Through The Eyes Of Another Pony

by CardsLafter

First published 8th of April, 2012

Stupid Human takes a trip to Equestria. But not the Equestria that he was wanting.

* Voted Twice as the #1 Comedy FanFic on Equestria Daily *

Well, what can I say? This is the story of a man. Or maybe he was... a pony-man. Or maybe he was just a... Pony! But he was still...

FIREWAAAAAAAALLLL!!!!

... Yeah, this is that story. The story where a guy goes to a party and wakes up in Ponyville. That guy (I know him as 'me') seems to have landed in his own personal little heaven. Hell, I even brought me a pack of endless cigarettes. How does that not kick all kinds of flank?

So yeah, everything was awesome. The End.

Well, except for The Nightmare. And Trixie. And some jerk named David. Then there was that Azure Flora pony. And that skank princess that steals my goddamn phone!

Listen, summaries just... They just don't cut it. If you want the story, it's provided right here.

Just a warning. I use cusswords like a big boy.

ALSO LUNA IS NOTHING BUT A GODDAMN TROLL!

Chapter One: Your Body Is Not Ready

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

Gentlecolts, I have but one question for you.

What is normal?

Is it doing what comes natural to you? Because I gotta tell you, there are plenty of people that do just that and still get tagged as deviants.

Is it holding up your local status quo? I don’t think that’s quite right either. I mean, think about it for a moment. In America, that’s getting a full-time job (or two (or three)) and supporting/contributing in some fashion towards your own care and/or the care of others. In certain parts of Africa, people would look at you funny for that.

You want to know what I think normal is? It’s the setting on my dryer back on Earth. That’s about as defined as normal gets for me. See also: Standard setting.

Why am I asking you this? Not certain other than I want to give you a frame of reference for what is normal. Because I’m about to jump into the far reaches of abnormal.

Now brace yourself for it. Take a deep breath through your nose, enter a state of zen, and let it out through your flapping lips. Don’t clench! I woke up in a cartoon. Wait, it gets better. It wasn’t just any cartoon. It was the cartoon to end all cartoons. No, not Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Let me take you back to what was happening last. Let’s see, I was drinking a lovingly made martini whilst partying up at my stepsister, Michelle’s, birthday bash. As was normal for her, rather than enjoy her own damn birthday, she was instead running damage control or something she felt was important. We actually got into a fight about it and I ended up walking out. Last thing I remember was leaving the party only slightly inebriated. Passed my own personal drunk test, even. Well, I never made it to my car.

Let me rephrase that: I don’t ever remember making it to my car. Because on the way there, I fell asleep. And woke up in the cartoony central square of a town called Ponyville.

Yeeaaahhh... It went a little something like this:

Bird was tweeting. I’m not sure what he was tweeting. I was quite certain, however, that I wasn’t subscribed to his channel, so I’m not sure why he had to let me know about it. But he was. And unfortunately, it was grating on my slowly awakening nerves. I opened my eyes and regretted that damn near instantly! It was bright out! I mean, not sun bright that seems to coat everything in a blinding layer of blinding white. No. Everything was bright. Brightly colored.

I slammed my poor orbs shut and whimpered before rolling over. I would not let the bright colors defeat me. I tried opening them ag-GAHOKAYCOLORSWIN!

I had lost the battle with bright colors. I didn’t even know what the colors were. I just knew they were incredibly bright and I was incredibly tired. Maybe I could get some more rest and try again tomorrow. Yeah. That sounded reasonable.

Then that damnable bird started up again. Oh bird. Just you wait. There would be a reckoning. I was about to get me some brand spankin’ new feathers for my dream catcher back home. Okay. For the bird-related vengeance. Let’s try this. One. Last. Time.

Bllllargh~! My poor defenseless eyes! I did it though. I opened them fully. I made those suckers stay open. They watered and burned as though they were on fire, but that’s okay. I beat the colors for the sake of fowl destruction. Oh-ho, but there would be a reckoning. A reckoning indeed. Right after this cigarette.

Yes, I smoke. I’m not apologizing. It’s an addiction. I feed it to prevent slaughter on a genocidal scale. Therefore, every time I light up, I’m taking one for the team. I am so freaking selfless, I know. You just can’t handle this brand of awesome selflessness. But there it is. You’re welcome. No no, don’t applaud. Just send cash.

So yeah, I lit up this awesome cigarette as part of my morning ritual -- See averting genocidal tendencies -- before rolling back over and pushing myself up off the ground.

Okay, I’m up, I thought to myself. Phase one of destroy annoyingly loud featherduster complete. Initiate phase two.

Find a rock. Rock rock rock. I began to look about at the ground. When did Michelle paint her lawn bright neon green? Rock! Phase two complete! I looked up towards the source of the sound before grabbing the rock and casting about for the target. It took me a few seconds, but I eventually spotted my victim atop a two-story Bavarian-style house with blindingly bright pink shutters, brown-red planking and pastel yellow walls. I spared enough thought towards the building to figure some rich idiot paid a ridiculous amount of money to have it built in the center of town. The rest of my thought however, focused on the rock.

“Fly true, weapon of salvation!” I yawned irritably before chucking the rock at the bird. As soon as I did though, the bird dropped a few priorities on my mental list. See, I expected to see a hand to throw the rock. I didn’t get a hand. No, I got something else. Something that just... It just wasn’t normal in the slightest.

I got a hoof. This, in turn, made my jaw drop as I brought it closer. I was so freaking absorbed in staring at that hoof. I didn’t even react to the rock bouncing back off the building and smacking me right atop my head. I mean, I reacted after it cleaned my clock, sure. But before that I was derpin’ out over the hoof that stubbornly insisted to exist where my right hand should have been.

“Gah! Sunova...” I hissed, rubbing the throbbing bump with my other hoof before realizing I indeed had a second hoof.

Hooves. I checked them. They were hooves. Definitely hooves. Ash-gray hooves to be exact. I could tell from the pixels and having seen quite a few hooves in my day. I compared them. One hoof. Two hoof. Hoovsies. Woah.

I looked myself over as I took another drag off my cigarette. Oh but yes. It was true. I was a buckmothering pony. Oh. My. Gawd.

My hooves were just a shade darker than my coat, which was charcoal-gray. And my tail! It was… Well, it looked like the colors of a butane lighter, to be exact. The center of the wild, fluffy thing was bright neon blue. The edges of it cut off abruptly into a bright fiery red.

That must mean... I started to think to myself before looking back at the un-freaking-reasonably bright Bavarian abode before me.

I began to hyperventilate. I’m sorry, just... just bear with me here. I know. I was definitely overreacting, but just... It was Sugarcube Corner that I was sitting in front of, okay? I was excited. Why, you might ask?

I’m a brony. Yes, you heard me. An honest-to-God brony.

Now, that means completely different things depending on whom you ask. If you ask the mouth-breathing idiots at Faux (Some people know it as 'Fox') News, a brony is a fat, unemployed middle-aged loser that draws in social security and does nasty things when thoughts of ponies enter his mind. If you ask an overprotective backwater parent, bronies are a group of pedophiles that creep around the internet and they will urge you to hide yo kids, hide yo wife, and hide yo husbands cuz they rapin’ ev’rybody out here ya’ll. If you ask some insecure homophobic Neanderthal, a brony is a load of four-letter words and quite a few three-letter ones, to boot!

However, if you (God forbid) do the sensible thing and ask someone in the know... Say, perhaps... an actual brony? Maybe you will find out the truth. They’re just normal people with abnormal enthusiastic hobbies. The only difference is rather than do something socially acceptable, they instead disregard the status quo and direct their enthusiastic tendencies towards the latest generation of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Holy shit, that’s just going too far! We can’t have normal people doing things they want to do! That’s just wr-... I’m ranting. Apologies.

Where was I? Oh. Right. Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie’s place of business. Partnered with Missus and Mister Cake. She’s like... critical to the show. Now, that’s not what I was thinking at the moment. My current line of thought was more along the lines of SUGARCUBE CORNER! OH MY GAWD! RIGHT HERE! I NEED IT!

Like I said, hyperventilation began to set in and I began to get dizzy from unintentionally rapid smoking. That was probably the only thing that kept me from running around in circles and crying happily as I soaked myself in the wonderful rays of Celestia’s Equestrian sun.

Oh yes, it was true. I was in Equestria. Oh. Oh, this was a happy day. So much to do. Geek talk with Twilight. Party with Pinkie. APPLEBUCKING! That sounded so incredibly redneck! Like frog gigging (Yes, that’s an actual thing) or... or mudding! And still more to do! Like glomp Fluttershy and wear dresses with Rarity!

Screeeeeeech~! My brain came to a halt and the rational half took over.

Yes, I am a two-sided coin. See, that spurt of random giddiness? That comes from the side I like to call Lafter. He’s in charge of my insanity, which consumes roughly half of my mental facilities. The other half, however, is just as strong and is quite capable of taking charge when things get out of hand. His name is Stoic. Stoic is the kind of guy that steps in and prevents Lafter from driving me off to Rarity’s Carousel Boutique and trying on a French Maid outfit. He was quick to point out that there were likely other ways to spend time with Rarity that didn’t involve crossdressing. Lafter pointed out that we would look damn good, no matter what we wore. Stoic agreed.

What can I say? I set the bar for self-confidence.

Before Lafter could respond to that, Stoic locked him away in the time-out box and proceeded to advise me in an entirely reasonable fashion. He hates fun things.

Okay, get a grip, I told myself before taking another puff of my cigarette. You’re obviously having a dream. Granted, it’s a bloody awesome dream, but it’s a dream nonetheless. No reason to go into shock just yet. Enjoy yourself and move on.

Killjoy. Whatever. I’ve had lucid dreams before. I usually screw around for a few minutes before getting bored and creating a tornado before jumping into it like a madman. I’m not easily entertained. At least not within the confines of my own mind.

“Whatever, let’s just skip to the tornado,” I muttered aloud. If I couldn’t meet the real ponies, I didn’t want to torture myself by pretending to meet them. So instead, I just threw my ‘hooves’ forward and yelled out, “TORNADO TIME!”

Imagine the disappointment when I didn’t get my wish. Bah. Nonsense. Try again.

“TORNADO TIME!!!” I roared, dramatically throwing out my hooves yet again.

Something happened this time. However, it was not a tornado. Instead, a window on one of the nearby buildings popped open to reveal a magenta p-OMGITWASBERRYPUNCH!

Easy, killer, Stoic reminded me. Initial tests suggest this might not be a dream. Just play it cool.

Playing it cool involved my eyes slowly widening as though they were being inflated.

She was glaring down from her second story window, her bleary eyes angrily fixed upon me. Whether she was hung over or just waking up, I couldn’t tell. Probably both. I stared back, my jaw slowly falling open yet again as I took in the sight of my first pony. My cigarette fell out of my mouth. I want you to know, I take nicotine abuse very seriously. So for me to just ignore the plummeting cylinder of tobacco… You just had to know me to understand the gravity of that thought. Waste not.

I don’t want to wake up from this dream, I stated to myself, as well as to both my subconscious halves.

They both agreed.

“Hi!” I enthusiastically waved a hoof up at her.

She glared obstinately at me. Ruby poked her head up over the window and after taking note of my cheerful greeting, eagerly waved back at me. Berry Punch yanked her back and glared some more before rudely slamming the window shut.

See? Overprotective parents hate bronies. It’s a fact. They think we touch kids or something. It sorta evens out though, because bronies find overprotective parents just as creepy/weird, too. No, that’s not a joke.

With a remorseful sigh I looked about. It was definitely Ponyville. The nondescript trees, the impossibly green grass, the crater still smoking just behind where I woke up. There was no mistak-… Wait a second.

I did a double take and stared at Town Square. Yup. There was a big fat crater right in the middle of it. Luckily it hit Town Square rather than a building or something. That would have been awful, ruining somepony’s home like that. Fortunately, all it amounted to was a big nasty scar right in the center of town. It smelled like brimstone and ashes and the small column wafting from its epicenter did so lazily towards the sky.

Did I do that? I caught myself wondering. I mean, it was feasible, right? If this wasn’t a dream, I may have pulled a trope and crashed from the sky. No wonder Berry Punch was so quick to regard me so suspiciously. If I reasonably came to this conclusion, then she could definitely do the same and would have all the justification in the world to avoid me.

I picked up my cigarette and took yet another drag. This… was troublesome. My first day in Ponyville (assuming I wasn’t crazy/dreaming) and I had already wrecked the place. Way to go, me!
And then it happened. Inward crazy panic. A jumble of thoughts! A cornucopia of mental chaos erupted from within! I’m going to list out the insanity rather than try to translate how it actually went. Trust me, this will make it easier on everyone involved.

-Holy bit, I’m a pony.

-Holy bit, I’m smoking in Equestria!

-I’ve only been here five minutes and I’ve already caused extensive property damage!

-I’m smoking in Ponyville! I can’t do this! Think of the ponies!

-How… How did I even light this damn thing? I don’t have any pockets on me!

-Where’d I even get this damn thing! I don’t have any pockets on me!

-Disregard nonsense! Acquire ponies!

-I can’t just go steal ponies!

-Need an ashtray! Wait no… I need to make sense of this insanity!

-I’m sorry, but you’ve thrown off the Emperor’s Groove.

And then I got thrown out of a window. Not really, but that’s what happened to the last guy to have that told to him. Anyway, out of all of that chaos, one thought stood out considerably more than the others.

I need to make sense of this. Disregard the cigarette, disregard the ponyness, disregard the ashtray, ponynapping, and Disney references. I needed to get to somepony that could help me. And the obvious answer was both obvious and exciting. Just contemplating the idea was raising my blood pressure to unsafe levels.

Go see Twilight Sparkle.

Stoic sat on Lafter’s timeout box to make sure he didn’t get loose (that would have been bad at this stage) and gave me the go-ahead. With that, I looked around and got a general feel for my surroundings. After feeding all given information into my mental navigational process, I realized that I both knew where I was and where to go. I couldn’t help but snicker at the irony of knowing the geographical layout of Ponyville. I mean, yeah, I may be a brony, but the idea that I watch a show for little girls never ceases to blow my mind.

I shook off the mirth and began to walk. It was actually quite easy adapting to my new form. I mean, I wasn’t struggling or anything. Go figure. I even figured out how to move my tail. TAIL! I swished it back and forth as I walked and felt the urge to squee bubbling forth.

No, no. Bad Lafter. Stay in that box. No freaking out until further notice.

The effort to stem that squee flow took a lot longer than those few sentences may have implicated. In fact, in the time it took me to force it down, I already had the Ponyville Library in sight. That started yet another emotional surge that I sadly failed to weather out. As soon as I set my eyes on that very special tree, I broke out into a sprint... err... gallop? The grin spreading across my face was inhumanly large, which made perfect sense since I was no longer a human. I was smiling so hard that it bloody hurt.

I paused just before the door though. Had to collect myself. Had to get a grip. Had to…

The door opened. I didn’t knock, it just opened. Out came the coolest dragon ever. Sure, he may have been a baby. Yeah, his colors of purple and green may have badly clashed. True, he was a mere library assistant. But that didn’t matter. It was Spike. And that was all that counted in my book. Cue the mouth-dropping moment of awesome.

He was carrying a large satchel, entirely bereft of any contents whatsoever.

“Okay, Twilight, anything else?” he called back into the treehouse before turning to see me staring at him like he was made of pure gold.

“No, that should cover it!” a very specific and important voice called back.

Spike took it all gracefully, which is a lot more than I could possibly say for myself. My eyes likely did not exude a calm message, but he played it cool, staring right back with an arched eyebrow.

“You uh… You never seen a dragon?” he asked helpfully.

I shook my head.

“You’re not going to run away screaming are you?” he asked, reaching a claw up to scratch his head.

I shook my head again.

“Well, that’s good,” he replied, “I guess.”

I nodded.

His confusion worsened and he turned his head a bit to give me a somewhat skeptical once over. “So uh… I guess I’ll be going now.”

“Kay,” I murmured softly, still praying that this wasn’t a dream. This couldn’t be a dream.

“Creepy~,” he whispered as he slowly stepped around me.

I watched him leave, keeping my eyes stalkerishly fixed on him. Oh yeah, I was totally keeping my composure. Totally. I sighed as he turned the street corner, now irritated with my inability to keep it together. With that, I resolved myself to do better with the other purple inhabitant and reached my hoof up to knock on the door.

Yet again, it opened before I could do so. Or at least the top half did. However, this time I was within its swinging range and was rewarded with a smack to the face. Related note: Twilight opens doors at astounding velocities. I toppled over and tumbled into Twilight’s lovely flower garden. It had roses for some reason. Oh Christ, the thorns. Why did it have to be roses?!

“Spike, wait!” Twilight hollered from the door before realizing she had struck some poor bastard with it. “Oh! Oh dear! I’m so sorry!”

“J-Just kill me… Stop the pain, I beg you,” I whimpered pitifully.

Twilight rushed out to help extract me from the evil, thorn-filled, vile rose bush, apologizing with a fervor rarely seen on Earth. It took a lot of whimpering, apologies, and agony, but I was eventually extracted from the sadistic shrubbery. It was not a nice shrubbery.

“Oh my goodness, you’re all scraped up!” Twilight pointed out the obvious.

“Common side effect of being bludgeoned into a rose bush,” I grimaced as I picked up a hoof and took a quick damage report from my entire front leg. If the rest of my body was as bad off as it was, then I probably looked like shit. With a capital shit.

“I am so, so very sorry!” she repeated for the umpteenth time.

The pain was already fading. In fact, it was almost bearable already. That didn’t make any sense! After all one does not simply shrug off an attack from a rose bush, but apparently that was not the case here. I wasn’t even bleeding. That, I knew to be freaky. I’d just dived headlong into a bush full of murderous roses and emerged without a single drop of blood lost. I guess ponies didn’t bleed? I mean, I sure as hell never saw them bleed, and I hoped to keep it that way.

“Here, this should help,” Twilight replied as she aimed her horn at me, “Hold still.”

I started to respond, but I was cut off staring at the sparkly pinkish glow that sprung forth. Before I could react, it washed over me and a moment later, all the scrapes and pain were gone.

Twilight just White Mage’d me. Technically she Magenta Mage’d me if you wanted to be literal, but still! How awesome is that!? Awesome enough to market for a premium, that’s how awesome!!

“Wow that’s… That’s mind blowing,” I muttered as I gave myself another once over. “Wow! Twilight, that is so OP.”

“How do you kno... Wait, come again?” she tilted her head, both mildly overcome with surprise and confusion, “Oh Pee? What does that mean?”

I gave a nervous chuckle, “Oh, it just means you are overpowered. OP. Makes sense?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but paused and give herself a bit more time to mull that over before raising an eyebrow, “Um... I suppose? And thank... you... I guess?”

“No problem!” I smiled brightly, before taking another puff of my cigarette.

That’s when I realized I was still smoking. Right in front of Twilight. Mortified doesn’t even begin to cover it. The only thing that could have been worse was being caught naked (which was already happening, technically) or something. I immediately spat it out onto the ground and gave it an angry stomp before showing her a nervous smile.

And thus began the first of very many looks of suspicion of insanity. I mean, what Spike had gave me earlier was close, but Twilight must have invested some time in honing her skills. Skills or not, I was too numb to feel the full effect of such an effort thanks to my nervous system already being flooded with awesome. I mean, for once in my life, I could say that I was experiencing something that matched the textbook definition of the word.

“Well, if... that’s all, then.” She slowly backed away, moving for the library door.

I panicked a bit, but quickly recovered and did the sensible thing. Be both honest and earnest.

“W-Wait, Twilight! It’s really, really important that I speak to you!” I said urgently, my face reflecting my desperation. “Please, I... I’m not from around here and I just... Seriously, you’ve no idea just how crazy this is.”

You know that look when someone you do not want to spend time with legitimately needs your help and you don’t want to be an ass by rejecting them? Yeah, that was pretty much Twilight’s face. I knew I had her at that point. It would just take a little more begging and pleading. Sometimes, being a psychology enthusiast really pays off. Don’t bother trying to call me out on it. Every single person on the planet does it. The only difference is that I do it actively, rather than subconsciously (kinda like your conniving mother?).

“Look, just let me take a bit of your time. At the very least, this will probably give you something to talk about later, even if you don’t believe me.” I offered half-seriously, “I’m not kidding, I don’t know who else to turn to.”

Twilight set me with a helpless stare before letting out a resigned sigh and turning back towards her door. “I... I suppose it’s the least I can do... Seeing as how I hit you with the door and everything.”

I resisted the urge to jump in the air and scream with delight. Instead, I settled for giving her a grateful smile and nodded with but a single word.

“Thanks.”

She invited me in and offered to get some tea. She gave me a strange look when I told her I took mine cold as ice with a ridiculous amount of sugar. Apparently, cold tea was abnormal or something. Pffft. Pony stereotypes. Just wait until I get me some hipster glasses. I was going to introduce them to so many strange and awesome things.

I hopped up onto a bench, sitting on it exactly as a human would (which is exactly as a pony wouldn’t!) whilst looking about the living room to the library. It looked almost identical to the show, save for a section in the back that apparently held the kitchen, bathroom, and a staircase leading down into the basement. Or maybe I had just never seen it from this angle. Whatever the case, I was mesmerized. It was a lot bigger than the show made it out to be, and smelled of musty old books and pine sawdust. Which sorta didn’t make any sense, because that was most definitely not a pine tree. However, it still smelled awesome and I was awestruck nonetheless.

She returned with two cups of hot tea, her soft smile both welcoming and happy. After setting mine beside me, she took a moment to cast a spell that chilled both the glass and the fluid inside. Magic. Oh, but it is awesome.

I smiled eagerly as she took a bench of her own nearby. I tried to pick it up with my hooves, but that... Well, it was damned hard is what it was! I must have fumbled with the stupid thing for a whole minute before Twilight finally came out with the question that I was already anticipating.

“What... What are you doing?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

I bit my lip and tried one last time, putting extra effort into it, only to end up spilling my cup on the floor. I could feel the blush burn my face off as I gasped and grabbed my tail to begin mopping up the mess as quickly as I could.

“S-Sorry!” I cried out, my anxiety just two steps from causing me to have a nervous breakdown.

“D-Don’t use your tail! We have napkins!” she called out, magicking some in from the kitchen.

“Sorry!” I cried out yet again before grabbing the closest one and slapping it against the offending puddle of cold tea. Because of my crazed anxiety, all I succeeded in doing was splash some onto my face and generally get it everywhere except into the napkin.

I glared at the offending napkin-slash-puddle and pursed my lips a bit in irritation, “Really, life? You do this to me now? Right when I’m sitting in front of one of the coolest chicks to have ever influenced my existence? This couldn’t have happened some other time?”

Without looking at Twilight, I snatched the other napkins out of the air and gently placed them over the remainder of the mess before looking up at Twilight with quite possibly the stalest expression ever.

