Kill Me Now

Chapters

2. The following days
3. Where am I?
4. She's got a DRAGON!! (I'm screwed)
5. What a garish dress!!
6. I SLEPT WITH A PONY!!
7. Dress critic
9. The history of Earth
10. Q&A
11. Tech talk with twilight
12. Meeting dinky
13. The clock maker
14. Music tryouts
15. Dinky part 2
16. ADHD at work
17. The Doctor
19. Computers
20. "Feelings"
21. Relationships are confusing
22. The next chapter and the next day
23. Her first date
24. Talking to everypony
25. The "break up"
26. PANCAKES!!
27. Rainbow Dash
28. Explanations
30. Vinyls past
31. Talking to Octavia
32. The Dress Maker
34. Love-ista
35. Kids
36. Kitchen disaster
37. FIGHT
38. Dates & Bro-talks
39. Gems & Crying
40. Sleep & Dreams
41. Prench lessons
42. Piano Pony
43. Apple pie
44. Lunas night adventure
45. Payback
46. RAINBOW!!!!
47. Honey, I'm home!
49. SPIKE!!
50. Introductions
51. DANDELION POTATOES!!
52. It's a date
53. Suspicions
54. The note
55. A normal day in the royal castle
56. Chariot ride
57. Storytime & Swift Strike
58. Goodbye
59. Why?
60. Cry, it's good for you
61. Rage
62. The plan
63. Memories
64. My part
66. ...Was uneventful and Defibrillators
67. Music withdrawal
68. Magic session
69. Silvers afternoon
70. Sex talks
71. Big Macs’ tirade
72. Sexist pervs and Lyras late night
73. Golden Dawn
74. Hysteria
75. Memories
76. Dark Infinity
77. Car Engines
78. The Garage
79. The Timberwolf
80. Introductions
81. Introductions
82. Elemental Failure
83. fixing the TARDIS
84. Mourning
85. Confusion
86. The End
1. Where do I start
8. Music lessons
18. Fluttershy and sexy time
29. Duet
33. Foalsitting
48. Sleep and Scares
65. Work...

2. The following days

The next few days went like they had been for the past five years: wake up at 5:00 AM, go to work, work, come home, and go to sleep at midnight, repeat. This was the way it went until one day at work I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, I first blew it off as just lack of sleep, then I saw it again; I then thought I was going mad. I was going to have to go to the doctor after work today.

“Sir? Sir!” the lady in front of me had been ordering when I dazed off.

“Huh? Oh sorry, just thinking. What was it you were saying?”

She looked at me like I was the most retarded person on earth, then she repeated her order. I got it down and sent it to the back for them to make it.

The rest of that work day I was wondering what that thing I saw was. I didn’t get a good look at it but from what I saw it was a white horse.

I got back to my apartment that day deep in thought. ‘What was that? Why did I see it? Does this mean I'm crazy or just tired?’ and in my deep thought I didn’t notice the note on my desk. I walked straight to the window and looked out to the peaceful scenery. The force in the air I had made knocked said note behind my desk, not to be found until it was too late. The window I was at was one of the few reasons that I chose this apartment, that and it was in my price-range.

I was still thinking of that white thing I saw earlier when I remembered what I was going to do in a few days here and decided to go to bed.

That night I had a weirder than normal dream. When I ‘woke up’ in the dream, I was looking down at a little girl. She had blond hair and yellow eyes. And in those eyes was an expression that implied that I was some sort of monster, I thought ‘you have no clue how right you are’ then I noticed that I had a cold object in my right hand, and my hand was next to my head.

Without pulling the object down I looked over and saw it was my gun. As I looked back down at the little girl, she jumped at my sudden movements, not taking her eyes off of my face. I just stared at her, not moving to wait and see what she does. Nothing happened for a long while.

The scene flipped from first-person to third-person and the sound seemed to cut out because I no longer heard her whimpering. Without the power to do anything but watch, for the next few seconds, that’s all I did. Then I pulled the trigger. The girl shrieked at the noise and watched in horror as my brains and blood fell all over the black floor. As my life juices spilled out over the ground, she slowly approached me and shook me as if I were just sleeping, like she didn’t know what the gun did. This got her hands all bloody and as she sat there shaking my lifeless body, she started to cry.

This wounded me, not physically, but emotionally. I didn’t even know this girl, I had killed myself in front of her, and she was sad I was gone. Why? I didn’t know this girl; I meant nothing to her as she meant nothing to me, but she was still sad I was no longer there. Why? At that point I wanted to kneel down and hug her, whispering ‘I'm here, there’s no need to cry, I'm here.’ But then she did something I never expected another human being to do, ever. She grabbed the gun off of the ground and put it to her own head and pulled the trigger before I had time to comprehend it.

I was left in a daze. ‘She had left this world because I had’ and with that I was left in a black void with two dead, bloody bodies until I woke up that morning wishing I had never slept that night.

I got dressed and headed to work, it was a Friday and I wanted to get there and have a little while to think over what had happened last night before my shift.

I got my wish; I had gotten to work about 45 minutes early. As I was waiting for my shift to start, I thought about what the dream might have meant. ‘When did I ever see that little girl? Do I even know her? Who is she?’ I was shocked out of my state of mind by Bryan whose shift just ended.

“Hey bro, your shift.” He said.

“Huh? Oh, ya, sorry just wondering about something.” I said in a tone that indicated deep thought.

Bryan looked over to the counter, not a sole in sight. “Well, looks like we have time. What up?”

I looked at him to see he had a sincere face on. “Ok, Mr. Therapist, I had a dream last night of a little girl, about six or seven, with blond hair and golden eyes, do you know anyone like that?” I started this statement with a sarcastic tone, but as I went along it got more serious. Bryan laughed at the ‘Mr. Therapist’ statement but picked up on the tone shift.

He looked intently at my face to see the sad look, and then responded “I don’t know anyone with golden eyes, unless…” he trailed off thinking about his favorite show and checked his wallet, in it he saw a pic of Ditzy Doo, also known as Derpy Hooves, with her daughter Dinky Doo. All the pieces matched, age, hair, eye color. “By any chance are you a brony?”

I gave him a weird look “A what?”

His head drooped slightly “Never mind. Hey I gotta get going, see ya later.” My head fell again.

I glanced up to see him leaving out the front door. “Bye man.”

After that I just went on with my work day like normal. I didn’t space out too much and people didn’t get too angry but I had had a gruesome nightmare last night, more so than usual, and I was thinking ‘what could I do?’

3. Where am I?

I never did get around to going to the doctor; I figured that whatever it was could be fixed with one bullet. So I just waited until that fateful day. When it finally came around I was just moping around, it was Tuesday and I didn’t want to go to work because I knew what I was going to do later. So I just wandered.

I waited until I decided that I had waited long enough. I walked slowly to the safe, opened it, and pulled through the drawers, one by one, slowly. When I reached the last drawer, I opened it slower than I had ever before. It was the final moment to back out. I had gotten here before, only to slam it shut and back off. But this time I was serious. I swiftly grabbed the black box before my body could protest. I then unlocked it and sat down at the table. I knew in my heart that I could always back out, as long as I was still alive, that is. So I decided to extend that time period. I pulled all of the bullets out of the cylinder and placed them on the table. I put one bullet in and spun it, pointed at my head and held my breath as a safe click sounded. I repeated the action by putting another bullet in and spinning it, knowing that this would ultimately result in death, but it didn’t matter to me.

I had gotten all seven bullets in, somehow, and this time I was sure to die. I looked at the gun in my hand, did some quick calculations in my head, and found my chances of getting this far were 1:42. Well, looks like I got lucky. I put the gun to my head and closed my eyes, I knew this was the end, but then I thought about my dream, was the little girl going to wander in here later and find me like this, only to kill herself, too?

At that moment I opened my eyes to find I was no longer in my house, I looked to where my pictures had been, gone, now there was a brick wall, an identical one on the opposite side. Then I looked where my table had been only seconds ago, there stood a little girl with blond hair and… yellow eyes. I was oblivious to this fact at first, for the girl in my dream was human; the girl in front of me was a pony. I had no clue what I was looking at until I saw those fearful yellow eyes. Then the memory of the dream hit me like a rock. She was going to kill herself if I were to kill myself, if my dream was accurate. I couldn’t do that to another being, even if it weren’t part of my species or if it were possible that it wouldnt even happen, I just couldn't risk it.

I slowly put the gun down and set it in the box, not breaking eye contact the whole time, like if I were to look away she would disappear. When the gun was locked away, she spoke something you would hear a tourist from a foreign country say, I decided it was some form of Latin, recognizing the accent immediately; I had taken a Latin class or two in high school. I know that at that point I should have been thinking ‘how was an equine talking’ but I was thinking ‘Latin is a dead language, how does this thing know it.’ instead. I then realized that I had made my thoughts a bit more verbal than I had intended for she gave me a weird look. She then said something I half deciphered to be ‘follow me’ I didn’t have anything else to do, so I obliged.

She walked around the corner and into a bustling market. This market wasn’t what you would probably think of like Wal-Mart or something; no this was like third-world-country market, with small vendors here and there and tents and everything. The only difference being that they were all run by ponies. I was about to lose the little one that saved me from myself when she came back to get me. She had walked away while I was staring at the strange bazaar.

“Coming?” she asked. I simply nodded, too stunned from what was once my living room, now a market for medieval ponies. She started to ramble a little, here is what I deciphered: “I… mommy… coming… didn’t… me. Now… proven… right.” And at the same time we both noticed that all of the ponies were now staring at me, this made me very uncomfortable; I never liked being the center of attention. It made me feel like I was supposed to do something, I then felt inclined to say something, so I racked my brain for the Latin word for ‘hello’.

“Er… salve!” I said in a semi-enthusiastic voice. When nobo- sorry nopony responded I tore my brain apart thinking of what to do next.

A small purple unicorn came to me and said something; I only made out “do… know… language?”

I then though up the word for ‘sort of’ in my mind and said “genus.” I added a hand movement that was a flat palm turning on an axis that was the length of my forearm.

She then began to look distant in thought; suddenly she went “euge” which translated into ‘aha’, she then charged her horn with magic, said horn started glowing purple as an indication this was happening. I was getting worried but deep down I was unusually calm, probably because I thought these ponies wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Thankfully I was right. She blasted the spell at me and hit her mark. All that happened that was painful in any way, shape, or form was the sudden migraine. I wobbled a little but got my balance back when the unicorn caught me in some magical field. It felt warm to the touch and was as soft as silk. I just stood there; the spell didn’t seem to do anything to me, for when I looked at my hands I saw I was still human. Then she spoke to me and I realized what she had done, because I understood her perfectly. “Sir, are you ok?” she asked this in a concerned tone.

“Yes, I am quite fine, Ms…” I had said this in Latin, she had taught me Latin, or taught me Latin, in just a few seconds. I now understood the language perfectly. What is this world?

“Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle.” She said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Well, Ms. Sparkle, I thank you for-” I hadn’t had time to finish my sentence, because she had already started the explanation of what she did.

“I had only taught you our language-” now I cut her off

“Retaught, I had already known some Latin, as I had demonstrated back there.” This took her by surprise. She did hear me say ‘hello’ but probably only thought that the young filly had said that to me and I caught on.

“Oh, ok. I thought that was you just being smart, obviously I was wrong.” She said with a shrug, or the equivalent of one for a pony.

“Hey, are you implying I'm not smart? For your information, where I come from, you guys as dumb as dirt!” this had grabbed the attention of everypony in the market once again.

“Maybe we should move this little conversation of ours to my place.” She said in a hushed tone.

“Maybe your right.” I replied. And with that we were walking briskly out of the market area making sure that the little yellow-eyed girl was following close behind.

4. She's got a DRAGON!! (I'm screwed)

I got a few weird looks from ponies as I walked by stores and carts, but in no-time we were in a giant hollowed out tree; this tree had as many books as a library. It struck me that it might actually be a library. “Uh… is this a library?”

“What was your first clue? All the books or the sign outside that says ‘library’?” she said in a sarcastic tone.

“Hey Twi. Home already? I thought you said you were gonna be out all day.” Just then a small purple dragon with green spines walked through a door and his jaw dropped to the ground. “Th-th-th-that’s-”

“Not a pony, I know. Dinky, can you go help Spike make some lunch.” She had cut him off with a slightly annoyed tone, and then nudged the little girl towards the dragon; she walked into the kitchen without any argument. When the dragon still stood and stared with his mouth agape the purple mare took a threatening step towards him with and angry face. This snapped the dragon out of his trance and into action; he rushed back through the door. Moments later I heard sounds that signaled something tossing a salad. I took note of two things: 1. Watch out for Twilight, she seems nice but if a fire breathing dragon, in a wood library, is afraid of her then she must know something that would keep him in line. 2. She has a dragon! “so, tell me about yourself Mr…” she asked this from a small chair in the main lobby of the library and patted a small couch next to her. She also had a small notebook and what looked like a quill. This only furthered my suspicion of what time period this world is in.

“Oh, um… Mr. Rogers.” He winced at the name, preparing himself for the impending torture of the name being related in any remote fashion to a children’s TV show. But when none came he looked at the mare to see a look of utter confusion, then it hit Dillon, they didn’t have TV here, let alone a human show for human children. So he continued how Twilight had done, James Bond style. “Dillon Rogers, but you can call me Dillon.”

She gave a questioning look but then discarded it; she proceeded to pat the couch next to her again telling Dillon to sit down. He complied. “So Dillon, tell me about yourself.” She picked up the small notebook and quill in her magic and began to write something.

“Where do I start?” I asked.

“From the beginning might be nice.”

“And that’s why I tried to kill myself, what happened between now and about a week ago, and I think I'm either insane or in a coma.”

“Well, Dillon, I can tell you that you are not in a coma, the crazy part can be debated-”

“Hey!” was she implying I might be crazy?

“Just kidding, but seriously, how did you get here and what’s your world like?”

“Well I don’t have a clue how I got here, one second I'm in my kitchen, the next I'm in an alleyway and as for my world… I think for now we should steer away from that topic, for now.” I added the last part when I saw her face fall a little.

For the next few minutes we sat in silence, both of us probably thinking of what to do next. When suddenly spike burst out of the door and said “lunch… is served.” In a dramatic tone.

“Great, spike, what took you so long?” Twilight had gotten up and walked over to the door spike was at. When opened it with her magic and saw the largest meal that spike had prepared for her and a guest yet.

“Well, I had the brains to think that our fairly larger guest would have an equally larger stomach. So I had to make a much larger meal than normal.” He explained himself like he was talking to a classroom.

“Spike you never stop impressing me, do you?” twilight said this with a ‘shock and awe’ tone.

“It’s in the job description.” They had a chuckle at this while I had no clue what they were talking about. I just figured they had lived with each other long enough that they knew what to say and do to make each other laugh. ‘will I ever get that used to this place?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that question.

“So should we get eating, or just stand around cracking jokes?” twilights comment snapped me out of my thoughts and into this Technicolor pony world.

“Uh, ya, sure. I haven’t eaten since last night. Do you guys have turkey sandwiches? I love me a turkey sandwich.” This caught them off guard, they didn’t know that humans were omnivores and I hadn’t told them. They were confused and discussed at the same time. They showed their emotions on their faces and I gave back a questioning “what?”

“Here in Equestria we don’t eat meat.” Said Spike.

“But you’re a dragon. How do you not eat meat?”

“I eat jewels. But I can handle the pony food, too.” Spike responded

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend anyone, sorry. We humans are omnivores, I probably should have told you something. Sorry.” I looked to the floorboards in shame.

“Um… don’t worry about it, you didn’t know.” Twilight said in a forgiving tone. This only slightly raised my spirits; I only brought more burdens wherever I go. “let’s eat, shall we?”

We all ate in silence, none of us wanting to address the ‘elephant in the room’ per say. After lunch something unexpected happened…

“Hey Dillon?” asked Twilight.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“Would you want to go shopping with me? When you appeared with dinky I had just gotten out and even with my magic I can't carry everything.” I decided I had nothing better to do.

“Sure, I would love to help you out with your shopping dilemma.” I said “but I think we need to get this one back to her family.” I looked down to Dinky, the others followed my eyes.

“You don’t need to worry about me, I know my way home.” She assured.

“I still think we should walk you home.” I told her.

“I’ll be fine.” She got up and left without another word.

I thought about following her just to make sure that she would make it home safe, but she seemed pretty confident. I trusted her to get home on her own.

5. What a garish dress!!

The human and the unicorn took a short walk to the market where they had first met. This was not a quiet walk as the unicorn had many questions to ask this strange being from another world.

“What is your species like? How many are there? Can I go see them? How did you get here in the first place? You said back there that we were on your planet, but why isn’t your kind on ours? Do you like muffins?”

“Ok, stop. I will answer all of your questions bit for now we should be working on the task at hand.” When the unicorn just gave him a quizzical look I said “shopping.”

“Oh, right. Sometimes I can get carried away.” There was then an awkward silence as the two kept walking down that narrow road. Then there was a savior for both the pony and the human as a cream milk white unicorn was walking by and noticed them. She quickly trotted over and started walking on the opposite side of the purple mare.

“Hello twilight.” Said this new pony in a regal and charming voice. “How goes the studies, I haven’t seen you in a while. Oh and who is your tall… friend?”

The purple unicorn was more than welcoming to this new intrusion on their awkwardness. “Greetings rarity, my studies are doing fairly well and this is Dillon. He’s a human.”

“Hello, rarity, a pleasure to meet you, and might I add that you clothing is quite exquisite. A delectable mix of my few favorite colors.” I said in an almost mock English accent.

“Oh, thank you, I didn’t-” she hadn’t the time to utter another word.

“But there is something just… off about it all.”

“Um, are you saying that my attire is garish?”

“Well I didn’t outright say it, but I guess the point got across.”

The marshmallow colored unicorn was absolutely pissed at this statement, she had worked hard on this specific dress and she wasn’t about to get put down by a total stranger. “Um, Dillon, I know your new here, but you really shouldn’t go around insulting ponies for no reason.” said twilight with a worried voice.

“Ok, one, this ponies dress is an insult to fashion. And two, I have a perfectly good reason to criticize this ponies dress…”

“Oh, and what would that be?” rarity said this with a red face, as bright as a ripe tomato.

“You’re obviously either high class or a fashionista.” I said with a smile. This enraged the white pony beyond her own decency, the fact that I would smile while saying such insulting words. She was about to burst like an over pressurized pipe. “I only thought you would want some advice about your dress, for you see, where I come from, I am known far and wide for my… fashion sense.” I made a fashion pose at the last words and rarity suddenly realized what she was dealing with. A being from a faraway place, willing to give her pointers about fashion, this was almost as great as having fancy pants himself tutor her in the art of bows.

“O-oh, I hadn’t realized, I'm so sorry, I didn’t know.” She stuttered and bowed apologetically. I pulled her chin up to look into her eyes.

“Oh, it’s quite alright, my dear rarity,” still with the English accent “if I were in your shoe- sorry, hooves, I probably would have reacted the same. Oh and sorry for needing to grab your attention the way I did, it was quite unbecoming of me.”

“oh no, you were just pointing out a flaw that I had somehow made, speaking of which, would you want to stop by the shop sometime and look at the rest of my wardrobe?”

“Not at all, my dear, not at all.”

“Splendid, whenever you get the chance just stop by the boutique and say hi. Tootles!” and with that she was off.

I turned to look at Twilight; she was gaping open with her jaw on the ground. “How did you- when did you- why did you-?”

“Ok, let me explain, I was not totally lying when I said I was known for my fashion, I was always the best looking out of all of my friends, when I noticed that most ponies don’t wear clothes, I thought that she was a clothes designer or high up on the food chain, so to speak, and I thought if I got on her good side, I could get a little something later, maybe a job if this becomes a permanent thing.”

“Yes but did you have to insult her like that?” she asked in disbelief.

“well her dress was a bit off, I would have to say it was made of the wrong fabric, or maybe the pattern was off by only a smidge, oh well, when I go see her later I can find out for myself. And to answer your question, yes. If I hadn’t made her notice me for my knowledge I would just be a weirdo with fashion knowledge, I had to be picky.”

“Whatever, just when you meet my other friends don’t do that, they will either be afraid of you for the rest of your life or pummel you to the dirt. Accept for maybe Pinky.”

I gave her a questioning look “pinky? You mean like the ghost from packman pinky?”

Suddenly a pink pony that smelled of cotton candy popped out from behind a crate and yelled “someone call for me?” and she gasped. “are you new? But wait, ifyournewthatmeansthatihaven’tthrownyouawelcometoponyvillepartyandifihavntdonethatthenineedtodoitandfromyourapearencyouarn’tfromaroundherebecauseihaveneverseenanyonelikeyoubeforesoyoumightneedawelcometoequestriapartyandifyouneedoneofthoseishouldprobablystartplanning, bye Dillon!” and like that she was gone.

“Was that-?”

“Pinky? Yes. She's like that most of the time. But you learn to get used to it. Anyway we should probably get a move on before somepony else shows up.”

“Yeah.” And with that we were off. We spent most of the afternoon grabbing things from different shops and tents. We finished and went back to the tree-house to sleep the night away. It had been a long day and I hadn’t seen Dinky anywhere. I just hoped she had found her mother.

6. I SLEPT WITH A PONY!!

I fell asleep at around 8:30. I could never remember exactly what time I fall asleep at, then again who can? I dreamt about how the ponies would react when they learned how I usually acted. When I woke up I realized that I was acting happier overall. I wasn’t trying to convince myself to commit suicide all the time, I wasn’t always looking down and sad, I was almost cheerful. Damn, these ponies happiness was contagious. But I had a reason to be here. I was going to help rarity with her fashion problem, and I had started to find Twilight had come to like having an extra set of hands around, especially when she needed something done that even she couldn’t do with her magic. Not to mention she seemed to always have a question for me, whether it be about me always wearing clothing or my favorite breakfast food. These things gave me purpose. I felt like I was finally able to help do something with my worthless life and that I could relate to some of the ponies around here. I sat up and realized exactly where I was, but it was too late.

“Mmmm, Dillon?” I realized that Twilight had offered her bed to me and I told her I would sleep on the couch. But I was in her bed. I immediately recalled to my mind what happened the night before and inwardly sighed when I found we didn’t have any fun. I didn’t know what I would do. The last thing I remember was falling asleep on the couch, so I concluded that I had sleepwalked up here and gotten in bed with twilight. But like I said, no fun had taken place. So I decided to screw around a little.

“Yea, baby?”

“What are you doing in my bed?”

I chuckled and said “I don’t know what you remember, but, last night was great.” And at that she shot to an upright position and looked at me with a fearful look. I audibly laughed “HAHAHAHA! Twi, you should see the look on your face! It’s hysterical!” and then I rolled of the bed and hit the floor with a thud, I was laughing so hard. It was only a foot fall so it didn’t hurt too badly, but it still caused her to look over the side to check on her so-called-lover, me still rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off. “Oh, hooooooooo, Twi, I'm just pulling your leg, we didn’t do anything last night, don’t worry. I sleepwalk.” I explained. I sat up and she fiercely slapped my across the face with her hoof. “Ow! Well I guess I had that coming though.”

“You are evil! You had me believe I gave my first time to another species, let alone the fact that I’ve only known you for a day!” I'm actually surprised she didn’t cuss me out.

“Sorry, but I couldn’t help it, I had to, it was still funny, even after the slap! Think of it from my point of view!” I pleaded her.

She had calmed down most of the way “ok I won’t kick you out, only because we didn’t actually do anything and because it was actually kind of funny.” She chuckled a little, which I found almost a little too cute.

“Oh and I didn’t know you were a virgin. Sorry for scaring you so bad.”

She detected the sorrow in my voice “don’t worry about it, if I were to sleep with any other stallion I know, they would probably pull the same prank. Maybe even a few mares.”

I thought this statement over for a minute before deciding to let that dog lie. “Should we go and eat or what, I'm starving.”

“Yea, I guess you’re right.” We went down the stairs in silence to find spike already making eggs and pancakes with some toast.

“Hey Twi, I heard you guys goin’ at it last night. Sounded intense.” He winked at me while Twilights back was turned. He must have heard our conversation upstairs.

She looked at me with a look that rivaled the last one for fear factor. “Hey my memory sucks, we might have.” I said with what I hoped was an honest look on my face.

She ran into the bathroom at a full gallop. I assumed she was checking some things I wish to not go into detail about. She came back out with a small smirk on “you two almost had me there, but I checked, and no, we didn’t.”

“Hey did you have a weird taste in your mouth this morning, it might have been oral.”

“That’s what it sounded like.”

She got that fearful look on her face again, only this time with a touch of green. She ran into the bathroom again and we heard some sick noises over the next fifteen minutes. When she came back out she was miserable looking. “Twi are you ok?” I asked my voice full of concern.

“Yea, I just told myself that I never wanted to do oral. It sounded disgusting in the books I read about it. That’s all.”

“So you’re not mad that we…” I put my pointer and middle fingers twisted around each other in the air.

“No, not anymore.”

“‘Cause you know we’ve been puling your leg the whole time right?”

She looked at me with a look full of hatred “you mean to tell me that I’ve been barfing in the bathroom for the past fifteen minutes for nothing?!?!”

“Um… yes?” she slapped me again, hard.

“YOUSONOFABITCH!” she yelled at me. There was the cussing out.

I smiled sheepishly, just remembering the day before, how scared Spike was when Twi approached him even with a little hostility. ‘I'm gonna die, aren’t I’ I could have sworn at the time her hair was starting to smolder before spike stepped in “hey, hey, hey, you didn't actually do anything, and he didn't know any better, or that you would react like this, and plus it was me who started all of this. Don’t blame Dillon.” At this realization she cooled down considerably. This also calmed my nerves.

“Well I should probably get going, gotta go see rarity. Bye!” and with that I got up off the ground, quickly dusted myself off and rushed out the door before Twilight could say anything.

7. Dress critic

I felt the early morning walk was peaceful. I’ve never had a walk where a car hasn’t honked their horn, or a construction site didn’t have a jackhammer running. Today I couldn’t hear anything, being used to the city, or at least Maine. But I felt at peace none the less. I was half way to my destination when I realized something: I had no clue what-so-ever where the boutique was. ‘shit’ was the only thing I could think as I started to panic, not like ‘oh my god I'm gonna die!’ panic but I guess more like ‘well, what the fuck do I do now’ panic. I looked around; nopony was awake yet, let alone out and about. That’s when a grey mare without any wings or a horn caught my eye. She was rushing between buildings with a roll of tape and what looked to be flyers for something. “Hey, miss.” I yelled at her. She turned her head panting and jumped a little to see what had just called her but she had calmed down when she seemed to realize that that might be insulting to me, whatever I might be. “Can I have some help?” I called to her again and at this she trotted over and proceeded to introduce herself.

“Salutations, my name is Octavia. What is yours?” I noted that she was similar to rarity in many ways. I.e. ‘salutations’, her accent, and her refined manner. Though the later seemed to come more naturally to her than Rarity.

“I am Dillon, as you can plainly tell I'm not a pony, I am human, I mean you no harm, I just wish to know which way to the boutique run by a mare named Rarity.” I said this using the English accent I had used on rarity.

“Oh, well the boutique is just around that corner there,” she pointed in the direction I was originally heading “and down a few blocks. Say you seem to be quite a high placed being yourself, if you know anything that could help with our particular predicament, please give us a call.” She handed me a flyer, “that has all of the things one would need to know to be able to respond. Goodbye” and she galloped off taping the flyers onto buildings again.

I read the flyer until I got to Rarity’s house. I opened the door and a bell rang out. I then heard a voice from back in a room I couldn’t see yell “be there in a second, just wait a minute.” I recognized it immediately as rarity, only about 10 seconds later did she come out and greet me “oh, Dillon, good to see you, I didn’t think that you would be coming so soon.”

“Yes well I would have probably come later if I hadn’t run into… issues at the home. You see, I'm residing in twilight’s tree house. And this morning I woke up in her bed, with her, and I decided to play a harmless prank.” She gave me a suspicious look “don’t misunderstand, we never did anything uncouth, to my knowledge, but she didn’t know that. As you could imagine, she was not happy about my little prank. I apologized and came straight here, for I have nowhere else to be.” The entire time keeping up the act that I had an English accent the whole time, I wonder when I’ll give it up.

“mhmm.” She said in a disbelieving voice and an eyebrow much higher than it should be. “Anyway do you want to come back and take a look?”

I jumped at the chance to see these ponies fashion preferences “Oh I would be delighted.”

And to that we went back and I found that she probably had more clothes than the stereotyped teenage girl, and where I come from that’s something. My mouth gaped a little. “Are we going to look through all of this?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, is that a problem?”

“No, no, I just didn’t know you had so much. That’s all. How much is there anyway?”

“Hmm, about 2000 dresses, 300 capes, and I’d say around 1500 suits.”

My mouth only gaped a little wider. I had never known anyone to own so much clothing. “Well we better get started, shall we?”

“We shall.” She said with a smirk.

God knows how much later we were on the last piece of clothing “this is the dress that you saw me in yesterday; it’s also the last one I have.”

“Great! Ok, let’s take a look.” I gently took the dress out of the unicorns’ magical grip and started inspecting it, feeling the fabric, studying the seams, the cuts, and the folds. Immediately there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, but as I looked closer I noticed there was a piece of fabric folded under a seam, ‘there you are ya little bugger!’ I thought and pointed it out to rarity. “See, this is what felt off.” I quickly took a small blade and cut the seams and unfolded the cloth, then gave it to rarity to sew back. She came back with the finished product. “Ah, perfect.”

“Yes, I would like to thank you for all of your help.” She floated a small brown bag over to me, I took it and opened it to see it was full of small gold coins.

“Um, rarity? What’s the exchange rate here?”

“The what?”

“Sorry, how much is… a 5x5 piece of fabric?”

“What’s the quality?”

“Decent”

“Hmm, about 5 bits.”

“And a 10x10, same quality?”

“10 bits, why?”

I handed her the bag “I can't take this.”

“Why?”

“It’s just too much”

“Oh no, I insist, you really helped me out today, this is the least I can do for you.”

I did the numbers in my head and came out with 1 US dollar coming out at 1 bit as she gave the bag back. How weird is that? “Fine I’ll take… half of this.”

“No, take it all. Please!”

“One third.”

“Two thirds.”

We were now practically touching nose to muzzle, staring intently into each other’s eyes. “One… fourth. Final offer!”

“fine.” And with that she split the coins and put one fourth into the bag, I took the bag, and thanked her on the way out.

9. The history of Earth

“Look, I don’t want any trouble.” I dodged another chair “but I'm truly sorry for what I did this morning.”

“I don’t care about this morning.”

“Then what do you want from me?!”

“I had this day marked off for asking questions and you totally blew it off!” chair.

“I didn’t know you had this day marked off! When did this happen?!” I saw another chair float into the air. “And so help me if you throw that chair at me…” she then put the chair down. “Good, now let’s calm down, the day is still fairly young, we can have our little Q&A all night if you want ok? But first let’s eat; I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

“We never had breakfast.” Spike said matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” To this my stomach rumbled. “Let’s just eat.”

We ate some tomato soup, not my best dinner, but it did the trick.

“Ok, now that I'm well fed, I'm gonna go practice some with the bass, I need it if I'm gonna impress Octavia.”

“You know you’re a terrible liar, right?” twilight must have caught that from how weird that sentence sounded. Geez she’s right, I suck at lying.

“I know.” I looked down in shame. I was actually going to fall asleep on her bed as soon as I could.

“Now for that Q&A. where should I start?”

I detected mockery in her voice so I responded with a smirk “From the beginning might be nice.” Using her words as she had used mine.

“Ok then, the history of your world.”

“What, from beginning to end? How long do we have again?” as I pretended to look for a clock.

“All night, as you said. Or were you lying? Of course, I would have been able to tell. So you were telling the truth, all night.”

“Damn you twilight and your fancy logic.”

“It’s what I do best.” She said cheerfully.

“Well ok then, get comfy, this could take a while. (fyi: if you don’t want a history lesson then just skip to the next chapter, oh and don’t bitch about this in the comments.) During most of history, most humans made their living by hunting and gathering. Then about 12,000 years ago, people in the Middle East learned how to raise a wild wheat plant, and agriculture was born -- another great wave of history. No longer were humans constantly on the move searching for food. People could settle in one place, build cities, and make inventions like the plow, wheel, and writing. The complex societies that resulted are what we call civilization, another wave of history and the start of ancient times. In terms of a human lifetime, waves of change moved slowly, and much stayed the same amid the changes.

Waves of history were channeled over the earth by geography. The first civilizations arose in river valleys where rivers provided fresh water for raising crops and transportation for moving crops to market. Beginning in Mesopotamia, civilization spread west to Egypt and east to India. These three civilizations formed an early international trading network that eventually extended across the connected lands of Eurasia and North Africa, a vast region that lies in a temperate climate zone where most of the world's people have lived since prehistoric times. More people meant more ideas, more inventions, and more diseases than in other parts of the world. Waves of change took longer to reach sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas because they were separated from Eurasia by physical barriers of desert and ocean.

As agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, human population increased. People in civilized societies divided themselves into unequal social classes with priests and kings at the top. Wealthy landowners collected rent payments from poor farmers, men came to dominate women, and slavery became common. In the grasslands of central Eurasia, nomadic people chose not to settle down and raise crops. They lived by herding animals from pasture to pasture with the seasons. They learned to ride horses, developed cavalry skills, and attacked settled communities. Sometimes these nomadic raiders conquered great civilizations.

During ancient times people in Eurasia invented many things that still define civilization today such as money, armies, iron, math, literature, democracy, and major world religions -- to name a few. Ancient times lasted for roughly 4,000 years, ending about 500 AD after nomadic raiders brought down great classical civilizations in India, China, and the Mediterranean. The middle ages followed and lasted a thousand years.

Change spread to new places mostly through trading contacts. Some people welcomed change, while others avoided change and tried to maintain traditional ways. In the late middle ages, China was a superpower with the greatest navy in the world until China's rulers chose to reduce contact with the outside world and dismantled the fleet. This choice opened the door for Europeans to make the great voyages of discovery that connected the world and began the modern era around the year 1500. Change was moving faster now.

Three centuries later, Europeans learned how to power machines by burning fuels, unleashing the Industrial Revolution -- another great wave of history. Change moved even faster. At first, Europeans used their machines to dominate other peoples of the world who lacked advanced technology. Then Europeans turned their machines on each other, launching two suicidal world wars that ended European world dominance.

The stream of time flows on. As always, we humans face challenges to our survival, but in our time the challenges are global. Modern technology is consuming the world's resources, threatening the earth's environment, and it has produced weapons that could end human life. The world is tied together through communications and trade, but the world remains divided between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have not’s.’

(All credit for the explanation of earth history goes here

I take no credit for any of it, I did have to chop some off to make it make sense though. Also I barely skimmed this so if something doesn’t sound right, point it out and ill fix it.)

10. Q&A

Twilight just stared at me. I hadn’t had to explain the history of earth to anyone back in my home town. They all knew, but to tell someone who hadn’t even heard of the planet until just a day ago, I think I did a pretty good job. After about half a minute of staring, she finished absorbing all of the information I had just thrown at her. “That’s not even the specifics, there is so much more in-between.” Her mouth gaped a little wider. I was starting to worry about her jaw, I don’t know how pony mouths work, but if a human were to do this, their jaw would cramp up in a matter of seconds. I reached over and closed it only for it to fall back into place. “*sigh* if you’re just going to sit there with your mouth like that I'm gonna have to tie it closed.” She heard this and closed it immediately, but still didn’t say anything. “Well, since you’re obviously shocked, I’ll ask you a question, hmmm.” I had to think of a good one, I wasn’t much interested in this world, but I would like to know more about twilight “what are you like?”

“W-what, like… normally?”

“Yeah, on a normal day, what are you like?”

“Well, I'm nice, caring, I don’t usually ask so many questions, but think about it, I have a being from another world, I can introduce you to the princess and make her proud.” She had a hopeful face on. I took note, they have a princess, and so is this like a monarchy?

“Wouldn’t it be better if you brought me to the king?” she gave me a confused look “or does the princess take care of stuff like this?”

“What king? We don’t have a king.” Another note, no king.

“Um, I just assumed, because if there’s a princess then there is a queen and king, right?”

“In the many years I have lived in this world, I have never known about any queens or kings. Sorry.”

“Oh, no it’s nothing to be sorry about, it’s just where I come from the king and queen rule over the land and the prince or princess is trained to be the future king or queen.”

“Ah, that makes sense then.”

There was about a 30 second period when neither of us said anything. So I spoke up. “So speaking of parents, what are yours like?” I hadn’t thought about what might come next, after she had answered.

She cheered up immediately “my parents were great, a little pushy at times, but what parents aren’t? what were yours like?” I froze. I suspect my face turned white because she started to look worried “oh, did I say something?”

“No, no, it’s just, where I come from, everyone already knew my parents and I thought I had already told you about them. I just never had to tell anyone who they were, you see?”

“I'm sorry, I must have forgotten. So they’re popular.” She asked, happy that she hadn’t struck a nerve.

“Well, who is the worst pony on this planet?”

She put her hoof to her chin in thought “well, the worst pony would have to be discord, but I'm not sure you can call him a pony. There is princess Chrysalis, but she’s a changeling which is considered a whole nother species. Hmm, I’ll let you pick.”

“Ok, what did they do?” she had forgotten I wasn’t here for the royal wedding or any of the discord incidents.

She facehoofed “discord is a creature of chaos that can do whatever he wants. He turned the sky green and the ground into a multicolored checkerboard pattern, for crying out loud. And chrysalis ruined a royal wedding, to make matters worse; the wedding was my big brothers.”

“Well firstly, my parents ruined more weddings than you could count, and they would do whatever tey wanted, even if it hurt other people. But my parents were not good people, but they were rich so it didn’t matter.”

She was in awe and realized that this was a touchy subject so she changed gears. “W-what kind of education do you have?”

