Fortunate Misfortune

Chapters

Chapter 2: First Contact and Helpful Aquaintances
Chapter 2: I Wish I Brought my Notebook
Chapter 3: Not your Everyday Morning
Chapter 4: Not a Boring Day in the Dungeon
Chapter 5: A Breakfast to Remember
Chapter 6: An After Breakfast Stroll
Chapter 8: Conversing Carriage Ride and Arrival at Ponyville
Chapter 9: A Dizzying Party
Chapter 10: A Minor Detail
Chapter 11: Undeserved Generosity
Chapter 1: Unexpected Fate
Chapter 7: Goodbye Old Life and Hello New

Chapter 2: First Contact and Helpful Aquaintances

~Chapter 2 - First Contact and Helpful Acquaintances~

…Something brushed against my face, and as it tickled my nose I sneezed. With the sudden movement I felt a sharp pain spread throughout my body.

“Gah!" I coughed in pain as I clutched my side, "That hurts."

'Pain… why am I in pain?' I couldn't remember what happened. All I know is that I was getting ready to go to school, and now I have this splitting headache and injured side. The rest is all just a blur.

"It feels like I smashed into the broad side of a barn," I groaned even as the pain started to fade to a bearable level.

Now that I could concentrate somewhat, I began to notice the noises coming from my surroundings. They were unnerving sounds, things scurrying through bushes and the soft moan of the breeze through closely knit trees. 'This doesn't sound like home… It sounds like I'm in a forest.'

Still lying on the ground I opened my eyes for the first time since regaining consciousness, all I saw was blue. Slowly, and with another spasm of pain compliments of my side, I pushed myself into a sitting position. Looking around I noticed that I was definitely in a forest, a dark and somewhat spooky forest to be exact. Though despite the eerie appearance everything looked... well... the colours were more vivid if that makes sense.

"Ok, this looks familiar," I mumbled to myself. I looked down at where I was sitting, I was in the middle of many strange blue flowers, "And they definitely look familiar."

I bent closer to examine the flowers, "That definitely looks like poison joke, and if it is then that means I'm in the Everfree Forest, which in turn means… Nah! There's no way I'd be that lucky. But then again, landing in a patch of poison joke isn't exactly my idea of good fortune."

Not knowing for certain whether this was Equestria or not and not caring about getting away from the possibly harmful flowers since I had already touched them, I decided to simply sit back and rest my aches for now and hope for someone to come along to confirm my suspicions.

It was then that I realized something else that was very wrong. I was getting incredibly hot. I quickly undid the fastenings on my jacket and unzipped my sweater. Trying to get into a position to remove these however resulted in another wave of agony, so I resigned myself to the little relief I managed to secure for myself and gently set myself back down.

‘It’s warm out...’ A breeze blew by, the strange blue flowers swaying in its passing. ‘...well, too warm for winter anyway. That felt more like a spring or fall wind.’

This was starting to get even more weird, and this new development made the possibility of being somewhere else- not necessarily Equestria –seem more likely.

So, armed with only my knowledge of My Little Pony and various ‘Human in Equestria’ fan fictions, I began planning out what I should try to do.

'If this is Equestria then first I should find Zecora and see if she’ll make a poison joke cure for me, speaking of which I wonder when I'll start experiencing my reaction to the plant. I know that poison ivy isn't actually poisonous, the rash is just a natural allergic reaction to the plant that only humans have, so it's quite possible that the plant only affects ponies. After that I should focus on finding a way to meet Princess Celestia and seeing how she'll react to my presence. Some fan fictions show her acting kindly to the human in question; others have the Princess aware of the things humans are capable of and quickly acting out against them. Concerning the ponies, more importantly the mane six, I should probably play ignorant and act like I don't know anything about them for the time being, just to be on the safe side.'

I was about to start working out how I was going to make money and, well, basically how I was going to survive, when the sound of someone approaching caught my attention.

'Wow, that was much faster than I expected.' I listened carefully to the sound, 'Ok, judging by the pattern of footfalls I think there are two sets of feet. Maybe two bipedal creatures… No, the rhythm of the footfalls is to steady, I'd say that it's a quadruped.' Then I remembered my shirt with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark, 'Oh right, faking ignorance here!' I quickly zipped up my sweater to cover the telltale sign of me being a Brony.

As I made my prediction I crossed my fingers hoping for a pony to walk into view. My prayer did not go unanswered. A welcome sight stepped into view on the path in front of me, a unicorn with a lavender coat and a long straight purple mane and tail with a lighter purple and pink streak running through each. On its flank was a six-pointed magenta coloured star with several smaller white stars encircling it. It was Twilight Sparkle, carrying a pale purple saddlebag with clasps made in the likeness of her cutie mark on her back.

I had a sudden an almost overwhelming urge to let loose the most girlish scream of joy possible, thankfully I was able to resist that temptation. Instead of making the first move to greet her I decided to keep quiet for the moment, just to see her reaction.

Twilight stopped dead in her tracks as her purple eyes locked onto me, she began to back up cautiously but stopped when she noticed I wasn't moving. Even before she spoke the look in her eyes betrayed her interest.

"This... this is incredible! I've never seen or even read about a creature like this!” She took a step towards me, and her confidence must have made a complete recovery once she noticed I made no move against her.

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t appear aggressive,” she began stating aloud. “It has a similar appearance to that of a monkey. Forward facing eyes, flexible arms, legs and fingers, but it doesn't seem to have much hair on its body."

This sounded so familiar to me, 'Gee, I wonder why,' I thought sarcastically to myself while recalling various reactions ponies had in fan fictions when seeing a human. I decided to keep quiet for a little while longer, wanting to see what else Twilight would deduce.

I couldn’t keep quiet for any longer, else I run the risk of having Twilight write me off as a mental giggling baboon.

"You’re close. I’m not a monkey, I’m a human. Though I guess you could call me an ape considering approximately ninety six percent of my DNA is the same as that of a chimpanzee,” I said with a chuckle, Twilights new expression giving the action even more strength. I quickly regretted that however as my laughing caused the pain in my side to flare up again, I tried to hide my grimace behind a smile.

"You can talk?" Twilight exclaimed in surprise, “Well... I mean... of course you can talk. After all, taking into account your apparent intelligence it seems only logical.”

"Well I’m glad you think so," I tried to say evenly; instead it came out as a groan and I fell onto my back whilst clutching my side in agony.

Twilight immediately grew concerned. "You're injured, what happened to you?" As quickly as she began walking over to help she stopped, finally noticing what I was lying in. "And what are you doing sitting in the poison joke?"

'Caring for a strange injured animal? That sounds more like something Fluttershy would do,' I thought before passing it off as simple kindness.

"Sorry but I can't remember how I got hurt," I said through clenched teeth. "As for sitting where I am, I can't tell you the answer to that either, I just woke up here."

"Well can you stand? I need to get you to somepony who can help."

"I think so," I replied. The thought of doing a hand spring to my feet popped into my head, but I immediately cast that idea aside as I realized it would end up hurting more than helping. Instead I opted for slowly rolling onto my front and dragging myself out of the patch of blue flowers.

As soon as I was clear of the irksome plant Twilight trotted over to my side. "Here, you can lean on me for support."

"Thanks, I owe you for this," I said as I pulled myself into a standing position. I quickly placed my hands on Twilights back to stabilize myself as my legs threatened to give out.

Once I was standing I took notice of her actual height, 'I'm almost six feet, so if I use myself as a reference I guess that makes her about… four feet tall. I guess me saying that ponies were only three feet tall in my fan fiction was wrong.' I realized she was staring at me curiously.

"What?" I asked.

"Oh, I was just surprised to see you stand on two legs," Twilight replied. She seemed to be intrigued by every new detail about me. “Though considering your anatomy it does seem sort of obvious.”

I had a reasonable guess as to where we were going as Twilight continued along the path while supporting my weight, but still feigning ignorance I asked anyway, "So where are we going?"

"We're going to see Zecora. She's a zebra who knows a lot about healing and herbal remedies. If there's anyone who can fix you up its Zecora, she also knows how to make a cure for the effects of poison joke. I was heading to her house anyway to get some medicine for my assistant; he recently came down with the flu."

A thought popped into my mind, 'This sounds like the perfect moment to ask about the Princess.'

"Oh, I forgot to ask you your name. I'm Matthew by the way, Matt for short."

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, but you can call me Twilight, that's what my friends call me."

'Twilight basically called me a friend! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!' With that little fan moment out of the way I inquired towards my goal.

"You mentioned something about having an assistant didn't you? Surely that must mean you're a pretty important pony."

Twilight blushed a little, "I wouldn't say important, Spike is more like a brother to me than an assistant. He mainly helps me clean up the library where I live; he also sends my letters to the Princess for me."

'Success!' "Wait, what do you mean Princess?"

Twilight gave me a quizzical look. "Princess Celestia of course, she also happens to be my teacher. But surely you know who the Princess is."

Again feigning ignorance I stated, "Actually no, I don't. You see, I came from a different world, or universe or dimension, whatever you want to call it."

Twilight stopped suddenly, I didn't so I proceeded to fall painfully on my face without her support.

"Ow… could you warn me before you do that next time?"

"What do you mean another world? And if that's true, then how did you get here?" Twilight spluttered.

"Again, I don't know how to answer your question, all I can assume is that my injuries are related to me being here somehow," I grunted as I slowly stood once more and nearly fell onto Twilight's back.

"Alright then," Twilight looked skeptically at me, an expression that clearly stated that she wasn’t satisfied with the answer.

'Shoot, she's already suspicious, and here I thought that I'd only have to worry about Applejack seeing through my ruse.'

"Anyway," Twilight continued, "Princess Celestia rules Equestria, the land that you're in now, alongside her sister Princess Luna. Princess Celestia raises the sun into the sky every morning and Princess Luna lifts the moon at night."

I faked an incredulous expression in response to Twilight's explanation and left it at that, not wanting to explain to her how the sun and moon worked back home.

"What's with that look, doesn't it work the same where you come from?"

'Damn!' "No, back in my world the sun and moon rise and set on their own," now it was Twilight's turn to give me a disbelieving look. "Their movement is caused by the orbit of Earth, the planet that I live on, around the sun, and the moon orbits in the same fashion around Earth. Also, we don't have any ponies like you back home, and humans are the dominant species on the planet."

"What do you mean there aren't any ponies like us in your world?"

'Ugh, I really didn't want to go there…' "Ponies and horses back home are generally larger than you and just like any other animal, unable to speak the way we do and they are usually taken care of on farms. Additionally, there are no unicorns or pegasi."

Twilight shot me yet another suspicious glance, 'Crap, I walked into that one. If there aren't any pegasi in my world and I've only seen a unicorn here then how should I know about pegasi? Because I'm a bad actor that's why!'

An awkward silence ensued that brief chat, so I decided to quickly redirect the conversation to where I intended it to go, "Anyway, you said that your assistant sends your letters to Princess Celestia?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I was wondering if you could send a letter to Princess Celestia informing her of my appearance here." Before Twilight could ask about my reason for such a request I said, "If I was in her position and a strange creature claiming to be from another world suddenly appeared, I think I would want to know about it."

She thought about it for a moment before responding, "I see your point. All right then, I'll send the Princess a letter telling her about you."

I nodded my thanks, 'I can't wait to see how she will react.'

Once that was done with, our conversation drifted back to its original course. I thought that my explanation on how our sun and moon worked would quench Twilight's thirst for information but I was wrong, all I managed to do was open the door for various other questions pertaining to our knowledge of space and our technological advancements. 'Make it stop! I'm no good at explaining things!'

Thankfully it wasn't long after that we arrived at Zecora's hut. Just like in the show, the hut was inside an old tree. A strange wooden mask rested above the door and several bottles of unknown concoctions hung from a few of the trees branches.

Twilight knocked on the door and a moment later it opened to reveal Zecora. Just like in the show she wore several golden rings around her neck and left foreleg, from her ears hung gold hoops and her black and white striped mane was standing up like a mohawk.

"Twilight Sparkle, what a pleasant surprise," Zecora greeted warmly, her eyes then fell on me, "And what is this creature I see before my eyes?"

I tried to stifle a small chuckle, 'She actually rhymes, how awesome is that?'

"His name is Matthew, and he is a… um, what did you say you were again?" Twilight asked me apologetically.

"I'm a human, and it's a pleasure to meet you Zecora," I tried to straighten myself, but the pain in my side had other plans and sent my staggering back a step. Gasping slightly at the effort to catch myself I smiled weakly at the two onlookers with my hand clutching the source of my agony.

Zecora gave me a worried look, "You look like you're in pain, on your feet you mustn't remain." She trotted over to me and gently helped me inside. "Now inside my hut to lie down you go, I will see if there is a remedy to your ailment I might know."

As the three of us entered the hut my nose was met with a mixed aroma of various flowers, spices, and herbs. It was calming; I've always liked natural scents like this. Candles bathed the room in a warm glow and the walls were nearly hidden behind shelves of bottled potions, more masks like the one above the doorway were hung here and there. In the center of the room rested a metal cauldron above an open fire pit, currently the cauldron was empty and the fire pit was bare of any kindling.

Zecora helped me over to a bed that was set into a small alcove in the far wall, she proceeded to help me lay down while I was busy thanking her. Before I could make myself comfortable however Zecora began to poke and prod my injured side, even lifting up my shirt at one point to see if there was any damage on the surface.

"Wha-ouch… What are yo-ow! Doing? Ow!" I asked quite irritated, her constant poking kept sending painful shocks through my body.

Zecora didn't answer, instead she simply continued her painful examination. My constant complaints were punctuated on occasion by the zebra's contemplative mutterings.

After a while she stopped and said, "There were no injuries or breaks that I could find, perhaps your affliction is all in your mind."

That got me thinking, 'That makes sense I guess, I mean there have been times when people only experienced symptoms of viruses because they strongly believed they actually had them. But still, physical pain? How can I feel it if I don't even remember what caused it, and what's even more infuriating is that I'm certain it happened just earlier today!'

"If your pain is indeed only in your head," Zecora continued, "Then the only cure I can think of is some rest in bed."

Before she could walk away I said, "Oh, I'm sorry for sounding so needy, but there is one more thing. Twilight said that you knew how to make a medicine for poison joke. When I… arrived, in the forest I found myself in a patch of said plant. I don't think I've suffered any reaction from it yet, but it doesn't hurt to be careful right?"

Zecora nodded and said, "Very well I'll see what I can do, and lucky for you I just collected all the ingredients I need for the brew."

"Thank you again for all the help," and with that I rolled over, wincing slightly, to get comfortable on the small bed.

The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was Zecora walking over to Twilight. After closing my eyes however, it was a long time before I could manage to get to sleep. I heard the two talking; Twilight asked about the medicine she had come to get for Spike. I could hear Zecora moving around the hut, presumably to put together what Twilight needed. As she worked Zecora asked some questions about me and Twilight answered to the best of her ability. Her questions weren't prying, she was simply curious about where I had come from, I smiled.

'Zecora was a strange and unsettling visitor to Ponyville at one point, so she understands what I’ll probably be experiencing. I just hope the ponies of Ponyville are a little more accepting of unusual visitors now.'

I remained awake until shortly after Twilight said her goodbyes and shut the door behind her. The last thing I heard was Zecora gathering various ingredients from around the hut. At one point she mentioned something about Twilights medicine requiring one of the ingredients she needed for my herbal bath. I dozed off just as Zecora was opening the door to leave.

Chapter 2: I Wish I Brought my Notebook

~Chapter 2 – I Wish I Brought my Notebook~

Waking up, I shielded my eyes from the warm rays of sunlight shining through the window. Shutting the curtains with my magic to provide some comfort while I finished rousing myself from a tiredness induced by one too many nights spent curled up in bed reading a book until the first rays of sunlight crested the horizon, I pushed myself into a sitting position.

“That’s the last time I stay up to finish a book,” I muttered to myself, knowing all too well that this certainly wasn’t the last time.

I cast a sideways glance over the balcony central room of the library where a large pile of books still rested after yesterdays study session.

“Spike, I thought I told you to clean up this mess.” Hearing no response from the baby dragon I called again, a little louder this time. “Spike?”

This time my call was answered by a tired groan from the foot of my bed. Rolling onto my hooves I trotted over to where Spike kept his bed- a basket overstuffed with pillows and blankets –to see why he wasn’t up and doing his chores.

There spike lay, shivering and drenched in sweat, his blanket lying in a disheveled mess on the floor. I worriedly held my foreleg to his forehead.

“Oh Spike, you’re burning up!” I exclaimed as I covered him up with his blue blanket once again. “Stay in bed and get some rest, I’ll go visit Zecora and see if she has any medicine that can help.”

Receiving only a groan in response I hurriedly levitated a comb off my dresser and ran it through my mane. Setting it aside I practically flew down the stairs, and as I quickly went about making a quick sandwich I levitated the pile of books into a somewhat neat stack and secured my saddlebag across my back. Finally, with finished sandwich in mouth I galloped out the door while leaving the ‘closed’ sign in place.

Now outside, I slowed down to a brisk trot. I was still in a hurry, but why not enjoy this beautiful day? The sun was shining, the birds were singing, not a cloud in sight, and the streets were alive with activity. Ponies headed to and from the market, others simply enjoying the day. A couple young fillies galloping as hard as their little legs could carry them, running late for school.

The idea of sitting down at one of the restaurants along the roadside and grabbing a more substantial breakfast was tempting, but I couldn’t allow myself to get distracted from my goal.

It wasn’t long until I came upon a cozy little cottage. Fluttershy did live near the entrance to The Everfree Forest after all, and in effect, the path that led to Zecora’s hut. I could see the yellow pegasus, all ready busily feeding the animals that took residence near her home.

“Good morning Fluttershy,” I called in greeting once I was close enough.

The timid pegasus let out a quiet gasp before quickly turning around. “Oh, hello Twilight. Good morning to you too.” She trotted over from the family of bunnies she just finished feeding. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m fine, a little tired though. I was just on my way to Zecora’s to pick up some medicine for Spike.”

“Medicine?” Fluttershy gasped worriedly. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He came down with the flu over night. He’s in bed resting now,” I replied.

“Oh, that’s awful. Once I finish feeding the animals I’ll head over to the library and make Spike some soup.”

I gave her a smile, after all there was no point in trying to dissuade her. “Thank you, Fluttershy.”

We said our good-byes and I left her to her work.

Stepping into the Everfree Forest was like walking into a whole other world. The dense foliage blocked out most of the sunlight and wisps of mist floated amongst the undergrowth. The atmosphere felt almost sinister, and as per usual I began to question why the zebra herbalist chose to live here. Despite my questioning, I knew why she took residence in the forest. Various herbs for her potions and remedies grew in abundance in the Everfree.

My thoughts drifted back to the first time I met Zecora. My friends and I were headed into the forest to confront the zebra about what we believed was a curse she had put on us. In actuality, the things we experienced were simply our reactions to a particularly annoying plant with the name ‘poison joke.’ The same blue plant that was just beginning to come into view ahead.

As I turned the corner my eyes became glued to what lay before me and I froze. I saw it and it saw me. A strange creature with a very pale pink-ish skin, something I had never seen or heard of before. It was lying there, it’s beady little eyes locked onto me… and it was smiling.

My body’s first instinct was to get away from the creature so I started to back up slowly. However I noticed it wasn't moving, it just stayed where it was and continued to smile. ‘Hmm, perhaps it isn't hostile,’ I thought.

Taking a tentative step forwards I said, “This… this is incredible! I've never seen or even read about a creature like this!” It made no move against me, which only helped confirm my previous thought.

“Whatever it is, it doesn't appear aggressive,” I began to examine it. “It has a similar appearance to that of a monkey. Forward facing eyes, flexible arms, legs and fingers, but it doesn't seem to have much hair on its body."

I paused. ‘Did it just chuckle?’ I shook my head and continued my inspection.

“Those clothes... they’re most likely compensation for the lack of fur covering it. Judging by the design of the clothing it- or others of its species –must have a fairly high level of intelligence.” ‘Though that jacket seems awfully heavy for this time of year, even for something without any fur…’ I then noticed a detail of its body that required me to reassess my previous statement. “Oh wait, it doesn’t have a tail. So if it’s not a type of monkey... more than likely it’s a closer relative to the ape family.”

I frowned inwardly, ‘I really should have packed my notebook and quill…’ I was startled out of my train of thought as the creature began to chuckle loudly.

"You’re close. I’m not a monkey, I’m a human. Though I guess you could call me an ape considering approximately ninety six percent of my DNA is the same as that of a chimpanzee,” it quickly stated before it started giggling once more.

My jaw fell open in amazement as he- I’m guessing that it’s a he considering its more masculine voice –suddenly stopped laughing as he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.

"You can talk? Well... I mean... of course you can talk. After all, taking into account your apparent intelligence it seems only logical.” I tapped my chin with a hoof, ‘Human… why does that name sound familiar?’

"Well I’m glad you think so," he said with a groan as he fell to his back once more with his hands clutching his side, his face contorted into one of agony.

"You're injured, what happened to you?" I exclaimed as I started to trot forwards to help him, only to stop when I finally realized what he was laying in. "And what are you doing sitting in the poison joke?"

His face briefly softened into one of thoughtfulness before saying through clenched teeth, "Sorry but I can't remember how I got hurt, As for sitting where I am, I can't tell you the answer to that either, I just woke up here."

‘Hmm, sounds like he has short term memory loss.’ “Well can you stand? I need to get you to somepony who can help.”

"I think so," the human replied slowly.

He paused, seemingly contemplating something before rolling onto his front and dragging himself out of the poison joke.

I trotted around the blue flowers to help him stand, “Here, you can lean on me for support."

"Thanks, I owe you for this," the human said as he pulled himself into a standing position. He quickly placed his hands on my back as his legs wobbled weakly.

I was mildly surprised by this, ‘So he’s bipedal… now that I look at him, it does seem sort of obvious.’

"What?" the human asked, regarding me with a quizzical expression.

‘Oops, I must have been staring.’ "Oh, I was just surprised to see you stand on two legs, though considering your anatomy it does seem sort of obvious.”

We started slowly making our way along the path further into the forest. After a few minutes of silence the human spoke up.

"So where are we going?"

"Oh, I forgot to ask you your name. I'm Matthew by the way, Matt for short."

‘Matthew… that’s a strange name. Then again, he isn't a pony. It’s probably a normal name for his kind.’ "I'm Twilight Sparkle, but you can call me Twilight, that's what my friends call me."

"You mentioned something about having an assistant didn't you? Surely that must mean you're a pretty important pony."

"I wouldn't say important, Spike is more like a brother to me than an assistant. He mainly helps me clean up the library where I live; he also sends my letters to the Princess for me," I replied as my face grew a little warm.

"Wait, what do you mean Princess?"

‘He doesn’t know about the Princess? That can’t be right.’ I stared at him."Princess Celestia of course, she also happens to be my teacher. But surely you know who the Princess is."

"Actually no, I don't. You see, I came from a different world, or universe or dimension, whatever you want to call it," he replied almost nonchalantly.

'WHAT?!' I froze. There was no way he possibly came from another world… was there?

"Ow… could you warn me before you do that next time?" Matthew groaned from the ground.

"What do you mean another world? And if that's true, then how did you get here?" I spluttered as I watched him regain his feet.

"Again, I don't know how to answer your question, all I can assume is that my injuries are related to me being here somehow," he grunted from the effort of standing, and almost collapsed against me.

‘That can’t be it… I guess I’ll have to wait and see if his case of short term memory loss clears up,’ I finished thinking with a sigh. “Alright then," shaking my head I decided to give him an explanation. "Anyway, Princess Celestia rules Equestria, the land that you're in now, alongside her sister Princess Luna. Princess Celestia raises the sun into the sky every morning and Princess Luna lifts the moon at night."

Matthew gave me a disbelieving look, but didn’t say anything.

"What's with that look, doesn't it work the same where you come from?"

"No, back in my world the sun and moon rise and set on their own," he replied, and I gave him my own look of disbelief. "Their movement is caused by the orbit of Earth, the planet that I live on, around the sun, and the moon orbits in the same fashion around Earth. Also, we don't have any ponies like you back home, and humans are the dominant species on the planet."

"What do you mean there aren't any ponies like us in your world?" I asked somewhat hesitantly.

"Ponies and horses back home are generally larger than you and just like any other animal, unable to speak the way we do and they are usually taken care of on farms. Additionally, there are no unicorns or pegasi."

‘I can’t imagine that, everypony being taken care of on a farm like sheep or cows. And only earth ponies, no unicorns or… pegasi. Wait, if there aren’t any pegasi where he comes from, then how did he know there were any here?’ I fixed my eyes on him and he turned away nervously, almost as if he knew what I was thinking. ‘He’s hiding something.’

After that conversation we continued walking in silence. That is, until Matthew once again spoke up.

"Anyway, you said that your assistant sends your letters to Princess Celestia?"

"Yes, what about it?" I asked, unsure as to why he cared about the Princess so much.

"I was wondering if you could send a letter to Princess Celestia informing her of my appearance here."

I looked at him questioningly. However, before I could ask why he quickly explained his reasoning.

"If I was in her position and a strange creature claiming to be from another world suddenly appeared, I think I would want to know about it."

I turned away thoughtfully. ‘He does have a point, I’m fairly certain that the Princess would be interested in this development. Besides, Princess Celestia may know something more about humans.’ I turned to face him once again, "I see your point. All right then, I'll send the Princess a letter telling her about you."

Matthew nodded his head with a smile in response, a subdued glint of excitement in his small blue eyes.

As we continued along the path I asked Matthew some more questions about where he came from. He didn’t tell me much, but what he did mention was fascinating. The thought that humans have actually elected to try and travel to moon was astonishing, even more so was the fact that they actually succeeded. Apparently they used some form of giant vehicle Matthew referred to as a ‘rocket,’ I was somewhat disappointed when he told me he didn’t know much about how they worked though.

Sadly our conversation came to an end when we arrived at Zecora’s hut. An ancient tree decorated here and there by colourful masks with varied meanings of greetings and protection, and hanging from the limbs of the tree were vials filled with various substances. Zecora once mentioned that they were incenses that helped keep dangerous creatures like timber wolves away.

I knocked on the door and a moment later it opened to reveal Zecora. A zebra with a mane styled up in a mohawk, from her hears hung gold hoops, matching the ones around her neck and left foreleg. I smiled inwardly as I regarded these. Today she wore the golden bangles on her left, but I knew for a fact that she often switched which leg she had them on for no other reason than her enjoyment at seeing the quiet surprise on other pony’s faces when they ‘magically’ changed sides.

"Twilight Sparkle, what a pleasant surprise," Zecora greeted warmly, her eyes moved to regard Matthew, "And what is this creature I see before my eyes?"

I noticed Matthew was holding back a light laugh. Again I smiled to myself, I didn’t know if Zecora rhymed for the same reason, or if all Zebras spoke that way. Either way, Zecora enjoyed pony’s reactions to this as well. "His name is Matthew, and he is a… um, what did you say you were again?" I gave Matthew an apologetic smile seeing as my thoughts made me forget what he was for the time being.

"I'm a human, and it's a pleasure to meet you Zecora," he said while trying to stand on his own. Instead he gasped as he staggered backwards holding his side. He looked up to give us a feeble smile.

Zecora immediately trotted forward to help him. "You look like you're in pain, on your feet you mustn't remain." As the human took the support offered by the zebra, Zecora slowly guided him inside. "Now inside my hut to lie down you go, I will see if there is a remedy to your ailment I might know."

The three of us entered the herbalists hut. I waited near the door as Zecora led Matthew to a bed. He seemed to visibly relax as he took in the surroundings. Once he was lying down Zecora began her examination of the human, and was met with a fair amount of protesting.

"Wha-ouch… What are yo-ow! Doing? Ow!"

Zecora didn’t answer him however, she just continued to poke and prod at his side.

After a while she stopped and said, "There were no injuries or breaks that I could find, perhaps your affliction is all in your mind." Matthew rubbed his chin in seeming thought at this before Zecora continued, "If your pain is indeed only in your head," Zecora continued, "Then the only cure I can think of is some rest in bed."

