Drake didn't fall asleep right away.

For a while he just lay there, listening to the sound of Lyra's breathing. An hour passed, yet in his mind it felt like a second. He reached across to her nightstand and grabbed his book, flipping through the pages of notes and sketches. He was a visual person, and though he'd jotted down some points about ponies, he preferred to draw them out in diagrams. He'd gotten their anatomy down quite well.

He considered drawing Lyra as she slept, but that sounded plain creepy. He heard her soft snore and sat up slowly. She remained still, her cute little ears twitching.

He finally closed his eyes, however. He didn't sleep well. It was the kind of sleep where your body felt rejuvenated, but your mind didn't rest. When he opened his eyes, the sun was already up and he became aware that his torso was being crushed.

Lyra's forelegs were wrapped around his waist, hugging him like a big cuddly teddy bear. He sucked in and felt her tighten her grip into a vice. As adorable as this all was, he liked to breathe. He poked her on the nose, but her only reaction was to scrunch her face. He hesitated to touch her. He poked her ear, amused by the way it flattened and twitched.

"Hey. Hey Lyra. Psst. Wake up."

Maybe he could tickle her or something. She looked so peaceful though. She had this dopey grin on her face. Her silvery mane had fallen over her face, tickling her nose. He brushed the strands out of her face, running them behind her ears. The unicorn let out a content sigh. He didn't want to wake her up but...

Drake would have to pull a bait and switch, like in those cheesy adventure movies where the hero would reach for some treasure and have to put a rock on the pedestal or something like that. He grabbed his pillow and prepared to move. Beads of switch rolled down his face and he bit his tongue. He quickly slipped out of Lyra's clutches and replaced her hooves with a pillow. She pulled it close and nuzzled it.

His heart melted at the sight before he kicked himself mentally. Spending time around all these girls was making him soft.

He reached out and hesitated, before petting her head.

When Drake crept downstairs, he bumped into Bon Bon, already up, shifting some thing around the kitchen.

"Oh, good morning."

He stared for a second before responding with a cheerful, "Mornin'."

She stared at him before shaking her head. "Sorry," she chuckled, "I'm still getting used to seeing you around the house."

Drake moved past the mare and opened the fridge.

"You want anything? I could whip something up," she offered.

"It's okay."

He found a chicken egg and examined it.

"Lyra adores you, you know."

"Sorry?"

"I mean the human thing. She's absolutely in love with humans."

"Yeah," he chuckled.

"She's really fascinated by this whole thing."

Why was she talking to him?

He poked a hole in the egg and sucked the yolk and whites out. He caught Bon Bon looking at him with disgust.

"What?"

"Do humans usually eat raw eggs?"

"No. But it's good for protein. And plus, I'm a growing boy," he grinned.

Bon Bon kicked a hoof. "Humans...they eat meat, right?"

He paused. "Yeah. That's right. How'd you know?"

"Your fangs." She shuddered at the sight of him grinning. "Do you eat...ponies?"

It took a while for him to respond. "Oh, no. No no no," he said, shaking his head with a smile.

Bon Bon looked relieved.

"Well, I think at some point..."

She gasped.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Humans eat mostly chicken and steak and pork and fish. Say, you wouldn't happen to know how to rustle up any of those, would you?"

Bon Bon glared. "All those things you said yesterday..."

Drake gulped down a glass of orange juice, glancing at Bon Bon out of the corner of his eye.

"Were they true?"

"Mostly. There are good ponies and bad ponies, right?"

She nodded.

"It's like that. Kinda. But humans..." He paused. "Humans are pretty terrible."

Bon Bon frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

He sighed. "I think...we're the only species in the universe capable of doing horrible things to each other."

"What kind of things?"

He didn't answer.

"Okay...So what do you think of her?"

"Lyra? She's nice. I like her. She's fun."

Bon Bon laughed. "That's a good word to use. Kooky would be another one." She sighed. "The first time she came to Ponyville," she giggled, "she looked so lost, you know? All the way from Canterlot on her own with her lyre and everything. She seemed normal enough and I - well, I took her in."

"That was nice of you."

"Then she started showing her true colors. She kept babbling on and on about these humans. She said her name was Heartstrings but she insisted I call her Lyra. And she'd have all these diagrams and conspiracy webs set up in her room."

