And Suddenly, I'm Fluttershy

Party

Bartholomew

Fortunately, nothing interrupted my trek back towards the cottage, other than a few stares. Meh, I get more when I talk to myself in buffet lines. These ponies have got to step up their games.

As I was saying, my walk was unimpeded, and I quickly arrived back at the cottage. After opening the door, I noticed that the lights were out.

"ANGEL! Why are the li-"

"Surprise!" came the call of a small group of ponies as the lights turned on.

I screamed, only to realize that there were no robbers, mass murderers, rapists, ect, etc, in my house.

Pinkie Pie hopped over to me, yammering as usual. By usual, I mean that I've only met her once, and she was talking incessantly then, too.

"Were you surprised? Huh? Were you? Were you...?"

I barely restrained the urge to murder her on the spot. It's harder than it should be.

"Y-Yes," I said.

"Good, because I didn't know if I could surprise you, because you are an alien, and you might have time travel, and lasers, and..." she gasped, "time traveling lasers! Do you have time traveling lasers?"

"Pinkie, ah think that's enough," said the southern orange mare from the trial.

She continued rambling nonetheless.

"Do you have parties on your home planet? Because it would be bad if you don't have parties!" she gasped again, "Applejack, what if she doesn't know what a party is?"

"Ah'm sure that she knows what a party is, ya don't need ta fret 'bout it, none."

I couldn't wait to lampoon Southern stereotypes. This would be fun.

"Ah know full well what a party is, we've got 'em back home, too," I said, affecting a thick drawl. It's a little hard with Fluttershy's voice, though.

"Cut the charade, pardner, y'all didn't have an accent earlier," she said indignantly, " And Ah don't take too kindly to ponies thinkin' that they can make a mockery of me."

"Sorry, the temptation was far too great," I replied, slipping back into my earlier accent. "And what's this business with a surprise party?"

Pinkie butted in, "It's a 'Welcome to Equestria, Alien That's Taken Over Fluttershy's Body' party!"

"Could I at least roll this cart somewhere? I've had to push this all the way from the record store," I said, gesturing towards the cart with my wing.

"I'll get that," said Twilight, magic-ing the cart indoors. "What's with all of this stuff?" she asked, pouring over the contents of the cart.

"Music," I replied.

"Silly filly, you could have asked to borrow my record player!" Pinkie said, brandishing one seemingly from out of nowhere. She pulled a record out of her, uh, flank, I guess, and placed it on the player.

After starting the music, she came back over to us.

"Let me introduce you to everypony! You've already met myself and Twilight, as well as Applejack, but you haven't been introduced to anypony else!"

I have no idea how she could have that much energy. It takes either alcohol or something really exciting to get me to even show my anticipation, and if I get too much alcohol, I quickly get depressive. Yeah, I've tried not to drink much after last time.

"This is Rarity," Pinkie said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

Rarity looked rather awkward, probably because of the fact that I'm an alien in one of her friend's bodies. Yeah, that's a bit of an elephant in the room.

"It's a pleasure to meet you..." she said in a rather dignified manner, trailing off at the end.

"Bartholomew, and likewise," I replied.

"This is Rainbow Dash," Pinkie said, indicating the mare with the FREAKING RAINBOW mane from earlier. Is it just me, or do these ponies have strangely fitting names?

"Just because the princesses trust you, doesn't mean that I have to, got that?"

"You seem to be the only one with any sense here, so... congrats, I guess," I replied.

She seemed taken aback for a brief moment, only to return to her new-found hobby of leering at me menacingly.

"I see what you're doing, trying to earn my trust?"

"No seriously, if an alien turned up in one of my friend's bodies, I'd likely question my sanity while calling the police. Besides, if Fluttershy's in my body, she's likely to end up in a mental hospital. Now, given the current evidence, as well as my previous record of ... instability, the doctors are likely to think that I am suffering from a mental fugue, and treat me accordingly," I said.

Twilight spoke up, "So what you're saying is that Fluttershy in your body is probably going to end up in a mental institution?"

"That is exactly what I'm saying," I replied, "In fact, I really don't know why that wasn't the first thing anyone did."

"This isn't the strangest thing that's happened to us, not by a long shot," said Rainbow.

"Yeah, there was that one time when Pinkie decided ta bake a giant cupcake while Twi was workin' on an anthropomorphism spell," said AJ, "Ta make a long story short, a giant, pony eating cupcake rampaged around town."

Everyone stared at her, save Pinkie, who was amicably chatting with the flowers on a nearby table.

"What?" AJ asked.

"I didn't catch half of what you said," said Rainbow.

"I didn't take you to be much one for, how do I put this gently, education, darling," said Rarity.

"Do y'all think that I'm stupid because I'm a farmer?" AJ asked us.

"Well, the accent certainly helps, more rural accents tend to give the impression of stupidity. For America, it's Texan and Dixie accents, as well as Bayou, and for Britain, pretty much everything; Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Cockney, all American accents, Aussie accents, the list goes on," I replied.

Everyone stared at me, save Pinkie, who was busy counting the number of grass blades in a three by three area on my lawn.

"Right, nobody knows what I'm going on about."

"What's with you?" asked Rainbow.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Why don't you speak correctly? You use words like 'someone' and 'anybody' instead of 'anypony'.

"I'm not a pony, remember?"

"But why do you use them? Why not 'somehuman', or something?"

Twilight butted in, "What she means is, the terms 'someone' and 'somebody' are generally used only by those who want to be extremely politically correct."

"Ahh, well, that is a good question. Thing is, Rainbow Dash, those are the defaults back home," I replied, "Those are the term we use in our everyday lives."

"You humans are so weird," said RD.

"Not all of us, but certainly I am, even by earth standards." They looked at me oddly. "My earth," I clarified.

Pinkie hopped over to us, "Enough talk, let's party!"

"Actually, talking's fine with me," I said.

She gasped, "What do you mean? You need to eat cake, and play games, and..."

"Wait, you've got cake?" I asked. What can I say, I'm a sucker for anything sugary.

"Yeppers! I've also got party games, music, and..."

"You know what, why don't we all get something to eat, and continue this conversation in a couple of minutes?" I asked.

Everyone agreed.