As she started turning Matthew stopped her, "Oh, I'm sorry for sounding so needy, but there is one more thing. Twilight said that you knew how to make a medicine for poison joke. When I… arrived, in the forest I found myself in a patch of said plant. I don't think I've suffered any reaction from it yet, but it doesn't hurt to be careful right?"

Zecora nodded and said, "Very well I'll see what I can do, and lucky for you I just collected all the ingredients I need for the brew."

The human then thanked her and rolled over to get some rest.

Zecora trotted across the room and we fell into conversation for a while. My concentration wasn’t entirely on what we were saying though, my eyes would occasionally wander over to Matthew, the strange ape-like creature lying peacefully there. Once I thought I saw him watching us out of the corner of my eye.

Eventually I told Zecora about Spike’s flu. Once she knew the symptoms the herbalist quickly listed off the ingredients she would need, after making sure she had them all she went to work on the medicine.

A few minutes later Zecora trotted over with the finished potion. I took the vial with my magic and gently deposited it in my saddlebag. With a good-bye and a parting rhyme from the zebra, I left the herbalists hut and began my trek back to Ponyville.

‘I really wish I packed my quill and notebook…’

Chapter 3: Not your Everyday Morning

~Chapter 3 - Not your Everyday Morning~

I always have a hard time waking up no matter what time of day it is, there's always that same groggy feeling of not wanting to budge. I'm more of a night time guy, I always have most of my energy when I'm supposed to be asleep, and believe me when I tell you that it doesn't help me at school whatsoever. I stretched the muscles out in my back and legs noting a strange stiffness in my spine, I tried to rub my back when I felt something.

"…Why exactly did I go to sleep with my backpack on?" I questioned aloud at my own stupidity. That brought another thought to mind, 'Wait… where is my IPod?' This may seem like a weird thought to jump to at first, but my backpack and IPod are like a combination of sorts, I never have one without the other. 'Actually now that I think about it, I don't remember having it when I came to in the patch of poison joke. It must have fallen out of my pocket somehow before I got to Equestria…'

I looked at my surroundings; the bed I currently occupied was in a hut full of potions and herbs. 'That's right, I'm in Equestria!' I thought giddily, joy sweeping through my body over the fact that I wasn't dreaming.

As I pulled myself into a sitting position another realization struck me, "Wait a sec… no pain… I'm cured!"

Happy that my aches were gone I literally jumped off the bed, but that's when things started to get weird again.

"Ow! This isn't what I had in mind. I'm not one to complain about lying on the floor, especially since I do it all the time at home, but…"

Instead of landing on my feet like I intended I found myself sprawled out face down on the floor. I pushed myself up onto my knees with a surprising amount of difficulty, my arms felt really strange, scratch that, my whole body felt weird, it seemed like my body just didn't want to move the way I wanted it to. I tried to stand up, but my efforts were only rewarded with another quick fall into a prone position.

"Zecora, I think the poison joke finally got to me… Zecora?" not hearing a response I looked around the room.

Zecora wasn't anywhere to be seen, but there was one detail that had escaped my attention until now. A trap door of sorts off to one side of the room was open. I awkwardly dragged myself across the floor towards the opening and looked down.

A flight of stairs led beneath the hut and into another room. This one was slightly larger than the room I was currently in, and off to one side was what appeared to be a sort of primitive kitchen with cupboards and shelves, various cooking utensils, and a water basin which was most likely used for washing the few dishes resting on a nearby shelf. On the other side of the room was a tub filled with water, Zecora stood beside the tub pouring some green powder into the water.

'Funny, I didn't see this trap door in the show. Oh well, I didn't expect everything to be the same,' I thought while I watched Zecora prepare what I assumed was my treatment.

"Hey Zecora, I think my reaction to the plant finally kicked in," I called down.

Just as she finished pouring the last of the powder into the tub and turned to regard me, there came a sharp knock at the door.

"Um, Zecora? I think someone is here to see you-" Just then the door to the hut swung open and in stepped two white pegasi covered in golden armor, and entering behind them was none other than Princess Celestia herself.

Her coat was purest of whites and seemed to shine in the warm candlelight; her ethereal mane and tail drifted around her features as though they were caressed by a gentle breeze, they were a beautiful mix of pale colours you would expect to see in the sky during the sunrise on a clear summer morning. Emblazoned on her flank was her cutie mark of a golden sun. A golden tiara embedded with a single amethyst rested on her head behind her long horn, a golden peytral plate with yet another embedded amethyst covered her chest, and her majestic wings were folded at her sides. Celestia was tall, probably about six feet in height; even if I was standing she'd be a few inches taller.

Not one to forget my manners, especially for such an important occasion as this, I knelt before the Princess. Well I tried to anyway, instead I found myself face down on the floor once again. I lifted my head so I could speak.

"Your Majesty, I am truly honored to be in your presence," I said while looking at the golden slippers she wore on her hooves. What? It's disrespectful to look royalty in the eye when you're supposed to be bowing.

"You will show Her Majesty some respect, get off the floor at once-" One of the guards said imperiously before being cut off by the Princesses raised hoof.

"Why are you here human? And more importantly, how did you get here?" The Princess inquired, suspicion and distrust evident in her voice.

"I'm sorry if what I say sounds rude, but I really wish I knew. I don't know why I'm here or how I got here, I can't even recall what happened to me before I woke up in this forest," I responded while laying the side of my head against the wooden floor, my neck was getting stiff.

"Well whatever the reason for you being here, I need you to come with me back to Canterlot. I am aware of the violence you humans are capable of, and therefore I cannot afford to let you go free. Until we can decide whether or not it would be safe to leave you alone I must take you into custody."

"Of course, I completely agree with you. It's just… I'm having a minor problem."

Princess Celestia gave me a slight frown and raised an eyebrow as if asking me to elaborate.

"When I woke up in the forest, I found myself in a patch of poison joke. Nothing happened to me at the time but now the plant's taken away my motor skills, I can barely even push myself to my knees. Your student, Twilight Sparkle, found me and brought me here, she told me that Zecora had a remedy for poison joke reactions."

As if on cue, Zecora came back upstairs, and bowed her head upon seeing Celestia standing just inside the doorway. The Princess looked at her and smiled.

"You must be Zecora, just the other day Twilight sent me yet another letter informing me of your assistance with a certain matter in Ponyville. Oh, and I must apologise for coming in uninvited and unannounced."

Zecora simply returned her smile and said, "To you Your Majesty my door is never shut, but I must ask, what brings you to my humble hut?"

Becoming serious once again, Celestia said, "Twilight informed me that she found a human and had brought him here for some treatment. I came to take him into custody so as to prevent him from causing harm to anypony. I would like to take him how he is now seeing as he isn't much of a threat in his current state."

"Excuse me, but I'd be more than happy to come with you to Canterlot, and I'm also willing to spend however long in a dungeon cell. But I do want to be cured first, I hate not having proper control over my body," I interjected truthfully, since I was in Equestria I didn't care if I had to be kept in a prison. Free food and a nice view of the land- if I get a window in my cell that is –isn’t such a bad thing.

I guess that Princess Celestia was expecting some resistance from me though, since once I finished speaking she put on quite the surprised expression.

Celestia paused in thought for a moment before speaking, albeit still being surprised, "You're willingly accepting imprisonment?"

I nodded my head as best I could from my position on the floor, "Of course, you seem to know what humans can do; I can understand why you would want me locked up. And honestly, I probably hate the human race just as much as you do."

"But you're human yourself."

"Don't remind me…" I replied with a grunt.

This seemed to confuse the Princess even more. She continued to regard me questioningly for a while longer until finally saying with a sigh, "Very well, I'll allow you to be treated if you promise to come with us willingly afterwards."

"Your Majesty, you have a deal!" I said with joy.

Zecora then said, "Your remedy is prepared in the tub," she chuckled quietly before saying the end to her rhyme, "Go soak in the bath and do not forget to scrub."

I said my thanks and began to clumsily crawl my way to the stairs. Before I could make any real progress Princess Celestia stopped me.

"It's clear to me that you won't be able to make it down the stairs in your condition, let me help you so we can get this over with quickly," with that Celestia's horn began to emit a pale golden glow.

At the same time a similar glow enveloped my body, I figured that she was going to lift me down to the tub so I didn't bother moving. A moment passed and I was still on the ground, I looked up at the Princess and spoke.

"Is something supposed to be happening? Because I can't feel anything."

Celestia said nothing and closed her eyes in seeming concentration. The glow shifted from around my body to my clothes. I was startled as my clothes jumped into the air, and myself along with them. Perhaps it was easier to lift nonliving objects with magic... but Twilight seemed to be able to do it with ease, so why shouldn’t the Princess be able to?

I found myself gliding gently down the stairs, my body suspended about a foot from the ground. Once I reached the tube I was deposited roughly on the floor. I turned my head to see the Princess Standing at the base of the stairs regarding me with what appeared to be a mixed look of impatience and confusion.

"Um, if you don't mind I'd like to have some privacy for this part."

"Hm? Oh right, you humans aren't fond of being seen naked," Princess Celestia replied somewhat distractedly. She hesitated a moment, probably unsure as to whether it was safe to leave me alone or not even in my disabled state, then she turned around and walked back up the stairs.

Once she was out of sight I began the arduous task of removing my backpack and clothing with my near useless limbs. Once that was out of the way I began to pull myself up and into the tub, a process that involved several botched attempts of sliding against the side of the tub back to the floor, one of said attempts left me with a sore jaw as my face bounced painfully off the porcelain edge.

Finally I managed to pull myself far enough over the edge to slide into the water. Lucky for me I held my breath before plunging headfirst into the tub. I thrashed wildly under the surface to try and get my head above the water. Of course I eventually succeeded and sat with my back against the tub wall.

Almost immediately after falling into the water I felt a strange yet welcome tingling sensation spread across my body. Slowly my movements became more coordinated, which was most likely the reason behind not drowning in the bath.

Following Zecora's advice I grabbed the brush I found resting at the bottom of the tub- I had knocked in with my panicked flailing -and began scrubbing. It wasn't much longer until all my mobility returned.

Impressed by how fast the healing water worked, I stood up and exited the tub. Finding a nearby towel I proceeded to dry myself off, once I was dry I wiped up the water I spilled around the tub and hung the now wet towel over the side of the bath. I put my clothes back on, threw my backpack over one shoulder and tucked my jacket under the other arm, and climbed the stairs jumping them three at a time.

Back in the main room of Zecora's hut I turned to see the Princess and Zecora standing there talking, I didn't see the guards around. Princess Celestia turned to regard me and I, once again in complete control of my body, dropped to my knee and gave a proper bow.

"A deal is a deal, I'm ready whenever you are," I said to the Princess.

Celestia smiled at that and said, "Very well, the guards have already gone ahead to prepare the carriage, let's not keep them waiting."

Celestia apologized once again to Zecora for her intrusion as she left the hut, I followed but not without offering my thanks to Zecora one last time.

"I really appreciate what you did for me, and I know I won't really be able to do anything in the Canterlot dungeon but if you ever need anything please feel free to ask me."

Zecora replied with a smile, "You are quite welcome and I'll keep your offer in mind, you are welcome to come back at any time."

With that we left the herbalists hut behind and proceeded back along the trail Twilight and I had followed upon my arrival. I assumed that the carriage the Princess mentioned was parked outside the forest seeing as the canopy of trees was too thickly woven for anything to fly safely through.

Neither of us spoke much, Celestia was in the lead and would often look over her shoulder, presumably checking to see whether or not I was still following her. Judging by her mildly confused expression I guessed she wasn't expecting me to actually come along willingly, but I didn't pay this much attention as I was busying myself with examining the forest around me. I was looking back and forth, my arms resting behind my back; I wore a smile as I hummed Fluttershy's 'So Many Wonders'.

Nearing the edge of the forest, I paused as we passed the patch of poison joke that Twilight had found me in. I examined the patch hoping that I would see my IPod or headphones.

Celestia noticed that I stopped; she turned around and said impatiently, "Are you having second thoughts? Even if you are I still need you to come with me."

"Oh no, it's nothing like that, this is the spot where I woke up. I was just hoping to find my IPod here," I replied with a slight sigh.

"What is an eye pod?" Celestia asked me suspiciously.

"It's a small device that lets me store music so I can listen to it at any time," I quickly answered. "But I guess it didn't make the trip with me. Oh well, let's go."

Celestia nodded her head and we continued along the path and out of the forest. I'm not sure what time of day it was when I first found myself here in Equestria, or how long I was asleep for at Zecora’s, but judging by the brightness of the sunlight at the end of the forest path, I guessed that it was probably mid afternoon. Either I had a quick nap or I slept for an entire day.

‘It just goes to show how much sunlight really is blocked out in the Everfree Forest,’ I thought to myself while regarding the dense shadows with the occasional patch of light we were walking through. Just to make sure of the time though, I quickly checked my watch.

“Yeah, three forty-two,” I muttered to myself. “Well, that may not be the case here though...” I trailed off as I noticed that the second had of my watch wasn’t moving, and that the small number indicating the date was stuck on the twenty-second... the Sunday that had just passed. Holding my wrist to my ear I listened for any ticking. “Damn... should’ve got new batteries for this.”

“What was that?” Princess Celestia asked casting yet another glance back at me.

“Oh, nothing. I just realized that my watch is out of power is all,” I groaned.

“I see,” she replied. After a moment of quiet she added, “It’ll be four o’clock in a couple of minutes.”

I looked dumbly at the Princess. ‘How did she... Wait, of course! She controls the sun, of course she knows the time! Best power ever!’ I grinned stupidly.

Celestia gave me a quizzical look but otherwise said nothing and continued leading me onwards.

There not too far away from the tree line was the waiting carriage; it was a golden chariot of sorts and large enough to comfortably fit the Princess and at least one more passenger. The two guards from earlier were hooked up to their harnesses already along with two others that must have stayed to watch the carriage. The four pegasi guards looked rather bored, but when the Princess came into view they immediately snapped to attention.

'Ha! I actually saw guards slacking on the job! I wish Rainbow Dash was here to see it.'

Princess Celestia ushered me towards the carriage, it was about four feet to the lip of the carriage from the ground, though for me it was a simple enough task to vault over the side. Behind me Celestia used her magic to open the carriage door and stepped in while fixing me with a somewhat bemused look. I smiled sheepishly back. Once we were both situated inside and the Princess mentioned to the guards that we were ready, the carriage lurched forward as the four pegasi began to pull in their harnesses. Once we were moving at a decent speed they began to flap their wings and the carriage lifted into the sky.

I hung my head over the side in amazement as I watched the ground fall away below us, and I could easily see Ponyville from where we were. I desperately wanted to go there, but first I had to spend some time in prison. You would think that such a thing would dishearten me, but I was in Equestria, I was too happy to care where I went at the moment. Looking ahead in the direction we were going I could see what I assumed was Canterlot resting on the side of the mountain, though I couldn't say for certain since it was still too far away to make out any details.

After a while of flying the Princess asked me, "Earlier you mentioned that you hate the human race. Seeing that you are a human, did you truly mean that?"

I sighed as I turned to reply, "Yes, I meant it. All the greed and corruption, how we destroy our planet to make ourselves more comfortable in our lives," I spat out that last word. "I don't see it as life. I see it as worthless existence. We take from the planet without giving back, polluting the air and water, slowly killing all life. I was studying to be a marine biologist, but what's the point to it if all that I want to base my work on is being destroyed? And don't even get me started on the violence."

Celestia just stared wordlessly at me. I paused for a moment longer before continuing with a sigh.

"Humans aren't all bad though, we have done some pretty amazing things. We’ve traveled to space, landing on the moon and safely returning, and our medical practice has greatly advanced over the years. Still, did you know that if a single species, even if it were some single celled organism, suddenly died out that it would have a major negative impact on the world. But if humans were to suddenly disappear overnight nature would respond in a positive way, pollution would slowly fade from the atmosphere, destroyed habitats would return, and life would continue to flourish unhindered."

The rest of the trip was spent in silence. Celestia would often glance curiously over at me while I simply watched the scenery drift by below us as I tried to calm the storm of thoughts spiraling through my mind.

Chapter 4: Not a Boring Day in the Dungeon

~Chapter 4 - Not a Boring Day in the Dungeon~

There I sat, all alone in the quiet dungeon cell underneath Canterlot Castle. The castle itself was built off the side of a mountain so even though I was pretty far underneath the main structure, I wasn’t underground. So fortunately I had a window to look out of.

Princess Celestia seemed slightly perplexed by my general attitude and mindset. When we first arrived at the castle she offered an alternative to being locked in the dungeon. She had suggested that I be kept under guard in one of the guest rooms in a less frequented area of the castle, and she completely failed to hide her bewilderment when I said I would prefer the dungeon.

"You said that you know humans are violent and corrupt by nature, and when others find out I'm hear they'll most likely want to know what I am and if I'm dangerous. What would they think if you allowed a potentially threatening creature the freedom of having a guest room instead of being safely locked away?" was the reason I gave for my refusal, though I left out the part that I actually wanted to see what the dungeon was like.

When the guards escorted me through the castle earlier I received a lot of curious looks and wary gazes from both visitors to the castle and other ponies clad in golden armour. The entrance to the dungeon was in a quieter part of the castle, through heavy wooden doors that seemed out of place amidst the hallways fineries, and down a flight of stone steps. The passage was illuminated by candles mounted in brackets on the walls. Reaching the bottom of the stairs revealed what I could only barely describe as a dungeon, there were no more than ten separate cells, and at the moment they were all empty of people, or ponies. Each one, including the one that I'm currently sitting in, was clean, and each had their own well maintained cot, a wooden table and chair.

I asked the guards why the dungeon was kept so tidy. One of them gruffly stated that barely anypony was ever sent to the dungeon, so there was no reason that the few who did make it down here couldn't experience some comfort at least.

Before I was locked in my room however, I noticed the wall at the end of the hall looked strange. The stone was placed as though there was once an archway leading onwards that had long since been sealed up.

So now I sat gazing out my window at the starry night sky and the beautiful land below, the single candle on my table was doused so my only light sources were the pale glow of the moon, which is either much larger than the one we have back home or a lot closer, and the dull light emitted from my now open laptop resting on the table.

When I turned my laptop on and logged in I almost had a heart attack. A month ago I changed the log in sound to Rainbow Dash's famous line "ten seconds flat," so when that blasted out of the speakers at full volume through the quiet dungeon, I practically fell out of my chair in fright, after somewhat recovering I ran to the door to make sure that no one heard the sound. Thankfully there was no one around. The closest guard was probably stationed just outside the door at the top of the stairs.

I then realized that there was a very slim chance of anyone here actually recognizing the phrase for what it was, so I returned to my seat and put on some calming classical music, ‘gently’ hitting the side of my laptop to get one of the malfunctioning speakers to work. Once the gentle melody began to silently ring through the air I closed my eyes and went about trying to clear my mind.

Like I mentioned before, aside from my lack of motivation my main problem is my active mind. Since I have a difficult time falling asleep, I recently took to meditating most nights in hopes of quelling the storm constantly raging inside my head. One night- and I don't care if you think I'm crazy because I know what I felt -during my meditation my mind went dead silent, not a single thought drifted through my head. What freaked me out was the fact that for just that instant, I was able to… feel, the presence of everyone around me; my parents sleeping in the next room, my two dogs lying in the hallway, and my brother walking up the driveway in front of the house. That strange feeling disappeared just as quickly as it came, erased by the sudden shock I felt, and not once after have I been able to regain that state of mind.

Tonight was no different, my euphoria dashed all chances of clearing my head. My mind was still racing with the excitement of being in Equestria and all the possibilities that lay before me… well, that all depended on whether or not I would be allowed to leave the dungeon.

I gazed at the moon through the bars of my window, the moons soft glow never failed to bring me a sense of comfort. 'I know that Luna is back from the moon since Twilight knew Zecora... that is, unless things here are a lot different than the show. I wonder what she'll be like… oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.'

With nothing else to do I decided to pack it in for the night. I powered down my laptop, closing it I slid it back into my backpack which was resting against the wall with my jacket by the cot. I cast a brief glance over at the tray of food on the floor by the small slot at the bottom of the door. My 'meal' consisted of some hay and two apples. All that was left of the apples were their cores and the hay was left untouched, I hesitantly tried a bite earlier when the tray first clattered under the door and immediately spat out the inedible stuff, 'It was worth a try, right? I mean, you never know until you do.'

I took off my sweater and shirt, and hanging them over the back of the chair I proceeded to flop down onto the cot, 'Hmm, comfy mattress,' I thought to myself as I rolled onto my back and positioned my hands behind my head.

Never able to fall asleep quickly, I continued to lay there, eyes seeing nothing but the backs of my eyelids as I hummed a random tune. The last thing I was aware of before drifting off into a pleasant sleep was thinking about what events tomorrow might bring.

The following morning I awoke to the sound of another tray sliding across the stone floor underneath my cell door. Rubbing my face and groggily swinging my legs over the edge of the cot, I looked through tired eyes at my breakfast. There was no hay this time, instead I had two additional apples.

"At least this meal will be a little more filling," I said, my words slurred together as I still trying to rouse myself.

Standing up, I walked over to where my clothes hung over the chair and pulled on my shirt. I didn't bother to zip up my sweater for a few reasons. For one, it was warm enough in my cell. Additionally, I assumed that no one here aside from Princess Celestia would recognize Rainbow Dash's cutie mark on my shirt and she most likely wouldn't come to see me any time soon anyway. Besides, my sweater still covered the left side of my chest where the image was even though it hung loosely over my shoulders.

I picked up the tray and brought it over to the table to start eating. My first mouthful reminded me yet again just how much I love apples, the satisfying sound they make when you take a bite of the sweet, juicy fruit… Whenever I eat them I think of Captain Barbossa from 'Pirates of the Caribbean', so I started humming a fitting song for my thought process, 'Barbossa is Hungry' from the soundtrack of the first movie.

When I finished I decided to try and catch up on some of the sleep I've lost to the demands of University, so I plopped back down onto the cot. I knew that since I had just woken up there was no way I could get back to sleep, so the best I could hope for getting some rest for my heavy eyes. Well I tried anyway, my eyes snapped open to the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, whoever they belonged to stopped just outside my cell. In my lowered position I thought I caught a glimpse of something white through the small window in the door, but before I could think about what or who it could possibly be the door glided open on well oiled hinges.

I fell off the cot in surprise as the Princess of the Sun herself strode into the cell. She raised an eyebrow in mild amusement as I sat there in shocked bewilderment. A short silence followed, I wasn't expecting her to come see me so soon so I was at a loss for words, and I assumed she was just waiting to see if I would do anything.

"Do you normally lie on the ground when greeting people?" Celestia joked lightheartedly, breaking the ice.

"What… oh!" I exclaimed realizing I was still on the floor gaping stupidly at her. I immediately picked myself up and gave a well practiced bow, bending at my waist forming a ninety degree angle and looking directly at the floor with my arms held to my sides, a proper bow taught from day one during my martial arts training. "Y-your Majesty, I wasn't expecting you to come so soon," I stammered.

Celestia gave me a small smile and said, "You don't have to keep bowing to me whenever we meet, and why weren't you expecting me? I thought it would be pretty obvious that I'd want to ask you some questions."

"Since I don't have to bow I won't do it as much, but I won't stop doing it. I like to bow, it helps me convey my respect, I even bow to my friends sometimes when I greet them," I said with my own smile as I stood up straight. "I figured you'd have questions, but I was expecting you to want to take some time and think the situation over more thoroughly before coming to visit me."

Celestia paused for a moment, "Usually that would be the case, especially since you are a human, but you seem different from most of the humans I've seen."

"Speaking of which, how do you know about humans, there aren't any in this world are there?" I asked.

"No, there aren't. In the past I've dabbled with magic which allows me to view other worlds that lie parallel or nearby to this one. It's been several years now since I've seen a human but I can easily remember the destruction they cause and the greed that compels them. But you however, you claim to hate the ways of humans and I haven't seen you do anything to undermine that statement."

Sighing, I replied, "Yeah, I do hate the human race, and I hate violence. If things turned out differently then maybe as a whole we wouldn't be so bad, but selfishness seems to be a part of human nature so as we fight amongst ourselves and destroy the planet around us we become separated even further. It's a cycle that will keep on going until either we kill ourselves off, or we make the environment incapable of supporting life. Like I said before, it disgusts me."

Celestia looked at me with meditative eyes before saying, "Like you said earlier, I'll need to consider the situation more carefully before I decide what to do with you. But right now I still have some questions to ask you."

"Alright, I'll try to answer as best I can."

Celestia nodded, "Do you remember how you came to be up in Equestria?"

I thought for a moment, frowning when I couldn't recall exactly what had happened. "No, for some reason it's still fuzzy, all I can remember was heading out to go to school, next thing I knew I woke up in the forest."

“You’re a teenager I presume?” Celestia asked, to which I offered my own nod. "I thought so... Anyway, do you think someone sent you here with magic?"

I couldn't help but laugh, "I wish! It would be awesome if I could learn magic, but sadly there isn't any such thing where I come from… well, we have people who call themselves magicians but it's all just tricks and sleight of hand."

"I see," she responded slowly, clearly thinking about something. "Well, now that you are here, what do you plan on doing?"

I put my hand to my forehead in contemplation, I hadn't really thought about that until last night. "Let me see... well as long as I'm in this cell I can catch up on all the sleep I've missed back home, and if I'm allowed to leave I'll probably try to find a place where I can live happily and adapt to this word."

"Adapt, you mean setting aside any human tendencies like violence and greed?"

"No, like I said I hate violence and greed. I mean other things like my diet. Humans are omnivorous, but I'll be changing to a full vegetarian diet, since I assume all ponies are herbivores."

"That's correct," Celestia said, slightly shocked by my revelation.

'I guess she didn't know that humans also ate meat,' I thought to myself with a shrug.

"That is all I have to ask for now," Celestia said as she turned back to the door. She stopped and looked back over her shoulder, "Oh, and one more thing. You remember my student, Twilight Sparkle?" I nodded. "This morning I received a letter from her saying she wanted to come to Canterlot tomorrow to see you."

My body froze, "Sh-she's coming to s-see me? Why?"

Celestia shrugged, "In her letter she wrote that after telling her friends about you, they all wanted to see you for themselves. She also mentioned having some questions to ask you herself, something about, physics?"

'Damn, I hate physics!' was what first went through my mind, but then the rest of what Celestia said dawned on me. "Wait, you mean all six of them are coming? And they're coming here to see me?"

"Yes, I was quite shocked by the fact as well…" Celestia said before trailing off and locking her eyes with mine in a suspicious glare. "How did you know that there are six friends in their group?"

'FUDGE BERRIES!' "Um, Twilight… told me?" I backed up a little, sensing that things just took a bad turn.

"In her letter she mentioned wanting to introduce them to you partially because she neglected to tell you about them, so there's no way you could have known about them," she responded accusingly.

I sighed, 'My secret is pretty much blown, may as well tell her.' "Actually… there is," I said hesitantly. "But first I need to ask, what was the last friendship report that you received from Ponyville about?"

The Princess was startled, "Did Twilight tell you about her reports?"

I shook my head, "She only mentioned that Spike sends her letters to you, she never said what the letters were about."

"Well what reason could you possibly have for wanting to know that?"

"It's the best way I can think of for me to find out when I've arrived," I said carefully. Before Celestia could interject with her increasing confusion I said, "Trust me, it'll make sense."

Celestia sighed, "Let's see… If I remember correctly the last report came from Applebloom… the little sister of one of Twilight's friends," she explained. I just nodded my head, Celestia continued, "It was about being honest to your heart, yourself and others."

'Being honest with others… fitting,' I thought to myself slightly saddened. 'The letter came from Applebloom, and it was about being honest to others and your heart…The Cutie Pox!' I've watched each episode enough to know where each friendship report belongs, and this one was definitely after Applebloom's incident with that supposedly incurable disease.

"Alright, time to take that lesson to heart and tell you the truth," I said as I went to my backpack and pulled out my laptop.

As I set it on the table and powered it up, Celestia asked, "What is that?"

"This is a laptop computer. At home I could use it to access something called the internet, by doing so I could find information on pretty much anything; I guess you could consider it to be a sort of library containing all of my world's knowledge. Since I'm here though, I can't access any of that, however I do have some things on here that may help with my explanation."