“doctorate.” I said into my hands “my parents forced me to get it. They took me from my original collage and dropped me off at a bigger one.” She didn’t know what a doctorate was but she was almost too afraid to ask, thinking it would somehow relate to my parents and i would get even angrier. But she was a scientist, and she needed to explore all things she did not know.

“W-w-what’s a doctorate?” she put her hooves up fearing that I would strike her. But she didn’t feel any pain; instead she felt my hands on her knees then I lowered her hooves. I looked into her eyes, this moment seemed to last forever… our faces began to slowly move closer… but, just like in all the movies, we snapped back to reality at the last second.

“Ahem, a doctorate is the highest level of education a normal human being can achieve; it’s like being a certified genius.”

Her mouth started to gape again. But was quickly pulled back into place, remembering my comment about tying it shut. “I think that that’s enough for tonight, just get some rest.”

“Ok, good night.” And with that she went upstairs and I lay down. Thinking over what had just happened. ‘Would I really have kissed her? Could I?’ these were not the questions to be asking now, for it was time to sleep, so I used something that I had taught myself all those years ago to fall asleep when my parents just didn’t care and were too busy to put me to bed. And slowly I fell asleep.

My dream was weird. I started in my old apartment, only it was different. Like some things had been moved or were gone altogether. I looked for my safe, the only thing that mattered, I was almost glad to see it hadn’t been moved. I somehow knew this was a dream, but I couldn’t control what I did or what happened. I didn’t want to, but I went to the safe and opened it. When the door swung all the way open I found a little girl, not my stuff, a little girl, she was the same girl from my last dream. “Hello, dinky?”

‘what?’ I heard in the same voice as all the times before, only now it echoed and sounded sad. She also seemed to be crying into her legs.

“Why are you crying?”

‘because of what happened to you’ it tore at my heartstrings that a small girl that I didn’t even know would cry over something that happened to me.

“What do you mean?”

‘your old girlfriend.’ how did she know about this? Who would have told her?

“Dinky, what do you know about that?”

‘everything.’ at that I froze, if she knew exactly what happened then she would hate me forever, or she would try to sympathies with me. Either way, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

“Dinky, who told you this?”

‘YOU did.’ she lashed out in anger, but calmed down again. ‘you told me you were proud of it, too.’ I would never be proud of what I did. Whoever somehow posed as me or whatever is just sick.

“I would never be proud of what happened to her. Never.”

‘it didn’t seem that way when you told me you did it on purpose.’ then it hit me, what if she didn’t know the whole truth. What if the half-truth made him look evil?

“What exactly do you know?”

‘your more of an idiot than a monster.’ why was she acting like I was some sort of weird ass beast? What did I supposedly tell her?

“Please, I need to know, you might not have the entire story.”

‘so you didn’t kill her?’

“No that parts true.” I consider that I killed her because I did nothing to help her.

‘then what does it matter? You’re still a murdering lying monster!’

“Because I did it for her. I didn’t know the outcome.”

‘you didn’t know?’

“No, I didn’t.” I looked down in shame. If I had known exactly what had been going on then I would have done something about it. “I would have had all of the resources I would have needed with only a call.”

‘but why didn’t you?’

“Ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?”

‘no.’

“Well, there was a boy who lived in a small village, this was a very mischievous boy, and he loved pulling pranks and jokes on the other villagers. One day he decided he was going to wander into the woods and yell for help. He did this and when the villagers came he told them a wolf had tried to eat him. This made the other villagers very angry, so they ran into the woods looking for a wolf. When they came back empty-handed the boy laughed at them. This enraged the villagers, and the next day the same boy pulled the same prank, the villagers came in less numbers but still came all the same. When the boy told them a wolf really had tried to nab him, they ran to catch the wolf a second time. They returned with no wolf and the boy laughed again. The third time the boy yelled for help only his parents came, he told them the wolf really really had tried to get him, they ran in search for said wolf. But still came back with no furs or meat of any kind. The boy laughed at their worry, he had fooled them three times and was going for a fourth. The fourth time he was about to call out when he was engulfed in a shadow. This shadow lead back to a hungry wolf, the boy ran and yelled for help. None came. He kept yelling and running but still the villagers didn’t believe him. He was snatched up by the wolf and swallowed whole. And that is the story of the boy who cried wolf.” The entire time that I had been telling the story, dinky had stopped crying, sat staring intently and even laughed at some parts where I threw in an over exaggerated arm motion or made like I was going to grab her.

‘so what does this have to do with you and her?’

“Well I am the villagers, and she was the boy… she cried wolf too many times.”

‘I'm sorry I blamed you.’ she came in for a hug and I accepted willingly.

“It’s ok, I would blame me too.” We just hugged until I woke up to the smell of pancakes, this time before getting up I checked to make sure I was still on the couch.

11. Tech talk with twilight

Good, I was still on the couch, but I was still worried about dinky, was that just a dream, or was it something more? I shook those thoughts from my head. “hey spike, do I smell pancakes?” I yelled into the kitchen.

“Yeah, but they’re not done, you’ll have to wait just a few more minutes.”

“Ok, thanks.” I sat on the couch and thought about questions I could ask twilight when the time came. Then she came down the stairs. ‘think of the devil’ “hey twi.”

“Good morning.”

“Should we eat before we start our Q&A up again?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea.” Just then spike came through the kitchen door.

“Breakfast is ready.” And with that he disappeared again.

“That didn’t take long.” Said twilight, and I followed her into the kitchen. Laid out on the table was three plates stacked high with pancakes.

“Spike, that’s a lot of pancakes.” He looked at me with a ‘no duh’ look on.

“Yep, these three are for me, I don’t know what you guys are gonna eat.”

“Ha-ha spike, gimme that.” And I pulled one of the plates over to my chair, and we ate in silence, just the sound of knives and forks clinking on glass plates.

When we were done me and twilight went back to the library to start our Q&A again.

“So, where were we?”

“I had explained what a doctorate was.”

“Right, the highest level of education.”

“Right…”

“Well, it’s your turn now.”

“Uh… what’s the weather like here, I saw some Pegasi pushing clouds around.”

She perked up a little, she must know a lot about the weather system “the pegasi manipulate the weather, yes, but there are places that don’t need pegasi to move clouds, for example the Everfree forest.”

“Well our whole world acts like the Everfree then, you see, our world is one big spinning ball, this spinning causes wind currents and jet streams that push clouds around, so us humans don’t need to do anything. But sometimes our weather can get rough, like tornadoes or hurricanes, there are also tsunamis and earthquakes but that’s from plate shifting, not world rotation. Your turn.”

“Uh, one sec.” she was busy writing away in her notebook. “There,” she put a period. “Uh, if you don’t manipulate the weather how do you know if it’ll rain?”

“We have machines that can scan weather patterns and tell us if it should rain or not, then we broadcast a signal to these things called televisions in people’s homes to tell them if it should rain or snow or not. Though most of the time the weather people are wrong, which is a shame.”

“What kind of machine tells the weather?”

“I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but it’s very advanced.”

“Advanced how?”

“Um, the circuitry is complex and the programming is masterful.”

“What is a circuitry and a programming?”

“Circuitry is when people take microscopic pieces of metal and place them in a way that lets there be a current so that a computer can run. Programming is when someone takes said computer and gives it a set of instructions to tell it what to do.”

“What’s-”

“That’s enough questions from you, missy, it’s my turn.”

“Fine.” she crossed her hooves and pouted.

“How advanced is this world?” I'm just wondering what I have to work with here.

“Our most advanced machines would have to be typewriters and printing presses, or the cloud making factory, if that counts that is.”

“Hmmm… humans invented the typewriter back in the early 1800s. We replaced them with PCs in 1980 though, so you are in your 1800s, great.” I mumbled to myself

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing, I'm just stuck in a world where its 1823 and the dominant species is Technicolor ponies. That’s all.” I put my face in my hands in thought.

“But we have magic.” Then it hit me.

“Twilight, how fine can you make an object?” I grabbed her shoulders, or the equivalent for a pony.

“Um, fine?”

“How small?”

“Um, extremely as long as I can see it, why?”

“This means I can shoot your species to the future!” I yelled excitedly and picked her up.

“Eep!” I spun around in joy, clutching her to my chest in a bear hug. After a minute of this I set her back down.

“This is great Twi; I can invent the computer, the automobile, the television, and everything in-between. I would be famous!”

“Are you telling me that you know the schematics for stuff like this?”

“I had to design a laptop before I could leave collage with my doctorate, I had created my first engine at the age of 13, and the TV uses the same tech as the laptop, if I could get my hands on a piece of paper, a pencil and a straight edge I would have one done within the week.”

She floated a pencil to me and went looking for a piece of paper that she thought was big enough. When she came back she was holding a ruler and some parchment that was huge in her magical grip “is this big enough?”

I yelled “yes!” I then ran up to her and without thinking took the parchment and kissed her on the cheek then ran back to the couch and started working. She was stunned by this and started blushing heavily. That was her first kiss outside of her family or a ‘boo-boo’ when she was a filly. Even if it was just on the cheek it was a first for her. After I was done with only the outline of the laptop, which admittedly took longer than I thought it would, when I turned to see her in the state I had left her in, shock. “Twi, are you ok?” and that’s when I realized what I had done. “Oh… Twi I'm so sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I-”

She held up a hoof to stop me “don’t worry about it; it was in gratitude, nothing more,” she looked at me “right?”

“Right, gratitude. Yeah.” We both averted our eyes.

“Uh… I’ll be upstairs, reading.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right here, working.” And with that she went upstairs and I went back to work. That was awkward.

12. Meeting dinky

After about an hour I had the screen and the keyboard done, but that was the easy part. I still had all of the internal circuits and the energy source was still biting at the back of my mind. So this was going to be an issue in the future, but that would have to wait because twilight came down the stairs and seemed surprised that I was still working. “Hey Dillon?”

“Yeah?” I responded but didn’t stop drawing.

“Don’t you think you should take a break?” she asked in concern, knowing how stressed she got after working for too long.

“Hmm,” I stopped drawing “I’ve only gotten the screen and keyboard done but I guess I can take a break, as long as I get back to it soon. What did you have in mind?” I looked at her.

“Oh, um…” this caught her off guard, she hadn’t planned anything and was just suggesting a break, that’s when she remembered dinky, I must have seemed like I owed her something. “You wanna go see dinky?”

I jumped at the chance “of course, the little filly that saved me, right?”

“Yes, that dinky.”

“Let’s go then.” And with that we were out the door.

About 15 minutes later we were in the section of Ponyville that was designated for housing. I saw all kinds of houses, ones that looked like they were from the dark ages and some were as modern as the one I lived in. we stopped at one of the older houses and twilight turned to me “this is the doo household.”

“Thanks twilight, I really appreciate It.” and with that I walked up to the front door and knocked. It only took a minute for a cross-eyed mare to come to the door.

“hello.” She said in an overly cheery voice.

“Hi, is dinky here?”

“yep.” We stared at each other for about thirty seconds.

“Can I see her?”

“Nope.”

“Why not.”

“You took her from me and I was scared for a long time before she found me and we went home.”

I was shocked, she actually thought I took her “I'm sorry that she was gone so long, she followed us home because I didn't know where you were, we fed her and she said that she could find her way home," I took a short pause "and she saved my life, I was just going to thank her.”

“Well in that case…” then she slammed the door in my face, I was even more shocked.

I knocked again and again she opened the door.

“What?” she had an annoyed tone.

“I want to thank dinky for saving my life. Can I at least see her?”

"no." the door shut again.

I knocked once more, starting to get the slightest bit angry.

"Please." I begged.

she took a second to consider the options, then said “Fine, since you obviously won’t leave until you do see her,” she turned her back to me and yelled into the house “dinky, you have a visitor.”

From inside the house I heard the voice I had heard in the ally and the dream yell back “who is it.”

The mare at the door yelled back “I don’t know, come look, he says he knows you.”

Seconds later dinky came galloping to the door “Dillon!!” she jumped into my arms and this shocked the mare and me alike “I had a dream where I was in a dark place then you opened a door and told me the story about the colt who cried timberwolf!” this made me think, she didn’t notice the apartment, she heard colt instead of boy and timberwolf instead of wolf. Was this a pony/human thing or what?

“Oh tell me all about it.” I put her down.

“Sure, come inside.” And she started to walk inside but the mare stopped her.

“Now dinky, we don’t invite random ponies into our house.” she talked in the most motherly tone.

“I know mommy, but I know Dillon, he saved me from that dark room.” ‘And you saved me from death.’ I thought.

She looked at me intently, as if deciding what to do next “fine, he can stay, but only for your story.”

“Thanks mommy.” Then Dinky ran into the house gleefully, me and twilight started to walk in but the mare stopped us.

“If you touch her so help me-”

“Don’t worry, I mean no harm.” And with that we all walked in to join dinky on the couch.

She told me the story of the dream we shared, I didn’t tell any of them I had the same dream, I didn’t want to make myself look weird or ruin dinky’s mood.

“Then you said ‘and that’s the story of the colt who cried timberwolf.’ Isn’t that weird? Why do you think that I dreamt about you? Was it a sign that you were coming here today?” she seemed so happy.

“The world works in mysterious ways dink.” And I mussed her mane; this got me a threatening stare from the mare dinky called ‘mommy’, but I shrugged it off.

“Hey, Dillon? Can you come back tomorrow?” I looked at the other mares in the room, twilight gave me a look that said ‘it’s your life’ and ‘mommy’ gave me a stare that said ‘if you come back, your head is mine!!’ but I paid no attention.

“I would love to, dink. But it’s getting kinda late, and I really gotta go, ok?”

“Aw, ok, only if you come back tomorrow though.”

“Ok, I will. Bye.” Then me and twilight were walked to the door by the mare and on our way out I turned and said “oh, wait, we were never properly introduced. Hello, I'm Dillon, the human.” I stuck a hand out for the mare to shake

“And I'm ditzy doo, most people call me Derpy hooves though, I’ve learned to live with the insults though.”

“What insults?”

“The ones about my eyes being funny.” She looked away and I crouched down so that we were at eye level.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“My right eye is off center, a lazy eye.” I pulled her chin to look into my eyes.

“Your eyes are beautiful. The right one being off center just makes you special. Don’t let anypony tell you any different, ok?”

She was stunned; nopony had ever called her eyes beautiful, only insulting names “th-thank you.”

“I'm only saying it because it’s true.” And with that I stood up and I and twilight walked away.

13. The clock maker

As me and twilight were walking I told her to go home cause I had some things to do.

“Ok, but if your late for dinner, you can wait till breakfast.”

“Ok Twi, see ya later.” And with that I started walking more towards the outskirts of town. I didn’t have anything planned for today, the only other thing I had to do at all so far was go and show Octavia what I can do with a bass, and after that maybe play with them if they accept me. So I was actually just going to walk around the town for a while. I had gone about halfway around the circular town when I heard a scream.

“BUCK!!” I wondered if there was something I could do. So I walked around until I found the source. This wasn’t hard because everypony within earshot had the same idea as me, and the ones close enough to see the shop were staring at it. I pushed my way through the small crowd and found that there was a brown earth-pony stallion on the ground being helped up.

“Can I help?” I looked around to see that most ponies had left when they saw that they were not needed.

“Why yes, can you grab that box up there?” I noticed the English accent but decided that I didn’t have to impress this stallion so I didn’t put my half fake one on.

“sure.” I plucked the box off a shelf about 7 feet tall, it struck me that the stallion on the ground had tried to climb and get it. “Why don’t you have a unicorn or Pegasus assistant to help you with things like this?”

“I’ve never had time to get one, and nopony seems interested.” I also noticed this ponies lack of reaction when he saw a human, all the other ponies had at least seen him while he was walking around, but I have never seen this pony before and he acts like he sees a human every other Tuesday.

“Say, aren’t you at least a little surprised to see something like me in your shop?”

“Oh I see humans every now and again.” Thankfully all the other ponies had left before I had asked my question so this info hadn’t gotten to anypony untrustworthy.

“How, as I see it, I'm the first of my kind to enter this world.”

“You’re correct. You see, there is a being called the doctor that comes here now and again to visit, he tells me all about humans and how they act and what they do. He himself isn’t a human though, he’s a-”

“Time lord.”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“Personally, no, I have seen a few of his shows; he goes around in a big blue police box traveling through time and space.”

“Quite, he sees me because he is my counterpart from your universe, or his universe.”

“Ok, that explains the lack of freaking out, but why are your shelves so high?”

“The last owner of this shop was a unicorn, normally I can get up and down without a problem but every now and again I fall on my flank.”

“hey, I have yet to get a job, maybe I can come here and work, I know a little about tech myself.” The box was full of clock parts “maybe I can help you with high places and your line of work.”

“Sure, come here at 3:00 in the afternoon every day and you can leave at 8:00 at night. We’ll work out the details tomorrow.”

"seems good to me." I said with a shrug

“Then it’s agreed.” we shook hand to hoof.

“Yes. But I must get going, I’ll see you tomorrow.” and then I left. That was just a quick visit and I got a job and a friend who knows about humans out of it.

I continued to walk the edge of town when I realized how late it was. Twi wouldn’t let me eat if I got back too late. With that I ran back to the tree house, it wasn’t a long jog but it still winded me. Man I was out of shape. I got back right as they were sitting down to eat. “I see you made it.”

“Yes *pant* I did.”

“Tired are we?”

“Maybe *pant* a little.” I sat down at my seat to eat slowing my breathing a little. “What’s for dinner?”

“Dandelion sandwiches.” I looked to my plate to confirm that there was two pieces of bread with a small pile of grilled dandelions in-between. I thought I would push it away and wait till morning but then my stomach rumbles and I realized that I was hungry enough to eat dirt, so why not eat dandelions? I took one bite and realized that it actually wasn’t that bad, I could get used to these.

“Mmmmmmmmm.” I took at least five more bites before putting it down and sitting back to chew. When that one was finished, being larger than a pony, I asked for seconds, then thirds, then I was content.

“So, should we get back to the Q&A?” she seemed a little eager.

“Why not?” we went to the couch and sat down.

“Ok, I’ll start. Why were you like that to ditzy?” she looked up from her half glasses and notebook.

“Well, she needed it, I had caused her worry and she really was a little cute. What can I say; I can't see a girl sad.” I shrugged.

“Oh, then, that was very nice of you.” She seemed a little more relieved than satisfied, I didn’t know why.

“My turn. Hmmm… what are you interested in?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, activities, clothing, men.” I said ‘men’ with a little more emphasis than the other words, indicating I wanted to know about that most. She obviously caught on to this because she answered my question in order, saving the best for last, if ya know what I mean.

“Well I like the fairs that come through Ponyville every now and again, taking strolls aren’t bad either, I don’t bother too much with clothing, I leave that to rarity, and I like my men tall,” I sat up a little straighter “smart,” I had a doctorate and she knew it “and they have to be romantic.” I gave her a suggestive look. We waited for a second, just staring at each other, then burst out laughing at almost the same time. We both knew that that would never work.

“Oh that was a good laugh, but I was serious, I have found you ponies just a beautiful race, and you are beautiful yourself,” I said that a bit more thoughtfully than I had intended. She blushed with her mouth just barely open.

“If you were a pony that might work, but it just…” she trailed off, we both knew how that would end, and it just wouldn’t work. But when she said ‘if you were a pony’ that put a little hope in my chest.

“Hey, Twi? I know it’s not my turn, but this one’s important.”

“Yeah, sure, what is it.”

“Can we go see the princess soon?”

Twilight was shocked at this; she thought he meant that he wanted to leave. They both knew that the princess had the ability to send him back. Did he really want to leave that bad? “Uh, sure. If that’s what you want.”

I could tell I had hit a nerve of some kind.

“Maybe that’s enough for today. We should catch some shut-eye anyway.”

“Yeah, your right.” She sounded distant and deep in thought.

14. Music tryouts

The next morning I decided I shouldn’t wait for twilight to get up. She didn’t seem happy last night. I really wanted to get back to the computer but I couldn’t be here when she gets up. Then I heard spike in the kitchen. “Hey spike, can you tell twilight that I had to go and do stuff this morning?”

“Yeah, what are you gonna be doing?”

“Music auditions.”

“Oh, ok. Be back for lunch this time, it isn’t good for ponies to not eat lunch three days in a row.”

“Not to mention that I hadn’t had breakfast and dinner some of those days.”

“Yeah.” And with those last words I grabbed a small piece of bread, my bass, and headed out the door.

I had started walking towards the musicians’ apartment when I thought about how my day would go, first I would play for Octavia, I would go back around noon to eat lunch, then I would stop by the workshop, then I should be back for dinner. This day should work out perfectly. I was right too. I had arrived at the apartment when they were just finishing breakfast, they welcomed me in. “hey Dillon, welcome back.” I thanked god vinyl didn’t kick my sorry ass again.

“I assume you had the bits to buy this wonderful instrument.” Octavia was gaping at what I had with me. How could I have afforded such a beautiful instrument on only my second day here?

“Yes, that and a little more.”

“Great, what will you be playing for us today?”

“Oh, um, I didn’t get any sheet music and I never had the time to commit anything to memory.”

“Ok, we have some music books here, how are you at sight reading?”

“First chair, remember?”

“Ah, yes.” I was actually pretty good at sight reading.

She left and came back with a book that had a name on the top, ‘Neethoven’ I just assumed that this was their version of Beethoven “are you familiar with Neethoven?”

“Where I come from he’s called Beethoven, but yes, he was my favorite old time classical writer.”

“Great.” She set the music up on a stand and took a seat. “Whenever you’re ready.” I opened to the middle of the book and found my favorite, Eroica; I was just surprised to see that it hadn’t been changed to something to do with ponies.

“Right.” And I started to play.

I was doing seamlessly; despite the fact I hadn’t picked up a bass since high school, I was actually pretty good.

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“That was beautiful.” They talked amongst themselves for a minute, then tuned back to me “we have decided to give you the job.”

“Thank you.” I was extremely grateful they would accept a human into their little group.

“We will contact you when we have decided on our next performance.”

“Thank you.” I then looked at vinyl and wondered “say, what do you play?”

“I don’t play anything. I'm a DJ.” She said matter-of-factly.

“Show me.” I smirked.

“Fine.” She walked up the stairs and I followed.

In a small room I found her behind two turntables and a soundboard “you ready to get your mind blown?” how did she know to use an explosive reference?

“You bet.” Then she blasted me with at least thirty minutes of the best electronic mix I had heard in a long time. When she was done I approached her, still a high pitched ringing in my ear that I loved so, and I said “let me show you how it’s done.”

“Maybe another time, you don’t have any music do you?” then I realized what she meant, I would never be able to mix music I had never heard successfully.

“Fine, I’ll come back with my own music and show you then.”

“Fine.” I made a mental note to ask the princess for some stuff from earth when I got the chance.

“So, since you have had the chance to see what vinyl does, I assume you were planning on leaving.” When I gave her a questioning look, thinking she had just asked him to leave “of course, if you want to stay I don’t see why not.”

“Oh, no, I was actually planning to get back so I could have lunch.” I looked for a clock and found a digital neon one hanging from the wall to my right, it said 12:07. ‘crap’ I only had two hours to get to the shop, assuming that lunch would take half an hour, Dinky would take another half hour, plus the time to walk to each destination “I should probably get going now.”

“Hey, before you go, what happened to your accent?”

“Yeah, I thought you had a fancy uptight voice last time.”

“Oh, about that.” I had completely forgotten my accent “um… do you know what MPD is?”

“Yes, when you have more than one personality. Why?”

“Some could say that I have a small case, you see I can control when different identity’s can come out.” This was partly true “they are still all me, some are more snarky than others, but I learned to live with them, the one downstairs was my classical music side, I have a DJ side, too.” I gave vinyl a smirk “and I have many more but we can do introductions later, I really gotta go.”

“Ok bye, maybe I can meet the DJ guy next time.” Vinyl gave me my smirk back.

“Maybe.” Then I left, today was actually going better than I thought: I would have time to go eat a fast lunch and have an hour or two to go see dinky.

15. Dinky part 2

I took a quick walk to twilights tree house and had a quick lunch consisting of a small bowl of pea soup and some bread, just enough to fill me up till dinner but not enough for me to be slow when I get to the doo household. I then put my bass away and got some things that I wanted to show dinky. I then waved goodbye to spike and twilight and turned to where I remember the doo house to be. I didn’t want to be late to work today so I walked a little faster than normal. I got to the doo house by 1:15 and I knocked, I heard a voice call out “who is it.” I thought it was ditzy but I didn’t know.

“The pizzacolt!” I yelled back.

I heard an exited gasp and rapid hoofsteps to the door. When dinky opened it I reached down and grabbed her in a bear hug. “Hi there you.” I spun around a little and walked inside and put her down on the couch “what’s going on?”

“But, you’re not a pizzacolt. I thought that mommy surprised me with pizza.”

“Hey, dinky, I'll order pizza when I leave, ok? Now how was your day?”

“It just got a ton better, 'cause you’re here.” She smiled up at me and I smiled back.

“So watcha wanna do first?”

“Oooooo, let’s play hide and go seek.”

“Let’s do it, I’ll stand here and count to 10, you go and hide.”

“Ok.”

She got up and I turned around and put my face to the couch and yelled “one! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! Ready or not here I come!” I turned away from the couch and looked around for a yellow tail or a patch of purple fur. I didn’t see any, she was good, and I wasn’t about to let her win that easy.

I walked around saying stuff like “where is she?” and “is she… here?” I would then lift an upturned basket to find it empty or look behind a corner to see it void of life. I then moved out of the living room and started to wander the house, I looked in each room briefly, checking for the small filly that I was looking for. When I reached the upstairs bathroom I saw a small line on the floor, it didn’t look like it was supposed to be there “hmm…” I saw a small purple hoof zip out and pull the line behind the sink, I then knew she was in here, now to toy with her. “I still haven’t found her,” I walked by her hiding place looking the other way “is she in here?” I opened the toilet seat “nope. Is she in here?” I pulled the shower curtains away quickly “guess not… ah, I know where she is!” I opened the doors under the sink yelling “aha! Dang it. Where could she be?” the entire time I heard small snickers coming from dinky’s hiding place and there was a loud one this time “wait I know!” I stuck my head between the sink and the hamper and found a squealing filly “there you are!” I picked her up again and spun around some more “I found you!”

“Yes you did. Wanna play again?”

“Maybe we should play a different game.”

“Like what?”

“Like tag, let’s go outside.” I snagged a look at the clock and saw it was 1:34, I had time to play a few more games with dinky but then I had to go to work.

“I like tag; can I invite some of my friends to play?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Ok, but we gotta go get them first.”

“Where do they live?”

“Sweetie bell lives with rarity, apple bloom lives with the apple family on the farm, and scootaloo is always off doing something exciting. We shouldn’t have trouble at all.”

“Well the apple family farm is on the other side of town, and the boutique is off to the west so where should we go first?”

“Let’s go to the apple farm and work our way back.”

“Sounds good to me.” And we set off.

After about five minutes of walking we were in the center of town, a question had popped into my head, where was ditzy? I contemplated asking her. If it turns out that she has been out all day we might run into her and she would knock my block off, but if she was home then why didn’t I see her? “Hey dink.”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s your mom?”

“She was out shopping when you arrived. She said she would be back at 1:45.” ‘shit!’

“Maybe we should be getting back, we don’t want her to get home and not find you. We wouldn’t want to worry her, now would we?”

“I guess you’re right. But we never got to play tag.”

“We can play tag next time, ok? But for now we should be getting back.”

“ok.” She looked disappointed.

“Hey, maybe I could buy you an ice-cream or a cupcake. Would you like that?”

She perked up right away “yes please.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Sugarcube corner is always a great place to get treats. Let’s go there.”

“Ok, lead the way.” She started to walk towards a big gingerbread house.

I knew that this world was supposed to be full of rainbows and ponies but really, Gingerbread house? Seriously. We walked into the store and a bell rang. A pink blur shot around the corner and behind the desk.

“Hello and welcome to sugarcube corner!” I knew this voice from a few days ago: Pinky pie.

“Hey pinky.”

She gasped deeply “butyourpartyisntready whotoldyoutocomehere istillneedtohangthestreamersandmakethecakeandmailtheinvitationsand-”

“Pinky!”

“Yeah?”

“We’re just here for a cupcake, go pick one out dinky.”

“ok.” She trotted happily over to the counter and looked at the shelves of cupcakes, muffins, and candy bars.

While she did this I walked up to pinky pie and asked “pinky do you mind if I trade this cupcake for the party? I don’t have any money as of now and I really need to make up for what happened today.”

“Sure buddy, but I’ll need to throw you a party for something. It would haunt me for the rest of my life if I didn’t.”

I thought about this, I didn’t want a pink mare breathing down my neck about parties for the rest of my natural life “well my birthday was just a few days ago.”

“Yay, I’ll throw you a birthday party. And this cupcake is on the house.” She winked at me.

“Thanks pinky, I’ll pay you back somehow.”

“You can pay me back by letting me throw you a party.”

“Sure, pinky. I’ll do that.” And we left with the cupcake.

16. ADHD at work

We left the sweet shop and I walked dinky home. When we got there ditzy still wasn’t there. I thanked Celestia ‘did I seriously just thank Celestia?’ I then walked back to the tree house to kill some time. Only at 2:50 did I realize that I had dozed off and slapped myself awake. If I didn’t run I would be late. So I did just that. I sprinted to the clock repair place. Getting there I thought what was a few minutes after 3:00.

I composed myself and stepped inside the shop to have a wrist watch shoved in my face “take this.”

“A gift, for me? You shouldn’t have.” I was surprised that he was giving me a free watch, but why?

“I won’t have you being late again; this watch is on-time. If you’re late again it will come out of your pay.” He was surprisingly serious.

“Hey sorry, it won’t happen again. I promise.”

“I’ll keep you to that promise.” I took the watch and put it on, it fit comfortably. What pony makes a watch for a human, or was this meant for a human. Oh well.

“So where do we start?”

“How about your pay.”

“Sure, how much a week?”

“How much do you want?”

“What will I be doing?”

“Helping with whatever I require.”

“Hmmm… how about 250 bits a week?” that’s about how much I had gotten at the McDonald’s.

“Seems fair.”

“Ok, what’s next?”

“That was it. We just get to work now.”

“Watcha need done boss?”

“Just grab a broken clock and fix it, when your done with that do it again. That’s all I really do all day.”

“Oh.” I picked up a clock, examined it, found a jammed gear, repaired it, and put it back. I found a fixed at least eight other clocks in the next hour. I looked over to the stallion and thought ‘I don’t even know this guy’s name’ “hey, who are you anyway.”

“Huh? Oh, we haven’t been introduced yet, that’s the longest I’ve gone without knowing someponies name and working with them. I'm time turner, most ponies call me turner, I also respond to time lord, clockwork, doctor, father time, and other time related names.”

“Greetings turner, I'm Dillon Rogers.” I hadn’t had a negative reaction in any way from the ponies until now. He burst out laughing.

“Ok, Mr. Rogers!!”

“Alright, laugh it up, I can take it. You know, you’re the first pony to laugh at my name so far.”

“Oh really, well I'm the only one that knows who Mr. Rogers is. So that shouldn’t be a surprise. I do apologies though. It was immature for me to laugh at your name.” he said still chuckling

“Oh, don’t worry about it, that’s the least ridicule I've ever gotten from someone who actually knew the show.”

“Speaking of shows, I also know about ours.” he had finished laughing.

“Ours?”

“No, ours, my little pony: friendship is magic.”

“Pardon.”

“You aren’t a brony, are you?”

“You know my friend said the same thing before I left earth. I’ll give you my response ‘a what?’.” I said the exact same way I said it back on earth.

“Never mind, there is a show in your universe that is basically our lives. More specifically a pony named twilight sparkle.”

“Are you telling me I'm living with a TV star?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“Wow.”

“Yep, nopony else knows about this though, so don’t go blurting it around, ok?”

“Got it.” and then we both got back to work, the clock fixing got a bit boring after a while though. I was wondering if I could play some music to pass the time better, then I remembered I didn’t have my music with me. ‘*moan* I can't take this, ADHD kicking in, FUCK.’ “I need entertainment. Do you mind if I take a short break?”

“Sure, just come back before 5:00; we still have a large amount of clocks that need to be repaired.” I looked at my watch; it was around 4:30. I had 30 minutes to get to the other side of town and back. Crap.

“No problem.” I then left calmly and as soon as I was sure I was out of sight of turner I started to sprint to vinyl’s house.

I banged the door with my fist. “VINYL, VINYL I NEED YOUR HELP!” I was in desperate need of music and my best bet at anything portable was vinyl.

She opened the door and asked “what ya need-” then she saw the crazed look in my eye. “You ok?”

“Just fine, do you have anything that I could take to work to listen to music?”

“Yeah, just let me go get it.” she left and came back with a little ear bud. “This is a device that can take music you know and play it. Just think the name and it will start to play. You can think random and it will search your mind for a song it thinks fits the mood of the room or the ponies you’re with. Or if it can't tell it’ll just snag a random song.”

I was fairly impressed that they had something that could do something like that. Although this world is magical. She hooved it over and I stuck it in my ear, then I thought ‘supersonic by pearl jam’. To my delight I heard the first notes as clear as if they were playing right next to me. Then I realized something else: It was as loud as if they were playing right next to me, with at least 20 amps each, all turned up as high as they can go. I fished the bud out of my ear as fast as I could. “Is there a way to turn the volume down?”

“Dude, it does what you think, I'm sure you can figure it out.” I put it back in my ear and thought volume down. It lowered a little; I continued this thought until it was bearable.

“And you’re sure I can take this?” as a response she spawned five more in my hand.

“Yep, I got at least twenty of my own, and when they break I just make new ones.”

“Ok, thanks.” Before I left I thought ‘random’ and it must have known I was with a girl or something because it started to play this song:

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Then I sprinted back to the shop. When I got there I calmed down before entering. I was a whole five minutes early, so I wasn’t in trouble or whatever.

“How was your time out?”

“Ok, turner. What did I miss?”

“Nothing, but I am having a bit of trouble with this one, I was wondering if you could help me.” I walked over and saw one of the most complex pieces of machinery, that wasn’t computerized, I had ever seen.

“What is that?”

“Just one of the worst cases of overclocking I have ever seen, this is too complex for me to even begin. Where is the friggin face?” I took a closer look and noticed that in the center was a small box, I thought that this was a bit weird how the whole thing wasn’t covered in a box, but I just passed it off as a power source of some kind. Then I saw something I thought I would never see…

17. The Doctor

Before I even had time to try and find the face a blue box slowly faded into existence. This wasn’t any blue box; this was a big blue police box. Then a man walked out and my jaw dropped. He walked over to the contraption and waved a small stick that looked like some sort of green laser pointer, it made a wiring noise and he picked up the device and carried it into his blue box, the contraption wouldn’t have been able to fit but somehow it had fit in without resistance, as if the box was bigger on the inside. “oh, I didn’t know there was a homosapien in this universe, I haven’t taxied any over at all, unless another me from another universe did, or maybe the only other being that both knows of this universe and has the power to move through space and time like me did. Say chap, do you know princess Celestia?”

“I-I-I- you- but- n-no sir, I’ve been planning on seeing her soon though.” He looked almost confused.

“Then how did you get here, surly your species shouldn’t have invented a way for at least the next 287 years, do you know a doctor?”

“Um… I know a doctor, but he’s only on a TV show.”

“So that means that you-” we all heard a loud *ding* come from the blue box “hold that thought, I’ll be right back.” He jumped in the box, shut the door, then the box faded out.

“Was that who I think it was?”

“Yes.” Said turner with a matter-of-fact tone.

“And he comes here often?”

“Yep.” Now he was almost proud. Before either of us could say anything else the box came back.

“How long has it been?” asked the doctor as he stepped out.

“About 15 seconds.” Replied turner “you’re getting better, doc.”

“Blast, I was aiming for at most 10. Oh well, now who did you say you were?” he asked me. I was still stunned that he was real, how many people would freak if I told them their idol was actually out there saving their buts every Thursday.

“I am Dillon; it’s a great honor to meet you.” I shook his hand.

“So you know who I am and what I do.”

“Yes sir.”

“And you know when and where you are.”

“Somewhat.”

“Where?”

“Equestria, more specifically, Ponyville.”

“When?”

“Around the same time as my world,” when he gave me a look that said ‘more info’ I said “around July 13th.”

“Good. Now, do you know what you had in your shop a minute ago?”

“No, but I have a feeling you do.” Turner responded.

“Quite, it was an alien explosive device; it could level this side of the planet if you had touched that box in the center. I am telling this to you so that if in the future you receive something similar you will not touch it until I arrive.”

“Of course, but might I know how to disarm such a thing in case you are on more important business.”

“Indeed.” He then handed turner a scroll that had the disarming instructions for a bomb of similar design. “I shall be off, but I would like to stop by some time to chat, Dillon. Allons-y!” and with that he jumped into his blue box and disappeared.

“Well, should we get back to work?” tuner snapped me out of my trance.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I got something to keep my ADHD in check.” And I pulled out one of the ear buds vinyl gave me “this should keep me busy for the next few hours at least.”

“Good, let’s get to it then.” I put one ear bud in and put it on random and heard ‘Linkin Park’s breaking the habit’, and then we got to work, finishing 10 more clocks in the next hour.

When the day was done we went our separate ways, the doctor hadn’t come back but I was still hopeful for the future. I took a leisure walk to the tree house, I probably should have sped up when I saw that the sun was going down but what’s the rush? When I got to the door I remembered what happened between twilight and me last night and I contemplated just leaving for the night. But then I realized that I would have to deal with it sooner or later. So I walked in like nothing had happened at all, like I had never asked to see the princess. I still didn’t know why she seemed so sad when I asked to see the princess. Maybe she and the princess were on bad terms right now. Whatever had happened I would stand by her, she was my friend and if she needed my help I would help her. Maybe I should ask her why she seemed so sad though, I could try to help “hey twilight!” I called into the house from the main library area.

“Yeah?” she was obviously in a better mood, and she was in the kitchen.

