Chapter 5

I looked at the giant tree that stood in the middle of the town. Said tree was HUGE! Not only that, but apparently, the tree is the library, and it still seemed to be alive. I looked in awe at the amazing architecture.

“Y-you reside here?” I asked Twilight, who giggled at my surprised.

“Oh, it isn’t much, but it’s home.” She said. I looked at her like she was crazy; thinking that living in a library was nothing special.

“Are you kidding me? I would love to live in a library, I mean, what with all of the books and all.” I said, still in awe. The rest of the girls giggled as well, with the exception of Rainbow, who simple gagged.

“Ugh, great! Another egghead!” she said, clearly in a joking voice, however.

I just smiled at her. “Hey, I can’t help it if I’m attracted to knowledge.” I said, walking up to the front door.

“Um, Drak? I wouldn’t open it yet…” said Fluttershy, clearly worried about something.

I looked at her with a questionable look as I opened the door. “What do y-”

“SURPRISE!” came a loud shout from inside. I quickly whipped my head around to see what in the world made that noise. What I saw was about 15 or so ponies inside, all clustered together and staring at the star of the party.

ME.

Instantly, all of my happiness and cheerfulness from before left me. I simply locked up, wrapping my hands around me and stood there, frozen to the spot, dropping my staff in the process. The only thing that was moving was my mind, and it was currently racing in a panic. All of the ponies looked at me in confusion, either to what I was, or what I was doing.

“Oh dear, Drakalian, are you all right?” asked Fluttershy, her voice full of worry and shock. I said nothing, just standing there like a statue, trying to make myself seem invisible.

“HELLOOOOOO? Drakalian? You look like the Princesses just put the same spell on you like the one on Discord.” Said Pinkie, tapping her hoof to my side, which for some reason sounded like she was tapping stone. The whole room was quiet for a few staggering moments, until I was able to finally say something, anything, to get me out of this situation.

“Help…”

Immediately, Fluttershy knew exactly what was happening, remembering the conversation from before. She quickly told Pinkie to get the attention off of me, and then gently grabbed one of my hands in her mouth. She led me to one of the sides of the library that was barely crowded, while all the other ponies started to party, thanks to Pinkie.

She sat down on the floor, helping me down as well; all the while I could do nothing but follow her lead. As soon as I sat down, I started to very slowly feel better, but it was taking its sweet time. After a minute with Fluttershy comforting me, I looked at her, and saw that she was scared for me, not knowing what was happening. “W-what happened, Drak? Why did you freeze up like that?” she said.

I could only stare into her eyes, feeling a strange comfort in her presence. As I stared, a single tear came out of my eye and slowly rolled down my cheek. I closed my eyes to try and keep the tears in. Soon, I felt a pair of hooves go over my shoulders and embrace me. I opened my eyes to see Fluttershy giving me another hug, this one seemed tighter then the last one. She then said something that made me melt inside.

“Go ahead and cry, it’s ok. I’m here for you.”

And cry I did, I quickly embraced her back and I silently cried a river in a few moments, and my tears seemed to be nonstop. Fluttershy, however, just took it all in stride, and just rubbed my back in small circles with her hoof to try and calm me down faster, whispering words of comfort the whole while. After a few minutes, the crying slowed to a few sniffles, but she still didn’t loosen her hold on me a bit, nor did I want her to.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, but was more like another ten minutes, she released me enough to let me lean against the wall, but she still kept a foreleg around my shoulder in case I needed more comforting. So there I was, with my arms around my legs, just barely holding myself together, with Fluttershy comforting me the whole time. It was at this point that the other mares (with the exception of Pinkie Pie, who was still keeping the attention off of me) came back to check in on us.

“Hey, dude, you ok? You look like you just saw Nightmare Moon.” Rainbow said, a worried look on her face. In fact, they all had worried looks on their faces. I just shook my head, clearly still shocked by the experience.

“I…I…I…” was all I could say. Fluttershy tightened her grip on me slightly, and said, “Take your time.”

I took a deep breath, and I was finally able to talk in a somewhat calmed voice. “It was my agoraphobia.” I said.

“Agro-whata?” asked Dash, tilting her head to the side. I took another deep breath, preparing myself to explain exactly what it is.

“Agoraphobia is the fear of either open spaces, or crowds, or even both. For me, it is the fear of crowds, and whenever I get into a crowded situation that I’m not prepared for, well, you all saw what happened.” I said, still in a sad voice.

“Oh dear, that must make it very difficult for you to go out ” Rarity said. I nodded in agreement with her. “Well, I usually don’t go out in public like this to prevent it from happening.”

“But then what do you do when you wanted to hang out with other ponies?” asked Twilight, still writing down my explanation of my phobia.

I sighed. “I don’t. I never got the chance really, the phobia made it too difficult for me to start anything in public.” This shocked the mare, probably not knowing what it was like to be so lonely.