Wearing an impressed expression, Celestia walked over to look at the screen with me. Her expression changed to one of shock as she saw the background to my login screen.

"That's a painting of Canterlot Castle!" she exclaimed, "How do you have that? You're not even from this world!"

"If you like that, then you're probably going to like this background as well," I said as I logged in.

The login screen faded out to be replaced by my desktop background, seeing this elicited a gasp from Celestia.

"Th-that's…"

"Eeyup," I chuckled at that, "The ruins of the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters."

Princess Celestia turned angrily to me, "Explain yourself immediately!" she demanded.

Definitely not wanting to anger the Princess of the Sun, I eagerly complied, "The truth is, although I may not be from this world I know a little bit about it. In my world, Equestria exists, but only as a television show."

"Television?" anger was still slightly evident on her voice.

'Oh, that's kind of hard for me to explain…' "I guess it's sort of like this computer, except instead of you being able to search for anything you want, certain things are sent to the television like animations, live broadcasts, or documentaries, just to name a few. Back home, one animated show, called 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic', revolves around some of the main adventures that Twilight and her friends have."

Celestia looked somewhat confused, so I brought up the second episode of season one and showed her the end where the mane six used the Elements of Harmony to free Luna from the evil that was Nightmare Moon. Celestia watched on in wonder as she appeared on the screen and comforted her sister, and she gave a small smile when two young pegasi draped a necklace of red and white roses around Luna's neck. When I stopped the video she became serious again.

"So are you saying that Equestria, that all who reside here are nothing more than characters for one of these... shows, that you humans watch?"

"No, not at all!" I exclaimed. "You're just as real as I am, and I'm just as real as you. I have no idea how different worlds work, but in my opinion I'd say that each dimension is connected somehow, it just so happens that your world exists as a show in mine. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in Equestria someone came up with a strange tale about evil bipedal creatures whose actions lead to the death of their world."

Celestia walked towards the window and looked out at the clear blue sky. A few minutes passed before she turned back to me and said, "You've given me quite a lot to think about."

I nodded silently. Reaching over to log off my computer to save some power, I stopped when Celestia spoke again.

"I do have one more question to ask."

I looked at her, "Go ahead, the least I can do for you is give the answers that I can."

"You still haven't explained to me why you wanted to know what the last friendship report from Ponyville was about. Can you now tell me the significance of that knowledge?"

"Like I said, I wanted to know what the last thing of note was that happened here. Nearly every episode ends with a friendship report, and according to you this was the last one," with that I brought up the episode 'The Cutie Pox' and played the end of the video where Applebloom dictated her letter to Spike.

Again Celestia wore an expression of mild wonder, "That was exactly the same as the report I received."

"You said that it was the most recent report you got from Ponyville, and as you can see here," I pointed to my video library, "I have a few episodes after that, meaning I know a little about some things that are going to happen in the near future. I won't give anything away since I don't want to have a negative impact on events, but I do need to ask you something."

Celestia raised an eyebrow as if asking me to continue.

"I want to know what your opinion is. Should I hide the fact that I know all this from everyone, or should I tell them the truth?"

The Princess thought for a moment, and then hesitantly responded, "While being honest is important... I think you should keep it secret, for now anyway. But if it slips out or the situation demands the truth… well, we'll see when that time comes."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," I said as I dropped into yet another bow.

Celestia turned away, trying to hide the small smile that crept onto her face as she rolled her eyes. She closed the cell door behind her as she left, and as the echoes of her footsteps retreated back to the upper levels of the castle I was left alone once again.

This time however, I had a lot more to think about. Namely, I was going to meet the mane six.

'Why'd Celestia have to tell me that? Now there's no way I'll be able to sleep tonight!'

I turned off my laptop and slid it into my backpack. Unable to contain my excitement I began to pace in my cell. I stopped for just a moment to look at the sun's position in the sky.

'Great, it's not even noon yet.' I sighed, 'This is going to be a long day…'

Chapter 5: A Breakfast to Remember

~Chapter 5 - A Breakfast to Remember~

I was sitting at the table in my cell tapping my finger tips against its wooden surface out of a mix of excitement and nervousness. I could barely believe it; very soon, I was going to meet the mane six!

I had an incredibly difficult time getting to sleep last night with my mind actively going over every possible thing that could happen when I finally meet the mane six. Eventually I managed to drift off into a light sleep, though this didn’t last very long since I woke up early… really early, the excitement I felt made me feel like I was a little kid waking up on Christmas morning, and no matter how hard I tried I could not get back to sleep. Giving up on my fruitless efforts, I got out of bed and began pacing my cell before deciding to content myself with my light drumming on the table.

The sun was up over the horizon now and it was just passing the time I normally eat breakfast at, though for some strange reason I didn’t feel very hungry. Even though I usually have just a small meal in the morning I’m always ravenous when I wake up.

‘No one brought me any food this morning… Maybe the Princess is planning for us to have breakfast as a group today,’ I thought to myself.

It wasn’t long until I heard footsteps… or hoofsteps, on the stairs. As expected, whoever was approaching stopped in front of my cell. ‘Well who else are they going to be coming for? It’s not like there’s anyone else down here.’ The door swung open to reveal two of Princess Celestia’s guards, both strong looking stallions armored in gold metal plating.

“The Princess has requested that you join her for breakfast this morning,” one of the guards said while maintaining his stoic expression.

‘Knew it!’ “Alright then good sirs,” I said while pushing myself to my feet and shouldering my backpack and grabbing my jacket, “Lead the way.”

I stepped out of the cell and the two guards took up positions on either side and slightly ahead of me. They guided me up the stairs and out of the castle’s tiny dungeon, and walking through the corridors of the main floor was no less breathtaking the second time.

The clean white stone walls seemed to glow with a radiance of their own, gold trimming lined the corners where the walls reached the floor and ceiling, and made ornate patterns on the walls in between. Here and there hung paintings of Canterlot and some pretty heroic looking ponies. The red carpet we walked on seemed to stretch down every hallway we passed, underneath the carpet the floor was tiled with white and lavender coloured stones, and hanging overhead were elegant crystal chandeliers which provided the lighting when no windows were present.

During our little walk, neither of the guards made a sound aside from the muffled noise of their hooves on the carpet. Eventually we reached a large set of double doors, and my two escorts pushed these open while motioning for me to proceed.

I stepped into what appeared to be a large dining room. Its size was comparable to that of the ball room where everything went chaotic for the mane six at the Grand Galloping Gala. Scattered about the room were various tables made to accommodate all sizes of groups. At one end of the dining room I could see two sets of swinging double doors that presumably led to the kitchen; at the other end of the room I saw a massive window in place of a wall. French doors opened to a balcony overlooking the garden where a few tables stood along with several potted plants. At the back of the room there was a grand piano set up on a small stage, a chestnut coloured earth pony with a short off-white mane and tail and wearing a white collar with a red bow tie sat at the piano and was playing a soft classical sounding song.

Finally, I turned my attention to the center of the room where Princess Celestia stood waiting at a table. As I made my way over, the Princesses horn glowed with a soft golden light and a violet and gold velvet cushion drifted through the air towards the table from one of the many others in the grand room.

Once I reached the table I bowed to Celestia.

“Good morning Your Majesty,” I said.

“Good morning,” she replied, “I thought I told you that you don’t need to bow every time you see me.”

“And I thought I said that I liked to bow to people, to help show my respect,” I returned with a grin.

“So you did,” Celestia said with a smile. She seemed to be warming up to me being here now. “I hope your time in the dungeon wasn’t too uncomfortable.”

“Not at all! The bed was nice and soft; then again, I can pretty much sleep anywhere so the floor would have worked just as well. I can’t complain about the food either. The apples I got for my meals, where did they come from?”

The Princess thought for a moment, “I believe they were grown by the Apple family down at Sweet Apple Acres in Ponyville, why did you want to know?”

“I just wanted to know who I should thank for the best tasting apples I’ve ever eaten,” I replied nonchalantly. “I need to thank Applejack and her family… speaking of which, where are Twilight and her friends? I thought they wanted to see me today.”

“They arrived fairly late last night so I imagine they just wanted to get a good night’s sleep. I just sent some guards to their room so they should be coming in shortly.”

I nodded as I set my backpack and jacket down, and took a seat on the cushion that the Princess had brought over… and ended up having my head just high enough to look over the table. I gave the chuckling Princess a flat look, and in return she levitated several more pillows over. I stood up so she could pile them high enough for me to sit comfortably. Once that was over with I joined Celestia in her mirth as she took a seat on her own cushion.

I was trying to contain my excitement for meeting the mane six. Sure, I thought it would be awesome if they liked me and wanted me to be a friend of theirs, but it seemed as though in nearly every Human in Equestria fan fiction I’ve read the human in the story always ends up with the mane six. They’re the main characters of My Little Pony but they’re not the only ponies in Equestria, there are so many different individuals I could meet, I didn’t want to force myself into their group, and even if the mane six don’t like me I’m certain to find a friend… somewhere.

“Why so quiet all of a sudden,” the Princess asked.

“Hm? Oh, I was just thinking. You, Twilight, and her friends may be the only ponies I know anything about in this world, but I don’t want them to feel like they need to help me out or anything. I don’t want to intrude on their group.”

Celestia gave me a soft look, “That’s very considerate of you, but whether or not Twilight and her friends want to include you in their activities is entirely up to them. Besides, you should know well enough that they’ll want to help if they can.”

I nodded again, and contented myself with listening to the sound of the piano while we waited for the mane six to show up, ‘I really need to find out how he can play with only hooves and no fingers.’

We didn’t have to wait much longer. My heart nearly stopped as I heard the doors I entered through open once again. I kept my eyes my eyes glued to the piano as I heard several sets of hooves approach the table.

“Remember to keep up your oblivious façade for now,” Celestia whispered to me.

I nodded in response even as I heard one set of hooves gallop ahead of the rest.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight’s voice rang out just before she came into view and nuzzled up against her mentor.

“Twilight, it’s so wonderful to see you again,” the Princess said warmly to her student. “I hope you and your friends all had a good rest.”

“For the most part,” Twilight replied, “Pinkie was really excited last night and kept us up pretty late.”

I chuckled quietly to myself, but instantly stopped the moment I felt something standing right behind me. Whatever it was, it was bursting with energy. Looking out of the corner of my eye I saw that Celestia was trying to hide a grin and that Twilight had brought her hoof to her face. I turned slowly around to gaze directly into the bright blue eyes of the pink party pony. Falling off of my cushion pile in surprise I bounced my head off the table and landed on my back.

“Ouch…” I groaned, rubbing the back of my skull as I started to push myself back up, except I found that I was unable to move when Pinkie suddenly landed on top of me, her face inches from mine.

“Hi I’m Pinkie Pie and Twilight told me that you’re new so I was going to plan a Welcome to Ponyville party for you, but then Twilight told me that you were actually new to Equestria so I decided to change your Welcome to Ponyville party to an even bigger Welcome to Equestria party. But then Twilight said that a party would have to wait since we were going to meet you in Canterlot… are you a monkey?”

I didn’t respond right away, the amount of bubbling happiness being emitted from the pink pony with a darker pink puffy mane and tail stunned me. The first thing that registered in my mind was Pinkie’s question.

“I’m not a monkey, though Twilight thought the same thing when she saw me,” I chuckled, still rubbing the back of my head. “I’m what you call a human.”

“So you’re not genetically related to orangutans?” Pinkie asked skeptically.

Again, Pinkie’s statement stunned me, “How... Never mind, yeah, I am. But I’m still not a monkey.”

“Easy there sugarcube, you don’t wanna go hurting him any more now do ya?” came a Southern American accented voice I recognized all so well.

Pinkie Pie backed up a step and looked at me still rubbing my head. “Oopsie, sorry,” she said with a sheepish grin and bounced off my chest to stand with her friends.

“No worries,” I said as I stood up and took my first look at the group of six familiar ponies.

Pinkie was still bouncing slightly beside Applejack, the pony who had called Pinkie off of me. Applejack wore her signature light brown stetson hat and her blonde mane and tail were tied up at the ends like a human styled ponytail. Rarity was next in line, her stylized royal purple mane bounced slightly whenever she turned her head. And beside her stood Rainbow Dash, her rainbow coloured mane and tail were, like in the show, sort of messy. Twilight had returned to the side of her friends after greeting the Princess.

All of them aside from Twilight and Pinkie were looking at me with varying degrees of uncertainty, Pinkie was wearing a big grin and Twilight looked as though she was about to say something. As I regarded their expressions I noticed that one of them was missing. I was about to say something when I noticed a long pink tail poking out from behind Rainbow Dash, seeing Fluttershy like this was too cute to describe, the moment was just so perfect, I couldn’t resist doing what I did next.

“Hnng!” I made a grunt as I clutched my heart and fell backwards over my cushion pile.

This elicited gasps from everyone present, except Fluttershy, who, disregarding her previous shyness immediately rushed over and nearly tackled me off my soft perch in her haste.

“Oh my, what happened? Are you hurt?” she frantically asked as she held her head to my chest to listen for a heartbeat.

It seemed like I was getting stunned a lot today, it took me a moment to comprehend what had just happened.

“What? Oh sorry. No, I’m fine,” I said to the panicked yellow pegasus.

Fluttershy looked at me with big blue confused eyes.

‘Must… resist… urge to suffer from fake heart attack…’ “That was just a little joke some people do back where I’m from when they see something incredibly cute,” I awkwardly explained.

“Oh, you… um… think I’m… cute?” she timidly asked while blushing.

‘Very, very awkward!’ “Uh, yeah… I do.”

Fluttershy backed up quickly and took up a position partially behind Rainbow Dash once again, though this time she remained mostly in sight and began digging nervously at the floor with her hoof.

“Anyway…” Twilight began, “Let me introduce you to my friends.”

Each pony in line said hello has Twilight introduced them.

“This is Rainbow Dash.”

“The one and only!” the cyan pegasus held her head high.

“Next is Fluttershy.”

“H-hello,” she said, quiet once again.

“Beside her is Rarity.”

“Charmed,” the white unicorn said with a flick of her mane.

“And finally there’s Applejack, and Pinkie Pie who you’ve already met.”

“Howdy,” Applejack said with a tip of her hat.

“I can’t wait until we get back to Ponyville! I’m going to throw you a big party and invite everypony in town!” Pinkie piped in with an enthusiastic bounce.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” I said as gentlemanly as possible while dipping into yet another bow. “My name’s Matthew, Matt for short.”

A subtle grin snuck its way onto Rarity’s face as she said, “Twilight, you didn’t mention that he was such a gentlecolt.”

At the same time I noticed Applejack’s head lower slightly, she mumbled just loud enough so I could hear, “Great, that’s exactly what we need. Another fancy pants pony struttin’ ‘round Equestria.”

“Wait, I was just trying to be polite,” I said while crossing my arms. “I can act like a gentleman… err, gentlecolt, when I want to, but I’m usually not a fan of all that fancy stuff.”

“Then what was the bow for?” Applejack asked while she chuckled and lifted her head again, casting a glance over to Rarity, who was now pouting in Applejack’s place.

I shrugged and responded, “It’s just a little habit of mine.”

Rainbow Dash chose this time to say something. “Twilight here said that you were pretty smart, are you an egghead or something?”

Twilight stared incredulously at her friend, “Rainbow, don’t you think that was rather rude?”

“What?” Rainbow replied with a shrug. “I just wanna know if he’s a boring egghead like you, or a fun pony to hang out with like me.”

“Why does everyone think I’m smart?” I said exasperatedly to no one in particular. “Sure I sleep with a massive encyclopedic dictionary under my bed, and sure I know a bunch of random facts and some basic knowledge in a bunch of topics, but I’m not the smartest tool in the shed… I’m too lazy to study.”

When I mentioned the dictionary Rainbow fell to the floor in a fit of laughter.

“But, you sounded like you knew so much when we were talking back in the Everfree forest,” Twilight said slightly crestfallen. “I don’t see how you can possibly not study when you sound like you know so much.”

“You look too fit to be lazy anyway,” Rainbow interjected between giggles.

With a shrug I replied, “Just because I’m lazy doesn’t mean I’m not healthy. And sorry if it sounded like I was a genius or something Twilight, all the questions you asked me were of things I happened to know. About my laziness towards studying… well, I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“How come?” Applejack asked. “It’s best not to hide things, you should share your feelin’s with others.”

“I just don’t feel like talking about it right now, it’s kind of…” I trailed off. “Anyway, Princess Celestia told me that you helped run Sweet Apple Acres in Ponyville. Is this true?”

“Sure is,” Applejack replied while shifting her hat on her head. “Why do you wanna know?”

I smiled, “Well, the Princess said that the apples I was eating came from your farm, so I just wanted to thank you for the best apples I’ve tasted in my entire life!”

Applejack grinned, “Thank ya kindly for the compliment,” then she turned to grin at the other five mares present. “Did ya hear that? Not only are my families apples the best in all of Equestria, they’re also the best in another world!”

“I hate to interrupt, but the waiter is here to take our orders,” Princess Celestia called over to us.

Turning around I saw a grey unicorn levitating a small notepad and quill in front of him, he wore the usual fancy black and white waiter outfit you’d expect at high class restaurants. He stood there looking rather impatient as he waited.

“Sorry,” Twilight said as the six ponies positioned themselves around the table.

I sat back on my cushion pile on Princess Celestia’s left while Twilight sat at her other side. Directly across from me sat Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy positioned herself between Twilight and Rainbow while Rarity, Pinkie, and Applejack took their places around the table with Rarity sitting at my left.

The waiter took our orders starting with the Princess, everyone ordered variations of flower and hay containing foods so I had no idea what I was going to get… that is until Pinkie Pie placed her order.

“Can I get a daisy quesadilla with chocolate cake for desert?” Pinkie requested, fidgeting as she tried to stay still while the waiter took the orders. “And I want the cake before the quesadilla.”

The waiter wrote down her order, and after taking Rarity’s which was a simple daisy salad and toast, the waiter turned to me.

“What do you put on your quesadillas?” I asked.

“Daisy petals, cheese, diced up green and red peppers, tomato, jalapeño peppers, and cucumber. The quesadilla also comes with a side of hay fries,” was the waiter’s immediate response.

Pinkie quickly interrupted, “Oh! Can I get extra hay fries with my meal?”

The waiter looked at her impatiently before scribbling the request down on his notepad, and then he turned back to me.

“Could I get the quesadilla without the daisy petals, jalapeño peppers, or hay fries?”

The waiter wrote down my order, and after bowing to the Princess he left for the kitchen.

Looking around the table I noticed everyone was looking at me, Pinkie with her jaw hanging open.

“What?” I asked, not sure what they were so interested in.

“Why aren’t you having daisy petals on your quesadilla? They’re the best part!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“And no hay fries?” Applejack added. “That there is half the meal itself. Are ya sure that’ll be enough for you?”

“I’ll manage,” I replied. “Besides, I can’t eat hay or flowers. Aside from those two things, this quesadilla is almost the same as the ones I ate back home… but there’s just one small difference ingredient wise.”

“And that would be?” Twilight asked.

’Great… walked into that one…’ “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to jump to conclusions until I’ve finished.”

The expressions of six ponies turned serious as they regarded me with suspicion. Fluttershy seemed to shrink a little as she lowered herself behind the table, almost as if she knew what I was about to say.

I gulped, the noise sounding louder in the tense silence. “Well… the quesadillas I eat normally have chicken in them.”

All the ponies at the table aside from the Princess gasped. Rarity nearly fainted; Fluttershy’s eyes went wide as she darted under the table, and Rainbow Dash looked like she was ready leap over the table to tackle me.

“You eat meat?” Rainbow said accusingly. “If you so much as touch any of my friends I swear I’m-“

Waving my hands I cut her off, “Wait, let me finish!”

Glowering at me, she grudgingly stood down. Once I was certain that I was safe from being flattened by a very protective pegasus- for the time being at least -I continued.

“Humans are omnivores. We do eat meat, but we can also eat fruits and vegetables, nuts and berries. We don’t need to eat meat; there are plenty of humans who get by just fine without it. Now that I’m here I plan on giving up meat completely.”

There was silence. Finally someone spoke, and I was surprised that it was Fluttershy who spoke first.

“Well, um… I guess it’s fine then… I mean, I’m glad all my animal friends will be safe,” she said quietly as she slowly rose from her hiding place.

“And ah guess it doesn’t hurt that ya like my apples so much,” Applejack added.

“You can’t eat flowers… but can you eat cupcakes and ice cream?” Pinkie cautiously interrogated, and when I nodded my head she excitedly exclaimed, “Then I don’t see a problem!”

Twilight asked, “Am I correct in assuming that, um… that was the main source of your protein?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Well it shouldn’t be too difficult for us to find an alternative source,” she responded positively.

“I am relieved that you will be adopting a sensible eating habit,” Rarity said. “But we simply must do something about your appearance. It looks as though you haven’t bathed for days.”

I shrugged, “Well I did spend the last few days in the dungeon.”

Rainbow grumbled, “Well if everypony else is fine with you, I guess I am too… wait, did you say dungeon?” she suddenly took up a defensive stance. “What the hay did you do, you are dangerous aren’t you?”

Face palming, I replied, “I didn’t do anything other than wake up in the Everfree Forest and rest in my cell for the last few days. I don’t want to have to think about that sort of stuff anymore, but Princess Celestia knows about it so she can probably answer most of your questions.”

Before anyone could say anything I stood up and said to the Princess, “Sorry, I’ll be right back. There’s something that’s been on my mind for a while that I need to look into.”

“Where are you going?” Celestia inquired with a slight tilt of her head. “Breakfast should be ready soon. Besides, I don’t want you wandering around unaccompanied quite yet.”

“I’m not going far, there’s just somepony that I want to talk to,” I said as I left the table and headed towards the pony playing the piano.

As I approached, the pianist stopped playing and regarded me with a somewhat nervous expression.

“Hi, I’m Matthew. And you are?”

“Frederic Horseshoepin,” he replied somewhat hesitantly at first. “Can I help you? As you can probably see, I’m in the middle of practicing for a particularly important social event.”

“Yeah, can I ask you a question?”

“Be my guest.”

“I don’t want to sound rude, but how can you play the piano like that with hooves?” I asked as I held up my hand and moved my fingers. “I can easily hit notes with my fingers,” I quickly played a scale, “Can you tell me how you play without fingers?”

Frederic smiled, “Ah, a fellow pianist I see. Sure I can tell you, you see…”

Back at the table, the mane six all shared looks of confusion after I had left. Rainbow was the first to break the sudden silence.

“What did he mean by that? What sort of stuff.”

Celestia sighed, “For the most part, humans tend to be destructive by nature. In his world there’s plenty of political corruption, greed and violence, and their lifestyle is slowly killing the life on their planet.”

Twilight and her friends all looked at the Princess in horror.

“But he seemed nice enough, I don’t see how he could be like that,” Twilight stammered.

“That ain’t anyway to live, why-“ Applejack started before being cut off by Rainbow Dash.

“I knew he was dangerous, I say keep him locked up!” she said with a snarl.

“Princess Celestia, if he’s so dangerous then why are you giving him so much freedom?” Rarity asked.

Celestia gave the group a small smile, “Originally I intended to do just that, but this human seems different. He told me that he hates the human race and their violent ways, and he’s done nothing to make me believe otherwise. I even gave him the option of staying in a guest room in one of the less frequented areas of the castle, under watch from the Royal Guard of course, yet he still chose the dungeon.”

“I think he’s just trying to earn our trust so he can do something sneaky,” Rainbow grumbled.

“Well what if he’s telling the truth and your positions were reversed, wouldn’t you want somepony to trust you?” Celestia asked.

“I guess…” Rainbow muttered, momentarily defeated.

“Did he tell you anythin’ else Princess?” Applejack asked.

Celestia thought for a moment, “Only that he was studying to be a marine biologist.”

“A biologist, really? So he likes animals too?” Fluttershy perked right up.

“Perhaps, but you’re going to have to ask him about that yourself,” Celestia replied with a slight chuckle.

“Goodness, what is he doing now?” Rarity said as she pointed to the piano.

Everypony around the table looked over to the piano in time to see me sitting at the bench shaking out my hands and cracking my knuckles.

“That’s incredible, I never would have guessed!” I exclaimed at Frederic’s revelation.

Frederic nodded and smiled, “Truthfully, other races such as the griffons don’t have a clue how we manage to play either. So I’m not surprised that you asked, nor that you find the fact that ponies have the ability to grasp and manipulate objects slightly to be incredible.” Once he finished his head popped up as a thought came to him.

“Would you mind playing a song or two? I would like to hear what sort of music your species came up with,” he said with an eager look.

“Sure!” I happily replied as Frederic got up and allowed me to sit at the piano.

Sitting down I shook my hands to loosen up my fingers, and out of habit I cracked my knuckles, this action elicited a small flinch from Frederic. I took no notice however and began to play one of my favourite pieces, Fur Elise.

Losing myself in my playing I began to sway to the melody. This being a grand piano, it had a vastly superior sound compared to my old upright back home, and it was much easier to play so that made getting swept up by the music all the more simple. Finishing the first theme and moving into the second lighter theme I sped up slightly faster than it’s normally played just because it was fun. Coming out of the more lively part I moved back into the original theme and flow of things. As I approached the end of that section I slowed to a near stop.

I heard stomping hooves from across the room, and looking out of the corner of my eye I noticed the mane six and Princess Celestia stomping in applause. The one thing I don’t mind interrupting my playing, as playing the piano is one of the few things I ever receive any sort of praise for.

With a small smirk I immediately brought out the repeated base note of the next theme, as the volume increased their applause stopped. After the high point and return to the original theme I began to slow the song and finally brought it to the end.

“That one is called Fur Elise, what do you think?” I asked turning to Frederic.

“That was outstanding! A beautiful piece if I ever did hear one,” he replied with a flourishing motion of his hoof. “Although, don’t you think you played certain parts a little loud for that form of music?”

I chuckled a little, “You could say that if this was a different song, but I think the music you’d compose would be a bit louder too if you were going deaf.”

“Deaf?” Frederic wore a look of disbelief.

“Yeah. Ludwig Van Beethoven, one of the greatest composers in human history, started to go deaf pretty early in life. But that didn’t stop him from writing music. Actually, I think he composed his most well known symphony after completely losing his hearing.”

Frederic just stood there in shock, so I turned back to the others. They were all smiling except for Rainbow Dash, she looked sort of bored.

“You didn’t mention that you were a musician dear. That was quite the performance,” Rarity called over.

“Uh, thanks,” I replied. Again noting Rainbow’s expression I said, “I get the feeling that not all of you like classical music though.”

“You got that right,” Rainbow huffed, “It’s too lame for my awesome tastes.”

“So you want something different… I got it!” An idea came to my head and I called over to Rainbow Dash, “When you hear this one, picture adventure on the high seas.”

Rainbow’s expression changed from that of boredom to anticipation, and turning back to the piano I said under by breath so only I could hear, “Or the eccentric actions of a certain pirate captain.”

As I started playing the well known intro to ‘He’s a Pirate’, I could see Rainbow Dash out of the corner of my eye. From what I could tell she was already enjoying the song, ‘You think that’s good? Just wait a few more seconds for the real song to start.’

I turned all my concentration to the song as my fingers slammed into the first chords. A wide grin crept its way onto my face as my fingers bounced from note to note, my hands from chord to chord. This was the song that I enjoyed playing most, the liveliness of it, imagining scenes from the movie, and I could almost hear the instruments it was originally made for playing along.

Finishing the song I stood up and shook out my arms, I always play that one with too much energy and now my fingers feel numb. Looking back at the table made me laugh, everypony was staring at me with the same slack jawed expression. Finally Rainbow Dash shook her head and exclaimed.

“That was awesome! I’ve never heard the piano played like that!”

Before heading back to the table I turned back to Frederic who also wore a similar expression.

“I guess you’re not used to that sort of piano playing either, are you?”

He slowly shook his head.

“Well thanks for letting me play,” I said and gave a little bow.

Frederic just nodded silently, so I turned around and hopped off the stage. I got back to the table just as breakfast was being brought out of the kitchen.

We all started eating; I took a bite out of my quesadilla and frowned, it was good, but it just didn’t taste complete to me. Luckily everyone else was too engrossed in their own meals to take any notice.