“Just wondering…” around this time I was having second thoughts about bringing the mood to a steep drop so I continued with the second thing on my mind “what’s for dinner?”

“Apple fritters. Come in and have some.”

“Sounds delicious.” And I walked in to see an orange pony with long blond hair tied at the end, freckles, and a Stetson hat. “Well hello there. Who might you be?”

“Ah'm Applejack, but most ponies call me AJ.”

“Dually noted. Not that I don’t love company but why might you be here?”

“ah was o’er ‘ere ‘cause ah heard there was somepony new ‘round and it looks like ah jus met ‘im. Then ah decided cause ahm a’ready ‘ere wah not make em a little somin as a welcome gift?”

“You’re quite right, I'm Dillon, and I really appreciate your gift, please stay to eat with us, I would love to learn more about you.”

“Why, thank you kindly.” I sat down and started to slowly eat an apple fritter while listening to applejack talk about herself. She wasn’t gloating or anything, she was the most modest little thing I’ve seen in a long time. She talked about how she met twilight, how she got her cutie mark, how she lived on the farm, her family, and everything in between. When she was done she asked “what about you? Ah’d love to ‘ear more ‘bout you.” She leaned forward in emphasis.

“Well, my background is not the best. You see my parents were not the best, my living conditions were that of the higher ups, my learning environment was terrible, and my life has sucked ever since I left my first collage. I'm sure you don’t want to hear the details of something so sad.”

“Oh, ahm sorry if’n I said sum’n to gecha down, but I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine, applejack.”

“Ah told ya’ll, call me AJ.”

“Ok, AJ.”

“Well, its getting purdy late, I shud be heddin back for mah bruther thinks ahm doin somin wrong. Bye, Dillon.”

“Bye, AJ.”

19. Computers

The next morning was better than the last. I hadn’t woken up in twilight’s bed, so I could get up without waking her, plus after the first time I'm not sure I want to. But I’ve grown increasingly attached to twilight. I don’t know what it is but she just connects with me. Maybe it’s because she is so smart, maybe I'm just going crazy. But I don’t want to leave her. I just… don’t understand. That’s all.

This morning I got a letter via spike that said that Octavia and vinyl had a date for my first concert; they also sent me some music to learn. I practiced with a towel between the strings as to not wake twilight. When she did finally come down she expressed her gratitude by making breakfast. While she was busy I took the towel out and started to actually play, before it was just to get the finger motions down.

Then a thought came to my mind, how does Octavia play. She had explained who I was playing with and what they played in the letter, and she said she played the cello, how does that work? She doesn’t have fingers. She couldn’t grip the bow or press the strings down. I would have to ask next time I saw her. I played for another 5 minutes until twilight called “breakfast is ready!”

“Be right there.” I put my instrument down and walked to the kitchen.

“I heard you playing, I think it’s beautiful.” She said as I sat down.

“I didn’t pick it out. Octavia did.” This was true, but she had picked out other songs, too.

This was the softest of the group and I thought twilight wouldn’t appreciate it if I played something like that. I would have to find a different time to practice the other more... exotic songs.

“Well, you still played it. So that’s all that counts in my book.” she smiled sweetly.

“Even if the princess picked it out?” I knew how she idolized the princess from how she talks about her.

“If the princess picked it out I would ask you how you got her to do it. She isn’t one to choose sides, especially with music.”

“Heh,” we ate for a few minutes when I thought of something “can I write a letter to her?”

“I don’t see why not, I haven’t been able to get a time to meet her yet so maybe we can talk that way for the time being.” She went to fetch a quill, some parchment, and spike. She came back with the three and set them down from her magical grip.

“Don’t you get annoyed when she does that?”

Spike smirked “you get used to it. What is it that you wanted to write?”

“Well, I just wanted to ask if she could pick some stuff up for me.”

“You want the princess to run errands for you?” twilight asked in disbelief.

“Ok, do you know the way to my old apartment, on my old world, in a dimension that I'm pretty sure nopony can reach but her. I didn’t think so…" I realized how that sounded a little too late "sorry, I just… sorry.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were talking about your world. I didn’t mean anything.”

“Back to the letter, got anything for something like that, spike?”

“What do you need?”

I looked up in thought “my iPod, my laptop, my external hard drive, and if possible some form of internet access.” I looked back to them and saw their looks of confusion “just write it down, she should understand.” Spike did and sent the letter. Only a few minutes later a package arrived at the door marked ‘for Dillon’

“Ok, even for the princess, that was fast.” Twilight opened the box to reveal a laptop, an iPod, and my external hard drive, along with a small box with an on/off switch “I assume you know what all this stuff is.”

“most of it,” I pulled out my iPod “this is my iPod,” I pulled out my laptop “this is my laptop, this is what I was designing and speaking of now I can work on it more efficiently,” then I pulled out my external hard drive “and this is my external hard drive. That last box is new.” I picked it up to reveal a letter under it.

Spike plucked it out of the box and read off “I thought you might want these sooner or later so I sagged them two nights ago. I did take your safe but that was too big to fit through simple shipping, so I'm having it be delivered to twilight’s tree house. I wish you all the most of luck. Celestia. again, wow.”

I took the letter from the dragons’ hands “she has my safe?!?”

“You had a safe?” twilight knew about safes, but those were mostly used for saving large amounts of money or precious things, not for personal use.

“Yes I did, and it holds my most precious memories.” I hope it got here soon.

“Well, let’s see what exactly is on here.” Spike was on the couch and he opened the laptop to see a small square in the middle of the screen “what’s this?”

I took the laptop from him and typed in a few keys and the laptop opened up to window 7 start screen. There was another password lock here. I typed in the second password and the desktop opened up. On the desktop I had a ton of crap, it was really disorganized, but that’s how I lived. I just didn’t care. I had everything from Skype to internet explorer to my DJ system. “wait.” I put the laptop back on the table and walked over to the box. I moved all of the packing peanuts to uncover my headset, this was my baby, it cost a ton, and it had great bass.

“Oooooo, what does this do?” spike moved the mouse over to a folder named music. Clicked on it and opened a file called wub-wub. The speakers were kinda crappy so the sound didn’t come out quite right. So I went ahead and plugged the headset in and stuck it on spikes ears, he listened for a minute to the constant ‘wub wub wub’ of the speakers and then took it off “what in Equestria was that?”

“That was a wub-wub noise. I use it when I need that kind of sound.” I smirked as he put the headphones back on and started clicking on different songs. I pulled one headphone off “don’t scratch anything or I will kill you, this thing is my baby.”

The little dragon gulped at the big humans’ threat, completely forgetting that he can breathe fire and defend himself “Y-yes sir.”

20. "Feelings"

Spike stayed on my computer for the next few hours just going through the thousands of songs on the external hard drive I set up. I was looking at the new box when I thought to turn it on, what’s the worst that can happen? She wouldn’t send me anything dangerous, would she? I flipped the switch and spike went “oh, hello there, what are you?” I went to see what he was talking about and he pointed at the Wi-Fi connection at the bottom of the screen. It had full bars. I assume that the box was an internet connection.

“Ok, spike, I need to do a few things with this, ok? It shouldn’t take too long.” He whined but gave it up. I immediately went to the internet explorer and put a password on it, I didn’t want the ponies or spike to look up anything dirty or wrong. I don’t want to be responsible for a filly or colt to become like that “And done. Here you go spike.”

“What did you do to it?”

“Nothing that concerns you. You can still look through that folder I showed you but I don’t want you to wander from it, ok?”

“Why?”

This was the question that children had been asking since before time “well, I have some stuff on here that I don’t want you to see.”

“You mean like sex?”

I was actually surprised he knew what it was “you know about that stuff?”

“Yep, I have for a while now.”

Twilight yelled from her room “a month!”

“A month is a long time, though.” Spike retorted.

“Not really!” twilight said with a touch of mockery.

“But yeah, I know about that stuff, and I don’t see what’s so wrong with it. It’s just the circle of life.”

“Well you don’t need to be looking at what I’ve got on here so don’t go snooping.”

“yessir.” And he gave me a solute.

I was looking through my iPod for the good songs I had, I realized that I had more songs on here than the last time I used it, I hadn’t even transferred some of these from my computer. Then about halfway down I looked at the clock at the top of the screen, it had been 2 hours, and my battery life was full, that shouldn’t be right, but I won’t argue. The worst thing that could happen is it runs out of batteries and I’ll have to charge it, then I realized the one fatal flaw in my plan, I didn’t have my charging cable. Then it struck me, if Celestia knew I would have to charge it she would have sent the cord, but if she knew I didn’t have to charge it she wouldn’t need to “hey twilight.”

“Yes?”

“Can you enchant something to have a seemingly unlimited power source?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Could Celestia?”

“What do you think?”

“Oh, right.” I then had my answer: Celestia had given it an unlimited battery.

I looked through my iPod until spike grew board of human music. It was 2:30 so I grabbed my buds and went to work. When I had gotten there I was greeted by turner who was approaching the door, I looked at my watch and noticed that I was thirty seconds from being late. “I see the time piece is getting you here earlier.”

“Yep, I thank you again for giving it to me.”

“Oh trust me, it was for business benefit.”

“sure.” With that he unlocked the door and walked in. I followed and we immediately got started. We weren’t ones to waste time. We fixed clocks until 8:00 then I went home. It was a pretty standard day so far. I didn’t know that was about to change or I wouldn’t have gone home. (I have recently noticed that I have begun to refer to the tree house as home. I think I'm becoming attached to this place.) When I arrived home I had gotten a greeting from spike. He seemed like he was a bit stunned, like he had seen a ghost. “Spike, you ok?”

He gave me a fearful look like I was accusing him of doing something “oh, yeah, I'm fine. Heh-heh.”

I gave him a suspicious look “are you sure?”

His look of fear grew worse “yep.” His voice was an octave higher than usual.

“Hmmm…” I walked to my laptop and opened my recent places folder and found he had opened all of my worst folders. Why didn’t I put a lock on that too? “Spike, I told you not to wander.”

“I know but I saw a folder named ‘funny pics’ and I thought that was a good laugh so I wondered what else you had on there and I found the other folders and I, um… I didn’t know half of that stuff was possible.”

“*sigh* do you now understand why I didn’t want you snooping?”

“Yes. But please don’t tell twilight.”

“Tell me what?” twilight had gotten done with a small stack of books and was coming down for some more when she heard spikes statement. I assumed she hadn’t heard the rest of the conversation. Spike started to stutter and freak out, but I played it cool.

“Spike has a crush.”

“What?! No I don’t!”

“Don’t deny it.” I gave him a wink.

“Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Who is it, I know about your rarity crush, but you wouldn’t be so secretive about that with me, so it must be somepony different, so who?”

“Sweetie bell.” I said instantly and I saw spike blush. You think it would be hard to see blush on a purple dragon but he made it easy enough.

“b-b-b-bu-but-” I gave him another wink “Fine, I’ll admit it, she is kinda cute, like a mini rarity.” Either spike was the best liar in existence or he was telling the truth. I stuck this in the back of my mind for later.

“Ok, spike, go start dinner. I need to talk to Dillon.” The dragon gave a silent solute and walked into the kitchen. He looked like he was somewhere between getting something off his chest that was big and relief that he dodged a huge bullet.

“Watcha need to talk about, Twi?”

“I was just wondering about this feeling I have been having lately…”

“What would that be?”

“Oh, just forget about it.” I grabbed her hoof as she tried to get up and leave.

“Twi, I don’t know how it works here, but back on earth if you told someone to ‘forget about it’ that’s all they’ll think about for the next week. You would be making it a lot easier on me if you just told me. If it’s bad we can talk about it. I promise I won’t think any less of you.” And with that she sat back down.

“You promise?”

“I promise.” I gave her a reassuring smile.

“Ok, then, here goes nothing…”

21. Relationships are confusing

“Well I was just… I just… I don’t know how to explain it.” I could tell how serious this was, whatever is was.

“Ok, let’s look at it like scientists. What is the cause and reaction?”

“Let’s see, whenever I see you I get a little weak all over, my heart skips a beat or two, I get the feeling of pressure between my rear legs, and I can't stop thinking about you.” Now you all might be thinking she made it real obvious what she was trying to say, let me say now that I dumbed it down for all of you. I'm not calling you dumb; there just might be some readers that wouldn’t understand what she actually said. She actually used a ton of really long and scientific words that I understood perfectly... but she didn’t know that.

My response was something to the effect of “I see. Are there any other things you would like to tell me about?”

“no.” she was obviously embarrassed by what she had just said, even if she thought I didn’t understand it.

“Well then, either you have some weird disease that I know of back on earth, or you’re in love.”

She looked at me with surprise. She thought I didn’t understand and that I was just playing along. “y-you got all of that?”

“Clear as day.”

“You’re smarter than I thought.”

“I’ll take that as a complement.” I said happily.

“So what do we do now?”

“Well, I need to confess something, too.” she looked at me; I was staring at the table “you’ve kinda grown on me, too.” I looked her in the eyes “is this what you want?”

She looked like she was about to burst with joy “yes!!” and she jumped and hugged me around the neck “I even pulled this book out, ‘relationships 101’.”

I took the book from her “we don’t need this.” I looked at her, she looked like she was about to freak from panic “but if you feel more comfortable, we can give it a read.”

“Great, I already got the first chapter down.”

“And what would that be?”

“‘Manipulating him.’” I gave her a questioning look, then turned to chapter one. Sure enough, it was called ‘Manipulating him’.

“Why you-”

“You said we could read it, were you lying? But I would have noticed, so I guess you weren’t.” she used that drastic point again. She smirked while I scowled.

“fine.” Then we started to read chapter two, ‘how to start’ this proved to be helpful, it told us what questions to ask about each other, our interests, our do’s and don’ts, and other very important questions that proved how little I actually knew twilight. We finished chapter two and read on until dinner was ready at 9:00. When we finished we went back to reading the book.

We got to chapter five and we had established comfortable hugging status and were decided on what to do in the next week according to our favorite activities. Then chapter five was kissing. Twilight had begun to blush “twi, if you want we can save this one for later.”

“That would be great.”

“Ok,” I turned to the next chapter and then slammed the book shut “I think that’s enough for tonight.”

“Why? I thought we were just going to skip kissing.” she looked a little worried.

“Yeah, beyond kissing is… other activities I don’t think you would want to do before kissing.”

She started to blush a little brighter “oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess we can try kissing.”

I looked at her “are you sure you want to rush it? I’ve had some pretty fast relationships with some girls where they went to quickly and it ended abruptly.”

“I wouldn’t mind trying it.”

“Ok, only if you’re sure.”

“I'm sure.” And with that we started to lean closer until we were only a few centimeters away from each other’s lips. Then contact was made. I don’t know why but my mind played the sounds I heard as a little boy, the ones of the first man on the moon. ‘That’s one small step for man… and one giant leap, for mankind.’ ‘How true that is.’ then my brain sort of stopped working as I focused on the kiss.

It was a closed mouth kiss, nothing special, something you would expect two middle school kids to do. Then the unthinkable happened. Spike had been aroused from sleep by the noises of us talking downstairs and was curious when the talking stopped. He had come down the stairs quietly and scanned the area. He saw us on the couch kissing and put a claw to his mouth to muffle the noise that would come out. I noticed the little guy and pushed twilight away quickly. Wrong move.

“Oh, Dillon, was it uncomfortable? Did I do something wrong? Am I just that bad? Oh you probably don’t like me anymore. I'm so sorry I dragged you into this. I'm so bad.” She put her head between her hooves.

“Twi, that was great, but we have company.” I nodded towards the stairs. She looked to where spike was still staring at them, shocked out of his own scales.

“YOU LITTLE-!!” she jumped up and ran towards the stairs. Spike ran to their room and locked the door. This gave me enough time to catch up to twilight and pick her up. “PUT ME DOWN!! ILL KILL THAT LITTLE DRAGON!!”

“Trust me Twi, he’s not worth it.”

“Fine.” she was obviously still really angry.

I whispered into her ear “but we will get him back later.”

She smiled devilishly, quite out of character for her, but it disappeared after a moment. “Ok, spike, I'm coming in now. I'm not angry I just want to talk.” She unlocked the door and walked in to find spike scribbling a letter down. He saw her enter, panicked, and lit it on fire. “SPIKE!! WHAT WAS THAT!?!?” twilight was enraged again.

“Just a letter to the princess. She told me to tell her when you found a special-some-pony. Don’t hurt me.” He curled up into a ball and squealed the last part.

“YOU ARE DEAD!!” she started to stomp forward but I grabbed her, spun her around, and gave her a real kiss.

22. The next chapter and the next day

She was surprised and tried to get away at first but gave in after a few seconds.

We came up for air “Feel better?”

She panted as the string of saliva connecting our mouths dissipated. “Yeah.”

I put her down on her hooves and as soon as I let go she started to sway, I caught her before she fell to the floor “are you ok? Do you need anything?”

“I'm fine. But Dillon…”

“Yeah?”

“I think I'm ready to try the next chapter.” I just about fell over this time.

Was she really ready for that? Did she know what she just said?

“a-are you sure? I don’t want to rush this. Remember what happened the last time I rushed things.”

“I get it. You don’t want me. Ok, if I'm not pretty enough, or if I'm not your type, or whatever the reason, I-”

“Twilight, you know none of that’s true.”

“Then why, that girl obviously didn’t love you like I do, she probably just wanted to sleep with you!”

“Um, twilight.”

“What?”

I nodded towards spike “if we’re gonna have a talk like this, can we have some privacy?” I asked this to twilight but spike ran out and shut the door before she could do anything.

“You must not love me. You were probably just using me for the same reason as that girl used you.”

“Twilight, you know that’s not true.”

“Do I? I’ve known you for a few days now and you’re already saying that I know something that I wouldn’t be able to tell if I knew you for a few weeks.”

“Twilight, I really do love you.” I dropped to my knees, putting her at eye level “and if this is really what you want, I’ll do it.” she smirked “what?”

“I still got it.” she winked.

“Gaaahhh!” I was getting annoyed by how much she could do that, and how I would fall for it every time.

“And you didn’t sound like you were lying. So you weren’t.”

“Twi, I'm serious. Are you sure you want to do this?” I looked her in the eye.

“With all my heart.” She smiled genuinely. I smiled back. Then she walked to the bed “shall we get started?”

I was feeling unsure about the whole ‘sleeping with a pony’ thing. But this was a pony that I had been living with for the past few days. I was actually starting to like her, her mind was obviously the best around. I liked her before, but only now do i realize it. I still wonder how it went from hugging to this so fast. “Yes we shall.” And with that I joined her on the bed.

I woke up in bed with twilight next to me. I wasn’t afraid she was going to rip my face off when I told her about last night. She knew as well as I did that it happened. Hopefully she won’t be mad at all. I still got up without trying to disturb her. I didn’t want a tired twilight later today, and I didn’t want to arouse her from any dream she might be having. It looked peaceful.

Right as I thought I was in the clear and about to get out of the bed she woke up and saw me trying to leave “why are you trying to get out of bed like that?”

“Well, you see, you looked like you were having a pleasant dream and I didn’t want to disturb you. That’s all.”

“Oh, the dream,” she got a grim look on her face “it was actually a terrible nightmare.”

“Oh no,” I sat down next to her “what was it about, why was it a nightmare?”

She came in close and whispered in my ear “you weren’t in it.” then she kissed me passionately.

We came up for air “that sounds terrible.” We went back in, Spike opened the door and looked in to see us in our current state; again I noticed the small purple dragon before her “Hey spike, what’s up?”

“Oh, nothing, I just thought you guys might want to know breakfast is ready.” he obviously wasn't used to us like this.

“Thanks.” Twilight yelled back then shut the door with her magic, rather hard I might add “but for now you’re all mine.” She gave me a devilish smile, I gave her one back.

23. Her first date

After about an hour of waiting we went downstairs to eat breakfast. Spike was ready, he had a three course meal set up for us, with candles and everything “wow, spike, this is the best breakfast you’ve made yet.” Twilight was amazed, this amazed me.

“Well, seeing as you two haven’t been on a real date before you- ahem, you know what I mean; I just thought this would be a good for you two.”

“Thank you spike,” and in a whisper only he could hear I said “I owe you one.”

“It was my pleasure.” And with that he walked away. He came back with a little waiters outfit on. He whipped out a little notebook “I am spike and I will be your waiter this morning, what will you be having to drink?” I was surprised how refined his voice was.

“Uh, what is there?” twilight must also be surprised.

“There is water, apple juice, and a fine wine I think you both would absolutely love.” Twilight looked a bit embarrassed, like a secret she had been holding was released.

“We’ll take the wine, thank you.” I made the decision for us.

“Great choice, sir.” And he walked away, only to come back with two wine glasses “just call when you’re ready to order.”

“Will do.” Twilight said, obviously recovered from her shock.

Spike walked away and we were left in an awkward silence. I looked to my wine glass, then to the fine table cloth, then to the candles. I lost myself in the flame for a moment, then twilight spoke up “so, what should we talk about?”

“I have no clue, we already know quite a bit about each other from our talks before now. I don’t quite know what is popular here either.”

“Maybe we should order then.”

“good idea, um, spike?” the small purple dragon walked through the door as if he was standing right behind it, waiting for his name to be called.

“Yes, sir?”

“I believe we are ready to order.” Twilight told him.

“Excellent, what will you be having?”

“I’ll be having some pancakes.”

“And for you, sir?”

“I’ll have the same.”

“Perfect, two orders of pancakes coming up.” And he walked back into the kitchen.

“Why is he like that, why didn’t he just make us breakfast?” I asked twilight.

“I don’t know, I never really brought any stallions home, and I never really met any I liked in the first place.” She looked down in shame.

I pulled her chin up “that isn’t an issue, we all had a first time, and I'm honored that your first time is with me.” She smiled at my reassuring statement.

Right about then spike came back in with pancakes steaming hot “pancakes for the lady and for the man. Have a good breakfast, just call if there are any issues.” He stepped behind the door a final time.

“Well, I guess we should dig in.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue this awkward conversation.

“I guess we should.” And with that we both swiftly ate our pancakes.

“That was delicious.” Twilight sat back in her seat.

“Yes it was.” I did the same.

Spike came back, grabbed our plates and glasses and said “all expenses are paid for, have a nice day.” And he went back into the kitchen.

“Well I should get going, I have a ton of things to do today, I hope you don’t mind if we go and do stuff tomorrow, do you?” i gave an apologetic smile.

“Oh, no, I know how busy you are, you can go and do that stuff, just remember to keep your promise for tomorrow, ok?”

“ok.” And then I left, heading for the first place that I wanted to go that day.

The doo household.

I arrived around 10:00 and knocked on the door “who is it?” ditzy was home, at least this time I didn’t have to sneak her back home.

“The pizzacolt!” I yelled back, I had decided to make this my ‘call’ for when I was coming to see dinky.

“We didn’t order pizza!”

“It’s complementary!”

“Ok, then.” She opened the door, oblivious to my voice, and saw my tall figure.

“*gasp* you stay away from my daughter!” and she slammed the door, I stuck my shoe in-between the door and its frame.

“I just want to talk.”

“What, about how you’re going to steal dinky away from me? And after that complement, too!” she tried to shut the door in my foot again.

“I never stole dinky from you! I thought you were home. Now stop slamming my foot in the door!” I forced the door open which threw ditzy into a wall “oh my god, are you ok?” I ran to her side and examined her, making sure I hadn’t hurt her too bad.

“I'm fine, now get out!”

“… Fine, just… I'm sorry… I'm just so sorry.”

“Get OUT!!!” I left and closed the door behind me.

I didn’t mean for that to end with me leaving in shame, I just wanted to see my favorite filly, that’s all.

I continued to walk around Ponyville listening to my music, it changed to a dubstep song and I remembered vinyl scratch and how I needed to show her real dubstep. I started walking a bit faster. I arrived at the house just as the song ended, knocked on the door and waited. The door was opened by the very pony I wanted to see, vinyl scratch. “Hey dude, what’s shaken?!” she yelled at me.

“I just thought I would come back and show you my music.” I knew she wouldn’t hear me, but I didn’t care.

“Ok then, just go and get hooked up. I’ll be there in a minute.” My jaw dropped a little, she could hear me through all of that music.

She went inside and I followed, then I departed to go upstairs to the room vinyl had shown me before. I hooked up my iPod with Wi-Fi, which surprised me; they had Wi-Fi, but nothing to use it. Oh well, must be magic. I downloaded each song to the table, this took about two minutes. Then I loaded the first few songs into the decks. “Vinyl, I'm ready for you!” I yelled down to her.

She came through the doors and I asked “are you ready for a little Xploshun?” then I blasted her with my music, this lasted for about an hour until Octavia walked into the room with her hooves to her ears.

“Could you possibly turn it down a few notches? Half of Ponyville is at our door complaining!” she tried to yell over the music but was almost unsuccessful, her entering the room caused me to turn it down to a bearable level though.

“Sorry, tavi, I was just showing vinyl here my music. That’s all.” and then I turned it all the way off.

“Oh, it’s quite alright. But next time try to refrain from blasting it that loud, ok?”

“Sure thing tavi.”

“Now that we can talk again, Dill, I was wondering if I could use any of the songs you played just now.”

“no.” she suddenly got a surprised look, this turned to a pleading look in seconds.

“Oh, why not? I’ll give you credit for making them, I swear.” she grabbed my foot and started begging.

“Ok, firstly, I didn’t make half of them; secondly, I was pulling your leg, you can use any of the songs I loaded on your system. Thirdly I have never had anyone call me ‘dill’, but I like it. ”

“Thank Celestia. And another thing, what did you say before, why did you ask me if I was ready for an ‘explosion’?”

“oh, vinyl, vinyl, vinyl, back on earth I would DJ at a few clubs, my stage name was Xploshun, and that was just a catchy phrase that I came up with.”

“I like it, ca-”

“No you can't use it, it’s mine and mine alone.”

“Fine, but I like it.”

“Thanks. I should get going, I need to be at work at 3 and my boss is really picky about being late. Bye.” And I left for work, even if it was a few hours early.

24. Talking to everypony

I wasn’t going to the shop, I was instead going to the boutique, I hadn’t been there in a while and I wanted to see a certain refined face. I entered and a bell rang out, the same as the first time, I heard a voice call from the back, the same as the first time, and I made sure to use my English accent, the same as the first time.

“One second.” The mare I wanted to see walked from around a corner “*gasp* Dillon! I wasn’t expecting you back. Do you need something, dear” she put on a worried face.

“Oh, I am not in any danger or distress, rarity, I just wanted to talk to somepony and you were the best option.” She smiled so I smiled.

“Oh, well, come back and we can talk for a little, I would need to get back to work at some point, maybe you could help me.”

“I wish I could accept, but you see, I have another job I must attend to at 3:00 so I would have to leave at some point, but I would be more than happy to come back and help another time.” I said cheerily.

“Ah, that would just be divine. Now, what was it that you wanted to talk about? Surely you had something tickling you mind.”

“Actually, no, I just wanted a friendly face to talk to, and your face is extremely friendly, I might add.”

“Why, thank you. I would like it though if you didn’t flatter me for no reason.” She turned her head and blushed.

“Ok, but it is true.” She sat down and I sat next to her.

“Well, thank you, but I must ask, what should we talk about?” she looked at me curiously.

“I actually don’t know, I just came here to kill time before work, I hope that doesn’t sound like I'm using you.”

“Oh, no dear, not at all. But may I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You said you had the most fashion sense out of your friends, right?” I nodded “then why are you here wearing… that.” She gestured to my clothing.

I looked down and realized I was wearing the same clothes as the day I left earth: a blue shirt with a spade on it, and a pair of worn jeans with a belt. I realized this wasn’t my greatest look, and I was in the presence of a professional fashionista “well, you see… I… the day I left earth, I was going to… um, I… let’s just say I didn’t want to wear anything that could get ruined.”

“Oh, I know exactly how you feel, there was one day that I had to swim in mud, mud, I couldn’t wear anything that day, but it was to be with sweetie bell so I just had to. She is my only little sister.” She gave a thoughtful look.

“I don’t know if you know exactly how I feel.”

“Then please elaborate.”

“Are you sure? You won’t get mad, or try to protect me, or anything?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” I gave her a questioning look “pinky promise.”

“Oh, I get it, pinky pie promise. Ha-ha. Well, I guess I should get to telling my story.”

“Yes.”

I told her everything I had told twilight, including but not limited to: my childhood, my first college, my second college, when I got back to Maine, and me being suicidal.

“That sounds terrible, I'm so sorry.”

“don’t be, if my parents hadn’t done what they did then I wouldn’t be like I am now, actually when I look at it that way I'm glad they were jerks.”

“But that doesn’t excuse anything they put you through.” She was concerned, the one emotion I didn’t want.

I looked at the clock on the wall, it was 2:30, and I needed to get to work soon “I need to leave, I'm sorry I couldn’t stay and answer questions but I really must get to work. Farewell rarity.”

15 minutes later I had arrived at turners’ workshop, I had recovered from my emotional outpour at rarity’s house and was back to my normal self. Turner arrived a few minutes later “I know I told you to be early, but you don’t need to be this early.”

“Didn’t have anything to do today, so why not?”

“I see, well we should get to work, a close friend of mine had told me you won’t be here tomorrow so we have a lot of work to do.”

“How did you know I was going to ask for tomorrow off?”

“Like I said, a close friend told me, though he wouldn’t tell me why.”

“I kinda have a date.”

“Though its none of my business, may I ask who?”

“Twilight.”

his face turned slightly grim “Son, that’s kinda dangerous, I can understand if you really like her, but if you break her heart she would have the power to destroy this town with one hoof.”

This came to me as a bit of a shock. Twilight was really that powerful? “Well, then I better not disappoint her.”

“Yeah, you can have tomorrow off. I don’t want to die tomorrow, let alone kill all of Ponyville.” He chuckled a little; it was a nervous chuckle, but none the less.

“We should get to work; I don’t want to come back to too much work.”

“Right.” We worked late into the night; I even worked past 8 and stayed till 11 just to finish off some extra clocks so I wouldn’t have to do anything extra when I got back.

I closed the shop and locked it, I then walked back home. I caught myself using that word again, ‘home’ was I really that accepting of this place already? That didn’t matter now; I just wanted to get back to twilight. When I did get back I resisted the urge to yell out ‘honey, I'm home!’ and instead peeked in her room to see that she was fast asleep. I decided not to risk waking her and sleep on the couch. I fell asleep within a few minutes, I had a long day.

25. The "break up"

I had one of the weirdest dreams yet, it was that big white horse that I saw back at McDonalds, only this time it was in front of me in a dark infinity. She spoke to me as if she were talking into an answering machine “dear human, I wish your presence at the castle at your earliest convenience, it is of urgent matter. I look forward to our meeting, sincerely, princess Celestia.” Wait, that was the princess? I saw her only a few days ago, on earth, was she watching me? I would have to wait and see. It was then I woke up at 4 in the morning to a softly knocking door. The knocking didn’t stop when I didn’t answer, whoever was at the door was persistent, I’ll give ‘em that.

“Hold your horses, I'm coming.” I got up and walked to the now silent door and opened it to see two armored stallions with spears in hoof, not pointed at me but I was uneasy with them around at all, knowing that this was a pacifist world “um, greetings, is there something you two need?”

“Yes, you are to report to the princess at once, please pack some temporary toiletries and clothes, we won’t be there long.”

“Well ok, then. Come in, I’ll be a minute.” I started rummaging through the important stuff while they stood near the couch.

I packed an extra tooth brush, some paste, a coat, and some writing materials in case I wanted to write to twilight. I then used said materials to write a small note to twilight and spike, it read something to the effect of: ‘I'm going to the palace and should be back soon, I love you twilight and keep spike out of trouble. I’ll miss you. Dillon.’ I then put this note on the table by the couch. I looked at the couch, I thought of my gun, I didn’t want them to find it while I was gone so I took the small black box out from under the couch I was sitting on, I places the box behind a few books about simple math. I knew nopony would need to check out an addition book. Then I got my stuff and we headed out the door.

After about an hour of flight the chariot stopped on what looked like a miniature airport landing strip. The chariot rolled a little ways then stopped at the entrance to a grand door. Two unicorns that were standing guard saluted to the pegasi pulling the cart and opened the door with their magic.

I followed the pegasi to an equally grand door that another two unicorns opened. As me and the two pegasi walked through one of them announced my name. Then I saw her. She was the biggest pony I had seen yet, more like a horse. She looked in my direction and her face lit up. I assumed at the chance of meeting someone new. Then she began to speak in this elegant, regal voice. Like rarity’s or Octavia’s, only better somehow.

“Hello, Dillon the human. We have much to talk about.”

“Hello, princess Celestia,” I bowed awkwardly as best I could “I am honored to be in your presence, twilight has spoken highly of you.”

“As I had come to expect. She has become ever increasingly fond of me, she says I am one of her few inspirations.” She smiled.

“Should we get to it then?”

“We should.” And with that she waved a hoof and the guards left “where should we start?”

“Why did you call me?”

“I had called you because I wanted to send you back.”

Back in Ponyville a few hours later spike woke up. He conducted his daily routine of sliding down the stair railing, bouncing off the couch and into the kitchen, landing on his feet in a T position. This sudden movement in the air caused the note Dillon had writen to fall under the couch and out of sight. The dragon hadn’t noticed. He went about his day as normal, making breakfast in time for twilight to get up and eat.

“Where’s Dillon?” twilight asked groggily as she slumped down the stairs.

“I don’t know, he was gone when I came down, some of his stuff is gone too.” immediately twilight started to panic.

“Did he leave? I thought he said he wouldn’t leave, I thought he was happy, did I do something wrong? Did I-”

“Twilight, your freaking out over nothing, he probably just woke up early to get some stuff out of the way for work or something. He should be back in a little while, he did say that he would go and do stuff with you today, and it would be very unwise to blow you off.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right; he just left to do something, not because I wasn’t good enough.” She assured herself as she walked in a daze to her seat and sat down, just staring at her plate of food until spike threatened to eat one of her waffles.

For the rest of the day she just sat and waited for her boyfriend to return, she waited until the sun went down and then waited all that night. Then waited the next day, too. But he never returned, and she wouldn’t give up on him, she waited for a week before she finally gave into her inner emotions. She cried the next three days not wanting anything from anypony, not even her closest friends who came and comfort her.

About halfway through the second week his safe arrived, twilight had it moved to a corner and buried it under a small pile of old books, forgotten.

One day dash came and swore to twilight that “if he ever shows his ugly mug around here again I'm gonna beat his sorry flank up and down sugarcube corner.” Twilight didn’t respond to this, she was too busy wallowing in her own mistakes to realize how boneheaded that was.

She spent the next few days just waiting for something, anything, and after the second week without Dillon she got that something. Or somepony, rather.

On the 14th day without Dillon a brown unicorn stallion knocked on her door and asked for a place to stay “I don’t have any bits and none of the other residents will accept me.” Twilight looked the strange stallion up and down and realized why.

He was muddy and dirty, his coat was plagued with scratches and bruises, and his mane looked like it might have something already living inside of it. Now normally twilight would be really concerned for this guy, but she was too sad about her recent ‘break up’ to even consider what this guy had gone through.

“The couch is open. But you’ll need to take a shower first.”

“Oh, thank you so much, this means a lot to me.” And he went upstairs, strangely already knowing where the shower was.

26. PANCAKES!!

I heard the shower turn on and yelled up to the strange unicorn that had just entered my library “hey, how did you know where the shower is?”

“I used to design places like this, I recognized this one because my great grandfather had shown me his designs when I was little.”

“So your great grandfather made this place?”

“Yeah, kinda cool, huh?”

“I guess.” I waited a few minutes and he walked down.

“So I can crash here?”

“Yeah, hey you seem familiar; do I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t believe so. Maybe you know someone like me. I'm Fixinit, I make… things.”

“Things?” I looked down at his cutie mark, it was a screw driver on a wrench in an X shape.

“Yeah, like buildings, vehicles, toys, and other mechanical stuff.” He explaned.

“Well isn’t that interesting. I'm twilight sparkle, I'm the local librarian.”

“Well then, good to meet you.” We shook hoofs and I looked into his brown eyes, they looked like they were in so much pain, what had this pony been through?

“You too. Say, why were you all muddy when you got here?”

“I had to walk through the Everfree forest to get here, it wasn’t a pleasant trip. But I lived and I'm fine, so all’s well that ends well. Am I right?”

“Heh, yeah, I guess you are.” I laughed at this guy’s sense of humor, again seeming weirdly familiar.

“Well I gotta sleep; I’ve been awake for… two weeks now, that’s when I started my little journey. Getting a little shut eye here and there but all the same.” Then it struck me. Two weeks was how long Dillon was gone, did this unicorn have anything to do with him?

“Does the name Dillon ring any bells?” the stallion stopped in his tracks towards the couch.

He turned his head a little “no, why.” His voice was suddenly very serious.

“Just... wondering, I had a friend that disappeared two weeks ago, that’s all.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.” I could have sworn I saw a tear streak down his face before he turned back to the couch and curled up and fell asleep instantly.

I then went to my own room and fell into a troubled sleep, about whom this strange unicorn was and if he had any connections to Dillon, and if so, how? I eventually fell asleep and dreamt about Dillon, this was the fourth time in a row. I would see him staring at me, a look of disgust on his face, then he would turn away and just walk, I would reach out to him and try to yell but my voice was turned off. Then I would cry. I would keep crying until the day came, but this time was different, this time instead of waking up in tears, Fixinit came from where Dillon had left, he lifted my chin and helped me up. We started walking, after about what seemed like five minutes but could have been two hours, I looked up at his face, he had a determined look on, like he was facing a challenge, like he was going to help me through whatever I was going through.

I decided right then and there that I was going to let this stallion help me, that I would let him in, like I had promised myself I would never do again. Then I woke up. I went downstairs to find Fixinit already muzzle deep in a stack of pancakes.

“Spike, didn’t we have pancakes yesterday?”

“Yeah, but this guy wanted pancakes. So what was I gonna do?”

“That was very kind of you. I’ll have some waffles though.”

