my mind takes it far enough for me to dream about spending the day being a pony and hanging out with my favourite characters.
Which leads me pretty well onto the next part of my tale actually. I took this night to let my mind wander through Equestria, just talking to my imagination for an hour or so. I fell asleep clutching my pillow pretending it was R.D; telling myself that I was being stupid - no matter how hard I tried to believe, it would never happen. I eventually drifted off to sleep still holding my imaginary pony. That wasn't the first time it had happened.
I awoke the next day to groggy too open my eyes. Uurrghhh... mornings... was passing through my mind when it eventually booted up. I was still holding my pillow but it had gotten lumpy through the night. I started to push on the hardest parts, trying to shift the stuffing downwards to even things out, but I had little success. This isn't working... I thought to myself; so I tried pushing it a little harder to find the "stuffing" shift. It moved, and then it groaned; causing my hand to dart around, trying to feel what happened before eventually coming to rest on some feathers. That explains the lumpiness, I thought, slowly opening my left eye.
What I saw before me was that I was hugging a cyan pegasus in my arms, and no longer my pillow.
My still-dazed brain kicked into overdrive as it tried to figure out why the pony was in my bed, let alone my world. After five minutes of thought after thought and question after question had gone through my head, I decided to just stop wondering how this happened and to enjoy it. I had wanted a moment like this for months. Rainbow Dash was in my bed, sleeping like she had just finished a try-out for the Wonderbolts.
After another five minutes of me forgetting the real world and just living my own, Rainbow Dash started to fidget and shuffle, slowly stretching out her limbs. 'OH DEAR CELESTIA. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO, SHE'S WAKING UP' was something along the lines of what my brain was screaming then, so I panicked and did the first thing that any closet brony would do when they didn't want the world to find out - I put my hand over her mouth to try and stop her from screaming at the sight of a stranger in what she thought was her bed. To my surprise it worked with great effect, muting her to just a small squeal.
She proceeded to paw at my hand, with wide eyes and a startled look on her face; I would be surprised too if I found an alien being in my bed with their hand over my mouth. She eventually removed my hand from her face to ask "Who are yo..."
I cut her off mid sentence only to shush her so she would quieten down to a whisper. "Who are you and what are you doing in my bed!?" She murmured as I held a finger over my lips.
"I could say the same to-" I replied with a glare. "Never mind. Do you know where you are?" I asked, hoping she would know.
"I'm in Ponyville, and you still haven't told me who you are!"
"I'm someone you can trust," I told her, "and you're not in Ponyville any more - or Equestria for that matter".
Her reply was only a dumb-founded look on her face with yet another question. "Where am I then?"
"My bedroom, in my bed."
Unsurprisingly, she was startled by this comment and pushed me out of my own bed. I stood up to reach for my dressing gown at the foot of the bed and asked her to look away as I got dressed, to which she agreed. I turned back around and just stared at her for a while. Rainbow Dash, under the covers, in my bed. She returned the stare and we just looked each other over for a while, her wondering who I was and me wondering how she got here. Eventually Rainbow broke the silence with a lazy yawn and got out of bed to stretch her wings. I was amazed by how much smaller she was then I originally thought. I was expecting her to be around my height, but she was only around four and a half feet at estimation. Her wingspan however, excluding her torso, was around six feet to my astoundment.
"Do you even know who I am?" she asked me.
"You're Rainbow Dash, pegasus weather pony of Ponyville" I told her, to which my reply was yet another dumb-founded look on her face.
"How... whu?"
I laughed at how cute her confused expression was and told her not to worry about it. "I'm Alex, if you're looking for a name, and you're lost by the looks of it. Do you remember anything from last night?"
Rainbow Dash thought hard for a few seconds. "I was testing out a flying spell on the Pinkiecopter with Twilight and Pinkie, when we crashed over the Everfree Forest" she informed me, staring to tear up. "I blacked out after I heard Twi and Pinkie shouting my name and woke up here. I hope they're all right..."
I pondered what she said for a few seconds before speaking up. "Is that all you can remember?" I asked, to which she replied "yeah, pretty much."