“Why didn’t you tell us ‘bout that there talent of yours?” Applejack asked.

“None of you asked,” was my response.

“But why hide it? After all you seemed to be enjoying yourself so much up there.” Celestia commented.

Shrugging, I said, “I don’t play in front of very many people-“

“Ponies,” Pinkie quickly corrected.

“Err… yeah, ponies. It’s just one of the few things I still find any joy in doing.”

Everyone at the table stared at me.

“You’re not serious are you?” Twilight asked with a concerned tone. “You can’t expect us to believe that, you don’t seem like the depressed type.

‘At least that guise is convincing,’ “It’s nothing, forget about it,” I said with a smile.

“Now there ya go again,” Applejack said sounding somewhat irritated. “What’d ah tell you ‘bout hidin’ your feelings?”

“Well there are some things that I’d like to keep to myself… for now anyway,” I sighed, fidgeting with my sweater under the ponies scrutinizing gaze.

My fidgeting came to an abrupt stop when I noticed Rainbow Dash, her eyes wide open and her expression was one of… anger?

She launched herself across the table, wings flapping as she tackled me off my pile of cushions and pinned me to the ground.

“Rainbow, what the hay do ya think you’re doin’?” Applejack yelled.

“If he’s from some other world then how come he has that on his clothes?” Rainbow responded with equal aggression, though her anger was directed at me as she pointed her hoof accusingly at her cutie mark which was emblazoned on my shirt.

Everyone gathered around us. The rest of the mane six gasped in shock, Pinkie gasping the loudest, and Celestia just frowned and shook her head.

“Why are you here? Are you a spy? The truth this time!” Rainbow Dash was furious.

‘Looks like I’m caught.’ Letting out a slow sigh, I said, “No I’m not a spy.” I thought that it would be funny if that ever happened, but I didn’t feel even the slightest chuckle. “I’m a fan. A fan of you and your friends, a fan of your two Princesses and of Equestria. Waking up here made me beyond happy, I guess it was a stroke of luck getting hit by that…”

I trailed off as the memory came back to me. I clutched my side remembering the pain I felt when I had first arrived, the pain that came from getting run into by a car on my way to the bus stop. That feeling of drifting in emptiness, that ever present nothingness… it was a chilling thought.

“Fan? What do you mean?” Rainbow inquired, much of her anger replaced by a mix of pride and curiosity.

I didn’t give her an answer. Instead I delivered a quick and light strike to the back of her leg and swiftly rolled to the side, knocking Rainbow off balance as I escaped from underneath her.

Standing up and grabbing my things I said, “I need some time alone.”

With hurried strides I made my way over to the balcony overlooking the garden. I heard the Princess try to call me back, but I kept going. Pushing open the French door I stepped outside and took a moment to look at the sky. Not a cloud in sight and the sun was nearing the peak of its arch through the field of blue. Ending my brief stop, I put my hand on the railing and vaulted into the empty garden that lay nearly fifteen feet below.

Chapter 6: An After Breakfast Stroll

~Chapter 6 - An After Breakfast Stroll~

Hitting the grass below, I tucked into an awkward sideways roll to reduce the force of my landing, and to prevent myself from crushing the contents of my backpack. My arm hit the ground at a strange angle jarring it in its socket and sending a sharp pain lancing down to my finger tips. Groaning, I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position. Rubbing my arm I didn't feel anything out of place, I'm no doctor but I was pretty sure that nothing was broken. My little stunt probably almost ended up with my arm becoming dislocated, maybe worse. I sat there for a few minutes until the pain began to subside, then I climbed to my feet and stepped onto a garden path.

Not a pony was in sight, for this I was glad since I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I strolled down the path, rotating my arm in its socket and too engrossed in my thoughts to take in the sights of beautifully trimmed hedges and beds of vibrantly coloured flowers.

'A car… I was hit by a car. My parents always said I shouldn't listen to my music while I'm walking…' I let out a sigh. 'I wonder what's up back home. Am I dead, or am I lying in a hospital, hooked up to a bunch of life support equipment in a coma? Whatever happened my family's probably not taking it too well. Wait, if I'm in a coma does that mean this is all a dream?' I shook my head. 'No way, it's all too real, I'm definitely in Equestria… well, maybe not all of me, maybe this is just a physical embodiment of my mind. I think that makes sense, I mean traveling to another universe doesn't make much sense to begin with.' I stopped walking. 'If I am in a coma, then what will happen if I wake up back home?'

I gave another sigh and said to myself, "Oh well, guess I should make the best of this then." I chuckled, "Being here will probably help me out a lot anyway."

Shrugging away the rest of those depressing thoughts, I looked around to see where my legs took me. There were stone statues of ponies wearing plate armor and striking heroic poses. 'Hmm, this place seems familiar,' I silently wondered and seeing what stood in front of me sparked my memory.

A statue of a creature with a serpentine body and a dragon tail extending nearly straight backwards. Left leg of a horse, right leg of some kind of lizard, again probably a dragon. Arms, one ending in an eagle's claw and the other in a lions paw, were stretched outwards as if trying to ward off some attack. Both its left wing, that of a pegasus, and its right, the wing of a bat, were open to their full wingspan. A horn and antler protruded from the head of a goat. The expression on the statues face was a mix of shock and anger, and maybe a bit of pain.

I looked thoughtfully at Discord, his statue stood about three feet taller than me. 'Man, I'd choose getting hit by a car over being turned into a statue any day.'

"I am so going to learn more about you," I said with a determined nod of my head.

I stood there a little longer before deciding to head back. "I hope Princess Celestia tried explaining things to them," I brought my hand to my chin in contemplation, "Or maybe she erased that from their memories."

I shook my head at that last statement, "No, even though I haven't talked to her much I can still tell she's not the troll that other Bronies make her out to be. I doubt she'd ever mess with people's minds."

Just then I heard the sound of flapping wings. Looking up I saw a dark charcoal grey pegasus in golden plated armor approaching me, because of the helmet he wore I couldn't see his mane but I assumed it was the same white as his tail. There was something about his skinny body being covered by a suit of armor that looked a little off.

The pegasus landed on the path and a bit to my left. Regarding me with wary eyes he asked, "Are you Matthew?" he sounded a little nervous.

"Yeah, why? Are you taking me back to the Princess?"

"No… I mean yes- I mean if you want me to I can," the guard rapidly stammered.

I tilted my head in confusion, and I couldn't help but chuckle a little.

"Earlier this morning Princess Celestia gave us some instructions regarding you," the guard fidgeted a little. "She told us your name and what you looked like, and said that you are free to wander the castle. She also said that we are supposed to watch you and report back to her about what you do."

"I see," I said quietly, almost to myself. Shrugging I thought, 'I guess I should have expected something like that.' Smiling, I asked the guard, "What's your name?"

The guard gave me a bewildered look. "Um… I'm Zephyr Swift."

"You're new to this whole guard thing aren't you Zephyr?"

"H-how can you tell?" he asked, again with that same bewildered expression.

I laughed, "Well for one, you're not a statue like the other guards I've seen. And two, you're not trying to act all tough and serious."

"Oh, is it really that obvious?" Zephyr said with a little chuckle of his own.

"Don't worry about it," I replied. "I'd rather be able to talk to anyone watching me than have to withstand the stares of golden armored statues."

We both had a good laugh at that.

After we regained our lost composure Zephyr asked, "So, did you want to go see the Princess?"

I was about to nod when a different idea came to my mind. "Actually I think I'd rather go somewhere else for now. Do you guys have stuff for staying fit around here somewhere?"

Zephyr nodded, "Yeah, back at the barracks there's a fitness room with weights and a track around the facility for when we're supposed to do our laps. We also have an obstacle course for a more applied workout, but the senior guards mostly race through it to beat each other's times."

I clapped my hands together and said, "Sounds like fun, can we go there?"

Zephyr looked at me quizzically, "Fun? Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious, it's been a while since the last time I had a good workout."

"Alright then," he replied. "The others are pretty tough though, so don't say I didn't warn you."

"I won't," I replied light heartedly.

Zephyr just shrugged and turned around. "Fine. The Princess sent some guards out looking for you so I should stop in anyway and tell them that I found you. I think the barracks are this way… no wait, this way."

Exiting the garden through a vine covered lattice archway, Zephyr took me along a path that extended around the castle's wall. The path continued until we came to the back of the castle.

Behind us was a set of large heavy doors leading into the castle- most likely for the use of the guards –and before us stood five small rectangular buildings all made out of the same white stone as the castle, behind them was a larger building again made of the same white stone, though this one was dome shaped. All of them had plain exteriors; the only eye catcher here was the golden plate armor of the various guards milling about among the structures.

"Here we are," my guide announced. "The smaller buildings are where we sleep and wash up, and the larger dome shaped one is where we do all our training." Lowering his voice slightly he said, "I've only been here for a week so it's all still pretty new to me."

"Well this is my first time here," I replied enthusiastically, "So let's go!"

"Why are you so eager to go there anyway?" Zephyr asked, continuing towards the barracks.

"Doing something physical helps clear my mind, and I've had a lot to think about recently," was my reply.

I was glad that Zephyr didn't press me for any more details; he just nodded and kept walking.

As we approached the barracks, a brown female earth pony broke away from the group of guards she was talking to and trotted over.

"So you found the creature, good job." The guard said sternly to Zephyr. "You can return to your post now."

"But he asked me to show him our training facility," Zephyr replied somewhat nervously to who was obviously his superior.

The guard scowled, "To your post!"

Zephyr hung his head, "Yes Ma'am."

As he turned and slowly started to walk away I put my hand on his shoulder, he looked up at me.

"Hey, I'll see you later."

Zephyr regained a small smile, "Yeah, see you later." And with that he departed.

I turned to the brown pony and asked, "So, can I see this training facility of yours?"

The pony regarded me for a few seconds before she finally said, "Very well, just don't cause any trouble."

As we passed the group that my new escort had detached herself from, she grabbed the attention of one of the other guards.

"Go inform the Princess that the creature has been found and is currently at the barracks," the brown mare ordered, receiving a quick salute in return before the guard turned and galloped towards the castle.

On our way to the training building I received curious looks from nearly every guard we passed, not that I really cared though, something else was occupying my mind at the time.

"I get the feeling that there's not much conflict here in Equestria, so why bother with all this?" I asked, indicating our surroundings.

The guard turned her head in my direction. "You're right; there isn't really a military purpose for the Royal Guard anymore. The last time we functioned as a fighting unit was just over a thousand years ago, but that was before our Princesses took up the throne and brought harmony to the land. Mostly we stay organized and in shape to uphold tradition."

I nodded my head, "Makes sense."

Getting closer to our destination I spotted another small building similar to the other five, the only difference was that this one was made of dark, almost black, midnight blue stone instead of the clean white stone that formed the walls of the other structures. It was situated in the back and slightly behind the rest of the buildings, which explained why I didn't see it before.

"What's that building used for, is it an armory?" I pointed to the dark structure.

"No, the armory is hidden somewhere in the castle. That's the sleeping quarters of Princess Luna's personal guard," my guide informed, barely giving the building a glance.

I couldn't see any of Luna's guards, 'Well they are the personal guard of the Princess of the Night, so maybe they sleep through the day… that is, if they even look like they did in the episode Lunar Eclipsed. Those might have been costumes and for all I know I could have seen some of them already.'

Looking ahead I noticed that I fell a bit behind my guide and she showed no sign of slowing, so I jogged to catch up.

Shoving open the wooden doors of the domed building, my guide stepped impatiently inside with me right behind her. She called a yellow pegasus with a short cropped brown mane and tail wearing a whistle and stopwatch around his neck over and told him that I wanted to check out the training facility.

Turning to leave, my guide said one last time in a very serious tone, "Remember, don't go causing any trouble."

Now alone, except for the yellow pegasus floating beside me who I assumed was some sort of instructor or supervisor, I turned my attention to examining the facility.

The shape of the room was like that of a hockey arena, except a fair bit larger. The dirt floor was kicked up in multiple places, especially along the well defined running track around the perimeter that Zephyr had mentioned. Off to one side I saw some benches and various weight racks set up. Ponies were all about the facility, running the track, lifting weights; some were even having mock fights to practice defensive grabs and throws. But in my opinion, the piece de resistance was the obstacle course set up in the center of the room.

The course began with some small hurdles, leading to one of those setups with the wooden frame where you crawl under wires or ropes, rope in this instance, and yes, the mud was there also. Next up was a log balance over a small dug out pool of water, and then came the fun looking part. A vertical wooden wall with two hanging ropes for climbing brought you up to an elevated platform; from there a rope swing took you across to another platform. Connecting that platform with a third was a very unstable looking bridge with the boards spaced a fair distance apart.

As I examined the bridge, one of the guards running the course fell between two of the boards with a splash into a second pool below.

I'm guessing that from the last platform you just jump ten feet into yet another pool, since a muddy trail led from the water's edge to a pit. There was a steep incline to get out of the pit and to the finish.

"Excuse me, do you mind if I try out the obstacle course?" I asked the pegasus with the whistle and stopwatch.

"Hm?" He grunted as he gave me a once over. "You look a little too lanky to handle it to me. But who am I to judge? I don't even know anything about you. Sure, go for it."

"Thanks," I said as I headed towards the start.

As I dropped my bag and jacket and took my position, the pegasus hovered nearby with his stopwatch ready. A few curious guards came over to watch me- the unusual creature -run the course. They started betting amongst each other, some saying I'd be able to finish, but most were betting against me even making it to the bridge.

I guess I didn't look strong enough to impress them, then again, the clothes I wore always worked well to hide my physique. Not even my friends were aware of the shape I was in until we took a trip to the beach.

I smirked and thought to myself, 'They're in for a surprise, I've been climbing things since before I started school.'

Lowering myself into a ready stance, the pegasus said, "And… Go!"

Back in the dining hall, Princess Celestia stared at the balcony with a slightly downcast expression, Rainbow was lying on the floor where she landed after I knocked her off balance in my escape, and she was also looking towards the balcony but with a look of confusion. Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack all shared in Rainbow's confusion.

The Princess called out to the hall for a guard and two stallions in golden armor immediately stepped into the room.

"Matthew has just left, please gather some others and go look for him. I don't want him captured, just keep track of what he does," Celestia ordered, receiving a salute from both guards before they departed. She sighed, "He didn't strike me as the type to run away from this."

"Whatever do you mean Princess?" Rarity asked.

"Yeah, and what'd he mean by 'fan'?" Rainbow added, tearing her gaze away from the window.

The others turned their attention to the Princess and waited for an explanation.

She sighed again, "I wish he didn't take off, he would have been able to explain this better than I."

"Please try," Twilight urged her mentor. "Anything you can tell us would help."

Unfolding her wings and flapping them once before folding them back at her sides, Celestia said, "Matthew told me that in his world, Equestria exists as something called a television show, something that humans watch for entertainment. From that show he knows a little bit about all of us."

"S-so there are others l-l-like him? And t-they… w-watch us?" Fluttershy stuttered, clearly frightened as her head darted back and forth before she dove underneath the table.

"He said that the show was only about a few important things you all did together," Celestia continued to explain.

"But how can ya tell that he's not lying?" Applejack asked.

"He has an, interesting… object, in his saddlebag. With it he showed me a part of this show where you all succeeded in freeing my sister from Nightmare Moon using the Elements of Harmony," Celestia replied.

"Wait a second, so if he was telling the truth…" Rainbow gasped, "I have fans in another world!"

Pinkie gasped, “Aha! It all makes sense now!" she exclaimed, gaining very confused looks from everypony gathered. She didn't elaborate though and instead began humming and hopping happily around.

"But if we only exist as some fictional form of entertainment for them, what does that make us?" Twilight asked, unnerved by the whole prospect of being nothing more than a fictional character in another world.

"When he first told me I too voiced my own concern regarding the subject," Celestia replied with a warm tone and a comforting smile. "Even though we may not be real in his world, Matthew believed even before coming here that we existed. He stated that in his opinion every universe is connected somehow and the connection of ours to his just happens to be this show he mentioned."

Twilight thought for a moment, "So based on that logic, would it be safe to say that we could find something about his world here in the form of an old book or ponytale?"

Trying to lighten the mood, Celestia Chuckled, "That's what Matthew seems to think as well."

Twilight and her friends did feel better, but now they had even more questions that only Matt could answer. Still, Twilight had one more question for the Princess.

"But why did you two try to hide this from us? When I first found him in the forest he was acting like he didn't know anything about Equestria," Twilight paused as she remembered Matt's slip up when he mentioned pegasi. "But you say he told you."

"Actually he tried to hide it from me as well. As to why he chose to do so, you'll need to ask him yourself, the only reason he told me was because I called him on a small slip he made," Celestia replied. "And he kept quiet about it today because I told him to; I didn't want to risk causing any unnecessary problems."

"I guess that makes sense," Twilight said. "But like you, I don't see why he ran away after we found out."

Rainbow Dash put her hoof to her chin, "After he said he was a fan of mine…" she received some glares "…of us, he mentioned getting hit by something. Then he kinda froze there for a second."

"Do you think he remembered what sent him here?" Twilight asked the Princess.

Celestia furrowed her brow, "I can't say. Maybe Matthew can shed some light on this when we find him."

A moment went by with nopony saying anything; they all seemed to be absorbed in their own thoughts. Finally Applejack spoke.

"If you ask me, Matt seems like a strange fella," she commented. "First he acts all fancy with that bowin' of his, then he just denies bein' a gentlecolt." Rarity pouted at the reminder. "He played some fancy classical song on the piano then goes ahead an' plays something completely different, and ah've never seen no piano playin' pony able to trip RD like that."

"Hay!" Rainbow exclaimed. "I was distracted, that's all!"

"Sure you were sugarcube," she replied with a wink.

"But I still don't know if he likes to do anything fun," Rainbow added with a slight groan.

A guard chose that moment to walk in, his sudden appearance grabbing everyponies attention.

"You Majesty, Matthew has been located. He is currently at the training facility back at the barracks," the guard stated.

"Thank you for your help," Celestia said. "You may return to your duties now."

With a salute the guard turned and exited the dining hall.

Rainbow put on a semi shocked expression and Pinkie bounced over and said, "Does that sound like your kind of fun Dashie?"

Rainbow didn't say anything.

"Well what are we waiting for girls?" Twilight said, eager to have the rest of her questions answered.

"Twilight dear," Rarity said. "Do you even know the way to the barracks?" She shuddered. "I can't possibly understand what could drive somepony to want to go to such a dirty place."

Twilight stopped partway to the door and looked sheepishly over her shoulder. She may have grown up in Canterlot and the castle may have been like a second home to her, but she had never actually been to the barracks before. "Umm… Princess?"

Celestia giggled softly, "Don't worry Twilight, I'll lead the way."

The betting guards grew silent as the pegasus started the stopwatch and I took off at full sprint towards the hurdles. I kicked up the dirt beneath my feet as I accelerated. I cleared the first two hurdles like a track runner, but I've never jumped hurdles before so I began to lose my momentum. Switching to a more comfortable way of jumping, I took the last three by jumping with both feet simultaneously and tucking in my knees.

Landing in a crouch I launched myself forward and in two long strides I was diving low under the wooden frame. The mud sloshed around me, splattering my face and getting all over my clothes. Crawling under the rope was a simple feat, since the course was made for ponies I had quite a bit of room above my prone body to maneuver.

Sliding out of the mud I pushed myself to my feet, and never slowing I took off towards the balance log. My muddy shoes didn't help much, but I managed to make it all the way across without losing my footing.

Running straight at the vertical climbing wall I took a few steps up the surface and grabbed the rope. I noticed that there were a few small footholds jutting out at random intervals, I didn't use them though. Reaching hand over hand I pulled myself upwards as I continued walking up the wall, my arms pumping rapidly and already beginning to burn from the exertion.

I'd say the wall was about ten feet high, same as the drop into the water that was yet to come. Pulling myself onto the platform I took two running steps and bounded across the gap to the next platform as I grabbed the swinging rope. Half way across I felt the rope catch my weight, and my momentum carried me the rest of the way.

Panting from the effort it took to get to this point, I pushed myself to run at the bridge ahead of me. 'Spaced out boards and two rope railings? That's easier than most of the bridges at Treego!' Slowing down just enough to keep one foot on the wood at all times I loosely wrapped my hands around the ropes as I took controlled steps across the bridge. I didn't slow down when I got to the other side, I just ran right off the edge of the platform and splashed into the water below.

Quickly swimming to the edge I pulled myself out of the water, most of the mud on my clothing had come off in the pool. Even though my muscles were starting to ache I pushed myself into a full sprint. My legs gave out underneath me just as I made it to the pit, I tumbled down the steep bank, and rolling at the bottom I regained my feet. It may seem like a contradiction, but my tiredness was invigorating. I sprinted to the steep slope that led to the finish and started running up the bank. Rapidly losing my momentum I began to slide backwards, I kicked my toes into the soft ground for support. Kicking and pulling I made my way back out of the pit and collapsed on the other side of the finish line.

I rolled onto my back, breathing hard, blood pounding in my head. It's been a long time since I've done anything so physically demanding, and man did it feel good.

"So… how'd I do?" I asked between gasps for air.

No response. I turned my head to view where the pegasus timing me was, and saw him looking in shock at the stopwatch. The guards who came to watch, along with a few others, were gathered around him as well, and they all wore the same shocked expression as the yellow pegasus.

"Hello?" I called again, and again all I received was silence.

'Fine,' I thought, not really caring anyway. I just laid there catching my breath, the feeling slowly returning to my limbs. Another minute or two passed with me content with relaxing on the ground, my eyes were closed and I had my hands tucked behind my head. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice come from somewhere close by… very close by.

"I guess you do know how to have fun," said the tomboyish voice.

Opening my eyes, I saw Rainbow Dash hovering above me.

Chapter 8: Conversing Carriage Ride and Arrival at Ponyville

~Chapter 8 - Conversing Carriage Ride and Arrival at Ponyville~

As the water drained out of the tub I stood and grabbed one of the towels hanging from the nearby rack. After quickly drying my hair I shook my head like a dog does to dry itself off, a few drops of water flew away and my hair was back to its regular straight position. Completely drained of water by now, I dried off the rest of my body and stepped out onto the warm washroom floor. Wrapping the towel around my waist I made my way to the door to check for my clothes, they weren’t there. Being inclined to wait instead of traversing the castle in nothing but a towel I made my way towards the large floor to ceiling mirror.

Being locked in a dungeon for a few days really helped me get some much needed sleep. The bags under my eyes were barely noticeable and my eyes were more open and alert looking, though this made the fact that my left eye opens wider than my right more noticeable. An incredibly insignificant detail at most.

Even though I had just taken a bath my face still had a slightly dirty appearance to it. Facial hair and I don’t mix well at all, and a couple days away from a razor left the stubble on my chin quite noticeable.

‘I really need to shave… still,’ I started rubbing my chin making my reflection look as though it was deep in thought, ‘I cannot get over how good this feels.’

I was interrupted from my thoughts by a knock on the door. Answering the door I saw my clothes folded neatly on the floor, they even managed to clean my sneakers. Looking around revealed only the bright red tail of whoever delivered my clothes as they hurried from the room.

“Thank you!” I called after them as I grabbed my clothes and closed the door behind me.

Dressed once again in clean clothes I swung my backpack over my shoulder and tucked my jacket under my arm. Finished with all that needed doing, I left for the carriage that would take me to Ponyville.

‘Wait… how am I supposed to find my way to the carriage?’ I thought as I left the guestroom turning back the way Princess brought me thinking that I could try finding my way from the garden.

As I started to walk my left knee stiffened up a bit, giving a very slight but noticeable twinge of pain when I moved it, succeeding in giving me a slight limp.

‘Great... just got to love accutane,' I thought sarcastically to myself.

As I turned a corner I was startled by a rapidly approaching pony. I flung myself back around the corner to avoid a collision, though when I heard a familiar voice I smiled and pulled myself away from the wall.

“Matt! I’m glad I found you before you got lost,” Zephyr said with his own grin.

“Hey Zephyr, I didn’t expect I’d see you again so soon. Why are you in such a hurry?”

“Princess Celestia wanted somepony to come guide you to the main entrance,” he replied.

“And she chose you? That’s a nice coincidence.”

“Actually…” Zephyr paused, “The Princess wanted to send a guard with you to Ponyville just to check up on you every day or two for the next little while. I volunteered.”

“That’s fine with me. I’m glad it’s you instead of a statue,” I said happily, now noticing that he didn’t have in armor on.

He didn’t look as skinny as he did when he was wearing his armor. Zephyr definitely wasn’t as solid as any of the other guards I’ve seen but from what I could tell- considering I don’t know enough about ponies to base any judgments on -his muscles though barely noticeable were toned and flexible looking. Without the gold coloured armor I could now see his cutie mark, it looked something like a spiraling cloud wisp with a narrow lightning bolt streaking through the center.

“We should probably get going then,” Zephyr said as he turned to lead me down the hallway opposite the direction I was originally heading.

“Man I’m glad you found me, I would’ve gotten lost for sure,” I sighed.

Zephyr just laughed and continued walking, not wanting to fall behind I picked up my pace to stay at his side, trying my best to hide the discomfort that my leg was causing.

After a few minutes of silence Zephyr spoke, “On my way over I heard another guard mention something about a strange ape-like creature setting a new record on the obstacle course, that was you right?” he said before hastily spluttering, “No offence, I mean, um, that’s what the other guard said not me!”

It was my turn to laugh, “None taken, it’s a pretty accurate description anyway,” I slouched and hung my arms like a gorilla, earning a slight chuckle from Zephyr. “Yeah, I did set a new record.”

“By how much did you beat me?” He asked turning to face me; I could see genuine interest reflected in his eyes.

“Well none of the guards would say, but Princess Celestia spoke to them and said that I beat it by almost half,” I replied. Then the wording of Zephyr’s question clicked in my head, “Wait, the old record was yours?”

He smiled proudly, “That’s right, I may not be very strong but I have the rest of the Royal Guard beat when it comes to agility, even though this is only my first week on the job.” Zephyr sighed, “Still, it doesn’t seem like it was much of a challenge for you to beat my time.”

“Hey, being a strange ape-like creature with grabby hands has some advantages,” I replied. “I’ve done things like that a lot, and I guess it helps that I was pretty idiotic as a kid.”

“What do you mean?” Zephyr asked with a quizzical expression.

“I was constantly climbing a tree almost as tall as my house before I was old enough to start going to school,” I shrugged.

“That’s not as idiotic as it is downright dangerous,” Zephyr shot.

“When you see a tree like that one, it’s kind of hard to not want to climb it,” I retaliated.

Zephyr just shook his head. “I’m still surprised that you beat my time by so much. I mean, I did hold back a little but still…”

“You held back? Why?” I asked, surprised by his revelation.

“I knew I could easily beat the times of the other guards, but it was my first day so I didn’t want to… stand out so much. I guess that didn’t really help much, they’re all calling it beginners luck and they haven’t let me back on the course since.”

I laughed, causing Zephyr to stare at me in mild confusion, “They’re jealous, irritated that the new guy is faster than them!” Zephyr wore a thoughtful expression, I continued, “Don’t worry about it, they’ll stop. And don’t hold back next time, why hide what you’re good at?”

Zephyr smiled, “You’re right, thanks.”

“Any time,” I replied.

It wasn’t long until we arrived at our destination, stepping out into the front courtyard under the afternoon sun I saw Princess Celestia and the mane six all waiting near a fairly large carriage. I was expecting that our ride was going to be provided by the Royal Guard, something along the lines of a golden coloured carriage. What I saw instead was an elaborately decorated, mahogany carriage with drawn purple curtains in the windows. Strapped into the harnesses were two burly looking earth ponies, each wearing burgundy uniforms and matching berets.

“I see you managed to find him Zephyr Swift,” Princess Celestia said as we approached, then added with a chuckle, “I hope he wasn’t too lost.”

“Matt wasn’t lost when I found him, Your Majesty,” Zephyr replied standing at attention. “Though he would have been in another minute.”

“Hey, I’m right here, but I suppose it’s true,” I said with a forced frown, earning another giggle from the Princess.

Celestia then turned to me, “So I take it that Zephyr informed you about how I wish to keep an eye on you for the foreseeable future. I hope that you don’t see this as a problem.”