“Well, now that I’m properly mortified and humiliated, I’m going to step outside and calm down before I die of embarrassment.” I said with a flat sigh before turning for the door. As I approached it, though, I felt a cold chill go throughout my body.

It had a doorknob.

Rather than do something stupid like try to open it with my teeth, I just looked back at her. I expected yet another strange expression, but she looked more worried for my sake than anything.

“Could you please get the door? I... I don’t know how to open it,” I explained in a tired voice.

Without saying a word, she magicked it open and let me out. I exited, my face still burning hot from the shame. I trotted out a bit to the soft grass of her front yard and flopped down onto it. Maybe I’ll just... lay here and will myself out of existence or something. Okay, maybe after a cigarette.

Without thinking about where it was coming from, I pulled out my pack of cigarettes as easily as I would produce them from a pocket. I blinked before looking at where I pulled them from, just to make sure there wasn’t a hole in my body. Okay, no, we’re good. Still, that was somewhat perplexing. I gave a sigh before glancing back at the pack foiled with silver and teal. I kid you not. It said ‘Mareboro Smooth 100’ on the front. That had me brain locked for quite a few seconds. Finally, I opened the pack only to realize that it was still full, despite me having already snagged a cigarette from it earlier. Wow. That part I could totally get used to. I retrieved a smoke and closed it before putting it away. Then I realized it just disappeared and I jumped up before looking around frantically.

“Is... Is everything okay?” Twilight asked, apparently having stepped out to check on me.

I continued to search about fruitlessly for a few seconds longer before groaning in irritation and sitting my frustrated plot down.

“No, Twilight!” I huffed, lighting my cigarette before explaining, “Why is everything not alright? Because I’ve gone insane. Really, I didn’t think it would take this long, but it’s finally happened just like my dad said it would and now I’ve apparently chosen Ponyville as my Sucker Punch mental escape. All-in-all, not a bad choice really but c’mon! I can’t even pick up a goddamn teacup! Not to mention my first act getting here was apparently to blow up Town Square, which probably isn’t going to win me any points with anypony. Not to mention the cartoon physics are already screwing with me and somewhere along the line, I turned into a pony! And to top it all off, I just made a complete jackass of myself using nothing but sugar, water, and boiled frickin’ tea leaves just after getting shoved into a satanic creation that most people know as a ‘Rose bush’! So no. Everything is not okay! I’m not okay! I’m like, ten different flavors of not-okay! If the Guiness World Book of Records held a spot in its pages for ‘Not-Okay-In-The-Slightest,’ I think I would have taken the gold, silver, bronze and all the runner-ups!”

I sighed before taking a puff off my cigarette before noticing that it somehow got lit without me thinking out it. Glaring at the suddenly offensive nicotine stick, I spit it out and accusingly pointed at it with a hoof.

“Mother... And how did I just get that stupid thing lit!?” I hollered in exasperation.

I heard Twilight let out a bemused chuckle before looking up at her with a tired visage.

“You used magic,” she explained as though it were obvious. She approached with a small towel and levitated it over to my face, wiping off the drying sticky-sweet tea with a relieved sigh.

“Magic?” I repeated dumbly, squinting at the warm-watered towel as she used it to clean off my face. After getting cleaned up a bit, I gave the still smouldering cigarette a suspicious glare. I had just used my hoof to bring it to my face and light it. Was that magic? Hell, it certainly wasn’t normal but then again, this entire day was straight-up freaky as of yet. I tried to pick it back up with a hoof, but it was for naught. Irritation was at an all time high. Why was it no longer working?

“Mmmhmm! Magic,” she replied with a sympathetic smile, “Well, at least this explains a lot. I take it you aren’t really a unicorn, then.”

I blinked in shock.

“A... A uni... Ahem. Run that by me again, Twilight?”

“Well, you said you got turned into a pony, so I figure you aren’t an actual unicorn. Or at least, not originally.” She placed a pensive hoof to her chin and stared up as she considered that. “Wow, now that I think about it, transmuting a living creature is not exactly a simple spell. I’m not even sure I could manage something lik-...”

“No, no. We’ll get to that next.” I waved a hoof to cut her off. “What did you say I was? Just to make sure I didn’t mishear you.”

“A unicorn? A pony with a horn used for focusing magic?” she explained with a slightly doubtful stare, “Wow, you weren’t stretching the truth when you said you weren’t from around here.”

Eyes widened. Breath came short. An explorative hoof came to my forehead. There it felt an ivory-like spiraled protrusion sticking out. Stoic dived to keep Lafter contained, but that... that wasn’t going to work for very long.

“Twilight, I’m about to make a lot of noises of incoherent excitement,” I warned her very seriously, “It’s probably best you get inside... Else I may get some of this squee on you and it doesn’t easily come out with a wash.”

She blinked in fearful confusion, stepping back cautiously. “W... What?”

My grin began to break through as I began to shake a little, “T-Too late!”

I suddenly burst into motion, jumping up and down in circles like a kid who just won a life-time supply of candy. As I promised, sounds of excited happyness erupted from me and while they had no specific definition, there was no mistaking that I was suddenly back on cloud nine.

“I’m a unicorn! I’m a friggin’ unicorn!” I cheered in time with my bouncing, tossing my mane about gleefully. Fillies and Gentlecolts, Lafter has entered the building.

I suddenly paused as my jaw fell open for what was probably the thousandth time. “What spells can I cast!”

I aimed my horn at nothing in particular and began to focus as though I were trying to force my brain through my forehead. Unicorn powers activate! … … Only not. Completely failed to do anything, but damn it, I was going to try until I had an aneurysm or a spell! I was really hoping the second would happen before the first, though.

“Are... you trying to cast a spell?” Twilight asked hesitantly. She... was probably doubting my sanity again. Not that I was giving her any reason to do anything else, but still. I was merely excited. No call for her to be so callous and uncaring towards my happyness! This was a great day all over again!

“Y-Yeah!” I grunted, still focused on making some magic. “But it’s... not... working.”

She didn’t reply and eventually, I gave up with an exhausted huff.

She walked up beside me, lowering her head beside mine with a nervous laugh. “Well... What are you trying to do?”

“Anything! I just want to know I can do it!” I cried before giving up with a huff.

Then I noticed the cigarette and I got an idea. Maybe I just needed to have a little faith and an idea of what I wanted. Without thinking about it, I pulled out the pack of cigarettes and paused yet again. I had it in my hoof. It was just sticking there like I had gecko pads for horseshoes.

“Heh. Well, now you know you have magic. Though that’s a peculiar way to perform a summoning spell,” she pointed out before peering at the box, “What is that anyway?”

“Let’s... Let’s not worry about it,” I murmured before opening the box. Still full. Holy hell, that was too good to be true. “Magic test number two.”

I simply inserted it in my mouth and forced myself to not focus on the peppermint-scented, methylated product. I thought about smoking and without any warning whatsoever, a spark flitted from my forehead and lit the cigarette with a somewhat audible snap.

“ACK!” I cried, jumping back as I dropped it out of my mouth. I wasn’t expecting the special effects, alright?

Twilight facehoofed as she shook her head, “I think that’s enough magic for one day.”

“Eeee~!” I squealed as I cantered back to the cigarette, making myself not focus on picking up the cigarette as I touched it with a hoof. Sure enough, it worked on the first try. That seemed to be the answer. Just... let it happen; don’t force it, yeah? “Okay, yeah! We’re good now! This solves the most immediate crisis!”

“Wonderful,” she remarked with a wry smirk, “So, do you still need my help, or does that solve your problems?”

“Problems?” I looked back at her as I took a puff, stomping out the previous cigarette.

I’m a unicorn? I’m in Equestria? I’m talking with Twilight? I’ve got what seems to be an endless supply of cigarettes? No SIR! NO PROBLEMS HERE! Wheeeeee~!!!! Oh, but how did I get here and property damage. Yeah, I suppose that still needed to be addressed.

“Oh, right,” I nodded, tapping my chin pensively, “I suppose it’s time to tell you the really freaky part.”

“It gets worse?” She almost looked scared.

“Oh, girl. Stand back. I’m about to blow your mind,” I uttered gravely, “Are you ready for this?”

She raised an eyebrow before sighing, “I suppose not, but that isn’t going to change anything. Let’s hear it.”

“I’m an alien,” I stated flatly.

Her half-irritated, half-bored expression told me that not only did she not believe me but her patience was suddenly under a fair amount of strain.

“Maybe I should explain a little better. This isn’t my world. I don’t come from this… reality? Universe?” I tried to shrug, but I found it extremely difficult. How do you shrug with just one hoof?

Twilight looked slightly less dubious, but her visage told me she still wasn’t excluding the possibility that I needed a fluffy pillow room and a jacket that helps me hug myself. Which, to her credit, was something I had yet to fully dismiss myself.

“Okay. Let’s try this again,” she gave a sigh that betrayed a hint of amusement and a mountain of suspicion. She was going to try and help me against her better judgment! Why, that was just so nice of her.

She turned and made towards the library, glancing at me before cocking her head at the entrance. “Come inside.”

I happily followed her in, nudging the door shut with my nose, which made her laugh at me because apparently I had this ultra-super concentrated look upon my face as I did it. Whatever, Twilight can laugh at me; she’s allowed.

“Ah, okay, let’s hear the stor…” she started to say before pausing at a largely audible groan echoing from her stomach.

Aaaand then my inner troll took over for a second. I gasped loudly, pointing an accusing hoof her way as I cried out in a disgusted tone, “My GOD, Twilight! … How unladylike!”

Dat blush. I immediately fell into an uncontrolled bout of laughter as her face slowly turned a bright shade of magenta (red + purple, I guess?). She looked all nervous and mortified for a few seconds. It took me a moment to register that she was actually humiliated as hell by my staged reaction. That kinda made me feel bad, so I knocked off the teasing guffaw without a moment’s hesitation and moved to fix what damage I had done.

“Hey, I was just kidding, don’t sweat it. I mean, I’ve held you up from lunch, right? C’mon, don’t be embarrassed or I might have to resort to self-depreciation and let’s be honest, I like me too much for that.”

The relief on her face helped to alleviate my guilt. She perked up from the humor and nodded a bit, a grateful smile appearing shortly after.

“Well, it’s actually my fault for having let the time get away from me,” she admitted shyly before looking around at the walls, “Hmmm. I missed breakfast altogether, no doubt. What time is it?”

Pure instinct. Checking the time? Just whip out the cellphone! Now, as you would surely assume, that shouldn’t have worked. Why it did, I’ve no clue. But there you have it. From the same wherever that I stashed my cigarettes in, I produced my slightly beat-up Motorola Atrix 4G with (ugh…) AT&T service.

It took me a few seconds of staring at the phone to accept that it was both real and functional. That was messing with me, I’ll admit. I started to put it back, but then realized I didn’t even check the time! After giving it one last once over for the sake of my sanity, I finally checked the time.

“It’s eleven-thirty,” I murmured with a blink, noticing something both interesting and bizarre on the device, “Huh. Twilight, this may sound weird, but I need you to answer a question that will likely make you think I’m crazy.”

“Oh, we’re far past that already,” she said with an off-hand (hoof?) giggle.

I blinked again before looking over at her with a slight amount of shock displayed on my face. Apparently, that made her realize what she had just said.

“O-Oh my goodness!” she slapped a hoof over her mouth, “T-That just came out, I’m so sorry!”

Number of times Twilight’s embarrassment has made me laugh: 2!

“You just called me crazy!” I don’t know why, but that was funny to me in a lot of ways. Mostly it was just a riot how much she actually panicked.

“I’m sorry!” she laughed back after becoming aware that I wasn’t actually offended. “I was just…”

“Trying to be witty, yeah. It’s cool, no worries,” I answered with a chuckle, “I’m the biggest advocate for well-timed shots.”

She let out a chuckle before taking notice of the device in my hoof. She then got all curious and stuff, cantering over and sticking her big purple nose into my personal space to gaze at the curious artifact.

“So, this is like a magic clock?” she asked as she leaned closer. My natural reaction was to lean away. It’s just something we as humans do.

“Well, actually, I still want to ask my question first,” I replied, “Do you have Wi-Fi or something? Because I’m getting full signal. And that makes no sense, because last I checked, you guys don’t even have television.”

“What-O-Vision?” she asked, looking back up at me before tilting her head.

“Long story,” I said with a sigh, unlocking the device and opening up the mighty purveyor of information known as Google. “No shit. That’s… pretty odd.”

“It is?” she looked back at it, blinking in confusion, “Why?”

“Think of it as a series of tubes,” I couldn’t help myself. “The tubes move entire libraries of information throughout them as quickly as lightning. I know for a fact that no tubes even exist here. So, no tubes are here, ergo I shouldn’t be able to access the information said tubes hold. Yet… Voila.”

The very idea seemed to be magnets to her. Her eyes got huge. Like…super-amazed, oh-my-Celestia, too-good-to-be-true huge.

“En… Entire libraries?” she repeated in awe.

“To be honest, if you built a library to encompass everything it had… Well, let’s just say you’d have an easier time building a second Canterlot.” I won’t lie, guys. I felt pretty hipster-hammy at the moment.

“What kind of information?” she asked, her eyes only getting bigger and shinier. Why they needed more shine, I’m not certain. But they were, and it was driving up my blood sugar.

Stoic tried. He really did. He did his damndest. But there was just no stopping Lafter. Irresponsibility was at hand! The opportunity would not be squandered!

I looked up pictures of Twilight. Because ponies, that’s why.

“W… H-How! That’s amazing!” she cried, poking at the screen testingly, “How is this possible!?”

Her poke enlarged a skillfully drawn image of her as an Alicorn princess. She squeaked in shock. I don’t know if it was a squee, a shriek, or something in between. But it only made her much more curious.

I went to scroll down a few more images before spotting some dreaded R34 (shudder) and hastily putting the phone away.

“Oh-ho-hokay there, that’s enough web-surfing for now!” I grinned nervously.

She did not like that. Her excitement immediately translated into heartbroken disappointment. And I thought the shiny-awe eyes were bad. Jesus.

“Woah woah woah, puppy dog eyes are foul play!” I cried out defensively. God forbid she cry. I can’t stand watching anyone cry in real life, much less awesome ponies. “I said for now, that doesn’t mean forever!”

She sighed reluctantly, her ears flopping down pitifully as she forced herself to accept that.

“Right,” she said dourly.

After a moment, though, the excitement returned with a great vengeance and sought to overpower me with its adorable.

“That’s so incredible, though! Information and pictures that can be accessed from a… a hub repository with a device! It’s brilliant!” she cried, her ears snapping back up with gusto.

“Trust me, Twilight. Your magic is just as amazing to us.” I let out a modest chuckle, my ham-repository having been filled for the moment. “So uh… Am I an alien or what?”

She smiled with a playfully forced sigh, “It’s either that or an all too elaborate joke. So… Mr. Alien. Oh… Actually, what is your name?”

I blinked before rubbing at the back of my neck with an irritated groan.

“Ummm. Well, it’s actually S-…” I started to say.

I was interrupted by the door suddenly being thrown open and slamming hard against its stopper.

“Spike, I’ve told you to stop doing that!” Twilight hollered at the short purple dragon entering.

I could tell it was Spike only by the purple claws walking underneath the small mountain of scrolls, quills, and ink bottles. Carrying the tremendous load in his arms, he used his tail to slam the door shut and poked his head around the side of the view-obstructing pile of literary material.

“Well, when I grow a magical horn that lets me open doors without using my claws, I’ll see about opening it your way!” he griped irritably, “Until that day though, tail it is!”

I winced at the angry exchange between the two. It wasn’t until that moment that Spike took notice of me.

“Spike! Manners! This is a guest!” she snapped, her eyes wide with shock.

I snickered, “It’s cool. Sup, Spike. I’m S-…”

“Yeah, yeah, listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really gotta get lunch going. I’m so hungry I could eat rocks and not care.” He waved me off dismissively after setting the vendor goods on a nearby table. Without leaving much room to get in an edgewise word, he vanished into the kitchen.

“Sorry, he gets really cranky when he misses breakfast,” Twilight murmured with a sigh, staring off at the kitchen before glancing back at me. “So… What was your name, again?”

“Tell ya what. If I get interrupted again, I’m going to make you give me a name instead,” I reasoned happily. “Unless, y’know… You want to just… give me one.”

“How about Hot Air!” Spike called from the kitchen.

Maybe there’s just something wrong with me. Maybe there’s something right with me. Maybe I’m just special. Whatever the case, I just don’t know how to take myself seriously. No really! Here Spike is, being a general PITA and the only thing I can do is laugh. Who does that? Even to me that sounds weird! Not that it changes anything, other than make me laugh a little harder. Still. I suppose it makes me very hard to dislike. Or maybe very easy and I’m just too dense to catch on. Either way, I remain happy as a clam.

“Spike~!” Twilight groaned, shamefully drooping her head.

I continued to snicker, my face buried beneath a hoof. Spike’s just awesome like that. Making those silly jokes.

“Declined, Spike, but thanks for the effort!” I called back before looking at Twilight. “Your turn, princess purple!”

Twilight lifted her head and simply stared at me for several seconds. She opened her mouth once but no sound came forth. After shutting it, she blinked and finally, turned a little pink around the cheeks.

“Can’t think of anything?” I trollfaced her RIGHT IN THE FACE.

She leaned away from me a little, blushing a tad more, “Give me a minute.”

I began to simulate the Jeopardy theme, staring her right in the eye as I did so. After about fifteen or more seconds of creepy eye contact, I finally lost my nerve and distracted her with a vocalized buzzer.

“Well, it’s your name! You pick it!” she demanded irritably.

“I’m sorry, Twilight, you must question in the form of an a-… Well, nevermind, I got that wrong,” I huffed before shrugging, “Heh. I kinda like the anonymity, actually. I shall be… Anon-Pony!”

Sometimes, even I have to look back at these past decisions and wonder… just what was I smoking and why didn’t I keep smoking it?

“A non-pony?” Twilight tilted her head, contemplatively considering it before giving a noncommittal nod, “I suppose that make sense. Since you aren’t really a pony after all.”

“No, no. Anon-Pony. As in anonymous pony,” I explained, my sails having gone somewhat slack from her misunderstanding. “Anonymous Pony. Anon-Pony. Get it?”

The good news was that she got it. The bad news was that I wish she hadn’t. Because then we got into this huge argument over the fact that nameless did not mean anonymous. And that I couldn’t be Anon-Pony if I wasn’t actually anonymous. I mean, it started out nice enough, but before long it just degraded into downright stubborn points of view with neither party willing to budge on the matter. Personally, if you ask me, Twilight’s just bullheaded. And I mean that.

After several minutes of that nonsense (no, we never settled on a name, sadly enough), we finally got down to the interesting part of the conversation. The part where we started to exchange fascinating information, that is. Twilight asked me a few questions a thousand different shades of interesting for her. Like, after I showed her what humans looked like (cellphone powah!), she simply couldn’t fathom just how different we were in appearance alone. And the fact that we thrived on the concept of technology and scientific exploitation was equally appealing to her. When I described weather prediction and how we worked around it, I had to reaffirm to her several times that Humans were nonmagical creatures.

Then I turned things around and began an intense interrogation of my own. Ponies! How do they work? We just don’t know! But that was about to change. Foreeeeveeeerrrrr~!

First of all, every last pony was packing magic. Yes, even the Earth Ponies. That’s how they were apparently able to pick things up with their hooves and even provided them with incredible strength. Pegasi, on the other hand, used their magic to make themselves feather-light for flying. Not only that, but were also able to trail their magic behind them for a variety of purposes such as more potent weather manipulation and leaving a wake of visible magic that was unique to each flyer. Unicorns had to rely on their horns to focus their magic, which prevented them from picking up most of the heavier objects with hooves or tails as an Earth Pony might. Their big advantage, however, were spells that could be used for a plethora of applications. Most Unicorns only get one or two spells, but their affinity with that spell would, over time, allow them to branch out to many other uses based entirely upon their will and desire. COMPLEX, EH?! But that wasn’t the extent of their magic. Hell, that wasn’t even scratching the surface of what magic did for ponies. Magic was in everything. Everything. Even in the butter.

Can you imagine that? This roll is not delicious enough! Let me smear a little magic vegetable spread on it, though, and it’s suddenly worthy of a ten dollar price tag! Grandma was good, but she wasn’t that good.

Seriously though, there was this thriving ecosystem of magic and I could talk about it all day long. In fact, me and Twilight would have done that very thing if Spike had not entered the room with pair of plates in his hands. His left cheek was gorged, as though he had a huge precious rock of some form stuffed in there. I got all excited at first, but that was before I noticed what was on the trays themselves.

Hay.

“Thank you, Spike!” Twilight was delighted by the arrival of tasty hay.

I was not.

He brought me my plate and set it down in front of me with a nervous smile, “Uhh, sorry about the… y’know… Being a jerk.”

“Totally forgiven,” I smiled back before glancing at the plate, “Ummm…”

Twilight noticed my hesitation before tilting her head. “Oh, I take it that humans aren’t herbivores.”

“Omnivores,” I distinguished before biting my lip reluctantly, “We just… don’t eat hay.”

Poor Spike had been left out. He was out of the loop and it was definitely showing on his face. What with the Spock eyebrow and the crossed arms. “Hu-whats now?”

“He’s an alien, Spike,” Twilight pointed out.

“Totally.” I nodded

“That’s… not as big a surprise as you might think,” Spike scratched at the side of his head pensively, “No offense.”

“I’ll get over it with some therapy,” I gave a shrug before sighing and looking back at the hay, “Okay… It’s not an onion.”

Onions are also known as Satan Tears or Gargantuan Disgusting Bulbs. Little known facts for you guys.

“I’ll always try something once,” I told myself audibly.

Both the purple inhabitants stared at me with their purple faces and waited with bated purple breath as I slowly forced myself to lower my head and take a bite of the hay. Moment of truth aaaaand… FAIL! Ugh, gag me! My eyes popped open as I chewed into the damn thing. Oh, it was exactly what you would expect it to taste like. Dried grass!

Have you ever eaten something that tasted so bad that it made you laugh? Saw my best friend do it once with this ‘organic’ nut bar (I swear to all things holy, it looked like it was made of birdseed). I never really understood why he would laugh. He said it was the irony. I never really knew what that meant until I ate a mouthful of hay.

I mean think about it. This stuff tastes like crap. I mean, I could see die-hard hippies turning this stuff down and washing their mouth out with dirty soapwater to scour out the foul taste. Yet, they actively grow this stuff as a freakin’ delicacy. What kind of abject nonsense is that?! I know they’re smart enough to come to the conclusion that this garbage is just garbage (heh, I can see it now… “Hey! This hay sucks! Hey, Hay! Did you know that you suck!?”).

Still, I was tough. I macho’d it down, swallowed the whole bite. Then I proceeded to fall off the bench and shudder all over at least twice.

“I think he likes it,” Spike commented with a smirk.

