Meg climbed up into the RV and looked inside. A tall man, with slightly graying hair but still in good shape, casually dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, stood up from the sofa.

“Mrs. Coleman, I presume?”

She carefully walked towards him. “And you are?”

No one she recognized at first glance, or even at second glance. Certainly not the President or the Secretary of State. Probably some midlevel bureaucrat. Well, one step at a time. Let’s just get this over with.

He pulled out something from a back pocket and flashed her a badge. “Agent Paul Reubens, Secret Service.”

That was… unexpected. Why would this be in their jurisdiction? And shouldn’t he be wearing dark sunglasses or something?

Sensing her confusion, he said, “I’m sure you have questions you’d like answered, as do I. Why don’t you take a seat.” He held out his arm, pointing at the table opposite the sofa.

She did so, as he sat down again himself, still wondering why he was here. It was rather unlikely they suspected ponies of counterfeiting U.S. currency, and he certainly wasn’t protecting the President. If he was here, there’d be a much bigger presence.

That seemed as good place to start as any. “Why is the Secret Service involved with this?”

He leaned back. “That’s a very interesting question,” he stated. In a rather nonchalant tone, he added, “There is some concern there could be a threat to the President.”

Meg looked at him askance. “A threat?”

“The word is that the… ponies… can cross over to our world anywhere they want. Is that correct?”

She wasn’t sure she liked where this was going. “It’s more complicated than that, but, theoretically, yes.”

“Including the White House?”

“Uh…” Definitely didn’t like where this was going. And they didn’t even know they could be invisible.

He quickly added, “Not that we’re saying they’re planning to attack us or anything, but it’s our job to consider all possibilities.”

Which reminded her of what Shining Armor had said; but then, they were in the same profession. “It could be happen, yes,” she reluctantly admitted.

“Or, I could be here to provide protection to a visiting foreign dignitary. That pony is a princess, correct?”

The sudden shift in direction caught Meg off guard, only deepening the mystery of his actual purpose. “That’s right.”

The air conditioner finally kicked in. Solid cloud cover or no, it was still rather warm outside, and getting warmer. Speaking over the considerable drone, he said, “A lot of wild stories have been floating about, too fantastic to be true. They’ve worked their way up to the President, and… well, he thinks it’s either the mother of all pranks, or everyone’s gone insane.

“Fowler’s trip report, filed late yesterday, complete with photos and video, was the final straw. I’ve been tasked, by the President himself, with getting to the bottom of it. I took a red eye flight out to Vegas.”

It was starting to come together. There was no question he saw Twilight out there, probably heard everything she had said too. “So what are you going to tell him.”

“That it’s all true, of course.” That prospect evidently did not fill him with joy. “As unlikely as he considered it, he did give me instructions for this contingency.”

For a moment there, it looked as if his instructions were to sit there and do nothing more than keeping an eye on Meg. More likely, he didn’t quite know how to proceed, or ever believed that those instructions could become relevant.

“I am not a diplomat, Mrs. Coleman, but I am authorized to ascertain their intentions. I know their immediate concern has something to do with that doll… which apparently has rather interesting properties of its own. But what comes next? Embassies? Trade agreements? Will Twilight do the talk show circuit?”

Shouldn’t you be asking Twilight that? It wasn’t her place to speak for the princesses, but she could understand why he would want to deal with her first, as a way of gently breaking in this new reality.

“Quite honestly… they’re still figuring that out themselves. Right now, they have no interest in advertising that they’re real—not that they won’t talk to you, unofficially you might say, but no public appearances.”

That came as a huge relief to the agent. “The President will be pleased to hear that. It’s the second best possible scenario.”

“Second best?”

“No, I take that back. Second best would be that once their business with this doll has concluded, they all went away and never came back. Then we can forget this ever happened.”

Really?

“The best possible scenario would be for all this to have been a massive prank. Then he could just fire a bunch of people and be done with it—civil service rules and regulations be damned.”

“Surely you’re joking?”

He fixed his gaze on her. “Can the ponies place one of our nukes inside the Kremlin?”

Meg blinked. If it was his goal to unsettle her, he succeeded. “They have no interest in our politics, and they certainly won’t fight our wars.”

“Think you can convince the Russians of that? The Chinese? I noticed that Twilight out there speaks English with a perfect American accent.” He was silent for a moment. “Quite honestly, I’d think it would have been much easier if a spaceship full of little green men had landed on the White House lawn. It certainly would have been more believable.”