I quickly shook my head, “It doesn’t bother me at all. I’m actually glad Zephyr’s coming along.”

Celestia smiled, “That’s good to hear.” She turned to face Twilight, “It was so nice to see you and your friends again. Have a safe trip back to Ponyville, and feel free to come and visit again.”

After all goodbyes were said and done, and after one last bow to the Princess garnering yet another roll of the eyes, we all piled into the carriage. As I stepped up my left leg buckled, I quickly caught myself and scooted on inside. Once the door was closed the carriage lurched into motion, looking out a window I saw Celestia turning to head back inside the castle which disappeared from my immediate view as we passed through the front gate and turned the corner.

“So…” I began, turning back to face the others, though I stopped when I noticed Twilight and Applejack both looking at me with concern. “What’s up?”

“Are ya’ll okay sugarcube?” asked Applejack.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I replied, albeit somewhat hesitantly.

“Well…” Twilight spoke, “When you were climbing into the carriage it looked like your leg almost gave out underneath you.”

“Oh, that,” I said, ‘They noticed…’ “It’s nothing you guys need to worry about, just a lingering side effect from some medication I used to take.”

“What was this medication?” Twilight inquired.

“A last resort acne treatment called accutane,” I replied.

Twilight started to nod in acceptance before she took on a serious expression, “Wait… what do you mean, ‘last resort’?”

I nonchalantly answered, “I mean ‘last resort’ as in it shouldn’t be taken if you can help it.”

“But why?” Twilight pressed.

“Well for one, doctors don’t know for certain how it works, just that it does. And two, it has an extraordinarily high number of possible side effects. The only ones I can remember are stiff and weak joints,” I indicated my knee, “Dry and flaking skin, a bleeding nose, rashes, psychosis, emotional instability, and varying degrees of depression sometimes leading to attempts at suicide.”

Everyone just stared at me with alarmed wide eyes.

"Good heavens dear, I can understand wanting to get rid of some dreadful acne, but whatever could possibly possess you to take such a terrible thing?” Rarity shuddered.

“I only took it because nothing else would work, and my acne was… pretty bad.”

Twilight asked, “Besides the evident problem with your knee, what other side effects did you experience?”

I rubbed the uneven stubble on my chin for a moment as I thought. “Well from the ones that I can remember… I know I didn’t get psychosis, and I never had and never will try to kill myself.”

“What’s psychosis?” Rainbow interrupted.

“A mental disorder where thoughts and emotions are impaired to the point where contact with reality is lost,” Twilight replied impatiently.

Zephyr copied my motion, rubbing his chin with a hoof. “So that leaves dry skin, nose bleeds, rashes…” he paused. “Emotional instability and depression?!”

“I’ve worked with depressed animals before, but you don’t show any of the same signs as they did,” Fluttershy stated, rather shocked with that revelation.

I gave a feeble chuckle, “I’m glad I’m able to hide at least one thing…”

“I thought I told ya not to hide your feelings,” Applejack scolded, “It ain’t healthy.”

“And just hiding behind fake happiness is even worse!” Twilight added forcefully.

“Now hold on a minute!” I started, interrupting the beginning of their joint lecture. “Back home I may have faked my smiles, but ever since I got here I’ve felt nothing but actual genuine happiness. Why do you think I dropped the issue of me getting hit by a car so easily?” my short pause filled with nothing but silent stares, “Because getting hit by that car and ending up in this world was the best thing to ever happen to me!”

The accusing glares of everyone’s concern from before had all softened a noticeable degree, though I thought Zephyr’s expression hinted more towards confusion at this point. I leaned back and said nothing, and no one else spoke for a time either. Finally a quiet voice spoke up.

“Do you… really mean that?” Fluttershy slowly asked.

I smiled and said, “Yeah. Now that I’m here I feel like I can finally start looking up.” I sighed. “Now that we’re on this topic… Princess Celestia probably told you how awful humans can be.” Everyone nodded aside from Zephyr who seemed to grow even more confused. “Well humans have also done plenty of good too. One man, Alexander Gram Bell, tried to invent a machine that could help his mother and sister who were both hard of hearing. Instead he accidentally created the first telephone, a device we can now use to talk to people from nearly anywhere around the world. The thing in my pocket that I said got ruined earlier, that was my phone,” I added as a side note. “We’ve made huge progress in the field of medicine and we’ve made massive scientific advances.”

“But what about the planet, aren’t humans destroying it?” Twilight inquired.

I nodded, “Yeah, but we’ve begun developing ways to cut back on pollution and there are tons of environmental protection movements. Though I still think that we’re a bit late with this, what with our population being well over six billion.”

“Six billion?!” Rainbow gaped, “And I thought a couple hundred thousand fans was a lot!”

Again, I noticed Zephyr scratching his head in ever increasing befuddlement.

I continued, “Still, there is a lot of greed in my world, but not all humans are selfish. Hell, my great grandfather died to save his friends life.”

“But you still hate your species even though they’re capable of good things like that. Why?” Fluttershy asked tilting her head, her expression showing that she was having some trouble understanding my views.

I shrugged, “I just found it hard to keep a positive outlook on life back home. Like I said before I don’t want to think about that stuff right now though.” I turned to Twilight, “So like I was about to ask earlier, how long until we get to Ponyville?”

There was a pause; everyone was just looking at me without saying anything. The silence started to feel slightly awkward until Twilight finally let out a sigh.

“Traveling by carriage takes a little while because of the winding road down the mountain,” Twilight replied. “I expect that we should arrive in Ponyville at around breakfast time tomorrow morning.”

“Really, that long?” I looked out the window of the carriage to see that we were out of the city now. Ahead the road curved away from the cliff, and looking out over this reminded me just how high we really were. “I suppose that makes sense… but what about lunch and supper?”

Applejack pointed at a cupboard underneath the bench she was laying on, “Don’t you worry ‘bout that. These guys are good with what they do.”

“These guys?” I questioned. Twilight was kind enough to fill me in.

“This carriage service. They operate out of the city and provide ponies with comfortable traveling accommodations to and from Canterlot.”

“Oh, I was wondering about the uniforms. But isn’t a whole day sort of a long time to be pulling a carriage full of passengers?”

Twilight shook her head, “It would be for most ponies, but this particular group takes great pride in their strength and stamina.”

“Oh I hope they hurry up, I can’t wait to get back so I can start putting everything together for your Welcome to Equestria party, that’ll definitely cheer you up!” Pinkie exclaimed excitedly.

Rainbow groaned, “We know already, you’ve been going on about that party all day now!”

“Wait, hold on just a second!” Zephyr interrupted loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. I took full notice of how confused he looked now as he turned to face me. “So… you’re saying that you’re not from anywhere in Equestria?”

“Eeyup,” I replied with a nod of my head.

“And that you’re actually from a different world?”

“Eeyup,” another nod.

“And you were hit by something called a ‘car’? I don’t know what that is, but from the way you said it that sounds pretty bad.”

“A car is a four thousand pound self propelled metal carriage that moves at fifty kilometers an hour,” Pinkie quickly interrupted.

“Uh-Eeyup?” I half stated as I cast a stupefied expression her way.

I didn’t notice that Applejack was practically staring daggers at me by now.

Zephyr looked at me in shock, “Really? And you’re still alive?!”

“Maybe,” I said easily. “But there’s nothing I can do about that anymore, so it’s not really a big deal.”

He quieted down even as he muttered under his breath, “Of course it’s a big deal…” After a slight pause he suddenly spoke up again, “I heard somepony mention something about fans?”

My heart jumped as I left the question hanging, ‘Damn! I didn’t want anyone else to find out about the show, and I didn’t tell any of them that. I hope no one says any-‘

Rainbow started to reply, “In Matt’s world we-“

“Hey Rainbow, did you know that Zephyr here is the one who set the old record at the barracks even though this is only his first week on the job?” I quickly interrupted.

“Really?” Rainbow’s eyes sparked with interest as her train of thought was suddenly derailed.

“Um… well, yeah,” Zephyr replied while rubbing the back of his head.

As they dove into a conversation about their own flying and agility achievements I thought, ‘Whoa, dodged that bullet.’

“What was that about?” Twilight asked slightly perplexed by my sudden aversion.

“Yeah, Rainbow was just answering his question,” Applejack added.

I leaned in closer so Rainbow and Zephyr couldn’t hear, “I don’t really want anyone else to know about that. How did you guys feel when you first found out?”

Twilight thought for a moment, “I guess I was unnerved somewhat. I mean, suddenly finding out that in some other world we’re nothing but a… oh, I see what you mean.”

“I guess I can understand that. I just don’t like hiding things from other ponies,” Applejack mumbled.

I turned to Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie, “So what do you three say?”

“I won’t say anything,” Fluttershy replied. “I know it scared me when the Princess first told us, and I can only imagine how other ponies would react.”

“Not to worry darling, my lips are sealed,” Rarity said with an understanding smile.

Pinkie just went through the silent motions of zipping her lips, digging at the floor of the carriage and dropping something into said hole, covering the hole and tracing the outline of a generic house.

“Pinkie, I don’t think he understands what that’s supposed to mean,” Twilight said exasperatedly.

“You moved into the house you built on top of the hole that you buried the key in, got it. Thanks Pinkie,” I chuckled.

As Pinkie burst into a fit of giggling and both Rarity and Fluttershy suppressed giggles of their own, Twilight simply brought her hoof to her face.

“Now that’s just a might bit creepy iffen you ask me,” Applejack bluntly stated.

“Sorry, I’ll tone it down,” I replied sheepishly.

As the day drew on, I occupied myself by gazing out the window at the passing scenery. I nodded off into a light sleep a couple times, just like during long car rides back home. The others were wrapped up in their own conversations, and Rainbow and Zephyr were still talking away. At some point they pulled out some lunch, I didn’t join in seeing as I still wasn’t hungry.

“You’ve been awfully quiet all this time dear, is something the matter?” My attention was pulled away from the window by Rarity’s question.

“No, just thinking and watching the scenery go by. It’s always the same for me on trips like this,” I replied regarding the fashionista.

“I understand what you mean, but surely joining in on our conversation would be much more enjoyable than simply staring out a window all day.”

I nodded in agreement. “I suppose you’re right. Sorry, old habits die hard I guess.”

Rarity smiled to herself, then brought a hoof to her chin and gave a small pout as her focus turned to my clothing. “I’ve been thinking, your attire seems rather… dark. I imagine you would look rather dashing in blues and greens instead of black, something to bring out the colour in your eyes.”

I chuckled. “It figures, the day I choose to wear black is the one day I meet someone that actually comments about it.” Rarity gave me a quizzical look. “This shirt, my sweater and my jacket are the only black things I own. Everything else is blue and red.”

She hummed thoughtfully to herself, “Yes, I suppose I can see red working for you as well.” Her gaze then fell to my jacket. “That looks rather warm for this time of year.”

Twilight took this chance to join in on our conversation. “His jacket? Oh right, I remember him wearing it when he first arrived.” She glanced at my jacket as well. “I had originally thought you were wearing it because of the lack of fur covering your body, but you’ve just been carrying it around with you all day.”

“Yeah, this is my winter jacket. Right now it should be near the end of January back home.”

“Really?” Twilight gained an intrigued look, “Well its November here. November twelfth to be exact… so that would mean the time between our worlds differs by approximately two and a half months. That’s fascinating.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask about that actually. This is the fall, right?” Both Twilight and Rarity nodded. “Back home, the trees would be pretty much bare of leaves by now…” The two unicorn mares gave me a somewhat bewildered stare. “Remember Twilight, I said there are no pegasi to change the weather back where I’m from.” Twilight nodded again in confirmation. “Well it’s basically the same thing, the leaves all fall naturally back home.”

“Oh,” Twilight looked thoughtful. “Well, here in Equestria there’s a big race every year called ‘The Running of the Leaves.’ Anypony who wants to participate in it can run, and that’s how the leaves fall.”

“I know that,” I replied, pointing out the window with my thumb. “But still, shouldn’t the leaves at least be changing colour by now?”

“Not here in Equestria darling,” Rarity stated. “The leaves on the trees won’t begin to change their colour until the last two weeks of autumn or so.”

I hummed contemplatively to myself, “Things a lot more different that I thought it would be here.”

The two of them managed to draw me out of my silent thoughts and into conversation with the rest of the group, and as such the time went by much more quickly, just as Rarity said it would. Before I knew it, everyone had finished eating dinner and had turned in for the night.

I crept my way to the other side of the carriage so I could gaze out at the moon, careful to not step on the sleeping form of Zephyr. He and I had quickly opted for sleeping on the floor to allow the girls the comfort of the benches with their soft velvet cushions.

All in all, today had gone much better than I could have hoped, and I was positive that tomorrow would be even better.

I awoke to someone roughly shaking me. Lifting my head off the wooden floor of the carriage I saw Pinkie looking down at me with a wide grin.

“Wakey wakey sleepy head! We’re almost there!”

Pushing myself off the floor I saw that everyone else was already up and looking out the window. As I joined them I could see that the sun was already a fair distance above the horizon, and I could just make out the roofs of houses start to poke up over a small hill.

It wasn’t much longer until we arrived at Ponyville. As soon as we all exited the carriage Pinkie predictably took off in a blur.

Zephyr turned to me and said, “The Princess rented out an apartment for me to stay in while I’m here. I’m just going to head on over and settle in, maybe grab a bite to eat and get to know the place better. I’ll come find you sometime tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”

“Alright Zephyr, I’ll talk to you later then,” I said with a wave as he trotted off.

He didn't make it very far before turning back around with a sheepish grin. "Um... could somepony please point me in the direction of Whitetail Lodgings?"

"Just follow this main street to the Town Hall. When you're there take a left by the flower shop and head all the way down the street to the park. You should see the building near the end of the street," Twilight said. "Though if you can't find it, there is a map posted just outside the Town Hall that should be able to help you."

"Alright, thanks." And with that he trotted around us and headed in a direction nearly opposite his original course.

After sharing a quick laugh I turned to the others I asked, “So what now?”

“Well we didn’t have breakfast yet, but it’s already pretty late in the morning so we could go for a quick snack,” Twilight said. “Then we should probably decide on where you’ll be staying.”

“Oh! He can stay with me!” Rainbow said excitedly as she grabbed my arm and began dragging my away.

“Um… shouldn’t we get something to eat first?” Fluttershy spoke up.

“I’m not really hungry,” I said. “Actually now that I think about it… I haven’t needed to eat much of anything since I got here.”

“Hmm,” Twilight put her hoof to her chin. “Do you think that it has something to do with your… situation?”

“Probably, but there’s no way we can find out,” I replied.

“Great!” Rainbow said, “We’ll just swing by my place then. I’ll grab a quick bite to eat back home.” And with that she sped off, half dragging half carrying me through Ponyville.

As ponies and buildings flew bye I could just barely make out the curious stares of some of the ponies we passed.

“Hey Rainbow!” I called over the sound of rushing air. “I don’t think I’ll be able to stand on clouds!”

“We’ll never know until you try!” was her immediate response.

Just a moment later, I found myself being dragged upwards and away from the ground towards a large stationary cloud. Rainbow Dash stopped our ascent in front of her house. It was a magnificent structure, pure white and made almost entirely out of sculpted clouds. Large Roman columns fronted the house and a couple rainbow waterfalls cascaded downwards and dissipated below.

“This… is incredible!” I exclaimed.

“I know right?” Rainbow boasted. “I had it moved down here from Cloudsdale, being the head weather pegasus for Ponyville does have its perks.”

“I have to agree with you there…” the sight left me near speechless.

“Well come on in, you can look around while I grab something to eat.”

She lowered me towards the cloud her home rested on and dropped me the last few inches. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I definitely wasn’t expecting my vision to go completely white. For the short duration of a few seconds my sight was limited to a white blindness, but just as suddenly as my surroundings disappeared all the colour returned to the world around me. I was falling towards the ground at an alarming rate. Thankfully before I could let out a shout of terror, I felt a pair of hooves grab me under my flailing arms.

Rainbow brought me slowly to the ground and deposited me gently on the grass.

“That was… fun,” I stated quite shakily.

“Sorry about that, I guess you can’t stand on clouds,” she said slightly downcast.

“Don’t worry about it, at least we know now.”

“You’re right,” Rainbow’s head popped up. “Hey! Maybe Twilight can use that walk on clouds spell on you!”

I shook my head, “Resistant to magic, remember?”

“Oh yeah…” she trailed off.

“We’ll think of something,” I replied. “I’ll just wait here for you to finish.”

“Fine, be back in a few seconds,” Rainbow said as she took off again.

I decided to lie down on the grass and watch the clouds drift by. It wasn’t much longer until I was approached by someone. Fully expecting Rainbow Dash I was surprised to see Pinkie standing with her face nearly pressed up against mine.

She dropped an envelope on my lap and quickly said, “Here’s your invitation! Although I guess you don’t really need an invitation to your own party… It’s at Sugarcube Corner in one hour, don’t be late!”

And with that she was gone in yet another pink blur. Picking up the invitation to look at it more closely I saw some writing on the front of the envelope; it was very loopy and flowing, very reminiscent of cursive writing. I couldn’t make out what it said so I opened the envelope and took out the card. Some glittering confetti fell from the card as I opened it, and I saw more of that same writing.

I stared at the unreadable words for a moment longer before I exasperatedly exclaimed, “I can’t read Equestrian!”

Chapter 9: A Dizzying Party

~Chapter 9 - A Dizzying Party~

“Gah!” groaning loudly I flopped backwards onto the grass. ‘That’s just great, now I need to learn Equestrian…’

I remained there, absently looking over the invitation and the written words that I couldn’t understand. I stayed like that for about a minute at most, and then I was shaken back to reality by Rainbow’s sudden return.

“Alright, so what do you want to…” she trailed off, noticing the card in my hand. “What’s that?”

“An invitation to my party, Pinkie popped over to deliver it,” I said handing it over to her. “But I can’t understand a word of it.”

Rainbow gave a light laugh as she took it, “Yeah, Pinkie can be a bit hard to understand sometimes.”

“I mean I can’t read it. I can’t read Equestrian,” I sighed.

“What? But we’re speaking Equestrian right now,” Rainbow tilted her head in confusion.

“In my world it’s called English, but yeah… I guess we write it differently though,” I said as I pulled the front of my sweater together. “Like this here says ‘Dalhousie’, it’s the name of the University I go to. Actually, I’m surprised no one noticed it before.”

“Oh, that’s a word?” Rainbow responded, “I thought that it was some sort of weird design.”

I shrugged, “I guess I’ll ask Twilight for some help later. For now we need to find something to do though, Pinkie said that the party won’t be starting for another hour.”

Rainbow hut her hoof to her chin in thought, “Well… an hour doesn’t give us much time to do anything. I guess I could give you a quick tour of Ponyville, show you where the others live. Unless you already know where everything is from that show thing.”

I shook my head, “The show left direction and location pretty vague. All I really know for certain is that Fluttershy’s cottage is somewhere next to the Everfree Forest.”

She clapped her hooves together, “Then it’s settled, let’s get to it!”

Before I knew it, Rainbow Dash had grabbed me under the arms and was lifting me off the ground, and I found myself speeding back in the direction we came. This time though, Rainbow kept the pace down to a reasonable level so I could actually take in my surroundings and not be deafened by the rushing air.

“We’ll finish with Sugarcube Corner, since we’re headed there afterwards anyway,” she said after we were under way.

Even as my head swiveled back and forth I nodded in acceptance with the plan, not that Rainbow noticed.

I didn’t pay any mind to the glances and stares of the ponies lining the streets as my attention was focused on where we were going and the surrounding houses and buildings, the majority of which were built in the same style. Almost all the houses I saw reminded me of wooden English cottages with straw thatched roofs, though a few had clay tile or wood shake shingles instead of the regular straw. Flower boxes hung from many front windows, but despite the seeming similarities between homes they all had their own unique look to them.

The first stop on the tour was the Town Hall. I shouldn’t really call it a stop though, since Rainbow slowed down only enough to allow me to become oriented and quickly examine the circular wooden building. It had a balcony circling the entire structure and a pointed red roof.

From there I was carried off towards Sweet Apple Acres. Once there, I saw the familiar red farmhouse with a purple roof, on top of which was an apple shaped weather vane. Around the farmhouse were a few small fields of corn and cabbages, and on a hill a distance behind the barn was a smaller orange house surrounded by a patch of what looked like carrots. All around this however, was the massive, sprawling, apple orchard, extending as far as I could see over the nearby hills. Again not staying for very long, the two of us were speeding back towards town. I thought I saw Big Macintosh working down below but I couldn’t get a clear enough glimpse to know for certain.

Barreling past the Town Hall once again, Rainbow flew me around the lavishly designed Carousel Boutique. The sun reflected painfully into my eyes off the large circular windows on either side of the front door, and the last thing I saw before I had to rub my watering eyes was the pennant atop the boutique’s pink roof swaying gently in the breeze.

Aside from Rainbow Dash’s cloud home, the Ponyville library had to be my favourite structure. It was carved into a large, still living tree; the front door was red with a lit candle painted onto it. A couple windows and balconies could be seen poking out through the tree’s foliage. Pinkie was hopping towards the library; she knocked on the door and turned to wave at us with a giggle. The door opened revealing the library’s resident and librarian, Twilight. As Rainbow sped away I saw Pinkie hand Twilight an invitation and bounce happily away.

Our last stop before the party was Fluttershy’s cottage. On the way to her front door a bridge spanned a small gently flowing stream. Birds were chirping and flitting around as small animals scurried all about, several occupied bird houses hung from trees nearby. Just the outside of the cottage seemed cozy and pleasant, and if the show was any indication then the inside was even more so. Rainbow Dash lowered me to the ground and touched down herself. Looking beyond the cottage and across what little of the back yard that was visible from where I stood I could see the edge of the Everfree Forest.

Rotating my stiff arms to get the blood circulating once again, I asked, “So why does Fluttershy live so close to the forest if it’s such a dangerous place?”

Rainbow shrugged, “Beats me. All she said was that some of the animals she takes care of like eagles are predators, so they have to hunt for their food. She said they hunt at the edge of the forest.” She turned to me, “You don’t sound like you’re scared of the place,” and quickly added, “Not that I am or anything!”

I laughed, “I’m not really. Clouds moving on their own and animals caring for themselves? That is my world; no one can control the weather, and why try to take care of animals when they already do such a good job of it?”

Rainbow cast me a very shocked look.

I continued, “Although, the most dangerous creatures we have back home are things like wolves, bears, and poisonous snakes… depending on where you live in the world. We don’t have any hydras, Ursas, manticores, cockatrices, or anything of the sort.”

“Well no wonder you’re world isn’t as dangerous as the Everfree Forest,” Rainbow boldly stated. She then looked at the sky, “Well, if we want to be on time for you party we should probably start walking to Sugarcube Corner now.”

“Wait, how can you tell how long it’s been? You don’t have a watch,” I inquired.

She shrugged again, “You get used to it after a while. I usually just look at where the sun is in the sky.”

“Well I can’t stand not having a watch,” I groaned. “It ran out of power even before I got to Equestria.”

Rainbow gave a small shrug, “Anyway, we should probably get a move on.”

Nodding my agreement, we set off towards Sugarcube Corner with Rainbow Dash leading the way.

Rainbow took the time during our walk to ask me about the kinds of things I did back home for fun. Indulging her curiosity, I listed what I could think of. There were video games, playing the piano and the fiddle, reading and how I recently got into writing. Camping, biking, hiking, diving, tennis, water skiing and downhill skiing, and finally finishing off with martial arts, Tae Kwon Do specifically.

I had to pause to answer a few questions about water skiing and video games, the rest of the time she listened with an eager gleam in her eyes.

“It definitely sounds like you know how to have a good time, so I guess I can ignore egghead-ish reading,” Rainbow remarked once I finished. “Hey, since you’re a martial artist too we totally need to spar each other sometime.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said silently chuckling to myself. ‘The Last Roundup’ was the last episode I saw before coming to Equestria, but I could still recall the episode synopsis of an upcoming episode called ‘Read it and Weep’. “…Wait, what’s that about sparring?”

“You know. Me and you, two martial artists sparring each other.” Rainbow replied. “That reminds me, what belt do you have? I’m a black belt in Karate,” she finished while puffing out her chest proudly.

‘Really?… oh yeah! She had a black belt on when Applebloom was trying Karate in ‘Call of the Cutie’…’ “I tried Karate once. I managed to get an orange belt, but that fighting style just felt weird to me. I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do though.”

“Seriously? Finally somepony I can go all out against, this is going to be so awesome!” Rainbow said excitedly.

“Hold on a second,” I said raising my hands. “That sparring match is going to have to wait then, I haven’t really been training for over a year now.”

“Oh,” she replied somewhat disheartened. Though she immediately cheered up, “Well then I guess it’s up to me to get you back into shape. We’ll start tomorrow morning!”

“Sounds good to me,” I replied with an easy laugh.

The rest of the walk went by in silence, the duration of which I spent looking around at the few ponies still wandering around. ‘Strange, I could have sworn that there were more here earlier,’ I thought to myself while ignoring the scattered looks of curiosity.

Sugarcube Corner was just coming into view now, and Rainbow took this moment to ask one last question before our arrival.

“So why do you have my cutie mark on your shirt?”

“Because you were my favourite character in the show,” I simply stated.

She held her head high with a smile. But her expression turned serious again as she voiced another question, “Were?”

“Well I can’t have a favourite with me actually being here now can I?”

Rainbow laughed, “I guess not. So why was I your favourite?”

“Because you remind me of my favourite type of person,” I replied. “Someone who isn’t afraid to give their all for what they love to do in life, someone who takes their skills to the edge, all so they can be the best they can be.”

Rainbow jabbed a hoof playfully at my shoulder and said with a smile, and a faint blush, “Thanks for the compliment.”

“No problem,” I replied with my own smile.

Not long after we were standing at the front door of Sugarcube Corner. The building was silent and I could only see an inky black through the windows. ‘I wonder what this is all about…’ I thought sarcastically to myself as I reached for the doorknob. I opened the door and stepped into the dark entranceway, Rainbow two steps behind me.

“I’m here!” I called out into the dark. “Anypony here?”

Suddenly light flooded the sweetshop and a collective shout of “Surprise!” sounded throughout the building.

I yelped in shock as I jumped backwards, almost tripping over Rainbow Dash. Expecting it made the surprise no less startling. I stood there trying to steady my heart rate even as Pinkie bounced over.

“Hi Matt, I’m so glad you were able to make it to your Welcome to Equestria party. Were you surprised? Were you?” not once did she end her tireless bouncing.

Pinkie was the only pony moving, everyone else was staring at me with varying degrees of curiosity. I thankfully noted that there were no frightened or cautious expressions anywhere.

“You surprised me all right,” I replied after finally regaining my composure.

Pinkie pumped a fore hoof as she exclaimed, “Yes, Pinkie Pie’s still got it!” Turning back to face the motionless crowd she announced, “This is Matthew, or Matt. He’s new to Equestria so everypony give him a warm welcome!” and with that she sprang off to liven up the party.

I gave a quick bow as I said, “It’s nice to meet you all, I wasn’t expecting so many to show up with such short notice.”

I heard an amused Applejack call out from somewhere in the crowd, “Again with the fancy bowin’?”

I grinned, “Like I said before, it’s a habit.”

With the semi awkward silence now broken, ponies slowly began to take Pinkie’s lead and have some fun, some began approaching me with warm welcomes and introductions.

Now that the party was officially underway, Rainbow had disappeared into the crowd to join in on the fun leaving me standing in the doorway. My eyes scanned back and forth across what looked like everyone in Ponyville in an attempt to find the familiar lavender coat of Twilight. My search gradually became easier as the party guests began to spill out onto the street, the interior of Sugarcube Corner just wasn’t large enough to host a party this size. As exiting ponies passed me some of them offered their hooves in greeting while most continued giving simple yet warm welcomes to Ponyville and Equestria. One mare in particular, a certain mint green unicorn with a light blue and white striped mane and tail and a lyre for a cutie mark, gave me a very enthusiastic hug in passing.

Eventually I spotted Twilight standing beside a punch bowl talking to an earth pony I recognized as Cheerilee, so I made my way towards the two of them.

Twilight greeted me when she noticed me approaching, “Oh, hi Matt. I’d like you to meet Cheerilee.”