I slowly worked my way up to my hooves and took a deep, shaky breath (okay, so I tend to be a little dramatic. It’s good for cleansing the sinuses.) “Well, that’s another horror I’ll take to my grave. Okay, it’s time to show you guys the power of a super bachelor!”

Don’t worry; I didn’t take off my pants. Besides, I was already naked.

“A wh-…” Spike started to as shortly before I interrupted him.

“Spike! To the bat cave!” I cried before chomping down onto his spines and dashing off with him in tow.

“Be careful with him!” Twilight cried out worriedly before tagging on a mirthful second half, “I’ve only got one!”

“Help!” he pleaded with Twilight as we vanished into the kitchen.

It was a modest little thing with a black wood-fire stove tucked in the corner. The shelves were filled with a lot of the necessities as well as a few novelties (I had totally forgotten what a mortar and pestle was). It took me a moment to orient myself, but after ascertaining what was at my disposal, the choice was obvious.

Oriental, baby. Can’t go wrong.

“Bikuh!” I shouted with my mouth full of flailing Spike before giving him a toss onto my back, “Spike!”

“I’m developing a phobia of aliens,” he replied shakily as he adjusted his seat on my back.

“Sounds like a personal problem!” I retorted before I spotted the drawers that had all the sharp stuff. “Now, it’s time to get cookin’! First things first! As proper men, we need sweat rags! Because that is awesome and we’re awesome! Understood?!”

“What?” I was losing him.

“Who’s awesome, Spike?!” I demanded.

“Um… … What?” He replied.

I sighed sadly before asking in a more practical tone, “Who is awesome?”

“Um… Rainbow Dash is pretty cool,” he pointed out in an uncertain fashion. He wasn’t catching on, that much was apparent.

I blinked before looking back at him with incredulity written upon my face.

“Yes, I suppose she is,” I admitted before sighing, lowering my head in frustrated disappointment, “Now. Who else, within the immediate vicinity, mind you, is awesome? We are! Now say it!”

The poor guy just had not had enough male influence in his life and it showed in his response. “We’re awesome?”

“It doesn’t need that question mark at the end there, chief,” I told him with a second sigh, “Try again. Who’s awesome?!”

“We’re awesome.” Better, but insufficient fury nonetheless.

“Louder!” I cried out, “Who’s awesome!?”

“We’re awesome!” he replied with more enthusiasm, starting to get pumped.

“Yeah! Who’s awesome!?” I demanded yet again!

“We’re awesome!” he bellowed in return!

“YEAH!” I thrust a hoof into the air!

“YEAH!” He did likewise with a claw!

“YEAH!”

“YEAH!”

“YEAH! WHERE ARE THE RAGS!?” I hollered.

“THERE!” He pointed out excitedly.

Two seconds later, we had a pair of awesome (pink… *sigh*) do-rags wrapped over our heads to match our states of awesomeness, “IT’S ON, FILLIES! LET’S COOK SOME LUNCH!”

“Pardon me, boys.” Twilight derailed the whole damn thing, yelling at us from wherever she was currently busy doing... girly... pony... ... ... things. “But could we keep it down? This is still a library.”

Well. My face was some kind of red.

Eventually, we were able to get some homemade vegetable Lo-Mein served up with a bit of homemade sauce. I was worried I would die of starvation in the time it would have taken me to get the stove wood lit, but that wasn’t much of a problem with a tiny purple dragon at my side. Still, there were enough complications to keep it interesting. I actually had to brew my own damn soy sauce. Thankfully, I had done that a hundred times before working at a Japanese steakhouse in Alabama. So I wasn’t deterred. It wasn’t perfectly similar to the original thing, mostly because I had to make the noodles broad and then cut in half after frying (WHICH WAS TEDIOUS AS HELL!). In less than an hour, though, we had a load of cabbage, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and carrots all mixed up in a pile of soy sauce and noodles.

“That looks angry,” Spike admitted, giving it a fearful glance over the top of my head from his perch on my back.

“Oh, it is angry,” I agreed with him, tentatively poking it with a fork before jumping and screaming in horror.

“AHH!” I faked.

“AHHHH!!!” Spike clutched my mane in horror, screaming with me.

I smiled back at him.

“Gotcha.”

He wasn’t amused. That made it funnier. Tro-lo-lo-lo-looooool~!

“Would you two please stop making such a racket! I’m trying to read!” Twilight snapped as she poked her head inside. She then took a whiff on what was in the air and was suddenly all curious.

“Well, at least it smells like all the noise and effort was worth it,” she said with an eager smile.

“Say please~!” I ordered, serving up three bowls with a noodle spoon thingy.

She happily trotted over, smiling eagerly. “Please~!”

Cuter than a puppy wrestling with a shoe.

And a real lunch was served. I saved myself the biggest portion because Twilight had already had hay and Spike had chomped on a few pieces of jewelry or something to that effect. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still damn good and I was famished. I’m not a big fan of being forced into veganism... or vegtablarism... or whatever it’s called. I never took Theology in college. Nonetheless, if all the dishes tasted this good, I certainly wouldn’t lament it for long.

After looking upon the sloppy pile of noodles and veggies, Twilight took up Spike’s fearful distrust of the chow. It wasn’t until I began to greedily stuff it into my face that they finally took the plunge and tried it. That was mature of them at least, seeing as how I tried their despicable hay. The result was a big fat success! Om nom nom for everypony!

“So,” I said, munching through a mouthful of vegan-stuff, “Twilight, do you have any idea on how I could have gotten here?”

“You mean assuming you aren’t just a crazy unicorn with bizarre talents?” she asked with a laugh.

Spike snickered as he chomped down on his culinary gift.

“Well, from my point of view, I’m still not sure this isn’t all just a dream,” I replied with a laugh of my own, “But now that we’re done pointing out the elephants in the room…”

She shook her head as she tried to replicate the act of slurping up a single noodle after watching me do it. See, there’s an art to that. You gotta ease up at the end, and even that has to be done gradually. If you just willy-nilly go slurping about, you’re going to get what Twilight got, which was a noodle slap right in the nose.

“Twilight, you barbarian,” I huffed sarcastically, pulling the rag off my head and gently dabbing at saucy nose.

She chuckled with a blush and began to reply, but the door was bucked open and slammed against the stopper with a bang. It scared us all into freezing in place as we all turned to face the newcomer.

It was like magic. … Okay, maybe that was a little redundant.

In flew the bluest, coolest, awesomest mare in the world. Twenty-percent cooler than ice and faster than a speeding bullet. The badflank herself, Rainbow “Danger” Dash.

“Twilight, what is taking so long!?” she yelled, frustration marring her lovely face.

Jaw drop~!

She spotted the scene. Random colt wiping sauce off Twilight’s mouth from unknown dish that no doubt smelled delicious and looked angry. She processed that. She ran it through her priority algorithms. Out spewed the questions.

“What are you eating!? Who is thi… Is this your coltfriend! Hah! That’s so cool!” she cried, starting to get all chummy before shaking her head and realizing that she was here for a purpose, “Wait, why are you eating! I sent Spike to come get you over an hour ago! There’s a huge crater in the middle of Town Square!”

We all looked at Spike. He blushed in response before pulling a Twix commercial and stuffing so much Lo-Mein in his mouth that we could not decipher the multitude of excuses that failed to push past the noodlely obstructions.

I looked back at Rainbow Dash and continued with the jaw drop. All the way across the library. Wooooow~! Full on! I’ll stop that now; I apologize.

“Uhhh, no, this is not my coltfriend!” Twilight shoved my hoof away from her, blushing brightly as she swallowed the remaining food in her mouth, “He’s an alien.”

Well, I might as well have been dipped in gold as far as Dash was concerned. That was all she needed to hear before zipping right up to my face and staring at me suspiciously.

“Huh… You sure? He doesn’t look like an alien to me.” She was dubious, and for good reason.

“I… I…” I stammered is what I did!

Perhaps we need a little more context for the kids at home to understand. Bronies have a tendency to take their electronic devices and wrap them in pony themes. Well… I was one of many. I simply took it a little further than most. It started out innocent enough. A few chat avatars changed to Rainbow Dash doing awesome/silly things like flail her tongue about. Then it developed into changing program skins like Google Chrome and Trillian to Dashie’s color scheme. And then came the wallpapers (there were many). Before long, though, I was making WoW toons, Skype Accounts, and Steam names all centered around this prismatic pony. After I changed my seven-page background on my cellphone to the Sonic Rainboom (Which took some effort, I assure you), I told myself that I was done with it and would draw the line here.

That was a week before I purchased a Happy Meal to acquire a Rainbow Dash toy.

Okay, now, we all have embarrassing moments in our lives that we’re not proud of. This was not one of them for me. I mean, yeah, some people will laugh at me. I will smile arrogantly in their faces and declare them jelly! I will never be ashamed about what happened next!

Which was me passing out like a teenage cheerleader at a Justin Bieber concert.

HOWEVER! I will say this! Those ‘awesome’ ponies?! The ones I love so much!? Refused to catch me when I fell! I know because I woke up with a bruise the size of a baseball on the side of my head!

… … … All of my rage and all of its children!

Chapter Two: In Soviet Equestria, Something Something Pony...

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

I dream happy dreams, y’know. They’re pretty fun. Lots of action and randomness that usually involves motorcycles and dinosaurs. Not this time, though. My mind was just wide open thinking of… positively nothing. Entirely dreamless sleep. Not really used to that, but hey, if it was a wild ride every time, then it would just get boring, right?

Well, I finally woke up sometime that year, head pounding as though it had been shoved into a juicer. I’m sure there’s a medical name for that, actually. Anyway, the point was that I was in pain and damn it, I was not happy about it. I felt around my face and winced as I came into contact with a bump on my head just under my temple.

“Judas on a ho,” I grunted, giving it a few more testing pokes for good measure. “Could that possibly hurt any worse?”

I’m not sure why my face decided it would be a good idea to take the fall for the rest of my body. Selfless bastard needed to be a bit more self preserving, in my opinion. Above all, though, my horn hurt the most. I’m going to suppress the urge to tell you what that’s like, actually. There’s really no possible way to describe the sort of painful sensation that was resonating approximately three inches away from my forehead other than it was a painful sensation resonating approximately three inches away from my forehead.

“Hi there,” A soft voice spoke up from behind me.

“CHRISTCHEX!” I squealed as I spun around. I’m known to be a little high strung at times.

Just a little.

Anyway, I expected a pony. Hell, I preferred a pony, even. What I got, though, was not a pony. It was a bird. Not just any bird. The same fowl (so clever) beast that woke me up that morning.

The filthy little bastard resembled a blue jay with black tips at the end of its wings and tail. The eyes, however, were what gave away its intelligence (y’know, aside from the talking part) being that they were almost human in appearance with bright blue irises.

Now, most people would be amazed. Amagad, talking bird! It’s so cool!

I, however, was pissed at the fact that it wasn’t leaving me alone.

“Oh great. Even Stupid Bird is here,” I muttered angrily to myself.

“I’m not just a bird,” it insisted in an unreasonably regal voice. The soft feminine tone was unexpected to say the least, but I was in the magical land of ponies. Anything can happen, right? Still, it was a tad bizarre. I mean, it was up there with Celestia and Galadriel in terms of poshiness.

I trotted over and stared down at it askance. This bird was talking to me. That did not gel with my ‘acceptable parameters of Equestria,’ I’m not ashamed to say. Ponies can talk all they like, but birds are feathered jerks that insist upon ruining my life with their white poo and irritating twittering.

“Stupid Bird is speaking perfect English,” I muttered aloud to myself, “It must be Satan.”

The bird facepalmed with its wing (Wingpalmed? Facewinged? Wingfacepalmed?) and let out a somewhat impatient sigh, “No, I’m not Satan. However, if it pleases you, I suppose I could take that form.”

I glared at it stubbornly for a few more seconds. “Stupid Bird is threatening to turn into Satan. It must be Satan.”

“Clearly, your powers of deduction are unrivaled amongst your species. I am…”

“Nope,” I prevented it from finishing that sentence, “Don’t tell me.”

The bird blinked before cocking its head to one side.

“Pardon?”

“I don’t want to know. Leave me alone,” I stated quite firmly before waving a hoof at it. “Shoo. Go away. Nobody likes you anyway. You smell funny.”

“W… What have I done to you?” It asked incredulously. Apparently, it was unhappy with my treatment.

“Well, nothing. And I want to keep it that way,” I answered, still poking the hoof at it in an attempt to scare it away, “I don’t want a Navi. Go lay eggs or preen or something.”

“You are being quite rude.” It snapped angrily, pecking at my hoof in contempt.

“You are being an overused cliché!” I snapped back, jerking my hoof away from the attacking beak, “I don’t want whatever it is you’re selling. Get lost!”

“Cli… How dare you!”

“Holy shit, you took it to the next level!” I cried out before shaking my head and taking an honest swing at the stupid fowl. “Go away, seriously. I’m about to get a book and turn you into a feathered pancake if you don’t get out of my sight! Seriously, you’re making me feel like Harry Dresden by being all snarky to an obviously powerful being.”

“W-What?!”

It took flight and stayed out of my reach, squawking furiously as it did so. After reaching this stalemate, it glared down at me it’s composure somewhat regained.

“How could you have possi-…”

“Oh my GOD, YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE!” I slumped down to the ground and covered my ears, yelling at the top of my lungs, “I DON’T WANT STUPID BIRD! MAKE IT GO AWAY!”

“SHUT UP, YOU FATHEAD!” it snapped angrily, having lost its self-important demeanor and replaced it with ill temperament.

I frowned up at the bird.

“My head is not fat,” I remarked defensively, narrowing my eyes at the insulting little cuss.

The bird perched on nothing as it shoved an indignant wing in my direction. Dr. Professor Physicist would have a cow if he saw this. I was having a little trouble digesting it as well, but the constant reminder of pony world saved my mind from dwelling on the matter for too long.

“Shut up! I am here to do a job and you are going to be silent! You are going to hear me out! And if you fail in either of those endeavors I will see to it that you regret it!”

“Alright, alright,” I sighed, sitting up and glaring at Stupid Bird with a pout. “Stupid bird.”

“Ah, ah!” It waved a warning wing at me as it continued to mock gravity, “Silence.”

I was gonna smart off to it again; I really was. However, I couldn’t move. At all. That made me very despondent and served to further my suspicions. I couldn’t even lift a hoof to scratch my nose. Thank Celestia it didn’t begin itching or anything. That would have been a nightmare.

“Good!” said Stupid Bird in a satisfied tone. “Now, I need to awaken the latent…”

And then I stopped paying attention. You might be wondering why I’m acting like such an ass here. Well, there is a legitimate reason, I assure you. No, seriously, let me lay this out for you so that you can understand where I’m coming from.

Stupid Bird was the same stupid bird that woke me up at the crater. So it probably had something to do with my presence in Equestria (squee!), even if it was not directly responsible. Stupid Bird was likely not from Equestria or at least was able to observe other worlds if not straight up go to them. How do I know this? Because Stupid Bird understood the reference to Satan. Why is that important? Because that’s a concept understood by those on Earth, not Equestria. So here’s what we know so far: Stupid Bird is related to my presence in Equestria and has otherworldly knowledge at its disposal.

“You are the last line of defense in-…”

Ugh… Right, I forgot just how long this went on. What was going through my head at the time was pretty irrelevant, so I’ll not bore you with that. Mostly the usual junk of wondering whether or not I left the gas on.

Anyway, I’ll try to sum this up as best I can. Anyway, Stupid Bird wants something out of me. I have no reason to trust Stupid Bird. For all I know, Stupid Bird is the villain from the second season of the show (I can’t wait for it!) and is trying to use me against the ponies. Or it could just be a sandbox god that wants to screw around with stuff. Who knows? I don’t. What I do know is that it has a proposal and wants me to do something that it, for whatever reason, cannot do.

Wait, hold on, I think this is where it started wrapping things up.

“… know you are up to the task…”

Holy hand grenade; it’s still going.

So anyway, the long and short of the bullshit on my end is I don’t feel like being a pawn. No matter the situation, Stupid Bird is not going apprise me of the entire thing because the concept of absolute good and evil don’t exist. If something is threatening something, then it has a good reason. Or at least a good enough reason to satisfy said party. It could not tell me every last detail else, I might be inclined to help the opposing party if it had a good enough reason. Granted, going against Equestria would have to have a damn good reason but meh. Anyway, as I said, being a pawn is not my thing.

So… Long story shorter: Being a pawn is not my thing and the gist I was getting from the damn feathered rodent was - and bear with me on this - that Equestria was in danger and I was the big hero here to save the day from the world beyond~!

Gag me.

“So… Will you help us?” it asked, opening its eyes extra wide as they got all moist with fearful tears.

Whatever was restricting me suddenly turned loose of me. Without further ado, I shoved it right back into Stupid Bird’s face.

“Nope!”

“Excellent! I’m glad you…” It started to reply before pausing and executing a dramatic, genuine double-take.

“But hey, maybe the next brony you grab might not see straight through your Disney movie plot,” I said with an over exaggerated wink.

“W-What?!”

Well, I’ll say the look I got in return was worth waiting through that trite monologue.

“You say that a lot. Anyway, listen up, Featherbrain. I don’t know you. I don’t know your motivations. I don’t know why I got here, or how for that matter. What I do know is that you are more than you appear to be, have enough power of your own to forcibly hold me still and silent, are unbelievably annoying, and that I can apparently do something for you. The only other thing I know is that I’m in the magical land of ponies, and that you’re talking about giving me what I need to fight the Big Bad,” I said before facehoofing and looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, I’ve no clue who wrote this script, but I think I’d rather sit through a marathon of the DarkStalkers cartoon. And to put that into perspective, I think I would honestly rather shoot myself in the foot than put up with that abomination.”

“If you won’t help me then I’ll…”

“Send me back? Kill me? Force me to do it anyway? I’ve seen them all in Cable High-Def and 720p on Youtube.” I looked away from the bird, sticking a hoof out at it. “Do your worst. Otherwise, we’re done here.”

“Insufferable child,” it snapped angrily, “You do not understand what is at stake here!”

Yaaaaaawn! Actually, I really did. I even did so whilst covering my mouth with a hoof. No reason to be impolite, after all.

“Fine! But you will regret this!” And without another moment of my precious time lost to inanity, Stupid Bird vanished with a puff. I don’t think I could have been happier.

I turned back towards the library and stubbornly trotted off to the kitchen. I was shocked to discover that the mess that Spike and I made had been cleaned up already. Luckily, there was some homemade lo mien left for me to snack upon next to the wood stove... Even if it did take me several tries to remember just how one goes about picking up objects with but a single hoof. I took my second bowl of chow to a nearby bench and began to think about the situation.

It didn’t take long for that nagging sensation to set in, I’m sad to say. You know the one. That feeling you get when you did something that you’re not certain you can take back and the consequences that you just bit off might be more than you can chew? Of course you do. And that’s what was happening to me, which is the last thing a smartass like me ever wants to have happening to him.

First it was small stuff like how Stupid Bird was possibly unaware of just how incredibly lame it was being. Then it moved on to how I probably should have just paid a little more attention. Before long I began to wonder just what could possibly threaten Equestria enough to bring in an outsider. Finally I realized that I was questioning the very nature of my being and decided that talking to myself, even internally, was a bad idea.

I figured the quickest way of getting out of this funk was to address my need of pony interaction and fast.

“Hey, Twilight?” I called out, unsurprisingly getting no response. I assumed she and Spike weren’t around if they had not shown up while I had that little debate with Stupid Bird.

Still, I found myself a teensy bit sad. Twilight was no longer within yelling distance and that killed most of the plans I had for the rest of my day.

Bah, I need a cigarette, I finally told myself before tossing my now emptied bowl in the sink. I made it about two steps before looking back at the sink and sighing. Yeah, I know, and I’m a gracious bastard for it as well. I cleaned the bowl and spoon, dried them off, and put them away.

This time I kept myself from panicking when the cigarette lit itself. It was crazy. A little shiny red glowing ball of fire just silently jumped from my horn and floated to the tip and popped into nothingness the moment I inhaled to light it.

“Groovy,” I murmured, pulling out the cigarette and inspecting it.

Oh yeah, magic did not suck. Not in the slightest.

As I put the cylinder back where it belonged (between my succulent lips – no homo), I began to just relax and take in the beautiful sights of Ponyville. The incredibly bright green grass~! The unassumingly identical trees~! Even the beautifully hoof-crafted cobblestone roads~! And then pink.

I know, I know, it’s a little girl’s world. Still, the amount of pink was borderline dangerous. I mean, houses and kiosks would have secondary colors such as navy blue, powder white, and royal purple, but it all came back to pink one way or another. Hot pink, light pink, neon pink, pinkish-red, etc. One Pink, Two Pink, Red Pink, Blue Pink!

Pink, I was prepared for. Pink pony, on the other hand, caught me quite off guard. See, when people approach you, there’s this event where you notice the approaching party and because of this, you don’t fall on your ass sputtering like an idiot. That is normal.

But oh no, that’s not good enough for Pinkie. She’s all about the abnormal! Pinkie Pie does what she wants. Why? How the hell should I know?! All I do know is when Pinkie Pie approaches you, she just might decide that giving you the friendly goddamn courtesy of trotting up like a decent respectable isn’t going to be enough to satisfy her. No! Instead, she just bloody appears two inches from your face. You think I’m kidding? No. I’m not kidding. I’m being as serious as a heart attack, which, coincidentally, was what nearly happened to me. Like I said, I was caught off guard

“OHMAGOD!” I yelled, stumbling back onto my plot and gasping for air as I clutched at my chest with a shaky hoof.

“HI!” she chirped excitedly, “I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“I know!” I yelled at her, embarrassed that I had come just short of wetting myself in shock.

Then her eyes got bigger (if that were somehow possible) as she leaned closer (which seemed equally impossible). She gasped in shock, as though the revelation of me already knowing her was mind-blowing on a level that just didn’t compute.

“Err… What a-…” I started to ask. If I had known better, as I do these days, I wouldn’t have bothered wasting my breath.

“Wow you do that’s amazing you must be psychic even though Twilight said you had fire magic but you must be extra special to be able to have that and fire magic I wonder if you can combine the two like set making ponies feel all warm and toasty in their head that would be so silly especially if you didn’t tell them about it and they suddenly feel all warm for no reason and it makes them feel really funny I bet you even have two Cutie Marks do you have two Cutie Marks that would be so amazing like twice the amazing let’s see!”

No breath, pause, or period entered that barrage of statements, questions and exclamations.

“Uhh,” I blinked before suddenly being yanked off the ground by Pinkie who proceeded to flip and turn me every which way like a rag doll. I tried to resist. Hell, I tried a lot of things. I’m pretty sure I even shrieked in shock a few times as the world about me tumbled like a dryer on Extra Floppy.

“You don’t have two Cutie Marks!”

Twist. I yelled out some profanity.

“You don’t even have one Cutie Mark!”

Flip. I paused here to prevent myself from throwing up.

“Wow, you’re really old to not have a Cutie Mark!”

