Stepping out into the bright, cheery sunlight had been the easy part.

Adjusting to the unexpected and rather abrupt altercation to his perception… not so much.

When Doug had finally stopped screaming and pretending that he wasn’t clammily weeping into the knee high grass, Pinkie Pie kindly helped him stand up and dust his pajamas off to get a better look around.

“Welcome to Ponyville!” Pinkie threw her arm toward a rather bustling village filled with ponies in nearly every color of the rainbow.

“The door is gone,” Doug swiped in a deadened sense of shock at midair where his front door had once been. “The door is gone. The door is gone, the door is gone – how am I going to get back, the door is gone!”

“Aw, calm down!” the overjoyed mare bounced once, but her mane continued to spring long afterwards. “Getting back is easy peasy; we just need to get you to the princess and everything will be okie-dokie-lokie!”

Doug flipped his hands over a few times, examining the rather cartoonish look that seemed to have plastered itself over his entire body to match the world around him. The prospect of actually being a cartoon was just so strange, so surreal and bizarre that he hardly heard the little pink mare pushing him toward the busy community.

“-nd after that we’ll all have cupcakes!”

“What?” Doug blinked, jerking away from Pinkie and walking on his own, firm dirt meeting his bare feet as they walked down the main road and startled quite a number of stunned bystanders. “Yeah, sure. Absolutely.”

“Whee! That’s fantastic!” Pinkie Pie squealed in delight, springily hopping alongside him as nearly every single pony in their path fearfully scampered out of their way. “We’ll have everything right as rain in no time at all, you’ll see!”

Doug’s palm rubbed over his forehead a few times as they walked, the disbelief still weighing heavily on him.

“That’s it,” he muttered. “I’m on drugs. Somebody stuffed my lasagna full of crystal meth, and this is the result.”

“What’s that?” Pinkie Pie asked him cheerfully, spinning around to face him as she continued to trot backwards along the sidewalk.

“What’s what?”

“Crystal meth!” she asked with interest. “Is it a candy?”

“Uh… yeah,” he lied. “Nothing you’d like though-”

“Don’t be silly, I love all kinds of sugary treats!” Pinkie giggled, whirling back around and continuing her bouncy trot to who knew where. Doug considered informing her precisely what she was even talking about, but decided against it. He still had a few brain cells left, no reason to slaughter them yet.

He could save that for watching The Christmas Tree.

“… Where are we going again?” Doug scratched the back of his head, the warm sunlight pouring down on them and making him wish that he had thought to grab shoes first.

“Well, first we’ve got to take you to go see Twilight,” Pinkie said seriously. “And after that you can go see the princess.”

“Why? What’s the point? Who’s Twilight?” he inquired, more out of attempt to keep from thinking very hard about the situation lest the impossibility of it all result in a mental breakdown.

“Because Twilight is one of the ponies that knows the most about the invasions!” she explained, all previous seriousness vanishing in an instant. “Aside from Princess Celestia, I mean.”

“Then why are we wasting time scaring the crap out of a bunch of innocent townsfolk?” Doug jabbed a finger at a couple of terrified ponies trailing at a safe distance behind them.

“What, and skip all this necessary character development?” she snorted.

“DAMMIT PONY, TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!”

“And here we are!”

Pinkie Pie gestured grandly up at a gnarled old tree that swayed gently in the breeze.

“That is a tree,” Doug deadpanned. “That is very much a tree.”

“And?” Pinkie urged him on. “Twilight’s in there, so let’s go see her!”

“Your friend lives in a tree?”

“It’s more of a house than a tree,” Pinkie explained.

“So which is it? A house or a tree?

“A library.”

“DAMMIT pony, will you please start making sense!”

The front door to Golden Oaks library creakily swung open, revealing a slightly scorched purple unicorn with a bright blue mane.

“Hey, Twi!” Pinkie waved cheerfully despite the fact that she was hardly a foot away. “When did you get the new manecut?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said with a frown, eyeing Doug in a way that he did not appreciate. “Is that the thing?”

“I’m a person, excuse me,” he frowned, crossing his arms defensively.

“Oh Celestia, it talks.” Twilight seemed a little put off by that.

“That was kind of my reaction,” Doug jabbed a finger at the still eagerly bouncing pink mare. “Is this Celestia person your god or something?”

“She’s the princess!” Pinkie elaborated unhelpfully.

Doug only stared at her for nearly half a minute.

“… Not that this hasn’t been riveting,” he drawled, dripping sarcasm. “But I kind of need to get back home before my brain melts.”

“Right – Mister Critic,” Twilight cleared her throat awkwardly. “I am not proud to announce that we have specifically sought your assistance-”

Doug didn’t hear most of this, as he too busy running away.

Author's Notes:

Please let me know if I've missed any typos!