Drake smiled at the thought.

"Buuuut she pays rent so I can't complain." Bon Bon put on a huge smile. "Well, it was nice talking to you."

"Sure."

---

Lyra had woken as he dressed himself in a baseball shirt with black sleeves and jeans, lacing his sneakers.

"Ready to go to work?" she cheered.

"Is this the kind of work that isn't really work?"

"Nope! It's the backbreaking, menial, laborious kind!"

"Oh, joy."

First stop was the Carousel Boutique. It was an elegant establishment, appropriately named for it's carousel-like features. The dressmaker had insisted that Drake bring all of his clothes. He reached up to knock on the door before it swung open.

"Oh, you're here! Come in, come in!" Rarity's voice came from inside.

Lyra trotted in. Drake stepped forward before his head collided with the door frame with a solid thunk!

"Ow! I did not see that coming!" He rubbed his sore forehead and crouched to step through.

Rarity was already there to greet him. "Did you bring them?"

"Yeah. Right down to business, huh?"

"Of course!" Rarity sniffed, levitating his clothes from his arms. "With these I will take the fashion industry by storm!"

She plucked various articles of clothing from his pile. Mostly jeans and shoes and shorts, which didn't make much sense for ponies.

"Humans sure like their clothes, don't they?" Lyra remarked. "You're always wearing them."

"I guess so."

Drake had never paid much attention to fashion. His daily outfit consisted of a pair of jeans and shirt and shoes. He usually tossed on anything that smelled or looked clean, and didn't concern himself too much with appearances.

"We don't have a nice coat like ponies to keep us warm," he explained. "And we wear it for...other reasons."

"But it's nice and sunny out!"

Apparently, ponies only wore things like scarves and hats in the winter, and dresses for formal occasions.

"You can take off your clothes now!"

He flushed. "Humans don't go walking around naked, Lyra. That's the other reason for why we wear clothes."

Lyra raised her eyebrows. "Oh."

"Fabulous!" Rarity sang.

"Rarity, that's my hoodie."

"Is that what they call it?"

"Hate to break it to ya Rarity, but everyone wears them."

"But not everypony!"

Lyra squealed. "Can I have one?"

"Of course, Lyra, darling. Soon everypony in Equestria will be wearing these, uh, hoodies."

Lyra and Drake left Rarity to her devices.

"That wasn't much work, Lyra."

"Not yet, anyway," she said coyly.

---

Apples. Apples as far as the eye could see. All types of apples hanging from the branches of apple trees, healthy and green, in a massive orchard that spanned an entire hillside. The smell of fresh apples grew stronger and stronger as they approached a red barn.

"Sweet Apple Acres! Get ready to get your hooves dirty, Drake! Well, in your case, hands..."

Applejack was there to greet him, along a much larger, muscular stallion.

"Well howdy there, Drake."

"Howdy," he said, tipping an invisible hat off. "Yeehaw and all that." He was starting to wonder if her accent was fake. As far as he knew, there was no Texas in Equestria.

"I'd like you to meet Big Macintosh, mah big brother."

The red stallion with the auburn mane nodded.

"'Sup, man."

"Eeyup," Big Mac drawled.

A few seconds of awkward silence passed.

"He doesn't talk much, does he?"

Applejack chuckled. "No, not in particular. Now c'mon." She explained. "We could always use an extra set of hooves, err, hands on the farm. Now I don't have any bits to pay you with, we always have some Sweet Apple Acres cider around..."

"No!" Drake blurted. "Um, no, thank you, please."

Applejack chortled. "It was sweet cider anyways. But I'm sure you'll enjoy one of Granny Smith's apple pies."

"Uh huh. What are we doing here today, exactly?"

"Applebuckin'! We're gonna buck these apples right off their branches!"

He saw that several baskets and carts had been set out beneath the trees.

"Buck? You mean kick?"

He watched as Applejack reared up and slammed her rear hooves into the trunk of a tree with a solid thunk. The apples quivered on their stems before plummeting into the baskets set up in an orderly fashion. Drake gaped and shook his head. He'd hate to be on the receiving end of those legs...