I could see the tears starting to roll down her cheeks, worried about her friends and scared that she was stuck on an alien planet. I sat her down on the guest bed and hugged her tightly. "Hey, it's gonna be all right. I'll get you home one way or another", I lied to her while looking her in the eye, as I had no idea to get her home. In all honesty at the time, I didn't really care if she went home or not. I was living my brony dream. Rainbow Dash, the cyan pegasus, was in my room and I was comforting her, with the best part being that I was holding her in my arms. She seemed to cheer up after I told her this wasn't the Rainbow I know. "What happened to the coolest, awesomest, most radical pony in Equestria? This isn't you Dashie."
"Hey! Only two people I know can call me Dashie, and you're not one of them!" She told me with a weary smile.
Somehow, I knew that would cheer her up. I grabbed the comb off my bedside table and told her she looked like a mess, needing to sort her mane out. We laughed at this, taking our minds off her problem. I eventually told her if she wouldn't sort it out, I would.
I was surprised to find that she didn't really care who did it and let me get to fixing up her mane. After ten minutes of combing and comforting, she looked more presentable. "Feel better?" I asked.
"Yeah, thanks".
Girly moment over, I asked her "so what are we going to do with you then?".
"I don't know... you could show me around the area?"
"That's a brilliant idea, but it's only 8 'o' clock and I don't want to wake anyone up"
"Only eight? We could go back to sleep?"
"Hmm... I like that idea. Do you want this bed or mine?" I told her, pointing out the options. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and poked me in the shoulder with a hoof.
"What are you getting at?"
I looked back at her, with a puzzled look on my face and then it hit me, how... strange... to put it, what I just said was.
"Ooohhh..." I replied bringing a hand to my forehead. "It wasn't meant to sound like that. I was going to take the other bed to what you chose". To my surprise, she told me she wanted to share a bed as it was cold in my room. The heating in my home didn't turn on for another hour.
"No funny stuff, otherwise you'll be in for a whole new world of hurt."
I told her not to worry, as the most that would happen was me fidgeting in my sleep, to which she was fine with. We both climbed back into my bed and Rainbow Dash drifted off to sleep. I watched her close her eyes and snore gently as I fell asleep myself. Looks like today isn't going to go as planned...
It only took five minutes after my encounter with the young colt to finally make my way to Twilight's door. It may have been night, but I still hid from sight behind a neighbouring house. The lights were on inside, so that meant if I waltzed on up to the door and knocked, it was going to get answered. I strode up to the door, making sure that I still had not yet been spotted. Having raised my fist to knock upon the large red door, I paused to comprehend what my following actions would induce. The unicorn might answer, and upon realizing it's me, flip out or question my existence. On the other hand, Spike might answer the door, probably only pausing to consider what I am before letting me in. It didn't matter what scenario I pictured, Twilight was going to over-react in one way or another. Before I did anything though, I heard the voice of another talking with the purple mare. It didn't sound like the baby dragon, or Owloysius hooting for that matter. Disregarding whoever the third pony may be, I knocked anyway.
THUD THUD THUD
Spike lazily acknowledged my arrival with a "I'm coming, I'm coming. Sheesh. Who could that be at this time of night?" before I could hear the door handle's inner-mechanisms slide and groan from years of use. The door swung open with a slight creak as the dragon looked up to see whoever was willing to disturb the important meeting going on inside.
I looked down at him and asked, "Is Twilight Sparkle in? There's an important issue that I need to talk with her about, concerning my race."
Spike stood there for a second, clearly sleep deprived from catering their guest, processing what I just said. "Uh. Yeah, she is. She's kinda in the middle of something though. Can it wait until tomorrow?"
"I'm afraid it can't", I replied, "It's of the utmost importance." I could hear trotting coming from further inside the library, before Twilight herself spoke up.
"Spike? Who is it? Can't it wait?"
"No. It can't." I called into the librarian's home. Twilight gasped, recognising my voice. I heard some more trotting accompanied by quiet murmuring before the door was opened to its full extent, revealing the mare herself. Spike had walked back inside, only to go straight upstairs after mumbling something about 'sleep-deprived hallucinations'.