It was more about what a potential enemy could do to you than what they intended to do, as it had been made clear to her, and an Equestrian alliance would grant massive first-strike capabilities against which there was no advance warning or defense. Put military command and control in Equestria, and it would be untouchable by human militaries.

And who would be the natural allies of Equestria? Only an idiot would fail to notice the common language, the common accents, the similar geography, even similar city names. The cartoon was an American creation. Maybe that wasn’t a coincidence; how could it be explained otherwise? Not that the Equestrians felt that obligated them in any way whatsoever, but this wasn’t about what the ponies thought.

Admittedly, there were important differences too. The United States was not ruled by an absolute diarchy of immortal beings. Nonetheless, the point was that such an alliance was possible and there was no way to prove it didn’t exist; or rather, the only way a foreign power could prove it didn’t exist was by forming an Equestrian alliance of its own—and when they couldn’t… well… enough said. It made a complicated world even more complicated.

Just like the existence of the cartoon becoming public knowledge would complicate the Equestrian world.

Meg fixed her own gaze on him in return. “I’d say the President and the Princesses have more in common than you’d might think.”

Ruebens quirked an eyebrow. “Indeed.”

The air conditioner switched off, enveloping the room in an oppressive silence.

Meg looked out the window, through the curtains. Twilight was patiently waiting for her turn with the mystery man, passing the time chatting with Fowler. Her phone took that as its cue to ring.

She quickly got it out. It was Steve. “It’s my husband. Probably wondering why we aren’t back yet.”

He waved it away with his hand. “By all means.”

She accepted the call. “We’re okay, but there’s been an… interesting development.” Hopefully, he’d take the hint and not press for an explanation. She really didn’t know herself what to make of this yet.

It was a few seconds before he replied. “I’ll call again in thirty minutes if I don’t hear from you.”

“Okay… bye.”

As Meg put her phone away, he asked, “He’s in Equestria?”

She looked at him. “That’s right.”

“He can call you from a different universe,” he droned disbelievingly.

“He just did.” Didn’t Fowler include her phone conversation with Tom in her report?

“And right now, he’s a unicorn,” he said, not really believing he just uttered those words.

“You certainly did your homework.”

The agent stood up and paced towards the back of the RV. Upon reaching the door to what was probably the bedroom, he stopped and turned around. “I have to admit I still find it hard to believe,” he sighed. “I don’t suppose you could turn into a pegasus right now?”

She shook her head. “That kind of magic doesn’t work in our universe. Sorry.”

“Magic…” he slowly said, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“That’s what they call it,” Meg tried to rationalize. “It’s not supernatural or anything—at least, not to them. To Twilight it’s science, no different than, say, magnetism. For some reason, it’s a part of their universe but not ours. They can bring some with them, like we can bring air with us to breath underwater, but our universe… puts it on a short leash? I dunno. Whatever, magic is not stable here and is limited in what it can do.”

“Magic’s how they come to our universe?”

Meg nodded. “Yup. Magic of the highest order.”

“There’s no way for us to go to their universe without their assistance?”

“Not by any means I’m aware of; it could be impossible.”

“And your husband is a physicist, so he would know about these things.”

Meg just nodded some more.

“That would put us at a rather significant disadvantage.”

“It is what it is.”

He silently stood there for a moment, digesting the implications. “Would it be possible for me to briefly visit this other universe?”

Meg couldn’t tell what answer he was hoping for. Probably felt it was his job to confirm its existence—or non-existence, as the case may be. “That would be up to Twilight, but I see no reason why not.” She looked out the window again. The pony in question was inspecting some equipment Fowler had brought out. “Are you going to talk to her?”

He sat down again on the sofa. “Soon.” He folded his hands together and rested his chin on them. “Let’s talk about you.”

“About me,” she droned. Here it comes…

“You appear to have established a strong relationship with them, earned their trust.”

It suddenly seemed a good idea to volunteer as little as possible. “I guess.”

“Would you be willing to assist us in handling them?”

And there it is… Not that she wasn’t willing to help—”handled,” really?—but she was already working for Princess Celestia. Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest? Yet how to justify turning them down? It didn’t seem wise to tell them of her prior commitments. For the moment, she would play along, digging for more information.

“You mean I’d become, like, an Ambassador?”

He frowned. “I wish I could say ‘yes.’ Maybe one day that’d even be possible, but today… Any kind of high-level position requires a public vetting, possibly a Senate confirmation hearing. I’m sure you can understand.”