"I don't think I'll be able to do that, AJ," he said nervously. He roundhouse kicked another apple tree to emphasize his point, barely shaking a leaf.

"Hmm. That might be a problem..."

Drake's eyes lit up. "But I can do this!" He rolled up his sleeves and took a few steps back before jumping and scaling the apple tree. He sat on one of the branches with his legs dangling and hung upside down. "Ta-daaa! I'm a monkey! Ooh! Eee!"

Lyra clopped her hooves together in applause. "Hooray!"

"Oh brother," Applejack said with a roll of her eyes.

The boy plucked an apple off its stem and admired it, and took a bite.

Applejack protested, "H-Hey!"

He wiped the juice off his face. "Wow, AJ, these apples are really sweet!" And he wasn't exaggerating either. Never before had he taste an apple as sweet and ripe and juicy as the ones of Sweet Apple Acres.

"Now let's get to work!"

---

"Oh my gosh, I'm getting tired just looking at you climb," Lyra panted as she levitated another basket filled with apples.

Drake sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow. The process of manually picking each and every single apple was tedious and physically exhausting. He had to gather them up in his arms and dump them in the baskets below, and had fallen several times.

"We're almost done, you two," Applejack grunted, pulling a cart behind her.

"So I'm guessing, ungh, that your cutie marks mean that you're good with apples?"

"What made you think that?" she replied with a hint of sarcasm. "The apples on our flanks?"

He set down the basket of apples. "And you're the Element of Honesty, right?"

"Yup. Looks like someone's been doing their research."

"That's because somepony dragged me all the way to the library, of all places," Drake said, shooting Lyra a glare. "Hey AJ. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. What is it?"

He'd told Lyra that he'd drop the subject, but he was desperate to find out. "You know Equestrian, right?"

"Speak it, read it, write it!"

"Aren't you curious why I can communicate with you?"

The orange mare paused. "Huh. Well, I figured it was magic. That's usually the answer, so I tend not to think about it very much."

"What if I told you that you weren't speaking Equestrian, but actually a human language?"

"And what language would that be?" She eyed the boy warily.

"English."

"Never heard of it!"

"Applejack, look," he said, crouching down and pointing at a sign. "It says 'Sweet Apple Acres', doesn't it?"

"Well, it looks like you humans copied from us!"

"Or maybe...maybe it's the other way around."

"Let's just leave it as magic. Us earth ponies don't have much time to be thinking about all those kinds of things."

---

He snatched the bottle of apple cider, plucking the straw out. "Bottoms up!" He titled the bottle back, feeling the ice-cold beverage cool him down. The taste was refreshing and crisp. "Ah."

"There's plenty more, Drake."

"Do you do this every day?" he asked.

"No, not every day. A few times during a month. We start kicking things into high gear when the season comes 'round." Applejack smiled. "Heh. I remember last year's season when I tried to buck all the apples on the farm."

Drake choked in his drink. "All of them?"

"Every single one. Except at the same time I had other things to do."

He whistled.

"And I was stubborn as a mule. I wouldn't let nopony help me. I was set on doin' the entire orchard all by myself."

"Did it work?"

"Hay, no!" she laughed. "Didn't sleep, didn't eat. 'Caused a big ruckus around Ponyville with mah," she shuddered, "baked bads. Twilight tried to help and I kept turning her away until I realized there was no way I could do it on my own. And what do ya know, they all came to help."

"Sounds like you've got some great friends," he said wryly.

Friends. Did he have any friends? Not since he'd moved. He had friends, didn't he?

"C'mon, let's go get a snack," Lyra said.

---

"Go back home to where you belong!" the salespony hollered at him.

"What's her deal?"

"You have to understand, Drake, ponies are..."

"Isolationist?" he offered.

She pouted. "When everything in the forest is trying to make a meal out of you, you tend to be on guard all the time. Things aren't like that anymore, but still...Take griffons, for example. They're our number one supplier of raw materials and help out Cloudsdale! But ponies are always suspicious of them, because griffons used to eat ponies centuries ago!"

"Griffons, huh. Half-lion, half-eagle."

"To the north, in Regnum Grypha. It's hard to communicate with them. They speak this weird version of Equestrian."