Turn. Insert the shouting of crude obscenities.

“WAIT! Your Cutie Mark could be NOT having a Cutie Mark! You would be, like, SO special! Because everypony, and I mean everypony, has a Cutie Mark! It would SO cool if you never got one! You could be all like…”

When Twilight told me that Earth Ponies were exceptionally heavier and stronger than other ponies, I had no clue just how much stronger we were talking. I might as well have been made of floppy doll parts. None of my struggles even seemed to garner her attention, and I was kicking and screaming something rather fierce by this point for all the good it was doing. Luckily, though, she gave up after a few more seconds and set me down on my feet. I promptly stumbled about before sitting back down. The world seemed to have missed the memo that notified everything that I was no longer spinning. Either that or I was that dizzy. It’s not as though I could really tell the difference. No really. I couldn’t tell the difference.

“Oh well!” she cried brightly before picking up the cigarette that I had dropped. “Oh, what’s this!? You had it like this! This is right, right?!”

She inserted the proper end into her mouth and smiled at me ecstatically.

I might have overreacted.

“NO, PINKIE!” I cried far too late, my hoof stretched out towards her desperately as my jaw hit the ground in shock.

There was a moment of silence followed shortly by, and I’m not making this up, the chirp of a cricket.

“What?” she responded, cigarette still dangling from her mouth. “This isn’t very tasty, you know. It must be one of those acquired tastes. Like turnips!”

I blinked, closed my mouth, and blinked again before picking myself up off the ground. It took a couple of tries; I was still dizzy as a drug addict at the Burning Man event.

“… May I… May I have my cigarette back?” I asked after I finally managed to stand up.

“Okay!”

Pinkie just… She just doesn’t think about her actions, guys. I kid you not. She won’t do something the way you expect her to, ever. You ask her for the cigarette back, you expect her to hold it out to you and let you take it. What really happens is she shoves it back into your mouth, which involves a super-strength hoof colliding with your face at energetic Pinkie Pie speeds.

“Hork~!” I stumbled, falling right back on my butt. I don’t know how she didn’t break my nose, but she sure as hell filled the lion’s share of my vision with pretty, pretty stars.

“Whoops!” she commented with a giggle.

‘Whoops’ my fuzzy grey plot.

“So, what’s your name?”

I shook the last of the stars out of my sight before rubbing my nose and blinking at her, “Anon-Pony.”

“I thought you’d say that since Twilight said you would say that but she said that I was to say that you should say something else because she said that that was definitely not your name! I said, ‘Okay, Twilight, whatever you say!’” Pinkie blabbed happily before turning her head sideways, “So! Whaddya say?”

I blinked, having to replay that sentence in my head a couple of times before I understood what Pinkie Pie said. The rough translation was that Twilight was being a stubborn plotface about me being Anon-Pony. Whatever.

“Well, Twilight can go milk a cow!” I grumped as my ears flopped down against my head in irritation.

Man, I thought the tail was awesome. Ears are just downright wiggy. And that’s the scientific term used, mind you. I put everything else on hold as I began to actively flop my ears about. Oh, it was some kind of trippy. It only got worse as Pinkie began to copy me. Before long we were sitting there in utter silence, staring at one another as our ears began to dance the dance of dances.

“That’s silly! Why would Twilight milk cows? That’s the cowses’ job!” Pinkie replied after several seconds of eerie silence, now flapping her ears as though they were tiny wings.

I… Guys, this is about to get weird. Just a heads-up there. I know, it looks bad now. You don’t have to tell me. But I was pretty desensitized to insanity-spurred moments like this a long time ago. Lafter does this kinda crap all the time (and by Lafter, I mean me!) and later on when Stoic takes hold again, I get to feeling incredibly ridiculous. So let me clear this up before you enter the really strange part… I’ve no clue why the word ‘Cowses’ tickled me so, okay? It just did. Apologies.

That said, however, you’re going to have to put up with the entire thing.

“Cowses?” I phonetically mimicked her, chuckling a bit as I did so.

Then her grin stretched impossibly wide.

“Cowses!”

“… … Cowses.” I repeated in a deeper tone.

“Cowses!” She replied exactly as she had before.

“Cowses!”

“Cowses!”

I narrowed my eyes, giving her a sly look (which she imitated immediately) and began to whisper, “Cowse-…”

“What are you two doing?!” Rainbow Dash’s interruption spooked us both.

She was hovering above us. I think I just about died from shame, I’m sad to say. I’m really not that quick to blush, but I’ve got this fascination with Rainbow Dash that just isn’t very healthy in all likelihood. I mean, I’m sure this is how stupid co-eds panic when someone like Leonardo DiCaprio catches them in a chicken costume or something.

“Hi, Dashy!” Pinkie enthusiastically waved at the newcomer, her ears still a’flappin about. “Cowses!”

“How long were you there?!” I asked in shock, my cheeks and ears burning with embarrassment.

“Somewhere between the beginning of the ear duel and ‘Cowses,’” she replied irritably, her hooves on her hips and her eyes narrowed accusingly at me, “Twilight sent Pinkie to come fetch you a while ago; what is keeping you two?!”

“Nothing. Duh!” Pinkie squeaked cheerfully, her ears still motoring about.

“Well, I blame Twilight for being silly enough to think that Pinkie Pie’s attention span was up to the task,” I countered instantly, taking a drag off my cigarette.

Rainbow Dash started to argue, but after taking an extra glance at Pinkie Pie, she slapped a hoof over her face and sighed.

“Can’t argue with you there,” she reluctantly admitted.

“Cowses!” Pinkie cried.

“Cowses,” I muttered gravely before nodding at Rainbow Dash with an incredibly serious look upon my face.

She rolled her eyes with a smirk and sighed, “Look, whatever, okay? You two can ‘Cowses’ all you like…”

She totally did air-quotes with her hooves. What the hell…

“But please hold off on that and… whatever it was you were doing with the ears.”

Aaaand Carramelldansen with my ears... Augh, I know, I was acting like a complete moron. I’m sorry. I have the most incredibly strong urges to act out in front of people who don’t know me. It’s both a gift and a curse.

“Y-Yeah, that!” She was struggling to not laugh at this point. “Just… Stop all of that and f-follow me to the crater. Hehe… I said stop!”

“Stop what, Dashie?” Pinkie asked as she joined in, causing Rainbow Dash to sputter a tad.

“Stop the… Okay, enough of the crazy! We’re going now!” Dash quickly zipped around behind us and grabbed both our tails in her mouth before taking off with us in tow.

Now, flying backwards and upside down is, by itself, an incredibly odd feeling. It gets even weirder when you’re about as heavy as a kite thanks to Rainbow Dash’s pegasus magic. It seems that beggars can’t be choosers, however. Still, just the sensation of flying was pretty amazing, but golly, did my backside feel incredibly strange. I mean, a strong wind blowing across it was kinda unique in and of itself, but it was the tail that was really getting at me. This was the day for new sensations and feelings because I have to say, there is no feeling quite like the feeling of a yanking sensation emanating right above your butt. It was the most awkward feeling I’ve ever physically experienced. Luckily, tails are really strong, so it’s not even painful as much is… Just pull HARD on your hair without hurting yourself and imagine that coming from the base of your spine.

“Oh… Oh, that is some kinda freaky!” I squeaked, squirming about as Dash tugged us along the sky.

“I know, it’s so tickly and pully!” Pinkie cried out with joy. Not sure how, but she somehow knew exactly what I was talking about. “Hehehehe! Oh well! At least we get to go to the crater! It’s so smoky and neat!”

“You guys don’t get a lot of craters do… Oof… My cigarette!!”

That oof? That was Rainbow Dash flying along and smacking me into a low-flying cloud that was indeed solid enough to jar me into dropping my smoke. The damn Equestrian Physics were blowing my mind. I’m fairly certain that wasn’t how it worked in the show.

“Nope! First Ponyville crater!” Pinkie shook her head, still smiling broadly.

I spared a moment of attention to lament my poor falling Mareboro before looking back at Pinkie with a sigh.

“So… What’s up, is there going to be a huge party or something?” I asked sarcastically.

“Yeah!” she answered anyway before poking a hoof at my face. “We were going to name it after you but you don’t have a name, so now we have to call it the No-Name Party!”

“That sounds like an untrustworthy political group. Also known as a political group.” I sighed as I checked over my shoulder impatiently.

Luckily, Rainbow Dash’s speed in the show was not an exaggeration and within the few following moments I could see the crater. There was this rainbow palette of colors surrounding it,and as we approached, I realized that the palette was actually a crowd of candy colored ponies. We touched down just on the edge of the square (and by touched down, I mean dropped a few feet off the ground and landed unceremoniously on our faces). This didn’t seem to bother Pinkie in the slightest. In fact, she kinda just... bounced off the ground and onto her hooves. Now, I’ve got your average amount of agility and a pretty good sense of balance as a human. As a pony, though, I tend to smack into things (sometimes it’s the other way around) and just take it like a champ.

After picking myself up, dusting my coat off, and giving Rainbow Dash an irritable glance, we approached the group. Ponies of so many colors! I had to contain my inner squee as I gazed at them. So many I recognized. Roseluck, Berry Punch, Carrot Top, Daisy, Lyra, Bon Bon... It made me get all fluttery in the gut. I played it cool though and pushed through their numbers with Pinkie and Dash.

“I guess we’re looking for Twilight, right?” I commented as we touched the edge of the crater. It smelled a tad acrid, but wasn’t overpowering as much as it was just annoying.

“Yup,” Dash replied as she swung her head to and fro in search of the magical savant.

“Well, I’m not!” Pinkie cried exuberantly.

Dash and I both looked at each other before glancing at the party pony.

“Why not?”

“Because I already spotted her, that’s why!” she explained to us as though we made no sense whatsoever. “Duh!”

Uh-huh. Well, once again, rather than do the expected thing of pointing her out, Pinkie instead had her eyes shut and was bouncing her body side to side to the rhythm of a beat that only she could hear.

“Well, uh... Pinkie, she’s sorta waiting on us,” Dash pointed out impatiently as I nodded.

“Oh!” Pinkie exclaimed, blushing a tad.

That was surprising. I was all, holy crap, did we just get through to Pinkie? As soon as that thought went through my head, she dispelled that illusion with a swift motion. The swift motion consisted of grabbing me and standing on her back two hooves as she lifted me over her head. She must have had amazing upper pony strength or something, because I figure I’m not very light. Males are rather consistently larger than females, and I was no exception, other than the fact that I might even be a little bit bigger than average male as well.

“Gah!” I cried, desperate for something to hold on to as I was swung through the air.

“TWILIGHT!” Pinkie hollered across the crater, “I found the fire pony! The one that caused the crater, right?! He doesn’t have a name so I’ve been calling him No Name! I think that’s what we’re going to call him for now since you said he can’t be Anon-Pony! You said you wanted to see him right?! Also, he’s pretty heavy! I wonder if he eats a lot!”

Well shit, Pinkie, why don’t you give everyone my social and date of birth since we’re in the business of divulging personal information, I thought to myself with a facehoof.

From the higher vantage point, I could spot Twilight standing next to Applejack. Both of them looked rather irritated with the Pinkie PA and I couldn’t blame them. It didn’t take me long to figure out just how bad that was going to sound to the rest of the town. Oh hi, brought the jackass that turned the center of town into a big fat hole in the ground! … Whatever. Since I may as well have been holding a damn sign that said I DID IT AND I’M NOT SORRY, I might as well go all the way.

Okay, maybe not all the way, but I did light a cigarette menacingly. To my amusement, the audible pop scared a couple of nearby fillies. That made it taste better.

“What is that?” Dash asked, her eyebrows lifting curiously.

“That’s his smokey treat!” Pinkie explained happily.

A smokey treat? Meh, close enough.

Twilight and Applejack made their way around the crater as the crowd began to back away from me. At first I was able to explain it away with the cigarette, but before long, I could hear whispers. My gut reaction to that sort of thing was to become offended and indignant, but I swear to God, they started coming up with irrelevant nonsense.

Stuff like, ‘just look at the way he keeps his mane, so uncouth!’ and ‘Look at the (not making this up) sinister way he breathes smoke like a dragon!’ but the best one by far was ‘He doesn’t even have a Cutie Mark, such a poor example for the children!’

I began laughing. These ponies could talk some serious shit! I couldn’t believe my ears. I mean, half of me was insulted and offended as hell, but the other half was marveling at the fact that my mane was so ‘uncouth’ that comments were not only warranted but enthusiastically seconded by those nearby. I was both baffled and entertained. Still, the novelty quickly wore off as the ponies continued to put distance between me and them. I admit, I was starting to get more irritated and less amused as the horribly tame slurs were getting louder and more brazen.

That is... Until there was an intervention.

“Listen to all of ya’ll!” A little voice cried out.

She was tiny with a heart bigger than a mountain and softer than a pillow. Her voice was full of a righteous indignation that belied her diminutive size and her red-gold eyes were as fierce as a gryphon’s. Not to mention that serious pink hairbow.

Applebloom to the applebuckin’ rescue!

Tiny ran out to stand in the center of the gap separating Pinkie, Dash, and I from the rest of the crowd.

“He ain’t been here for but a minute and already I’m hearin’ some of the worst gossip ever!” she cried, glaring at the crowd as her face snapped about to emphasize the fact that she was talking to all the ponies. “Why, he ain’t even had a chance to tell his side of the story!”

The crowd was utterly silent as they regarded the words of the brave little filly. Applejack and Twilight continued to make their way around the crater. Twilight looked a bit worried, but Applejack was practically glowing with pride.

“Haven’t we learned anything?!” Applebloom carried on with fervor, now blushing a little bit from all the attention, “Didn’t we do somethin’ like this to Zecora? And look at how silly we all felt after that! I’m thinkin’ if y’all wanna make a change, now would be a really good time to start!”

Pinkie Pie let out an energetic (technically, I suppose everything Pinkie does is energetic) yell as she continued to stubbornly heft me about in the air. Rainbow Dash trotted over to Applebloom and mussed her hair with a hoof, smirking down at the flustered pony who smiled back up at her.

“S-Sorry,” Applebloom half stammered as both Twilight and her sister approached, “I just...”

“Don’t be, sugarcube,” Applejack immediately replied, lowering her head enough to nuzzle at her sister, “Y’all are right and we all know it.”

Applejack lifted her head and cut her eyes at the crowd, daring them to speak out. “Don’t we!”

An immediate chorus of half-hearted agreements slowly came out of the crowd.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash yelled out, startling everyone (myself included) with her surprisingly strong lungs, “She said... Don’t we!”

This round of assent was much more audible and sounded less forced this time around. Hell, I was happy with the first one. Dash, apparently, doesn’t settle for second best. Makes sense, in a pony sorta way.

“That’s enough, you guys,” Twilight said with a cough, preventing further heckling of the crowd. She smiled nonetheless, showing them she still approved of their actions regardless of their somewhat tactless methods. I was right there with her on that. I love me some sinus-clearing tactlessness.

“Alright, Stranger, do you...” she started to ask before glancing at my elevated status.

Never one to miss a moment for insanity, I pointed a hoof her way and narrowed my eyes.

“Behold my new method of travel,” I uttered in a grave voice, taking a drag off my cigarette, “Pinkie Schlepping. No longer shall anypony ever have to walk anywhere ever again!”

“I’m an invention!” Pinkie chirped.

“Right,” Twilight said with a half-irritated, half-amused roll of the eyes, “Pinkie Pie?”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Pinkie responded with a bounce, shaking me enough that I nearly dropped my cigarette.

“Please be a dear and drop our new friend,” she said with an innocent smile.

I was just a few seconds from geeking out over Twilight calling me ‘friend’ when I was prevented by way of smacking into the ground. Not sure how I picked up so much speed with such a short distance; possibly something to do with Pinkie Pie’s personal Rule of Funny. Why Twilight didn’t say something more sensible like ‘put down’ or something, I wasn’t quite certain. At least not immediately.

“Oops,” Pinkie laughed hesitantly, amazingly aware of her trigger-response’s consequences.

“Oh my gosh!” Applebloom cried in shock, running over to help me up, “Are you okay?”

Applejack’s sigh landed somewhere between exasperation and mirth. Rainbow Dash did what Rainbow Dash does best when observing the misfortune of others: Laugh her flank off. At me. This here is my heart breaking.

And then Twilight gave herself away.

“It’s alright, Pinkie,” she said with the barest hint of a laugh.

I pulled my head out of a pony-shaped dent in the ground and glared up at the purple mare. “You did that on purpose!”

“Oh, whatever do you mean?” she asked coyly, holding an innocent hoof over her mouth.

“Is this… normal?” said Applebloom as she tilted her head sideways, looking at us as though we were made of cheese and buttons.

“Sadly, it kinda is,” Applejack responded with a sigh before clearing her throat loudly, “Somethin’ everypony might want to keep in mind! We’re sorta the center of attention right now.”

That was when we all looked about at the entire town’s populace staring as though we were a strange circus act. Mmm~Mmm~Mmm~! Awkward situations abound! The ponies all struggled to make a graceful recovery but to be honest, the damage had been done. I, however, simply took a drag of my cigarette and remained awesome. Can’t touch this!

Twilight let out a hesitant laugh and smiled nervously as she whispered, “Well, this is a tad embarrassing."

I began to act natural, dusting myself off with my hooves and tail before glancing back to make certain my flank was semi-clean. That’s when I noticed the smoke from the crater gradually shift from your typical smoky grey to a shimmering violet. I stared at it for a moment before glancing back at the others who were still preoccupied with the town staring at us. I glanced back at the smoke as it began to swirl about, slowly coalescing above us.

I decided I would set up for a dramatic reveal. Y’know… Because my priorities are in the right place.

“Hey Twilight,” I said with a smile, “Would you say you’d do just about anything to get out of this awkward situation?”

She gave me a look that told me she was more curious of why I would ask such a question. After a moment, though, she considered it and submitted her very well thought out response.

“Well, not anything, I suppose,” she replied, staring at me suspiciously, “I agree that this is a little awkward, but everypony here knows one another fairly well. Why?”

Twilight had just bought herself the most disappointed glare I could muster.

“Atta way to ruin it, Twi,” I stated flatly before turning back towards the smoke, “Behold. A distraction.”

As though on cue, a voice began to chuckle. It wasn’t very loud, but it carried with it both a malicious edge and an air of arrogance. I watched in awe as the shimmering violet smoke began to take the form of a pony. Now, this won’t make much sense but the entire thing just reeked of pure evil. Not that I could actually smell the evil coming off of it, but I assure you, this pony shaped sparkling cloud wasn’t here to herald the magic of friendship.

It further reinforced that opinion when it spoke with its deep feminine voice filled with disdain, “Hah! Foalish human! You should have escaped while you had the chance! You will not be given the chance to regret it!”

I blinked in shock. Hokey Smokes here knew I was a human. That was quite interesting. Not as interesting as the dark clouds that swiftly swirled around the skies and quickly blotted out the sun (because that was honestly kinda cool), but still interesting in its own right.

“Ummm, what if I said I’ve no clue what this is all about…?” I asked, tilting my head a tad.

The crowd of ponies began to back away slowly but overall stayed pretty chilled out. The girls, however, were all looking at me as though I had just nominated myself as the chief spokespony. Like I wanted that or something.

“Friend of yours?” Twilight whispered softly.

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” I replied similarly.

“What?” the misty villain snapped in surprise as she floated to the ground, a good head and a half taller than everypony else, “You don’t remember…”

“Well, I might’ve been drunk.” I bashfully rubbed the back of my neck. “Though I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I took a dame like you home.”

There was this heavy pause while everyone digested my words. I was trying to break the ice with a bit of humor and possibly dissolve a tenuous situation.

Sadly, Cranky Cloud was not amused. “You think to mock ME?!”

It emphasized the final word with a stamp of its hoof which sent a thunderous shockwave throughout the entire town. A sudden wind blew past me, whipping angrily at my mane as the world continued to darken. The crowd ponies proceeded to wet themselves and took off in a blaze of screams and terror.

The rest of us, however, reacted differently. Twilight glared at me for antagonizing the stupid thing, as though it was somehow my fault that it had an attitude problem. Dash and AJ weren’t even slightly shaken. They did, however, respond to the hostility with a pair of fierce war faces that told the Misty Menace that it was going to have to step up its game if it wanted to ruffle their feathers and cowpony hats. Pinkie Pie said something about awfully strange weather and began to squint really hard at the scary purple sparkly pony. Something about trying to look at it a different way. Hell, I’m not going to contemplate it; it’s bloody Pinkie Pie.

“Wh-What is it!?” Applebloom cried out, hiding behind Applejack.

“I dunno, but I think it needs a nap!” I said with a large smile.

Twilight kicked me with a forehoof to let me know that continued aggravation of the Cloud of Crankiness would result in beatings. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was. I mean, other than Fluttershy feeding worms and fishes to some animals, I haven’t seen anything die in Equestria. Does that make Fluttershy the most dangerous thing here? Whatever the cause, I wasn’t intimidated by cartoon violence but I didn’t want to spoil it for everypony else. Therefore, I decided to play ball and act scared.

“Whatever,” I muttered under my breath before throwing a hoof to my forehead in a display of false fear. “Don’t hurt me Oh Great One!”

“It is far too late for that, Human!” It snarled as it began to walk towards us, “You have incurred the wrath of The Nightmare!”

With that, a pair of turquoise eyes with draconic pupils formed within the mist followed by a set of ridiculously pointed teeth. It was so… so incredibly cartoony that I couldn’t help myself. The self-important reveal, the 90’s cartoon dialogue, and the very non-scary purple cloud with very a non-scary face all culminated to a lot of silliness in my book.

I snorted before slapping a hoof over my mouth to prevent more of my amusement escaping.

Unfortunately, I was caught. The Nightmare stopped dead in its tracks and sputtered furiously.

“D-Did you just… laugh?! AT ME?!” she roared with righteous indignation poisoning her words.

The other all glared at me as though I was making a bad situation worse. And to be fair, I totally was. I was totally not taking this as seriously as I needed to. At the time, though, I was enjoying the blissfully ignorant ride through a cartoon. Weeeee~!

“Ahem! No, I uh… *cough* … I totally sneezed. Sorry, I… C-Couldn’t help it.” That was me coughing and covering my mouth to try and hide my smile.

“Your impunity will not go unpunished!” She screamed so loudly that it shook the ground before rearing up. “Now… GIVE ME WHAT IS MINE!”

Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, The Nightmare exploded into a mass of violet tendrils that sped towards me with a dark intent. I didn’t know what she had in mind, but I wasn’t betting on it being pleasant. Still, I sorta froze up in shock, not knowing what to do about it and ended up cringing in place with my eyes shut. Yeah. Like all those horrible co-ed slasher films. I imagine there’s an audience somewhere watching me just screaming, ‘MOVE, IDIOT!’