Not surprising, really. Difficult to keep it all under wraps when it’s being broadcast on C-SPAN 2. At least this gave her an excuse to say no. “Anything that involves compensation?”

Direct hit. Before he even opened his mouth, the answer was obvious. “We’ll see what we can come up with.”

At least Celestia was paying her; but then, she had the advantage of being an absolute monarch.

And speaking of keeping it under wraps… “Just how long do you think you can keep this all ‘under wraps?’”

Reubens gave her a grim smile. “For as long as we can. Everything about this has been classified. At first, it was to avoid becoming the laughingstock of the world, but now…” He shook his head.

Hearing the word “classified” filled Meg with dread. “And what about me? I don’t have a security clearance.”

“You and your husband… are in a rather unique position. We can only insist that you don’t mention it to anyone else.”

And they had just got released from their Pinkie Promise too; at least that had come with a party. Not that they had any intention of doing the talk show circuit either. One not-so-small problem, though…

Meg considered not bringing it up. Unfortunately, it seemed like the sort of thing that could backfire horribly if the Feds found out anyway—and the odds were too good that they would. “A few of my relatives already know.”

He did not immediately reply. “We’ll work out the details later. Just keep them from talking about it. I suspect that isn’t a problem.”

“No, it isn’t.” They didn’t want to be locked up for their own protection, after all. As for Susie, well, that was easy enough to rationalize away as an overactive imagination, and it had been made very clear to her that she’d be able to visit Equestria again only if she kept it a secret. So far, it was working.

“But seriously,” she asked, “how can you stop this from leaking out?”

He smiled. “That’s not my department.”

The agent pulled out his phone and made a call. “You can send her in now.”

Meg turned to look out the window and saw Fowler putting away her own phone while saying something to Twilight. The alicorn proceeded to walk to the RV. It wasn’t long before the door opened and a set of hooves clambered up the steps. Meg got up to meet her halfway.

Twilight gave her the once-over. “Everything’s alright?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah, I think so,” Meg replied in kind. “Let me make introductions.” She turned around and walked back to the table. Twilight followed, her eyes locking in on the man sitting on the sofa.

Meg held out an arm to the agent. “This is Agent Reubens. He’s a… his job is to protect the leader of our nation.”

Twilight gave him a subtle nod. “Pleased to meet you.”

Turning to the agent, Meg said, “And this is Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria.”

“Your Highness,” he said, giving the princess a slight bow.

“Twilight, Agent Reubens has expressed a desire to make a brief visit to Equestria. I figure we can have our conversation in the Zephyr.”

The alicorn cocked her head at the Secret Service agent. “I see no reason why not. If you would stand up, please, we can be there in a few seconds.”

Her request did not immediately register. After he finally got up on his feet, he said, “A few seconds? Just like that?”

Twilight’s horn was already glowing. “Pretty much. You might experience some disorientation. Closing your eyes helps.”

Meg put her phone into Twilight’s saddlebag and stepped away from the alicorn in order to give her the space needed by her equine form. She informed the agent, “I’ll be a pegasus when we arrive on the other side.”

“Just like—”

They were in the Zephyr’s observation lounge.

“—that.”

An orchid pegasus gave him a big smile. “Yep, just like that.”

Reubens was looking at where Meg’s head used to be. He lowered his gaze to from where her voice now came. Just realizing they had, indeed, crossed over, he spun around, quickly taking in his surroundings: Twilight studying his reaction, the various plush cushions on the floor, a box in the corner with a notebook computer lying beside it. He finished up scanning the activity outside, as a team of crystal ponies began work on the third wall of the enclosure, growing and morphing crystals into shape with their hooves.

He seemed to be handling it well enough—better than her brother did, anyway. But where did Steve go off to? She couldn’t see him outside.

“Hey, Twi.”

At the sound of Rainbow Dash’s voice, they all turned around. She was entering the lounge from the corridor. Behind her was Spike, carrying a large, nearly square package, on top of which was a scroll.

“Rainbow Dash? Spike?” Twilight inquired. “What are you two doing here?”

“Well, you see, Spike got a message from the Princess—er, Celestia, that is—and Cadance decided to get that awesome rope and start experimenting with it right now—did you get it yet?”

“We got it,” Meg said.

“So I offered to fly out here—shopping isn’t really my thing, and I really needed to stretch my wings—and Spike thought you might want to send a message back, so… well… here we are.”

The scroll glowed lavender as it floated over to Twilight and unrolled. “And the package?”