"Alex! How are you here? Come inside, it's freezing out there!" Hmm, no flipping out or over-reacting. Guess I was wrong.
I walked inside and shivered. Twilight was right; it was quite cold out there. I walked further on inside, before stopping completely and staring at the other guest. It was Princess Celestia herself. This was going to make my planned 'discussion' with Twilight all the sweeter.
I went down onto one knee and bowed my head. "Good evening, your majesty. It is an honour to be in your presence." Sweeten her up; this is one pony you don't want to mess with.
"Good evening, Alex, I take it? There is no need for the formalities. So you are the one who was kind enough to take care of one of my little ponies while she was lost on your planet. Twilight has told me quite a lot about you. You're right Twilight; human anatomy is very interesting indeed."
I just stood up, attempting to understand what she was trying to imply. I eventually turned to the librarian and asked, "What's that supposed to mean, Twilight?"
"Um... Nothing. Why, what do you think it means?" She replied, not daring to look me in the eye.
"What did you do to me while I was unconscious?" I demanded. "I want to know!"
"Nothing! I promise! Humans are just so different from ponies and you couldn't really say no, so I may of removed your clothing to further inspect your anatomy?" She smiled at me sheepishly, hoping that I wouldn't get too angry over what she had done. Fat chance.
"YOU DID WHAT? YOU STRIPPED ME NAKED?! I WAS UNCONSCIOUS! YOU COULD OF AT LEAST TOLD ME WHEN I WOKE UP!"
"Oh... Oh my. Twilight was right about the short temper, too." Celestia mumbled to herself, while looking onto the situation, as to prevent it from falling on my ears.
"It was for science!" Twilight tried to meekly call out, I however, was not going to have any of it. I was going to flip out at her deliberately for killing off my species, but these series of events just re-lit my already smouldering fuse.
"OH, SO KILLING OFF PRETTY MUCH THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE WASN'T ENOUGH, YOU JUST HAD TO PUSH THE BOAT OUT THAT LITTLE BIT FURTHER NOW." Flip-out with a princess deity in the room, check!
It appears that accusing a pony of mass-murder can make a certain 'thing' click in the heads, as Twilight suddenly stood up on all fours, glaring into my eyes.
"HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF SUCH A THING? I WOULDN'T EVEN CONSIDER KILLING A FLY, LET ALONE A WHOLE SPECIES!"
Celestia tried to but in before any more shouting occurred. "Is there something wrong? Has Twilight offended your race in any way? If so, I would like to apologize on her..."
"OFFENDED?" I cut in before turning to face the princess, "SHE KILLED ALL OF THEM BUT ME!"
Twilight, still angered by what I had accused her of, spoke up. "THE SPELL SENT THEM TO LIMBO! YOU KNOW, THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING EXISTS? I NEVER KILLED ANYPONY!" Twilight used logic. It was super-effective!
"Say what now?" I replied, turning to face Twilight with a quizzical expression, dumb-founded by what she just said.
"The spells effects should of worn off when we left! However, if a certain somepony stayed behind instead of tagging along for the ride, you would have known that by now!"
"So you weren't going to leave me to die alone on my planet?"
Twilight face-hoofed. "Of course not!"
"Oh... Sorry about the misunderstanding then." I couldn't think of a suitable reply. "Well... I'll leave you two to carry on with what you were doing... Enjoy the rest of your meeting. Celestia, please do tell Luna she's done a wonderful job of the sky tonight."
I turned on the spot to face the door, about to take my first step before Spike spoke up, having just woken from his sleep due to mine and Twilight's shouting. "Hey, Alex... Do you even have a place to sleep tonight?"
Turning back around, I spoke up to him from the base of the stairs. "Yeah, a small hammock in the Everfree forest. Don't worry about it. Thanks for asking anyway."
"What if it rains in the night?" Celestia responded. "I do not care if you are not one of my little ponies, but as long as you're in my kingdom you shall be treated as such."