When nothing happened for a second, I opened my eyes and saw Twilight standing in front of me. The purple unicorn had created a wall of violet energy between us and The Nightmare, and our assailant was none too pleased about it. It quickly reformed as a translucent mare and glared at us through the protective barrier.

“RRRRAAAAAAGHHH!” The Nightmare bellowed furiously, “Step aside, Protégé of Celestia!”

“Not a chance!” Twilight snarled back, “Now leave while you still can!”

The Nightmare threw her head back and laughed arrogantly. As she did, a beam of light pierced the tumultuous cloud cover behind her. Canterlot could be seen through the gap, resting radiantly upon the mountainside overlooking Ponyville. From the center of the gap, a tiny beacon in the distance began to move our way. It grew brighter as it neared, but The Nightmare had yet to take notice.

“Hah! And who is going to make me, child? You?!” she sneered before viciously striking the barrier with a hoof. The barrier showed no reaction but Twilight began to sweat as though she had just run a mile. She did, however, grin a bit as the star in the distance began to swell in size upon approach.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash smiled vindictive smiles at one another as Pinkie Pie stopped squinting at The Nightmare to stare in awe at what was behind it instead. Applebloom had yet to see, having stayed hidden behind Applejack, and thus continued to fearfully quake behind her older sister.

“Hey, Applebloom,” I called out, “What’s tall, white, and raises the sun every morning?”

Applebloom fearfully lifted her head above Applejack’s flank and gasped upon seeing the cavalry roll in from the distance.

“Celestia!” she cried out, her fear replaced with hopeful excitement.

The Nightmare’s eyes practically popped out of her head as she looked back at the oncoming princess. The clouds began all around began to give way to the power of light! The lightning and thunder was soon replaced by the melodious ring of magic as the barely discernible form of Celestia continued to blaze towards us like a comet of white light. I couldn’t be certain but it looked as though there was a smaller blue light trailing along with her. Luna, I guess?

I should have realized I wasn’t in a cartoon by that point, really. I mean, Hasbro’s special effects ain’t got shit on this!

“Looks like somepony is about to get dat flank of theirs all kinds of bucked up,” I said with wide eyes and a hoof mockingly covering my mouth. “Eau de snap~!”

The Nightmare turned back to glare at me and I jerked my head side-to-side. If looks could have killed, I would have exploded and then each of the pieces would have been stabbed with ice picks. Fortunately for me, that was impossible. At least, I think it is. One can never be certain when magic is involved.

With that, a long unicorn horn sprung out of The Nightmare’s ‘head’ and with a swing, she stabbed the shield. Amazingly, it not only pierced our protective pinkish-purple shield, but Twilight passed right out on the spot.

And not to go off on a tangent, but I caught Twilight. It wasn’t even difficult. I just sorta stepped over and let her fall into an outstretched hoof. Why they couldn’t have done that for me and saved me the pain and anguish, I’ll never know. But there it is. Ponies are lazy.

“Well,” I said with a blink, staring up at The Nightmare as the shield began to evaporate, “This is awkward.”

“RD, stop!” I heard Applejack cry out as a spectrum colored equine zipped right past my face.

“HEY!” Rainbow Dash soared up to The Nightmare and landed a kick right in her face. “Nopony messes with my friends!”

The hoof-to-the-face caused The Nightmare to dissolve into her Dreaded Cumulus form before swiping back at the brave pegasus with a tendril. “You will have to do!”

Dash dodged back from the attack but her tail got caught in the process. She registered that she was probably in danger and tried to fly away, but The Nightmare wrapped its smoky tendril about her tail and yanked her back.

Out of pure instinct, I jumped forward and caught hold of my idol, dropping Twilight on the ground which was sorta poetic justice.

“It’s got me!” Rainbow Dash hollered fearfully, clinging back at me.

Like we hadn’t noticed or something.

Still, I’m fairly certain losing Rainbow Dash would have resulted in a breakdown on my part so I was more interested in holding on than verbally rebuking her for making obvious observations.

The Nightmare tried to shake me loose, but I held on tight. Rather than play Tug-O-Dashie, she began to lift off with both of us. I made a noise of general panic, but it was quickly followed by a squeak of surprise when I felt something grab hold of my tail. I looked back down to see my tail in Applejack’s mouth. She dug her hooves into the ground and yanked us all back down and I swear, I think I was stretched a foot longer than what was natural. I almost expected me to make an involuntary rubber duck noise or something.

“I wanna come too!” Pinkie declared happily, somehow able to enunciate perfectly with Applejack’s tail in her mouth. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Just then, a thin beam of light zipped past us all, nicking the edge of Mademoiselle Misty. The Nightmare let out a furious shriek in response and we all looked to see Celestia getting ever closer. One way or another, a resolution was about to arrive to this situation.

“Not yet,” The Nightmare hissed furiously before turning its attention back to us. “Soon, Celestia.”

I gagged on the stereotypical line.

The Nightmare decided to play it smart and simply grabbed hold of our quaint little pony-chain before turning away from Celestia and flying off with us in tow. Unsurprisingly, Pinkie squealed in utter delight as soon as she was airborne, flailing about with zest. I wanted to get on her case about being serious, but not only would that have been hypocritical of me, it would have also been quite pointless.

Poor Applebloom got left behind, having not been quick enough to add herself to the Chain of Equine Conjunction.

“Help! Somepony help them!” the powerless filly shrieked fruitlessly as The Nightmare took flight.

I continued to cling to my Technicolor Donkey as we took off, genuinely afraid for the first time. Smoky the Mare wasn’t moving very quickly, which seemed to scare it senseless. Personally, I blame them weighty Earthy Ponies full of sweets and apples.

“Get off’a me!” Dash hollered at the The Nightmare, kicking at it angrily to no avail.

The Nightmare suddenly enveloped us and all we could see were violet clouds, stars that didn’t exist, and more sparkles than a Twilight movie. I kinda had a panic attack. So many thoughts were going through my head.

Oh my God, is this serious?

Holy shit, I’m hugging Dashy!

AJ can stop tugging on my tail ANY time she likes!

Where the hell is Celestia?!

My train of thought was interrupted by the muffled sounds of a certain orange farmer pony trying to yell at me. It was right about that time Rainbow Dash suddenly went limp and I was way too distracted to think about anything other than panicking. When I didn’t reply, she repeated what she had said and gave my tail an extra hard jerk. She had my attention then, along with my ire and an urge to buck her one upside the head. Whatever it was she was saying, I was only able to discern that she was ordering me to do something. Not sure why, but my tail is all kinds of fluffy for some reason and it did a good job of preventing her from getting me the message.

“What!?” I called back, looking at Applejack in confusion.

She rolled her pretty green eyes and spat out my tail, “Ah said that you had best not let go’a her! And why in tarnation does your tail taste like sweet tea?!”

Awkward~! I felt a blush come to my impassive face and started to respond, but with the chain broken, The Nightmare no longer had any reason to tote around those heavy Earth Ponies. As such, they were tossed away like a pair of Twinkie wrappers. If this situation was any less crazy, I would have laughed at them. As it was, we’ll all have to be content with the knowledge that Pinkie Pie sure enjoyed being tossed. I swear, she would probably cackle her way off a cliff.

I, on the other hand, suddenly felt like my life expectancy had taken to skydiving without a parachute.

“Human!” The Nightmare snarled loudly, “Submit your form or I will take hers!”

“F-Form?” I asked, looking around as The Nightmare picked up speed. “Like a W-2?”

“Your body, foal!” it spat angrily, that same cartoony face appearing inside of my gassy prison, “Submit it!”

“I’m not giving you my body!” I replied without hesitation, my eyes wide with shock.

I felt the sky-blue pony stir as she slowly lifted her head to face me.

“So be it,” Rainbow Dash whispered as her eyes opened up to reveal her beautiful magenta eyes slowly becoming draconian in appearance. “We’ll have it your way then.”

“No!” I cried shaking Dash as the slanted eyes slowly changed back before closing.

“Then submit!” The Nightmare hissed.

I blinked fearfully but I did not hesitate overmuch.

I swallowed with a nod before answering, “F… Fine.”

I could hear The Nightmare chuckling softly into my ear as though she were standing right behind me. I felt a chilling sensation spread throughout my body as though I were losing feeling in every last part of me. I shut my eyes and felt the overwhelming urge to cry out, but by the time I yielded to it, I no longer could move on my own. It was almost like I was going to sleep or being forcibly sedated; only my heart was pounding as though it were going to jump right out of my chest. It was probably the single most terrifying experience I’d ever encountered.

Then a voice softly rung out in my head as the entire world and every sensation seemed to freeze.

~Oh, aren’t we in quite a pickle…~

~Stupid Bird!~ My memory put the voice to the feathers and I was a lot more excited than I should have been. Now, it should be said that there is probably something wrong with me since my first reaction upon hearing a voice in my head was to exclaim enthusiastically.

~You remembered, I’m touched.~

I eventually got around to the sensible question. I’m not entirely stupid. Just mostly. ~How are you in my head!?~

~Is that truly important at the moment?~ it replied with impatience and sarcasm both dripping off its words.

~I… I guess not. Look, I’m sorry for being an asshole earlier!~ I thought desperately, hoping it was here to help me and not rub it into my face that I shouldn’t have been such a douche. I totally would have deserved it, though. Not that I would ever admit that in public.

~You should be.~

~Help me and I’ll find you a worm! Two worms!~

~Your bargaining posture isn’t what I would call outstanding.~

~Fine. You win. Three worms.~ Sometimes, I can be stupid in the face of oblivion. Not everyone would name that as a quality, but I like to call those people haters. Or maybe they’re just intelligent. I can’t be bothered with such trivial details.

~Oh, we’ll be extracting payment, child. I did say I would make you regret it.~

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what those in the entertainment industry like to call foreshadowing. Ugly, ominous, nasty foreshadowing. It... I won’t say it wasn’t worth it, but damn it, I am never blindly scrolling to the bottom and clicking ‘Agree’ ever again!

However, being too stupid at the time, all I did was get all excited as I realized the implications of her words. ~Does that mean…~

I ‘heard’ a contemptuous sigh from Stupid Bird. You know the kind. The part where the other party is letting out that defeated huff where they are resigned to do something that don’t want to do, yet they have to nonetheless. Yeah, that one.

~Yes, I suppose it does mean that I will help you. As long as we’re in agreement, that is...~

~Well, seeing as how my bargaining posture isn’t what you would call outstanding... I guess so!~

~Consider yourself helped then.~

~You have been promoted to Awesome Bird.~

And then she sassed me with sarcasm, which made me a lot happier than what was necessary. ~Your generosity truly knows no bounds. Are you prepared?~

~Totally! How we do?~

~We don’t do anything. You sit there like a slack-jawed moron. I’ll do the rest.~

~You just had to slip that sn-…~

And without any so much as a moment’s notice, time was suddenly back on track and I was back to being entirely helpless. The Nightmare’s dark laughter began to rise in zeal as the edges of my vision began to fade out.

“Your selflessness is admirable, Human,” The Nightmare whispered soothingly, “I may show a modicum of mercy to the Equestrians for your act of sacrifice.”

Cliché villainyyy!!!

Just before blacking out, I felt a painful burn sweep throughout me like a rush of flame originating from within. I caught myself on the edge of consciousness and began to struggle in every possible way I could as the incredibly acute pain extended to every part of my being. I do remember it hurting so incredibly much that I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t even draw breath of my own volition at the time. I’m not sure what it was inside me, but it was white-hot and it wanted out something fierce. I didn’t know how to give it what it wanted, though.

“What are you doing?” The Nightmare asked, its voice now uncertain.

I felt the pain ease a bit as I discovered that I could speak again.

“H… Hot,” I croaked, my eyes wide with pain and confusion.

As I spoke, though, I caught sight of a few wisps of flame trickling out of my mouth. The pain slowly drifted out of me, but the fire inside was still there. It burned hot in my chest, but if I had to call it anything other than freaky, I’d have said that it was empowering. What shortly followed was not what I was expecting to happen in the least.

“Stop!” The Nightmare ordered, my entire form shuddering as she tried to exert her will over mine, “I command you!”

“Oh,” I murmured, now in complete control of my body, “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

And I then released that fire within me. I’m not sure I can say how other than it was just what felt natural. I somehow just... knew, I guess... what would happen next. The idea of knowing without actually knowing is crazy, right? Muffins. Regardless of intention, knowledge, or what have you, my captor suddenly caught fire, including everything that had me and Rainbow Dash all wrapped up.

“DECEIVER!” It shrieked in agony as it dropped us on the ground.

Side Note: Flying incredibly fast and then making a full stop just before losing all inertia and momentum was an amazingly bizarre sensation. Not tail-pulling bad, but yeah. It was pretty funky.

Our drop wasn’t long and I really couldn’t even tell where we were. All I knew was that it was about ten feet until pony-to-ground collision, and that The Nightmare was soaring off into the distance, screaming hysterically at me as it continued to put distance between it and Celestia. The only reason I was able to pay it any attention was thanks to the fact that it was on fire, burning as though it were made of butane or something. More Equestrian non-physics at work, if you would.

Out of instinct, I grabbed hold of the unconscious Rainbow Dash and braced for impact. I made a whiny sound of fear as we plummeted. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t going to kill me, but that doesn’t mean I was in a real big hurry to see what it was like to jump off the top of my house and land on my back. Luckily, I didn’t have to find out that day as we were caught just before impact by a tiny whirlwind made of a gentle, glowing white breeze. I looked about frantically at the small white wisps, tantalizingly spinning around me as they gently set me on the ground. When a brilliant radiance shone from behind me, I turned around without even thinking and crouched defensively. I clutched at the still KO’d Rainbow Dash with one forehoof as I prepared myself for another fight. With the adrenaline still pumping in my veins, I nearly lashed out at the source of the light before even pausing to consider my actions.

A soft, easily recognized voice helped me to cool my heels though.

“Easy, My Little Pony,” she said as she approached, her incredibly bright aura dissipating to a gentle, regal glow, “You are safe now.”

“Celestia?” I murmured before smiling up at her.

Before more words could be exchange, a brilliant white-blue streak of light rocketed right past us, carrying enough wind in its wake to knock me over. It swerved upward as it chased after The Nightmare, even though it was barely a flicker in the horizon at that point.

“Storm Wing!” Celestia shouted in an entirely non-comforting tone.

The streak of light came back.

“Yes, Princess!” he acknowledged loudly.

His voice was both incredibly strong and intimidating. I don’t associate intimidating with ponies, typically, so you know it had to be unmistakably intimidating for me to say that. I didn’t get a close look at him due to him having covered at least twenty stories worth of height in that short time. Still, I was able to make out an almost white pegasus up in the sky with a steel-blue mane and tail.

“Get back to Canterlot!” she ordered, “Warn Luna and muster the Sky Archons. I want a pair of Archons at every town and city before nightfall.”

There was a very noticeable moment of hesitation before ‘Storm Wing’ took off a streak of honest-to-God lightning trailing after him. I did as Stupid Bird ordered by standing there like a slack-jawed moron. That pegasus was officially cool. He’s got lightning. Real lightning!

“W-What happened?”

Celestia and I stared at Dash as she stirred awake, still being protectively held in my hoof. Oh, I had such an urge to drop her right then and there out of a childish need for vindication against the time she let me hit the ground. I, however, am a bigger pony than that. She opened her very non-draconian eyes and blinked them a few times lazily before getting her bearings.

“Woah,” she groaned before looking up at Celestia and then at me.

This was it! The moment my favorite pony declared me as awesome for saving her and I would live with a perfectly fulfilled life! Ah, life is grand.

“Are you alright, Rainbow Dash?” Celestia asked as she stepped closer.

“Aww, I was out for the whole thing?” she grumped, glaring down at the ground with a sigh, “I completely missed Celestia saving us.”

And that’s where I ran out of give-a-damn.

“What?!” I gasped, completely floored by the stolen glory.

Celestia let a slight smile creep at the corner of her mouth, “Actually…”

“Pffft!” I huffed before promptly dropping her onto the ground, “Oh, you can go directly to hell, and don’t bother asking to about two hundred dollars!”

From there it got pretty boring. The long and short of it was that Celestia grabbed us and used her sick Alicorn magic to levitate us back to Ponyville, stopping along the way to pick up Pinkie Pie and Applejack. The two of them were fine except for being terrified at the prospect that they nearly lost one of their best friends. Pinkie was insisting on staying near Rainbow Dash in case something tried to take her again. It was sorta subtle, but I take a very real interest in psychology (thanks to my insane family) and I can tell you this: Pinkie’s cheerful demeanor was a mask to her fear. You’d only notice after watching her closely, but yeah, it was there in the way she was looking about. Sure, she made it look silly and random, but she was definitely keeping a vigilant bright blue eye out.

I’m not sure why it took so long to get back; maybe The Nightmare went a lot faster than I had thought in its attempt to outrun Celestia. Whatever the case, even with Celestia’s assistance it took us quite a while, and it was nearing sundown by the time we got there. Celestia did very little talking and was watching me like a hawk the entire time. She wasn’t being hostile, but I guess you don’t live for a thousand or more years without being very cautious. Regardless, small talk was kept to a minimum. Scary things have a tendency to quiet people and the ponies were no exception. I didn’t press for any conversation; rather I just floated in peace.

When we finally got back to Ponyville, Celestia took us to Twilight’s library. We were met by the Applebloom rocket that had fired as soon as the door opened. Poor Applejack never stood a chance against her teary-eyed sister. After the shock wore off and the relief was all spread about, everypony began to filter on into the building. I figured I would stay outside; for the moment at least. Mostly because I needed a cigarette and some time to think. Celestia hesitated entering the library upon noticing my election to chill.

“Are you all right?” she asked, remaining unmoving as she awaited my answer.

I turned her way before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a smirk, “Never better.”

She took a moment to digest that but eventually smiled and nodded, “Good. And may I ask your name?”

I blinked at the question before tilting my head and chuckling, “Well, Pinkie has been calling me No-Name for now, so uh… That’ll do for now. Twilight said I can’t be Anon-Pony anyway.”

She seemed a mite confused at first but eventually closed her eyes as she let out a soft laugh. “I see. I won’t press for more at this time, then. After all, were it not for you, Rainbow Dash would have been captured, and as the bearer of the Element of Loyalty, all could have been lost. Thank you.”

She didn’t know The Nightmare was after me. Without even considering my action, I decided to let her keep thinking that for the moment. Hell, it’s not like I knew what that was all about.

“No problem. I’m pretty awesome like that,” I said with a wink, “Not that I had any clue what I was doing.”

Hear that? That’s my self-image going down the toilet and getting clogged up on the rising guilt. I can lie with the best of them, but every time I do… Eh, let’s just say my conscience is pretty hardcore about whipping me into line.

“Still, I thank you,” she said softly before turning to go inside, pausing to ask one last question, “Where are you from? What world, I mean?”

I blinked a few times as I digested the question. I figured one fib was enough and simply played it straight, “Heh, I doubt you’ve heard of it. S’called Earth. How’d you guess, anyway? I figured you couldn’t tell what with calling me your little pony and such.”

She paused just outside the door before glancing back at me. Her face was impassive at first, but she let one last comforting smile show before looking back into the entrance of the library, “That’s because you are, my nameless newcomer. Welcome to Equestria.”

And then I had a fangasm.

Chapter Three: A Series of Tubes and A Bucket of Water

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

Commence the great and powerful recap! I woke up in Ponyville, I had a bromantic day with Spike, I fed Twilight, I partook in insanity-time with Pinkie Pie, and I sassed Stupid Bird shortly before making up with it. And somewhere in there I got attacked by a rose bush and The Nightmare. Oh, and my second favorite pony called me her little pony and meant it. Squee!

Overall, this day was kicking butt, ass, and flank all at once without any apologies whatsoever. Indeed, the amount of derriere getting kicked here was naught but staggering. It was almost too much for me. Even though I was on Twilight’s front lawn, smoking a cigarette, and staring at the cartoony sunset, I was still having troubles believing that this was actually happening. I mean, it was just surreal. How could this have happened at all? Why me? And just how was I supposed to digest all this awesome? I mean it wasn’t getting filtered or anything!

In the middle of my internal questionnaire, Stupid Bird interrupted my train of thought by landing on my back. I turned my head and glanced back at her, pausing to marvel at just how far I could turn my head. Extendo-neck~!

“Hey there, Featherduster,” I said with a smirk, drawing a puff off the cigarette and smiling at it. Well, I guess it would be more appropriate to say ‘her’ by this point. She did save my life, so I guess she should get a pronoun and stuff.

“Hay is for horses, and you by proxy,” said Stupid Bird after a second of wing preening, “And you’re welcome.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I wasn’t certain how powerful Stupid Bird was, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out, either. Besides, I had questions and Stupid Bird had answers.

“Thanks again,” I said earnestly, “Sorry about the douchebaggery earlier.”

“Your vocabulary is reminiscent of foul poetry. Apology accepted.”

Stupid Bird was snarky. I like that. I’d rather match wits and verbally spar than deal with some boring asshole that thinks they’re far more important than they really are.

“Besides, I’ve had plenty of time to think it over. You’re smarter than you both look and act, even if you aren’t as smart as you think. And yes, I understand that you had no reason to trust me and still don’t beyond a single act of goodwill.”

Pffft! Goodwill? More like blackmail. Not that I was going to throw that in there like an dumbass. Like it or not, Stupid/Awesome Bird had saved my life. I could spare her the slightest modicum of courtesy. I’m not so stupid as to be impolite. Though I suppose that would depend on whom you ask.

“Eh. We can let it go for now,” I said as I waved a dismissive hoof. “But I totally owe you.”

“That you do,” she agreed, nodding her beak slowly enough to be ominous, “But there are more pleasant subjects to discuss. No doubt you are curious of a great many things.”

“I am but uh…” I hesitated, absently chewing at my lip. “Is this going to cost me every time or something?”

Just checkin’ the fine print. I’d say sue me, but that’s what checkin’ the fine print is for after all.

“No. We made a deal and I have to uphold my half of the bargain,” she clarified, her unblinking eyes staring right into mine. “I’ll help you as much as I can while drawing as little attention to myself as possible.”

“Sounds like you get a cakewalk and I get to do the heavy lifting. Eh, everything has its price, I suppose.” I sighed before lighting up a cigarette and gazing into the box just on the offchance that the pack of cigarettes had been depleting without my knowing. “Okay, seriously though. What exactly is the deal we made?”

“Oh, did you not pay attention to the details?” she said, tilting her head just a tad.

I swear, I don’t know how, but that beak was giving me the most condescending smirk I had ever seen. Without moving! No, I don’t know how that works, either!

I chuckled a bit nervously as I took a long heavy drag. “Nope, I totally ignored the hell out of you.”

“Your loss.” She shrugged. With her wings. For some reason, I found that offensive.

My jaw dropped.

“W-What!?” I cried, keeping my voice down so as to not draw attention from the ponies inside. I know now why I did that, but at the time I had no clue why I didn’t want them to come out. “That’s it? ‘Tough shit’? You can’t tell me? Wasn’t it something about protecting Equestria?”