"Regnum Grypha? That's Latin, isn't it?"

"Latin? I thought you said you knew English."

"I studied Latin in Catholic school," he said with a dismissive wave, "Regnum Grypha means Kingdom of the Griffons in Latin, Lyra! Where did they learn Latin?"

She shrugged. "Hay if I know. The only time I've ever seen a griffon was when one of Rainbow Dash's friends came around to visit."

He fell silent, scribbling a reminder in his notebook.

"Hey Drake?"

He looked up.

"What do you think I would look like if I was a human?"

The question surprised him.

"Why?"

"Just wondering."

The idea was kinda cute.

He flattened his sketchbook out and scooted over. "Here." He started making quick, light strokes with his pencil. "You'd probably be around, say, sixteen, seventeen, maybe eighteen." He started with her eyes, making them wide and filled with curiosity. He gave her a small nose and ears, and put a huge smile on her face. He glanced over and studied Lyra.

"What?"

"Hold still. I'm trying to do your hair."

She giggled.

"It'd be kinda short, but not too short," he told her as he drew in her hair. "And let's give you a body." Tall and lean, with a slender frame.

Drake felt Lyra put her head on his shoulder, watching him draw her. He could smell the mint from her shampoo.

"Some clothes..." A pair of sneakers and jeans, with a tank top. "And the hardest part: hands." Lyra paid close attention as he began to pencil in her fingers.

"Wow..."

He brushed the graphite dust off his page. "There. Not too shabby, am I right? Lyra?"

"It's...amazing! Where'd you learn to draw like that?"

"Well, I guess having fingers helps. I had plenty of time to practice in class."

"You went to art school?"

"More like pretend to take notes and doodle," he snorted. "You should see my notebook." He set his pencil down. "I could color this for you, if you'd like."

"Oh thank you!"

"I just hope I brought all my colored pencils. I don't think I can color your hair."

"Why's that?"

He rolled his eyes. "Because humans don't have mint green hair, Lyra."

"They don't?"

"We don't have colorful coats like you guys. Some of us are darker than others, but our hair colors tend to stay black, brown, blonde, or red. It's kinda boring. That's what I thought when I first saw everypony standing there at town hall. Ponies are just so...colorful. Just like Equestria."

"I think I'd look very pretty as a human."

"I think you would too."

---

"Hello, Drake Anderson!"

"Gah!" The boy jumped back.

"You're here, you're here, you're here!" Twilight Sparkle squealed, dragging him inside the library. "You can finally answer all my questions about humans!"

"Uh, Twilight..."

"Tell me everything."

"Everything?" He paled.

"From the beginning! Your civilizations, history, culture!" She levitated a long roll of parchment paper and quill pen, ready to write down whatever Drake had to say.

"Twilight, I'm the wrong person to be asking. If you want to learn about humans, read a textbook, 'cause I sure as hay-"

He frowned. Did he just say hay?

"-heck don't know anything that would be useful."

Lyra added. "Besides, didn't you remember what Princess Celestia said? Drake's here to learn about us, not the other way around!"

He felt bad when the purple mare deflated slightly. "Oh."

Drake quickly said, "But I can tell you some things!"

They spent the next hour or so discussing things like cars, television, the Internet, cell phones, and sports. The two unicorns' eyes grew wider and wider as he regaled them with tidbits of information about electricity, which replaced magic in the human world, and technology.

---

The griffon watched the human and the two ponies through his crystal ball, listening to the words the boy spoke through the eyes of his many avian spies, a smile spreading across his beak.

---

Before Drake knew it night descended upon Equestria. He yawned loudly and twisted his back.

"Man, it is late!"

"But there's so much we have to talk about!" Twilight eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh! We could have a sleepover!"

His eyes snapped open. "A sleepover?"

"A sleepover! Did someone say a sleepover?"

He jumped away from the pink pony. "Pinkie, where on earth did you come fro-"

"I'll go get Rainbow Dash! And Fluttershy, and Rarity and..." Her bubbly voice trailed off as she darted off.

He opened his mouth.

"Don't ask," Twilight said lamely.

A sleepover? With a bunch of girls? Guys his age didn't have sleepovers!

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun, I just know it!"

Why him?