Culture osmosis

        I walked up to my new house. It was a strange feeling, owning a house I mean.  I had never been much into the real estate market. With what I wanted to do with my life, I had never needed much knowledge of housing. I walked over to my newfound house. It had solid walls, despite all the external damage. The door had a large crack in it, which allowed a draft through. I opened up the door as Spike followed sheepishly behind. The inside had a rusted cot, with a small bedside table beside it. There was a kitchen table as a centerpiece which I quickly threw my basket onto. There was a couch situated beside an empty bookshelf in the corner. There was only one room, but if the deed was to the cleared land then I could expand if I found the funds. The house itself wasn’t very roomy, but it gave me enough room to set up a few basic necessities if time permitted. I smiled at the feeling of owning a house, now I had to fix it up. I grabbed a bag full of coins from my basket along with the table for converting money.

        I walked out of my house and had Spike lead me around town to all the stores I needed to visit. “Alright, with a house this size all you really need is a clock and some new sheets. Timeturner can set you up with a good clock, and I know a mare who really knows her way around the sheets.” I lost it at his word choice. I fell over laughing at his word choice. He stared at me for a minute. “What are you laughing at? She really knows how to make sheets, or any clothes for that matter.” I realized he was talking about Rarity, which made me laugh even harder. In almost every Rarity story I had read she was either completely innocent, or a total whore. I couldn’t not laugh at his word choice. I eventually calmed myself down a bit, allowing Spike to comment. “You’re a nutcase, you know that right?”

        I smiled and nodded at him, flashing a bit of manic smile. He shook his head at me before gesturing in the general area we were in with both clawed arms. Turns out we were in Ponyville square. It was slightly different than the way it was shown in the show. There was an apartment complex with a large golden gate by an ornate fountain on the left hand side of us. In the middle of the square was a large building, with a weather vane shaped like a pegasus, which currently pointed east. I looked over the rest of the square I could see. On my right there was a large, food shaped building beside the apartment. I guessed it was Sugarcube corner. A small yellow building beside it had a picture of a smiling animal on the door. I thought it might’ve been a vet, but I had never seen it before. The last building that was visible was a large mansion, with a smiling picture of a filly on it. A certain orange filly was walking into the gate, a frown on her face. I would have talked to her, but Spike was already dragging me away.

        “We gotta head to the clock store soon, who know’s when Timeturner’s gonna decide to run off to the Everfree again.” I shrugged, the only thing I knew about him was that he ran the towns clocks and was the brown background pony everyone mad a Doctor. I figured that with everything going on, I might as well just roll with whatever happens. Spike walked around the building leading to a few more shops, none of which seemed to stand out to me, before stopping in front of a small brown house. It had a clock hanging from a metal hoop in the roof. It was roughly my size, with a small pony being used as the hour hand. Spike walked in. I waited a moment before opening the door.

        I was met with a deafening chorus of ticking. It slowly faded as I became used to the sound. I looked around to see the stallion of the hour himself, playing with a small gear and a set of levers. THe all seemed to click together to make a small animatronic pony. I looked at it, and it looked at me. I jumped back before the small pony fell apart and I heard Timeturner laughing. “Oh goody, Spike always seems to know just how to scare an unsuspecting pony.” He had a british accent, which kind of confused me, but I shrugged it off. Timeturner walked over and looked me over. “Oh, you are a treat. Tall, broad-shouldered, I bet Big Mac could use a worker like you. Anyways, no cutie mark, confused, I think you need a clock like this.” He walked off and showed back up with a clock roughly the size of a plate. It had a bronze finish with a simple look. I looked it over.

        I raised an eyebrow. “How much?”

        Timeturner smiled. “How about three bits?” I looked over my conversion table. Three bits was roughly equivalent to fifty bucks. Sounded fair enough for a good clock. I looked at all the bits I had in the bag from my basket. There was a good amount in there, definitely enough for the clock. I picked out three bits with my wings before handing them to Timeturner. He smiled and handed me the clock. “It’ll probably work for around four years, come by once every four weeks to get it checked on its synchronization. Oh, and before I forget, Spike said to meet him at the library. It’s three blocks down to the left. Have a nice day.” With that he walked back to the rear of the shop, tinkering with gears again. I walked through the door, trying to make heads or tails of what I just saw.

        I walked towards the library, or at least where I thought it was. Timeturner’s directions were less than perfect, but a giant tree was hard to hide. It was above the lowest buildings and I was able to jury-rig the way there from the directions and the ability to see my final destination. The door was left wide open, which struck me as odd, but I rolled with it and walked on in. Spike was sitting on a couch with a saddlebag on his lap. It was green and being packed with various supplies. Twilight was walking down the stairs with a purple saddlebag on her back. She looked at me like I just arrived late to my own wedding. “Where have you been? I came back down after finishing my studies and you had wandered off.”

        I looked at Spike, who now had an avid interest in the saddle bags checklist. I walked towards a nearby cushion and plopped myself down. “Sorry, I had to check out  my house. Oh, and lookie, I got a new clock.” I brandished my clock with both wings, allowing Twilight to admire it’s awesome-ness.

        She apparently didn’t share my sentiments. “Oh, it’s one of the local clocks. They’re pretty good, but anyways, we have work to do.”

        I looked at Spike packing a saddle bag which now suspiciously looked like it was meant for me. “We?”

        Twilight smiled at me. “Yep, we. Celestia said that we had to go talk to the Saddle Arabian tribes as diplomats from Equestria. She said you would understand their culture better than us.” I looked at her like she was mad, which she might have been. She looked back and her smile faltered. “Why she trusts you as much as me, I don’t know, but she probably knows what’s going to happen, so I guess we’ll do as she asks.”