“This… is… the… best… meal… I’ve… had… in… weeks!!!” Fixinit said in-between mouthfuls.

“I'm glad you like it so much, but slow down, you’ll choke if you eat too fast.” Spike swatted the back of his head with a wooden spoon.

“Ow, fine.” And Fixinit started eating regularly.

“Well, Fixinit, I have a library to manage, so if you have something else to do today I would appreciate it if you would go and do it.” I was going to let him help, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

“Well, I was going to wander today, so our plans will work well together. Actually I should leave now if I want to get through the entire town in one day. Farewell Twilight Sparkle.” He nodded his head in goodbye and left out the front door.

It had been 2 full weeks since Dillon had been to work and I was dragging behind on my shipments, I had had to start work earlier, at 10:00 instead of3:00 PM. If I didn’t finish this group fast I would plummet into debt that I couldn’t get out of, not without help anyway. That’s when I heard a knocking come from the door. Great, somepony broke a clock and needed me to fix it, just great.

I opened the door and yelled “WHAT!” in the face of a brown unicorn with a brown mane and brown eyes, actually kinda weird if you ask me.

He shrank back a little “I-I was h-here for the j-job. I must have come at a bad time. I'm sorry, I’ll go now.” He turned to leave.

“No wait, I didn’t know you wanted to work, I thought you had a broken clock, come in.” I guided the stallion in, he was calming down “to tell the truth I've been behind on these here shipments, and I’ll take any help I can get. So if you would please start working we can sort everything out later.”

“Sure, boss.” There was only one other employee who had called me ‘boss’ like that, Dillon, of course he was my only other employee but that’s beside the point.

Then he went and started working on the clock I couldn’t fix, and he fixed it faster than I had fixed any of the other clocks. There was only one other being that could do what this guy was doing, Dillon, I started to think that there was some weird coincidences, but I pushed that thought aside and focused on my work, thankful I could have some help for a change.

27. Rainbow Dash

We finished our work a bit late but we finished none the less “ok, you can leave now. This shipment is finished; we’ll get started on the next one tomorrow. Um, what’s your name again?”

“I'm Fixinit.”

“How appropriate.”

“Well, it’s pronounced Fixinit (fi-xeen-it) but everyone I’ve met has called me Fixinit (fixin-it), so I just go by the latter.”

“Well, Fixinit, I'm glad to have your help today. Here’s a little something.” I handed him a small brown sac full of bits “it’s the least I can do for your help.”

“I'm sorry, sir but I can't take your money, I don’t work here.” He handed them back.

“Do you want to?”

“I am currently looking for a job.”

“3 PM to 8 PM, 250 bits a week and you’ll work the week days.”

“That sounds great, sir.” I shook his hoof and he left.

“I swear, the parallels are uncanny.” I mumbled to myself when he was out of earshot, I then walked back into the shop and finished the daily chores.

I spent the day just wondering about that new stallion, what he has to do with Dillon, why he showed up when he did. Occasionally a pony would come in with a book request. I would help them and get right back to thinking. He came back around 10 at night; I wondered what he had been doing.

“Hey, Dill- I mean, Fixinit. What were you up to out there?”

“Oh, my girlfriend wanted to have sex and how could I deny her that pleasure?” I felt the blood rush to my cheeks “I'm just yankin’ yer chain, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

My cheeks drained slightly “then what were you doing?”

“I got a job.”

“Where?”

“The clock repair place.”

“That’s where Dillon worked, you sure you don’t know him?”

“Never heard the name in my life.” I stared into his eyes and saw that same look from the night before, he was holding a huge secret that was tearing him apart inside, I debated if I should ask or not, he made the decision for me “Ima go take a nap.” He galloped to the couch and laid down facing the back so I couldn’t see his face again.

He fell asleep and I went upstairs, determined to actually get some work done now.

Today I had ditched my plans to train on my moves for the Wonderbolts to help a friend through a hard time. Twilight’s boyfriend had just broken up with her and she had crashed and burned. She was a wreck, her mane got crazy, she didn’t sleep much, and she sometimes got that look in her eye. But I was the element of loyalty, if I didn’t help her and stay by her side, then I obviously wasn’t fit for this role. But that’s just what I was going to do, stick with her to the end. I was just arriving at the library at 10:30, today was my day to help her, me and the rest of our friends have kinda been taking shifts, first rarity would stop by, then fluttershy, then applejack, and so forth. But today was my turn, and I was going to introduce her to some other stallions. That’s how I was going to pull her out of this rut. That’s why it came as an even larger surprise when a stallion opened the door.

“Whoa, who are you?” I was confused, had twilight beat me to the punch? Did she already have a new special-somepony?

“I'm Fixinit. Who are you?”

“I'm rainbow dash. What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I'm just crashing for a few days. Until I get back on my fe- I mean hooves.”

“Ok, well I need to see twilight.”

“Oh, sorry, come in.” he backed out of the way and let me in.

“Why, hello, rainbow. You need the next book in the daring doo series? I’ve had it on hold for the past month.”

“No, I don’t need that one yet; I'm only halfway through the last one. I came because this was my day to try and get you out of this hole that Dillon put you in.” I spat his name like venom.

He just went and left her, after she had opened up to her, in my book that was as bad as it could get.

“How thoughtful of you, what will we be doing today?”

“well I was going to show you around,” I looked at Fixinit “show you all the other fish in the sea,” I looked him up and down “but it looks like you already got you a prize winner,” I bit my lip “and a pretty good looking one at that.” Of course I was just joking; I only wanted to see how these two would react.

As I predicted, they didn’t have the same reaction, twilight sorta turned away and tried to hide her face in her mane, while Fixinit got this really suggestive look on his face, like he was ready to go right now. This wasn’t what I was expecting, I thought he would deny that they were together, but when that didn’t happen I gasped “wait, you two are really… wow, Twi, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“What? We aren’t going out. Who told you that?” I could only smirk at this, this is what I wanted to get from one of them, I just expected it to be him and not her.

Fixinit got this really stallionly, deep voice “well, baby, we would make a great couple.” He put his hoof around Twilight, she threw it off.

“Stop it Dillon.” Only too late had she realized what she had said, she put a hoof over her mouth as Fixinit got this almost surprised look on his face “I-I-I mean Fixinit.”

“Ok, who is this Dillon guy, cus this isn’t the first time you’ve called me by his name or asked me about him. So I want to know who he was.” Fixinit was slightly agitated but mostly concerned, He obviously didn’t know who Dillon was or what he had put Twilight through.

28. Explanations

“Ok.” I wanted to explain all the crap that Dillon had put Twilight through, Twilight would sugarcoat it and there was nopony else around “Dillon is this human that was taken from his world and dumped here, in Ponyville, twilight was nice enough to take him in when he had nowhere else to go, he gained her trust and started a relationship with her, she gave him her first t- ow! What was that for?” twilight had elbowed me, and it wasn’t soft.

“You were about to explain the wrong stuff. You can leave out the details.”

“Fine,” I was actually kinda disappointed that I wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing his face when I told him they had sex “but anyway, he disappeared from the face of the planet a few weeks ago and left Twilight in tears. I swear, if he shows his mug in this town again I’ll kick his sorry flank to sugarcube corner and back.” I held up a hoof in anger but Twilight lowered it.

“And I told you, if he does come back that I would be grateful over anything else. Kicking his flank isn’t necessary.”

“I still would.” And I really would.

“Ok, I need an unbiased opinion on this guy, twilight you obviously aren’t too mad at him, and rainbow, you obviously hate his guts. I need somepony that has met him but not had any emotional connections.” I looked at twilight, she looked at me.

“What about Octavia?” twilight had said this with a neutral tone.

“She might work.” I thought this over, Octavia only had a professional relationship with Dillon, nothing more or less, plus she wouldn’t make him look any better or worse than he actually was.

I and vinyl were eating one day when two weird looking stallions, one a unicorn and one a Pegasus, came to our door seeking refuge.

“Can we please take shelter in your lovely abode?” asked the sleek looking, proper, gray Pegasus with a black mane in a practiced, but not authentic, English accent that was eerily familiar.

“Of course.” I lead them inside and showed them around.

“Wow, this place is rockin.” Said the blue unicorn with a white and silver mane, he sounded more laid back, like vinyl.

“You know it is!” speak of the nightmare “hey Tavi, who're our new guests?”

“We haven’t had proper introductions, I was waiting for you.” Vinyl galloped up to my side “I'm Octavia and this is Vinyl Scratch.”

The sleek Pegasus responded “this is presto and I'm EQ.”

“EQ, huh?” vinyl leaned over toward him “that’s a pretty weird name, what’s your real one?”

“I don’t like my real name, just call me EQ, ok?”

Vinyl got one of her Cheshire grins and asked “what. Is. It?”

“Vinyl, we don’t pressure ponies into things, ok? If he doesn’t want to tell us his real name then let it be.” She leaned back.

“Fine.” obviously, she was disapointed.

“Well, we are your guests; the least we can do is be honest. My real name is Equiline. I would get teased because it sounded like a fillies' name. Now please, call me EQ” he explaned, Vinyl stifled a laugh, I swatted at her head.

“Ok. Now what do we do?”

“Rock out, what else?” the blue unicorn said in his laid back tone “we were told you were both musicians, whacha play?”

“Octavia plays the cello, I'm a DJ.”

“No way dude. I'm a DJ, too. Let’s go see whacha got.” I looked at his flank, it had a picture of a sound wave on it.

They went upstairs to where Vinyl’s DJ equipment was.

“So you play the cello. That’s cool, I play the bass.” I checked his cutie mark, it was a bass cleft.

“Hmmm, so did Dillon.” I murmered to myself as I raised my gaze back to him.

“Who?”

“Dillon, he’s a human placed here by unknown means, he had a fake accent just like you and he played the bass… did you know him?”

“Ok, firstly, I don’t even know what a human is, secondly, is it really that obvious? Thirdly, a lot of ponies play the bass, who’s to say that’s not just a coincidence?”

“I suppose your right, and to the untrained ear your accent is spot on, but nothing is perfect.”

“I suppose your right.” Just then we heard the loud bass kick in upstairs, it was a soundproof room but the bass still got through every time.

“You want to take a walk?!” I screamed over the 'music'.

“Sure!” we left the house.

After 10 minutes of walking the bass faded into a dull thumping, like a heartbeat “so where are you from?”

“Originally, Manehattan, I moved from there to Canterlot and from there here. We don’t have a place to stay and we just need to get back on our hooves.”

“So, what is it with you and presto? Are you brothers or cousins or what?”

“Well I can assure you, we are not related, he was a pony that took my work and mixed it in a way that I found… incredible. We first met in music school, at the high school level. He was spinning a record and scratching it, he made it sound like it was being mixed with a full soundboard, but the only thing he had was a turn table. It was absolutely amazing.” He looked as if he were lost in thought.

“And you two work together?”

“I’ll write classical music and he’ll use the notes in a song or two. We share the money we get from each performance.”

“You two are so much alike me and Vinyl, EQ. we met almost the same way, in high school level music school, she was mixing one of my tracks and we, too, share our income.”

He looked into my eyes “it looks like we were destined to meet like this, like it was fate.” He said this in a soft tone that made my skin crawl.

“It seems we were.” I was in a daze, not realizing how red my cheeks were getting.

We leaned together, closer and closer, then our lips met. At that moment I felt the bass from the house skip a beat, the first thought was ‘did Vinyl really just mess up?’ but she was too good to miss a single bass beat, it would have been a small section of missing beats if any. That is when I realized that it wasn’t the heartbeat-like sound from the house that had momentarily stop, it was my heartbeat.

It was a magical kiss, even if he was a Pegasus and I was an earth pony, it was magical, like a whole symphony taking off on a crescendo, we continued until I realized what I was doing: I was kissing a pony that I had met only a few minutes ago, admittedly he was handsome, kind, gentle, nice, and had a good taste in music, but that doesn’t change the fact that I had been in his acquaintance for not even 20 minutes.

“Wait, this is wrong.” I pulled back, separating us.

“Oh, I'm so sorry, did I come on too strong, was it to forceful, did you not enjoy it? Please tell me, I really like you.” Either this pony was the best liar I had ever seen or he really did have strong feelings for me.

What do I do, blow him off now and spare his future feelings, or do I let this go on until it’s too late for me to do anything?

Or do I learn more about this pony, and maybe even learn to love him back?

30. Vinyls past

Presto woke up “hey Presto, where did EQ go?”

“I think he said something about going to get something.”

“What could he be out to get?”

“I dunno. But it was kinda important; he couldn’t wait for you to wake up.”

“Well I guess we’ll just have to wait… what did you do yesterday?”

“Vinyl and I mixed some tracks, then I paid her for letting me use her equipment. What did you do last night?”

“We went to the park and played some songs. What did you mean by ‘paid her’?”

His cheeks got a touch of red in them “well, she wanted to… um, have some fun… I don’t normally do that to a girl until I get to know her more… but she really wanted it… I guess what I'm trying to say is: ask her.”

“I will.” That’s when Vinyl came down the stairs.

“Did somepony call my name?”

“No, but you can tell me what you did last night with Presto.”

Her cheeks turned the same shade of red as Presto’s were, but she smirked “we mixed some tracks then he paid me, why?”

“How did he pay you?”

“He ate me out.” She said bluntly, as if it were an insignificant detail, like it didn’t matter.

“VINYL, we don’t make ponies pay us like that!!”

“But he didn’t have any money, and it felt great.”

“VINYL!!”

“Fine, I'm sorry I told you to do that last night, Presto.”

“Oh, no, no need for apologies; I liked it as much as you did.”

“So would you want to do it again?”

“Maybe, but I would like to get to know you more before then, ok?”

“ok.” She was disappointed, I could tell, but she was happy that they would have the chance again later, this much was obvious.

Just then EQ came through the door and into the living room “hey EQ, what was so important that you had to leave so early?” he gave an angry glance at Presto, and then realized that he hadn’t told the girls what he was getting.

“Just some sheet music. Why?”

“Just wondering. So what are we going to do today?”

“Well I was wondering if you guys had daily jobs, maybe we could help with those.”

“We do, but vinyl’s doesn’t start until later. I should be getting ready for mine in a few minutes now.”

“Can I tag along?” EQ wanted to come, too.

“Sure, but bring your bass. We might be able to make use of you.” He grabbed his bass and we left for work.

Five minutes later we were in the same park as last night, but we were in the main courtyard not the less used areas.

“Hello, Octavia, who’s your friend?” that was Concerto.

“This is EQ, he plays the bass.” I gestured to EQ.

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you. I'm Concerto, I play violin, and this is Beauty Brass, she plays the tuba.”

“Hello, it’s a pleasure to meet you, too.” he seemed genuinly happy to meet my friends.

“You’re kinda cute.” Beauty brass walked around him, eyeing his plot.

“Brass, we aren’t here to flirt, were here to play, now let’s play.” We set up our music and started to play one of Neethoven symphonies.

I was showing Presto how I made my wubs and he showed me a few new beats, we went back and forth with this until it got boring. Usually I would go into town and just walk around until I had to go to the club but I wasn’t feeling it today. I wanted something else. I knew I couldn’t have that until he knew more about me so I decided to start asking questions about him.

“Where are you from?”

“Originally, Trottingham, I moved from there to Canterlot and from there here.”

“That’s cool; did you ever meet the princesses?”

“Yeah, on a few occasions.”

“What was it like?”

“They were regal, kind, and acted fairly.”

“Ok, did you do any big shows in Canterlot or Trottingham?”

“No, only clubs, I was never recognized for my talent or potential.”

“That’s too bad, you’re actually pretty good.”

“So I’ve been told. Now how about you, where did you come from?”

“You don’t need to know where I came from, just that I'm here now.”

“I want to know.”

“*sigh* I came from the slums of Manehattan, I was as poor as they came, and for the longest time I stole and scavenged for my next meal. I never knew my real parents, they dropped me at a random house and left, never to return. I was raised in terrible conditions, the family I was left with had one other filly and they gave her everything. I literally had to make them meals. They didn’t care about me; they said that I was just another burden. So I left.

"I was that kid on the streets until I turned 7, then I found my first turntable in a trash bin. It was my savior. I used it every chance I got, I got a job at a local club, I DJed there all day, and in return they gave me one of the booths to sleep in. I grew up like that for several years, slowly learning how to be a better DJ.

"They provided everything for me, food, water, my equipment, everything. I left one day because I had collected enough money from the street to buy a train ticket to Canterlot. When I got there I signed up for music school, that’s where I met Octavia.

"We were immediate friends, she was getting picked on and I kicked the bullies’ flanks down the street. She was so grateful she told me to stop by her house after school for dinner. When I got there she and her parents had a four course meal set out. That was by far the biggest meal I had ever had.

"As you could guess, the parents started asking questions about me, what I did, where I lived, where my parents were. I didn’t want to lie to the ponies feeding me so I told the truth; that I was here because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. They took me in and raised me as their own.

"Me and Octavia have been sisters ever since. Some ponies think were more than that but their wrong, we’re just really close friends. That’s my past. I hope that it didn’t bring the mood down too much.”

“That’s… really amazing, Vinyl. I couldn’t imagine going through that. My parents were fairly rich and bought me everything I wanted, they didn’t do anything with me, they were too busy with work all the time, but I had gotten all of my stuff without any fight. I really have a ton of respect for you now.”

“Thanks, is that enough for sex?”

“No, I still don’t know about you, just your past.”

“Dammit. So what do you want to know?”

“Interests, favorite activities, ethics, antics, etc.”

“Well I like to DJ, the fairs aren’t half bad, just music in general is enjoyable, and I guess you’ll learn the rest along the way.” I smirked.

“I guess that’s enough, for now, but when does work start?”

“We got an hour.” My smirk grew to a smile.

“We better hurry then.” My smile turned Cheshire.

A while later we were done and panting; we washed up and left for work. We arrived only a few minutes before my prerecorded track was about to end, usually I would get there with enough time to check all of the cords and clean the board, but today I only had enough time to go through basic sound checks.

“2 minutes Vinyl.”

“Thanks.” I got in my place and dragged Presto next to me, I was ready “ok, I'm gonna play some of my own music, I’ll take a short pause and announce you, then you’ll start mixing some songs, don’t worry, I’ve downloaded some of the songs you said you knew. It’ll be easy.”

“Ok.” He seemed a little worried, maybe he hadn’t been on a stage for a while.

I started playing my opener song, I played this every time that I got on stage, ponies seemed to really like it and it always got them ready for what was coming. This also alerted them that I was now accepting requests.

“Hey everypony, how are we today?” the crowd yelled back “great, let’s get this party started!” and I spun a track.

After about an hour of beats I turned the music down “ok everypony, you all know who I am, but I'm here to introduce a good friend of mine, he has agreed to stop by and twist some tunes.” I leaned over to him and whispered in his ear “what’s your stage name?”

“Xploshun.” I almost fell over, that was Dillon’s stage name, but I couldn’t keep the crowd in suspense for much longer.

“Get ready to hear the work of DJ Xploshun.” I said with a little less enthusiasm, but the large group of ponies hadn’t picked up on it.

I hoofed the mic to Presto and he put it up to his mouth “how is everypony tonight?” the crowd roared to hear a new artist “good, I have another question for you all, are you ready for a little Xploshun?” then he played a track that started with a huge BOOM! As if bomb went off, then went straight into some really fast wubs.

I stood dazed behind him for several songs, then he pulled me up next to him and we started mixing songs together. I was still stunned and not at my best because of it. But it was enough to entertain the crowd.

31. Talking to Octavia

After about an hour of wubs from Presto, I was ready to get back on and finish up. When everything was said and done we went home. When we got home we found EQ and Octavia talking on the couch, just idle chit chat, nothing important. We were ready to go to bed, it was late and we had been DJing like crazy. So we went straight to my room. We were too tired for sex so we went straight to sleep in each other’s arms.

We all woke up around the same time the next day, first me, then EQ, next was Presto, and last was Vinyl, she was always last. We had enough time to eat before Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and a new stallion I had never seen before showed up at the door.

“Hello, Twilight. What brings you to our humble abode?”

“I was wondering if you would mind explaining something to a friend of mine, if I tried I would sugarcoat it, and rainbow is obviously biased against him, you’re the only one we know that has a neutral outlook on him.”

“And who is he?”

“Dillon.” Twilights face seemed a bit grim.

“Oh, I see, come in. I will do my best.”

As soon as the new stallion walked into view of the living room he froze, not out of shock or fear, just froze, and stared at the two other stallions in the room, they stared back. He seemed to be in deep thought. None of us could tell what was going through any of their minds, but they seemed to work it out somehow.

“Never thought I’d see you again.” The new stallion knew Presto and EQ?

“Us neither.” And they knew him, too?

Presto got up “Octavia, Vinyl, this is Fixinit, we wandered through the forest together, along with some others, when we finally made it into town we went our separate ways.”

“Twilight, Rainbow, these are Presto and EQ. like Presto said, we traveled together to get here.”

“Presto, you said there were others, who else?” I was worried how much information he had withheld from us.

“Total, there were six of us. If you girls want we can try to find them before we talk about something like what Dillon did.”

“No, this needs to happen.” Twilight wasn’t about to let herself get sidetracked.

“Ok then, but we want to listen in, too, Octavia has asked me about this Dillon character and we have yet to talk about him.” EQ said, not moving from his spot.

“And Vinyl thinks I took his stage name.” Presto added.

“You did!” Vinyl yelled at him.

“No I didn’t, it was a coincidence.” He retorted.

“Sure.” Vinyl was unconvinced.

“Can we get on to the explaining and stop bickering like little foals?” Twilight really didn’t want to get sidetracked.

“Fine.” Vinyl really wanted to put Presto in his place, but to tell the truth, Twilight scared her.

“Ok, Octavia?” she prompted her friend.

“Yes. Dillon was a human that came here, he got in a relationship with Twilight and as ponies have told me, a few weeks ago she allowed him to take her virginity. I won’t go into the details but she really opened up to him, then a little more than two weeks ago he disappeared without any explanation as to where or why. This leaves our little twilight with a broken heart and a weary mind.” As I finished my summary, the ponies in the room stood up to comfort Twilight and leave.

“Now that we have our explanation on who that guy is, can we go?” rainbow dash was the impatient type, always gotta be moving.

“I guess, thanks Octavia, I owe you.”

“No problem, Twilight. Bye now.”

Before he walked away, Fixinit exchanged a glance with Presto and EQ, then he left.

“Well, now that you know who Dillon was, you probably understand why I called you by his name.” I was still a bit embarrassed about this morning.

“Yes, and I don’t blame you. Though I didn’t know the guy personally I'm sure it was uncalled for him to leave like he did.”

“And now you see why I wanna kick his flank.” Rainbow punched the air in front of her.

“Yes, rainbow, I do, but violence solves nothing.” He said it like a wise old stallion.

“Heh, I guess you’re right.” Rainbow was obviously joking but he didn’t care.

“Hey Fixinit, can we go find your travel buddies? I kinda wanna meet them.” I wanted to meet his friends, friends are what bring us together, if you lose them, you lose purpose.

“Sure, if you know where to look.”

“Actually I do,” I scanned him with a spell that would show me the ponies he had recently been around “huh, this is kinda weird.”

“What is it Twilight? What was that?”

“that was a spell that showed the ponies you had recently conversed with, I can go back as far as a year, but it looks like your with 5 other stallions all scattered across Ponyville right now, like your in 6 places at once. Hmmm, I’ll have to take a look at that spell when I get back to the library, my magic might be on the fritz.”

“Yeah, you do that, where does it say that the closest one is?”

“At Rarity’s boutique.”

“Well, I gotta get going, lots of practicing to do for the wonderbolts.” Rainbow flew off in the direction of her house and the two earth-bound ponies went to Rarity’s on foot.

“So why do you think one of you ended up at rarity’s?” I asked a few minutes later.

“well if it’s the pony I'm thinking of, I wouldn’t be surprised that he's there because the building looked better than all of the others or the door mat said ‘loving home’ or something."

“So he’s a bit of a rarity himself, is that right?”

“If that's how she acts.” we both nodded.

We continued to walk until rarity’s boutique was within sight; we walked in and expected a greeting, but not like this.

32. The Dress Maker

I was working on what was my crescendo in my latest line of dresses when I heard the doorbell ring, somepony was at the door.

“Coming!” I yelled back to the lobby.

When I got there I almost dropped my tools to what I saw: an earth pony stallion with a shredded suit, a terribly ruffled mane, and scratches all around his body.

The first thing he asked was “do you mind if I borrow a new suit, I think this one has a hole in it.” he smirked at his joke and almost collapsed.

I dropped my tools and grabbed him in my magical grip. He could barely walk. I set him on one of my couches and went to fulfill his request of a new suit, it was the least I could do for a pony that was obviously in the condition he was in.

“What happened to you?” I asked as I gave him the new suit.

“I was confronted by a Manticore in the Everfree forest, nasty things they are, especially when they get their claws on you.”

“Oh, dear.” I had had a similar confrontation, but we had Fluttershy to figure out what was wrong and fix the problem.

“Luckily I had my fabric cutter, or I might have ended off much worse.” I could only imagine what he had to do to save his own life.

“I have had a similar issue a long time ago, I had a friend to help me out but even so I had learned some basic healing spells, hold still this might hurt a bit.”

I started casting my spell on him “what are you talking about? This isn’t that ba- AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!” he started screaming in pain, so I stopped.

“Oh, my, did it really hurt that much?” his scream faded to a dull moan, then escalated again into laughter.

“No, but I had you going there didn’t I?” he chuckled.

I smacked him across the face “that wasn’t nice, I thought I was causing you pain!”

“Ok, ok, I'm sorry. Jeez.”

“Just don’t do that again.”

“I’ll do my best.” He smirked a little; I just rolled my eyes and continued the spell.

He grit his teeth a little but nothing came out. When I was done he complemented me on my expertise.

“Are you sure you’re not a doctor?” he flexed his front right leg “this was broken before I got here.” If that was true then I was better than I realized, he saw the look of shock on my face “just joking, but you really did a good job. Thanks.”

I punched him in the side “stop that.”

“Fine, fine, I will. Can I stay here for the night?”

“What, you don’t have another place to be?”

He looked at me with an ‘are you kidding me?’ look “so I came all this way into town to seek help from bleeding to death from a fashionista, when I have somewhere else to be. That's really logical. But no, I don’t. Now can I please stay here while I look for a place to live?”

“Of course. But please, don’t joke with me like that.”

“Ok, I won’t. Now, do you know why I stopped here instead of anywhere else?”

“No.” I asked myself the same question a minute ago.

“Because this place looks like the only place I can find high end clothing. Am I right?”

“You are.” the Carousell Boutique was the only proper clothing shop I knew of in Ponyville.

“I would like to lend my services.” he lifted a hoof to his chest in a regal maner.

“Why would you think that I need services?” I asked while I tried to look at his cutie mark, it was covered by his suit.

“Because it’s me that’s helping.” he gave a cocky smirk.

“Oh, really, and what makes you think I would need even your services?”

“Because I can design a dress just as fast as you could design a suit.” His eyes narrowed.

“That’s a pretty bold statement, can you back it up?”

“Only one way to find out.” He started to walk towards the back.

“Hey, where are you going?” I followed him.

“To the back where the dresses are kept. I want to take a look at your style of design.”

“What about proving your worth?” he spun around at speeds I had no clue a stallion could possess.

“Do you not agree that that can be settled later?”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Good, then that means we can take a look at your dresses and suits. Now where could they be?” he started to wander the house looking for my work space.

He opened the bathroom door and closed it again, then opened my bedroom door, closed it too, and then he opened sweetie bells door. The look on his face went from determined to pleasantly surprised.

“I didn’t know you had a filly?” he turned back to me.

“She’s my sister.” I deadpanned at him.

“Who’s that sis?” Sweetiebell called from her bed.

The stallion walked in the door “hello little filly, what’s your name? I'm Fedorian.”

“I'm Sweetie bell. What are you doing here?”

“I'm looking for work.” I was surprised how well he was with sweetie bell.

“Cool, are you gonna work here?”

“I might, if your sister gives me a job.”

“Cool, sis, why don’t you give him a job?”

“Why would I, sweetie?”

“I don’t know, but maybe he could help you with your designs.”

“Actually, I have another job for this guy. How would you like to watch sweetie for me?”

“That would be the kindest offer I had received in a long time, and I would accept in a heartbeat.”

“Hired.” we all smiled.

“Yay!” sweetie bell jumped off of her bed and onto Fedorian’s back, he didn’t so much as flinch when the filly kept jumping up and down on his spine.

“You’ll start tomorrow.” I told him, watching Sweetie.

“Great, where can I sleep?” he asked, not showing any sign that a filly was anywhere near him.

“There are several couches downstairs, pick one.”

“You can sleep with me!” Fedorian laughed at the little filly bouncing on his back.

I knew she was too small to know why that was wrong, but what was I going to do? Allow a stallion I hadn’t known for more than a few minutes sleep with my little sister? That’s crazy.

“No sweetie, he’ll just have to find a couch.”

“Please, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!” I was taken completely aback, I had expected this from sweetie bell, but it came in Fedorian’s voice.

“What?” I turned back to him.

“I swear I won’t try to pull any funny business!” again Fedorian, in a pleading childlike voice, he was holding my hoof, begging. I then realized this was for sweetie bells amusement more than getting into her room, and she was stifling a chuckle.

“You swear?”

“I swear!”

“Fine, but if anything, anything happens to her, I blame you.” my snout was less than a centimeter from his, then he caught me off guard and kissed my nose.

“Nothing will happen, trust me.” He smirked like he was messing with me.

I hopped back and sweetie bell giggled, a low growl was emanating from my chest; I did nothing to stop it. His smirk continued. I yelled and stomped away.

34. Love-ista

I made sweetie bells favorite salad. I knew she would be starved when she got back, and I was right, she had missed lunch, I made her an extra-large salad. She ate her salad in haste and went straight to her room. I stopped Fedorian before he could follow.

“My threat from last night still stands, if you touch her, you’re a dead pony.”

“I know, and if I wanted to touch her, I would have done it when I was out. I don’t want her like that, trust me.”

“Ok, fine. And tomorrow remember to get her lunch.”

“I will.” And he walked into Sweetie bells room “what story should I tell you tonight?” then the door closed and I could only hear dull mumbling.

I went to my own room, still worried that he might try something, but not as much as last night. I went to sleep a bit easier, too. My dream that night wasn’t anything special, just the normal dream. I was designing dresses, sewing, folding, and cutting. But then I noticed that Fedorian was helping. He wasn’t half bad, but I was still better, he was obviously out of practice, he knew what he was doing, just not as well as me. I helped him with a sewing pattern he just couldn’t get right. Then our hooves touched while we were reaching for the fabric cutter. I noticed I didn’t use my magic, why? But I turned to look at what I was grabbing instead of the sharp tool. It was his hoof, as I said before, I looked up at him, he looked up at me. We looked into each other’s eyes for several seconds, my heart started beating faster, my legs got a bit weak, then we kissed. I don’t know why, but it felt good. I woke up in excitement, I then realized it was just a dream; I thanked Celestia but cursed Luna. I know I shouldn’t curse the princess of the night, but she sent me that dream and I didn’t appreciate it. I went downstairs and like yesterday they were making breakfast.

“Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“I slept great, I think Fedorian had a harder time though, he woke in the middle of the night saying something about you.”

“Is that so?” I wonder what kind of dream he had.

“Yeah, it was nothing.” he assured us.

“If it was about me I doubt it was nothing, especially if it woke you up.”

“You wouldn’t want to know.” he looked down to the meal.

“Oh, but I do.” He was avoiding me, trying to rub it off as nothing.

“Fine, I had a dream about you, happy? I’ve had feelings ever since I first met you. you were by far the most beautifly refined pony I had met yet, everypony else either didn’t care for proper greetings or didn’t know about fashion, but you, you were just beautiful and nice, you let me stay here when I had nothing to offer but my services, you helped me in a jam, and I know that sounds like puppy-love but to me it makes all the difference. You even let me sleep with your sister when I asked. Now where I come from that would earn you a slap in the face and a good scolding. I don’t know about you but you are the best thing that has happened to me since I got here, I don’t know where I would be if not for you.”

I was absolutely shocked, this pony had feelings for me, he was putting his entire relationship with me on the line, I like a guy with courage, but this was borderline foolishness. I didn’t know what to do or say, my mouth hung open slightly. He stepped closer to me, we were mere inches apart.

“I don’t know if you feel the same way, but I really like you. If you don’t I will leave now and never bother you again, I'm sure that’s what you would want. But please, at least give me a- hmmph!” I leaned in and kissed him on the lips.

When it ended I said “I feel the same way, but I would like to know you before we go any further.”

He was obviously as dazed as I was, if not more so. But he said “sure, ok.”

“Great, now let’s talk.” I noticed that sweetie bell was still in the room, her face screwed up and scowling.

“That was icky. Why would you do that sis?”

“Because I wanted him to shut up.” I smiled at him, he smirked back “and it worked.”

“It’s still gross.”

“Grow up.”

“I am grown up!” she stood a little taller.

“Then show it.” I teased.

“Fine, come here, Fed.”

“Watcha need?” he stood next to her.

She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“See, I'm grown up.”

“Doesn’t count, it was on the cheek, and don’t even think about pulling that on Fed, he’s mine.” I grabbed his foreleg and pulled him over to me.

“Grrr, fine.” She jumped off of the chair and stomped off to the living room.

“Now, let’s talk, get to know each other. What’s your favorite clothing style?”

“Stiff, business, and suits, specifically the fedora, that’s where I got my name.”

“I see, but you didn’t have a fedora when you got here, and you haven’t asked me for one, why, if you like them so much why haven’t you tried to obtain one?”

“That’s not nice, I had already gotten a new suit, and I was taught to make the best of what you got and not whine about what you don’t. I would appreciate it if I could get one though.”

“One minute.” I went to the back and started to rummage through my many hats, I found a nice crisp black fedora and brought it back “how’s this?”

“This is great.” He put it on “it fits perfect. How do I look?” he made a pose while touching his hat with his hoof, bending it to a stylish position, he looked like a model.

“You look great.”

“What about you, what’s your style?”

“I don’t really have a style, just regal dresses. I do typically use many gems and jewels in my work. Is that a style?”

“It’s good enough for me.” He kissed me on the cheek then gave me a hug; we sat there for several minutes.

"we should probably eat breakfast before it gets cold." I nodded.

The day continued like normal: Fed left a little while later with Sweetie and came back with her laughing and jumping happily. We had dinner and they told me about their day. They had lunch this time and even a snack. He was doing better and learning more along his way. Sweetie had tried to give Fed a kiss all day now and every time he would stop her and she would get all pouty, not being able to prove her maturity to him.

When we finished dinner me and Fed sat on the couch to talk some more about ourselves and each other. After a few hous of this we decided to call it a night.

“It’s getting kinda late. Sweetie bell is going to want another story tonight.” I told him.

“I’ll tell her another story, then I’ll meet you in your room.” Fed whispered in my ear.

“Ok.” Then he left.

35. Kids

That night Fed told me the story of Romeo and Juliet. He told me about how they fell in love, how others didn’t approve, and how they ran away together. It was a great story, and I think he was talking more about him and Rarity, or that he wanted me to make that connection. Maybe he wanted me to understand that he really loved her, and that he would do anything to be with her, or maybe he was just telling me a story. I couldn’t tell. Oh well, I shouldn’t worry myself with that stuff.

“Good night, sweets.”

“Good night, Fed.” He closed the door, I fell asleep minutes later.

He came to my room after he was done telling sweetie bell a story, just like he said. He shut the door behind him, quietly as not to alert her. And walked over to me, kissed me passionately, then laid down next to me in my princess size bed.

“What do you want to talk about next?” he was respectful of a ladies request, that’s good.

“Maybe, more about ourselves. What do you like to do on a normal day?”

“Well, as I hope I’ve already displayed, I love children, I would design clothing, maybe go out to eat with friends, maybe even sleep a little bit. What about you?”

“Pretty much the same thing, but children can be a little much sometimes. Sweetie bell has ruined more than one of my clothing lines with her… exploits.”

“That is understandable, I never had a sibling to look after, it’s always been ‘look after yourself’ and never any different.”

“Well, now you look after my sister. You know, you’re the closest thing to a father she’s ever had.”

“Are your parents… gone?” concern writen all over his face

“No, but their never around, I take care of her most of the time, they stop by every now and again. They aren’t bad parents, they raised me to be everything they weren’t, but they were… slightly barbaric. They had no sense of fashion or elegance. How I was the result of them, I could never really tell.”

“Well, I am honored to be here, to be with you.” he kissed my cheek.

“What about your past, your parents?”

“Oh, um, my parents were really strict and always pushed me to be better, I really appreciate where they got me by doing that, but I didn’t like how they did it. they would punish me severely when I did something wrong, whether that punishment be a spanking when I was small, no dinner when I got older, or a beating , it was never pleasant. Other than that my childhood was as good as any others.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry. That must be terrible.”

“Well, I'm here now, so I'm happy it happened. Think of it like this, if they hadn’t beaten me, I might not be with you.” he held my hoof “plus, they can't hurt me anymore.”

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” we kissed again.

“yeah.” He smiled at me; it was a warm smile, not a forced one or a sad one, just a smile.

The next morning I got up and Fed wasn’t in my room, I wandered out and checked Rarity’s room, there they were, sleeping, in each other’s hooves. ‘wait, they’re in that kind of relationship?’ I gasped and Rarity stirred.

“Sweetie bell, what do you need?” she propped herself up and looked at me, she noticed the shocked look on my face and asked “what is it?”

“You… he… but… I thought… you slept with him?!” I screamed, making Fed stur in his sleep.

“Yes, honestly, sweetie, I would have thought that if you knew what that was you would be more shocked when he slept with you.”

“But I knew he wouldn’t try any ‘funny stuff’ cus he said so.”

“Still, we’re in a relationship, along with the fact that nothing happened last night. You have no need to worry about any nieces or nephews.”