“It’s from Pinkie Pie,” Spike answered. “Her Pinkie Sense told her you’d need it.”

Need what, exactly? What had Pinkie sensed? Did Rainbow Dash really carry Spike and the package on her back the whole way?

Twilight was more interested in reading the scroll than opening the package, so Meg decided to take care of that. “Why don’t you put the package down here?”

The baby dragon waddled over to Meg and carefully set it down. It was wrapped in a pink ribbon, tied in a bow on top. Ruebens was standing beside her, also eyeing the package. Meg was a little scared to open it. It was from Pinkie Pie.

She sat on her haunches in front of the package, lifted a hoof and brought it to a loose end of the ribbon, and pulled. The bow came undone.

“How did you just do that?”

Meg looked up at the agent. “You haven’t seen the cartoon have you?”

“No… I know of it… relatives, you know… but, no, I’ve never actually seen it.”

She returned her attention to the package. Putting her hooves on both sides, she prepared to lift the top. “Consider this your introduction. It’s from Pinkie Pie. Anything could happen. She may pop out herself for all I know.”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “That is way too small to hold a pony.”

“Still wouldn’t put it past her,” Rainbow Dash casually said. The pegasus was now standing next to the package as well.

Meg was procrastinating. Stop being silly. It can’t be dangerous. With a jerk, she removed the top. An explosion of confetti and streamers blew up in their faces to the sound of party favors being blown.

Miraculously, none of it got into her eyes. She looked down inside the package and saw two dozen cupcakes, neatly arranged. No Pinkie Pie. No confetti either. Somehow, none of it fell back into the package. How does she do that?

“Don’t ask,” Dash said. She was looking up at the human.

Ruben got down on his knees and scanned the cupcakes, picking up one that caught his interest.

“Don’t eat that one,” Meg warned. “It has gemstones.” Its surface was peppered with them, of various colors, glittering in the sunlight from the windows.

“What’s the point of…” he started to say, until he noticed Spike next to him, holding out his claws, practically drooling. Looking back at Meg, he said, incredulously, “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Dragons eat gemstones.”

He carefully placed the gemstone-laden cupcake into Spike’s claws. “Thanks!” the baby dragon said. He lost no time biting into it, crunching the gems with epicurean delight.

“That’s a dragon?”

“A baby dragon,” replied Twilight as she joined them. “Meg, there’s a note on the underside of the lid.”

“There is?” She turned it over. Sure enough, there was. It was from Pinkie. “Uh, it says that half the cupcakes, the ones on the left side, are safe for humans to eat.” One would assume Spike’s cupcake was on the right side. Other cupcakes on that side were covered in flower petals. Meg helped herself to one that she guessed was covered in rose petals.

Just before she could bite into it, Reubens said, “Are those flowers?”

“Yep.” She took a bite. The rose petals had a nice, tangy flavor to them.

Rainbow Dash helped herself to one covered in candied hay. The agent picked out one, from the safe-for-humans side, that looked like a chocolate and vanilla swirl.

“So, what did the scroll say,” Meg asked Twilight as the alicorn perused the remaining cupcakes.

“A non-magical heat source for my balloon is on its way by special courier from Canterlot. It should arrive in a few hours.” She picked out one sprinkled with alfalfa. “Probably why Cadance wants to get started right away with that fishing line.”

“Speaking of which,” Rainbow Dash said, “I should be heading back once I finish this.” She took another large bite.

Where’s the bag? It wasn’t on the floor anywhere. Meg’s eyes fell on the box in the corner. First putting down her half-finished cupcake, Meg walked over to it and looked inside. “It’s in here.” She stuck her head in and grabbed it with her teeth, pulled it out, and dumped it on the floor.

Twilight did the rest. Using her magic, she extracted the reels from the plastic bag, floated them over to Rainbow Dash, opened one of her saddlebags, placed them inside, then closed it up. Reubens observed it all, as impressed with Twilight’s telekinesis as he was unimpressed with Meg’s use of her teeth. But that was not what he choose to comment on.

“A hot air balloon?” he said uncertainly. “What about the helicopter you asked for?”

Twilight gave him a stern look. “Which we have yet to see,” she pointed out. “Naturally, we are pursuing alternatives.”

“I’m leaving now.” Rainbow Dash began hovering, waiting a bit to see if Twilight actually wanted her to stick around.

Instead, she addressed her number one assistant. “What about you, Spike?”