She laughed at me. Out loud! … How dare she.

“Hardly. Perhaps you could not tell, but I was aware of your lack of situational awareness and simply led you on. Even my outburst was to lead you into thinking your position was at a deficit in our next exchange. I would not waste my time binding you into doing something you would already do. Now that you know for certain that this place is real and not a dream, you’ll give flesh and blood to keep this world and those that live in it safe from any and all harm. Rest assured, though, if you had been paying attention, you would have been able to understand what I was asking of you.”

I had been played. It hurts. Even to this day it burns my ass to know that I’d been had. It sure as hell ended up being a life lesson, though. When I sign an MMO’s EULA, it’s because I’ve already acquired myself a printed copy and have spent more time reading it than playing the damn game. When I go to Holiday Inn, I make myself more familiar with the policies than the damn employees. When I flush the toilet, I’ve already made sure that there’s no addendum that states that by activating the mechanism, I thereby take all responsibility of the direct and indirect consequences and am liable for restitution, including, but not limited to, giving them the right to name my first child Skippy, paying to have the whole damn plumbing system replaced, granting them ownership of my soul and any inheritance I might have to give, and my taking of any and all bullshit. No pun intended. Also, certain details may be grossly exaggerated, but not as much as you might suspect.

“Then how am I supposed to uphold my half!? I don’t even know what you want from me!”

“I find that is more your problem than mine,” she reminded me with a chuckle, “Besides, you seem to have a great distaste for authority so I’ll no doubt have an easier time of manipulating you towards my desired goal if you are unable to actively work against it.”

My jaw further unhinged and I dropped my cigarette as a result. Oh, it was deliciously true. I mean, looking back, she had no idea just how right she was. I have no problems respecting authority, but I take issue with having my chain yanked around. True, things could have had a better start than me being a general assbutt. I mean, I don’t do it often. In fact I’m a pretty easygoing guy. But while I have a tendency to be very… let’s say… impulsive, maybe? I am a very good judge of character. I’m quite literally the only person I know that studies psychology for the simple joy of understanding people better. Do you realize just how much easier it is to get along with people when you can almost scientifically understand where they are coming from?

It’s amazing.

Amazing, that is, until you run into one of those people. Those people are the ones that see everything and everyone around them as means to an end. Those people I just can’t connect with. Stupid Bird, as it turns out, is one of those people. I can work with them when forced to, but when it comes down to it, those people are the ones I find myself actively being aggressive against in a futile effort to get them to understand that I will not be used.

Hey! Never said I was perfect. Quite the opposite, really.

“I…But! How can…” I stammered for a few seconds, mentally grasping at the first straw I could find. “You… … Are a bitch!”

“No, I am simply a pragmatic bird. There is a difference.” She certainly sounded pragmatic. “Keep in mind that I bear you no ill will. I will not try to disrupt your stay in the slightest. Unless, of course, your actions would interfere with my goals. Intentional or not.”

“Whatever. Stupid Bird…” I turned away grumpily. I’d turn my butt her way, but she was on my back still and that would have involved some freaky deaky yoga magic.

“If you care, I go by Tisiphone.”

I blinked in shock as the name slowly registered. I turned back to look at her, my eyes showing more shock than suspicion. “As in… the…”

“Greek Fury of Vengeful Destruction, yes. And no, before you ask, I am not really Tisiphone. My name is merely a concept and that is as close a match as I can find.”

Oh, now I’m comfortable. Goodness gracious, I thought I was just dealing with a worshiper of Tzeentch or something. An Aspect of Destruction is just loads better and brings out all the warm fuzzies deep within me. An aspect of destruction that wants to use me to protect something. I think. Or hell, maybe that’s just a red herring and I’m going to be the doom of all ponies everywhere. Jesus Christ, how horrifying.

Best to start whittling her down, just in case.

“Huh. I’ll call you Tissy!” Because ponies. That’s why.

Tissy leaned away from me as though I was made of bubonic plague. “I… I won’t allow that.”

“Too late, Tissy! It’s been done,” I cried, flashing the biggest grin that I could possibly manage. That’s really big, for those of you that aren’t aware.

“I think I have to leave now,” she replied as she took on an air of introspection. Her voice, while calm, had a slightly manic edge to it and while she was still technically talking to me, her attitude suggested that she was trying to reason with herself. Maybe she was trying not to be blown away by my awesome. Maybe she was trying to avoid murdering me. There’s no way to know for certain.

“I get the suspicion that if I remain here long enough, one of us is going to die.” She took flight and landed in front of me with that physics breaking trick of hers. “Either me by way of your stupidity, or you by way of me strangling you. A lot.”

Nope. No possible way to know. Let’s just be optimistic and assume the best.

I reached a hoof over and gently pat on her little birdy head. “Now, now. Let’s not throw a Tissy fit.”

Tissy leveled a look that would have impaled me on the spot if her malice were material. And then she exploded. Not literally, but it made this trippy little ‘fwoop!’ sound before disappearing in a small cloud of blue and black feathers that just… faded away.

“Oh my God, I killed it,” I mused aloud, blinking several times before shaking my head.

I decided that was enough outdoor shenanigans for one day. I took one final drag off my cigarette before holding it up to my face. I stared at it with intent, willing it to burst into flame as casually as I could. And I totally didn’t scream (much) when it obeyed. After making sure no one saw that embarrassing display, I went inside. My arrival warranted no attention as a conversation was already in progress. At least they were talking about me. That made me feel special.

“And then he started mouthing off to it, provoking it into attacking!” Twilight sounded a wee bit frustrated.

Maybe not as special as I would have liked to feel.

“Next time I’ll just roll over and take it,” I butted in, chuckling as I made my way into the library. “Seriously, you don’t think things would have gone better if I hadn’t sassed it into submission, do you?”

Twilight had enough benches marking the edges of the library to accommodate everypony. Except for Celestia. She didn’t have any Queen or Princess sized benches. Alas, Dear Princess Celestia was forced to stand. So stand she did, but near a window where she could keep an eye on anything approaching. Applejack was doing that pony-equivalent of sitting over near the staircase with Applebloom doing likewise on her back. Rainbow Dash was stretched out on her back over the top shelf of a bookcase. Pinkie was nowhere to be found, which can be terrifying given the right circumstances. Spike wasn’t around, but I knew where he was thanks to the smell of frying noodles.

“I suppose we’ll never know.” Her reply was dry and her eyes fixated upon me with a gaze that screamed ‘Disapproving Mother.’

“Well, maybe not you. But I do,” I countered frowning at her as I hopped up onto the bench and flopped down on it. Mmmm… Sanded pine never felt so good.

Celestia’s soft smile shifted into a pensive stare. “Please explain.”

“The ‘Nightmare’ was very straightforward,” I continued with a yawn. “It has plans. Nasty plans. Plans that don’t involve the well being of ponies everywhere. I don’t know what they are, but I know its idea of a good time isn’t what we would call a ‘widely shared opinion’. So sassing it wasn’t going to make things worse. It made them better, in fact! In the sense that I got to smacktalk the villain and it irritated Twilight to no end.”

Twilight’s disapproving gaze graduated to a full-fledged glare of annoyance.

“And if you just take all that winsauce, you could fill up a jar this big with it.” I held up my hooves, putting enough space in between them to fit a big jar of mayonnaise in. “And it would be delicious. One big ol’ jar of winsauce. Mmm!”

Dash snickered from her perch as Twilight rolled her eyes. I could tell she was trying to hide her amusement. Trust me on this, I’ve both annoyed and entertained enough people to tell when they’re faking either one.

“Speaking of delicious,” Celestia smiled as a certain tiny purple dragon wheeled in a serving cart covered in bowls of Lo Mein.

“Ermagerd~!” I cried before hopping off the bench and rainbow dashing over to snatch a bowl for myself. “Thanks, big guy!”

Twilight wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as I was. I guess she’s just too bitter to let some things go. Still, she didn’t wait for Spike to head her way before nabbing her own bowl with magic. “Thank you, Spike.”

He beamed at our gratitude before carting off to the other ponies. Everypony else stared at the two of us as we began to dig in. Oh man, it was amazing. Now, I won’t lie, I was proud of the Lo Mein I made earlier. I put some heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into that stuff and I’ll be damned if it didn’t turn out half-decent. Spike, however, knows his stuff. He had already improved on the recipe significantly and had added something that made it taste like it had been cooked with pork. Not exactly like, but rather close. Either that or he actually cooked pork in it and then removed it afterwards, but I doubt that. Magic, mayhaps? Magical pork seasoning! No, wait! MAGIC. BACON. SEASONING.

“What is it?” Applebloom shied away from it like it was going to jump out of the bowl and kill her. That brought back memories of a younger me!

“Dude called it ‘Low Mane’ and showed me how to make it.” Spike shrugged before handing out the last bowl to Rainbow Dash, who was glancing back and forth between Spike and the dish as though she were trying to determine if he was being serious.

Celestia decided to risk her life and give it a chance after witnessing me and Twilight. I mean, we were tearing into it like a pair of hungry Neanderthals. Very carefully she extracted one of the noodles and gave it a testing nibble.

“Oh my!” Celestia exclaimed before levitating a fork and spinning it in the dish to serve herself liberally. Keep in mind, Celestia’s mouth is significantly larger and is able to accommodate a lot more food than the rest of us. Because of this, she was able to somehow appear dainty and regal whilst eating at my pace. Which isn’t fair at all.

Long story short, everypony ended up loving the food, Spike was crowned royal chef, and we all lived happily ever after. The end.

The end of the fun parts, I mean. Because it definitely didn’t stay fun for me from there on. Because halfway through dinner, I was ambushed by questions. Questions everywhere.

“So, No-Name!” Pinkie called out with her mouth very much full, “Where are you from? Is it nice?”

“Depends on who you ask,” I replied, giving a half-hearted chuckle, “I’m… fairly neutral about my home. I could take it or leave it, personally.”

“What’s it called?” Applebloom was draped across the top of Applejack’s head, sporting her big sister’s hat.

I swallowed before responding.

“Earth.”

“Earth as in Earth Pony?” Rainbow Dash interjected.

“Quite right, Lady Dashington.” Sadly, I was lacking a monocle. “In fact, humans are a lot like Earth Ponies. We build stuff with nothing but brains and brawn.”

“That sounds boring!” Dash pointed out in a less-than-civil manner. But she did so in a manner befitting one so cool.

Celestia quietly watched us all gab it up, content to pretty much fade into the background as she kept one eye on the window. At least, I think it was aimed outside. Celestia’s hair has this tendency to block one of her eyes at any given moment. That’s gotta be hell on the depth perception. I kept expecting her to collide with a wall or something. And then destroy it for its impudent attack uponst her royal person… pony. Whatever.

“Wait, so humans have no magic whatsoever?” Twilight asked, giving me a skeptical glance.

Celestia suddenly became very interested in the conversation. She didn’t say anything but most of her smile faded as stared at me. I hesitated in answering, somewhat distracted by her attention. I recovered quickly enough that none of the others seemed to notice (or they did and didn’t mention it).

“Well, I certainly didn’t have any magic before I got here!” I said with a chuckle. “Except opposable thumbs. Those are pretty magical. Right, Spike?”

Spike gave me a thumbs-up from the kitchen. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

“But your magic glass you showed me earlier. The one with the tubes connected to it?” Twilight pointed a hoof at me accusingly.

It took me a few moments to get what she meant. Then it hit me. The cell phone!

“Ah yes, the series of tubes,” I said with a chuckle, pulling it out and showing it off. “This is actually an electronic device. Nothing magical about it. Lights and clockwork, as it were. Just on an incredibly small scale.”

So yeah, you know that thing with Douglas Adams and flying? If you ever say to yourself, ‘I cannot possibly be flying!’ then reality will reinsert itself and you’ll fall to the ground? Same thing with trying to use a flat hoof to manipulate the security lock on a touchscreen cell phone. It was like trying to pick up that stupid teacup all over again. Only now I was humiliating myself in front of all the ponies.

“Mother Eff-Bomb!” I growled, trying to get the damn thing to cooperate before finally remembering that I just had to let it happen. Like the Centipede’s Dilemma or something.

Pinkie snorted gleefully. She liked that phrase. Which I still kinda feel bad about, whenever I think about it.

“This is harder without fingers,” I sighed before looking up at the ponies with a slight blush, “I need you guys to say something… distracting.”

“Like what?” asked Applejack as she tilted her head to the side.

They all proceeded to look at me as though I were asking to borrow their livers. I don’t know why a slightly odd request is so difficult to comprehend, but there you have it. Ponies can sometimes be a little hard to work with. After a few seconds of non-distracting silence, I sighed.

“Atta way to let me down, guys!” I sighed before looking back at the hoof that held my phone. Much to my surprise, it was empty.

“LOOK LOOK!” Pinkie squealed as she held my phone up for everypony to see.

I don’t know how, okay? I just don’t. Pinkie Pie unlocked my phone. Do you want to know how hard that is? The unlock pattern is complex enough that I don’t have to worry about people watching me unlock it. Seriously, I’ve had people stare over my shoulder and then immediately try to unlock it themselves, only to be met by taunting failure. I’m not making this up, there’s like nine different steps to it and a whole lot of line crossing. So for Pinkie to just guess the combination to unlock it was not only frustrating, but utterly stupefying as well.

“How did y-…” I started to say, only to be ignored by… Well, everyone, actually.

“It’s Twilight with wings, everypony!” She waved the phone around so quickly that there was no way they could actually see what was in front of them.

Twilight blushed, suddenly aware of the picture being shown around.

Dash was very interested in this. “Pinkie, hold it still!”

She tried to keep maneuvering in front of the overly energetic hoof waving, but she simply gave up and snatched it out of Pinkie’s hoof.

“Hey!” Pinkie was displeased, but only for the briefest of moments.

Dash stared into the phone with her eyes wide. “Woah, Twilight, you look just like the princess!”

That got just about everypony else’s curiosity riled and before you knew it, everypony that wasn’t me, Celestia, and Twilight was stuffing their heads together to see the phone. I was kinda surprised that the princess wasn’t that interested, to be honest. After having thought about it though, I’m sure she’s heard of crazier things in life. I personally forgot to give a damn and went right back to eating, as did Twilight, but Celestia kept an eye on the device just in case it exploded or something. Okay, that may have been an assumption, but it’s as good a guess as anything else.

Finally, after they all got their peeks in, Pinkie ran over to me with the phone in her mouth. I was somewhat engrossed in my evening meal that I didn’t notice her right away (Pinkie is fast and quiet, you see. Like a bright pink ninja poninja…). By the time I caught sight of her in my peripheral vision, she wasn’t the only one quietly waiting. Pinkie, AJ, Bloom, and Dash were all staring at me as though I was holding everything up. I started to ask what was up before I realized my phone was in Pinkie’s mouth. My reaction was to snatch it out of there for obvious reasons.

Surprisingly enough, there was actually no slobber. But damn it, there should have been!

“Show us another!” she demanded, pointing at the phone.

I blinked at her before looking back at the Motorola 4GX, pursing my lips in contemplation. What harm could there be, right? With that in mind, I went to my phone’s personal gallery (consisting of 30% ponies, 30% video games, 20% memebase stuff, and 20% randomness).

“Okay just… Just keep it out of your mouth. Here, when you want to see a new picture just slide to the next one like this.” I slid my hoof across the screen, moving the view over to the next photo. I swear, if I had spared a single iota of my thought process realizing that I had just used a flat hoof on a touch screen that covered approximately 60% of the screen, I likely would have went crazy. Fortunately for me, though, I have the attention span of a cat on nip, so I was spared the Lovecraftian descent into madness.

Pinkie was ENAMORED. She snatched it back up with her mouth (… le sigh) and scampered all of three feet back to the others to show off her newly acquired alien knowledge. The ‘Ooo’s and ‘Aah’s that gushed forth were silly to say the least. I couldn’t help but chuckle as the inevitable, “What’s this!?” started up.

Well, seeing as I had little over a hundred pictures on my phone, I’ll just hit the highlights and the silly parts.

Pinkie loves meme pictures. After explaining the ones that had any chance of making sense to her, she would explode into an unmitigated bout of laughter. Luckily, I didn’t keep any of those awful pokepuns (erectabuzz… Nuff said!). That’d have been downright frustrating to elaborate on.

Dash suddenly found me to be much cooler after discovering I was a Spitfire fan. I don’t blame her. I think Spitfire’s awesome, what with her slightly empowered voice of awesome. Spitfire’s the bomb-diggity and stuff. Word.

Applejack was really skeptical that this wasn’t magic at first, but that got canned when I pointed out that cameras weren’t magical and used the camera to snap a picture of her. And then she got all sorts of worked up when I showed her the video-record feature. To be fair, she wasn’t the only one to think that was utterly amazing, but she was the one that found it more intriguing than anything else.

Then the voice recorder came up. It wasn’t that interesting until I showed them how to mess with the voices. That was where Twilight got involved. How much easier would it be to just dictate everything instead of write it down? Apparently easy enough for her to honestly wonder how hard it would be to make her own.

Applebloom was pretty interested all around but it wasn’t until she saw a picture of a human that she actually gasped.

“What’s that!” she pointed.

‘That’ was an old picture that I’d digitized and moved from phone to phone, making sure it always stayed with me. My phone never left my side, so I never had to worry about losing it that way. But as for what the picture actually pertained to… Well, it’s something of a touchy subject.

“That’s a human girl, right?” Twilight asked, glancing at me before getting this worried look on her face, “Are you… alright?”

Dunno what was on my face, but it probably wasn’t a smile. I mean, I’m not one of those guys that lets little mementos drive him into a rage or teary mess, but that doesn’t mean that I’m immune to the stuff either.

“Why’s it so fuzzy?” Applebloom asked, looking up to me before reaching out a hoof and gently tapping mine. “No-Name?”

I blinked as the contact brought me back to reality (or as close as it gets anyway) before glancing down at Applebloom and smirking, “Well, uh… It’s a really old picture. Cameras weren’t as good back then as they are now.”

They all looked at me to continue explaining what the picture was about but that was just not gonna happen.

“So yeah, um… That’s enough show and tell for now!” I picked up the phone before doing this motion that was akin to stashing stuff into a pocket. No, I don’t actually have any pockets, but that seems to be where the magic comes into play.

“Waaait!” Pinkie dived for the flank I stashed it at and hit me like a pony-shaped bag full of rocks. Earth Ponies… Y U SO HEVY?

“AHHHH!” I screamed as we tumbled, glad for the distraction from the photograph, “SWEET CELESTIA, IT’S GOT ME!!!”

Celestia’s expression said it all. She wasn’t going to do squat to save me from the needy greedy Pinkie. Oh, she’ll save you from The Nightmare, but you throw a Pinkie at something and you’re on your own!

It took some coercion, some assistance, a few delicious-looking cupcakes and something shiny to distract her, but I was eventually separated from Pinkie thanks to the mercy of Applejack and Twilight. Not Rainbow Dash, though. No, she was already busy. Laughing herself sick, if you must know.

Still, I was relieved to escape the pink clutches of doom. I thought it was going to take me chewing my leg off or something (seriously, I put that on the table more than once). Luckily, I did get to make it out with all my pieces attached and I didn’t have to explain what the picture was and why I was acting all funky about it. After gathering my wits, I dashed up the stairs as frantically as I could. With all the smoothness of a piece of sandpaper, I politely (if somewhat hastily) excused myself for a cigarette and stepped out on Twilight’s balcony.

“That was a close one,” I mused aloud, checking the bruise on my flank. Unless that was my actual Cutie Mark. Oh man, that would suck; my special talent is getting the shit beat out of me. Whatever. Stupid, unhateable Pinkie! It wasn’t visible or anything, but it still smarted right where my cutie mark would be. IF I HAD ONE!

“Are you trying to complicate matters?”

I didn’t scream, but I did startle and strike the coolest ninja pose in the history of pony-ninja poses. Imagine my disappointment when there were no other ninjas about, but rather, just Tisiphone, the Stupid Bird of Vengeful Destruction and her stupid, vengefully destructive self resting upon the stupid safety rails that were quite clearly a device of anti-vengeance and destruction-prevention.

“Dinkleburg...” I seethed whilst narrowing eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing!” I blurted before lighting my cigarette, “What’s up? Would you like some Lo Mein?”

“No, thank you,” she replied politely, “I’m here to stop you from making a grievous error.”

“You were only gone like two hours! How have I screwed anything up by just talking to the ponies!?”

“That’s what I said,” she said with an exasperated sigh, “Imagine my surprise. I figured you’d have waited at least until tomorrow to start ruining Equestria with your buffoonery.”

“Your face is a buffoonery,” I snapped, feeling prickly all of a sudden.

“Oh stow the bitterness, child,” she groaned before flying over and attempting to land on my muzzle.

For real, does anyone else freak out when something flies into their face? Let me actually ask the more sensible question: Who DOESN’T freak out when something flies at their face? Absolutely no one, that’s who. I don’t care if it’s a bird, a bat, a bee, or (God-forbid) a spider! You. Will. Freak.

Perhaps even like this:

“GEEEGERPPFFFT!” I sputtered as I swiped at the bird attempting to drop down onto my nose. Purely reaction, okay? A damned reasonable one, too. Effin’ birds and their effin’ face attacks. EFF!

She backed away and hovered in midair before exploding into a mocking guffaw. I was all sorts of flankhurt about that.

“You are NOT allowed to land on my face! End of story!” I rubbed my nose as I growled angrily at my assailant.

“Oh, keep your voice down,” she said with a chuckle, having landed on the nearby telescope that Twilight leaves out on the balcony at all hours, day and night. Apparently, their lenses don’t get moisture in them or something, because all it would take is one week of Floridian humidity to permanently ruin one of those.

I took another drag off my cigarette and pouted silently as I glared at the fowl with disgruntlement. Complete with sitting on the other side of the balcony and crossing my hooves.

“Oh, how mature,” she sighed, facepalming into her wing, “Look, just pay attention and we’ll go our separate ways. After that, you can go do whatever it is childish simpletons do.”

“You’re a childi-…” I started to reply before being so rudely interrupted.

I’M AN AH-DUUUUUULLLLT!

“Thank you, for cooperating,” she bellowed to interrupt me before letting out a soft cough for unnecessary preparation. “Alright. Now, I know you probably crave attention and all that, but I think you need to put a little more forethought into how you interact with the natives.”

“The ponies?” I clarified before glancing her way.

“Yes, the Equestrians,” she confirmed with a nod, “Do you realize that less than one percent of the entire population has ever been in a fight?”

I turned my head her way and gave it a tilt to let her know I was listening but had not caught onto her implication yet.

“And that there are no more than two prisons in all of Equestria?” she continued.

“Okaaay…?” It was like a beautiful bald eagle flying way over my head.

“And that those prisons have seen, in the entirety of their combined existence, no more than a hundred inmates?” She was talking like I should have caught on by now.

“That’s some seriously low crime rate,” I answered with a nod, “And you’re still being seriously vague.”