“Is there any cure to it, or any way to stop it?” Asked Twilight. I merely shook my head. “No. Once I get in a situation like this, the only thing I could do is ride it out, and I hate every damn moment of it too” I said, bitterness in my voice.

The other girls looked at each other, and then decided to go and join the other ponies in the party, knowing that there was nothing that they could do to help me at this time, leaving me with Fluttershy. Applejack, however, still looked concern, and thought that I wasn’t telling the entire truth.

“So, you’re sure that there is not a thing we could do to help ya’ll out, sugarcube?” asked Applejack, who for some reason looked more worried then the others (besides Fluttershy). Once again, I sighed.

“Well, if I had my hoodie, I would simply cover my face with it. For some reason, covering my face makes me feel better.” I said in a depressed voice. “But my hoodie is being repaired right now, which means that I won’t be able to do anything about it now. So, no, I don’t know what you girls can do to help me right now, except to be with me and comfort me. Thanks again, Fluttershy.” I said, looking at the yellow mare. She simply blushed and nodded in response.

“Sounds a bit like what Fluttershy does when she’s nervous, except with her mane, though.” Applejack said, glancing at Fluttershy, who at that moment was doing exactly that. I then noticed that some of the ponies were starting to stare at me again, so I quickly looked down towards the ground, trying to prevent a new wave of tears from forming in my eyes.

There was silence from both of the girls as they took in the information. Then, suddenly, I felt someone (or somepony, I will get used to saying that sooner or later) placing something onto my head. I looked up and to my surprise; it was Applejack, placing her hat on me. All I could do was stare at her, she just smiled at me and said, “It might not be the same as you’re there hoodie, but it should still do the same job.”

I could just sit there and stare at the orange country mare. “T-thanks Applejack, w-when d-do you w-want it b-back?” She just continued to smile and shook her head.

“You can keep this one, ah got some more back at mah farm.” I was about to protest, saying I could not receive such a personal gift, when I looked into her eyes. What I saw in her eyes, confirmed the truth, that she was being completely honest to me. In fact, I could sense the honesty practically pooling out of her beautiful emerald green eyes. I was so tired and grateful at the same time, that I didn’t even bother correcting myself on being attracted to a pony (I was thinking about it the whole time, and finally said forget it, realizing that I was most likely the only human here, so who would give a damn if I became attracted to a pony, at least they were sentient). Instead, I loosened my hold onto Fluttershy slightly and wrapped my free arm around Applejack, bringing her into an equally tight hug as mine was with Fluttershy.

“T-thank you so much, Applejack, you have no idea how much this means to me.” I said. Applejack smiled and blushed at my response. She nuzzled into my hug. “No problem, partner, and for the record, call me AJ, it’s much less formal.”

I smiled at her and nodded. “Ok, AJ it is then.”

I released her and she decided to sit next to me, talking all about apple bucking season. Fluttershy was quiet most of the time, and I tried to get her to join in on the conversation, thinking that she might be feeling left out, but she said she was just happy that I was feeling better, and was ok just to sit there and listen to us chat. We sat there for what I think was thirty minutes, when I noticed that most of the party goers were gone and it was just me along with Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack.

Realizing that the party was over, I was about to ask what we were going to do next, when all of a sudden, Pinkie shouts out “Surprise slumber party!” and produces sleeping bags for all of us. I look at the other ponies with a questionable look, and they all just answered, “Don’t ask.”

Deciding to ignore the pink mare’s antics, I asked who was the one who decided a sleepover. Surprisingly, it was Twilight.

“I thought that you wouldn’t want to go out there yet, seeing as you are still not comfortable around most of the other ponies, so I decided that we should have a sleepover, also, since Spike is on a royal trip in Canterlot, I thought we could have it here.”

I nodded my thanks, deciding to ask who Spike was at a later date. I placed my sleeping bag next to Fluttershy and Aj’s bags, since they wanted to be next to me for some reason (For Fluttershy, it was probably to make sure I’m ok through out the night, but I didn’t know why AJ asked to be next to me). As we were setting up, Dash noticed that I was wearing AJ’s hat

“Hey, why is Drak wearing your hat, AJ?”

AJ turned to her and said, “Well, he said that he would feel more comfortable if he had somethin’ to cover his head with, which is one of the reasons why he likes this here hoodie so much, so ah thought ah’d give him my hat. Besides, ah do have more at the farm anyways.”

“Well, I for one, Drak, think that it looks marvelous on you. I have never seen anypony be able to pull off that look with the exception of AJ, that is.” Said Rarity, giving me a once over. “And don’t worry about your hoodie, for I will have it fixed up in no time, dear.” I blushed at her complement and thanked her for being so generous to me.

Once we were done setting up our sleeping bags, we all sat in a circle (with the order going as such: Me, AJ, Rarity, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy) and thought of what we should do for a game. Pinkie, unsurprisingly, was the one that thought up of one first.

“I know, since we have a colt with us now, how about we play spin the bottle!”