I extended my hand, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. You’re the teacher at the Ponyville schoolhouse right?”

Cheerilee lifted her hoof and shook my outstretched hand, “It’s nice to meet you too Matthew. How did you know that I’m a teacher?”

“Twilight mentioned you during our carriage ride here,” I quickly replied, receiving a quizzical look from the unicorn before her expression changed to one of understanding.

“I see,” Cheerilee said, seemingly satisfied with my improvised answer. “So how are you enjoying Ponyville so far?”

“Well… other than almost falling to my death after trying to stand on a cloud and discovering that I can’t read Equestrian, I’d say that this place is truly amazing.”

“You almost fell to your death?” Twilight repeated while shooting me an alarmed look.

“The key word is ‘almost’. I’m fine now so no worries,” I gave a slight shrug.

Twilight sighed, “So was there anything you—wait, you can’t read Equestrian?”

I shook my head, “Not a word, I was hoping you’d be able to help me out. At first I was thinking about asking you Cheerilee, but then I remembered that you’re already busy enough with school.”

Cheerilee just laughed, “Don’t be silly, I’d love to teach you. Besides,” she directed an amused smile at Twilight who lowered her head with a sheepish grin. “After what happened last time, I don’t think Twilight here would be the best choice for a teacher.”

“Why, what happened?”

“A couple months ago I filled in for Cheerilee at the schoolhouse while she was out sick. Only five minutes into my lecture I turned away from the chalkboard to see that everypony was asleep.” Cheerilee’s attempt at stifling her laughter made Twilight pause in her explanation. “After that, everypony kind of decided that I shouldn’t be teaching.”

“Ah, I see,” I said while trying to stifle my own laughter and receiving a flat glare from Twilight, who was somewhat amused nevertheless. Forcing myself to calm down I asked Cheerilee, “So when can I start my lessons?”

“Well today is Saturday, so you can have tomorrow to get to know Ponyville better. Why don’t you come to the schoolhouse on Monday? I’m sure the children would like to meet you too.”

“Sounds good to me,” I replied. “What time should I show up?”

“School starts at nine o’clock on the dot. Don’t be late,” she replied.

“I’ll be there fifteen minutes early,” I replied. Turning back to Twilight I said, “I’ll see you in a bit then, I’m going to go enjoy the party now.”

“Alright, just keep an eye out for Pinkie and Rainbow. They’re known to pull lots of pranks during these parties,” Twilight said in warning.

I laughed and started to turn, however I stopped in midstride and brought my hands to my face. The room began to spin rapidly as a strong dizziness set in and my body began to feel incredibly weak. Pulling a hand away from my face I noted that it was shaking violently.

Through the loud ringing in my ears I could faintly hear Twilight’s concerned voice, “Matthew, What’s wrong? You don’t look well at all.”

I didn’t respond, I couldn’t even manage to force any words out of my mouth. I reached my hand towards the table to steady myself, but I found myself falling forwards instead. I collapsed against the table knocking it over onto the floor beside me, the punch bowl shattering on the hardwood a few feet away.

Everything that moment became a jumbled blur, I was incapable of forming a single thought. The only thing I was aware of was an unidentifiable and very irritating beeping sound.

Eventually the room stopped spinning and my body stopped shaking. I pushed myself weakly into a sitting position, and now that I could clearly see again I noticed that I was surrounded by what looked like almost everypony at the party. Not a smile could be seen on any face as they stared at me in concern.

Noticing a hoof on my shoulder I turned to look into the worried face of Fluttershy.

“I think I’m alright now,” I gave her a smile, though it didn’t look like she believed me. “Although,” I said aloud so everyone could hear. “Did anypony happen to hear an annoying beeping sound just now?”

Some of the gathered ponies began muttering to each other, but all I got as a response was a no.

“I was with you nearly the whole time, but I didn’t hear anything.” Fluttershy said.

“That’s strange,” I replied. ‘I could have sworn that I heard something beeping. That sound seemed familiar for some reason.’ Coming out of my thoughts I asked, “So how long was I out for?”

“Only for a few minutes,” Fluttershy answered. “I heard a crashing sound and when I came over I saw you lying on the floor and shaking, and you wouldn’t respond to anything anypony said to you.”

“Well I’m all better now, so no worries,” I said while standing up, already feeling my strength coming back.

“Are you sure? I mean, don’t you think you should rest for a little while?” Fluttershy urged giving me quite the concerned look.

Her face was so incredibly cute I found it hard to disagree with her, nevertheless I announced, “No rest needed, I’m fine now. That’s never happened before and probably won’t happen again, so let’s get this party rolling!”

Suddenly Pinkie jumped out of the crowd and shouted, “You heard the man, it’s time to get dancing!”

The circle of ponies around me dispersed and everyone went back to enjoying themselves, though Fluttershy remained by my side.

“Aren’t you going to join in?” I asked.

“Um, actually I was planning on staying with you. You know… just to make sure that you are all better,” she replied quietly.

“Fine by me,” I said. “Let’s go get some cake.”

It was then I noticed that my shirt felt sort of wet, looking down I noticed that it was damp from the punch that I knocked over. The mess was already cleaned up and the table set upright, I assumed that someone cleaned up while I was out of it. Taking off my punch soaked sweater and shirt I discarded them along with my backpack and jacket in a corner and elected to go the rest of the party topless.

Fluttershy did exactly as she said she would and stuck by my side. We grabbed a few slices of cake and some punch from a second bowl, and once I was loaded up with all I could carry I decided to make my way back into the heart of the party where it looked as though everyone was having the time of their lives. Fluttershy however surprised me and demanded that we find some place a little quieter to sit for a little while, and not willing to refuse a request coming from such a normally timid pony, I immediately complied.

Fluttershy guided me to a table set up just outside where we sat down on a couple small wooden stools. The autumn air was a little chill against my bare skin, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

Fluttershy, stumbling over her words at first, struck up a conversation. Back during our breakfast with the Princess, she had heard Celestia mention that I was studying to be a marine biologist, Fluttershy was eager to talk about this topic of common interest, and I was happy to indulge her interest.

Somewhere along the way we got to talking about our pets. Fluttershy said her pet bunny, Angel, was a sweet pet. He may seem rude and hard to deal with to other ponies, and sure he was at times, but most of the time he was just being protective. In turn I told her about my two dogs Sam, and the older of the two Abbie. They're both incredibly intelligent and sociable, though Sam is a bit on the energetic side and sometimes runs away when he gets board. Fluttershy especially liked the fact that Sam would sometimes 'sing' to my piano playing, howling out the tune to the song from underneath the bench.

At one point during our conversation, my attention was drawn completely away from Fluttershy when a white pegasus stallion walked by. With little angry looking red eyes, tiny wings, and what had to be the most muscular body I've ever seen on a pony, my mind pretty much went blank to match my stunned face. 'How have I never seen him before?!'

"Um... is something wrong?" Fluttershy asked, a hint of worry creeping into her voice. When I pointed out what drew my gaze Fluttershy giggled softly, "Oh, that's just Snowflake. Ponies seeing him for the first time tend to have the same reaction."

I slowly turned back to Fluttershy and gave her a quick 'are you serious' look. 'Snowflake, really? I think Roid Rage would suit him better!'

We spoke for a little while longer, resuming now that the interruption disappeared back inside Sugarcube Corner. Eventually our conversation finally ended and Fluttershy said I should be fine on my own now. Not that I didn't enjoy talking with her, it's just that I'm not really much of a conversationalist. We headed back inside where the majority of the guests were partying, and Fluttershy left to try and find Rarity.

Skirting the wall I looked around for the first thing to catch my interest. My concentration on my task however was broken and I released a startled yell, attracting looks of shock from the party guests, looks that quickly turned into expressions showing stifled laughter. A certain baby alligator had jumped out of the potted plant by the doorway and latched himself onto my arm. I struggled to remove the reptile to no avail, eventually giving up I decided to just go with it. Turning back to the party I jumped in to join the first activity I saw, 'hoof wrestling'... and lo and behold the two ponies going at it were Applejack and Rainbow Dash. 'My arm's going to be sore after this.'

Surprisingly, the party lasted for pretty much the entire day. Other than having Gummy clamped onto my arm for a full hour, the party went pretty normally afterwards… well, as normal as one of Pinkie’s parties could be, and ended without incident. Eventually the guests all began to disperse and head home for the evening, leaving Twilight, Rainbow, Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, Fluttershy and I alone at Sugarcube Corner.

“That was amazing!” I exclaimed while still rubbing my aching shoulder, 'I called it.' “You really do throw the best parties Pinkie.”

“Thanks Mattie,” Pinkie giggled. “I am the premier party pony of Ponyville after all.”

“Point conceded,” I said with a grin.

Fluttershy spoke up, “It’s starting to get dark. We should probably start heading home soon.”

“Fluttershy’s right,” Twilight nodded. “Which brings up a question, where is Matt going to stay?”

“He can’t walk on clouds, so he can’t crash at my place…” Rainbow grumbled.

“You’re welcome at the farm anytime,” Applejack said. “But the family’d want me to introduce ya to them first.”

“And I need to clean up this big mess, sorry Mattie,” Pinkie added apologetically.

“What about you Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.

“Oh I’d love to let Matthew stay the night, it would give me more time to make sure he’s alright and won't have another... whatever that was. But Angel doesn’t like me bringing strangers home after dark,” she replied meekly.

Rarity spoke up, “Matthew can stay at my place for tonight. As you can see,” she pointed to the sticky clothes hanging from my arm, “His clothes are in desperate need of washing.” She gasped as her eyes seemed to glimmer, “Oh, and this would be the perfect opportunity for me to get the measurements I need to make you some new clothing!”

“Is that alright with you?” Twilight asked me.

“Of course it is,” I replied honestly.

“Alright then, now that that’s settled I think I’ll head back to the library now. I am pretty tired, and I think I ate too much cake.”

And with that we all said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways.

As Rarity and I made our way back to her house, Rarity began giving voice to some of the ideas she had for my new clothes.

“You do realize that I have no way to pay for anything right?” I stated more than asked.

“Payment darling? Please, this is a gift. I require no such thing from you.”

I sighed knowing full well that this was something that she wouldn’t budge on, “Fine. But I will find a way to eventually pay you back regardless.”

“Now what did I just—“ Rarity began before I cut her off.

“Not just you. I’m going to find a way to pay everyone back. You all just met me and you’ve already done so much to help me out. My conscience would just kill me if I didn’t try to do something in return.”

“Well that’s quite the barbaric way to phrase things,” Rarity replied, smiling nevertheless. “Although, that is quite the disposition of a gentlecolt if I do say so myself.”

I dipped into a bow, receiving a chuckle from the white unicorn.

When we arrived at Carousel Boutique Rarity informed me that Sweetie Belle would probably be asleep by now. Sure enough, upon entering the boutique I saw Rarity’s little sister sleeping on a couch. Rarity gave a warm smile; her horn glowed with a soft blue light as she gently levitated Sweetie off the couch and onto her back and took her up to her room. A few minutes later she returned with a measuring tape.

Levitating my shirt and sweater out of my arms and into a laundry basket Rarity said, “Let us get started now shall we?”

It was a good half hour at least before Rarity finished, during which Rarity occupied herself by asking much of the same questions that Rainbow had earlier in the afternoon. While Rainbow was more interested in my physical or ‘extreme’ hobbies, Rarity took a greater liking to my instrument playing. Setting the measuring tape off to the side she guided me to a guest room. Inside there was a four poster bed with royal purple sheets and a white feather pillow opposite the doorway. A full body mirror stood off in a corner, and just like in my cell in the Canterlot dungeon I was granted the soft illumination of the moon in the now night sky.

Rarity left after saying something about catching up on some beauty sleep, leaving me once again to my thoughts in a silent moonlit room. Already shirtless I decided to go to bed as I was. Even though I was exhausted from the past two days events: showing up the Royal Guard at the barracks, a long carriage ride, a fast paced tour through Ponyville, and the greatest party I have ever experienced, my fatigue did not keep me from my nightly meditation.

I slid my backpack off my shoulder and dropped it and my jacket in a corner. Sitting on the edge of the bed and crossing my legs, I took a deep breath and tried once again to clear my head. Perhaps it was from how tired I was, but my mind seemed pretty quiet tonight. Thoughts about how I collapsed at the party popped into being now and again, but since I had no way to explain it I let those go. I don’t know how long I sat there for, lost in the steady rhythm of my breathing, but suddenly something clicked. Like once before I could feel the presence of everyone nearby. Sweetie Belle was sleeping somewhere near the end of the hall and Rarity was busy working on something down in the shop.

As suddenly as that state of mind set in, I was jarred back to my senses be the surprise of the sensation. I lay down on the bed with a content smile, now positive that what I experienced before wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.

One last thought went through my mind before I drifted off into a tranquil sleep, ‘I thought you said you were going to bed, Rarity.’

Chapter 10: A Minor Detail

AN: Finally, an actual new chapter. I'm not overly happy about it, though that's probably because I've been trying to write it for way too long now. Anyway, I'll be taking a quick break... don't give me that look, I mean a week. I know everything I'm going to include in this story now, I'm just not sure about the order, so I'll take a bit of time to sort that out and give myself some sense of actual structure. Hopefully that'll make writing easier.

~Chapter 10 – A Minor Detail~

I knelt on the soft red carpet before the throne dressed in a neat navy blue blazer with golden coloured buttons and cufflinks. Several guards lined the walls of the room, and Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity were all gathered nearby. I knew someone else was standing close by, though I couldn’t see them from my current position, I could still see the expressions of everyone else gathered though. Looks of surprise adorned the faces of each and every individual present, even the Princess of the Sun who stood before me gave me a surprised yet warm smile. A scabbard hung from my belt and a sword rested across upturned palms extended towards the Princess, though for some unknown reason I was incapable of focusing on the details of these objects.

Princess Celestia regarded me for a moment longer. Finally she opened her mouth to speak, but in place of her melodious and uplifting voice a high pitched scream escaped her throat.

Startled out of my dream I awoke with flailing arms, getting caught up in the bed sheets and falling unceremoniously to the floor. I pulled the sheets off my head just in time to see a white and pink blur dart out the door and around the corner, the sound of hooves hurriedly beating against the floor pounded at my still groggy senses.

‘Was that Sweetie Belle?’ I thought tiredly as I pulled myself to my feet.

Normally I’d leave my bed the way it was when I woke up, but this was someone else’s house. Rarity’s to be specific, and I certainly didn’t want to leave a mess. Once I was finished I stumbled out of the room and down to the kitchen where I could smell something being made. I left my backpack back in the room with my jacket since its only purpose at this time was to hold my now useless possessions and my glasses.

Being nearsighted is somewhat irritating, but luckily I haven’t needed to use my glasses for anything since arriving in Equestria. I only wear them when driving and trying to read something far away, like in the large auditoriums where I had some of my classes back at Dalhousie. ‘Probably part of the reason why I didn’t discover that I can’t read Equestrian sooner.’

I never was a morning person so I was still half asleep when I arrived in the kitchen, though I did wake up considerably when I almost fell down the stairs. As I rounded the corner and stepped into the kitchen I flinched when I finally recognized the smell that led me down here. ‘I hate eggs…’ Sure enough, there was Rarity cooking the disgusting things, though her attention was mainly directed at Sweetie Belle, a young unicorn filly with a white coat and two toned pink mane.

Rarity’s head turned when she heard me stagger into the kitchen, “I’m terribly sorry for that wakeup call. I suppose I forgot to inform Sweetie Belle here that you weren’t a pony when I sent her to wake you for breakfast,” she said apologetically as she nudged her sister forwards.

“I’m sorry for screaming like that, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Sweetie Belle said with her gaze directed at the floor.

I forcefully rubbed my eyes, and after stifling a yawn and running a hand through my short hair I replied, albeit slightly slurred, “No worries. I never was a morning person, so anything that helps get me out of bed is welcome.” Once Sweetie Belle looked up I finished by saying, “Heck, I wouldn’t mind if I was kicked out of bed… or had something dropped on me.”

“So… you’re not mad?” she inquired hesitantly, hope slightly evident in her voice.

“Nope,” I said as I vigorously shook my head in an attempt to further wake myself.

I missed what Sweetie Belle said next as she quickly ran off to some other room; though I could tell from the way she moved that she was certainly happier.

“That was cute,” I said while rubbing my eyes again.

“Again, I’m truly sorry for that rude awakening,” Rarity spoke, turning back to the eggs now that the issue had been cleared up.

“And again I’m telling you don’t worry.”

Rarity shrugged, “Well all right then, if you insist that it really is no problem.” Her horn glowed as she levitated three plates onto the counter and transferred some egg onto each, “You can eat eggs, can you not?”

“Yeah, I can…” I grumbled. Rarity didn’t take any notice of my dour response; either that or she simply attributed it to my lingering drowsiness.

“Splendid,” Rarity replied, setting the plates on the kitchen table. The stench of eggs assaulted my nose once more. “Breakfast is ready now. We can start eating once Sweetie Belle returns, she just ran to get your shirt for you.”

Sure enough, not a minute later Sweetie Belle came back into the kitchen carrying my polo and sweater. I thanked her while pulling my shirt over my head. I was awake enough to think of keeping the cutie mark on my polo hidden, and after I slid both my arms into my sweater we all sat down to eat.

The first bite of my egg was enough to wake me completely, though I hid my disgust as best I could; I was just a guest after all.

I noticed that Sweetie Belle kept glancing at me with a curious expression and looked as though she wanted to say something. Eventually she spoke up, “Rarity still didn’t tell me what you are. So what are you?” and almost as an afterthought she added, “And where did you come from?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rarity cast an apprehensive look my way as I answered. “I’m a human, and I come from far away.”

“How far?” Sweetie persisted.

I thought for a moment before saying, “So far away that I can guarantee no one around here has ever heard of humans, not even Zecora.”

The young unicorn went slack jawed in surprise and I gave a slight chuckle.

Remembering last night before I went to bed, I said to Rarity, “I thought you said you were going straight to bed last night, not staying up and working.”

Rarity gave me a puzzled look, “To tell you the truth, I was planning on getting started on your new clothes, but Pinkie’s party was rather tiring so I decided to wait until today and headed off to bed.”

“Really?” I returned with a puzzled expression of my own. “I could have sworn I… heard someone down in the shop last night.” I hid the fact that I actually felt someone’s presence since I didn’t want Rarity to think I have something wrong with me. As far as I can tell, being able to do that isn’t exactly normal.

“Are you certain?” I nodded in response to Rarity’s question, and she turned to her sister. “Did you happen to come downstairs at all through the night?”

Sweetie Belle shook her head, “I was asleep all night.”

“Did you lock the front door before you went to bed?” I asked Rarity.

“Well, no… there isn’t much of a need to really. Besides, most ponies here in Ponyville don’t bother locking their doors at night.”

“You should probably take a look around later then, see if anything’s missing. Someone might have stolen something.”

“But theft is nearly unheard of here in Ponyville. What could possibly drive somepony here to steal?” Rarity stammered.

I shrugged and didn’t say anything even though I could list several reasons off the top of my head. Then again, some of those reasons may or may not apply with the peaceful lifestyle of most of Equestria’s residents… well, Ponyville’s anyway. I know next to nothing about anywhere else.

We finished the rest of our meal in relative silence, a silence that was soon broken by a loud knocking at the door.

Rarity left the kitchen to answer the door, irritably saying as she left, “Honestly, everypony should know that the boutique doesn’t open for another hour…”

The opening front door was announced with the ring of a bell, followed by a small cry of alarm from Rarity. I started towards the front of the boutique myself to see what the problem was, but soon found myself being bowled over by a cyan and rainbow blur before being picked up off the floor and quickly carried towards the front door.

“Time to start your training!” Rainbow laughed as we flew through the open door and past a bewildered Rarity.

“Thanks for letting me stay the night!” I hollered back before I was dragged out of earshot. I lifted my head to look at Rainbow Dash, “You know you don’t have to carry me.”

“The faster we get to the park the faster I can start whipping you into shape,” she replied quickly.

Once again I found myself sailing through the air along the streets of Ponyville, yet this time not nearly as many eyes were drawn to me and my abductor, although we did manage to startle Zephyr pretty badly as we flew past the town hall while he was busy examining a map of the town.

As soon as we reached Whitetail Park, Rainbow dropped me the short distance to the ground where I unceremoniously landed and rolled to a stop. Grumbling while climbing to my feet and rubbing the arm I landed on for a second time in two days, I staggered backwards as she landed right in front of me.

With an almost frightening look of eagerness in her eyes, Rainbow said with a grin, “Now, let’s get started!”

After one to two hours of nonstop running, pushups, sit-ups, and other such exercises, the duration of which Rainbow Dash had spent hovering beside me shouting words of… ‘encouragement,’ and occasionally joining in to get some exercise herself, I was stretching out my sore muscles while attempting to regain my long lost breath.

Rainbow was currently relaxing in the shade of a nearby tree. Her eager expression from earlier was replaced with one of mild disappointment. After some time she said with a slight groan, “This is going to take longer than I thought.”

“Maybe, maybe not…” I mumbled in response as I tried to wipe some sweat off my face. The workout she put me through had reminded me of just how much of my past physical abilities I had lost. The physical test that black belts in Tae Kwon Do are required to be able to run, at the club I went to anyway, consists of a run from a start point across to the other side of the dojang, approximately a thirty foot distance. Once there you need to do one hundred pushups and run back to the start. Run again, but instead of pushups you do sit-ups. Do that a few more times with jumping-jacks, squats, knees-up running on the spot, and stutter steps. And all this has to be finished in four minutes or you fail the test. ‘Oh well, I had it before, it should be easier to get it all back.’

Rainbow startled me out of my thoughts as she suddenly stood and said, “Well, I think I’m going to take a quick nap now. Catch ya later.” And with that she flapped her wings and propelled herself towards a large branch.

I slapped my face. Conveniently placed on the branch that the pegasus was now occupying was a fluffy white pillow. ‘When did she put that there?’

“Alright, I guess I’ll just…” I trailed off as the sound of snoring greeted my ears, “… leave now.” Sighing I pushed myself to my feet; my legs shook slightly as I stood. I cast a slightly amused look towards Rainbow and headed off along the dirt path.

With no plan in mind for the day, I simply began the short trek back towards Ponyville. I caught myself absently fiddling with the bone pendant around my neck, I wear it pretty much all the time so it’s no wonder that I forgot about having it with me. A carving from the Indonesian hill tribes that’s apparently supposed to bring the wearer protection and good fortune, bought in a small gift shop on Prince Edward Island. I’m not superstitious in the slightest, but I’d definitely say that it was fortunate for me to end up in Equestria… then again, getting hit by a car is quite the stroke of misfortune. No protection there.

My attention was drawn towards the sound of humming; it was quite the bubbly tune. The sound became slightly louder as the humming individual approached. I lifted my head to see who it was, and I couldn’t stop a large smile from creeping onto my face.

A very familiar pegasus mare was skipping down the road towards me, eyes closed and humming, seemingly without a care in the world. Her coat was grey and her mane was a bright golden blonde, and I could accurately guess that she had yellow eyes. A saddlebag was resting on her back, its empty pouches bouncing lightly against her sides. As she drew near I spoke up.

“Hello!” I flinched as I said my greeting a little louder than intended, and the pegasus mare stumbled to a stop, slightly startled.

“Oh, hi mister…” she trailed off as a single yellow eye focused on me, the other looking towards some point on the ground beside me. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“I just arrived in Ponyville yesterday.”

“Oh, so you are new! No wonder I didn’t recognize you. I’m a mailmare so I know pretty much everypony in Ponyville. My name’s Derpy, what’s yours?”

“Matthew, or Matt,” I responded with a smile.

“Nice to meet you… um, what are you?” she asked with a sheepish tilt of her head.

“I’m a human,” before she could inquire any further I added, “I’m from very, very far away.”

“Oh, not from anywhere in Equestria right?” I gave a confirming nod. “I… um… help out with deliveries all over Equestria sometimes, and I never saw anything like you before.”

“Understandable, but you didn’t even see me yesterday? Rainbow Dash dragged me pretty much all over Ponyville, and Pinkie threw me a welcome party.”

“Yeah… I just got back from a delivery to Appleloosa last night.” Derpy lowered her head slightly and began scuffing her hoof on the dirt path. “When I got home I saw the invitation in my mailbox, but it was already too late to go.”

“Hey, no worries.” In an effort to lighten her mood I decided to change the topic. “So… where are you headed.”

Derpy seemed to brighten up at this. “Oh, I was just on my way to Fluttershy’s to get some eggs.”

“Fluttershy’s house? Eggs?” I asked, honestly intrigued.

“Yeah, to make muffins for the annual bake sale on Tuesday. Fluttershy said I can stop by and get eggs whenever I need them.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” I chuckled silently to myself. “Mind if I tag along?”

“Nope, come on!” With a grin, Derpy fell once more into humming her tune as she skipped happily along, with me following not too far behind.

It would have been shorter to cut through town than to travel through Whitetail Park, but Derpy said she preferred this way. Something about how she didn’t have to watch where she was going nearly as much.

At one point, the smiling pegasus mare stopped her humming to ask me a question. “You asked what I was doing, but I didn’t ask you what you were doing. So, what are you doing?”

I gave her a strange look, “Well… I’m following you to Fluttershy’s.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she retorted with a frown. “I know that you’re following me. What do you think I am, dumb?”

“Wh-what? No, of course not!” I stumbled to a halt.

“I’m kidding,” Derpy said with a smile. After shaking her head with a small giggle she continued, “I mean what are you doing here in Ponyville?”

I rubbed my stubble covered chin thoughtfully. “Ah… nothing really at the moment. Well tomorrow I’m going to go to the school here so Cheerilee can start teaching me how to read Equestrian.” Derpy gave me a quizzical look, but decided to stay quiet. “Other than that I don’t have anything specific planned. Twilight and her friends are helping me out and giving me a place to stay, but I really should find a job so I can support myself.”

“Why’d you choose to come to Equestria? You don’t seem very prepared for living here.”

I shrugged. “It was… kind of a last second thing actually. I didn’t have any time to prepare.”

“Oh, I understand what that’s like,” she nodded her head seriously. We walked on for a little while longer before Derpy gave an excited squeal and spun around, tripping a bit over her hooves. “Hey I know! You should apply at the Ponyville Post Office.”

“…What?” I replied hesitantly.

“The Post Office I work at is understaffed right now. You said you need a job so why not apply?”

I hummed thoughtfully. ‘Now there’s an idea. Although… there’s an issue of me not having a resume- I have no idea if I actually need one though –and no one here knows me well enough to give a recommendation. But again, I don’t know how things work here.’ Lifting my head I gave a smile, “Thanks for the tip, I’ll think about it.”

“You’d better,” Derpy grumbled. “It’s been really busy for a while… and Hearth’s Warming Eve is just a month away.”

I chuckled quietly to myself. ‘Christmas was just last month, and in another I’ll be celebrating Equestria’s equivalent. That’ll feel weird.’

After what felt roughly like half an hour we arrived at Fluttershy’s cottage. Derpy skipped right up to the door and gave three loud knocks. Aside from the ever present sounds coming from the animals that lived in and around the cottage, there was no response.

“Looks like she’s not home,” I said even as the grey pegasus trotted off and around the side of the house. “Where are you going?”

“Fluttershy said that if I don’t disturb the chickens I can go get the eggs myself,” she called back.

Shrugging, I simply elected to follow her out back. Rounding the corner I saw Derpy already walking up the ramp into the chicken coop. The coop built in the shade of one of several trees in the yard. The yard itself was encircled by a pink three foot tall wooden fence, on the other side of the fence was a wide field bordered on the far side by the Everfree Forest. I was heading over to the chicken coop just as I began to hear alarmed clucking.

“Oops! Um, okay. Every… chicken, calm down? Please?” Derpy’s slightly panicked voice floated out of the chicken coop amongst the cacophony of clucks.

Poking my head through the door I called over the noise, “Is everything all right?”

A moment later, all the chickens became silent and regarded my silhouette with something akin to terror. They all immediately calmed down. Derpy brought her saddlebag away from its protective position atop her head and gave me a feeble smile.

“Um, thanks.”

