Culture osmosis

        I was sitting in my bathroom. It wasn’t unusual for me to sit on the porcelain throne, it was an area I could go that nobody would annoy me. I stood up and stared into the mirror. My reflection stared back, my dirty blond hair neatly trimmed to it’s normal shortness. The light faded a little bit, with the mirror being the only thing I could see. I broke into a smile, and the mirror cracked. My face was split into three different sections. The first was me, a grin on my face, as if the world was perfect. The next me was in the middle, a expression of manic joy, the face was frozen in the middle of a bout of laughter. The last me was crying, the frozen visage covered in tears. I backed away from the mirror, not stopping at the wall. I slowly moved back and upwards gaining an aerial view of the city. I watched as the city caught fire, and slowly blazed itself until nothing was left to burn. I floated towards my house, but before I could see what lay in the ashes, I heard a voice. “Not ready yet my friend.”

* * *

        I woke up in a cold sweat, my eyes stinging a little bit. I rolled off of the bed I was on. This fact caused me to think for a minute. Last thing I remembered was fainting in a library, how was I in a bed? My mental functions were still solidly in the booting up phase of the day, and went something like this.

        How did I get here?

        Why do my wings itch?

        Why do I have wings?

        I should look in that mirror there.

        Oh right, I’m a pony.

        HOLY SHIT I’M A PONY WITH WINGS!

        WHERE DID I GET WINGS?

        Can I fly?

        Is that someone knocking on the door?

        I turned to face a small purple dragon opening the door. My brain had a few more functions now, and most of them agreed on a good course of action. I raised a hoof and pointed at Spike. “Oh my God, it’s a fucking dragon.”

        Granted this was an infantile reaction, but it summed up my thoughts pretty well. Granted, Spike took it in stride. “Oh my Celestia, it’s a freaking pony.” He copied my expression and pointed at me slowly. I raised an eyebrow and looked at him. He lowered his hand as I lowered my hoof, making a nice symmetrical picture. He cleared his throat and a small puff of fire came out. “Anyway’s, Twi said before I introduce myself, I’m supposed to give you this and let you read it. So, here, and stuff.” He passed me a scroll with some fancy seal on it or something. I popped it open and read it.

Dear Jonathan,

I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria. I am an immortal being that has helped steer the fate of my kingdom for generations, and I have been informed of you. A friend of mine said he spoke to you after you paged him, which I have no idea what means, but I have owed him a favor. Therefore, I am sending you a letter with all you need to know.

I understand you are a stranger to this land, and our mutual friend has apprised me of your situation. He has requested I help you, and I will gladly help. My offer, if you wish to accept it, is similar to that of my most faithful student’s. You will stay at local ponyville housing, and once a week send me a report about cultural differences between your old home, and Equestria. You are free to adopt a more pony-like name, but make sure it is something you don’t mind.

In other news, I was warned that your original home has serious violence tendencies, I ask that you control them, or face very severe consequences

From

Princess Celestia

        I looked it over again. I assumed by mutual friend she meant asshole that transported me here, but besides that it was mostly greek to me. What does she mean ‘local housing’ and more importantly, write a report about cultural differences? I was used to writing a lot, paperwork was one of my most common activities back home. I really hated reports though, and I sucked at writing without some motivation. I perked up an eyebrow and looked at Spike. “Well, guess I should introduce myself. I’m Greenhorn, a talking, flying pony.”

        Spike looked at me before shrugging. “I’m Spike, the fire-breathing dragon. Twilight normally deals with the guests, so I’m not that good with this kinda thing. So... uh, want some breakfast.”

        I lept into attention. “Food? If you just said anything related to food, I’m in. The catch, it must involve waffles... or french toast.”

        Spike looked at me and slowly turned around. “Well, whatever I’ll throw whatever I feel like on, you can have that or make your own.” As he walked out the door I realized a tiny dragon just threw an ultimatum at me. What a strange start to a day. Ah well, I shouldn’t philosiphize before breakfast. Philosiphize is a word now, don’t question it.

        The bedroom I was in was kind of like a loft. It was situated at the very top of three flights of stairs, which meant that I had to deal with climbing with four hooves. “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.” There was a gentle chorus of profanity as I rolled down the stairs like a majestic dodo bird. I like to think I managed to smooth out my landing, but lying to myself never solved anything. In the end I ended up rolled into a pony pretzel at the bottom of the stairs.