“Me?” he said. “I’m sticking around. You might still need to send a message, and… well…” He nervously clasped his claws together. “Honestly? I’m starting to get tired of all the attention.”

That was enough for Rainbow Dash. “C’ya,” she said, as she flapped her way out of the lounge. Once outside, she vanished as if shot out of a cannon, leaving only her rainbow trail behind.

Reubens watched the fading prismatic contrail, mouth agape. He turned to Meg. “Can you do that? As a pegasus?”

“Fly? Yes.” She proved the point by lifting herself off the floor. “Like that? Not even remotely. Rainbow Dash is the fastest living pegasus. Very few come close.”

“But how?” He studied her flapping wings. “There’s no way those small wings are flapping fast enough to keep you in the air!”

Meg landed on the floor and folded her wings. “You’re absolutely right. It’s more of what the ponies call ‘magic.’”

Twilight was starting to get a bit annoyed with the diversions off topic. “Agent Reubens,” she said, re-asserting control over the conversation, “let’s get down to business. You have the ear of the leader of your country, correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Can she authorize the helicopter for us?”

“He’s, uh… he’s a ‘he,’ actually, but, yes, he can authorize it. The problem is, as of this moment, he doesn’t believe you are real.”

“Did he see the pictures and video that Agent Fowler took,” asked Meg.

“Yes, and he thinks they have to be incredibly good fakes.”

”Did any experts check them out, pointing out that they’re beyond state-of-the-art photorealistic CGI?”

“Not my department,” he shrugged. “My guess is that since cartoon ponies cannot be flesh and blood, the experts will ‘discover’ that the state of the art had recently advanced by leaps and bounds.”

Twilight gave a frustrated sigh. “Okay, I get it. Do you think there is any chance that a helicopter could be made available to us tomorrow.”

He seemed to chose his next words carefully. “I don’t know, but you shouldn’t depend on it. Tomorrow, either it will be there or it won’t.”

“Fine,” she said in resignation. “Let’s change the subject and talk about the future. You’re very interested in the effect of magic on what you call radioactivity, and we’re interested in your science and technology. That sounds like a basis for trade to me.”

The agent rubbed the back of his neck. “I know this must be frustrating, but I’m not the person to address those issues. I’m not a diplomat. All I can do is inform the President this is real and needs to be taken seriously.”

“When could I meet with him?”

He didn’t answer for a few, terribly long seconds. “I don’t know. Even in the best case scenario, there would be… complications.” He looked at Meg. “I suspect Meg here would be better able to help you understand.”

Twilight looked at Meg, who replied, “I’ll talk to you about that later.”

“But I can easily think of some of the concerns the President would have. You don’t have to address them now—that’s not my job—but you will need to eventually.”

“Fair enough,” the alicorn replied.

“First, there’s the fact that, technically, you’re entering our country illegally. You do not have a visa, you are not passing through customs, and so on.” He held up his hands, acknowledging the absurdity of it all. “Now, obviously, this is an unusual situation, and I’m not saying we’re going to arrest you or anything. But going forward, ponies can’t just pop into our world whenever or wherever they want. We have a right to secure borders, even with other universes.”

“I can appreciate that,” Twilight conceded.

No, not yet you don’t. It was Meg’s top priority to make her understand how “ponies crossing over whenever and wherever they want, possibly while being invisible” translated to the human nations as being potential military threats of the worst kind.

“Second, it’s not just about you ponies. I saw that video of a full grown dragon flying alongside…” He looked around. “I guess it was this ship? Anyway, would they be coming to our world too? Have they already been to our world? Is that where our myths of dragons came from?”

Meg wondered how much magic a full grown dragon needed. Would one of those pills be enough? But then, surely Discord could make larger pills.

“There are many sapient races here,” Twilight confirmed. “Right now, only I have the means of traveling to your realm.”

That was a half-truth, of course. Meg assumed Twilight didn’t want to explain Discord.

“If—hypothetically speaking, of course—these means fell into the hands—hooves, whatever—of these other races, could they be a potential threat to us?”

Twilight took the time to consider her answer. “If your realm had magic, then, potentially, yes. Since it doesn’t, they couldn’t have much interest in it. It would be like…” She sighed. “Meg?”

It wasn’t hard for her to come up with an appropriate analogy. “It would be like humans trying to invade, conquer, and occupy a nation of intelligent squid at the bottom of the ocean. Yeah, we can bring some air with us, but… you get the idea.”

