Culture osmosis

        I walked through my house, desperately bored. I had done my laundry, practice drill, and watched some my little pony. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why. I had nothing to do, what with my parents out of town, so I contented myself to trying to build legopolis, the lego city of the future. It normally would have distracted me for a few hours, but some shit happened to mess me up. First, the doorbell rang, which made me spill the backpack full of legos on the floor, and two, I realized I had forgotten to walk my dog. The dog looked ready to leak on the floor, so I grabbed her leash and went to the door, thinking I would get to mess with some poor salesman or something. I opened the door and my dog bolted out, leaving me staring at a box, roughly the size of myself. If I was a midget that would have been okay, but I’m six three. Needless to say, I was wondering what the hell a huge box was doing at my house.

        I let my dog do her business before reeling her in and letting her back inside. I closed the door and turned to face the box. As I said, it was roughly my height. The other catching detail was that it was slightly wider than my door. I looked around the side before noticing it was labeled to me. “Weird.” I tried not to lose much of a step, and ran inside to grab my knife. I came back out with my old hunting knife. The thing had a razor edge, and proved to be a worthy opponent for the cardboard box. Inside the box was a black rectangle, only slightly smaller than the box it came in. Being of a scientific mind, I did the first option available to me. I kicked it. “Ow, fuck fuck fuck shit damn.” I started hopping around on one foot, falling prey to the rectangle which proved to be as hard as diamonds. I didn’t let this distract me however, and searched over the box.

        After a rousing two seconds, I found something that piqued my interest. A note was taped over a nice yellow button. After briefly questioning the buttons color, I tore of the note to read it. “To, whoever I sent this box to. Hope you’re bored, cause this’ll fix it.” I raised an eyebrow at the note, then shrugged and threw it behind my back. After thinking it over for a few seconds, I decided on a course of action. “This is sketchy as all get out. Guess I should press the button.” With a scream of animal rage I punched towards the button, letting the town here my current thoughts. “FOR SCIENCE!” When my fist made contact with the button, I had a pure moment of realization. I was an idiot for doing this, then everything went white.

* * *

        I don’t know how long I was out but when I woke up, I was pretty far from home. I was in what looked like a whirlpool, with me standing in the eye. The whirlpool itself was a sickly yellow color, with a tinge of black dotting it’s spirals. I sat there for a few moments before finally commenting. “If I’m dead, then purgatory looks like a pretty boring place.” I looked around for a bit before getting bored. After all, who wants to spend eternity looking at a whirlpool? “Hey, anybody listening? Customer service is requested in isle wherever the Hell I am.”

        I heard a low chuckle emanate from the very whirlpool surrounding me. It had a fatherly feel to it, and slowly died off with a throat clearing. “Ah yes, you must be the one who got my box. I’m guessing Jonathan, right?”

I looked around, trying to find a source for the voice. No harm in responding, hopefully. “Yeah. So... what? I got a creepy all powerful stalker or something?”

The chuckle came back, and this time stayed for a bit longer. “No, just a helpful watcher. You see, I’ve been watching the world for so long, and for all of humanity’s good they always seem to mess it up for the first century or so. So, I had an idea, take a kid who is old enough to have some brains, but young enough to tolerate things, and ship him off to an alien world as a science experiment. I can guess what’ll happen, but maybe you’ll prove me wrong.”

I sat there for a minute. “But what about my family, and friends? I can’t just leave them behind, don’t I get a say in this?”

        The voice responded more quickly this time, with almost a sad tone in it;s voice. “No, you don’t. I already know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering why not. I’ll tell you, once I feel like you know why you shouldn’t come back. Anyway’s, I’ve spent too much personal time with you, keep safe my friend. Maybe we’ll meet again.” And with that, I stopped being in the eye of the whirlpool. I feel into the sea of yellow and black, until the constant pressure forced me into unconsciousness.

* * *

        I woke back up, a small bump on my head. I refused to open my eyes. I moved myself to a seated position before trying to rub my head. A rock bumped into it. Resigning myself to my baser desires I slumped back down to a nice grass pillow. I decided to fill the gap of time with my normal morning ritual, muttering. “Fucking alien world. This place is gonna have xenomorphs ain't it? Hey, maybe it’ll be cool though. I might get to hang with some space marines, or maybe it’s an actual alien race. I might get to have first encounter with a race no one's ever heard of before. Fuck it, that’s all the motivation I need.” I bolted up and opened my eyes, only to be greeted with eyes filling my entire vision. “HOLY SHIT!” My survival instincts went on high alert, and after throwing a wild punch at whatever that thing was I ran off in the opposite direction on all fours.It was strangly comfortable running on all fours, and I didn’t stop until I reached a nice wooded area far from the bounds of normal society. After much deliberation mentally, I did the only thing I thought safe. Took a nap.

        I awakened to the sights of twilight, and a nearby muttering. Still not focusing on my surroundings I tried to listen to it. TO my surprise to spoke english, it also seemed to be talking to me. “Um, if you don’t mind, mr. squirrel needs into his hutch, and um.. you kind of sleeping on it. Could you move please?” I rolled over a bit, bumping into something. I opened my eyes and tried to locate the voice that was moving me from my naptime. After I found it I bolted up. In front of me, was a pony. But not just any pony, it was freaking Fluttershy. I shook my head and tried to compose myself a bit. It didn’t seem to work. In the end, she was forced to pick up the conversation. “Um, what are you doing by Everfree Forest? If you don’t mind me asking?”