“Well that’s good, I guess.” I started to back out of the room “I’ll be downstairs.”

“Ok, Sweetie.” She slumped back down to look at Fed.

He was just waking, even after my conversation with Sweetie. He woke up and found himself staring into my eyes.

“You know you have the most beautiful eyes in all of Equestria?”

“Stop the flattery. What is it?”

“Oh, nothing, you’ve just got a little something right there.” He licked the end of my nose.

“He-he, what was that for?”

“Nothing, just the fact that I slept with the most beautiful mare under Celestias’ sun.”

"And Lunas' moon?" I asked.

"Was there ever any doubt?" we shared another smooch and gazed into each others eyes.

“Well, we better get downstairs, Sweeties waiting for us.” I started getting up.

“What are we doing today?”

“Nothing, just breakfast, she can't make it on her own.”

We went downstairs and found Sweetie trying to get the frying pan out of the cabinet. She saw us and dropped it, I caught it with my magic, but she freaked out all the same.

“Sis, I didn’t know you would be down so early, I thought you were going to be a while. I was going to make breakfast for us all.” She was obviously flustered.

“It’s quite alright, but don’t try again until I teach you how, ok?”

“Ok, can you teach me now?”

I looked to Fed; he gave me an indifferent look “I don’t see why not.”

“Yay, I'm gonna learn how to cook!” she started jumping around, then onto Feds back, she loved jumping there for some reason.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked Fed.

“Not really, it’s like a ball bouncing on my back, I can feel her hooves, but I don’t feel pain, don’t worry.” He smiled but I still wasn’t sure.

“So are we going to get cooking, or are we going to jump on Feds back all day.” Sweetie bell stopped jumping on feds back and onto the ground.

“Let’s get cooking!” she ran into the kitchen.

“Kids.” Fed said in an amused tone.

“kids.” I agreed, then we followed her into the kitchen to start making breakfast.

36. Kitchen disaster

We walked in and expected a greeting, but not like this. Rarity and a stallion were running around in a panic trying to clean up a huge mess in her kitchen, sweetie bell was glued to the wall in what looked like some sort of batter. The room looked like a war zone; there were batter explosions, spoons sticking out of the furniture, dirty pots and pans in the sink and on the counter. The place was a mess.

“Rarity, what’s going on here?” this was an obvious question.

“Oh, hi twilight, we’re just teaching sweetie here to cook.”

“Looks more like a fire-fight.” Fixinit had the same thought as me.

“Or a food-fight!” The stallion yelled while trying to peel Sweetie bell from the wall.

“We should help them.” I said to Fixinit.

“Or sit and watch.” He put his flank on the ground.

“You have a cruel sense of humor.”

“I know.” Then he got up and we started helping, starting with getting sweetie off of the wall.

About a half hour later we were done and panting. It wasn’t an easy job, even with our combined magic it took us a considerably longer time than expected.

“Well *pant* that was fun *pant*.” Rarity said.

“Why are you tired? You sat and watched us all work.” The new stallion wasn’t happy about that; she didn’t even use her magic.

“I got tired from watching you.” she popped up like she wasn’t tired at all.

“Well at least it’s done.” I wasn’t about to let an argument break out about this.

“Yeah, at least it’s done.” Fixinit had been sitting watching with an amused look, now he looked disappointed.

“Ok, now that we’re done, can we get to what we came here for?”

“Oh, right, what is it that you wanted, dear?” Rarity was more than willing to make a dress order, or a suit order, for her friend, after what she had been through.

“We actually came here to see you.” I looked at the new stallion “Fixinit here has told me that you and four others traveled through the Everfree forest to get here.”

“It’s very true.” He looked proud of his accomplishment.

“Fedorian here went hoof-to-hoof with a Manticore!” Fixinit was obviously excited to boast for his friend.

“Yes, I did, but it mostly ruined one of my best suits, I was fine afterwards.”

“Fine? Fed, when you got to my door you were limping and bleeding and in terrible condition, how could you say you were fine?” rarity stood up and pointed to her front door.

“Compared to the suit I had nothing more than a foal’s boo-boo.”

“Well, there’s no argument on that point.” She sat back down.

“We just wanted to stop by and say hello, maybe we could go to lunch someday or something.” I was almost eager to leave; they obviously had a ton of work to do, teaching sweetie and all, and their back and forth would be their own business.

“Ok, good bye, twilight.”

“Good bye.” And we were out.

“So, twilight, who’s next?”

“One sec.” I hit him with the spell again “it still says you’re in several places at once.”

“Maybe it’s because we were together for so long.”

“It’s possible.” But not probable.

“Now, who’s next?”

“There are two more places, one is a mare named Ditzy Doo’s house, and the other is Fluttershy’s house.”

“Which is closer?”

“Fluttershy is closer, but Ditzy is still in town.”

He stopped and put on a face of deep thought, after a minute he said “we should go to Fluttershy’s house, its closer.”

“Ok then.” And we set off; no sooner had I said that then was I stopped by a familiar orange pony.

I was just delivering some apples when I saw Twilight with a new stallion “hey, Twilight, ah didn know yall were out n’ about.”

“Hey, applejack. I'm just out looking for some friends. This is Fixinit; he arrived here a few days ago. Fixinit, this is applejack, she is the proud owner and main worker at the Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Well, technically, granny smith owns th’ place and big mac can buck twice as many apples as ah can.”

“Whatever. We were just heading over to Flutershy’s, what are you doing?”

“Oh, ahm jus deliverin a fairly large order o jazz apples to th’ bar, ‘ey ran ou’ o some kind o alcoholic drink tha calls fer ‘em.”

“Ok, well I’ll see you later, applejack.”

“Bah.” I started to walk away when an apple rolled out and almost fell; Fixinit caught it with his magic and placed it back on top.

“Maybe we should come with, just in case.”

“Mehbe, we culd talk on th’ wey.”

“Great.” They started to walk next to the cart, catching another five apples before we got to the next street.

“So, howd yall get ‘ere, mister Fixinit?”

“Just Fixinit is fine. I wandered here through the Everfree forest.”

“Wha- thas dangerous, how long were yall in there?”

“Two weeks. But I had five other ponies with me. So we were pretty set.”

“Thas still purty dangerous. Did yall run inta any trouble?”

“Oh, just a Manticore, but we defended ourselves pretty well, only two of us came out of that fight with any scratches or bruises.”

“Well thas good ah guess. But whu happen’ to th’ ponies tha got hurt?”

“I don’t know, we were going to check on one of them when we met you, and we just returned from the others place. He seemed all right.”

“Well thas good, too.” we arrived at the bar and I unloaded the apples “well, thank ya kindly fer yer help. See ya round.” And then I left with the cart.

“Well it was defiantly great meeting another one of your friends, Twilight.” I looked at him, he seemed sincere enough.

“That’s good, should we get to Fluttershy’s now?”

“We should.” We started walking.

Just as we reach the last building on our way out of town towards Fluttershy's cottage we heard a loud roar followed by a scream.

37. FIGHT

Just as Twilight and Fixinit reach the last building on their way out of town towards Fluttershy's cottage they heard a loud roar followed by a scream.

“What was that?" twilight said in confusion.

“Somepony help me...It's going to kill me...please help!" Fixinit looking at Twilight after hearing another roar.

"We need to find where that is scream came from and help them." Twilight scanning the area notices a pony pass by the end of a nearby alleyway followed by a large familiar beast.

"Was that...It couldn't be..." Twilight bolts down the alleyway where she had seen the two passed by. “Fixinit we have to hurry! That shouldn't be here in town."

"What are you talking about Twilight?"

"It looked like a Manticore, but that can't be...They never leave the Everfree Forest."

As they reach the end of the alley, the two hear another roar from there right. The Manticore was closing in on a pony using a few trash cans for cover, trying its best to hide from the beast. Twilight's eyes widen in fear at the sight and Fixinit lets out a tired sigh.

“This is bad! We need to help that pony and find a way to get that Manticore away from town. I have to think of something." Twilight started to panic.

“This problem again..." Looking around he quickly spots some objects and starts forming an idea.

‘broken apple crate, discarded parchment, glass bottle, and metal trash can....hmm...perfect!’

“Twilight, can you use your teleport spell and get that pony somewhere safe while I lead this guy away from town?"

“Alright." Twilight's horn began the glow then with a flash of light she appeared next to the hiding pony and placed a hoof on it and with another flash was gone.

The Manticore began searching for the pony that was there just moments before turning and spotting Fixinit with all of items he had seen floating around him.

“This is a real problem now..." he said as he turned and began running away from town.

He began working on his device while running as fast as he could toward the forest in the distance. Using his magic he removed the bottom of the metal trash can and began forming it into a cone shape. Leaving a small opening at the narrow end of the cone. Next ripped apart the apple crate keeping only two pieces of wood and the long strand of wire used to hold the crate together. Using these he fashioned a holder for the glass bottle and attached it onto the small end of the cone. Placing the bottle in the holder, he began adjusting the height and angle of the bottle and its holder.

Looking up to make sure his path was still clear and on target with the forest. Finding everything ahead of him ok and on the right path to reach the woods he gave a quick glance behind him noticing the Manticore had closed half the gap between them, then he hastily went back to his invention.

“Just a little more and I’ll have a surprise for you.” he murmured more to himself than the monster.

Focusing on the make shift device, He rolled the parchment into a tiny narrow tube to make straw and place it into position just above the lip of the glass bottle and fastened it with the wire hanging from the holder.

“Okay, a quick test." Blowing through the parchment tube causes the device to emit a low sound like a flute note in a deeper tone.

“A few adjustments and we'll be ready." He moved the angle of the bottle just as he reaches the edge of the forest; turning around the Manticore rushing toward him.

“Now or never I guess." He takes in a deep breath and blows through the parchment tube and the device emits an ear piercing whistle.

I teleported us to the first place that came to my mind, the town square. It wasn’t uncommon for a unicorn to teleport around, but when she was tugging along another pony that was shaking in their hooves like a foal, it raised a few eyebrows. Of course I made sure that this pony was alright before running off towards where Fixinit had been, to my surprise the pony yelled after me.

“I wanna help, too.”

“Why? No offense but you weren’t much help back there.”

“You pulled me out before I could do anything! If I’d known that I had the backup of you and that other guy I would have stood my ground!”

“Fine, just don’t get in our way, please; I don’t want to hurt you on accident.” I then began running again.

“Thank you.” he said following me closely.

The sound causes the charging beast to wince and shake its head furiously from the pain the noise was causing it. The beast, losing its focus on Fixinit, charged pass him slamming into a tree behind him.

The last of his breath gone, he quickly turns to find the beast slightly dazed but still aware of his presence. Taking another deep breath and letting another blast of sound from the apparent whistle, the sound again causing the beast to let loose a roar and shaking its head wildly from side to side to try to relieve itself of the pain coming from its ears. Unable to stand the continual agony from the sound, it rushes back into the forest, crashing through the bushes and dense undergrowth of the forest to escape the punishing screech.

“That worked perfectly, I guess playing with a glass bottle when I was younger pays off, but the ringing in my ears tells me that I shouldn’t try that again... at least anytime soon.”

Slowly making his way back to town, Twilight and the pony from before come running up to him. He notices Twilight's mouth moving but the ringing in his ears drowns out her voice.

“I can't hear you right now, let’s go back to the library, hopefully I can regain my hearing by the time we get there." Giving his head a few shakes before Twilight simply nods her head in agreement and starts making their way back to town.

38. Dates & Bro-talks

On our way back to the library Fixinit explained in great detail what he did to send the Manticore away, how he used the make-shift-whistle to demolish the beasts’ eardrums. He talked and I listened, I knew he couldn’t hear so I just listened. When we got back to the library he had regained his hearing. We talked about what our next move would be: should we still go to Fluttershy’s house or should we wait till tomorrow. Then there was a knocking at the door.

“Hello?” I opened it and there stood the pony from before, now that my mind wasn’t pumped full of adrenalin I could get a better look at who now stood before me.

He was a Pegasus with a grey coat, black mane with a blue streak through it, his eyes were dark green and they looked sad.

“Hi, I just wanted to come and thank you guys for saving me back there.” He had a slight southern accent, kinda like applejack, but not as extreme, and he looked ashamed for not being able to protect himself.

“Oh, it was no problem. Did you need anything else?” he seemed to look more ashamed and almost embarrassed.

“A-actually I wanted to check out a book.”

“Ok, come on in.” I stepped aside to let him pass, he walked in and saw Fixinit; almost immediately all signs of embarrassment and shame were gone, replaced by mistrust and slight anger.

“hello.” He had a surprisingly stern voice.

“Hi.” Fixinit was cheerily greeting this pony, oblivious to the malice in his voice “I'm Fixinit, what’s your name?”

“I'm Silver Rain, what’s he doing here?” he asked me.

“Fixinit just needs a place to stay for a while.”

“Uhuh, and when will he be leaving?” he gave Fixinit a squinted glare.

“I'm not sure, we haven’t discussed it.” he didn’t like Fixinit for some reason.

“I see.” He then walked around the couch Fixinit was sitting on, never letting his gaze leave the brown stallion, to a bookshelf in the back, he then started to touch every book, one by one on the spine, in his reach; I found this odd, but passed it off as him just looking for the book he needed.

“Twi, what’s up with your friend?”

“I don’t know him; I’ve never seen him around, ever. I’ll have to talk to pinky soon. Um, Mr. Rain, what book are you looking for?”

His tone was back to a calm one “yes, how to get a mare was the title, I think. A friend told me that it helped a lot for him.” I walked over to the section he was at.

“Here it is.” I pulled a book out, the title reading what he said, and gave it to him “are there any others you need?”

“Yeah, I-I would…” he got a look on his face, like he was attempting to do something he had never done before “ch-check you out.” He finished with a weird grin.

“Um…” he suddenly got angry at himself.

“Celestia dammit!! I knew that wouldn’t work. And now you probably think I'm some kind of weirdo. I'm so sorry; I just thought you were very pretty and heroic back there. I like you a lot and I just really wanted to be with you. I'm going to go now. I'm sorry.” He started to walk away in shame and embarrassment.

“Wait, I never said no!”

“So you will.” He looked back in mild hope and disbelief.

“Sure, you seem like an ok guy to me, and you haven’t given me a reason to not like you. I don’t see why this wouldn’t work out.”

“Thank you.”

“But I wouldn’t want to go too fast. The last person I had a relationship with we took it too fast and he left me. So let’s get to know each other first.”

“Ok, tomorrow at olives garden for lunch at noon. I’ll be waiting.” He walked out with his book and closed the door, as soon as it was closed Fixinit shot out of his chair.

“What just happened?”

“I got a date with a Pegasus.”

“Well, yeah, but still, what just happened?” he was in my face now.

“I told you, I got a date, now back off.” I now realize how angry I must have been.

“You can't just go on a date with every stallion you save.”

“And you can't tell me what to do.”

“Yeah, but think, you don’t know this guy, not in the slightest, the last you saw him he was quivering like a foal.”

“Anything else, because so far he sounds like any other stallion stuck in that situation.”

“No, I was the one who actually did everything! You just teleported! I actually lead it out of the town and pushed it back into the forest!”

“Yes, but still, you can't stop me.”

He was enraged. “Fine! Go fuck a duck for all I care! But if he ends up being the worst guy you ever knew, don’t come crying to me!”

“I won’t need to.” I then walked up to my studies while he huffed and puffed in the lobby.

I heard the entire thing from the kitchen, the new stallion coming in, twilights talk to them both, and Fixinits rage. I didn’t like the last part but I really didn’t see any other issues. Why was Fixinit so angry that twilight had just gotten a new coltfriend, anypony else would be happy for her, considering what she had been through. I decided to confront him about it.

“Hey, Fixinit. Everything ok?”

“No spike, everything is not ok.” He was calm and sitting on the couch with his head in his hooves.

“What’s wrong? Why don’t you like that twi got a new coltfriend?”

“Because I was hoping to fill that role.”

“You like twilight?”

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t you talked to her about it?”

“… I'm not good with mares.”

“Well, you should talk to her about it. If she knows why you blew up like that she could help you. She is really good at helping ponies like that.”

“No, I don’t want to get in her way; I just want her to be happy.” He acted defeated.

“She could be happy with you.”

“No, she didn’t show any interest in me. She doesn’t want me like that.”

“Dude, when she got here all she cared about was studying; she didn’t care about friendship at all, now look at her, she knows everypony, if you talk to her about it she will open up, I promise.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so.” I gave him a reassuring smile.

“Thanks spike. I owe you one.”

“I take payment in jewels or bits.” I bowed sarcastically.

He smiled “I’ll go to raritys tomorrow.”

“You’re going to raritys? Can I come?” my mind was filled with images of the beautiful mare.

“Sure, don’t see why not.”

“Great!”

39. Gems & Crying

The rest of that day Fixinit stayed on the couch until dinner, Spike stayed in the kitchen babbling over Rarity and Twilight stayed in her studies. Nopony talked during dinner and after that they all parted ways, Fixinit slept on the couch, Twilight slept in her room, and Spike slept in his basket. The next day Fixinit got up early to leave the house; he didn’t want to talk to Twilight before her date with Silver.

“Spike, you coming?” he said, the dragon was up and ready in a matter of seconds.

“Yep!” and with that they set off, the entire way there Spike noticed that Fixinit had a look of deep thought on his face, it never faltered.

I was working on a new outfit that I thought would look stunning on a white mare with purple hair when I heard the doorbell ring.

“One moment, dearie!” I yelled to the front, I carefully set down my tools and fabric and trotted to the front “hello, Fixinit. What can I help you with?”

“I just need a gem, I owe Spike one and I didn’t have any on hand. I was just wondering if I could have one.”

“Sure, how big?” I walked over to one of my many chests of gems.

“Oh, just a normal sized one is fine.” I found a very generic jewel that I knew I could spare.

“How’s this?” I held it in front of him.

“That will do perfectly.” He took it in his magical grip and put it in Spikes hand, Spike had hearts in his eyes and his tongue was hanging from his mouth.

“I think he wants more crystals.” I said with a chuckle, Fixinit looked down at the baby dragon and saw the look on his face, Fixinit smirked.

“Or something else.” He said in a… funny tone.

“What dear?”

“Oh, nothing, but I noticed that this place is much quieter than it should be. Where’s Fed and Sweetie?” he looked around as if searching for them.

“Out on another adventure, something about teaching Scootaloo to fly.”

“Who’s Scootaloo?”

“One of Sweeties’ friends, a Pegasus that is too small to fly effectively at this point.”

“That’s too bad. Do you need any help with anything?” he must have been thinking of paying me back for the small gem.

“I should be able to manage. But you work with time turner, right?”

“Yes, but its Sunday so I don’t have work.”

“Oh, I know, but I have a malfunctioning sewing machine, could you take a look?”

“I would be more than happy to.” he followed me to my work room.

“This is the one, it won’t start up and I can't figure out why.”

“Let’s see.” He opened the machine and started playing with the gears, then he went and worked the pedal with his hoof, some gears spun and others did not “I see your problem, there is a piece of fabric caught in the mechanics, it should only take a second to fix, hold on.” His horn lit up and a piece of cloth floated out.

“Thank you, Fixinit. You’re a life saver; I would be down a fourth production if this one hadn’t gotten fixed. How can I repay you?”

“The gem was enough.” He assured me.

“The gem was a gift, I must pay you back.” I ran out of the room, got a small brown bag, filled it with bits, then ran back in “here.” I hoofed him the bag.

He opened it, looked inside then hoofed it back “I can't take this.”

“Why?”

“It’s just too much”

“Oh no, I insist, you really helped me out today, this is the least I can do for you.”

“Fine I’ll take… half of this.” Where have I heard that before?

“No, take it all. Please!”

“One third.”

“Two thirds.”

We were now practically touching muzzle to muzzle, staring intently into each other’s eyes. “One… fourth. Final offer!”

“Fine.” And with that I split the coins and put one fourth into the bag, he took the bag and thanked me on the way out.

After they were gone I got the strangest sense of déjà vu.

I woke up this morning and both Fixinit and Spike were gone, I hoped that they hadn’t left like Dillon did, then I panicked a little, then I calmed down for my date with Silver. It was only a few minutes away and I wasn’t nearly ready. I quickly brushed my mane, polished my horn, and then set out for Olives Garden.

When I got there I was two minutes’ late, Olives Garden was an inside/outside restaurant so some of the tables were in front of the restaurant. When I walked closer I noticed Silver Rain sitting at one of the outside tables with his face on the table. I walked up behind him.

“Why is your head on the table?” it shot up and looked at me.

“y-you actually came?” he stuttered in disbelief.

“Of course, it wouldn’t be very nice of me to blow you off.”

“I just didn’t think you would actually come. I acted so weird back at the library.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, trust me, it’s hard to express inner emotions.”

“I know.” I sat down across from him at the table.

There was a large period of time where neither of us said anything.

“So, how should we start this off?” I asked.

“Well… I guess we should talk about ourselves. What do you like to do?”

“I like to read, I like to go to the fairs, I like to meet new ponies. What do you like?”

“I like to know what to do next…” he looked down a little, then another awkward silence.

“Ok. Um, what do you want to eat?” I picked up my menu.

“I’ll have the dandelion sandwich.”

“Me too, waiter.” I called the nice looking server over to us.

“Yes, madam?”

“Two dandelion sandwiches, please.”

“Ok, I’ll be right out with them in a moment.” He left to place our orders.

Another silence occurred. It was starting to get on my nerves, actually.

“Silver, this isn’t working.” He got a scared look.

“What, what is it?”

“We aren’t learning anything about each other at all. Mostly, we’re just sitting here silently. Let’s take another approach to this.”

“And how would that be?” he calmed down a little.

“Just act like you would around anypony else, your family, your friends, roommates, anypony.”

“I don’t have anypony else.” He looked down a little.

“What? You must have acquaintances of some kind.”

“No, you’re actually the first pony I’d talked to in a long while.” He looked down further.

“Where’s your family?” I was starting to worry.

“I don’t know.” He looked down even more.

“That’s terrible.” I held his hoof.

“I can handle it though.” His voice didn’t show any signs of sadness, the fact that he was looking at his lap was the only giveaway “I’ve been traveling my whole life, whenever I stopped to rest in a town or city something bad would happen and I would be forced to leave. I have never known love, only loss. You are the longest mare friend I have ever been with.”

“But it hasn’t even been a day!”

“I know.”

I felt so sad for this stallion, he had been alone his entire life, never to know the joys of love or even friendship, the thing I was sent here to study. I now realized exactly how alone this guy had been, I started to cry. A tear fell, he saw it hit the table and looked up.

“Please, don’t cry.” He said kinda urgently.

“b-b-but you’ve been s-so lonely.” I cried some more, then he started to cry, too.

“d-don’t c-c-cry.” Then he started crying uncontrollably, not loud or a lot, he just couldn’t stop.

“Why are you crying?”

“What?” he blushed a little “I'm not crying!” he sobbed a little more.

“Yes you are. There’s a tear. Come here.” I moved around the table and hugged him, after a second of hesitation he hugged back; we sat there for the next few minutes just trying to calm down.

We calmed down and a minute later our food came. We ate and thought. I need to help this guy; he needs somepony to be with.

40. Sleep & Dreams

After we ate I asked when we could meet next.

“Maybe during the next fair, you said you liked those, right?”

“Yes I did say that. Ok, we’ll meet at the next fair. Where can I find you until then?”

He thought for a moment, then looked down sadly “I don’t have a place to stay right now, I’ll just have to look for the nearest hotel.” He started to walk away.

“You could stay with me.” I was being sincere, I wouldn’t mind at all.

“Are you sure?” he turned his head.

“Of course, what kind of marefriend would I be if I didn’t help you when you’re in a jam?” I gave him a sweet smile.

“Even with that other guy?”

“You mean Fixinit? He would like the company of another stallion.”

“Ok, thank you Twilight.” He walked back up to me and gave me a short hug; it seems we’re at the hugging stage.

“It’s my pleasure.” Then we left for the library.

When we got home Fixinit was snooping through some stuff, specifically Dillon’s safe. Somehow he had opened it and was now looking through the stuff in it.

“Fixinit, how did you open that? It has a code on it!”

“I'm a mechanically inclined pony; I can crack a simple 6-digit-pass-code.” He said without looking up from his current schematic.

“Well what’s in there?”

“Just a ton of schematics for different devices. Some of someponies old memories, strangely, they weren’t a pony though. Twilight, is this Dillon?” he held up a picture Dillon from what seemed to be a few years ago.

“Yes, that’s Dillon. Your room is upstairs, third door on the left.” I said to Silver.

“Thank you.” then Silver left and Spike walked in.

“Fixinit got it on his first try, like he knew the combination.” The dragon gave the stallion a suspicious look.

“My hooves are sensitive, I felt the internal parts move.” He explained what he felt and what happened then went right back to looking through the papers scattered all over the lobby floor “by the way, I didn’t know you had a guest room, why didn’t you have me sleep in it?”

“Because I don’t have a guest room.” Then I walked upstairs.

Spike and Fixinit exchanged a worried glance, then they started to follow her up the stairs. They peeked into her room to see Twilight and Silver both sitting on the bed. They strained their ears to listen.

“Are you sure I can sleep with you, Twilight?” Silver asked in an unsure tone.

“Yes, we’re going to be marefriend and coltfriend aren’t we? So we might start acting like it. Plus nothing will happen unless we both want it to.”

“Thank you twilight, for a place to stay, but I don’t really feel comfortable sleeping with you.”

“Did you feel comfortable when we were at olives?”

“Well, no.”

“And this entire thing is about forcing you out of your comfort zone.”

“Well when you put it that way this makes sense.”

“Then c’mon, it’s getting late and I'm tired.”

“If you say so.” They lay down and the two outside the room shut the door.

They put their backs to the door and just sat there for a moment.

“She’s already sleeping with him.” Fixinit said stunned.

“Dude, I think it’s a bit late for you to proclaim your undying love.”

“Ya think?” he gave Spike a sarcastic look.

“Yep, well time to hit the sack, night.” And with that the baby dragon walked into the room silently and lay down in his basket.

“Well, I guess that’s my cue.” Fixinit got up and walked to the couch, curled into a ball and started thinking.

Thinking about how he couldn’t get Twilight. How he couldn’t win her heart with his intellect, how he had been surpassed by a lesser being, one not as smart. Then he realized how he was thinking, this pony was not some less significant being that got lucky, this was the stallion that Twilight loved, and he would support her any way he could. Then he fell into a troubled sleep.

That night I dreamt of the different male characters in my life. Dillon stood before me, then walked back into darkness like so many times prior. I called for him just the same and when I put my head down Fixinit came to lift it again. He helped me walk for a little then after I looked up to see his face I looked the other way to see Silver Rain, he was helping me too. After a few minutes of walking they began to back off and I started to walk on my own, then Silver started walking closer to me than Fixinit, not helping me but walking with me. Fixinit was watching us walk together, following a bit further than a few feet, but still following. Then I woke up.

When I fell asleep next to Twilight I knew I would dream about her. I was in the corner cowering from the Manticore, when Twilight teleported in the Manticore swatted her to the side. I was enraged; this monster had brought harm to a female. I felt the adrenalin in my veins, I felt my chest bulge, I looked down and saw the biggest muscles I had ever seen. The Manticore swatted at my head, I did nothing to stop it. He made direct contact, leaving a nasty scratch on my cheek. I looked back to it and smirked. It seemed to fear me now. I took one threatening step towards it and it flinched. It then seemed to notice how it was acting because it looked at its forepaws and back to me. Then it psyched itself up and roared. I punched its face, right in the snout, once, and it flattened. The monster fell to the ground with a bleeding nose and a broken jaw. Twilight woke up and gave me a hug and a kiss on the unscratched cheek. I just smiled at her, then swept her off her hooves in one passionate kiss, holding her head with a hoof. I think she liked it because she squealed in excitement. I noticed that that was the first sound I had heard in the entire dream, I then realized that everything seemed like an old silent film, which explains the silence.

41. Prench lessons

I woke up the next morning muzzle to muzzle with Twilight. This freaked me out a little, I made one small movement and she woke up. She saw me and smiled.

“Good morning.” She said in a tired, but joyful, tone.

“G-good morning.” I was still in a little shock that I had woken up like that.

“So what’s first on our agenda?” she gazed deep into my eyes, I gazed back.

“Whatever you want to do.” She looked like she really cared.

“Well right now I'm hungry. You want to see what spike made this morning?” she also looked sorry, even with her happy tone, I could tell she was full of pity.

“Spike cooks?” I didn’t know her little brother/son/employee/servant cooked.

“Yeah, and he isn’t that bad either. So whadaya say?” she sat up.

“Let’s go eat.” I got up after her and followed her to the kitchen.

As soon as we opened the bedroom door our snouts were bombarded with all sorts of smells. I tried to pick some out and came up with a short list: eggs, pancakes, waffles, pastries, and assorted fruits. All of these smells were mixed together to make all sorts of combinations and when we got to the kitchen we saw that’s exactly what spike had done, he had taken a little bit of everything and put it with everything else.

“Spike, this is amazing. How did you make this all so fast, you normally sleep in till noon?”

“I did, its 2 in the afternoon.” He said as he moved the eggs he had in a skillet.

“how did I sleep that late, I should have been up at 8, I'm probably behind on my work now and I’ll have to cram everything together to get it all done and-" she was starting to panic, obviously she was a very organized pony and when she ran into a problem she had no control over, she kinda freaked.

“Twilight.” I put a hoof over her shoulder “it’ll all be fine.” She looked into my eyes for a minute.

“Yeah, thanks, silver, I needed that.” She gave me a small hug then sat down.

“Is everything ok, Twilight?” Fixinit walked into the room, I watched him carefully.

“Yeah, I'm alright, Silver helped me not go crazy.” She patted my hoof, I never stopped watching Fixinit.

“So, spike, what’s for lunch?” he took a seat across from me.

“Take your pick, whatever’s there.” Spike waved his spatula around, gesturing to the table.

“Great.” Fixinit dug in, I watched him eat for a minute, I then slowly started to eat myself.

The food really was delicious. I had a little of everything with a side of whatever I hadn’t already had. We ate for the next few minutes, then Fixinit got up.

“Well, it’s time for me to go.”

“You’re leaving?” I don’t think I sounded like I would miss him, but I guess that’s how he took it.

“Don’t worry; I’ll be back in time for dinner.” And with that he walked out the door yelling back “adios, amigos.”

“What was that?” I didn’t speak Prench.

“He said ‘goodbye, friends’ why?”

“Oh, I just don’t speak Prench, that’s all.” She chuckled a little “what? Just because you’re a super smart pony doesn’t mean that everypony else knows everything.”

“Oh, no that’s not it.” she calmed down.

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“He wasn’t speaking Prench.”

“What was he speaking? Maredarin? Haytian? Filla?”

“No, just forget it.” she chuckled some more.

“Ok, well, what’s planned for today?” I knew I had nothing planned.

“I have some books to sort, a few papers to fill out, and maybe a little reading.”

“Well I have nothing to do so I might as well help.”

“sure.” We got to work sorting books and putting them back in the right place.

After about three hours we had the entire library neat and sorted. It was actually a much harder job than one would think. I hadn’t seen anypony in the library other than the four of us. I wonder how the books get so out of order. I decided to voice my thoughts to Twilight.

“Twilight, how did the books get mixed up? Besides me you Spike and Fixinit I haven’t seen any other ponies in here.” She turned and looked to me.

“They were in order, just the wrong order. Every once in a while I reorder all of the books. Today we ordered them by author, they were ordered by title.” She turned away and walked over to her desk to start her studies.

For the rest of the day I just bummed around, finding anything to entertain myself. I decided to go exploring, the tree house was much bigger than what I had previously been in. I walked around the first floor, there was a bathroom I hadn’t previously known of and a small room that looked to be a record room; I took a look at one of the papers, it read check out and return dates for different books. It seemed that business had declined over the past few months. I wonder why.

I then left that room how I found it, with papers scattered everywhere. I checked the second level. The only room up there I had really been in was twilights so I had a lot to do. I found another bathroom, a small room full of art, and a door on the ceiling. I thought it weird that a door would be up where nopony would be able to reach it, I used my wings to fly up to the small door and pulled it open, a ladder slid down from the opening, quite abruptly I might add. It hit the floor with a small thud.

I waited for twilight to come rushing out and yell at me but she never did. I then went up the ladder and into a large room; it looked like it was as big as the tree itself. ‘This must be the attic’ I thought.

I took a look around and saw many items of interest, there were some boxes with labels “up” and an arrow pointing up. There were old tables’ galore, and there was a piano. A grand piano, just sitting up here to rot. I was shocked that this fine instrument had been neglected for so long. I went up to it and hit a key, it rung as if it were brand new.

I loved the sound of a freshly tuned piano, it reminded me of spring, when all the different living things that rested under the blanket of the dreary, cold, winter came out to enjoy the warm of the first spring day. I started to play one of my favorite classical tunes, Eroica by Neighthoven. This had always been my favorite classical song. When I finished the song I sat next to the piano and just thought. Then the unthinkable happened.

42. Piano Pony

42. The piano pony

“That was great.” She scared me to death, back alive, and to death again; I think I literally jumped to the beams above and held on for a minute.

“W-w-when did you get here?!?” I yelled from the beams above, she grabbed me in her magic, it was warm and comforting, like a mothers hug, but I had never experienced that so I didn’t know.

“Mmm, about half way through.” She decided.

She set me down “so you heard that, huh?” I had never played in front of anypony, ever.

“Yeah, and it was great!” she said enthusiastically.

“You really think so?” I had never been told my music was good, ever.

“Of course.” She hugged me.

“Thank you.” I hugged back.

“Would you mind playing something else?” I froze; I had never willingly played for another being.

“That… might not be a good idea.” She took a step back.

“Why? You played for me now, why not again?” she cocked her head to the side.

“Well, I didn’t know you were listening.” I looked down in embarrassment.

“Sorry for eavesdropping, by the way.” She looked ashamed.

“Don’t be, if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to play another song.” A smirk crept its way to my face.

“So you will play another one?” I nodded and she smiled wide.

I sat down in front of the piano again, placing my hooves and wings on the keys, I was playing a simple tune last time so I didn’t need my wings, if I was going to play something to show off I needed all the help I could get, I started to play another song, I stopped half way through the introduction.

“Could you sing?” I asked Twilight.

She looked stunned “what? No, I can't sing for anything.” She looked down again.

“Really? Say ‘hmmmmmm’ if you can.” I sustained the humming for another minute; she matched me perfectly, if an octave higher.

“I told you I couldn’t sing.” She looked down and to the side.

“That was perfect, Twilight. Just listen for now.” I started to play and eventually sing.

(Start at 0:35 please)

Youtube Video

When I was done I looked to her “now you.” I started to play again.

“Wait! How am I supposed to do that? I only just heard this song!”

“I’ll sing with you, just copy me.” I reassured her with a smile.

“ok.” I started again, we started to sing together.

Youtube Video

“That was beautiful, Twilight.” I smiled at her.

“Thank you.” she blushed.

“So what now?” I didn’t know if she wanted to sing more or if she was embarrassed, I couldn’t tell.

“Fixinit should be home in a few hours, we can sing until then, unless you don’t want to.” she caught herself at the last second, she didn’t want to force me to do something I was uncomfortable with, but then again, she made me sleep with her, so I was confused where the line was, I pushed these thoughts out of my head.

“I’ll do it till you want to stop.” I started another song and we sang like there was no tomorrow.

Later that day Fixinit came home from work and we had to stop. Silver was obviously disappointed, he kept staring at Fixinit. Now that I think about it, he’s done that every time he sees Fixinit. Why is that?

“Hey, Fixinit how was work?” I asked him to break the tension.

“Work was ok, we had a clock in pretty bad shape, but it wasn’t a problem.” He walked over to the couch and sat down; he started to sift through the schematics like yesterday.

“What’re you going to do with those?” he just looked at them, never acting on what he saw.

“I’ll probably make pony accessible versions of them, design prototypes, then show time turner.” He never looked up.

“That’s cool; did you know Silver played the piano?” Silver gave me a ‘why did you do that?’ look.

Fixinit looked up “I did not. Let’s hear it. Wait, where’s a piano?”

“It’s in the attic. C’mon.” I lead the two stallions upstairs.

When we got to the attic I pulled down the ladder and climbed up, Fixinit followed me, then after a few seconds of hesitation, so did Silver. When we got up there I walked over to the grand piano.

“This has been here for as long as I have, probably even longer.” I patted the top lightly.

Fixinit sat his flank on the ground “well, on with the show!” he said in a mock accent; I remember it from somewhere.

“Silver, c’mon.” I motioned him over, he hesitated but gave in.

He sat in front of the instrument and placed his wings and hooves on the keys, and then he started to play a tune.

Youtube Video

“Wow, guys, that was beautiful.” Fixinit was in awe.

“thanks.” I felt comfortable around Silver.

“Yeah, thanks.” Silver hugged me.

“Twilight, you never said you could sing, nor did you Silver. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know until just earlier today.” I smiled at him.

“I had never been told my music was even remotely good. I thought everyone hated it.” Silver looked down a bit.

“Well, I thought it was great.” Fixinit smiled genuinely “now, what’s for dinner, I'm starved.” As if on cue his stomach growled and we all laughed.

“I don’t know what spike made, but we should get down there, it smells like he’s done.” as Silver realized how good the room smelled his stomach grumbled, too.

“And we better hurry.” Fixinit was right, we rushed downstairs to find spike sitting on the couch reading while sounds of cooking came from the kitchen.

“Spike! What are you doing?” I was afraid he had left something unattended in the kitchen, it might boil over, or burn, or go bad.

“reading.” He said in a nonchalant fashion.

“Who’s watching the food to make sure it doesn’t go bad?”

We heard a voice come from the kitchen “ah am, sugarcube. Don’t you worry none, ah got it awl under control.”

43. Apple pie

I recognized this voice immediately, so did Fixinit, Silvers ears perked a little but he obviously didn’t know who was in the kitchen.