She smacked her wing over her face again before muttering in a language that… really resembled nothing I’d ever heard. I couldn’t even mimic the phonetics of it.

“The Equestrians are as innocent as children with very, very few exceptions,” she finally came out with it, “Now, I know it may seem far-fetched to the unenlightened, BUT! Try to imagine, and stay with me on this one! … If you were to unintentionally introduce the concept of… Oh, let’s start with something small… racketeering?”

And that was all it took. My mind went straight to hell and dragged my comfort zone right with it. All the awful possibilities of Earth’s grimdark potential thrust upon the eager, innocent, young pony mind. They would be monsters! Especially the Earth Ponies with their super toughness and such!

I could see it already. Rainbow Dash becomes a pimp and starts the red light district on the south side of Ponyville, pushing drugs called ‘Sonic Rainboom’ to all the little colts and fillies who want to be 20% cooler (yeah, I went there…). Twilight becomes a beatcop to try and suppress the unforeseen crimewave sweeping across Equestria with Pinkie Pie as her partner. Together they fight crime until it’s just too much and Twilight instead becomes the very monster that she seeks to protect others from.

“I just thought you might want to know… Oh, are… you alright?” I think Stupid Bird was trying to get my attention, but I was too busy freaking the hell out.

This leads to Twilight structuring crime in an attempt to control it but she loses herself to it when Pinkie tries to stop her. Twilight would be forced to frame Pinkie for murder to get her out of the way with an unjust life sentence. OH MY GOD! AND POOR RARITY! She would lose her shop to Twilight, who would then be a soulless shell of her former self, when she failed to pay protection rackets. She would be forced to move in with Applejack, the last bastion of honest integrity amongst ponykind!

“No-Name, is something wrong?” Wait, that wasn’t Tissy.

They would join forces with Fluttershy, only to discover that she’s on Rainbow Dash’s payroll as a hooker. THE HORROR!!! Her betrayal is not discovered in time, though, and Twilight sends some dirty guards to go break their kneecaps while they’re asleep or something. Also, Celestia would wear sunglasses and a beret, just because. Then Pinkie would break out of prison. Now too jaded to make jokes and play nice, she turns to vigilantism and applies her freaky mechanical knowledge to become BATMARE!

“Apparently there is. I apologize in advance.” Hmmm. That’s definitely not Tissy. Whatever, they’ll have to wait, I told myself.

It takes years for the pink pony to penetrate the genius and nigh flawless infrastructure that Twilight has set up, but in due time she works her way up the ladder and finds Twilight! Rather than destroy her though, Pinkie appeals to her with a photograph of how things used to be! Twilight would fall apart and realize what a fiend she has become! Just before she can repent, though, Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash shows up and shoots them both, securing her place as the regional crime boss. All would be lost! AND IT’S ENTIRELY MY FAULT!

I’m not sure what it says about me that I was able to think all that up in mere moments, but I’m rather certain it doesn’t say anything good.

And then Celestia dumped a bucket of water over my head. I made my usual completely unintelligible noises of shock before lifting my sopping wet mane out of my eyes. That’s when the dismay struck. It doused my cigarette. That made me so sad. Sad enough to turn a pair of big watery eyes at Celestia and poke out my bottom lip in despair. That seemed to bother her on an emotional level. Note to self: Celestia can be tormented with sad ponies.

“I… I’m sorry, but you seemed to be…” For the first time since forever, I’d seen Celestia genuinely unsettled.

Oh, I’m sure there was some part of me that thought trolling the Goddess-Empress of Equestria was a bad idea but it was quickly stuffed inside of a box and smashed with a hammer. No postage required, by the way.

“Why do you hate me~?!” I cried, dropping my cigarette and flopping over on my side.

Unfortunately, Celestia is smarter than that. She decided to ‘fix’ her mistake by drying me off. One less-than-amused stare later, I got to feel the unlimited powah of Her Majesty by way of hurricane winds. Like, winds so strong that it gets caught in your mouth and sends it flapping open with an utter lack of regard for your dignity. Well, I was all sorts of frizzy afterwards, and more than a little rustled, but I was definitely, unmistakably dry.

“Thanks…” I responded breathlessly, spotting my cigarette and picking it back up with an empty stare. It was also quite dry, I was happy to discover.

“You’re quite welcome,” she answered with a gentle, if somewhat trollish smile, “Try not to be so dramatic next time.”

“Affirmative,” I nodded soberly, lighting the smoky treat back up and backed away to keep from getting my addiction on her Royal Ponyness. I don’t know how she managed to blow dry me without sending Twilight’s telescope and my cigarette careening off the balcony to their respective dooms, but I assume it has something to do with magic. No, I don’t understand it, so don’t ask me.

“You looked like you could use a little bit of company, but you seemed… distracted to say the least,” she pointed out, tilting her head to communicate that she still didn’t understand what was going on there.

When she noticed I was taking efforts to keep the smoke away from her, she cast a spell to actually shift the wind to blowing my way. She’s considerate like that and it definitely made my job easier.

“Oh, yeah!” I suddenly remembered what was going on and brought a hoof up to scratch at my chin thoughtfully. “I was having this hypothetical scenario play through my head and realized that I might not want to just divulge the… diverse tendencies of my race. I mean, I don’t mean to make us sound like monsters or anything, but humans can be just as renowned for their cruelties as they can for the niceties.”

Celestia actually leaned back as she digested that. “Cruelties? What…?”

“Yeah, we’re not all a bunch of saints. I mean, the average pony here is a sweetheart, if a little bit… sheep-like.” I remembered how quickly the crowd at Ponyville’s Town Square all went to gossiping about me. “But humans… Eh… Well, most of us are decent but we ain’t perfect.”

I gave her a helpless smirk to let her know that it was just as troubling to me as it would be to her. I’m not sure that reassured her so much, but she didn’t lament on it overlong as she changed the discussion.

“Just as long as you’re quite capable of behaving yourself while you’re here.” How diplomatic of her!

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” I was all too happy to have the opportunity to use a Pinkie Pie Swear. Complete with the motions. Oh, I’m sure they make drugs that feel that good, but they just don’t last that long.

“I’ll hold you to it, too,” Celestia countered with a smiling wink. “So, I noticed you were unsettled by what happened inside.”

Bam, sudden subject change. She didn’t even use a blinker to warn me. If the cops had seen it, she’d have been pulled over.

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” I should have asked her if she wanted to fight about it or something. That would have been funnier.

She was just being concerned for me, which is touching and all but I think we can all agree, sometimes, personal space is best space. “Is everything alright?”

“If it’s alright, Princess, I’d rather not talk about... well, that,” I admitted, giving her a reluctant stare. “please?”

I don’t think Celestia is used to being told no. Because I could tell that she seriously wanted to pry into it out of curiosity alone, if nothing else. Still, her better side won out and she nodded with a sigh.

“Very well,” she answered before staring up at the moon, “Let us change the conversation, then.”

See, that I can handle. None of this sentence-by-sentence nonsense; crazy rapid subject bouncing.

“You got it! To what are we changing it to?” I piped up, quite relieved to have my boundaries respected. Seriously, so many ‘Fixer’-types just don’t understand that forcibly digging into your past to help you can be just as detrimental as having a rough past to begin with.

“Why was The Nightmare after you?”

Well, that was direct. So I gave her a direct answer.

“Ummm, it wanted my body. And not in the ‘I find you incredibly attractive’ sorta way,” I explained, flipping a hoof-shrug as if I had nothing else to give.

She laughed at that, which made me feel oodles and oodles better.

“I see. Do you have any idea as to why?”

“To be honest, Princess, not a clue. I’ve no idea how I got here, what that thing was, or where that crater came from.” I started to explain before suddenly remembering the Stupid Bird. “The only thing I do know is that there was this…”

Ever go breathless for absolutely no reason? Yeah, neither had I before then. But I did and it was quickly followed by the most disorienting pain I’ve ever felt coming right from behind my eyes. I shut them and seized up all over, just barely managing to not fall over on my side. I can’t explain it fully because it just doesn’t work. What I can explain was that I was very discouraged from ever talking about Tisiphone to anyone and anything.

It was kinda like a migraine, if you’ve ever had one. If you haven’t, oh they are NOT like headaches. Let me just clear that up, right here, right now. That brand of pain was just, more or less, something I dealt with. Hell, pain in general doesn’t really stop me from doing what I want to do unless I’m in danger of seriously messing myself up. But migraines aren’t like that. Those are something utterly unbearable and it makes you angry. So ready to just rip into something or someone for bothering you. Because it’s so unfair and you know it and you’re suffering nonetheless. The only thing separating this pain from the well-known migraine was that instead of a blaring agony that keeps going up and down like a super-terrible roller coaster, this was more of a steady, roaring pain that just wouldn’t stop. In a way, that made it easier to handle. Mostly, though, it was still PAIN.

“What’s wrong?” Celestia approached me and lifted my head up without waiting for my answer, “Open your eyes.”

It took a whole lotta focus to pull it off, but I eventually made it happen. Opening my eyes, I stared up at Celestia as she stared back. And then, without taking the time to warn me of her intentions, she gently bopped me in the nose. Even through all the pain, I had a huge Dubya-Tee-Eff moment happen right there. Celestia just clopped me right in the nose! What the hell!

For whatever reason, though, it totally worked. Before I could go back to my irregularly scheduled suffering, I realized I was no longer hurting beyond a soft ringing in my ears.

“What was that?” I mumbled, rubbing my poor offended nose.

“I don’t know,” Celestia replied with a soft smile that almost completely hid the troubled demeanor about her. “But… I think I have some work to do in the morning. May I ask you a question?”

“Is it going to hurt?” I aimed a pair of big super pouty eyes her way.

She let out a soft chuckle before replying, “I don’t think so. Would you be opposed to coming to the castle in the morning?”

“Go to Canterlot?” My eyes inflated right there as I sucked in about 15% of my cigarette in one drag. I felt a little dizzy after that, but it was a good dizzy. I did make a swift recovery though and made a nonchalant charade out of accepting, “Well, I hear it’s rather dismal this time of year and that pollution is really getting out of hand, but if you think it will help then YES!”

She blinked, hesitating a moment before making a very obvious comment. “Has anypony ever told you that you’re incredibly energetic?”

With my tail-a-waggin’ and a grin large enough to envelope a watermelon, I nodded rapidly.

“I’m not usually this wired, but trust me when I say, Madame Alicorn, that I am living the proverbial dream,” I clarified, still locked in the state of tail-flapping happiness. I don’t know why I wag my tail, it just seems to be the right thing to do when I’m happy. I don’t expect the ponies to do it, but before you get on my case, I think you need to realize something: This is my flappin’ tail and I’ll wag it about if I damn well please. And I do indeed please.

She gave me an odd look before shrugging her wings which… I mean, it’s Princess Celestia and all, so I can’t hate on her but it just... I dunno, it doesn’t seem fair that I have to do this complicated one-sided shrug or this rearing-up which takes so much effort. I just want some equality here, y’know?

“I suppose I can’t find fault in you just being happy,” she said with a nod, “Very well. I will send an Archon to pick you up in the morning.”

She turned to go back inside but right as she did, I had a bit of a realization. That realization being that I had a load of questions for her, too!

“Wait, hold up,” I implored, trotting her way a bit to help get her attention, “What’s The Nightmare? I don’t remember anything like that from… Well, what I saw of Equestria before I got here.”

She paused at the door before glancing back at me. She kept her eyes fixed on mine as though she were trying to figure something out about me, but whether she got her answer or not, I couldn’t tell. After a heavy pause, she finally smiled and shut her eyes with a nod.

“Let’s save that question for Luna when you arrive at Canterlot tomorrow morning before she goes to bed. No doubt she’ll have more insight on it than I will,” she kindly explained before opening the door back up and stepping inside.

I dropped my jaw in amazement. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about Luna. That was something to get excited about. I mean, no one knew what Luna was really like! She’s so mysterious, having had all of two lines in the actual show. Despite that, she had nearly as much of a fanbase as Twilight or Rainbow Dash, if not more. I mean, I heard she was going to get her own episode in Season 2 and everything but I was going to get the super special sneak peak! I thought I was privileged before! Now, I was just going to get spoiled! Squh-weee~!

“R-Right,” I nodded, lost in wonder at the moment, “Luna. Canterlot. Awesome sauce.”

With that, we made our way back inside. I expected to see a plethora of excited little ponies bombarding me with questions, but much to my relief, they had found other things to occupy their time. Twilight was reading a book (stop the presses!) from her comfy little perch on the bench I had left unoccupied by my departure whilst being picked on by Rainbow Dash who was flying over and blowing on her ear. Incidentally, Twilight ear twitches are adorable. Pinkie, on the other hoof, was hovering over Applebloom, staring at the tiny filly with big shiny eyes that were mesmerized.

Why? Oh, she had her reasons, and they were completely fathomable for once. See, Applebloom was busy snoozing the young night away along with her big sister. Taking into account that they own a farm, that isn’t too surprising on its own. Regardless, that alone would have been pretty cute, but they took it to the next level and made irresponsible use of their powers of D’Awww. AJ was lying on her back with a half smile on her face. Her snoring alone was pretty epic, but it was that right hindhoof bucking away at what I can only assume was an apple tree that really sold it. But wait, I’m not done. It definitely gets worse. Applebloom chose Applejack’s tummy as a bed to lay her sleepy head upon, having approximately 90% of her tiny body covered up with AJ’s oversized cowpony hat. Couple this with Applebloom being only just barely disturbed with each of her big sister’s applebucks and you had a weapon that could stop a brony’s heart at fifty paces.

I’m just glad I made it down the stairs without having to experience the rigors of the five point palm exploding heart technique. I mean, my life had taken a bajillion turns for the better in the last sixteen hours, but that doesn’t me I was ready to call it quits just so that I could go out on a high note. Still, it was a close thing and having to explain that at the pearly gates would have been a little embarrassing.

No, St. Peter, I died from a heart attack caused by looking at adorable ponies…

… Right, then. To Hell with you.

I figured as much.

“Am I the only one about to die from this?!” I whispered, dramatically throwing my hoof out in their direction.

Pinkie was busy soaking it in, too, so she gets a pass. Twilight and Dashy, however, just glanced at me like I was naïve. Which just isn’t fair; being desensitized doesn’t mean you get permission to judge me.

Twilight did begin to answer me to some extent, but Dash was there again, messing with her ears in an attempt to keep herself entertained. “Rainbow Dash, I’m going to stuff Poison Joke into your pillow if you don’t quiddit!”

The multichromatic flying pony snickered quietly behind her hooves as Celestia let out a gentle cough. Not sure how everypony knew to quiet down just by hearing the princess clear her throat, but they did. Maybe it’s the law? I can only imagine how that would sound in an official proclamation.

“I need to get back to Canterlot,” she explained, “Twilight Sparkle, if you would be so kind as to house our guest for the night, I will send for him in the early morning.”

“Of course, Princess.”

Heh… Like Twilight was gonna tell Celestia ‘No’ concerning anything. Hah! That’d be the day.

“But I wanna see Rainbow Dash’s cloud house~!” That was me, if you couldn’t tell. It was all Lafter’s idea and I couldn’t argue with on how cool that would be, even if Stoic was pointing out the obvious flaws in that plan.

“Heh! I’d totally letcha if you didn’t… y’know… Fall through it!” Dash was taking Stoic’s side for some reason. Honestly, he’s not as smart as he sounds.

I put on a brave face and saluted. “That, RD, is a risk I am willing to take. I can’t let such trifling obstacles get in my way if I want to get anything accomplished in life.”

Twilight facehoof’d, Rainbow Dash cackled, and Celestia rolled her eye(s?) mirthfully. I got the impression that I wasn’t being taken seriously. They obviously didn’t know me. I would have made a big deal out of showing how serious I was, too, if Celestia hadn’t distracted me.

“By the way, before I leave, Twilight,” Celestia interjected like the rude mare she was, “Do you want to give me your friendship report before you leave?”

I’m not sure where I found a quill, ink, and paper so quickly, but I did. Oh, it was easy. Hell, I may have even summoned them. Not too sure, though. I kinda blocked out everything but the event that was about to take place.

“Please, write it out,” I requested nonchalantly as I set them all down beside her. I was in PERFECT control of my voice, if you could believe that. It wasn’t even remotely easy, but I managed it. “I’d uh… I’d like to see how it’s done. Y’know, for future reference.”

Who’s an amazing actor? I am. You could have run a nuclear power generator’s current through me and it wouldn’t have excited me even half as much. But I held that poker face. I held it real good. That is, up until she picked up the quill. After that, everypony started to stare at me like I was crazy. And maybe that had something to do with the slightest bit of hyperventilation. Or the bug-eyed stare. Hell, it could have been anything, but one thing was for sure: I probably earned every last one of those stares.

“And... And read it aloud.” I think my voice was a whisper.

Twilight’s expression told me she was back to doubting my mental health. That didn’t matter to me though. Oh, no sir. Just as long as she wrote the friendship report. Nothing else mattered. Just the quill, the paper, the ink, and the pony. Fixation at its most absolute.

And no, I’m not going to write it out for you. It’s mine. If you want one you can go get your own! THIS FRIENDSHIP REPORT IS SPECIAL! IT’S MINE YOU D-...

Due to the interference of a certain annoying pony (GO AWAY, LUNA), I’ve been pressured into giving you that which belongs solely to me. Your gratitude had best be unending. I will know if it isn’t.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned that there’s always more to a pony than meets the eyes. Even knowing that, though, one shouldn’t hold their secrets against them. Suspicious though it may seem, assuming the worst is a quick way to a bad start. I was treated with the opportunity to meet the strangest pony ever, and even though his eerie knowledge, as well as the lack thereof, about many things set me off guard at first, I can honestly say that I’m glad to have met him.

Friendship in the past has taught me that first impressions, while important, don’t tell you everything there is to know about a pony. Keeping that in mind, I was able to accept this new friend, and I can definitely say that it was worth it. Were he not here, it’s very possible something terrible could have happened to the entire town. Not to mention I could have lost one of my best friends. Thankfully, I don’t have to know what that is like. All in all, I can safely say that everypony deserves a chance, regardless of how bad the situation looks. And furthermore, I can only hope that other ponies get to know him like I did. If he doesn’t first drive them crazy.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

P.S. Much to our misfortune, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write another letter to you without laughing uncontrollably. Apologies in advance.

Yes, that was quite unfortunate. It couldn’t be helped though. Twilight is a slave to her impulses, after all. I can’t be blamed if she finds it incredibly amusing that I sat there and quivered like a toddler at Christmas. That’s her problem, after all, not mine.

“Hey, Twilight, not to point out the obvious,” Rainbow Dash sputtered behind a facehoof, “but I think No-Name likes your Friendship Reports.”

“Thanks, Rainbow Dash, I wouldn’t have noticed,” Twilight snickered before rolling up the parchment and floating it over to Celestia.

“I liked it, too!” Pinkie declared loudly before slapping a hoof over her own mouth and glancing back at Applejack.

It was a close call that involved both the Apples snorting loudly before rearranging themselves and going right back to their regularly scheduled snooze. Nnnnneeerghh! That was hard to watch. Trust me on that.

Celestia took Twilight’s letter, but rather than tuck it away, she actually turned to me and drifted it my way. “I think you will take better care of this than I will.”

Ohhhh Jesus, why are they trying to kill me with awesome, I asked myself. What did I do to them that drove them to attempt bronycide? Whatever the case, they were doing a damn good job. Because that almost finished me off, right there. I mean, I hadn’t been here twenty-four hours and for some damn reason, I’d had more close brushes with death than I’d ever had in the entirety of my life.

That got me to thinking. Was this really such a good idea after all? Did I need to be taking all these risks and get myself killed through death by awesome? Maybe I just needed to find a way out and go home to-…Hehe… Eh, yeah, I couldn’t keep a straight face on that one.

“Thank you,” I whimpered happily as I grabbed the parchment with my mouth and stashed it away like I do with my phone and cigarettes. I immediately had this tiny mini panic attack and retrieved it, just to make sure it wasn’t gone and breathed this obvious sigh of relief.

Dash continued to laugh at me. She’s allowed, being Dashy and all. My payback came in the form of her hurting herself trying to hold it all in to avoid waking up the sleeping Apples.

“Well, if that’s all, then…” Celestia started to say before being interrupted by Pinkie Pie.

“WAIT!” She was most definitely not using her indoors voice that time, either. She responded by slapping both hooves over her mouth this time.

“Pinkie, why must you be so inconsiderate to the Apples, eh?” I quietly pointed over to the still completely unconscious ponies, “You’re mean, you know that? Meanie Pie~!”

Oh man, she totally believed it. Even from behind two hooves, we were able to see her incredibly distraught frown, complete with sad ear droop and incredibly misty eyes. What had I done?!

“I just wanted us to name you before we all left,” she whimpered from behind her hooves.

Aaaaggghhh! My guilt is unending!

I mirrored her sad disposition which led to everyone staring at us as we unintentionally got into a sad-face competition. This, in turn, pretty much killed what was left of Dash’s self control. She had to snatch one of the pillows from Twilight’s bed and smoosh her face into it in an attempt to smother her laughter. She stayed up on the second floor, furiously kicking her legs about as she let it all out.

“Oh fine,” I finally gave up with an exasperated sigh, “I’ll be Anon-Pony.”

“Absolutely not,” Twilight immediately snarled.

I just can’t win. And Twilight is not best pony. End of discussion.

Chapter Four: Luna’s Gonna Loon, Lucky’s Gonna Luck, Twilight’s Gonna Beat You To Death With A Book!

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

’m told I have, quite possibly, the strangest sleep schedule ever. I don’t keep myself adjusted to the position of hands on a clock; I just stay up until I feel like sleeping and then go to bed. This usually results in somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two hours of life followed by five to nine hours of rest. That has a lot of advantages. Enough that I’m not going to bother listing them all, anyway. One severe disadvantage that does come with it is when you are woken up by outside influences, your day is wrecked. Plain and simple. It’s like an ill omen prophesying your inevitable doom. The reason I am telling you this is because it applies to this day in particular.

So there I was, sleeping on Twilight’s balcony - Twilight’s house has NO AIR CONDITIONING AND IS STUFFY AS HELL - without a care in the world. I had an awesome dream about Super Smash Ponies and I didn’t want to wake up because I was still trying to figure out how to use the Sonic Rainboom. Much to my dismay, I wasn’t able to figure it out before that very awakening took place. The harbinger of unrest wasn’t even being that loud, oddly enough. I’m weird like that. I can sometimes be woken up by two people whispering two doors down, but if my roommates start blasting heavy metal, I won’t even twitch. I wish I could find a consistency as to what actually causes the disturbing of my slumber.

“There you are,” I heard Spike mutter, “What are you doing out here?”

“Blergh,” I blerghed before rolling over, slowly opening an eye and swiveling it around in an attempt to spot my disturber.

“He’s out here, Twilight!” he called back inside.