I shook my head, declining the alicorn's statement. "I don't want to burden anypony while I'm here."
"Nonsense," She replied, "Twilight, how would you feel about letting Alex sleep in the library tonight?"
"After the little 'chat' that we just had?" I replied, "I'm fine with sleeping in the Everfree."
Twilight cleared her throat, drawing everypony's attention. "I believe I heard you apologize when you realized you were wrong, so you're welcome to stay if you like."
"Um, thanks." I retorted. Looks like I have a place to stay for a while. I wasn't expecting the sudden bout of kindness after what had happened, so I was at a loss for words at the time. "Uh... um... Do you two still need to finish whatever the meeting was about? I can wait outside, if you need me too..."
Celestia spoke up, "There's no need to do that as we were finishing up our conversation when you came in Alex, I was just about to leave for Canterlot so I would have a few hours to spare before raising the sun."
Celestia stood up and walked past me before opening the library entrance with her magic. She was taller than me by at least half a foot, which made her slightly intimidating as she trotted by. The fact that she was supposedly the most powerful being in existence didn't help with the loving and caring image either. "Goodbye Twilight, Alex. Please do try to get along while I'm not here. Good night."
"Good night Princess", Twilight called out. I was just about to say the same thing, but before I could the Sun goddess had closed the door on me. Pffft... Royalty.
"So now what?" I asked Twilight.
"Now we find you a place to sleep." She replied while cleaning up whatever mess the Princess and her had made during the meeting.
"I'm fine with sleeping on the wooden couch. As I said earlier, I don't want to be a burden."
Still cleaning, Twilight spoke up. "There's a spare guest bed upstairs. Are you sure that you don't want it?"
"Yeah, I'm sure." Wanting to change the topic of discussion, I asked what the meeting was about. "So what were you and Celestia talking about anyway?"
"Pinkie and I's trip to your world, along with you as well." She replied in a matter-of-factly tone. So that explains Celestia's enquiry then. "That was the reason why she came over, actually."
I took this as an opportunity to try and make up for what I did earlier. "On the subject of my world, is they anything you would like to know about it? I'll try to give as much information as I can."
Twilight jumped at the chance to learn something about an alien planet, dropping everything she was doing and rushed over to where I was stood while levitating a notepad and quill. Something about this told me I was in for a long night.
"Before we get started," I said while walking over to the large wooden couch in the centre of the room, "There's some ground rules that I need to set: One, no asking anything about the human body. I do not want to go through that again. Two, if I say that it's a bad thing to talk about, then all discussion of the topic stops there - No exceptions. Three, when would you like to get started?"
Twilight would not stop asking questions, I have no idea how one pony could want to know so much. She must have gone through twenty different notepads by the time the sun had finally risen; causing me to question how much of the stuff I had said was fact or just opinion. Looking out of the large observatory window upstairs, it had only just dawned on me how long our conversation about Earth had been. Twilight looked like she didn't need the sleep at all, while I on the other hand felt as though I was about to pass out any second.
"Well," I said, stretching out my arms as I spoke, "It's been nice talking with you Twilight, but I think I need to get a couple of hours sleep before I do anything else. Good night." My head then promptly fell onto the side of the wooden armrest I had been using throughout the night.
Twilight watched me confusedly, immune to the effects of staying up late from many previous nights of studying, before muttering to herself. "Good night? It's nearly six in the morning..."
Inappropriate Misunderstandings
I had thought about many things while under that tree with Dash. Why was I here? What will happen when I'm gone? Will my life ever be the same again? So much so, if it wasn't for the gentle snoring of the pony using me as a pillow, I would have forgotten that I was even in Equestria. The rain was still falling and hadn't lightened up, and it didn't look like it was going to. Sighing, I rested my head back against the bark of the tree and had almost gotten to sleep again myself, but the sudden and loud clap of thunder startled me and woke up Dash.
"I didn't think a little bit of thunder would scare you like that, Dashie."
"Well," She sleepily began, "I don't usually sleep outside." Turning her head up to face me, she noticed my shirt. "When did that break? You should probably get Rarity to look at that."