“Applejack, what are you doing?” I ran into the kitchen, she had prepared an entire table of apple products “I sure hope these are all our apples and not yours.”

“Naw, theyre yalls. I jus made em inta what they are now.” She made a sweeping motion towards the table.

“Why?”

“What, a girl can't be nice ta her friend?” she gave a mock shocked expression.

“I never said that, but you didn’t have to go and make us dinner.” I defiantly wasn’t going to turn down a meal, especially not one made by Applejack.

“Well think o it as payment, fer th gran show, I heard yall singin up there, I didn know th other voice, who was that?” she peeked behind me and saw Fixinit with Silver Rain “who ‘n th hay is that?”

“That’s Silver Rain; he’s staying here for the time being.”

“Twi, yall sure ya aint runnin a hotel here instead o a library?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I'm sure, these fine gentlecolts just don’t have anywhere else to go, that’s all.” I looked back to Silver and Fixinit, Silver was staring with his mouth hanging a little.

“Can ah meet em?” she gave me a hopeful look.

“Sure, come here.” She followed me over to the two stallions in the main area.

“Applejack, this is Silver Rain, Silver, this is Applejack.” He stared at her with the same look from before, he was obviously awestruck.

AJ was oblivious to this though “mighty fine meetin ya.” She took his hoof and gave it a rough shake; this snapped him out of his daze.

“D-ditto.” He stuttered as she shook him.

“So, yall gonna eat er what?” she walked back into the kitchen, Fixinit followed her, I started to follow her when I was stopped by Silver.

“Twilight,” he whispered and put a hoof on my shoulder “you need to tell me everything you know about Applejack, she is the most beautiful mare I have ever laid eyes upon.” I was a little shocked, he was supposed to be my coltfriend, but if he really liked Applejack I wouldn’t deny him the opportunity to be happy.

“She works down at sweet apple acres, she runs the place with her bigger brother and grandmother, she is the element of honesty, she has one of the largest families I know, and they all are the most fun-loving group you had ever met. Why do you want to know?” I raised an eyebrow accusingly.

“U-uh, no reason.” His eyes shifted nervously.

“You aren’t thinking about trying to get her, hook, line, and sinker, are you?” I leaned in.

“n-no of course not, your my mare friend.” He tried to look determined and loyal.

“Oh, well that’s a shame; I would have been perfectly fine with it.” I shrugged and backed off.

“You would?” he was obviously shocked.

“Of course, if you really liked her, that is.” I started to walk away.

He jumped on his stomach and grabbed one of my rear hooves and started thanking me “oh thank you thank you thank you!!” I pulled it away from him.

“It’s fine, and I’ll help you in any way I can.” He stood up and hugged me.

“Thank you Twilight Sparkle.” He let go.

“Yall comin in ‘ere er what? Th food’s gettin cold!” Applejack yelled from in the kitchen.

“Let’s go before they get suspicious.” Silver was taking every precaution.

We got in there and took our places at the table, Silver sat next to Applejack and I sat next to him.

“So, Twilight, how’s this one treatin ya?” she pointed to Silver.

“What?” I almost spat out a bite of apple pie.

“Fixinit here was just tellin me how yall were goin out.” Silver nearly slammed his head into the table.

“Oh, we aren’t really going out-” she cut me off before I could explane.

“really, cus he told me that yall love birds slept together, was he lying to me?” she glared at Fixinit, I punched him in the arm.

“Ow, what was that for?” I pretended like I didn’t hear him.

“It is very true, but we had nowhere else for him to sleep, and it was a better choice than letting this one in with me. He would try something as soon as he got the chance.” I took a side glance at him for emphasis.

“Now that’s true, too.” Fixinit smirked as he said this; we all just rolled our eyes.

“Anyway, how in Celestias name are you two not in a relationship if yallready done that?” she cast me a sideways look.

“Like I said, there was nowhere else for him to sleep.”

“The couch down here was empty.” Fixinit stated, I punched him a bit harder “would you quit that?” again, I didn’t hear him.

“The point is we are not dating. Not right now, anyway.” I gave her a friendly smile.

“ok.” We pretty much finished in silence, save for the sounds of eating and the compliments to the chef.

“That was delicious, Applejack, let me help you with the dishes.” Silver carried half the dishes on his back, balancing a few on his wings.

“Thank ya kindly, Silver.” She carried the other half on her considerably stronger back.

He helped her with the chores to clean up the kitchen, washing the dishes, cleaning the counters, even pushing in the chairs. After everything was put away she said she had to leave, her brother said she needed to be back by midnight to make sure that all the cows were in the barn, it was her night to do it and she wanted to get more than four hours of sleep tonight. We thanked her for the meal and she left.

“She’s so beautiful.” Silver daydreamed about her for the rest of the night, I let him, but he was defiantly sleeping on the couch.

“Well, goodnight, boys, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I started walking up the stairs.

“Goodnight, Twilight.” They said at the same time, Silver with a dreamy tone, Fixinit with a relaxed tone.

44. Lunas night adventure

My sister and I have ruled over Equestria for a very long time, I have been gone for the past thousands of those years, but that makes me no less royalty. Our rolls are clear for us, she brings day, I bring night. But that’s not all we do. We have many powers and responsibilities that none of our little ponies know about.

For example, my sister must bring day, but she also must send it away. I must bring night and send it away. I have reason to believe that most ponies think that I bring night and she brings day, but they don’t think about how each leaves. I must also protect the ponies’ dreams, as she protects their bodies. I think that they all take what I must do for granted, but I am more than happy to do it anyway.

I was out fending off the nightmares one night (it’s nothing special to watch, when I see a pony with a bad dream I search their memories for something good, then I make them think of that instead) I reached a dream that I found… odd. I had known this mare personally for a while now and I had never known her to think of such things.

She had a dream about a very tall creature, this being looked familiar but I couldn’t quite put my hoof on the subject, this tall creature walked away from her and she started to yell and scream after it, I was ready to probe her mind for a good memory when a stallion came from where the tall being left. This stallion also seemed familiar; he raised her chin and looked into her eyes. After he had helped her up they started to walk, not anywhere specific, just walking.

After a minute another stallion appeared out of nowhere on her other side. Another minute passed and they split apart, but one walked further than the other. This continued for several minutes, then the closer one backed off.

I started to wonder if this dream had anything to do with what she had gone through recently, or if it was just a random dream. I decided to watch and wait. They continued to walk like before, the stallions keeping their distance. When the dream neither escalated nor de-escalated I decided to leave. I would need to tell Celestia about this.

I woke up the next morning and came downstairs. Everypony was up. I was always up before spike so this surprised me.

“Spike, what are you doing up?” he gave me a half asleep look.

“I couldn’t sleep.” He barely whispered it.

“What? Why?” Spike would sleep through Armaregeddon, if he got the chance.

“Him.” He pointed to silver; he was lying on the couch staring at the ceiling mumbling incoherently with a lover colt look on his face.

“What did he do?” I was confused, how was Spike kept awake by that?

“He wouldn’t stop. He just kept talking, not a moment of silence.” He grabbed me around the neck and looked into my eyes; he looked to be afraid of something.

“You get some sleep, I’ll talk to him.” In response he fell onto the couch face down “hey, silver. You wanna talk?” he looked up at me.

“She is so beautiful.” He sounded high, or crazy, take your pick.

“Who, applejack? Do you want to see her today?” he shook his head up and down rapidly, I wondered how his brain took what was probably happening to it right then “you better go get ready.” He shot up and sprinted to the bathroom, tripping every three pony lengths, Fixinit was already in there, but he obviously didn’t care; he tried to open the door, I heard the locking mechanism jingle with the force.

“TWILIGHT, GET THIS DOOR OPEN!!” he yelled down to me, I calmly walked up and used my magic to open it; he burst through without a hesitation.

I heard some struggle, then Fixinit flew out the door, hit the floor, and then the door slammed. He was wet and soapy, stunned to silence, and just sitting there. He looked up to me.

“Why did I just get thrown out of the shower?” he had a wondering gaze.

“Because he’s going to see Applejack today. I told him to get ready.” I rolled my eyes a little.

“You do know that applejack probably won’t care if he takes a shower or not, right?” he gave me a look.

“Yeah, but apparently he doesn’t.” I chuckled.

There was an awkward moment, then he felt his body “if you’re ready I'm ready.” He gave a suggestive look and I rolled my eyes “what? All lubed up and ready to go.” He got up and tried to walk over to me; but he slipped on some soap beneath his hoof and landed on his face “probably deserved that.”

“Probably?” I rolled my eyes again and walked away.

I went downstairs where Spike was snoring loudly. I left him be, he had a rough night. I pulled up a book I was currently reading and started from where I left off. That’s right about when Silver came back down, jumping in anticipation of meeting his love.

“Can we go now?” he asked excitedly.

“Sure. Just let me get ready.” I got up to go take a nice long shower, then maybe brush my mane, after that would be when I did the rest of my morning routine, instead he picked me up, put me on his back, then ran out the front door at full speed.

He was halfway across town when he realized he didn’t know where the farm was.

“Where could I find this ‘sweet apple acres’?” he asked.

“go down this road, turn left at the next intersection, five miles down, then take a right where the gravel turns to dirt.” We were already at the first intersection.

After about three minutes of him asking every question under the sun, I was surprised that he didn’t ask anything about what kind of stallions she liked or what she was like, this made me a little worried about what he was getting himself into, then we were at the gates of the farm, from where we were it was a five minute run, He was obviously really in love; I made the right choice yesterday.

“Here it is, I hope you two have a great time.” I smiled, genuinely, and started to walk away.

“Twilight?” I turned and saw his head down “you sure you aren’t the least bit mad I left you like that?” he looked up at me, it was a sad look.

“I'm sure, if you really like her.” I smiled again.

“Good, I’ll see you later, Twilight.” He opened the gates and went inside.

“later.” And I happily walked away.

45. Payback

When I opened that gate I was anxious. I had thought out the conversation from beginning to end, what I thought the most likely answers were going to be, and planned accordingly. I walked up to the house, still anxious, but less so. I knocked a few times, then took a step back and waited. After a few seconds a little filly opened the door, I had not thought of the possibility that Applejack had a child, this would alter my plans entirely, and if she already had somepony then I was screwed. She looked up at me.

“Well, howdy there, stranger.” She seemed to be happy to see me, even if she had never met me “what brings yall out here?”

“I wanted to see Applejack. She made us dinner yesterday and I wanted to thank her.” She smiled now that she knew what I wanted.

“One sec.” she yelled into the house “Applejack! There’s a stallion here for ya!” she walked into the house and I heard hoof steps coming from the house; then she opened the door.

“Howdy, what brings yall ‘ere?” she looked like she had gotten up only a few minutes ago.

“You made us dinner yesterday; I just came to show my thanks.” She chuckled.

“Helpin with the dishes was ‘nuf.”

“No, you went through the trouble of making us a meal, where I come from that's worth a day of work.” I puffed my chest a little.

“You sure yer up fer it?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then c’mon in.” I walked in the house, it was nice, old pictures, old furniture, old style, I liked it “Is that really how it werks back where yall come frum?”

“No, but it got you to accept didn’t it?”

“Heh, I guess yer right.” She led me further into the house.

“So, Applejack, what do you need doing?” she turned and gave me a look of thought.

“Ya could try apple buckin, but that might not be fruitful. We might need help with the animals, yall good with cridders?”

“Yeah, I’ve had my fair share of encounters with the animal kind.” She lit up.

“Great, that’s what yall can do. Ya can help big mac with the animals.”

“Big mac?” I looked to the filly, the only other pony I had seen yet, she didn’t look very big “where is big mac?”

“Oh, he’s out back.” I knew it “yall wanna come and meet ‘im?” I nodded stiffly.

We went to the back door of the house and looked over their overly large back yard. When I looked out I saw many things, the perfectly green grass, the great scenery, the stunning view, then movement caught my eye, there was a stallion kicking a tree, as he kicked each tree a bunch of apples fell into baskets, not one hit the ground. From where I was he looked tiny, but then I looked at how much space there was between him and me.

“Big Mac! C’mere, we have a new workin hoof!” she yelled out to him, he looked up and galloped back to the house.

As soon as he got 10 yards away I knew I had been blinded by love to see that she already had a stallion in her life, I hadn’t even considered it. This brought my world to a screeching halt. He was tall, muscular, and just larger over all. His legs were twice as big as mine, and he was a head taller than me. Obviously I had some serious competition.

“Silver, meet Big Mackintosh, Big mac, meet Silver. Silver will be helping ya with the animals t’day.” She glanced back and forth between the two of us.

“Um, it’s good to meet you, big mac.” I said awkwardly.

He responded with a single “Eeyup.” We stared at each other for a minute, then Applejack broke the silence.

“You two should get going now, the animals will be up by the time you get there.”

“Eeyup.” Then he started to walk away, I followed after a seconds hesitation.

We took a short walk, there wasn’t anything remarkable about it, we didn’t even talk until we got to the animal barn. When we did get there he just got to work, he opened the doors to let the animals out, then he put feed in all of the animals feed boxes. I sat and watched as he did his thing, not sure what I should do myself.

“What should I do?” then he said his first multi-word-sentence since I’ve been here.

“You can watch the animals ‘til I get back with buckets, we need to milk the cows. Make sure they don’t make any moves to get out, I’ll be right back.” Then he walked behind the barn, I sat down and waited.

I waited for a few minutes then he came back with four buckets. We went through the gate and sat next to the cows, milking them one by one. I started to wonder about big mac and Applejack.

“So are you two… ya know.” He looked at me.

“Yeah, me and Applejack are close.” I felt my heart sink a little more.

“yeah.” I went back to my work.

“Jus bout as close as a bruther and sister could get, I recon.” My ears perked a little.

“What?”

“Ah said that we’re as close as two siblings could get, why?” my heart soared, I didn’t show it, but inside I was jumping around in relief.

“Nothing, just wondering if I heard you right.” I went back to my work happily.

We did several things throughout the day, everything from feeding them to washing them to right up chatting. When the day was almost over we went back to the house, Applejack was waiting for us with apple fritters.

“You do realize that this means that I’ll have to come back and work this off again, right?” I told Applejack, she almost lunged and grabbed the apple fritter out of my hoof.

“Fine, but next time, let’s not have you come here, let’s go and do something else.”

“Like what?”

“I could meet you at sugar cube corner for some lunch.”

“It’s a date.” Then I left, I had just scored a date with the love of my life, so you could imagine how happy I was.

46. RAINBOW!!!!

I got back to the library fifteen minutes later; I took my time getting back. When I opened the door I heard small talk, like there was another pony in here. I know spike was with him, but it didn’t sound like the kind of talk they would get into. I decided to make my arrival known.

“Hello, everypony. I'm home.” The small talk stopped, I walked into the main part of the library to see Rainbow Dash talking to Fixinit on the couch.

“Hey twi, Rainbow stopped by for the next book in her story. I didn’t know where it was but spike found it.” he smiled.

“So, Rainbow, what book are you on now?”

“Daring Doo and the crocodile king.” She beamed, she had the right to, that was halfway through the series, and this wasn’t a trilogy, no, it was about 100 books long, and each book was not short.

“Great! What were you two talking about?” they averted their eyes and Rainbow blushed a little.

“Nothing. Ya know, I should be going.” She got up to leave; I grabbed the end of her tail with my magic.

“Tell me.” They exchanged a glance, and then Fixinit spoke up.

“We were talking about Silver and his obsession with Applejack.” Rainbow looked at him, a little surprised I think, then copied his expression.

“Ok, so what else came up?” I was almost sure that wasn’t what they were talking about; again, Fixinit was the one to talk.

“Well, ya know, the usual.”

“And what might that be?”

“How weather patrols were doing, what’s happening at turners, your mood lately.” That last one caught me.

“My mood?”

“Yeah, like how you fell for two guys and they both left you. ya know, last time you were balling like no tomorrow, according to Rainbow,” I gave her a short glare “but this time you don’t seemed to be fazed at all, did you not really love Silver?” I was a little shocked.

“o-of course I loved him.”

“Then why don’t you seem to be sad that he’s obviously loving Applejack?” now I was in the spotlight.

“Um… well… you see…” I didn’t have an explanation.

“Don’t worry Twi, we won’t tell him if you never loved him.” I knew rainbow, she wouldn’t do that to a friend.

“Your right, I never loved him like Dillon. I don’t know if it was out of fear of what happened last time or if I just never had any feelings whatsoever, but I never had any true feelings for him.” I was ashamed, I was admitting that I didn’t love the stallion that I had slept with two nights before, the stallion that I was supposedly in a relationship with for the past few days, the stallion that showed some feelings towards me.

“It’s all right twilight, we understand.” They exchanged another glance.

“Fixinit likes you!” Rainbow yelled then flew out the door as fast as she could, and that was fast.

We stayed where we were for a minute, then I looked at him, more than a little stunned “is this true?” he blushed and looked down.

“yes.” It was barely a whisper, but I understood loud and clear.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You and silver, plus I didn’t know if you felt the same. Stuff like this can be a mine field.” He looked further away.

“You should have told me something.”

“I know.” His gaze was further averted; I was worried his neck would hurt.

“Because I would have seriously considered a relationship.” He looked up with hope in his eyes.

“No joke?”

“Why would I be joking?”

“Because I know what Dillon did to you, and I’ve pulled some stuff too, this would make up for all of that.”

“No joke, I promise.”

“ok.” We hugged, and then he looked into my eyes “I want this to be real, if there is any doubt in your mind, tell me, now.”

“It will take some work, but I think I could really love you, Fixinit.” I wasn’t lying; I really could learn to love this stallion.

Then the unexpected happened. He kissed me. It was a passionate one, not like schoolyard filly, five bit bet, nothing there. It was full of passion. He really did love me. Call me crazy, which has happened before, but there was something familiar about how his tongue moved through my mouth, like this had happened before, like a distant memory of good times. When it ended I backed off and looked into his eyes, there was love and a little hurt.

“Was that too much too fast?”

“No, it was beautiful. I loved it. But there was something familiar about it.” he suddenly got a little scared, not too scared, but I could still see it.

“How so?”

“It was just like how Dillon would kiss me.” I realized this was it.

“Is that a sign?”

“Maybe. But I still liked it.” I kissed the end of his nose.

“That’s good.” He gave me another kiss; we fell on the couch, me on top of him, we just held each other for a while.

“It’s almost time for me to go to work.”

“Hurry home.” Then he left, leaving me alone on the couch.

I had gotten to the shop early today. I didn’t expect Fixinit to get here until the normal time. I was wrong; he got here about five minutes earlier than me.

“Hey turner.” He sounded mellow.

“Hey kid, you sound funny, are you getting a cold?”

“No, just got a marefriend, that’s all.”

“Wouldn’t happen to be a mare by the name of Twilight Sparkle would it?”

“How did you know?”

“Just a hunch, you’ve been living with her for the past few days, right?”

“Yeah, it’s been about a week.”

“Right and a stallion your age would get feelings for a mare after being with them for a while, especially a mare like twilight.”

“ok.” We got to work on the clocks, he worked slower today, staring off into space, daydreaming, making her cutie mark out of gears; he must really like her.

“You, uh, need the day off?”

“No, I can work.”

“Ya know, my last employee listened to music, maybe that will help you focus.”

“maybe.” He pulled out buds, I recognized these buds, they were the kind that Dillon had.

He was much better from then on, working as fast as he ever did. I decided to not take him for granted anymore, I would think about it all tomorrow.

47. Honey, I'm home!

Fixinit got home later that day, he opened the door and announced “honey, I'm home!” then he walked in and found me, in the position he left me in “have you been like that all this time?” he walked over to me, kneeling to eye level.

I just nodded, then he kissed the end of my nose and I smiled.

“spike, what’s for dinner?” spike had been in the bedroom this entire time, he was reading something over for me, I was trying to teach him some important skills he would need to have if he were to ever go off on his own; he now came sliding down the railing.

“I was going to make spaghetti, how’s that sound?” he hit the ground and slid into the kitchen.

“That sounds great, spike.” I looked into Fixinit’s eyes, he looked back.

“We should get ready for dinner.” He said in a lower tone.

“But he hasn’t even started.” He gave a small smile.

“Then we should hurry.” he took my hoof and helped me up, then we walked up the stairs and into my room.

Now before we continue, I would like to get something clear. What came next surprised me over anything else. I hadn’t expected this at all. This was even bigger than the doozie. And no, we did not attempt reproduction.

“Twilight.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to take this too fast.” He was talking lower and in a serious voice, this slightly concerned me.

“What do you mean?”

“You said that you slept with Dillon after only a little while, right?”

“Yes.”

“And he left.” I almost saw him cringe when he said that, but he was faced away so I couldn’t quite tell.

“yes.” Now my tone was sad.

“Then you slept with Silver after the first date.”

“yes.” I was starting to get a little ashamed at how I look to him.

“And now he’s after Applejack.”

“yes.” I looked at my hooves.

“I don’t want that happening to you again.” He lifted my chin, just like my dream, he was smiling.

“Thank you.” our heads moved closer and closer, then we connected; I held the back of his head, pulling him closer to me.

We kissed for the next minute or so, and then we parted, staring into each other’s eyes.

“I think I really do love you, Fixinit.” He smiled genuinely.

“I know I love you.” he hugged me, tight.

“Dinners ready!” spike yelled from downstairs.

For some reason, Twilight and Fixinit went upstairs when I started making my spaghetti. I didn’t think anything of it, she was probably telling him about one of her studies, maybe the time she followed Pinky Pie around through bushes and stuff. Heh, he would be one to like a little stalker story. When they got down I had the table set up for four. Silver wasn’t back yet so one of the spaces would be empty. The spaghetti was all on one plate, and they were long noodles, just the way I knew she liked them. The large mound would keep temperature for a longer period of time and the longer strands would be the optimum choice for eating because there is more of a chance that the fork will catch, as she put it.

“What’s got you two in such a great mood?” Twilight answered immediately.

“Oh, Fixinit here just listened to one of my papers on Quantum Entanglement, that’s all.”

“I found it quite interesting.” He said it in a genuine tone, so I thought that it was legit.

“You two are a perfect match for each other.” I turned around to continue to set up the table.

We sat down to eat and dug in. Fixinit looked polite, kinda like Rarity, Twilight did her best to copy him, keeping her back straight, her head high, and her hooves in her lap. I thought that they looked a bit silly.

“Are you two ok? You look like you trying to impress somepony.” They looked at me, then to each other, then back to me; then they relaxed and ate normally.

“So Fixinit, how was work?” Twilight asked him.

“Work was ok, uneventful, and boring. I barely made it through the day with my music.”

“That’s good; at least you didn’t go crazy.” Twilight smirked as she said this.

“Yeah.” They chuckled “how was your day?”

“Same as yours, uneventful. I made it through by reading a few books.”

“We all have our preferences.” Fixinit smiled at her, they’re acting weird today.

They started to eat in silence, I thanked Celestia. Then I saw something that I thought was hilarious. There was a single noodle leading from Twilights plate to the large plate, then there was another leading to Fixinits plate. If by the off chance that those two noodles were actually one noodle they would kiss. Then the unthinkable happened. They started to slurp said noodle, it was one noodle, they moved closer and closer, Fixinit opened his eye and smirked at me, then cut the strand and watched as Twilight slurped up the rest.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked him.

“Well, I wasn’t about to give a baby dragon a show like that, now was I?” he responded, smirking the whole time.

“Whatever.” I went back to eating.

A few minutes after that Silver got back. He walked into the kitchen and greeted us.

“Hey guys, what’s for dinner?”

“Spaghetti.” We all responded at once.

“Cool.” He sat down and reached for a fork, then it hit us, all at once; the smell of his BO was overwhelming.

“Go take a shower!” Fixinit yelled in a hysterical tone.

“What, you can't take a little smell?” Silver took one fork of noodles, slurped up the access, and started to reach for another.

Then Twilight picked him up, in her magic of course, and carried him to the bathroom upstairs. A minute later she came back and cast an aroma smell on the room, it started to smell like lilacs, roses, dandelions, and other assorted flowers. We all gasped in a deep breath of air, smelling the wonderful fragrances of nature.

49. SPIKE!!

I woke up to a loud bang, I looked around and noticed that Silver was gone. He must have left for Applejacks again. I was awake now and I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon. So I decided to go see what I could muster up for breakfast.

When I entered the kitchen the first place I checked for food was the pantry. I found many different items in there, including but not limited to, some pancake mix, oat meal, some assorted cereal, and what looked like grass. I pulled out some oat meal and started mixing it with some milk. I was almost done, it was a paste and no longer a solid and a liquid, when a certain lavender unicorn walked in the kitchen.

“You know that if you would wait for Spike to wake up he would gladly make us breakfast, right?” as she rubbed her eyes and yawned.

“Yeah, Silver woke me up and ran out the door. He’s probably drooling over her by now.” I gave her a mock love-struck look.

“I bet your right.” We shared an early morning chuckle as she got her own bowl of oat meal.

A few minutes later a familiar purple dragon, still half asleep, walked into the kitchen without a word, got a bowl of cereal, poured some milk, and left. I and Twilight exchanged a look. I peeked around a corner to see what he was doing; he was sitting on the couch, half dosing over his bowl. His head would lower, then jerk up, then lower again. I was afraid he would fall into his breakfast.

“SPIKE!!” I yelled at him, he was now awake.

In response to my outburst he jumped a few feet in the air. When he hit the ground he got off his bum and looked at me, more than a little cross.

“What? What do you want?” he said agitatedly.

“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t sleep with your cereal.” I waved a hoof dismissively and walked away; he gave an angry snort and sat back down to eat his cereal.

“What was that about?” Twilight must have heard me scream.

“Just woke him up.” I went back to my oatmeal.

“ok.” So did she.

When we were done eating I went to sort through the contents of the safe, Twilight went upstairs to continue her studies, and Spike went to take a nap. I was almost done looking at the different schematics when I noticed the time. 2:15. I gave a sigh and yelled up to Twilight that I was heading to work. She responded with something to the effect of ‘come home soon!’ and I left.

I took the scenic rout to the shop. It took me around forty minutes. Of course I did sort of jog the last few blocks, still. I arrived a few minutes before Turner did.

“I see you continue to arrive early. That’s good. A time keeper should set his clock fast so he doesn’t miss his deadlines.”

“Thank you, sensei.” I gave a mock bow.

He chuckled a little at my honor “I am no teacher; I am only your boss. Now, we are approximately” he looked at his watch “three minutes late for opening the store.” I looked at mine; it said we still had thirty seconds.

“But-” then I remembered his ‘set your clock fast’ comment “I guess you’re right, we should probably get going.” We entered the store and started on the usual suspects.

Spike was grumpy the rest of the day, when he wasn’t sleeping, that is. If I asked him to do something he would respond with a grunt and do it. He was never that grumpy, even when he was half asleep.

I read a book on the observations of maturity; I was working on a way to better interest school fillies and colts in their studies. This was, of course, a direct request from Princess Celestia. I never doubt the princesses’ requests, they always had a purpose, and I thought I knew the purpose of this. When I was done reading the book I started to apply my new found knowledge to what I thought could help with students. I thought of interactive games where they needed to learn math and reading. I thought of story books that would show them what it was like out in the real world while still being entertaining. I thought of many ideas.

Then my mind started to wander, I thought about Fixinit, Dillon, and Silver. I thought of Spike and my friends. I thought of all of their maturity levels. Dillon was by far at the top, no argument at all, then was probably Fluttershy or Rarity, below them might be Rainbow, Applejack, Silver and Spike.

Then I thought of the only pony I hadn’t named: Pinky Pie. She was by far the least mature of all my friends and everypony I know. This was not a bad thing; her immaturity is what makes her so darn fun. Then I thought about how age tied in with maturity. Pinky was the youngest of the elements of harmony, a year younger than Fluttershy, the oldest of us. I wondered how old Silver was. Is he my age? Is he Dillon’s age? How old is he?

I discarded the thought and found something nipping at the back of my brain, the one question I had been hoping to not address, I knew it would only bring worry. I attempted to fend it off one more time, only this time I failed. I thought of how old Fixinit was. If he was as old as Dillon I might have trouble, I am not as experienced as Dillon and with age comes experience and with experience comes wisdom.

I started to worry about what he might think when he learns that I'm so young? Will he love me anymore? Will he leave me like Dillon? Will he openly express his disgust? Will he reject me? My mind started whizzing through worst-possible-scenarios. My mane started to spring up in cowlicks. My pupils started to dilate. I started to hyperventilate.

A thought shot through my head, this thought was a safe guard I put on myself, if my crazy ever went off a memory of Cadence would fly through my head. This would make me think to take a deep breath and calm down. Sometimes this thought would not work and I would lose it, but most of the time I could calm down. I tried her movement out a few times and I was back to normal in no time. I started thinking normally.

Everything that I had thought of before was assuming that he didn’t like the fact that I was so inexperienced or that he was Dillons age. I was quickly back to my studies, I would ask him when he got home.

50. Introductions

“Ah thought ah told yall next time would be fer lunch.” She said.

“I know, but I wanted to help today too.” I looked down a little.

“Well aint that mighty kind of ya? But ah can't ask fer yer help.”

“You didn’t ask, I offered.” She gave this a bit of thought.

“Ya sure?” she asked.

“Of course.” I gave her a reassuring nod.

“Ok. C’mon in.” she walked back into the house with me right behind her.

When we got to the kitchen I saw she was almost done making breakfast, I offered to finish up but she said she could do it. I took a seat at the table and waited for her to finish. She got done around five minutes later; we set the table with plates, forks, spoons, knives, different condiments, decorations, and finally the food. Then she went to fetch the rest of her family. The first to get to the kitchen was Big Mac, he greeted me with a small nod, then took a seat at the table, there was a moment of awkward silence in which we stared at each other. Thankfully, another pony joined us and broke the silence. The filly from the first day I was here, only yesterday.

She looked up at me and asked “what are you doin here?” tilting her head in a cute questioning manner.

“I came to help you guys with the harvest.”

“Why?” this was the one question I knew I couldn’t answer.

“Well… I…” Big mac saved me from utter embarrassment.

“Now, Apple Bloom, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” He scolded.

“Sorry.” She looked down and took her seat, only to look like her happy self as soon as her flank hit the chair.

Minute later Applejack came back, helping an old mare to her seat.

“Dig in!” we all started to eat our food.

A few minutes in I noticed Apple Bloom staring at me “yes?” she averted her eyes “is there something you need, young one?”

“No, its nothin’.” She looked down at her plate.

“It can't be nothing, you were staring at me.” She peeked up at me.

“I was just wonderin’ why ya came back, yall helped us yesterday, yer debt’s repaid, why would ya come back?” she looked up with that questioning face, I had been thinking of an excuse for when she asked again, Applejack beat me to it.

“Apple Bloom, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“That’s what ah said.” Big Mac yelped with a chuckle.

“Sorry.” She repeated.

“It’s fine,” I said “she has a right to know.” Applejack and Big Mac gave me a questioning look “I'm considering coming to work on the farm.” All of their mouths hit the table.

“What?” Applejack was probably the most surprised out of all of them.

“You all heard me. Except for maybe you.” I pointed a hoof at the older mare, who hadn’t even reacted to when I noticed Apple Bloom staring at me.

“Ah herd ya loud n clear, sonny.” She kept eating her food.

“That’s good. So why aren’t you surprised like the others, and why are you guys surprised?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Well… it’s kinda been in our family tradition to hire only family members. We never really had a non-apple want to come work on the farm.”

“Well, consider me the first.” I said happily as I ate another piece of apple pie “and why aren’t you surprised?” we all looked at the happy shriveled face of the eldest at the table.

“Because you aren’t the first.” The elder mare said in a calm tone, everypony else’s mouths fell further.

“Then who was the first? I never heard of a non-apple joinin’ the farm!” Applejack was further surprised by the new information.

“Your father.” With that everypony froze.

“Wh-what?” Applejack was stunned.

“Yall heard me! Yer daddy was the first non-apple to join the farm.” They all stayed stunned, I was starting to get concerned.

“Why did everypony stop when she mentioned your father?” I asked in my most oblivious voice possible.

“Ah never knew mah father.” Applejack said in a distant tone.

“Ah knew ‘im for a while, then he up and disappeared. We still don’t know what happened to ‘im.” Big Mac muttered with obvious malice in his voice.

“That’s terrible.” I said, I reached out to hold her hoof comfortingly, she accepted with obvious appreciation.

Then she pulled me into a hug. I was a little stunned, but recovered quickly. I hugged her back. We stayed like that for a minute, then Big Mac coughed and she backed off blushing, we both sat in our seats and didn’t say a word. I don’t know about her, but I lost my appetite.

After everypony was done eating we had introductions.

“Ah understand that yesterday we never really showed you our family.” Said applejack “this here is Big Mac, mah big bruther, the little one is Apple Bloom, mah little sister” I involuntarily had a mental sigh of relief “and that over there is Granny Smith.” Granny Smith was sitting in a rocking chair knitting.

“You have a nice little family, Applejack.” I chuckled a little.

“Our family is bigger than most, this is jus the Ponyville branch. We have many more farms all ‘round Equestria.” I was impressed.

“So is this some sort of giant corporation?” I raised an eyebrow jokingly.

“No, it’s family owned. In fact, if it weren’t for Granny Smith, Ponyville wouldn’t even be here.” I looked over to the old mare.

“Kinda hard to believe, don’t you think?” I told her.

“Well, it’s a long story; let’s just say that she found a new type of apple.”

“That’s great. I would love to hear it!” I sat down.

“And I wuld love to tell it, but we have a lot of werk ta do.” She started walking to the door, I saw my chance.

“Well, maybe I could work with you and you could tell me the story while we work.” She turned her head with a look of thought.

“That might just work. Yall can work with me today.” In my mind I fist pumped.

51. DANDELION POTATOES!!

I heard the now familiar “Honey, I'm home!” from downstairs.

“How was work?” I yelled back down to him.

“Boring as ever, hey, come down soon, I'm starved!” he shouted back, I finished the page I was on and joined him downstairs.

“Hello, Fixinit.” We hugged, not taking it too fast.

“Hello, Twilight.” We separated and smiled, happy to be in each other’s lives.

“I was thinking-” I started.

“And we all know how dangerous that can be.” He joked.

“Very funny, but seriously. We never got to talk to Fluttershy, or Ditzy Doo. Should we go visit them tomorrow?” he took a look around, noticing the missing pony and dragon.

“I don’t see why not. Spike can look after the library and Silver will be off with Applejack. I don’t have work until 3, then I’ll have to be at the shop.” He gave me a thoughtful smile.

“Great, I’ll inform spike.” I started up the stairs and I felt a small tug on my tail, I turned to see a light brown aura enveloping the end.

“Let him sleep, stay with me.” I was afraid I blushed a little when he said that.

“O-ok.” I went over and sat next to him on the couch.

“Is something wrong?” he looked deep into my eyes.

“What?” what was he talking about?

“I can see it in your eyes. There’s something wrong. What is it?” he kept searching my soul with his eyes for answers.

“Nothing’s wrong.” My eyes shifted.

“Something’s wrong, you can tell me anything, I'm here for you.” he held my hoof in his.

“I… I was thinking today.” I looked at my hooves and started to twiddle them aimlessly.

“What about?” he prompted, not joking again.

“you.” I looked up a little.

“Well that’s no surprise.” He got fake excited.

“Not like that.” His pseudo-relieved look disappeared.

“Then like what?” he lifted my chin to look into my eyes.

“h-how old are you?” he seemed a little stunned.

“What?”

“What is your current age?”

“Last I checked I was 18, why?” I was a little relieved at this, but I still wasn’t out of the woods.

“Oh, it’s just that I'm-” he cut me off.

“You don’t need to tell me how old you are! It doesn’t matter to me. You’re still the most beautiful mare I know.” I looked up at him; he had a genuine look in his eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.” He assured me with a smile.

“ok.” We embraced each other.

Then he did something unexpected. He kissed my head, like a mother putting their child to bed. I looked up at him.

“To soon?” he gave a sheepish smile.

“No, that was perfect.” I hugged him tighter.

He did it again and we just stayed there for a while. I started to get sleepy wile laying against his coat, his coat smelled like oil and grease, metal and heat. With my head on his chest my eyes started to flutter closed. I would have been happy to just fall into dream filled slumber right there. But fate is cruel. Spike came down just before I left the conscious world. He announced that he would be starting dinner. I was jarred from my dream-like state.

“I'm gonna make potatoes! What kind do you guys want?” he looked over at the couch, where we were, and awkwardly watched as we awkwardly got out of our awkward position.

“I’ll have some cheese, please.” Fixinit wasn’t stunned at all.

“I’ll have some Dandelion in mine, please.” I looked at the other side of the room and blushed.

“Well… that was weird.” Spike was still on the stairs watching us.

“Didn’t you have some potatoes to make?” Fixinit was as desperate to get out of this little stalemate as I was, he was just better at hiding it.

“Yeah, I’ll get right to that.” Still staring at us he walks into the kitchen.

We sat on the couch for a minute longer. Then he turned to me.

“That was fun; we should do it again some time.” He got up and walked into the kitchen to help make dinner.

I was left on the couch, on my own. I stayed there for a while. A few minutes later Silver arrived home. He seemed overjoyed.

“What’s got you in such a good mood?” he seemed a little too happy for my liking.

“Scored a date with Applejack.” He practically sang.

“Wow! How’d that happen?” I was stunned that she would do something like that after meeting him only a few days ago.

“I just asked!” he got a look of pure bliss on his face as he sunk into the chair.

“That must feel great, Silver.” He just sat there staring at the far wall with a dreamy look.

“It does.” Then we sat there like that until dinner was done.

We had a delicious dinner, the potatoes were better than I remember them. Silver had one of the generic ones spike made in case any of us were still hungry. We talked about how our days went and what we were planning for tomorrow, we shared our plans to go visit Fluttershy and talk to her a bit. Silver said he had to be out tomorrow all day to help on the farm, he also said that they gave him a job, I was surprised and he laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Fixinit was oblivious to it all.