        I sat there for a minute trying to untangle my various limbs from each other. As I fought my own limbs I heard a clicking from behind me. Now, I’ve been caught in weirder situations than that before, but everythings harder to explain when ponies are involved. It’s a fact of life. I tried to turn around to face the person who saw me in my less than respectable position. Unfortunately, this led to a sudden release of the pent up energy in my hooves. I sped around the floor before hitting a wall, normally that would have ended my torture, but fucking pony logic says differently. I hit the wall, and sped up it, still hurting from the impact with the wall. I continued to ricochet around the room until I slowly spun out to face the source of the clicking noise. It was Twilight Sparkle. I threw up a grin. “Well howdy there, how’s your morning?”

        Twilight stared at me a second, then looked at the small amount of property damage I had caused with my gravity defying antics. Honestly, I don’t see why she was so miffed, I only knocked over four or five bookshelves. She shook her head and started to walk away. “It was a lot better a second ago.” I threw another smile out the door as she walked off. I turned to face my minor property damage more closely. The library itself was surprisingly intact. It had bookshelves lining the walls, with only a few actually being felled by my brief flight. A table in the middle had an open book on it. I walked over and looked at the cover. It was titled ‘Ancient beasts of legend’ I thought it might make a good report if I ever actually made one. It was then I smelt the sweet smell of french toast, and my hunger compelled me to run to the kitchen.

I ran into the kitchen with my trademarked line. “I smell something great, must be the neighbours.” I sat there for a minute waiting for the awaited reply. It never came. I saw Twilight and Spike staring at me. I shook it off, I’ll get home soon enough, then I can go back to my stupid routines. “Sorry, force of habit. What smells like French Toast?”

        Spike grabbed a plate with a smile and put it in front of me. “Man, your accents funny. It’s not French, it’s Prench. I thought that might be what you wanted, so I cooked some up.” HIs smile was infectious, and soon we had struck up a conversation on the subject of cooking. While I wasn’t a master chef, I had some experience in baking, and made a pretty mean cake if I do say so myself.

        Our conversation was winding down after a few minutes, and it was centered on all the ponies around town I should know. Spike was articulating his points with grandiose gestures. “I think you should introduce yourself to Timeturner first. He’s our town clock keeper. He’ll set you up with a clock on a budget, though you still need to talk about that with Twilight don’t you?”

        At the mention of her name Twilight snapped out of her reading coma. She was wearing glasses that made her look adorkable. It was like watching a baby play with a phone. She moved a bookmark into the spine and looked around, before focusing on her empty plate. “Didn’t I have some Prench toast too?”

        I quickly turned to face a particularly fascinating crack in the ceiling. Meanwhile, Spike was laughing his purple ass off. “Blame Greenhorn, he decided if you didn’t want to eat it, then he would.”

        Twilight crossed her eyes at me. If I had been in a serious mood I would have run for cover, but seeing her in those glasses with crossed eyes was so cute I just fell over laughing. “I have no regrets. Except maybe that I didn’t eat more of them.” Spike fell out of his chair, and laughed so hard that flames flew out of his mouth.

        Twilight huffed her cheeks out a bit before composing herself. “Well, I still have to talk to you about finance. I’m assuming I should call you Greenhorn. To start of I’m Twilight Sparkle, as Spike told you. The princess told me that I’m supposed to give you a few things. First there’s this.” She pulled out a large key from a basket nearby. “It goes to a small house near the Everfree Forest. I can get Spike to lead you there. Then there’s the rest of the bag. It has a few bit’s, a... uh currency conversion table?” She looked at the basket. “Must be a really small table. Anyways, I’d love to get to meet you, but I have to work on some projects, so ask Spike if you need anything.” With that she walked off, leaving me in the room with a dragon.

        I looked around at the room. Spike had already thrown all the dishes in the sink. He was currently staring at them forlornly. I knew that look, it was the look of ‘I really don’t wanna do this’. I decided to save his skin. “Hey Spike, you wanna show me to the house I apparently own.”

        Spike did a fist pump right there. He turned around faced me. “Sure thing. It’s a little walk away, but I could give you some directions from the air.”

        I grinned a bit sheepishly. “I don’t really know how to fly yet. the wings are a bit of a new addition.”

        Spike looked at me funny before shaking his head. “Alright then, follow me, I’ll get you there.”

        We walked for around thirty minutes. Our conversation was muted due to me deciding that I should be trying to practice flying. I managed to figure out how to hover for a few seconds, before crashing and giving Spike a wave of laughter. We finally reached the forest, which had my new house sitting there. I stared at it for a second. It was slightly dilapidated, and the paint was chipping. The door was barely held on, and I doubted it could stand up to a strong wind. Spike rubbed the back of his head. “I know it’s not a lot bit-’

        I moved my hoof over his mouth. “No Spike. This is perfect.”