The mention of the fashionista's name reminded me of the party. I had told the unicorn that I would be her model for the day. With the rain still pouring down, it didn't look like I was going anywhere soon. "I was going to see her today about a new set of clothes, but with the weather like it is..."
"It's only a bit of rain. Water never hurt anypony."
"I know that," I replied, "but I don't want to turn up to Carousel Boutique soaked and in tattered clothing."
"She won't mind. Unless she's been under a rock the last few hours then she'll know what the weather's like." "Anyway," the mare innocently carried on with a sweet smile on her face, "I always thought your clothes were like that."
"Gee, thanks Dash, love ya too." Ignoring the weather pony's comment on my appearance I looked up to the sky, hoping to find some sort of answer in the clouds. What I did find was that I never got around to asking Dash the question I was going to before she fell asleep. "Dash..."
"Yeah Alex?"
"Why did you pick this tree to sleep under? I was going to ask you why earlier, but you fell asleep before I could." Although I'm not complaining. You make a pretty good blanket.
Dash hesitated before she replied. "Uhh... Why should I tell you?"
"You don't have to, I just wanted to know why this tree in particular. Was it the view over the park? The lack of ponies make it easier to sleep? Was it..." I smiled gleefully as the thought of Dash sleeping under the tree because of me went through my head, but frowned as I quickly dismissed it.
"Was it what?" Dash asked, curious as to what it was I was thinking.
"Nah, forget about it." I waved off the thought as if it was nothing, not wanting the pegasus to know what it was.
"Tell me. I wanna know"
"'I want' doesn't get. I'll tell you later when we're in a more private area, who knows who could be listening?"
Groaning in frustration, Dash kept pestering me for an answer. "How could we be in a more private area? We're alone together in the middle of a storm, how much more private could you want?"
"Have you ever noticed that nearly every time we meet, it's only the two of us and no one else is around?"
"What's that got to do with it?" Dash replied with a hint of of annoyance in her voice, hint being an understatement.
"Not much really," I replied casually, "My point was that we spend a lot of time alone."
"What about the party? What about Sugarcube Corner earlier? We weren't alone then."
"I never saw you at the party, and I was only at Sugarcube corner for a few minutes. You can't really count either of those."
Unable to think of a suitable reply, the mare started stammering. "We were... But there was... What about when..."
"What about when? Go on..."
"Ugh! Why are you making this so hard?" Dash got to her hooves and flexed her wings. "If you're not going to tell me what it was you were thinking, you can freeze here under this tree." With that statement, the mare sprung into the air and flew off, leaving me alone in the poor weather. Ya dun goofed now, idiot. Best get to the Boutique.
Having trudged through the rain to Carousel Boutique, I was soaked to the bone. With the pieces of cloth I called clothing offering little protection to the elements, I had lost all feeling in my hands and feet too. I had ran to the door of Rarity's shop once it was in sight, but every step felt like I was standing on needles as blood attempted to pool back into my feet. I slammed on the door and shouted to try and gain the unicorn's attention.
"RARITY! LET ME IN!"
"Just a second!"
Why now? As I huddled against the door in the hopes that I could suck some warmth from the building, the sound of hooves could be heard clopping their way towards the entrance. I only wished they were faster as the rain kept hammering down, making sure I was really drenched. As I waited, the quiet tinkling of magic radiated from the door handle, indicating someone or somepony was opening it with magic. As soon as I saw the door open, I burst inside, surprising Rarity and almost knocking her off her hooves.
"My, what an uncouth way of making an entrance. I expected better from you, Alex."
"Sorry Rarity," I replied through chattering teeth, "But it's freezing out there, along with it bucketing down cats and dogs."
"Bucketing what-now?"
"It's pouring it down out there. Human expression."
"Ah. If you're wondering why, Rainbow Dash told me it's because the weather team missed out on last week's rain, so they're having to make up for it now. I suppose that's what you get for leaving Derpy Hooves in charge... again..."
"Anyway, I'm here for the clothing measurements. You said you could make me a new set of clothing at the party."