With another shrug I stepped away from the chicken coop and sat with my back against the wooden fence enclosing the yard. I was planning on resting my eyes until Derpy was finished, but a new sound caught my attention.

The sound of singing.

I have never had a larger smile than I did at that moment, listening to Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’s duet up close and in person. There may have been no accompanying music, but that didn’t take away from the experience in the slightest.

I didn’t think that ponies actually broke into song here- not that ever gave it any thought since arriving in Equestria –I would have believed the songs were simply something in the show only. However, seeing it through a screen and hearing the song through speakers did the moment absolutely no justice.

As Rainbow landed on the roof of the chicken coop and puffed out her chest- thinking too much about singing and which pet would be hers to notice me –the realization struck me. I was sitting in on events from the episode ‘May the Best Pet Win.’

A moment later Derpy decided to poke her head out of the chicken coop.

“Finished?” I asked.

“Almost,” she seemed almost as enthralled by the song as I was.

Once the pair finished singing, Rainbow Dash took to the sky and Fluttershy went about gathering up the flying animals that her friend had requested. I stood up and made my way over to her.

As I walked across the yard I noticed for the first time how all the animals turned to face me warily and backed away, ‘They’re probably just a little nervous seeing some strange new creature,’ I shrugged. Fluttershy also noticed the change in their behavior, turning around to see what was causing it her eyes fell on me and she jumped.

“Oh, it’s just you Matthew.” She let out a relieved sigh. “You startled me, I didn’t hear you coming.”

“Sorry,” I apologized, chuckling lightly to myself. “I get that a lot.”

Having a quiet stride was something I often enjoyed, especially since it made sneaking up behind people easy. ‘Although… I feel bad for doing it to Fluttershy, even if it was just out of habit.’

“That’s all right, I’m not mad at you,” she replied in her usual quiet voice. “But I do want to know why you’re here- I mean… if you don’t mind me asking that is.”

I shook my head. “Not at all. I just followed Derpy out here, she came by to get some eggs.”

Fluttershy turned her now troubled gaze to the chicken coop, “Oh… oh dear…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, turning to see what the source of her distress was.

“Nothing… it’s just-“ she was cut off by a loud thud as the front of the chicken coop fell off its frame. Fluttershy just sighed, “Not again… I’ll go get the hammer.”

I stood there slack jawed. As Derpy was backing out of the chicken coop she somehow managed to knock the front wall of the chicken coop down, and now she was just standing sheepishly in place.

Not a moment later, Fluttershy returned with a hammer and a bucket of nails tucked under her wings. Before she could get to work repairing her chicken coop, I said, “I can handle this. Besides, don’t you have to be going somewhere with those animals?” I indicated the winged creatures grouped behind her.

“How did you know that?”

“I heard you and Rainbow Singing,” I stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

Fluttershy’s face lit up like a cherry, “Oh! Y-you heard that?”

“A truly breathtaking performance I must say,” I replied with a firm nod of my head.

“Oh, well… um, th-thank you,” Fluttershy hid behind her mane as she began digging at the ground.

Derpy trotted over with her head hung low to apologize. As the two of them talked I went about lifting the front of the chicken coop back into position. My dad used to be a carpenter so I have a little experience with fixing and building things from the times he would get me to help him with renovations around the house.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Derpy heading off and Fluttershy getting ready to leave, so I turned to wave a farewell to the grey pegasus. As I did so, I noticed that something was missing from what I was seeing.

“Hey, Fluttershy!” I called. As she turned to face me with a questioning look I cast my eyes around the yard looking for my target. I found him and immediately pointed him out, “You’re forgetting someone.”

Fluttershy turned to see the tortoise I had indicated, she turned back with a perplexed expression. “But Rainbow said she only wanted animals that could fly.”

“Just look at the little Tank. Can’t you see how much he wants to try out?” I countered.

She regarded the tortoise for a moment in thought. “Do you want to try competing Mr. Tortoise?” The tortoise in question gave an almost agonizingly slow nod, and Fluttershy smiled in return. “That settles it then. Besides, it can’t hurt to let you try.”

With that Fluttershy scooped the reptile up in her arms, and with a final farewell, flew off towards Ponyville with the rest of the flying animals in tow.

Turning back to finish my work, I lifted the hammer to strike another nail into place only to let it fall to my side once again as yet another realization hit me. ‘I just stopped Dash from getting a different pet!’

Whitetail Park was located at the southwestern edge of Ponyville, between the town itself and the forest from which the park got its name. I was currently sitting on a bench fairly close to the town, ignoring the few curious stares I was still receiving.

‘If things go like they did in the episode, Rainbow will end up choosing Tank to be her pet. If that’s the case then I’m responsible for it. She won’t be getting the falcon that wins the race at the end, but Tank will rescue her from the rock slide… that is, unless Rainbow gets…’ I shook my head viciously, “No, no, no! Not going to finish that thought!” Cupping my face in my hands, I continued muttering to myself, “Some things may be turning out differently than the show, but I doubt something like that would ever happen.”

I failed to notice as someone headed my way, instead I chuckled mirthlessly to myself, “And here I said I wasn’t going to interfere in how things play out. But now that it’s happened, I don’t know if I want to let things play out or not. What if things start to get too far away from the show? Then again… who’s to say that what happened in the show is what is actually supposed to happen?”

“What are you talking about?” I snap my head around to see Zephyr Swift standing behind me.

‘Damn, how long was he standing there?’ I jumped to my feet, “Oh, nothing!”

Zephyr gave me a hard look, not even trying to hide his suspicion. I knew for certain that he was aware I was hiding something, and something in his eyes made me believe he was determined to find out what.

After what seemed like forever under his surprisingly scrutinizing gaze, Zephyr visibly relaxed with a sigh. “Anyway, I’ve been looking all over town for you.”

“What for?” I asked, relieved that he was letting things go for now.

“Yesterday I said I’d be checking in on you today, remember?” I nodded and Zephyr smiled. “So what’ve you been up to?”

I shrugged, “Not much really. Woke up and had breakfast, then Rainbow Dash dragged me out to get some exercise. After that I headed over to Fluttershy’s house with a mailmare named Derpy. After fixing Fluttershy’s chicken coop I came back here.”

“So where did you sleep?”

“Rarity let me stay at her place. She hasn’t said anything so I think I’m staying there tonight also.”

Zephyr nodded, “And what are you doing tomorrow?”

“Heading to the school here to start learning how to read Equestrian.” As Zephyr started to open his mouth to ask a question I added, “The language is written differently where I’m from.” That seemed to answer his question.

“Now that that’s done with, I need to find a way to get my report to the Princess,” Zephyr said.

“Why don’t you just mail it?”

“Princess Celestia said she wants me to check in on you every few days and to report back to her. Using the regular postal service would probably take a little too long to be practical,” he sighed in response.

I thought for a moment before an idea came to me. “Hey, why not ask Twilight to send your reports for you? Her assistant can send a letter to the Princess instantly.”

“That’ll work, thanks.”

“No problem.”

Zephyr’s stomach chose that moment to growl. Looking up with a light chuckle, he asked, “Say, do you want to go get something to eat?”

“I don’t have any money, and I’m not really hungry… but sure, I’ll come along,” I replied.

“All right, let’s go!” Zephyr exclaimed eager for some lunch, before asking sheepishly, “You wouldn’t know where the closest restaurant is, would you?”

I just shook my head and laughed as we turned and walked back into Ponyville.

Chapter 11: Undeserved Generosity

AN: I can't believe I published this without adding one little part. It may not seem important, but it's important to me. It's just a few little lines between what I dubbed in the Authors Note as "the two serious conversations at the end."

~Chapter 11 – Undeserved Generosity~

“Ponyville is a bit bigger than I expected it to be,” Zephyr casually stated after taking a bite out of his sandwich.

The two of us were seated at a small table in a relatively empty restaurant, the mid afternoon sun filtering through the partially drawn curtains. According to our server we arrived shortly after the end of the usual day’s lunch rush, a fact reinforced by the few and far between occupied tables.

Taking a moment to sip at the glass of water on the table in front of me, I lifted an eyebrow inquisitively. “Bigger than you expected?”

The pegasus nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking it’d be around the same size as Trottingham. I lived there until I decided to move to Canterlot and become a Royal Guard. Since both Ponyville and my hometown were founded by earth ponies I assumed they’d be about the same size.” He shook his head while chuckling lightly, “Not the way to judge a town, I know.”

‘Trottingham eh,’ I thought while rubbing the uneven stubble covering my chin. ‘I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know where it is. Then again, I don’t really know where anything is. The show didn’t offer much insight regarding direction or location.’

“Where is Trottingham?” I asked as I pulled back the curtain to get myself better oriented. Pointing towards the wall behind Zephyr I continued, “All I know is that Canterlot is somewhere in that direction, and if I’m going to be living in Equestria I may as well learn where everything is.”

He nodded in understanding. “Trottingham is just north from the base of Mount Everfree.” When all he got in return from me was a blank stare he gave a sheepish grin. “Oh right, sorry. That’s the mountain that Canterlot is on… well, that’s what nearly everypony calls it. The name Princess Celestia gave it was Zenith Everfree.”

“Oh, I see.” Taking another drink of water I couldn’t help but ponder the reasoning behind the mountains name. “Is there any reason why the mountain that the capitol of Equestria is on shares the name of the forest everyone is so scared of?”

“Apparently Princess Celestia was adamant about the name when the mountain was given one. All anypony knows about it is that the Everfree Forest used to surround the entire mountain instead of just the base of its southern face,” he replied with a shrug.

“All right. And what direction is Canterlot from here?”

“You just pointed towards it…”

“No… well yeah, I did. I meant direction as a compass bearing,” I quickly stammered to correct myself.

“Oh! Sorry.” Zephyr paused to think for a moment before stating, “North-east. By carriage it would take a little less than half a day to reach the mountain, but of the two roads heading up the mountain, the one on the east side is easiest to get to from here. And again, it would take another half a day to get there from this side.”

I nodded once he finished his explanation. ‘A lot farther that I originally thought it would be... though that explains why the carriage ride took as long as it did.’ I chuckled to myself, ‘The ponies that pulled the carriage must have some serious stamina to be able to pull that off.’

“Are you sure you didn’t want anything to eat?” Zephyr asked, putting my train of thought on pause.

Refocusing my eyes across the table I saw both Zephyr and our server- a teal coated earth pony mare wearing a white apron with a small notebook for taking orders in the front pocket – staring at me.

I shook my head, “No thanks, still not hungry.”

The mare pulled a pencil from behind her ear, and using her mouth to maneuver the writing utensil across a page of the notebook held in her hoof she quickly wrote up a bill and dropped it on the table.

“Hope you enjoyed your meal, and have a nice day,” with a smile she turned and departed back towards the kitchen.

Zephyr glanced at the bill and reached into the small pouch secured around his upper foreleg. Once he set a hoof full of bits on the table we both got up and headed out into the afternoon sun. The ringing of a bell signaled our departure through the front door and onto one of Ponyville’s many streets.

We chose this restaurant since it was directly across from the building where Zephyr was staying. The architecture was the same as the vast majority of Ponyville’s homes and shops. The only difference was its three story height and multitude of balconies overlooking the dirt road to its front and Whitetail Park behind it. Zephyr’s room was on the top floor and happened to have a nice view of the park, which was how he managed to find me after an entire morning of searching the town.

Lightly grunting as I stretched out my back I asked, “So, which way to the library?”

Zephyr gave me an uneasy look, “I thought you knew.”

We stared at one another in silence for a few moments before hanging our heads and heaving a collective sigh.

“Well, let’s get going…”

Since I didn’t have a working watch I couldn’t say how long it took us to find the library. We began our search by heading in the direction of what we thought was Town Hall, instead we ended up at the southeastern edge of Ponyville in sight of Fluttershy’s cabin.

To get to Sugarcube Corner for my party the other day, Rainbow had led me past the Town Hall from Fluttershy’s place. Still, I didn’t put any faith in having remembered the way seeing how I’m terrible with directions. One time I was over at my friends dorm, on my way out I got lost. His room was at one end of a hallway in the shape of a squared ‘U’. It was the only hall on the floor and the only doors were the ones leading into other people’s rooms and the elevator to the lobby. Suffice to say, it wasn’t my proudest moment.

Eventually we managed to find the Town Hall, and we used the map posted there to make our way to the library. During the whole ordeal I learned that neither of us likes to ask for directions, and that Zephyr Swift is my equal when it comes to finding his way around a new place.

“Just how did you not get us lost in Canterlot Castle?” I sighed more in joking relief than actual irritation.

“You’re one to talk,” Zephyr chuckled back in equal relief as he lifted a hoof to knock at the door. “Besides, memorizing the layout of the castle was one of the first things we needed to do during training.”

The muffled sounds of conversation inside came to a halt at the knock. A few seconds passed before the door swung open, and standing in the doorway was Spike, a young dragon with purple scales. Not including the tall green rounded spikes sticking up from the top of his head he was just over half the height of Zephyr, whom he was currently giving a flat look.

“You know this is a public library, right?”

“Spike!” Twilight called irately from inside.

Before Spike could offer an apology Zephyr gave voice to his own. “Sorry, I know this is a library. Matt said Twilight lives here so I just thought… yeah,” he finished with a sheepish grin as he gestured towards me.

As the young dragons gaze shifted from the pegasus to me his expression turned to one of mixed interest and nervousness. “Um… hi?”

“Hi, I’m Matthew,” I greeted while holding back a chuckle.

Spike’s face immediately lit up. “Oh! You must be the… um. The…”

“Human?” I offered.

“Yeah! You’re the human Twilight said she found in the forest a few days ago.”

I nodded my head, “That’s me. You’re Spike, right? Twilight’s number one assistant?”

He puffed out his chest in pride. “That’s me. Twilight told you about me, huh?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I replied with a discreet smile.

Once again, Zephyr fixed his suspicious eyes on me. Spike didn’t seem to notice however. Stepping back, he motioned for us to enter.

As the two of us stepped into the library I was able to make out the source of the muffled conversation from just a moment earlier. Twilight and Rarity were both sitting at a circular wooden table in the center of the room, a few scattered pieces of parchment lay before them. The two of them were now looking at us.

“Oh hello, I wasn’t expecting you. I thought you were going to be taking the day to get used to Ponyville,” Twilight said with a slight tilt of her head.

I shrugged, “Zephyr needs to send his first report to Princess Celestia, and I told him Spike could send it directly instead of having to rely on the postal service.” Just as I spoke, the realization that I offered someone else’s assistance without even asking first hit me. “I-I mean if it’s all right with you and Spike that is! Sorry, should have asked first…”

Twilight chuckled quietly. “Don’t worry about it. It is important that these reports of yours are delivered efficiently and on time, correct?” Twilight looked to Zephyr who nodded in confirmation. She then turned to face Spike, “Can you send Zephyr’s report to the Princess for him?”

“Sure thing, Twilight!” Spike exclaimed as he snapped a quick salute. “But, uh… What’s the report for?”

“Princess Celestia just wants me to give her an update every few days regarding how things are going for Matt in Ponyville,” Zephyr answered while Twilight levitated a quill and spare piece of parchment towards him.

“Why does the Princess want to know how Matt’s doing?” Spike asked, tilting his head in apparent confusion.

“Because I’m not from this world?” I offered with an exaggerated shrug. If his expression was anything to go by, Spike didn’t seem to believe the explanation.

“I’m serious,” he huffed while crossing his arms. He turned to Twilight in hopes of getting an actual answer. “Why is Princess Celestia interested in what he does here?”

“Because he is from a different world, Spike,” Twilight sighed.

Spike was more willing to believe the claim once Twilight confirmed it, he stumbled backwards in surprise. “What, really? How’d he get here?”

Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle lightly at the young dragon’s expense. “We don’t have any idea. All we know is that he-” she cut herself off, and I noticed the brief look she directed at me, one of sympathy. “…He’s going to be living here in Ponyville for now since he has now way of getting home.”

“Why can’t he get home?” Spike asked. “I mean, I don’t see what’s keeping him here.”

Before Twilight could continue I directed a pointed look at her as I spoke. “Let’s just say that I live too far away to get home by any conventional means of transportation, and that I got stuck here because of a careless mistake on my part.” One of the last things I wanted was anyone’s pity. “Besides, so far I like it here. And if I was given the chance to return I’d choose to stay here.”

Spike seemed to accept that, he simply nodded his head and turned to fetch the things Zephyr would need to write his report. Twilight and Rarity however wore expressions I couldn’t read as their eyes remained locked on me.

A moment later Spike returned with a roll of parchment in one claw and a quill and inkpot in the other, which Zephyr accepted with a nod as he took the quill in his mouth and set the ink on the table. Unrolling the parchment he began to write.

I watched intrigued as his head moved back and forth, jaw twitching ever so slightly to help guide the quill across the page.

“Hey, Twilight,” I began, turning away from the object of my curiosity. “Why is Zephyr holding the quill with his mouth? Frederic Horseshoepin, that pianist at Canterlot mentioned that ponies can grab and manipulate objects with their hooves to some extent. He didn’t go into much detail about it, but wouldn’t it be easier if Zephyr held the quill with his hoof?”

She shook her head. “For some pegasi maybe, but not all. The reason we can pick up objects with our hooves is because they share some similar traits with a unicorn’s horn.” When Twilight saw the lack of understanding in my blank stare she said, “Oh, right. You said that there’s no magic in your world, and that ponies there are… different.”

Twilight gave a small cough to clear her throat before elaborating. “I meant similar internal structures such as magic receptors and channels. Much more simple and basic variations of course, otherwise everypony would be able to perform magic. The ones in a pony’s hoof however are only capable of emitting a small magic field of a telekinetic variety.

“Unicorns such as myself and Rarity have either fewer of these receptors and channels or none at all, seeing as we have our horns to use magic, and every unicorn is able to perform simple levitation to some extent.

“Earth ponies have the highest number of these structures in their hooves and as such have a greater ability to lift and manipulate objects. That’s actually why most instrument playing musicians you see, like Frederic Horseshoepin, are earth ponies.

“Pegasi however are slightly different. Their magic channels are attuned more to aeromancy, the study of magic relating to the weather, as opposed to telekinesis. This is what allows pegasi to walk on clouds and manage the weather. They’re still more proficient than unicorns at holding things with their hooves, but most pegasi prefer using their mouths for simple tasks like writing.”

I blinked. “So… magic feet. Definitely up there with the strangest things I’ve ever heard. Then again I’m not one to talk. I mean look at me, an alien creature from a different universe.” I shook my head, “Anyway, it makes sense… well, as much sense as it can for someone in my position.”

“I can see what you mean dear,” Rarity tittered quietly. “It does sound somewhat amusing when you put it that way.” She shifted slightly, a small frown forming. “Anyway, aside from stopping by at Fluttershy’s…” Rarity paused. A brief glance towards Zephyr, who was just finishing up his report, made it clear she wanted to say a little more about my short visit. “… What else were you up to today? Apart from when Rainbow abducted you from my kitchen this morning, that is.”

I shrugged, “Mostly Rainbow had me training. Afterwards I was headed back into town when I met Derpy, and I tagged along with her to Fluttershy’s. Later Zephyr found me and we headed here, basically.” I didn’t know what Rarity wanted to know, but judging from the way she was acting it was something concerning the show. So I couldn’t say anything since Zephyr was still here. “Oh yeah, earlier Derpy mentioned an opening at the post office. Since I have no way to support myself right now I was thinking about applying for the position.”

Twilight lifted her head, “Don’t you need Equestrian Citizenship to work for the post office?”

I blinked again. “…What?”

“The post office here in Ponyville isn’t just for local mail. They make deliveries all around Equestria, and they occasionally handle some international shipments too. You can’t work at the post office without Equestrian citizenship.”

I hung my head. “I didn’t think about that… I may be from a different world but I’m still technically an immigrant if I plan on living here. I don’t need citizenship to get a job in Ponyville, do I?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, though it does prevent you from getting hired by any employer dealing with business on both national and international levels.”

“I see,” I replied with a sigh. “Oh well, I bet I’ll be able to find something else. That gives me something else to work towards though.”

“Citizenship is something definitely worth having,” Twilight said with a firm nod. “Especially if you plan on taking up permanent residence in Equestria.”

I lifted an eyebrow. Twilight sounded like she was happy, but there was something sad about the look she had in her eyes as she spoke. Before I could say anything however, Zephyr turned away from the table.”

“I’m finished, can we send it now?”

“Sure thing,” Twilight replied. She turned to call Spike who had been busy preparing a meal in the kitchen. She took Zephyr’s report in her magic and passed it to the dragon. “Spike, can you send this to the Princess?”

“You bet, Twilight,” he took the message from Twilight and headed towards a window. Pushing it open he leaned out and blew a plume of green flame over the rolled up parchment.

As it turned to ash and drifted away on the breeze Zephyr choked. “Y-you burned it! Why’d you do that?”

Everyone present, myself included, couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction.

Zephyr glared at us, “What’s so funny? The fact that the dragon destroyed my work?”

Twilight forced herself to calm down, “No, no. Not at all. That’s how I always send my letters to Princess Celestia. She would have received your report just seconds after Spike burned it. I’m sorry, I should have told you what to expect.”

He just huffed at her, “You expect me to be-” Zephyr was cut off by the sound of a loud belch. Turning to its source he saw Spike clutching a scroll sealed with the royal crest. “…W-what?”

Unrolling the scroll, Spike cleared his throat and read aloud. “Dear Zephyr Swift, I must admit, I did not expect your first report so soon, let alone having it delivered by my faithful student’s assistant, Spike. Nevertheless, I appreciate the commitment you’re showing for the task assigned to you. I expect you to continue with your best efforts. Princess Celestia.”

Zephyr blinked. “Oh. Um, sorry. I got angry and started jumping to conclusions when I shouldn’t have, sorry.”

“You can stop apologizing. Like I said, I should have told you how Spike sends messages to the Princess,” Twilight said with a smile.

“Sorry,” was Zephyr’s response. “Well, I finished what I needed to do. So I’ll just get out of your manes. Thank you again for sending my report for me, have a nice evening.” He turned to me, “I guess I’ll see you in a couple days then.”

I nodded, “See you later.”

As Zephyr headed out the door, Rarity stood and gathered up the mess of papers on the table and placed them in her saddlebag.

“I’d best be off too now, Twilight. I’ll have the harness for Rainbow’s tortoise finished by dinner time tomorrow.”

Out of habit I checked my wrist for the time, only to curse myself silently upon remembering that my watch was dead.

“Take care, Rarity,” Twilight bid in farewell. “You to Matthew.”

“So I am still staying at Rarity’s?” I asked. I may have assumed as much earlier, but I didn’t want to act on an assumption, and I didn’t want to show up on Rarity’s doorstep if I was supposed to be spending the night someplace else.

“Oh heavens, of course dear!” Rarity replied. “Sorry, it just slipped my mind that I didn’t have the chance to tell you this morning before Rainbow Dash stole you away.”

“No worries,” I said. I turned to wave my goodbye to Twilight as we headed out the door.

The walk back to the boutique was quiet for the most part. Rarity led of course, and I followed to the side and slightly behind. Not long after we left the library however, Rarity turned to face me.

“Earlier today when Rainbow chose and named her new pet, Fluttershy said the most unexpected thing.”

“Yeah? What’d she say?”

“She said that you knew what Rainbow was going to name her pet.” When she paused and waited for a response, I simply motioned for her to continue. “Fluttershy mentioned that when you were at her cottage when she was about to leave with the candidates for Rainbow’s… contest, you stopped her and suggested that she bring the tortoise as well. She also said that you called it Tank, the name Rainbow happened to choose for the tortoise.”

‘Now I know what she was trying to hide from Zephyr.’ I sighed. “Yeah, I knew Rainbow would choose that name for the tortoise, though I didn’t realize what I did until after I already did it.”

Rarity tilted her head, “What did you do exactly?”

“Right now, I’m the reason why Tank is Rainbow’s pet instead of the falcon that won the race. Because of me, Rainbow chose a pet that can’t fly on its own. So now you, and Twilight I take it, are making something to let Tank fly and stay with Rainbow up in her cloud home.”

“How do you know all of this?” Rarity gaped.

“I’m not good at keeping these secrets, am I?” I muttered to myself. “Princess Celestia knows this all ready, but a few of the episodes of the show about you guys that I’ve seen are about things that haven’t happened yet. This being one of those things.”

If it was possible for Rarity to be any whiter, I’d say that she was. “You know what happens in our future? Why haven’t you informed us of this?”

I shrugged. “Same reason I want to hide the existence of the show from everyone else.”

She nodded slowly. “I see… Still, you just stated that it’s your fault things turned out as they did today.”

“Yeah, without thinking I suggested that Fluttershy bring Tank along just because that’s what she did in the episode. I made things play out how they did in the show in my world, but was that really right of me to interfere in things?”

Rarity was quiet for a moment. When she spoke she did so deliberately. “What I think would be wrong is if you decided to distance yourself from everypony simply because you don’t want to… interfere, with how things are supposed to be. Your actions may have resulted in Rainbow Dash choosing Tank as her pet, but everypony is responsible for making changes here and there. We… interfere, as you put it, with what is going on all the time. Besides, I’d say Tank is the perfect match for Rainbow, as they’re both undoubtedly loyal to those they care about.”

I was left temporarily bewildered. “Wow, that was… surprisingly insightful.”

“What, you don’t think I just have a beautiful face now do you?” she responded with a friendly smile.

“No, that’s not it. I just wasn’t expecting you to be so accepting is all,” I replied hurriedly. “Anyway… how’s Rainbow doing? In the show she got trapped in a rock slide during the race. She didn’t actually get hurt, did she?”

“Don’t you worry about Rainbow Dash, she will be just fine.” Rarity replied surely. “We did bring her to the hospital for some injuries she did receive. It was only a very minor concussion and a sprained muscle in her wing, so after patching her up they let her leave. Rainbow is staying at Fluttershy’s for tonight though, just in case.”

I let out a relieved sigh. “Ah, that’s good to hear. I was a little worried earlier that something bad might have happened to her, but neither you or Twilight seemed worried at all.”

“Oh trust me dear, our Rainbow Dash has had much worse than that in the past,” Rarity chuckled lightheartedly.

The remainder of our walk was spent in silence. The sun was just now beginning to slip behind the horizon; the street we walked on was cast in the shadows of the homes we passed. Finally we arrived at the door to Carousel Boutique. Instead of heading inside however, Rarity turned to face me completely, serious once more.

“So, you would rather stay in Equestria than go home?”

I nodded my head, “That’s what I said before, and that’s what I meant.”

“Even if it meant never seeing your family again?”

“I like Equestria, and I’m more than happy to be here,” I replied. I continued quietly, more to myself than to Rarity, “I feel like now I can start turning my life around.”

“But surely you’d miss them,” she pressed.

“Maybe,” I replied with a shrug. “Maybe after a long while, but I don’t exactly see eye to eye with my parents.”

“I don’t often agree with most of my parent’s decisions either, but I still love them and can see them whenever I wish.” Rarity said softly. “If you stay here you won’t have that same chance.”

“So what, you don’t want me living in Equestria?” I retaliated, my tone darkening with my expression.

“No! I mean, yes. I mean… I simply want you to be happy with the decision you make.” She took half a step back from me, averting her gaze ever so slightly.

I started taking slow, deep breaths to calm myself down. When I was finished I felt hollow inside. Lowering my head, I pushed the door open and said in a weary voice, “After you.”

Rarity paused, looking at me with a mix of sadness, and pity once more. But also now with a small portion of fear. She kept her eyes on me a moment longer before slowly stepping inside.

I followed her inside, and as the bell made its final chime I whispered so she couldn’t hear, “Sorry.”

Chapter 1: Unexpected Fate

~Chapter 1 - Unexpected Fate~

"Ugh, what time is it?" I groaned as I rubbed my bloodshot eyes, rolling over in bed I gazed through drooping eyelids at my clock. "Six o'clock, how wonderful."

Dragging myself out of bed I lumbered down the hall towards the staircase and to the kitchen. Rubbing my eyes as I reached the bottom, I failed to notice who was waiting at the entrance to the kitchen. My leg caught on something soft and I began to fall forward until my forehead collided with the doorframe accompanied by an audible thud.