                My inner gentlemen came forth, and I stood up to respond. “This is the Everfree? I’m sorry, I just got dropped here and don’t know the area. To be honest I was just kind of sleepy. Ah well, now that nap time's over I should probably find a place to bunk down for the night. Any suggestions ma’am?” I managed to hold true to my normal way of dealing with insanity, which was to sort it out when convenient. Though, meeting Fluttershy proved to stress my ability to ignore the unrealness of my current scenario.

        Fluttershy managed to keep from running away, so I imagined I wasn’t being that scary. Though she was shivering a bit when she actually talked to me. “Um, the library has an overnight room. I know the mare that runs the place. I-if you need me to, I could lead you there. U-unless you h-have something else planned I mean.” She shrunk down, leaving herself a small circle in the middle of a clearing. How could I say no to a girl like that?

        I smiled. “That would be lovely miss....” I tripped over my words, if she knew I knew her name, then things would get weird, and I didn’t want to scare her off. Luckily for me, she took it as an invitation to introduce herself.

        “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m Fluttershy, and what’s your name? I mean... if you don’t mind.”

        I couldn’t resist, I giggled at that. A smile was a rare occurance in my world. It’s not that I was sad, I just rarely saw reason to smile. I kept my smile firmly attached to my face as thought of a name. Jonathan wasn’t a very pony name, and I needed to blend in. I defaulted  to my nickname when I first started high school. “I’m Greenhorn, nice to meet you Fluttershy.” I extended a hand, and froze. It was a hoof. A motherfucking hoof. How and why weren’t important, but it was there, and it was throwing off my clever facade of normality. I blinked away my confusion. Luckily for me, Fluttershy didn’t notice.

        She took my hoof in some strange hoof-wrap thing which I guess equals a handshake. She fell back into a slightly quivering ball and started walking. “F-follow me please.” and with that, I could feel an epic journey begin.

        The library was quite the little walk away, which gave me time to think about my current predicament. I was currently in Equestria, as a pony, chilling with Fluttershy. How in the Hell do you react to this? I had an unknown, all-powerful overlord controlling where I was with no reason, and I had little hope of seeing my friends again. What in Gods name was I supposed to do right now. I tried to cement some memories in my mind. First there was my ex, a good girl, if a bit wary of things I still viewed her as one of the reasons I’m a good person today. Next was family, my mom, sister and father were at the top of the list. By God they were probably freaking out right now. I blinked away some tears, hoping nobody had seen it. It’s never that easy though. I heard a meek voice from my right and saw Fluttershy staring at me. “Are, are you okay?”

Shit, I really hated people seeing me melt, even if it was only a little. I embraced the cold, distancing my pissy moods brought. “No, it’ my problems, I’ll fix it.” She seemed to drop it at that, though I doubted that she did. Hopefully it wouldn’t come up again until I had sorted out all my problems myself. I shook my head from side to side, clearing it of any unwanted thoughts. Needless to say, the rest of the walk passed in silence.

The library was similar to the way the show showed it as, but that wasn’t important. The important thing was that the series never showed you how big the fucker was. It made the White house look like a play house. Fluttershy walked up and knocked on the door, which made a sound almost like a scratching cat with how light she knocked. Despite her light knocking,an answer was almost instantaneous. The door slowly creaked open, and Twilight Sparkle answered the door. I thought she would be an alicorn, but there she stood, a unicorn if ever there was one. Questioning it would only lead to more questions so I let it drop. Twilight looked up from her levitating book to see who actually knocked. “Oh, Fluttershy. What brings you this way?”

Fluttershy gestured towards me before talking, a bit less of a quiver in her voice. “This stallion was sleeping on a tree in the forest. He said he was just dropped off and had nowhere to stay, I thought your overnight room might be open.”

Twilight looked over to me, noticing me for the first time. “Oh, alrighty then. I think it’s wide open, I’ll get Spike to clean it up.”

As if on cue a little dragon walked through one of the doors. I felt my mouth drop for a second. I had always loved dragons, even when I was a little kid. Seeing one was just amazing. Once again the ponies seemed more observant than people. Twilight cocked her head to the side before shock overcame her face. “I’m so sorry, I forgot that most ponies have never seen a dragon. Spike, could you go get the guest room ready while I see who are new guest is?” With a salute spike went up the stair, carrying a broom like a little soldier.

Fluttershy slowly slinked out of the house, making a retreat that I had almost missed. I was pulled into a kitchen by Twilight, who seemed to have a vague idea what was going on. She looked me over, then nodded as if confirming her own thoughts. She moved to get a tea set before speaking. “Jonathan, right? Princess Celestia said you were coming, though she mentioned you might be using a different name. She said that someone was sending you to be a researcher.” All this overwhelmed me at the moment, and I just nodded dumbly. Twilight took a moment to breath before continuing. “Oh, where are my manners, I’m Twilight Sparkle, what should I call you?” THe massive amount of ponies, implied knowledge, and confusion finally got to me, and for the third time today, and the fifth time in my life, I blacked out.