"Why, yes I did. Firstly though, we're going to have to get you out of those clothes. You're leaving a puddle everywhere you stand."
"Ah... Sorry about that." I started unbuttoning what was left of my shirt having since warmed up when I entered the shop. As I dropped it to the floor with a squelch, Rarity winced in disdain.
"Please, throw it into the waste fabric basket in the back. I don't want to have to clean up after more than just Sweetie Belle's mess. Anyway, what happened to the rag to get it in such a state?"
"Oh you don't want to know about it..." I replied as I picked up the shirt off the floor. I gestured to what I thought was the back room of the shop, to which Rarity nodded. I walked through the open doorway and saw some oddly postured mannequins, each one with what looked like an attempt at human clothing on them. The clothes all looked too large for their models though, so they hung loosely towards the floor. Stepping back out of the room, I asked the fashionista what she was doing with the clothing in the back. "Rarity?"
"Yes darling?"
"What's up with the clothes in the back room? They look far too large for ponies."
"Why they're the test-runs I made based off of Diamond Dog anatomy. I figured that I should at least get some practice in before we got started. Now be a dear and pick up the measuring tape before you walk back, it should be under the spare rolls of silk lining."
Having picked up the roll of tape, I walked back over to Rarity and let her take it with magic. Why she couldn't have picked it up that way in the first place I'll never know. She directed me to a small podium with several mirrors surrounding it, letting me view myself from multiple sides. The unicorn levitated the measuring tape towards my torso, before she stopped and let out an indecisive 'hmm'.
"What's wrong?"
"You're going to have to take off your pants."
Surprised by her request, my attention moved away from the many reflections around me to Rarity herself. "What do you mean, 'take of my pants?'
"As in, remove your clothes , darling. I can't possibly get accurate leg measurements if you're still wearing something. The pair you're already wearing are far too baggy."
"Oooh... I completely misunderstood what you said for a second there."
Rarity paused again, only this time snorting in amusement. "Honestly dear, we've only just met. However, I do know of a lovely young mare called Lyra Heartstrings who's been looking for somepony like you. Perhaps you met her at the welcome party?"
"Oh believe me," I replied, "we've definitely met."
"Really? How did it go?" Rarity replied, eager to learn some gossip.
"She certainly made quite the first impression..."
"Oh how so?"
I paused for thought. Should I really tell her what happened? "Well, you know how my shirt was ripped?"
"No, not really... Oh...Ohhh...She did that? I heard rumours, but I never knew the girl had it in her. I take it you had fun then?"
"Not really, Bon Bon walked in before anything happened."
"Oh, I see. You still need to take off your clothes, dear."
I obliged and removed my trousers, allowing the mare to continue her work. We made idle chit-chat as Rarity finished taking my measurements and began working on a design. I chose a a rather flashy material that looked like it was entwined with tiny gems. As I put what was left of my clothing back on, Rarity told me it was the strongest fabric she had and couldn't tear like my shirt.
"Well dear, expect it to be ready in three days. I would have it done sooner, but I have other orders I need to fill in first. I'm sure that you'll understand."
"Well of course. I can't exactly complain seeing as I'm getting it for free." With Rarity having finished all she could do for my order, I said goodbye and started to leave. As I got up, I noticed the puddle of water that I left by the door as I entered, causing me to remembering I was missing a shirt. "Hey Rarity?"
"Yes Alex?"
"Can I grab one of your test runs and take it with me? I don't want to walk around the town topless."
"Go ahead dear, we wouldn't want you to catch a cold now, would we? Besides, I was only going to take them apart and re-use what's left."
I picked up a shirt and put it on. It was a couple sizes too large, but at least it was something. Having dressed myself, I walked to the door of the shop and left, thanking Rarity for the free shirt and soon-to-be set of clothing. The rain had stopped and the clouds were slowly drifting apart, revealing a shining sun as I walked into the centre of Ponyville. Even though I wasn't in the sharpest sets of clothing I owned, I still had to meet up with Mayor Mare about my potential job.
I hope I can talk her out of the monkey suit...