The agent nodded. “Even if possible, the costs would vastly exceed the gains. There are better options, unless pointless destruction was the goal.”

“And it wouldn’t be. Regardless,” Twilight continued, “we’d be willing to discuss a defense agreement that covered that unlikely situation.”

“You didn’t answer my question, by the way. Have dragons visited our world in the past? Come to think of it, we have legends of unicorns and pegasi too.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Twilight said with a frown. “I wish I knew that myself. I’ll probably study your mythology at some point looking for clues. For what it’s worth, there are no humans in our mythology.”

“Many mythological creatures exist here,” Meg added, “like hydras, manticores and minotaurs, and many others that are not in our mythology, like timber wolves and ursa minors.” He was about to ask what those were, but she preempted him. “I can suggest specific episodes of the cartoon to watch.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’m sure some people will be tasked with watching every episode.” It was obviously a task to which he wouldn’t care to be assigned.

He gazed out the window, as he thought of other questions. Meg followed his line of sight and, to her surprise, he was looking at two unicorns stallions that weren’t there before, holding a conversion. What’s he talking to Shining Armor about?

“I can think of one more question,” he said, still looking at the unicorns, “then I ought to be returning to my own world.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Twilight assured him.

He turned around to face the alicorn. “What are your intentions with regards to the other nations of our world?”

Twilight blinked. “Our intentions?”

I wish Celestia was handling this. This was just too important for a novice to be handling. Every word Twilight said was going to be parsed carefully. It didn’t help either that the subject of other nations had never come up.

“It would be premature to answer that,” Twilight smoothly replied, as if reciting a memorized answer to a question on a test. “We are currently ignorant about human nations, after all. That being said, I think it’s safe to say we do not wish to become entangled in human international affairs.”

Whether you’ll have that luxury remains to be seen. Still, there were worse answers. Celestia surely had been giving her princess-related lessons.

“Fair enough,” Reubens conceded. “I’d like you to take me back now. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

“I have to get something first. I’ll be back in a minute.” Twilight left the lounge, going to wherever she kept the pills.

It has just Meg, Reubens, and Spike. The agent looked at the baby dragon, a question forming in his mind. “Do dragons actually breath fire?” he asked the drake.

Spike broke out in a huge grin. “Sure can!” He proceeded to demonstrate, shooting out red flame—in a safe direction, naturally. Unlike the green flame he used to send messages, this was the real deal, radiating copious amounts of heat.

“Good for you!” he said with somewhat less than genuine enthusiasm. He turned to Meg. “Is there some way of reaching you when you’re here?”

“Just call me; my phone has been enchanted to get a signal here.”

“You’re joking,” he droned. “Right?” he added, with a hint of desperation.

How did you think Steve called me? Maybe he didn’t believe it at the time.

Twilight returned. No pill was floating beside her. It was already in her mouth, apparently.

“Twilight, could you give my phone to Reubens.”

The alicorn looked at her questioningly, but only for a moment before levitating it out of her saddlebag and over to the agent.

Reubens woke it up and got the lock screen. But that was all the proof he needed. “Not many bars here.”

“It varies,” Meg unhelpfully offered. She left the floor, drifted over to the agent, and held out her hoof.

Reubens looked at it, no doubt wondering how she was supposed to take the phone back with it. He slowly extended his hand out towards her, and once it was close enough, Meg grabbed it with a hoof and attached it to her other forelimb.

He let his hand flop down to his side. “I see it, but I’m still not sure I believe it.”

The pegasus gave him a smile as she returned to the floor. “I’m only just getting the hang of doing it, myself.”

Twilight trotted over to them. “Ready to go back?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he replied.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she told Meg and Spike. Her horn lit up, engulfing Reubens in her magic. She swallowed the pill, and alicorn and agent vanished.

That left just Meg and Spike. The silence grew awkward.

Meg decided to break it. “Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“How did Rainbow Dash fly you out here? You didn’t ride on her back the whole way while holding that package, did you?” It was too big to fit in the pegasus’ saddlebags. Too big to fit in Pinkie’s either, not that that would have stopped the party pony from pulling it off.

He waved his claw dismissively. “Of course not. We found a small wagon she could pull.”

“Ah.” That actually made perfect sense. What would it be like to pull a wagon while flying? She’d have to extend her flying magic to the wagon, obviously. Did that require special training, or would it come naturally? Her gut told her the latter; even Fluttershy could do it, after all.

Meg looked outside, to see her husband and Twilight’s brother still conversing. “Let’s see what they’re up to.”