        I gave her my best annoyed look, which is pretty hard to do on a pony, let me tell you. “You keep saying we, what makes you think I’ll go along with this little plan?”

        Twilight looked at me. “Well because relations with the Saddle Arabians are tense. If their history has anything to say about it, if we displease them we could be looking at a war. I mean, when Salladneigh took offense to Equestria he started a holy crusade against us, and their culture has been basically stagnant, so they could do it again. If every-”

        I stood up. “Alright, alright, I get it! End of the world if I don’t help. I’m in, when are we leaving?”

        Twilight smiled like she planned for me to cave in through her rant. “As soon as Spike finishes packing your bag.”

        I grimaced. “Of course, couldn’t just chill for a day, that just doesn’t make sense.” I turned to spike. “Spike, take my clock home, would ya bro?” He nodded and closed the flap on my saddlebag. He sheepishly looked my way before grabbing the clock and running like a bat outta Hell. I put on the saddlebag and looked at Twilight. “Alright, where we headed?” She smiled again, and I didn’t like it. Before I could question it, I was gone in a flash of purple light.

        The purple slowly faded from my eyes and I was hit with a wave of confusion. I made a checklist of things that confused me. “Alright, I’m in a desert. Unless Twilight’s library is a lot different than I thought, it ain’t normal. I also appear to not have a saddlebag, huh. HAHAHA, guess now I’m really up shit creek with no paddles, and without a boat to.” I cracked a smile even though nothing was actually funny. “Maybe I’ll get something outta this yet, like death, wouldn’t that be fun? I’ll finally know what’s on the other side. I always thought of something, but now I’ll be sure, how great! Guess I’ll move on to the next order of business, how can I build a castle out of this?” I began playing with a rock, not completely sure of my actions.

I’m not sure if I sat there for two minutes or two days, but I only snapped out of my rock coma when a voice snapped me out of it. “Greenhorn? I was looking for you. I’m so sorry, I accidently sent you a few miles north, your bag’s back at camp. You alright?”

I turned around with a smile. Twilight was behind me, but once she caught my

smile she jumped back. I turned my head to the side. “WHat do you mean? Of course I’m fine. Change is good right? I could make more change now that I’m here. Maybe I’ll change something about this world, or maybe just myself? Who knows, because I sure as sin don’t.”

        Twilight looked freaked out, which she had good reason to. “GREENHORN! What are you doing? I haven’t known you that long, but this doesn’t seem like what you would do.”

        I walked a step towards her. “You like learning don’t you? Maybe I’ll teach you what’s wrong, but first you’ll need a change as big as mine. MAybe I could plan a surprise visit to Celestia, that might be enough.”

        Twilight was severely freaked out by now, and thinking of what I was saying, she should have been. “Stop it, stay back!” I felt something slap my face, and I sunk down to the ground.

        I shook my head. Everything was fuzzy, and nothing seemed right. I lifted up my head. “Why am I in an empty desert?”

        Twilight looked down at me. Everything still seemed to mismatch the way it should be. Why was her mane so frazzled? She looked at me worriedly. “You alright? I think the teleport messed you up a little bit. I should have warned you. What if your mind hadn’t fixed so easily? It all would have been my fault. Please be okay, if you aren’t then I just ruined a friendship.”

I stood up and shook my head. “ I’m fine, but you got some water or something? I’m parched.”

        Twilight smiled at that. “Yeah, here.” A canteen slowly floated towards me. I grabbed it effortlessly, and took a long swig. Twilight still seemed a bit on edge. “I think I should run a few tests. I don’t have my checklist kit, but I could just ask a few questions.”

        I chugged the rest of the canteen, and wiped of my mouth with my wing. “What happened, you seem more on edge than Fluttershy sitting beside a random pony?”

        She sat there for a second, apparently lost in a thought. “You really don’t remember?” I shook my head. She nodded slowly. “Then at worst it’s just regressive, we’ll be fine for the moment. You lost it for a bit, but you’re fine now.” She looked me over again. “Probably. You ready to meet some ambassadors?” I nodded, not feeling so talkative at this news. Twilight took the canteen from me with a smile. “Alrighty then, follow me.” With that she walked off with me following in her footsteps, not daring to stop the train of thought on my sanity.

        The desert was huge, but featureless. This was more annoying than anything, but it allowed me to see the large tent from a good distance. It had a small amount of ponies bustling about near it, and seemed like a small oasis from the endless nothing of the desert. I looked at Twilight. “You sure I’m alright?”

        She looked at me with a look somewhere between worry and thoughtfulness. “One second.” Her horn glowed and I got a headache for a second. They both faded in time to my annoyance. Had I just gotten mind read by a small purple pony? Twilight smiled at me. “You should be fine, as long as nothing to unexpected happens.”

        I rolled with it. “Alright, if you say so. I had a bag packed for me, where’d it go?”

        She looked around for a second before her horn glowed and a brown saddlebag floated towards me. “There you go. It’s mostly basic stuff. Celestia said you’d want a pike so I put a small one against the bottom of the bag.”

        I looked an indeed there was a small pike there, almost a knife actually. I’d figure out how to use it later, “Thanks. When are we meeting the ambassadors?”

        Before Twilight responded a regal voice spoke up from behind me. “I’m sorry. There’s been a change of plans. I turned around and saw something I didn’t expect. Queen Chrysalis was standing behind us, a full contingent of drone’s stood at her back. She looked us both over. “Surprised to see me?”