“That’s the exact look the Apples gave me when I proposed it to them.” He pointed at me; I realized my mouth was gaping.

He went on to explain how Applejack told the story of how her grandmother found Zap apples, how he worked all day bucking apples, and how Big Mac out-bucked him time and time again.

“He is the strongest pony in Ponyville.” We both nodded solemnly.

“If we’re all done, I think I'm going to bed.” Spike walked out of the room and seconds later we heard a door shut.

“It’s getting pretty late, and I have a big day ahead of me. G’night.” And with that Silver was gone, leaving only me and Fixinit.

52. It's a date

“That’s great!! Where do we start?” I asked applejack, I was surprised she would be so willing to let me work with her; I might not be any good at apple bucking.

“Well, the south fields should be nice ‘n ripe. Let’s head over that way.” She started to walk out the door.

“Applejack, are you ok?” she turned back to me.

“What makes ya ask that?” her head tilted in confusion, I found this overwhelmingly cute.

“Well, just a few minutes ago you were hugging me about to cry.” The cuteness dissipated in a second, replaced by anger.

“Ah was NOT gonna cry!” she took one threatening step towards me, I, in turn, took one back.

“Ok, ok, I believe you. But you did hug me.” I raised an eyebrow accusingly

“Yeah, ah guess ah did.” She looked down and to the side in thought.

“Um… we should get to work.” This snapped her out of her daze.

“Yes, yes yer right.” And with that we left for the south fields.

We were only a minute or two out when I noticed the look of thought on her face.

“Wacha thinking so hard about?” I asked her in a more worried tone.

“Huh? Oh, nothin.” She assured me, didn’t believe a word of it though.

“So do you space off over nothing a lot then?” I asked in a half serious voice.

“No, it’s none of yer business!” she looked away.

“Well then, this will be all the more awkward.” She looked at me with a worried look; I looked on with my best poker-face.

After a minute she gave in “fine, ah was thinkin about how ah hugged yall like that.” She must think I don’t have respect for her or something.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” I tried to get a closer look at her face, her beautiful orange face; her golden locks were in the way.

“Ahm not embarrassed.” She looked down even more.

“Applejack.” I stopped in front of her and lifted her chin to look me in the eye; we locked eyes and stayed there for a minute.

We started to move closer, slowly, but surely. Then she looked away. I was disappointed that I couldn’t kiss her, but she still needed my comfort.

“AJ, you don’t need to be embarrassed. I didn’t know my father either.” With this she looked up at me, it was my turn to watch the dirt.

“y-you’re jus sayin that!” I shook my head slowly; a hoof shot to her mouth “ah am so sorry.” She hugged me again, but this time to comfort me.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because ah know how ya feel, ah know how it felt.” She kept hugging me.

“Thank you, Applejack.” I hugged her back.

We just hugged for the next few minutes. I thought about my family, rather, the lack of knowledge. I could only assume that was what she was thinking too. When we finally parted she glanced up at me from behind her golden curtain of hair. I was blown away by the beauty. She looked like she wanted to ask something but was too afraid to ask.

“What is it?” she looked up at me with surprise.

“Ah… ah was jus wondrin about the rest of yer family.” She looked down again.

“I know nothing of my family.” She was shocked.

“Yall must have somepony! A cousin, grandparent, sibling, fourth aunt thrice removed!”

“I have nopony; I have traveled all my life, raised by a traveling vendor.” The trail had a very coarse grain.

“Then he was family!” she seemed happy that I had somepony.

“I guess, but as soon as I was old enough to travel on my own he practically kicked me out.” The dirt was dry and sandy, nothing like the soil just off the track; it was obviously used constantly.

“That seems a bit extreme. Are yall sure he didn’ do it with good intentions?”

“How could leaving you at a curb in the middle of a rainstorm be ‘good intentions’?” she gasped in horror.

“How old were you?” she asked through her hoof

“Eight.” If my head could go lower, I would look like an ostrich with its head underground.

“And you’ve been travelin eva since?” I nodded.

She hugged me again, for the third time today. But then something new happened. I felt pressure on the top of my head, I slowly lifted my snout to meet the beautiful green eyes of the mare I loved so. She blushed, that’s when I figured out exactly what she had done. The small kiss burned on my head, it was a good burning, like the warm burning sensation of a strong cider flowing down your throat.

We started moving closer and closer. When we got close enough I closed my eyes, in one swift motion our lips met and my body was full of electricity. It did not spasm as if I was getting shocked, but my heart beat became fast and erratic.

When we parted I was breathing hard “was it really that great? It wasn’t even an open-mouth.” Applejack was obviously surprised.

“Well, I have had a small, teeny tiny crush on you ever since I saw you.” I shrank down to half my size.

“So was that all just to get me?” I would never talk about this stuff for that.

“No. everything I have told you today is true. I would never lie to you.” I wasn’t lying there either.

“So ya never had a family,” I shook my head no “and ya like me?” I shook my head yes “and ya don’t have anything planned tomorra?” I looked up at her, she had a look on her face that was a nervous excited.

“For you, anytime, any day.” She looked into my sole with those emerald eyes of hers.

We hugged again. It was full of passion and meaning.

“We have a lot o work ta get done today and ah still have yet to tell ya ‘bout how Granny Smith discovered zap apples.” She smiled nicely and walked away.

I smirked and followed her. I knew that this was exactly what I came here to do and I knew that I would do everything in my power to make it last.

“It all started when Granny was a young filly…”

53. Suspicions

For the past few days we have been getting along quite well. EQ and Presto are fitting in with everypony like a puzzle piece. EQ fits in with the band; his bass was what we were looking for. It made that low tone that was both complementing and controlled, it wouldn’t overpower the rest of us but it would also keep a steady hum. Presto was helping Vinyl at the club a lot. She said he had a “groove that I’d never heard before.” I didn’t argue, it was defiantly original. Vinyl had fast high beeps and noises in her music, Presto had a slower low hum to his music, like EQs bass. They're working on a new album together; Vinyl makes the higher beats while Presto makes the low wubs.

It had only been a few days and my and EQs relationship has escalated to the point of kissing. We knew we wanted to know more about each other before we started going further and I felt that I knew EQ better than anypony else. Maybe even more than Vinyl.

One morning I was home alone with Vinyl. We were just talking. Talking about work, what the more famous artist were doing, when our next big performance was. Somehow we started talking about our coltfriends.

“I'm tellin ya, Tavi, somethin’s goin on with those two. They seem familiar.” She was trying to convince me that we had met them before.

“I remember most of the ponies I meet and I had never seen a face quite like EQs.” I would have remembered his particular style if I had heard him play.

“Well, just the way he acts is familiar.” Then I remembered one of my first thoughts when I met EQ.

“His voice was au fait.” She gave me a weird look.

“Aw what?” I facehoofed.

“Never mind, I had heard it somewhere before.”

“See, I'm tellin you, I know them from somewhere, but I can't remember.” She tilted her head back in deep thought.

I started to think myself. I thought of every performer I had ever met, any high end or low end artists I had overlooked in my previous attempts. My mind sorted through all of the names and faces I had met in all my years of music.

After my most recent failure of finding any matches I thought of one last artist. He played bass and knew how to use a pair of turntables. The only issue was that he only had one body. I started thinking of possible explanations of how he could acquire more arms and legs. He might have had his brain copied and placed in different cells, or he could have been put through teleportation and the user was inexperienced. Then I decided to bring it up with Vinyl, seeing as she is a unicorn, she could know something.

“Hey, Vinyl, if I wanted to make a copy of myself, how would I do that?” she seemed utterly confused.

“What?”

“Well, let’s say that I want to be in two or three places at once. How could I accomplish this?”

“You could implant a copy of your brain in another body. You could chop yourself in half. Or you could split yourself using a spell.” The surprising thing about all this is she said it with a completely straight face, like she was serious.

“You have to be kidding me.” I gave her a questioning look; in response she raised her glasses.

“What? Magic is amazing! You should look into it sometime.” I gave her a ‘whatever’ look.

“I’ll be sure to do that some time.” she wiped the look of bizarre surprise off her face “so that last one sounded promising. You said a spell?”

“Yeah, but why is this important?” she now had a questioning look.

“Because I think I might know where we know EQ and Presto from.” I responded with a wistful grin.

We had decided to go to the library to find a book on mind spells. An hour later we were at the door knocking. Twilight opened it after a moment.

“Hello, girls, is there something you need?” she asked from the other side of the doorway.

“Ah, yes, we were coming to check out a book on mind spells.” I answered with no small amount of gratitude, if anypony would help us figure this out it was Twilight Sparkle.

“I think I have the perfect thing for you. Please, come in.” she stepped back into the building, we followed suit.

She went straight to a book shelf and started searching “may I ask what kind of mind spell?” she asked without looking back.

“Well, can I ask you a question, Twilight?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“What kind of spell would allow a pony to make several copies of itself?” she seemed to be a bit surprised.

“Um… I know a spell that fits that description to a T, but it was a major failure. If you are looking for a duplication spell you might want to check old mares tales.” She scoffed at the idea of self replication.

“Well, we think that somepony actually did it.”

“What? How?” she was in my face.

“We don’t know! But we think that EQ and Presto are copies of Dillon.” Both the mares look at me in deep confusion.

“What? How is that possible?” Twilight asked the question we have been trying to answer.

“That’s what I want to know.” I told her.

“And you came here, to the library, to try and find a book on the subject.” She tried to confirm.

“Yes, now where was that book you were talking about?” I asked as she went back to her search, after a minute she pulled a book out.

“Here it is.” She opened the book and started to read, after a minute of reading she looked at us “are you sure that this is what you’re looking for?”

“Well, we don’t actually know anything about it.” I explained.

“Oh, sorry, this book has a spell that takes one pony and splits its soul into a number of parts. This also splits said ponies body into an equal number of bodies. This spell has never worked because the test subjects only have one mind, if you try to split one mind you only get fragments. So I’ll ask again, are you sure this is the spell you’re looking for?”

“I'm not sure. Has this spell ever been tried on a human?”

“Up until a few weeks ago I didn’t know humans even existed.” She had a good point.

“Well, it’s our best lead yet, to where Dillon went and where these new stallions came from.”

54. The note

It was fairly early in the morning and we were getting ready to head to Fluttershy’s house when I heard a knocking at the door, it was Octavia and Vinyl. They wanted a book about splitting a pony into several ponies. I told them it was a failed experiment but they said that it was their best bet and closest lead. They were thinking that EQ and Presto were split from Dillon. I thought that this was impossible, if they were split from Dillon then his mind would be cut into two parts and if there were more copies it would have been split into several parts. He would literally only be a portion of the man he used to be.

I started to wonder if there was more to this than we thought. They explained how both EQ and Presto had traits that Dillon had had but there were only so many similarities. I thought about EQ and Presto, they had arrived in Ponyville with four other ponies. I told them about this thought and they seemed to have an epiphany, Dillon was split into six different ponies and sent back to Ponyville, but why the two week period in between? We thought for a minute, they said that they had traveled through the Everfree forest; they might have been telling the truth.

They decided that it was right about time to go; if EQ and Presto got back without them there it might raise a few questions. I went back to getting ready for the trip to Fluttershy’s. I was still thinking about what we had talked about. If the six ponies that came from the Everfree were Dillon split up then that means that somepony perfected that spell. It also meant that Fixinit is one of those parts.

I thought about Fixinit, he seemed nice, he had a similar sense of humor, and he was technologically advanced. If anything he was the pony embodiment of Dillon. I thought of what he was doing right now, he was supposed to be taking a shower. But I couldn’t hear the water running. I thought back to when I heard the water stop. It was in the middle of my conversation with Octavia and Vinyl. He might have come down and overheard us. If so, that could be a major issue. I decided to go check on him. I walked up the stairs and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Who is it?” I heard him on the other side.

“Me.” I called.

“Come in, I'm decent.” I opened the door and walked in.

“Octavia and Vinyl stopped by today.” He looked over to me from the sink.

“What did they need?” he went back to brushing his teeth.

“Just a book, they were wondering if it were possible to split a pony up into several ponies.” He looked back to me.

“What did you do?” he spat in the sink and rinsed his mouth.

“I gave them the book they were looking for, explained the complicated stuff, and sent them on their merry way.”

“Let’s go downstairs, I'm done here.” I nodded and we went back to the main library area.

“Now, while they were here, they told me about a theory they had.” He sat down on the couch; I stood in front of him.

“And what theory is that, Mrs. Scientist?” he asked with a mocking tone.

“They said that you and the five other ponies that had come out of the Everfree were split from Dillon.” He tensed a little “but that’s preposterous, right?”

“Yeah, heh, preposterous.” He seemed distant.

“Wait, they weren’t right, were they?” he looked at me, a bit scared now, and shook his head.

“No, I never said they were!” he started shaking his hooves in front of his face in a waving motion.

“They were right!” I yelled.

“No!” he was panicking.

“Why didn’t you tell me?! Why didn’t you say something?!” my eyes started to tear up.

“I'm not Dillon!” he tried to assure me, but I was convinced.

“Why did you leave?!” he stood up “no! Sit down!” I pushed him down with more force than necessary and the couch tipped over.

I started pacing, murmuring incoherently to myself. Then I noticed it, the spot of white on the oak floor. I looked right at it, it was a note, but in a language I didn’t know.

“What’s that?” I ask in a completely calm tone, he got up holding his head and looked where I was looking.

“That’s a note.” I gave him a look.

“I know that, but what does it say?”

“I don’t know. Let me take a look.” He picked it up and gave it a short read.

“This is a note from Dillon.” I gave him a suspicious look.

“How do you know?” I grabbed the paper from him and scanned it for anything that might look remotely like his name.

“It says at the bottom ‘Dillon’, see, right here.” He pointed to the last scribbles on the page.

“That’s gibberish.” I threw the paper back at him.

“No, it’s not. It clearly says his name.” he snatched it out of the air.

“how could you read it when I can't?”

“I don’t know, maybe you just never studied this language or his handwriting sucks that much.”

“I did have to teach him Equestrian when he first got here.”

“exactly.” He sat down and crossed his hooves.

“Then what does it say?” he looked back to the paper.

“‘I'm going to the palace to see the princess and should be back soon, I love you twilight and keep spike out of trouble. I’ll miss you. Dillon.’” He put the note down.

“So he went to the palace?”

“That’s what it says.” I ran up the stairs and into my room, Fixinit called after me “what are you doing!?”

“I'm going to write a letter!” I call back down.

I grab the nearest piece of parchment and quill and start to write, when none of the letters appeared I started to get frustrated, then I realized I didn’t have any ink. I grabbed an ink container and started writing frantically. I was writing to the princess, asking her if she had seen Dillon yet. When I was done writing I called for spike.

“SPIKE!!” I heard a thud right behind me, Spike fell out of his basket, he was sleeping.

“What?” he mumbled into the floor.

“I need you to send a letter.” With his face still pressed against the floorboards he lifted his own piece of parchment and quill.

“Who’s it to?” he asked without moving.

“I already wrote it, Spike. I just need you to send it.” I lifted him off the floor and put him face down in his basket.

“To whom?” he sat up in his basket and rubbed his eyes.

“Princess Celestia.”

55. A normal day in the royal castle

It was a normal morning at the royal castle. The guards were standing politely beneath me on either side, more guards were stationed outside on both sides of the door, and even more were positioned all throughout the structure.

I was going through some royal paperwork when a flame came through the open window. The flame fluttered down right in front of me and magically turned into a piece of parchment with a seal on the front that pictured a starburst surrounded by five other smaller starbursts, my faithful student, Twilights, cutie mark.

When I saw the mark I thought ‘oh, Twilight must have learned something about friendship.’ when I opened the letter the first thing I noticed was the rushed handwriting, Twilight would never write like this unless she was in a huge hurry.

I then proceeded to read the letter. I read it once, then twice, then a third time. I made sure that what I was reading the right words, it wasn’t exactly neat. After the third read I made sense of them. To my understanding, she wants to know if I had met Dillon the human yet and if she can come and see him in Canterlot. I considered this.

Then I wrote her back saying that she could come and visit, she would even send chariots for her and her friends, and that she was looking forward to seeing her. After I sent this letter I sent for the guard to send six chariots to six different houses. When that was done I continued going through my paperwork.

“Twilight, what did that letter say?” spike asked me after he burnt it.

“It’s none of your concern.” I responded and walked away, Fixinit was now at the door “I'm not done with you yet.” He rushed back downstairs.

When I got back down there he was sitting on the couch with his hooves on his lap. I started pacing in front of him.

“So you knew nothing about this.” He shook his head vigorously “I'm really sorry I dragged you into this.” I sat down next to him.

“It’s fine, this means that Dillon never left you, he just got caught up in out-of-state activities and you lost the note telling you what was going on. It’s not your fault.”

“Thank you for understanding, Fixinit.” We heard a burping noise come from upstairs and a minute later Spike came down holding a letter with a sun stamp emblazoned on it.

I opened the letter, read it, and then handed it to Fixinit to read. He looked a little confused at the letter and looked to me for an explanation. I read the letter to him and explained what was going on.

There was a minute of awkward silence “so… I'm going to see my old boyfriend…”

“I don’t suppose that we could both have you.” he seemed to already know the answer.

“No, I'm sorry, but I guess this means that this is over. Me and you, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess. At least it didn’t end the way I always thought it would.” I looked at him.

“And what was that?” he looked back at me.

“You dump me because you learned every little detail about me.” He smiled.

“Like that would happen.” We both started laughing.

“Well… we should start getting packed.”

“Yes we should.” Then we went upstairs and started packing things for the upcoming trip.

We never got around to going to Fluttershy’s house. We packed and got ready all day. When we finally finished getting everything set up for the trip we made lunch and ate. After lunch it was 2:30, Fixinit had to leave for work and wouldn’t be back until 8:00. He left and I started back on my most recent studies.

Today Fixinit was waiting at my door with his head down in thought.

“Hello, what’s got your mind so occupied?” I asked.

“Hey Turner, I'm just thinking about tomorrow. Hey, do you mind if I have tomorrow off?”

“Is it to go on a date Twilight?” he looked up at me.

“Not really, I'm going to Canterlot with her.”

“I ask because the last guy that went on a date with her disappeared.”

“You mean Dillon?” I nodded.

“He asked just like you and the next few days he didn’t show up. He hasn’t shown up yet. In fact, I don’t think anypony's seen him since.” I unlocked the door.

“Well Twilight is going to see him in Canterlot.”

“You mean they found him? That’s great! Tell him he’s almost three weeks late for work.” We entered my small shop.

“I’ll be sure to do that.” He assured me.

We worked several hours on different clocks, he even worked over his break just to get tomorrows work done. when 8 rolled around I told him it was closing time, he told me to go, that he would lock up for the night.

“That’s a mistake I won’t make again. Dillon did the same thing the day he disappeared. I feared it might have something to do with it, the shop closes now.” I proceeded to drag him out of the store and lock the door behind me “plus I had to get a new key when he didn’t return the original.”

“Fair enough.” He stated and started to walk away.

“Hey, Fixinit.” I called after him.

“Yeah?” he calls back.

“Promise me you’ll come back.” He starts laughing.

“I promise.” And with that he walked away.

I stayed up until Fixinit came back, last time I fell asleep before Dillon could get home and then he disappeared. Luckily Fixinit didn’t stay for some extra hours and came home on time.

“Honey, I'm home!” he called into the house.

“Fixinit-” I started, he cut me off.

“Sorry, you’re not my honey anymore. I forgot there for a minute.”

“Yeah, it’s ok; we should get ready for dinner.”

“yeah.” then we walked into the kitchen.

Laid out on the table was each of our favorite dishes. Spike had made it just for us.

“Thanks, Spike, we really appreciate this.” I told him.

“You're welcome.” he bowed.

“Give my complements to the chef.” Fixinit said in a sort of fancy way.

“Thank you, kind sir.” He responded in a Prench accent.

“You’re very welcome.” And we all sat down and started to dig in.

56. Chariot ride

The next morning we woke up and got our stuff together. When both our suit cases were in one area we stood there, the four residents of the library. Spike, Silver, Fixinit, and I were in the lobby waiting for the chariot to arrive.

“There should be food in the refrigerator for the next few days, if that runs out there are some bits on the counter. Stay out of trouble and keep each other safe. There are instructions in the cupboard in case there is an accident.” I turned to Fixinit “maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, something might happen to them!” he put his hooves on my shoulders.

“Calm down, they’ll be fine.” I took a few deep breaths and looked at them.

“If anything goes wrong write directly to me. You got it?” they both nodded their heads “good, and don’t forget it.” there was a knock at the door.

“That’s our ride.” Fixinit stated.

“Bye, Spike and Silver. Be good.” And with that we went out the door.

Standing right outside were two royal guard pegasi. They wore the standard issue metal armor for the soldiers under the royal sisters’ rule. It was enchanted to that even the chinks were protected by small magical barriers. As I walked by I noticed the guards watching Fixinit like he might try to pull a move or something.

When I reached the chariot we stepped on together and the pegasi hooked themselves up. After a minute we were in the air. After a minute more we were out of Ponyville and above the Everfree forest. Fixinit looked over the edge of the chariot and watched the trees wiz by. We were far above the tree line but one could still see the individual branches. We flew in complete silence.

When we were only a few minutes away one of the pegasi turned back and said “five minutes, Miss Twilight.”

“Thank you.” I replied as we neared our destination.

We landed on the landing pad outside of the palace. Both of us grabbed our suitcases from the side compartments as we touched down. When the vehicle rolled to a stop we stepped off and tipped the stallions that flew us here. Then we headed straight for the palace.

After a few minutes of walking through seemingly identical halls we came to what looked like an entrance hall. There were already six ponies gathered, I recognized all of them.

Octavia, EQ, Vinyl, and Presto were off in their own group while Rarity and Fedorian were murmuring to each other about the décor. I approached them.

“Hey, guys.” They all greeted us in their own ways.

“I didn’t think you would come to a dress convention, dear.” Rarity said in a confused tone “actually, you wouldn’t be the last pony I would think to see.” She whispers to me as she looks over to Vinyl, the DJ scowled back.

“Well I'm sorry if I was told this was going to be a music festival.” She said in a sarcastic tone.

“Why are you here, Twilight, what were you told?” Octavia asks me with utmost curiosity.

“I was straight up told by the princess to come to the palace. I was also told that my friends would be here, and not that you guys aren’t my friends, but I was expecting the elements of harmony. It looks like two of us are here, where are the other four?” Rarity chuckled a little.

“You mean three of us are here.” I gave her a questioning look, and then I heard a voice come from around the corner.

“Is that…” I trailed off as the pony stepped around the corner, it was Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy!” I ran up and gave her a hug, she eeped, but as soon as she saw who it was she relaxed.

“Hello Twilight, have you met Cloudy Skies?” she asked, I backed off and noticed who she was with.

He was a gray Pegasus stallion with a dark blue mane and even darker highlights, his eyes were an earth brown and he stood a little taller than me and Fluttershy, his cutie mark was three flowers; it was a wonder how he didn’t intimidate her. Then I got my answer when he spoke. If you could take a soothing spring waterfall and make it talk, you probably couldn’t tell the difference.

“Hello, Twilight, Fluttershy speaks highly of you.” he seemed so laid back and soft spoken.

“h-hi.” I stammer at the absolute serenity I'm listening to.

“Cloudy has been helping me with the animals for the past few days. He arrived at my cottage in the worst condition, his wing was broken and he was limping on one of his hind legs.”

“I wasn’t that bad off.” He assured me.

“You looked terrible! I could heal the physical wounds but the mental wounds must be devastating.”

“I was fine, and Fluttershy tended to my injuries until I was fully recovered without any complaints to how much of a bother I always was.”

“You were no bother, really! He only needed a glass of water, some food and help to the bathroom and he was fine.” The usually timid mare assured me.

By this time Fixinit had joined us and was now listening in next to me. While she was explaining how Cloudy had given one of her more rowdy bears a back massage she caught his eye and shrank back to her normal self. Cloudy noticed this and acted immediately.

“Fluttershy, I want you to meet Fixinit, he was one of the ponies I traveled with through the Everfree. He is a good friend of mine.” Fixinit put his hoof out for Fluttershy to shake, she slowly took it.

“H-hi, Fixinit.” She was obviously still too shy to be herself yet.

“Hello Fluttershy, it is a great honor to meet you. We were actually going to see you today at your cottage, but this took precedence and here you are.”

“I-it’s an honor t-to meet you too, Cloudy told me how you made all of those contraptions with nothing but sticks and leaves.”

“Oh, that stuff was nothing.” He assured her.

“Well, I thought it was kinda cool.”

“Well thank you.” he nodded to her.

“So, how did Cloudy get to your house?” I asked Fluttershy and Cloudy “when Fixinit arrived he was covered in mud, though his coat is brown so it might not have all been mud.” I pretended to look him up and down.

“Well that’s a story.” Cloudy said simply.

“And it’s one I would love to hear, if we have time, that is.” I sat down, Fixinit followed suit.

“Fine, but get comfortable.” Fluttershy and Cloudy Skies sat down in front of us.

Fluttershy started us off “it all started on a cloudy night…”

57. Storytime & Swift Strike

“I was taking care of my animals, I was afraid it might rain so I was running around making sure that all of the vacant houses were closed up and sealed. Then I ran around checking on all of the outdoor animals. When I was done with all of the enclosures and houses I ran to my cottage. When I got inside it was already starting to drizzle.” Fixinit interrupted her.

“But I thought that Ponyville had pegasi to control the weather.” I facehoofed as he ruined the story.

“Yes, but she lives on the edge of the Everfree forest, sometimes rain storms will creep over her house. The weather teams don’t go that far out as often.” I explaned.

He let out an awkward “oh” As Fluttershy continued.

“When I got home it had already started to rain, I closed all of my windows and shut all of the doors. When my task was done I sat down in my living room and took a small rest, it was very relaxing, and I had almost drifted off to sleep when I heard this soft knocking at the door. I slowly approached the door and opened it just enough to see outside. Standing on my path was Cloudy, soaked to the bone and bleeding in several places, his back leg seemed to be bent funny and he wasn’t walking on it.”

“She makes it seem a lot worse than it was.” Cloudy assured us again, she just gave him an angry look.

“I swung the door open and took in the sight of this new pony, he said in a week voice ‘hi, I'm Cloudy Skies.’ And collapsed on my doormat. When I overcame my shock I dragged him in and laid him on the couch, I examined him while he was out and by the time he came to I had put a cast on his leg and wing. He seemed no worse for wear and almost instantly insisted he leave. I yelled at him for even thinking about getting up.”

“It was more of a normal voice.” She glared at him again.

“I even used The Stare on him to make sure that he didn’t move. I went to get him some food and when I came back he was struggling to walk to the door. I gasped, dropped the food and ran to him for support and to make sure that he didn’t fall on his way back to the couch. He stayed on my couch for the next few days and only recently started moving. He has been helping with the animals ever since.”

“I haven’t been doing all that much, only giving the ones in the house food.” She smacked him in the back of the head with her tail, we chuckled at this.

When we all stopped laughing at their antics Fixinit asked “so are you two an item?” Fluttershy started to blush while Cloudy kept his serene smile.

“Do we seem like an item?” Fluttershy asked.

“You two would be perfect for each other.” I stated simply.

“We haven’t exactly thought about it, we’ve been taking care of the animals, you see.” Cloudys’ face never faltered.

We didn’t have time to talk anymore because a new voice I hadn’t heard before came around the other corner. It seemed like a happy knowing voice. What it said was not fitting though.

“Hey, everypony, I got her!” it yelled from behind the corner.

When he walked into view he made eye contact with me and introduced himself. He was a light gray stallion with light yellow hair, his face always seemed to have a smile and to this day he has only faltered when something bad happens. I’ve never seen him just sad.

“Hello, I am Swift Strike.” He approached me and stuck out a hoof, I shook it happily.

“I'm Twilight Sparkle. You said you got ‘her’ who is she?” I tilted my head a little.

“who is- I thought-” he turned his head to check behind him, then under him and when he didn’t find what he was looking for he turned back to me “one second please.” He ran off, back the way he came.

I turned to the others, they were all reacting differently. Octavia and EQ were shaking their head, Rarity and Fedorian were smiling amusedly, Fluttershy and Cloudy were waiting patiently while Vinyl and Presto nodded their heads together while listening to a tune. Fixinit shared the slightly confused look I did. When he came back he had his flank in the air and his head low to the ground walking backwards, I noticed his cutie mark was two quills crossed in an X, I wondered what his talent was. I didn’t see what he was dragging until he put it down and stepped out of the way. When he moved my confusion disappeared in an instant. There sat the yellow-maned mare, Ditzy Doo, with her typical walleyed look.

“This is who.” He stated.

“Hello.” Ditzy said.

“Hi, Ditzy, What are you doing here?” I asked.

“They told me that I won a trip to the royal muffin factory! What are you doing at a muffin factory?” she asked in a completely sincere way.

“The ponies that brought us here all seemed to lie to us, there won’t be any muffins.” She was completely and utterly shocked by this, then she looked as if she was about to cry; Fixinit immediately regretted saying that.

“Don’t say that, she loves muffins too much.” Swift said in an urgent tone “there will be muffins Ditzy, don’t worry.” Then I got an idea.

“Fixinit, do you have any food?” he looked at me a little surprised.

“A mare is about to cry and you’re hungry?”

“Just give me some food.” I told him, he begrudgingly pulled out an orange and gave it to me.

I cast a spell on it and it turned into a muffin, I turned back to Ditzy and said “here you go, don’t cry.” She got impossibly happy in an impossible amount of time.

She started to eat the muffin like a squirrel, slowly nibbling at it. Swift wiped his brow in an exaggerated fashion.

“Crisis averted.” He stated with a relieved tone, we all laughed a little.

When we all settled down a guard came down the hall and said that the princess was ready for us. We all sorta took a deep breath and followed him down some corridors. When we reached some absolutely huge doors he stopped and turned to us.

“Is the party ready?”

58. Goodbye

We all nod to the guard and he nods to the guards at the door, the door guards open said doors and our guide guard walks in the room, we follow him. He announces our names to the princess one by one.

When I first saw the princess she was watching each of us in turn as the guard called our names. He ended with me, yelling “Twilight Sparkle!” Then backing away and out, the doors shut and we were alone with the princess, save for the two guards at the base of her throne.

“Hello, my little ponies.” She said in her regal voice.

We all bowed to her and said “hello, princess.” At the same time.

“Now, I'm sure you are all wondering why I called each of you here.” We all nodded.

Ditzy yelled out “will there be muffins?!” we all gave her a short glare, but the princess lightly chuckled.

“If you want I can have the cooks make you a batch.” She said while Ditzy beamed with joy.

“Yes please.” She said politely.

“Um, if we may get on with the show, I would like to know why we were called here, if not for what each of us was told.” Rarity said with a confused look.

“You were called here because Twilight wants Dillon back.” Everypony in the room looked at me “isn’t that right, Twilight.”

“Y-yes it is, but I don’t see why everypony had to be here for it.” I started to blush and shrink.

“They all have to be here because they each have a piece of Dillon.” Her face didn’t change at all.

I looked back to the rest of the ponies in the room and wondered what the princess was talking about. Then I started to think about what it literally meant. Vinyl could have a leg while Octavia could have the other, Fluttershy and Ditzy might have his arms, Rarity would have his body and I have his head. I pushed the thought out of my mind as fast as possible. Then I turned my attention back to the princess.

“What do you mean, princess?” she gave an evil smile.

“Come on up, boys!” she yelled in a less regal tone.

All of the stallions in the room looked up at the princess, they started walking up to the front. We were astonished.

“Guys, what is this?” Vinyl asked.

The princess responded “it has come to my attention that you have started to figure it out.” She looked at Octavia and Vinyl, so did I.

“The split pony theory.” All three of us said at once.

“Yes, you were right. But I couldn’t just split him three ways; I had to split him six ways. He had six minds in his head and if I put two in each then he might seem a bit suspicions.” She looked down at the stallions “isn’t that right boys?”

They stayed silent.

“Oh, that pesky speech spell.” She stomped her hoof and there was a spark of magic around the stallions’ heads “you see, I couldn’t have them blabbing about it to you girls, so I had them sealed up so that if they ever tried to talk about it the words just wouldn’t come out.” her voice got progressively less elegant. "I'll ask again, isn't that right boys?"

Fixinit seemed ashamed, he looked to me “yes, we are Dillon.” he confirmed.

“Yes, and let me fix his appearance.” She stomped again and there was a giant flash of light.

When the light died down we looked, there, where the six stallions once were, was Dillon. We were all stunned. We stared at him. He turned around and looked at me.

“Twilight, I'm so sorry I couldn’t tell you.” He ran to me and gave me a hug “I would never leave you. never.” He hugged me while I stood there motionless.

“What?” I was dumbstruck, Dillon had been gone for the past three weeks, but part of him has lived in my house for the last few days of that time.

I turned my head back to the other mares; they all were just like me, speechless. Then Vinyl spoke up.

“Bring him back.” She said.

“What?” Celestia asked in an overly confused way.

“Bring Presto BACK!!” she yelled and stepped towards Celestia.

“Well that’s not your choice, Twilight wants Dillon back and that is exactly what I have given her. It’s her choice if Dillon stays or if the stallions return.” Everypony looked back to me again.

“Twilight, tell her to bring Fedorian and the others back!” Rarity said urgently; Dillon was still hugging me, he seemed to be frozen because he didn’t respond or move.

“I-I-I” I didn’t know what to do, if I brought the stallions back I would lose Dillon, if I kept Dillon the other mares would probably hate me forever.

“What is it, Twilight? Which do you choose?” Celestias voice was different now, it was no longer regal, it was now a voice I found very familiar, I had defeated this voice a couple of times before.

“DISCORD!!” I yelled, this monster was the cause of misery all throughout Equestria.

“Yes, it is I, Discord, here to cause chaos and wreak havoc.” Celestia stomped a hoof and turned into the familiar being known as Discord, he had the body parts of many different animals and bright yellow eyes.

We all heard Fluttershy gasp in obvious horror “what happened? I thought you were better now.” I remembered back to when Fluttershy supposedly reformed Discord.

“Yeah, no. my daddy always told me I was a great actor.” He took a dramatic pose “now pick, Twilight.”

“I want to talk to him.” I said.

“What?” asked Discord.

“I said I want to talk to Dillon.”

“Ok, but choose wisely.” He snapped and Dillon released me from the hug.

“Dillon.”

“Yeah, Twilight?”

“You were split into six other stallions, five of those stallions fell in love with the mares behind me; I have to ask you, would you be willing to sacrifice your own life for six others?” I started to tear up just to the thought of losing him.

“Sacrifice?” he asked.

“If they come back, I’ll lose you forever.” I explained to him, he smiled.

“We never left.” I looked up to his smiling face.

“What?” he let go of my shoulders and walked over to Rarity and put his English accent on.

“my dear Rarity, I want you to know that Sweetie Bell had a salad, some carrots, strawberries and a juice box for lunch yesterday, and I thought last night was amazing.” He winked at the now blushing mare, and then walked over to Octavia, still with the accent.

“Practice still continuing at 4:30 in the park under the big tree tomorrow?” she nodded; he approached Fluttershy, lost the accent and got the spring waterfall voice.

“I learned that Angel Bunny likes his carrots cut a half inch shorter than you’ve had them.” She looked down a little; he then walked to Ditzy and got Swifts voice.

He then recited a muffin recipe from memory and she became overjoyed “you remembered!” she clapped her hooves together; he then walked over to Vinyl in a laid back way.

"Vinyl, I was messing with your setup one day when you were out and found that you could amplify the subwoofers if you send their signal directly from the turntables."

Then he knelt in front of me again.

“You see? We were always here, just not all the time.” I understood now.

“So what do I do?” I looked up to him.

“Get the stallions back, I’ll be fine.” He assured me with a smile.

“Ok,” I turned to Discord “I’ve made my decision.” He had fallen asleep and now woke up.

“Really? Took you long enough.” He got out of Celestias throne and walked over “what is it?”

“I want the stallions back.”

“So you would rather have those strangers than the man you loved?"

“No, I prefer the part of him that I loved.”

“Fine, but you do know it will be Fixinit, not Dillon. He will not remember anything that Dillon has ever done; he will lose all memory of Dillon, save the parts you have told him.” Realization hit me, if he didn’t have Dillon’s memories then I would have to start again, I looked back to the mares behind me, and then back to Discord.

“I-I still choose the stallions.” I tell him.

“Fine, your choice, but Dillon will be gone forever.”

“I know.” I looked at my hooves.

“Twilight.” Dillon’s voice came to me.

“Yeah?” he lifted my chin and gave me a loving kiss.

“I love you, always remember that, and give Fixinit a chance.” He gave me a joking smile.

“I will, but I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll live on in here” he poked my chest lightly.

I looked down at his finger, then back up to him. Then I lunged at him and gave him the biggest, most passionate kiss I had ever experienced. He kissed back. Discord snapped and Dillon changed back to the six stallions. I fell to the ground crying.

Dillon was gone.

59. Why?

When I stopped crying I looked up to see that the stallions were slowly getting up, Discord was patently waiting for all of this to sink in to each and every other pony in the room, and the other mares were trying to comfort me.

“Why?” everypony turned to me, at least, the ones that weren’t already looking.

“What?” asked Discord.

“Why would you do this?” he beamed at my question.

“Well you see, my dear Twilight, your princess asked me to.” I didn’t believe him.

“No, she wouldn’t do that!” I stood and defied the monster that sat before me.

“Oh? Then where is your precious ruler? Hm? I don’t see her.” He looked around, under the throne, picked up EQ and checked under him, then sat back down with an ‘I told you so’ look on his smug little face.

“Why would she do that?” I took a step back.

“Something about preparing you.” He waved his paw around.

“What would she be preparing me for?” I was now afraid he was telling the truth.

“Spoilers!” he shook his index finger from side to side.

“What happens now?” Fluttershy asked “are you going to be a good boy or do we have to trap you again?”

“Oh, I’ve always been a good boy. I was just following orders.”