“Why is it always the head?” I groaned as I directed my gaze downward to meet the brown eyes of Sam, one of my two dogs. The sheltie gave an excitable bark and scurried through the doorway. “It’s too early for your food,” I called after him before making my way to the kitchen table, rubbing my sore and already swelling forehead.

I went about methodically preparing my breakfast; a simple bowl of my favourite cereal, Applejacks. Sitting down at the table I began to eat, slowly of course as I was still tired, four hours of sleep a night for weeks on end will do that to a person.

I’d be able to manage a six hour sleep seeing as I climb into my bed every night at twelve on the dot, but my brain can never seem to slow down enough to allow me a decent rest. Ideas and thoughts continuously run through my mind, words and sentences I could possibly if I found myself in any situation created in my head.

Imagine a dull pain in your brain caused by continuously spinning imaginary cogs that’s been there for so long you can no longer notice it. The unrelenting activity in my mind often makes it hard to fall asleep.

My ruminating came to an end as I heard the water shut off in the shower upstairs, meaning my mom was finishing up. 'That's my cue,' I thought to myself as I wolfed down the rest of my breakfast. Placing my bowl in the sink and heading upstairs I grabbed both my comb and my nice fuzzy blue bath robe. Don't judge, it feels good. The washroom was available by now so I hurried inside, stripped, turned on the water and hopped into the steaming shower.

Several minutes later I shut off the water and stepped out onto the cold tile floor. Jumping from the chilling shock to my feet I quickly grabbed a nearby towel to stand on. I proceeded to comb my hair, not that it needed it, and grabbing my electric razor I stood in front of the mirror. As I worked I gave myself a quick onceover. I had short dirty blonde hair, very straight and ordinary, blue eyes, nothing special other than being bloodshot, and I stood at an average height of five foot eleven. My body was not too muscular and nicely toned; ten years of martial arts plus a lifetime of things like camping, skiing, biking and diving tend to make a guy fit.

Finishing up I pulled on my bath robe and hurried to my room to get dressed. Next I went fishing in my closet for my favourite shirt, a black polo shirt with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark as a small crest on the left side of the chest. After pulling it on over my head I reached underneath my shirt and pulled out my pendant, a bone carving that supposedly it brings the wearer protection and good fortune. I rarely ever take it off, except for when I shower. I guess I forgot that I still had it on earlier.

Oh yea I forgot to mention, I'm a Brony. I'm probably the biggest Brony in Bedford, my home town in case you were curious. On my laptop I have two of every single episode, tons of fan art and songs, plus an archive of my favourite My Little Pony fan fictions; Cupcakes isn't a favourite, but that's pretty much something every Brony reads at some point, right? No? Well damn... I've even begun writing my own fan fiction, perhaps you've heard of it, 'The Sentinels: The Conversion Bureau'? No? Oh well…

I proceeded to pack my bag for the day, my binder, a couple text books, and my laptop. I cast a glance out my window at the grey sky then drew my eyes over to my bureau where a black toque with Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark rested, contemplating whether I should wear it or not.

‘Meh, I’ll settle with my hood. Besides, it isn’t that comfortable wearing both a toque and headphones.’ Making up my mind I grabbed my black hoodie with the name Dalhousie emblazoned across the front off the back of my bedroom door and unplugged my iPod from its charger. As I left my room I pocketed my wallet, cell phone and house key, and I put on my analogue watch while checking the time.

"Six forty five, I still have some time to kill before I need to leave."

Sitting down at the piano in the living room I began to play some game music like Legend of Zelda's Lost Woods and Song of Storms, and the Overworld Theme from Super Mario Bro's 1. And as always, Sam decided to curl up beneath the bench to listen.

‘Oh... what I’d give for a good piano,’ I thought moodily as my fingers ‘tripped’ over yet another key that had popped up and gotten stuck. Sure, it’s still a decent piano for being of a lower quality make, and being roughly forty years old on top of that, but the keys that stick and don’t work, and the fact that it can’t stay in tune for more than a few days... playing it can be a pain at times.

Nevertheless, despite the piano and its problems, sitting down and letting my fingers dance across the keys is always relaxing. Also it allows my mind a brief respite. As the notes flow my focus is directed solely at my playing, and the music literally carries me away. Sometimes this makes it hard for me to stop playing though, and someone usually has to tell me to get off the piano. However, that is one of the few things that truly get on my nerves; someone interrupting my playing, resulting in my mind rushing back to its frantic storm of thoughts.

Afterwards I glanced down at my watch and noticed it was time to go, so I threw on my hoodie and stepped into my shoes. Before I could reach for the door however, an impatient bark reminded me of what needed doing prior to leaving.

Quickly running into the kitchen, I gave a sharp whistle. Both Sam and my other dog- another sheltie by the name of Abbie -came running.

“Sit!” I said sharply as I turned to scoop their food into their bowls. Setting their breakfast down and taking a step back I motioned to the now sitting dogs, “Okay.” At that they hungrily dug into their food, and I flew to the front door, grabbing my black grey and white high collared Rossignol ski jacket out of the closet on the way. I quickly pulled it on along with my backpack, and was stopped from leaving yet again by a voice from upstairs.

"I wish you'd stop playing those video game songs so much and focus on your actual music," my mom called from her room.

"Don't worry, I'll play some Mozart for you when I get back," I replied slightly irritated.

"I'm going to be running a bit late at work today, so I'll see you later tonight. There's some left over stuff in the fridge for you to make a chicken quesadilla when you get home."

"All right, thanks. See you later." With that I put on my headphones, and turned on my AcousticBrony playlist as I hopped out the door and jumped down the front steps, nearly slipping on a patch of ice as I landed.

This winter had been incredibly mild so far. The only real snowfall we had was just a couple days ago, and almost immediately afterwards it all began melting and covering the roads in water. Well, the streets were wet yesterday evening, now I could see the telltale sheen of ice covering sections of the road here and there. The temperature had dropped significantly over the night, and the weather station had given a black ice warning.

So zipping my jacket closed and pulling up my hood I made my way to the bus stop on this frigid Monday morning, feeling my nose hairs freezing together and falling into my regular dark musings.

My friends would call me cheery, albeit a lack of talking, but that's only what they see, my view on life is actually kind of depressing... alright, really depressing. I see the human race as a parasite to the Earth, taking whatever it wants and not bothering to give back, our actions are killing the life on the planet at an ever increasing rate and there is nothing that will ever stop it. I was studying at Dalhousie University to be a marine biologist, but it's kind of disheartening to think that what you want to dedicate your life to is being destroyed before even having a chance to study it for yourself, and I found out that I wasn’t as into biology as I had originally thought. Also, the same thing day in and day out doesn't help improve my mood much; wake up, get ready and leave for school, come home, go to work, return home and go to bed. Just rinse and repeat. I've even thought about suicide once; take some sleeping pills while sitting precariously on the edge of a dock. Don't worry; I'm not a coward so that is never going to happen, especially after two of my friends introduced me to My Little Pony.

Said two friends are the only Bronies in the group I hang out with, but aside from the others disliking the show we all have the same interests. We all go to University, we're all gamers, so on and so forth. I don't speak much when we hang out; they just pass it off as a result of me being a ninja. It's nothing, just some crazy joke they came up with to explain my silence, the lack of noise when I walk and how I always seem to blend into a crowd no matter where I am.

I've read too many human in Equestria fan fictions to count, and I constantly find myself wishing that something would happen to transport me to Equestria. I'm not crazy, seriously! Alright, maybe I am a little... Though if I did somehow end up in Equestria, my first course of action would probably be finding out how the Princesses would react to me. I didn’t want to be living there for several months before being discovered and getting a one way ticket to the moon.

Anyway, my life is pretty good, I can't complain. I have money I can spend, my parents care for me, though they tend to be incredibly controlling most of the time, constantly talk about others- strangers and family members alike -behind their backs, and constantly get on my nerves. My parents are home for the weekends and holidays, I see my mom all the time, but my dad wakes up early for his job and works late so I don't see him that much. Still, I want to get away from this life, the way society and humans have grown is sickening to me. Greed, corruption, pollution, and it seems as though there's constantly a war being fought somewhere in the world, yada yada. I know I know cliché as hell, but it’s not really an opinion per se, not anymore anyway. The notion is accepted by enough people for it to be considered fact.

I nearly lost my balance as I stepped onto another patch of ice at the top of a hill. Quickly catching myself before I could fall I used the long sheet of ice to slide down the hill, nimbly jumping over the sad remains of a snow bank at the bottom.

Well... I guess there’s one detail about my life I left out. One thing, a single detail that irritates me to no end, yet I'll most likely never be able to talk about it. My parents, mainly my mom... they tend to shoot down most opinions I give voice to. They'll either yell at me and say I'm wrong, or they'll tell me to stop arguing with them. I guess this is probably the most significant reason behind my silence... Why am I even bothering to tell you this? It's not like what I say matters much...

I shook my head in an effort to clear my head and simply enjoy the music and this short time to myself. 'Ha. Only eighteen years old and in my first year of University, and I'm already thinking like an old man tired of the world,' I though rather drearily, spinning on my heel to look for any oncoming cars before crossing the street, which happened to be yet another downwards hill.

Bedford is basically situated on one big hill facing a natural harbour with the main thoroughfare being near the bottom. Seeing nothing coming, I stepped out into the street and around another large patch of ice.

I was into my fourth week of the second term at Dalhousie, and though I didn’t have any classes that I needed to get up this early for I still needed all the time I could get at school to study. My chemistry and calculus marks last term were pretty low, and I only passed those courses under the condition that I do a decent job this semester. ‘Still, I do like the peaceful stillness of the mornings.’

I was crossing the road at an angle, a more direct line to the bus stop at the corner ahead. Still deep in thought as AcousticBrony's song Spectrum began to play through my headphones, I didn’t notice the car turn onto the street further up the hill behind me.

I snapped my head around at the sound of squealing tires, my eyes popping out of their sockets in shock at the four thousand pounds of metal skidding towards me.

You'd think that all my martial arts training would have given me the increased reaction time to at least try jumping out of the way, but things are different when something like this is actually happening to you. Besides, I haven't been seriously training for the last year or two so I've lost most of my endurance speed and flexibility.

This skidding car made contact with my side and I was knocked off my feet. My mind went blank and time seemed to slow down. I could see the car still sliding on the ice, but all I was aware of was the throbbing pain that seemed to course throughout my entire body. Suddenly everything went black as my head slammed into the guard rail at the side of the road.

Endless shadows... I was drifting. They all lied; there was no light at the end of the tunnel, though I certainly felt light, as light as air in fact. I was floating through the void and I couldn’t possibly fathom a guess at how long. Slowly, even this drifting sensation began to disappear, I felt heavy, heavy and sore all over. ‘Having pain after dying. Worst afterlife ever... of all time.’

If I was dead, I didn’t care. My life had run its course and my time was up, no complaints from me seeing how death is an unavoidable end for everyone and everything. No, I wasn’t scared of death, I was scared of the pain that usually accompanied it... but that didn’t matter since the aching in my body was already beginning to fade.

My thoughts ceased as darkness overtook me.

Chapter 7: Goodbye Old Life and Hello New

~Chapter 7 - Goodbye Old Life and Hello New~

I stared dumbfounded at the cyan pegasus hovering above me. ‘First she gets mad at me when she sees my shirt, and now she’s smiling at me… what happened while I was gone?’

“Hello, anypony home?” Rainbow crossed her front legs across her chest.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon,” I replied, still lying down.

“Well it’s not just me,” she said as she pointed over to the entrance with her hoof.

Looking over in the indicated direction I saw Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Twilight, and Princess Celestia walking over. As they got closer, Rarity took one look at me and her expression turned into one akin to horror, and after giving myself a onceover I immediately saw why.

I was wet from head to toe, my clothes soaked through and still covered in most places by mud despite my brief swim. Running my hand through my hair I felt dirt and mud caking the top of my head.

I chuckled, “I guess I sort of need a shower.”

“And some new clothes as well. You’ve completely ruined yours!” Rarity exclaimed.

“It’s just mud, it’ll come out,” I said. “What I want to know is why you guys came looking for me, I didn’t think you’d want to see me again after that little… incident.”

“Don’t be silly Mattie!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Dashie wanted to know if you were a fun pony and I still need to throw you a Welcome to Equestria party!”

“Besides,” Twilight added. “You left without explaining anything, so we also have some questions we’d like to ask.”

“That’s right. Princess Celestia did try and explain things,” Applejack started.

“However I don’t completely understand the situation myself,” Celestia finished. “So my explanation probably wasn’t the best.”

“Alright, I guess I should fill you all in then,” I said, groaning as I pulled myself to my still wobbly legs. “I think we should talk somewhere… more private though,” I indicated the gathered guards with a nod of my head.

“I fully agree with you,” Celestia said. She then noticed the expressions of the guards, walking over to them she asked. “Would you like to tell me what’s so interesting over here?”

The yellow pegasus with the stopwatch mumbled something loud enough so only Celestia could hear, and it was the Princesses turn to wear a shocked expression. It was short lived though, she cast me an appraising glance and surprised everyone present when the air filled with the warm sound of laughter.

“Um… Princess, what’s so funny?” Twilight inquired.

Princess Celestia’s laughter began to fade, “Matthew just set a new record for the obstacle course.”

“Really? I thought they were just surprised that I made it all the way through,” I said thinking back to when the guards were placing their bets.

“Well how’d he do?” Rainbow asked, her curiosity piqued.

“He beat the previous record holders time by almost half,” Celestia replied with a chuckle.

“Why, that’s quite the accomplishment, iffen I say so myself,” Applejack complimented.

“I’ll say!” Rainbow almost squealed. “How’d you manage to get such a good time?”

I shrugged. “The course was pretty simple compared to what I’m used to, but it did remind me just how out of shape I am,” I replied rubbing my legs. “Back home there was a place I liked going to called Treego. It was a two hour long obstacle course suspended high up in the trees with bridges, ladders, and zip lines. The bridge on the course here would have been one of the easier parts of Treego.”

“But you can’t fly, isn’t that… um, a little dangerous?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

“It would be, but you’re required to wear a safety harness the whole time,” I replied.

“I guess looking like a strange monkey has some advantages for you doesn’t it?” Rainbow asked with a smirk.

Twilight was about to reprimand her friend before I laughed and said, “Yeah, I guess it does have some.”

Princess Celestia took this moment to intervene and change the direction of our conversation.

“I think it would be best to get the questions out of the way while we can,” she said.

Rainbow backed off with a slight pout but nodded nonetheless.

After I grabbed my things the Princess led the way out of the training facility, and as we walked I tried to brush as much mud off me as I could. Shortly after exiting the building and removing all the mud that I could from my shirt and sweater I started wiping off my pants and my hand brushed against my pocket, I froze.

“Oh damn!” I gasped as I jammed my hand into my pocket and pulled out my now wet phone.

Twilight turned around and noticed my panicked expression. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t reply, I just continued chanting that same word over and over to myself as I tried to turn on my phone. Nothing happened, ‘The batteries probably ran out yesterday, but it’s definitely busted now.’

Sighing, I answered Twilight as I tossed the dead phone into my backpack, “It’s not important… well, not anymore anyway. Just something I ruined by getting it got soaked from being in my pocket when I jumped into the water.”

“Well then why didn’t you take it out of your pocket before getting all wet silly?” Pinkie asked with a tilt of her head.

“I have no idea!” I said exasperatedly. “I often wonder how I even made it this far in life like this.”

Everyone gave me a concerned look, though they decided to say nothing so we continued on our way. Celestia led us away from the guards and the buildings they walked between, and a few minutes later we found ourselves back in the garden. Celestia led us to a bench situated well away from the path since a few well-dressed ponies could be seen walking about the hedges and flowerbeds.

I sat down on the bench and opened my laptop. “Here we go,” I said as I pushed the power button.

The device on my lap whirred to life. The loading animation faded onto the screen, then disappeared and gave way to the login screen. The chime sound effect came through one speaker, so I firmly hit the side of the laptop to once again get the malfunctioning speaker to temporarily work once more. Before logging on I dropped the volume so they wouldn’t hear Rainbow’s ‘ten seconds flat’ line. ‘I don’t want them thinking I’m some sort of obsessed creep.’

Once everything was loaded I turned the volume back on. “Now what first, music or art?”

“What kind of music, more stuff like that awesome song you played earlier?” Rainbow asked.

I shook my head, “Even better than that. I also have some songs on here that some of the fans of your show made, things like your own theme songs.”

“Theme songs, for each of us?” Rainbow asked with growing excitement.

I nodded.

She turned to her friends, “How cool is that… wait, fan base?” she turned her curious gaze back to me. “How big are we talking here?” Rainbow’s eyes were shining with interest.

“I don’t really know… a couple hundred thousand at least,” I replied.

Everyone’s jaws dropped, even Princess Celestia couldn’t hide her disbelief, and Rainbow was left speechless.

“Some of them,” I continued, “Make music,” I said while opening my music library, briefly pausing while I thought of a song to play. “Ah hah! This one is called ‘Discord,’ and it’s one of my favourites.”

As I said that everyone gave me a disapproving frown.

“What? In my world, the villains pretty much always get the awesome music,” I said as I hit the play button.

As the song progressed, their expressions began to change. Rainbow, Pinkie, and surprisingly Celestia seemed to be enjoying the song. And while I could tell that this wouldn’t be something the others would chose to listen to, they seemed to enjoy it enough to bob their heads to the beat.

Once the song ended, Rainbow spoke up. “I’ll admit it, that song was pretty awesome… but it wasn’t radical. I mean, there weren’t any sweet guitar riffs or anything.”

I smirked as I pulled up another song, “Alright then, listen to this.” Hitting play I then skipped ahead to where I knew the guitar came in. I let it play for a little before ending it. “That one was called ‘Spectrum,’ can you guess who it’s about?”

“That was sweet! It’s mine, isn’t it?” Rainbow exclaimed, and I gave a nod in response. “Why’d you stop it?”

“If this thing still has power when I’m done I’ll show you all your theme songs,” I replied. “Anyway, some people make music like I said, and others make amazing drawings.” I opened up my pictures library and showed them a picture of Rarity with a big smile on her face as she ran from a fire breathing dragon while carrying a pile of gold and jewels.

“I simply love this artists taste,” Rarity stated, flashing her own grin.

I closed the window and said, “And others create their own stories about Equestria and its inhabitants.”

Pinkie bounced into motion, “So that’s where they come from!”

“I myself… wait what?” I stammered as what Pinkie said clicked into my mind. “Are you saying you’ve read fan fictions?”

Pinkie nodded, “Yes, yes I have! I read so many of them I can’t keep track of the good ones and the bad ones anymore. Well… I don’t really read them, I just have these amazing dreams that I don’t remember all the time when I wake up, but when I do it feels more like I read the dream than actually dreamed the dream. There’re two of them that I can really remember really well. One story was really funny but then it started getting a teensy bit sad in the middle but everything turned out all okie dokie in the end.”

‘How did she… wait, she dreamed them? Either it’s just Pinkie being Pinkie, or somehow she can catch glimpses of other worlds like Celestia’s scrying spell. Wait… oh no, I hope she didn’t dream…’ Pinkie’s mane seemed to deflate slightly. ‘Please no!’ I pleaded silently.

“This other one was horrible,” all the bubbly joy in Pinkie’s voice was gone. “How could somepony name something so horrible something so sweet like ‘Cup-“

‘She did!’ I sprang to my feet, and before she could utter the title of the notorious grim dark, I pulled Pinkie into a tight hug. She nuzzled closer to me and the others looked on with varying degrees of confusion and concern.

“Don’t think about it. I know that story is a lie, I know you’re nothing like that and so does everyone else. Some people just like that sort of story.”

This cheered Pinkie up a little, though her mane was down over her features and she hadn’t moved to break the hug.

“Listen, you should try to forget that story, and if you need to talk about it then I’m here for you. How about we promise to never speak a word about that story to anypony else, alright?”

Pinkie moved away slightly to look me in the eye, “Pinkie Promise?”

She was about to teach me how to perform the sacred ritual until I went through the motions myself. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

That seemed to do the trick. Pinkie’s mane immediately bounced back to normal and she jumped away with a bright smile and a giggle.

“Okie dokie lokie Mattie,” she said between bursts of giggles. “You’re full of surprises aren’t you? I hope I can still surprise you with the Welcome to Equestria party I’m throwing you. Oopsie! I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

Rainbow Dash was the first to break out of her confused stupor.

“Can you explain what the hay that was all about?”

Pinkie and I traded glances before looking back at Rainbow and saying at nearly the same time, “Nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise.”

While the others continued to stare at us in confusion, Pinkie and I laughed and we bumped our hoof and fist together. ‘A brohoof with a real pony! Awesome!’

It took a little while for the two of us to calm down, and once we had the conversation returned to its original course.

“So what other things do you want to know?” I asked the group.

Twilight spoke, “Princess Celestia mentioned your opinion on how different worlds are connected, how in your world ours exists as this… show, and in our world yours might exist as some old legend or ponytale. Do you think that since you’re here, you’ll end up as a character in that show?”

I thought about it for a moment, “I don’t think so. Remember those stories I said that fans from my world wrote? I like to think of those as alternate realities to this one, so I’d say it’s most likely that in some other world different from both of ours, someone is writing a similar story about a character named Matthew being transported to Equestria.”

All I got were blank stares in response.

“Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense to me either. Anything else?”

The group shook their heads, so I reached to power down my laptop. I was stopped by a quiet voice coming from right beside me, turning my head I saw Fluttershy half looking at me from behind her long mane.

“Um… excuse me, I still have a question,” Fluttershy said timidly.

Turning around to face her completely, I smiled and said, “I’m all ears.”

“All ears? I thought you were all monkey, or was it all human? Oh! Half human and half Monkey!” ran Pinkie’s mouth, prompting Applejack to shove a hoof in her face.

Drawing her slightly startled gaze away from Pinkie, Fluttershy asked, “Princess Celestia said that the show that you watched is about the more important things that we all did… that’s… um, all there is… to the show I mean… is it?”

“There’s nothing about your private lives,” I replied and began listing off some of the episodes and what they were about. “Did you all want to see an episode for yourselves?”

A unanimous nod came from the group, so I placed my laptop on the bench and turned it around so they could see. I decided to show them the episode ‘Dragonshy’.

I backed away as the episode began to play. Mostly everyone stood there and watched in silence, though at the point where they were trying to convince Fluttershy to jump a crevice, Rainbow Dash simply brought her hoof to her face and let out a groan, earning an apologetic smile from Fluttershy.

Finally it came to the part where Fluttershy succeeded in making the dragon leave, but just as the dragon took off from the cliff, the screen went black.

“Um, is that supposed to happen?” Twilight inquired.

“No…” I replied, walking over to my laptop. I gave it one look, sighed, closed it and put it back in my bag. “It’s out of power, and since I have no way to charge it here, it’s basically just a big paperweight now.”

This elicited moans of disappointment from everyone present. It was clear that they were still hoping to hear their own theme songs.

Turning to regard the group I asked if there was anything else they wanted to know, the group shook their heads in response, all of them except for Rainbow Dash.

“Before you ran off earlier you said something about getting hit,” she began. “What hit you, was it magic?”

My expression darkened. “I wasn’t hit by a spell, there’s no magic in my world. I was hit by a car.”

Again, blank stares.

“Picture a self propelled, four thousand pound metal carriage moving at between thirty to fifty kilometers per hour,” I explained. “I got knocked off my feet, and I think I hit my head on something… I think that part’s going to stay a little hazy.”

Their blank stares turned to expressions of horror.

“That’s terrible!” Twilight exclaimed. “How did you survive something like that?”

I hung my head, “I’m not sure if I did. There’re only two things that may have happened back home that I can think of. Either I’m in a coma, or I’m dead.”

Next thing I know, six ponies are nuzzling against me in a gesture of kindness and support. Even Princess Celestia walked over and wrapped one of her large wings around us.

I smiled, “I’m fine, really. There’s no point in dwelling on what already happened, I guess the important thing now is what I’m going to do now that I’m here.”

“Are you sure ‘bout that sugarcube?” Applejack asked with concern evident in her eyes.

I nodded, “There’s nothing I can do to change things anyway… not that I’d want to change things, I’ve always wanted to come to Equestria.”

Princess Celestia asked for the second time in two days, “So what do you plan on doing now?”

“I’ll probably find myself a job and some cheap place to stay here in Canterlot,” I said with a shrug.

“No way!” Rainbow exclaimed. “We just met, and I know that we’ll have so much fun together.”

“If you stay here then how am I supposed to throw you a big Welcome to Equestria party? Twilight told me that the party would have to wait so I didn’t bring anything with me!” Pinkie added hastily.

“We simply cannot have that,” Rarity said with a gasp. “You’re new so you’ll need somepony with proper tastes to show you around. Besides, I cannot stand the thought of you wearing those every day,” she gestured to my dirt encrusted clothes.

“I-I can’t. I mean, I don’t want to intrude or anything,” I stammered, startled by their persistence in wanting me to come to Ponyville.

“Don’t be so stubborn,” Twilight scolded. “We want to help you out, that’s what friends do. How can you think that coming to Ponyville with us would be intruding?”

‘They really think of me as a friend?’ I thought inwardly grinning ear to ear. “Alright, I’ll come to Ponyville with you,” I gave in. “I will find some way to pay you back for this.”

“There’s no need for that darling,” Rarity smiled. “We’re happy to help.”

‘They can’t stop me. I will pay them back eventually.’ “Fine,” I replied, “So when do we go?”

Celestia stepped forwards and said with a small grin, “As soon as you get cleaned up. But first,” she looked at Twilight. “Could you try casting a spell on Matthew I wish to confirm a suspicion of mine.”

“Um, alright,” Twilight said slightly mystified. “I guess I can try if Matt’s fine with it.”

I put on a big grin, “Give me your best shot!”

“What sort of spell should I cast?”

“A simple levitation spell should do the trick,” Celestia instructed.

Twilight lowered her head and her horn began to glow with a purple light and slowly, a pale light of the same colour began to envelope my body. I stood there waiting for something to happen, but the seconds ticked by with nothing happening. Eventually Twilight stopped her attempt, her breathing was heavier and I could see a drop of sweat roll down her forehead. She turned to her mentor in confusion.

“I don’t understand. I lifted an Ursa Minor out of Ponyville and back to its cave, but trying to move Matt was like trying to move a mountain,” she gasped.

“As I thought,” Celestia replied. “I had a surprisingly difficult time lifting him myself when I found him at Zecora’s hut. Apparently since Matthew comes from a world with absolutely no magic, his body is highly resistant to its effects.”

“Really?” I groaned. “Well that sucks. I was hoping that I might be able to use a little magic here myself.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out,” Twilight said reassuringly.

“You can start sorting things out once you all get back to Ponyville,” the Princess said. “I’ll have a carriage prepared and waiting for you in front of the castle. It was nice to see you all again.” Turning to me, Celestia continued, “Now if you’ll follow me, we’ll see what we can do about getting you cleaned up.”

And with that we parted ways, Twilight and the others heading off for the front of the castle while Celestia guided me back inside. After a while of walking through corridor after corridor we came to a vacant guest room.

“You can use the tub in here to clean up, just leave your clothes outside the door and I’ll send somepony to have them cleaned and returned to you,” the Princess instructed.

Bowing once again to Celestia, and earning a small chuckle, I stepped into the room. The bedroom was extravagantly designed; a large four poster bed with royal blue sheets and a mahogany frame, a chandelier hung from the ceiling, a soft white circular rug lay in the center of the floor, and the walls shared the same gold trimmed designs as the hallways. I entered the washroom, its polished white tile walls and floor sparkled in the light of yet another chandelier. A large white tub was set into the floor with steps leading down into it, and off to the side was a rack holding several royal blue towels and expensive looking bottles of soap and shampoo.

I turned on the water and poured in some soap. Tossing my backpack and jacket to the side I stripped off my clothes and set them out in the bedroom and closed the door. Taking off my watch I noticed that some water had made its way behind the glass. Sighing I dropped it into my backpack along with the rest of my useless stuff, again cursing my forgetfulness despite the fact that my watch wasn’t working even before I got it filled with water.

The tub was full of water and bubbles a few minutes later; I hopped in and started rubbing the dirt out of my hair. All the while I was excitedly thinking about my future in Ponyville.