“From who?” Rarity asked.

“I already told you, Celestia.” he deadpanned.

“Can I still have muffins?” Ditzy yelled, Discord snapped and the mare was covered in muffins “thank you!” she started eating the pastries.

There was a minute where the only sound was Ditzy eating. Then a question popped into my head.

“Where are the princesses?” I asked him.

“You know, they never told me where they would go in the meantime. Maybe they’re out doing something.” He put his finger to his chin in a motion of thought.

“We have been watching the whole time.” Came the soothing voice of Celestia, but I didn’t feel soothed.

“Why would you do this to me!?” I yelled at the ceiling, which is where the voice seemed to be coming from.

“Like Discord said, to prepare you.” the voice said.

“What kind of preparation would require me to lose my first love, the love of my life?!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Discord came back with another “spoilers!” and a finger shake.

“Shut it!!” I yelled at him, he seemed genuinely frightened.

“Yes, my lady.” He bowed and stayed quiet from then on out.

“Where are you?!” I yelled up.

“Here” Celestia and Luna teleported into the room.

“Now look me in the eye and tell me that this was the best thing for me.” I was on the verge of tears.

She walked up to me and looked me in the eye “this was our best option.”

“Option?” I was surprised, almost anything would have been better.

“We needed you to experience loss.” Now I was shocked.

“What? What other options were there?”

“We could have killed off one of your friends or family.” I was horrified.

“What kind of sick joke is this?!?!”

“Be silent, young one.” Luna was possibly losing her patients.

“At least tell me why!”

“You dare make demands of-” Luna was stopped by her sisters’ hoof.

“She has just experienced loss; this only shows us that we were successful.”

“Successful in what?!” I yelled at them “making me miserable?”

“In a sense, yes.” Celestia answered.

“Why?” I sat down and started to cry.

“That will be revealed in time. For now, go home, live on, and try to be happy.” She gave me a sorry smile as the guards came in to escort us out, Fixinit helped me leave.

When we finally made it back to the chariots we all said our goodbyes as we departed, I stayed silent the whole ride back, just like the ride there. When we got back to the tree house we opened the door and it was a mess. There were tables on their sides, books all over the floor, when I checked my room there were sleeping ponies everywhere, but I didn’t care. I picked everypony up and put them outside my door. When every last one of them was outside I collapsed on my bed and cried.

60. Cry, it's good for you

When we got home Twilight ran straight to her room, I tried to follow her without stepping on anypony. When I got to her room it was barricaded with around twenty different sleeping ponies. I didn’t dare yell to her, in fear of waking some of them. I decided it was best to just leave her be for the time being.

I searched the building for Spike, I needed to talk to the young dragon. When I did find him he was on one of the higher bookshelves asleep. I picked him up in my magical grasp and brought him down to the couch. When we got there I sat him down roughly. He woke up.

“Oof! Huh? What happened?”

“That’s what I would like to know.” I told him, he realized who he was talking to and started to panic.

“I swear, it was all Silver! He invited all of these ponies over!” him yelling woke up some of the sleeping ponies, some noticed what was going on and left as fast as possible, some fell back asleep instantly.

“Really, where is our friend Silver?” he looked around and started staring, I followed his eyes and saw the Pegasus on the counter in the kitchen, one hoof in the sink.

“See!” I was still skeptical.

“Silver doesn’t know anypony in Ponyville, he only just got here.” He was still convinced it was Silver.

“No, he really did! Go ask him, he’ll tell you everything!”

“Ok, I will, but one more thing, did you have any alcohol?” he shrank back just a little.

“Maybe a cup or two.” I facehoofed a little.

“I'm going to go talk to Silver.” I got up and walked into the kitchen, picked Silver up in a rough manner which pushed the mare that was half laying on top of him over, she didn’t wake up though; I sat him down next to Spike, he woke up.

“Carrot Top?” he muttered as he woke up, then noticed that I was not Carrot Top, he too started to freak “it was all Spike!” this woke up more ponies and they too either left or slept, Spike looked at Silver.

“No, it was you!” they started bickering back and forth.

“Both of you stop!” I yelled at them, they obeyed.

I took a minute to think, then I asked “who called all of these ponies?” they looked between each other.

“He did!” they said at the same time, pointing to the other.

“Don’t lie to me, do you want me to go get Twilight?” they both started to panic.

They looked at each other, then back to me. They huddled together for a minute talking amongst themselves. When they came back out they seemed a little calmer.

“Silver called all of the ponies, I sent the invitations.” Spike said.

“No, silly filly, I did.” Said a chipper voice from behind me, I tuned to see a pink mare with a pink mane; Pinky Pie.

“You did?” I asked the party pony.

“Yeah, they told me they were doing a party at the library and they needed my help to set it up so I called in the cavalry and we set this baby up in a matter of minutes, when that was done I went around town and knocked on everyponies door and told them there was a party at the library, most of them showed up and we threw the most bombastic fantastic awstastic party ever!!” she started jumping around as I looked at the two on the couch in front of me.

“Ok, if you guys can have this place cleaned up by noon ill forget it ever happened.” They looked ecstatic and started waking ponies up and sending them on their way immediately.

I went upstairs to start tearing down Twilights wall of flesh and try to talk to her. I started gently waking the ponies. About half way down I found a familiar one, Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow, what are you doing here?” she looked up to me with a confused look.

“What are you doing home so early?”

“It would be better if Twilight told you that.” She got the point and went downstairs to help with the clean-up effort.

I got all of the ponies out of the way and got my nerve up to open the door. I cracked it open and looked inside. She was lying face down on her bed crying.

“Twilight?”

“GO AWAY!!!!” she yelled and threw a lamp at me; I shut the door and heard a smashing sound on the other side.

When I opened the door next I yelled “Twilight, whatever it is we can talk about it!”

“No we can't!” she threw another lamp.

“Yes, we can!”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” she yelled as another lamp smashed against the door.

“How many damn lamps you got in there?” I yelled, in response another lamp flew into the closed door.

I waited a minute, then opened the door and walked in, my magic at the ready in case another projectile came my way. She was crying into her pillow.

“Twilight” she looked up at me, then rage deformed her face.

“I said get OUT!!” she yelled as a number of objects in the room floated above their previous resting places.

“I'm not leaving you, not now.” I told her in a calm voice.

“Dillon is gone.” she said, tears had been falling down her cheeks, and more were on the brink.

“But I will never go, even if you hate me for all of eternity.” I told her in the most determined voice I could muster. I started walking towards her; she raised the objects a little higher.

“But he’s still gone.” The tears broke their barrier and started falling freely, but she was still mad as ever.

“I would do anything to make him return.” I told her, still walking towards her.

“You don’t mean that.” She tried to look threatening.

“I do.” I was within hoofs reach of her, staring right into her beautiful, violet, pain-filled eyes. “I only want you to be happy, and if that means bringing him back, I would do anything.” I pulled her into a hug and waited for the beat of books and chairs against my body.

None came. Instead she started balling openly into my shoulder. I stepped up onto the bed so we could be a little more comfortable, then we laid down.

We stayed like that until Twilight fell asleep, it had been a long day and she deserved a bit of rest. I slowly untangled our forelegs and left the room as silently as I could. When I was sure that I was in the clear I walked down to help Spike Silver and Rainbow with the books.

61. Rage

When I fell asleep in Fixinits arms I thought I would have the dream that had been haunting me for the past few weeks. No. when I fell asleep I dreamt a new dream.

Dillon was in front of me, he was being held by Princess Celestia, when I looked around I saw Princess Luna holding the six stallions. A few seconds passed, I pointed to the stallions. Dillon was dragged into darkness, crying out and reaching for me. I did the same. When he was gone, I turned to Celestia. She was laughing. Laughing, like a mad-pony, at my failures. I yelled at her, screaming silently, and she laughed harder. I was infuriated, the princess and ruler of Equestria, was enjoying her own students disappointments, my mess-ups, my problems… my love… I yelled harder and harder, I felt the burn in my lungs, the tension in my neck, and the weakness of my limbs. When I finally stopped the futile struggle she came over to me. Then I looked to her face, she said six words: ‘it was for your own good.’ I snapped. My hoof met her face and I saw red start to stain her muzzle. I woke in a cold sweat.

The first thing I noticed was my state, the way my limbs were jittery, my heart rate, the moisture on my forehead. I calmed myself down then noticed the second thing: Fixinit wasn’t here. My physical state went back to the way it was when I awoke. I panicked. Then I ran around the top floor, looking for him, praying that he only went to the bathroom or took a shower. When I didn’t find him in the bathroom or the attic my panic worsened. When I ran downstairs I saw him standing in the middle of the library. I tackled him to the floor and held him in a tight vice-grip embrace.

“Promise me that you will never leave.” I said in his ear in a rushed manor.

“W-w-what?” he asked, still under me, I gripped him tighter.

“Promise!” I yelled.

“Alright, I promise!” he yelled back.

“Thank you.” I whispered again and hugged him a little tighter.

“Twilight… can't… breath…” he gasped for air as I let go and we stood up.

When I looked around I noticed how messy the place was.

“What happened?” I asked in slight shock.

“Silver and I threw a party while you were gone, we didn’t think that you two would be back this morning and the place was a mess.” Spike explained.

“I promised that if they cleaned it up by noon that there wouldn’t be a punishment.” Fixinit told me.

“I see.” I looked to the wall clock, it said 1:30. “So what’s their punishment?” I asked him.

“What? I told them if they cleaned it up there wouldn’t be a punishment.”

“Exactly, so what’s their punishment?” I asked again.

“They did pretty good.” He pointed out, I agree, the tables weren’t overturned and the kitchen seemed clean enough.

“The books are out of order.” I clarified.

“We sorted them by title.” Spike told me.

“This week it’s supposed to be sorted by author.” I deadpanned, Spike should have remembered that.

He took a second to think about it, then face-palmed “how could I forget something like that?” he asked himself.

“I'm not sure, but for consequence you can sort it correctly,” I noticed Silver trying to sneak into the kitchen “that means you too, Silver.” He groaned.

“Fine, Spike, what’s for lunch, I'm starved.” He walked into the kitchen.

“Not sure, what do you want?” Spike asked following him.

There was a silence that followed their exit, too bad Rainbow decided to break it.

“So how was Canterlot?” she asked, it was an innocent question, but it reminded me what I had just gone through; I sat on the couch next to her with my head in my hooves.

“Canterlot was not good.” Fixinit told her as he walked over to comfort me.

“What happened?” she asked, putting her book down.

“I don’t want Twilight-” I stopped him with a hoof.

“I'm already thinking about it.” I told him through my hooves.

“So what happened, Twi?” Rainbow asked for a third time.

“Discord made me kill Dillon.” I deadpanned through my hooves.

“What?!” Fixinit and Rainbow yelled at the same time, Spike and Silver peaked out of the kitchen a second later.

“You asked what happened.” Still in my hooves.

“That is not what happened!” Fixinit screamed, the baby dragon and the stallion made their way into the room.

“Then what did happen?!” I raised my head quickly and stared into his earthy gaze with a ferocious look on my face, everypony took a pace back.

“I-I-I don’t know, it’s fuzzy.” I put my head back in my hooves.

“Discord did say you wouldn’t remember.” As I said this I felt his hoof on my shoulder.

“Then explain it to me.”

62. The plan

“When we got there we met ten others, Rarity, Fluttershy, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, and Ditzy Doo, with each of them was a stallion, Fedorian, Cloudy Skies, Presto, EQ, and Swift Strike.” I started my

“Yeah I remember that part.” Fixinit told me.

“But I wasn’t there.” Rainbow deadpanned.

“Continuing on…” Fixinit prompted me.

“Right, so when we got there we talked to them for a while, we just exchanged casual small talk, nothing important. Then a guard came to lead us to the princesses’ chamber. When we got to the door the guard asked us if we were ready, we nodded and entered.”

“C’mon, get to the good stuff.” Rainbow moaned.

“Be patient, I'm almost there.” I told her.

“Just hurry.”

“When we got in there princess Celestia was on her throne, she told me everything, that Dillon was turned into the six stallions in the room.”

“Wait, Dillon was the six stallions?” Rainbow asked, Fixinit also looked a little confused.

“Yes, he was split using a spell that was, to my knowledge, unfinished.” I explained.

“Then somepony finished it and used it on him.” Rainbow concluded.

“correct.” I confirmed “she went on to explain that she had them under a spell that would prevent the six from talking about it. she clarified that it was my decision who stayed in Equestria; Dillon or the stallions.”

“You chose us. That’s why you think it’s your fault that Dillon is gone.” Fixinit said in realization, I nodded in response “it’s not your fault, she made you make that decision, if anything, it’s her fault!”

“Celestia wouldn’t do that.” Rainbow stated coldly “I don’t believe it, this has to be some kind of a joke.”

“You didn’t let me finish.” I said flatly.

“Then please finish.” She encouraged.

“She then revealed herself to be Discord.” Rainbow was shocked.

“What? Like, she was Discord the entire time?” she clarified.

“Yes, Rainbow, Discord made me kill him, not Celestia.”

“Then that explains it! Celestias still a good ruler and we need to defeat Discord again, we need to go get the others.” She started to get up; I grabbed her tail with my magic.

“Wait up, I'm still not done.”

“Wait, there’s more?” she asked.

“Yes, when the entire ordeal with Discord was done he told us that Celestia told him to do it.”

“What? No! He’s probably holding her somewhere, trying to get us to turn against her. He’s lying!”

“He wasn’t lying.” I was holding my temper in at this point.

“And what tells you that?!” she yelled.

“Because Celestia told me herself!” I yelled back, Rainbow backed off “yes, Princess Celestia told me that she ordered Discord to make me kill Dillon!”

“N-no, it can't be true!” Rainbow stuttered, less confident than usual.

“It is.” I said as I sat down defeated.

“Why would she do that?” Rainbow asked.

“I want to know the same thing; she said she would enlighten me in time.”

Rainbow took a moment to think, and then seemed to come up with a conclusion. “This is all part of Discord’s plans.”

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah, he didn’t trick me or Applejack because we would know something was up. He didn’t do it to fluttershy because she was his only friend. He didn’t trick Rarity because she would probably just put him to work; then again so would Applejack, but still. He targeted you because he thought you were the weak link! The princess would never harm anything, least of all you.” she had a point, this could all be some super elaborate set up by the master of chaos himself!

“Rainbow, you’re a genius!” I exclaimed as I ran up to my room.

“Could you call my mom and tell her that?” she asked as she and Fixinit followed me.

When I got to my room I started writing on pieces of parchment. They got up to me right as I was finishing the duplication spell; I was duplicating the letter because it would take too long to write a letter for each receiver.

“Twi, what are you doing?” Fixinit asked.

“Inviting all of our friends on an adventure.” I stated vaguely.

“Who?” asked Rainbow.

“The elements of harmony and the stallions and mares from the palace meeting.” I told them as I roused Spike. “Spike, can you send these for me?” he rolled over, grabbed the letters, and burnt them without a seconds hesitation.

“So wait, we’re just going to march up to the castle gates and attack one of the most powerful beings on this planet that may or may not have the support of your princesses?” Fixinit tried to clarify.

“Of course not, I thought you knew me better than that.” I nudged his shoulder.

“Good, but what are we gonna do?”

“First we’re going to hold a gathering for all of the ponies involved, we need to give them all of the information we have. Plus one or two of them might have more info we don’t have.” I described the first part of my plan. “We discuss our options and act accordingly.”

“Great, I’ll come back tomorrow then.” Rainbow sped away, half out of excitement, half out of boredom.

There was a minute of silence.

“Well what do we do now?” Fixinit asked.

“Now… we wait.” Another minute of silence, only this one was awkward.

We looked around the room, at the clock, to my desk. He looked like he was in deep thought. I started wondering what he was talking about.

“Twilight, I want to talk.” My stomach flipped, I knew what this was about, but I didn’t want to admit it.

“What about?” I asked.

“Us.” He stated simply.

“What about us?” I asked, still acting clueless.

“What are we?” he asked, backing me into a corner.

I thought for a moment “we are… good friends.” His face fell just a little, I barely noticed. “with potential.” I added to lighten his mood a little, it sort of worked.

“So… are we like… on hiatus or something?” he asked.

“No, I just want to figure out what’s going on before I start or continue any relationships.” I tried to explain sheepishly.

“Twilight, I need to know what you’re thinking.” He looked at me seriously; I knew there was no avoiding it now.

“Fixinit… the truth is… I don’t know. I have obvious love for you, but I think that my mind does that to distract me from the issue at hoof. I have experienced this with silver, he distracted me from my loss of Dillon, even if he was a little late to the party. But I was still hurting then and now I'm hurting all the more. I think my mind wants to say I love you because it needs to distract itself from my loss of Dillon… again.”

“So what does this mean for us?” he asked.

“Until I figure out exactly what happened with Dillon, I don’t think we should see each other.” He took a sad nod and walked away, his head down in thought.

When he got to the door he turned his head back towards me. “Twilight, I made a promise, and I will do everything in my power to keep it. I just want you to remember that I will never leave, no matter what goes down between us, I will stay.” I nodded and he left, shutting the door behind him.

“I'm sorry.”

63. Memories

It was late at night in Fluttershy’s cottage when she and I decided to go to sleep. In the first few weeks we decided that the couch wasn’t a very good bed for me, angel bunny obviously had negative feelings towards me.

“Fluttershy, I can't thank you enough for trusting me enough to let me sleep in your bed.”

“It is no problem. I know how possessive angel bunny is of the couch.” She said with a smile.

“Is that so?” I asked the small white rabbit, who was behaving himself while Fluttershy was around.

“Oh yes, he is very territorial.” She told me matter-of-factly.

After a minute we were ready for bed when one of the cats came up the stairs and started rubbing against my legs. I looked down to see the feline and smiled.

“Hi, Harley.” I said in a friendly tone.

Then the unexpected happened.

I started seeing flashes of what looked like memories. They were going too fast for me to comprehend them on the spot, but when it ended I had received a lot of knowledge that I did not previously have. I looked up at Fluttershy from the ground, she had a worried look on her face, like I had just had a heart attack and she didn’t know what to do. I was fine, other than the strange memories.

“A-are you ok?” she asked in a rushed voice.

“Perfectly fine, why do you ask?” I answered as I stood up and brushed myself off.

“When Adularescence here rubbed against your leg you called him Harley. Then your eyes flashed a ton of random pictures of a kitty and you fell to the floor and fell asleep, I went downstairs to get the first aid kit and when I came back up you were waking up.” She was talking a little fast so I barely understood her.

“I'm fine, but I did just have the weirdest vision.” I told her, she looked a bit worried as she patted the spot next to her on the bed, prompting me to sit.

“Tell me all about it.”

Vinyl and I were mixing some tracks together, practicing a new routine we pieced together recently, when I suddenly got a small headache; I ignored it, thinking it was just from the loud music. I turned the music down and continued to mix. The headache slowly grew to an annoyance. I put a hoof to my temple to try to lessen the persistent pain in my skull. Then I hit. It was as if a tidal wave of information had decided to crash-land into my head. The weirdest part wasn’t even the fact that this came from nowhere; it’s what I saw while it was at its peak. I saw random images of a cat, said cat rubbing against my leg, eating food, hiding in a closet. When I came too Vinyl was over me with a confused look on her face.

“You alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, just lost it for a second there.” I assured her as I stood.

“I think we should talk to Octavia about this.” She said, obviously not believing me.

“What are you talking about? I'm fi-AHHHH!!” I yelled.

“What?! What is it?!” she sprinted to me and tried to look in my face, when she finally did she was surprised.

I was chuckling.

“Y-you shoulda seen the l-look on your face!!” I laughed.

“Jerk!” she yelled. “I thought you were in pain.”

I stopped laughing to try to apologies “I'm sorry baby, it won’t happen again.” I told her.

“It better.” She pouted as she stomped downstairs.

It was early in the morning when I woke up. Twilight had already started preparing for our guests. When she noticed I was awake she approached.

“How’s the head?” she asked.

I had had a mental breakdown yesterday. My mind went blank and flashed with images of a feline. A cat. This cat seemed familiar and when I was done with my little episode I awoke on the floor, Twilight standing over me with a half concerned half intrigued look on her face. I was fine this morning and told her so.

“I feel much better, thanks.” I said as confidently as I could.

Truth be told, I was extremely confused. Why did that happen, and more importantly, what was it that happened?

“That’s good; I don’t want the others to think you finally went crazy.” She jested.

“You and I both know that happened long ago.” I assured her with a similar simper.

“Yes, now, in a few minutes here breakfast should be done. Spike is making waffles.” She licked her lips involuntarily.

“I look forward to it.” I guaranteed her.

“They’re almost done!” Spike yelled from the kitchen.

“I guess we should start getting ready for breakfast.” She stated. I nodded in agreement.

By the time we had the table set Spike was done with the waffles. We all sat down and started to eat. Halfway through my second morsel there was hoofsteps coming from the library. Moments later Silver walked into the kitchen and sat down. He grabbed a plate and a waffle, poured some syrup and started eating. I realized that I hadn’t seen him come home last night.

“How was work at the farm?” I asked him, he turned pale under his gray coat, which was admittedly difficult to see.

“Work was… satisfying.” He said obviously worried about something.

“What was so satisfying about it?” I kept on him, I knew something was up, I just didn’t know what exactly.

“Um… just the satisfaction of hard, physical labor.” He said, proud of his on-the-spot thinking.

“So you worked hard. That’s good. What did you do?” he paled again.

“A-apple bucking.” He stuttered.

“Apple bucking, huh? Which section of the orchard?” he was starting to crack, I just had to keep on him.

“The… uh… west section.” He tripped up.

“Didn’t you do that just a few days ago?” I asked.

“You know how apples grow, and not to mention the magic growing spells some ponies know!” he tried to cover his tracks.

“Apples don’t grow in less than a week, not to mention the Apple family doesn’t use magic growing spells.” I was leaning over towards him, him leaning back.

“B-but-” he was cut off by a knocking at the door and sighed in visible relief.

“We are not done here.” I told him sternly as I left for the door.

When I opened the door I expected to see Octavia and Vinyl or Derpy, maybe Rarity, but what I saw came as a shock.

It was Fluttershy.

This mare had never struck me as the first to arrive to a gathering, nor the last, and defiantly not the one with the biggest entrance.

“I'm sorry I came so early but I have something I want to talk to Twilight about, if that’s alright with you.”

64. My part

“What is it Fluttershy?” Twilight asked as her quiet friend entered the house of literature.

“Last night Cloudy and I were getting ready for bed when one of my cats revealed a piece of memory to him. Cloudy passed out for a minute and woke up with the memories.”

“The same thing happened to Fixinit.” The purple mare stated, trying to make sense of what happened.

“Do you think they are connected still?” Fluttershy asked.

“I think that you are right, but we should make sure.” They nodded as they went to talk to the stallions that had waited in the main part of the library while the mares talked in Twilight’s room.

Cloudy Skies and I waited in the library part of the tree house as Twilight and Fluttershy went to talk to each other in private. There was an awkward silence, which was weird considering we had known each other for three weeks. But I think that it was more due to recent events.

“I think I got memories from a past life.” This was completely out of left field for me, he just came right out and stated this without any prompt or reason.

“What?” I asked, voicing my thoughts and confusion.

“I remembered stuff that I didn’t do.” He told me, still staring at a distant point beyond the confines of the building we were in.

“What kind of memories?” I asked, moving on.

“Ones of a cat.” This single sentence got me thinking, this train of thought continued until the mares came back.

“We think that we know how to get a leg up on Discord.” Twilight said.

“Leg up on whom?” Cloudy asked, we still hadn’t told them about the plan.

“Never mind, we should wait until everyone else is here.” Twilight dismissed the thought, for now.

For the next half hour we waited for the rest of the elements and stallions to arrive. When they were all here Twilight and I called them to attention.

“Everypony, we called you all here so that we could discuss recent events. Yesterday twelve of us went to Canterlot, each told something different. The real reason that we were called was to retrieve Dillon. This was not accomplished in light of new information at the time. To return Dillon to us we would have to give up six lives. This was not logical or in our best interest.

“Rainbow and I have talked it over and we have come to the conclusion that Discord did this to cause chaos, not because the princess had told him to. We decided that we needed to take the fight to him instead of waiting for him to make the next move. To do this we need as much information as we can get.

“When we were in Canterlot Discord told us that that the stallions would not remember anything of Dillon. Who he was, what he was like, or that they were all once part of him.” This extracted looks of surprise from all of the stallions and half of the elements, albeit on different levels for each.

“Are you saying that we were all once one being?” asked EQ.

“Yes, you were all once Dillon. He was a human with a condition that split his mind into a number of different personalities. For a lack of a better term, multi-personality disorder.” She clarified.

“How did we become different beings let alone a different species?” asked Swift Strike.

“I have reason to believe that Discord had perfected a spell that would split a pony, or in this case a human, into several different ponies. When he did this you six were the result.”

“But what about our memories?” asked Presto.

“I'm not sure if those are random memories Discord placed in your brains to make it seem more realistic, if they are recreations of Dillon’s memories or if your brains created them to compensate for the lack thereof.

“However,” Twilight continued, “to effectively combat the draconequus we need all of the information we can get, as I have said before. To get this information I have devised a way to unlock Dillon’s memories from each of your minds.”

“And what would that be?” I asked her.

“We are going to put you through his memories, try to break the spell with what information we have now. I know some books on how to break spells, we can use those.” She told us all.

“Where do we start?” Rarity asked.

“Well, as for now, go home and try everything you remember Dillon doing. If he seemed to really like a song, perform it, if he tended to play a certain game, play it, if he liked something you did, do it. Expect more headaches. Goodbye, everypony.” And they dispersed.

Except for one.

Applejack approached me, she tapped my shoulder and when I turned to look at her I noticed a look in her eye, like she was disappointed by something, but knew that it would come sooner or later.

“Hi, Applejack.” I said cheerfully.

“H-howdy, I was just wond’rin’ where Silver might be.” She seemed to shift her eyes nervously.

“He’s upstairs in Twilight’s room, why do you ask?” I was trying my best to not look suspicious of her.

“Oh, just wantin’ to talk to ‘im about tomorrow’s apple buckin’.” She shifted her eyes and her pupils got smaller.

“In that case, upstairs, first door straight ahead of you.”

“Thank ya kindly.” she nodded her thanks and walked to the stairs.

“Oh, and Applejack,” I started, she froze.

“Yeah, sugarcube?” she asked in a less-than-calm tone.

“You are the worst liar ever.” With that I walked into the kitchen where Twilight was to see if she needed anything, had any ideas for her plan, or if she just wanted to talk; leaving Applejack on the stairs, thinking about what I knew.

Twilight was sitting at the table with her head in her hooves, she didn’t seem to notice when I entered so I walked over to her and gave her a comforting hug. She noticed and jumped at first, then relaxed when she realized who it was.

“Hi, Fixinit.” She said sadly.

“Is something wrong?” I don’t want her sad, she’s cute when she’s sad, but I don’t like when ponies are sad.

“No, I was just thinking about him.”

“I'm sorry.”

“About what?” she almost laughed.

“You lost your love because of me.” I stated bluntly.

“I lost my love because of you. You don’t know how much of that sentence is wrong.” She sighed.

“Then tell me.” There was a minute of silence.

“I didn’t lose my love because of you; I made a decision, the lesser of two evils. And I never lost my love completely.” Slightly confused, I listened to her in silence.

“But Dillon can't come back, not while we exist.”

“Yeah, but you were once part of Dillon. So technically I always had him… and I still do.” I thought about this for a minute.

“But I'm not Dillon. My memories don’t correspond with a humans and I don’t believe that my life- or my supposed life- was anything like Dillon’s, I saw what was in the safe, I don’t have any memories of stuff like that.”

“But that’s where the others come in, if you eliminate their talents and experiences you’re left with stuff I'm sure you remember!” she said hopefully, now looking into my eyes.

“That may be true, but that doesn’t change the fact that I'm not Dillon.”

“No, but you’re part of him… my part.”

66. ...Was uneventful and Defibrillators

I didn’t fix one clock the remainder of my time there. I just kept thinking about what had happened to Twilight. ‘Why was she acting so… different? She seemed to be relieved that I was alive. Didn’t she say something about me dying?’ These thoughts continued until Turner snapped me out of it.

“Fixinit, go home.” He stated bluntly.

“What?”

“You’re obviously not in any condition to work anymore. I can't let you just sit there and play with my clocks until you have to leave.”

“I can work!” I stated hurriedly as I jumbled with the clock I had, not being able to find the problem, let alone fix it.

Turner grabbed the clock out of the air, twisted a gear and a spring popped out. The clock ran smoothly after that. “Go. home.” He said flatly.

“ok.” And I left in shame.

I had walked around the town a number of times before I noticed the time. It was around seven. I should get back, even if I wouldn’t normally be getting back for another hour. I started walking towards the library.

I reached the door. I was worried. Would Twilight be ashamed? Would she be mad at me? Would she show as much love as she had earlier? The last one scared me beyond belief, but I would have to confront her sooner or later. So I opened the door.

“Twilight, I'm home.” I said not loud enough to be heard outside of the room I was in.

“Fixinit?!” I heard from upstairs, she must have been listening carefully.

“Yeah?” I called up to her, a little louder.

“How was work?!” she started coming down.

“Uneventful.” I said as she got down.

“Really?”

“Yeah, we fix clocks all day.” I told her, as if she didn’t know.

“You told me that before.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Did you have any other memory flashes?” she asked.

“In fact, I did. I remembered getting a watch from Turner.” I told her proudly.

“Good, the closer we are to unlocking his full memory, the easier it will be for me to use a new spell I'm learning. It should replenish all of you with his entire memory.”

“Great!” I said enthusiastically.

“Unfortunately, restoring six ponies’ memories is kinda difficult, so the more memories we acquire, the better for all of us.” She said this like she was hiding something.

“Wait, all of us?” I asked her.

“Well… I’ve never had this spell used on me, but I’ve heard the more memories restored, the more… painful it is.” She said slowly.

“I'm sure we can handle it, you have no need to worry.” I assured her.

“I know, I just don’t like hurting my friends.” She admitted.

“Who does?” I asked in a more cheerful tone, she too lightened up a little.

“I guess you’re right.” With that we went to sit on the couch and wait for dinner.

After a minute of silence she turns to me “why were you home so early, I thought you were supposed to leave work at eight.”

“Yes, that’s the agreement me and Turner have.” I informed her.

“Then why are you here at seven fifteen?” I was in a bit of a pickle.

“Well… you see…” I was a little stunned, I'm not the best at coming up with lies on the spot.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me.” She said in a caring tone.

“Um… Turner… he had his marefriend over… and I didn’t want to be a third wheel.” I was sure I was sweating bullets.

“Really, what’s her name?” she leaned in with an ‘I gotcha!’ look on her smug face.

I took a second to think “Flower Pedal.”

“Is that your final answer?” she asked, her grin growing.

“Yes.” I said in a tone I hope sounded confident.

“Ok then, I believe you.” what?

“You do?”

“Yeah, besides, you were part of Dillon; he would never lie to me.”

“But I'm not Dillon.” I said flatly.

“Are you saying you’re lying?” she checked over her shoulder with an evil grin.

“WH-what? No! I-I-I just… I'm just saying that I am not Dillon, I am a completely different being.” I stuttered as I caught my footing.

“Ok then.” She sung as she walked up the stairs.

Her voice is beautiful, even when she’s mocking me. I don’t know why she kept it pent up for so long. I let it echo in my head for another minute before I shook myself from my daze and stood up. I decided I would do the only other thing that I could do. Look through Dillon’s safe. Maybe it would jog some memories.

As soon as I opened the door and saw the childhood pictures my brain went into a frenzy of remembrance. I saw pictures of Dillon learning how to ride a bike, I saw his bass lesions, I saw the first club he DJed at. I saw a ton of things in-between that seemed to be completely irrelevant, but the pictures strung it all together.

I assume I fell onto the ground with a loud enough thud that Twilight heard it, her hearing is crazy sensitive. She came rushing down and by the time I was awake again she was at my side with the emergency kit, the defibrillator on her hoofs, inches away from my face. I yelled.

“Twilight! What are you doing?!” she freaked and dropped them on my chest, I waited for the electrocution.

A minute later I opened my eyes to see a pair of defibrillator lying on my chest.

“You’re ok?” she asked in a dumbfounded way.

“Of course. Why didn’t these fry me?” I checked them, they were still off.

“I'm sorry, I thought you were dead! I didn’t know how to use them, I didn’t read the instructions. Sorry.”

“No it’s fine; if you had I might actually be dead.” I told her.

“I'm so sorry!” she hugged me tight “I just don’t want to lose you.” she whispered.

“It’s fine, I'm here, I'm fine.” I assured her.

67. Music withdrawal

We stayed like that for a while. She calmed down and stopped crying into my shoulder and we took a seat on the couch to talk.

“I'm sorry. I'm just so sorry.” She kept mumbling as she sat next to me.

We continued to hug for a while. She fell asleep in my arms. I laid her down on the couch, afraid of moving her.

“Spike, where are you?” I walked into her room.

“What do you want?” the basket he was sleeping in moved as he got out of it.

“Twilight’s asleep on the couch and I'm starving.” I told the little dragon.

“Can’t you make your own food?” he asked rolling over.

“Yes, but yours is so much better.” I told him as I levitated him out of his basket and downstairs.

“Fine.” He sleepily walked over to the stove and turned it on.

“Thank you.” I told him as I went back to the library to watch Twilight sleep.

Twilight was so beautiful. Her purple mane cascaded down her back and over her shoulder like a violet waterfall. Her sleek frame was just a little smaller than an average mare. Her eyes made the stars stop sparkling. And may I just say, DAT FLANK! but seriously, she was the most beautiful mare in all of Equestria. I felt like the luckiest stallion who ever set hoof in her life.

I was quietly watching her body rise and fall as she slept through what I could only think was a peaceful dream when the worst. Possible. Thing. Happened.

Silver came home.

And no, he didn’t just walk in, hang up his coat, and pass out on the couch. No, he slammed the door against the wall, leaving a nasty dent, and yelled at the top of his lungs “WOOO!! I'M HOME!!”

Of course, this woke Twilight up and enraged me beyond belief.

“What is wrong with you?!” I yelled as soon as I got my bearings.

“Nothing, unless being with Applejack is wrong.” He said smugly.

“Welcome back, Silver.” Twilight said from the couch while she rubbed her eye sleepily.

“Well you don’t need to be so loud about it!” I yelled at him.

“Don’t be so harsh on him.” Twilight scolded me for scolding him! What has our world come to?!

“Why?! He woke you from your dream!” I told her.

Her face grew grim “it was more of a nightmare.” She said slowly.

“What? Why?” I galloped over to her and held her hoof.

“Because you weren’t in it.” her eyes were half closed and she was smiling sweetly.

Another one hit, the third in the past few hours. I fell to the floor remembering. I saw images of her in bed. She was sleeping like before, but I was in bed with her. I couldn’t get much else out of it, but when I came to I could recall… certain activities I- or Dillon rather- had done with her in the past.

“Dude, are you ok?” Twilight was on top of me while Silver was standing worriedly over her.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” I told him as I got up; Twilight rapped me in a hug… again.

“I’ll never get used to that.” She whispered in my ear.

“It shouldn’t last too much longer.” I assured her.

“So… what was that just now?” asked Silver.

“I was recovering an old memory.” I told him.

“Oh, that clears everything up!” he exclaimed sarcastically.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize nopony had told you anything.” I sat on the couch, Twilight still hugging me, probably fighting tears.

I told him everything that had gone down over the past few days, how we learned that I was part of Dillon, how we were retrieving Dillon’s memories, how every time I get a memory flash I spasm like that; the whole shebang. By the time I was done Twilight had regained her composure and was leaning silently against my shoulder. Her face was obscured by my brown fur so I couldn’t tell if she was awake or not. I decided it would be best not to find out.

When I was finally finished we sat there for an awkward few seconds until Silver spoke up.

“She’s been so tired lately.” He practically whispered.

“Yeah, I think seeing Dillon again riled up those sad emotions again.” I said at the same level.

“whelp, Ima go see what Spike has cooking, it smells done.” he whispered a little louder, she moaned and moved, but didn’t wake; all I did was give him a dirty look as he walked into the kitchen.

“Ok, Twilight, I gotta go make sure they don’t burn the house down. I’ll be back soon.” I whispered to her as I laid her down.

She gave some incoherent mumbles and twitched her ear, but nothing more. I left for the kitchen.

EQ had had a total of three flashes today. This was a sign that the other stallions were doing a good job. We hadn’t done much today, I didn’t want him to have a spasm attack during a piece and damage his instrument. So we just talked all day. We talked about each other, the memory flashes and what they were about, what he could remember afterwards, so on and so forth. We took short breaks now and then to eat and stuff. Sometimes Vinyl would come down and have a short chat, but other than that we didn’t really do much.

Presto, like EQ, wasn’t doing much today. He was up in Vinyl’s bed supposedly sleeping, but I'm skeptical.

Finally EQ couldn’t take it.

“I need to play something.” He told me.

“I thought we went over this, you could harm your instrument if you fall on it.”

“Yeah, but I just feel the urge to play something. Like music withdrawal.” He said as he looked at his hooves with a crazy look in his eye.

“I know how you feel, me and vinyl both, but you need to wait.”

“No.” he got up and grabbed his bass and started to play the first thing that came to mind.

Eroica by Neethoven. I worried, but when he didn’t fall immediately I waited patiently. He finished the song, leaned his bass against the wall and took a deep breath.

“That felt good.” He said in a blissful tone, and then fell to the floor in a spasm.

I saw images of Dillon playing a bass, it was a familiar song, but I only knew that because of the music in front of his face, it was Eroica by Neethoven. The same song I had just played for Octavia. When I woke up she was looking down at me with a ‘you idiot’ look on her face.

I facehoofed as he got up again.

“I warned you.” I told him.

“Yes, but it was worth it.” he said as he sat next to me.

“I'm glad.”

68. Magic session