“I don’t want it~!” I whined, mustering the effort to scoot away from the source of sound. Thank Celestia that Twilight had a very well sanded balcony.

A few seconds later, Twilight added her disruption multiplier to Spike’s sleep-combo-breaker and I was forced to slip further into undesired consciousness. This resulted in more scooting until I eventually bumped into Twilight’s telescope. I guess I really should have been looking where I was going, but I was fortunate enough to have it fall over onto me instead of it breaking on the wood balcony. Rather than whine about being struck by a Telescope, however, I just sorta pulled it close and used it as a surrogate teddy-bear.

“Why are you sleeping outside?” I heard Twilight ask me in a puzzled voice.

“Your house has no ventilation,” I replied quite truthfully, snuggling up to the telescope and shutting my eyes again.

There was a heavy pause in there, and I could surmise that it originated from Twilight and Spike’s confusion on what I talking about.

“I’m tellin’ you, Twilight, there is no way he isn’t an alien,” Spike reasoned, “I’m gonna go make some breakfast.”

“I don’t g-… Actually, no, I’m not going to waste time trying to understand you.” Twilight was apparently frustrated with me. Still, she brought herself back to a reasonable level of calm and spoke very politely. “Now, Princess Celestia’s Envoy will be here soon to pick you up and you don’t need to keep them waiting. You’ll need to clean up a little, seeing as you’ll be appearing in Canterlot. Also, we sh-...”

“Them?” I questioned lazily.

“What?”

“You said them,” I explained before letting out a long yawn. “Implying that there will be multiple envoys.”

The sigh she let out told me that I was starting to work a purple nerve. “Please, No-Name…”

“That’s another thing…” I interjected again.

Y’know, I never actually realize how much of an ass I’m being until I look back on my actions. Because I was definitely being one right here. But while I was living in the moment, interrupting Twilight for a second time... I dunno, it just didn’t feel like I was being one at the time.

“What’s the difference between calling me Anon-Pony and No-Name?” I opened my eyes and glanced Twilight’s way, “I mean they’re both pretty… Well, you know. They’re lacking in identity. I think that makes you a hypocrite.”

“Look, I’m trying to help you, so… please stop being difficult?” she begged.

“One condition,” I offered.

“Anything!” (Note: This was one big pile of bullshit…)

“I want to be Anon-Pony.”

That’s where things went downhill.

“Spiiike!” Twilight shouted back inside in a rather saccharine, yet threatening tone.

I risked opening an eye, half-curious as to see where this was about to go.

“Uh oh,” I heard him reply from within. This helped to foster growing sense growing unease.

“What’s ‘Uh oh’?” I tried to make my voice sound even and nonchalant. Might have failed in that endeavor.

“Please bring me the ‘Ponypedia Equestria,’ the ‘Unabridged Trotster’s Dictionary,’ and a copy of ‘Magic 402: Pandimensional-Subradiation Applications’ if you please,” she called back inside.

Did you know that books are a viable weapon? Maybe not in your hands or mine, but when left in the magical sway of a librarian unicorn? Yeah, it’s not pretty. Basically when held tightly, the book is almost no different than a piece of wood of roughly the same size. And that can hurt when beaten about the head and shoulders. I have learned that one does not test Twilight when she has access to three-hundred plus pages. Also, she took her stupid telescope back because she’s a plot face.

Long story short, I was beaten with books, had my teddy-scope ripped from my grasp, beaten with more books, chased inside where I was beaten with a few more books, and finally corralled into the bathroom by way of being beaten with books. Also, I tripped over Spike. Collateral damage, Tony!

“THAT’S NOT VERY FRIENDSHIPFUL!” I shouted from behind the sanctity of the washroom door.

Her response was to beat on the door with books, which terrified me. Seriously, I developed a complex that was triggered by the sight of airborne books. It’s up there with spiders. Still, I played nice from thereon, cleaning up and making myself halfway decent. Just a note here, using magic to do everything actually requires a modicum of patience. Sure, I eventually got it all worked out, but damn it, if I’m going to have a fluffy tail then it will be brushed properly!

One thing that perplexed me: A toilet. It was there. It was a toilet used for what I assume is toilet-based activities. And yet, having been here for what was around twenty-four hours, I had not heard the alluring call of nature. Not once. I decided not to dwell on it. Not because I wasn’t curious, but that line of thinking was leading to the visualizing of ponies doing that very act. Which was unsettling, to say the least.

I was finished long before I bothered leaving the safety of the blessed water closet. Eventually, though, I poked my head out of the bathroom and quickly snatched it back inside on the off chance Twilight had not yet satisfied her desire to damage my person. When no books came flying at me, I peeked out once more and made sure the coast was clear before opening the door. I checked the library after stepping out and found Spike and Twilight tidying up like a pair of purple maids. It wasn’t until I spotted the telescope lying on the farthest bench that I was overcome with petty, impulsive desire. I would get Twilight back for abusing me with such impunity!

Without giving them any warning whatsoever, I dashed out of the bathroom and snagged the telescope with a bit of magic. Pure survival instinct drove me to sprint for the door as I screamed in triumph.

“FOR THE EMPRAH!!” I roared.

Now that I consider it, I think that may have been less about survival and more about causing as much of a ruckus as I possibly could. Still, for the sake of making me sound sane, we’re just going to go with survival instinct.

That’s not the important part, though. The important part was about my awesome magic; specifically my first ever successful magic multi-task. It was awesome, like I already told you. Brace yourselves for awesome: I yoinked the telescope, leapt over Spike, snatched a cigarette out of nothingness, put it in my mouth, threw open the threshold to liberty whilst lighting the Mareboro and told the police to go buck themselves all at the same time. All whilst in a full-on sprint. With a furious draw on my smoke and a maniacal laugh on my lips, I dashed out of the library with Twilight hot on my heels.

Boo. Yah. I’m awesome.

“What could have made that more awesome?” you might ask yourself. Quite frankly, making it ten steps out the door would have been lovely, but whatever. And no, Twilight didn’t catch me. The Princess’ little envoy did, as it turns out. And by catch me, I mean clip my flank with her flying sled-like car thingy to send me flying like a pegasus. It had to be going, like, a million miles per hour; ‘Cause I totally got some air. Enough of it that the driver had to jump out of the vehicle and tackle me mid-flight to catch me. I have no doubt that it looked utterly amazing to anypony fortunate enough to bear witness. For me, however, it was just awful. I mean, this day was off to one hell of schizophrenic start with how amazingly awesome it got before taking the worst of dives.

Cigarette lost? Check. Added bruising? Check. Tackled by a flying green pony that twisted my hoof behind my back and LITERALLY crammed my face into the ground upon impact. Check. No bullshit: She used… my face… as a brake. My face. It skidded along the grass and dirt. As she used it to create friction. To stop our momentum. Do you understand me? She was grinding my face into the ground! The very concept makes my skin crawl! What the French Canadian hell did I do deserve that?!

“In the name of Celestia, you are under arrest!” my assailant shouted at me in the most unthreatening squeak she could manage.

Great. Stuffing my eyes, nose, and mouth into the terrain wasn’t enough. I also get to go to pony prison and meet some deranged criminal pony named Love Sponge the Tickler… Did I mention that I occasionally will creep even myself out? Still, I didn’t cry. Mostly because it hurt too much to cry, but that’s beside the point.

“Oh goodness!” I heard Twilight cry out as I started to lift my head up.

My squeaky assailant shoved it right back into the dirt. Seems legit.

“Everything is alright, Miss Twilight. I caught the thief,” replied the face-grinding envoy from Hell.

Everything was most certainly not alright. Everything was filled with pain. I could see the pain. I could smell the pain. I could taste the pain. And it looked like, smelled like, and even tasted just like dirty grass. Or it could have just been dirty grass I was experiencing. Whatever the case was, all my brain knew was that dirty grass was equal to or greater than pain.

“No, you don’t understand!” Finally, someone else was getting some of that at purple pony perturbedfulness. “That’s the pony you’re to be escorting to Canterlot!”

“W-… What?” Dat voice. She sounded like Pinkie Pie after sucking in a tank of helium. Okay, maybe not that squeaky, but I promise that I’m not stretching the truth here by much.

The grip on my hoof lessened a bit, despite there being no fingers to actually hold onto me.

“That’s Princess Celestia’s guest!” Twilight shouted.

I found the strength to whimper right about here.

“But he… He was... He was running away with your telescope. And you were chasing…” the pony stammered in response.

I could hear the oddly familiar sound of Twilight slapping a hoof over her face as she sighed. Note, my face was still in the dirt and my hoof was still being twisted behind my back while this was all going on. But other than that, it was totally fine that they had this out before seeing to me.

“I… admit, the situation may have looked rather bad, but it was just… Well, we were both being rather silly,” Twilight clarified haltingly.

“S-Silly?” Face-Grinder echoed.

Silly was not the word I would have used.

“Yes, silly. Now, if you would be so kind as to release him?”

FINALLY!

I coughed as I extracted my countenance from the trench that it had been used to carve out of Twilight’s front lawn. I immediately broke away from the green terror and scampered over behind Twilight to put something living between myself and it.

Had I not been thoroughly terrified of ‘it,’ I would have instead marveled at the fiend. She was a good bit taller than your average mare; right around my size, in fact. Her eyes were bright yellow, and her hooves were like that of a Clydesdale’s: Huge and fuzzy. Even while I was busy cowering behind Twilight, I was still loving her emerald green coat. As a matter of fact, green is my favorite color! Well, not when my eyes are scraped across green grass, but just about all other times. She even had a chartreuse mane and tail that both sported a pair of forest green streaks that followed her straight, long hair all the way down. I don’t know where Rarity gets off hating green hair, but she obviously never met this pegasus. Her armor looked like the typical guard armor with the exception of being trimmed with red instead of blue.

“Oh my gosh, you’re a mess,” Twilight whined at me LIKE IT WAS MY FAULT.

“I am so sorry!” the large pega-mare squeaked, holding out a desperate hoof.

I spat out some dirt and roots in response.

“A-Are you okay?” she asked, fumbling over her words in horror.

Twilight started to reply on my behalf, but I totally had it under control.

“Well, my front leg hurts, my back aches like it’s been stepped on by a huge pegasus, my face…” I paused here to hock up a few twigs. “My face feels like it’s been used to sandpaper a whole pine tree and my vision has yet to clear up. But other than THAT? Yeah! We’re just %&#*ing peachy!”

When I look at a large-and-in-charge guard wrapped in gold armor with feral-yellow eyes, I expect that guard to kick my flank when I am dumb enough to yell at them. Which is why I picked up Twilight and held her in front of me the moment I finished my rant (she was much too surprised to actually stop me). Twilight had earned some beatings by this point anyway. However, I did not get what I was expecting. Instead of said guard reaching over and beating me senseless, she decided she would rather fall down in a fit of tears.

“P-P-Please don’t tell the Princess!” she wailed whilst clapping her hooves over her eyes.

Suffice it to say, Twilight and I were at a loss. A big loss. This was not what I was ready for. I was ready for violence. And a lot of it. This wishy-washy guard thingy was straight up bizarre.

“Captain S-S-S-Storm Wing’s g-gonna throw me out of the Archons!” she bawled miserably, curling up a bit more as she shrilly sobbed into her hooves.

Well, I don’t know about you guys, but it bothers the shit out of me when people cry in front of me. Like, I don’t know why. I can watch a movie with people crying, I can watch a show with ponies crying, and I will never blink to reading a book’s saddest scene. That said, the moment someone breaks out into tears right in front of me, I am faced with two options. The first is cheer them up before I start crying. The second is to start crying with them. I’m a freak, okay?

So I opted to try and save my dignity by creating a distracting scene.

“Good going, Twilight!” I hollered loudly to prevent my voice from cracking as I gave her a shove from behind. “Now this guard is fired and it’s all your fault!”

“W-What?!” Sorry, Twilight. If you ever read this, you were just a convenient target.

“Gosh, you should have just let me have the telescope!” I sat my plot down, crossed my hooves, and whipped out a cigarette before glaring off into the distance. “But nooo! You have to be selfish and make a complete plotface of yourself!”

“A… A what-face?!” Her bewilderment was like a fine, aged wine for a troll like me.

Face-Grinder the Green was starting to knock it off as she realized the blame was apparently being shifted away from her. I admit that she was pretty frick’n cute when she wasn’t digging ditches with my face or falling over in a slobbery, weeping mess.

“Hey, why don’t you go back inside before you ruin something else? And here’s your freaking telescope!” I magicked it over and floated it her way before giving her a knowing wink. “Gosh!”

I just have to say, Twilight’s brilliant and I am thankful for that. It took her all of two seconds to get what was going on and roll her eyes in amusement. She proved to be twice as cool when she actually went along with it.

“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t going to great efforts to sound convincing, but whatever, right? It got the job done.

With that, she conjured up a large, wet towel and took her telescope back, “Just… clean up a little and get going, already. I’ll ‘work on my attitude’ in the meantime. Okay?”

I caught the towel and blinked a few times as I stared at her. Nobody ever goes along with my half-baked plans. I’m sure if I had thought it through, I wouldn’t have tried it in a million years, but I’m stuck with an impulsive inner half that refuses to be bothered with the complexities of contemplation. All that besides, I still don’t expect anyone to play ball the way Twilight did and… Well, that got me all excited in and of itself.

“You’re, like, the best pony ever!” I squealed before initiating the choke-hug from hell.

“What… What is happening?” Greenie the Crusher of Faces was so confused. I don’t blame her.

“Wagh!” Twilight shrieked as I crushed her in my embrace. “No-Name, you’re filthy! Oh! You’re getting dirt in my mane!”

Some ponies just can’t appreciate being appreciated. Sigh.

So after the madness tapered off and both Twilight and I cleaned up, it was time for my daily dosage of awesome. Greenflank, Face-Destroyer Extraordinaire, remained dismally silent the entire time but she wasn’t crying, which was the important part. I was actually still trying not to wince in pain from her initial abuse, but I did my best to not show it so as to keep the waterworks away. Which wasn’t to say I was being super friendly to her; I was still a little irritated, after all. But as long as I had my cigarettes and my world full of ponies, I wasn’t going to fuss.

All my inner upsetness, however, was single-hoofedly dispelled when I beheld it.

“What is it?” I stared at the large sled-like contraption before me. It was silver and ivory with Celestia’s Cutie Mark emblazoned on its sides with gold trim. There also happened to be a dent in the passenger side that somewhat bore the resemblance of a certain pony that will forever remain a mystery.

“It’s the Royal Sky Carriage,” explained my surprisingly demure escort as we stepped aboard the strange craft.

“Sky Carriage?” I gasped, “You mean… it…”

It flies. Yes, it does. Yes, it flies when Anon-Ponies (He’s not Anon-Pony – ‘You Know Who’) jump on to ride it. I began to feel the elation and panic well up as it lifted higher and higher in the sky. When it finally began to move forward, I felt my fascination hit what I thought was my peak. It wasn’t until it started reaching speeds that were illegal in Germany that I finally panicked and grabbed hold of Miss Viridian Facebreaker. I felt not the slightest shame as a delighted, yet terrified shriek escaped me.

“GREENIE, WE’RE FLYING!” I’m not sure why I was yelling at a pony that I was attached to, but she was at least kind enough to yell back.

“OF COURSE WE ARE!” She blasted right into my left ear. “AND MY NAME IS LUCKY! NOT GREENIE!”

Having been on the receiving end of close-proximity roaring, I decided it was silly and that we should stop that nonsense.

“Jesus, I’m right here. Stop shouting,” I huffed before breaking away from her and peeking over the edge. “Oh wow. Greenie, look at this!”

“My name’s not Jesus and it’s not Greenie!” she whined at me.

I ignored the poor thing as I gazed down at what was unmistakably the Everfree Forest. I spotted what I think was a hydra from my elevated perch and felt the urge to hop in glee. Fortunately, Stoic grabbed control of the reigns in time to remind me how stupid that would be and that I needed to get a grip. Lafter agreed, but decided to simply distract me with something equally ridiculous, even if it was considerably safer.

“Greenie, we’re changing the name of this vehicle.” I can be a jerk sometimes.

“Can you call it Greenie instead of me?” she moped.

I glanced back at her as though she were turning into a Dalek.

“That makes no sense, Greenie. It’s not even kinda green. No, that won’t do at all. It shall be henceforth known as… ‘The Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomeness!™’” I proclaimed before turning back to face her with a wince.

Yeah, I couldn’t even make sharp turns without feeling a nasty stab of pain in my neck thanks to the Killer of Countenances here. I was too filled with wonder to care though. At least I was before realizing that she saw through my act. It didn’t take me long to find out that Greenie had an awfully guilty conscience and a patch on her sleeve where she wore her heart. Talk about a mood killer.

“I’m very sorry, I really shouldn’t have acted so rashly,” she remarked with a pitiful sigh.

I failed my will-save versus guilt trip and immediately submitted to my baser urges. The urge to console.

“Hey, G-… Lucky? No sweat, okay?” I cantered over to her with a smile. “You’re a big girl, you can handle making a few mistakes. I do it all the time. Like running off with Twilight’s telescope. And tricking guards into thinking that I’m a thief. That was pretty stupid, eh?”

She gave me a reluctant smile, perking up a skosh.

“Still… I’m sorry,” she murmured, blushing as she went about scuffing her hoof. It wasn’t Flutteradorable, but it was close. And landing in the same neighborhood as Fluttershy was an accomplishment all on its own.

I blinked at the pegasus before narrowing my eyes at her. “You keep that up and you’ll be even sorrier when I hug you into submission. I’m like… the adorable police. And you’re dangerously close to a violation.”

I snapped my head forward (which hurt a lot), glaring off into the distance as we continued to sail through the air. All it did was confuse Lucky further. That was fine with me. She would live. I, on the other hoof, might not survive much more cuteness on a day-to-day basis.

“I don’t… understand,” she replied, staring at me worriedly.

I began to elaborate further on the matter, only to be distracted at the upcoming sight on the horizon. It was a mountain… It was a city… It was a mountain impaled on a city! Or something! It was Canterlot. Poor Stoic didn’t even bother trying to stop Lafter from taking control. This resulted in me grabbing poor Lucky and shaking her like a rag doll as I hyperventilated for a few seconds.

“LUCKY GREENHOOF, LOOK!” I hissed. My wide eyes fixed on the beautiful Minas-Tirith inspired castle. “IT’S CANTERLOT.”

“I s-s-s-see it-t-t-t,” she chattered through my impulsive assault.

I had forgotten how close Ponyville was to Canterlot. It was just a hop, skip, and a jump away as long as one was able to leap over the Everfree Forest that was inconveniently placed between the two. I tried to stop wheezing as we approached and had to light up a cigarette just to keep my blood pressure down to what most people consider a survivable level. I was stupid giddy, as you might have guessed. There was just no possible way for me to not enjoy the hell out of myself in the pony capital of Equestria! As we flew closer, I got an idea of just how incredibly huge Canterlot really was. It was seriously as big as the mountain that it was protruding out of. So much pony!

“Wow, I knew you were new to Equestria but…” Lucky let the rest of the implication go unspoken as I continued to squee all over the place.

“Lucky! Lucky, there’s a Wonderbolt… THERE’S THREE WONDERBOLTS OVER THERE!” And there totally was. I swear I saw the usual trio blitzing about in the sky and all I could do was continue losing my mind. “GIIIIRL, SHIT HAS OFFICIALLY GOTTEN CRAY-CRAY!”

“‘C… Cray cray?’” she echoed uncertainly.

“CRAY CRAY!” I repeated, spinning about face and showing her my best impression of the Cheshire cat.

I think that broke her daily insanity limit or something because the expression on her face was mostly a combination fear and worry. “Could… Um… Could you please stop… talking… or doing anything, really?”

I rapidly deflated. When you’re as excitable as me you find that rapid, controllable mood swings are not only easy, but rather fun. I sat my pony bottom down on the A.S.C.A.™ and stared at her quite plainly before letting out a sigh that was somewhere between happy and relaxed.

I rubbed the back of my neck with a nervous laugh. “Sorry, Lucky. I’m losing it. I know this doesn’t look good, but trust me when I say this: You just have no idea just how euphorically surreal this is to me.”

“No. No, I’m not letting my guard down. You’re insane. Just sit there and… and be good.” I can’t really say I blame her.

I pouted at her but she was having none of it. She stared at me as though I was about to jump and tear out her throat at any given second. My response was to pout harder. That seemed reasonable, if you ask me. So when she started to ignore me and stare straight ahead, I kinda wiggled over into her peripheral vision. Her willingness to ignore was measured, weighed, and ultimately found wanting.

“Stop it,” she urged, glancing at me as I continued to burn my puppy-dog face into her retina.

One day, folks, I would grow up to be a mature, decent respectable. That day was not this day.

“Stop!” Her pleas fell upon my deaf, merciless ears.

That’s when she hit the brakes and sent me flying right over the edge. I assume she did, anyway. It’s not like there was a gas pedal or something, the stupid thing just seemed to obey the thoughts of the driver. I think. Anyway, I let out the manliest scream a pony could make, flailing helplessly as I fell all of two feet over the edge. On one hand, I was happy that I wasn’t falling to my doom, but on the other, I was greatly put out that I landed on my back right where the green brute had stepped on me earlier and proceeded to tumble right into a statue, smacking my head upon it with a great fury.

As I was losing consciousness, I looked up in time to see this awesome-as-hell statue of one bigass pegasus stallion staring down at me. I proceeded to inquire as to why Equestria was so hellbent on beating me to death, hoping Mister Statue could shed some light on the matter. He didn’t answer me, sadly. At least, not before I fell asleep on his pillow-like dais. Mmmmm. Stone cold stone is stone cold.

Some undetermined amount of time later, I woke up in a bed, which was a first for Equestria. I couldn’t actually see the bed I was in. At least, not clearly enough to describe it. I tried to blink but my poor vision just didn’t feel like working at that particular moment so I was stuck with trying to decipher what the different colored shapes around me were.

“You’re in luck, Lucky. He’s waking up.”

That was definitely Celestia’s voice. She has a very unique voice that I’ve never heard anyone perfectly replicate.

“Your Majesty, I am so sorry!” The squeaking could only be Fluttershy or Lucky. Considering I’d yet to meet Fluttershy (much to my displeasure), I felt it was a safe bet that my attacker had followed me in hopes of finishing what it had started. I could only pray that Celestia would save me in time.

“Tears of Night, Lucky, how did you manage to wreck the Princess’ guest on the Sky Carriage?” This was a new voice. She sounded like one of those hot warrior chicks that you see in anime or DC Amazon Isles. “All you had to do was fly the thing there and back!”

“It wasn’t so simple with him, I assure you!” She lied like a rug. “J-Just… Please, Starlight, don’t tell the Captain!”

“She lies,” I truth’d, still not fully conscious. “Tell the Captain. She beat me. I cried and told her to stop but she just kept beating me. She’s a monster.”

“W… What?! I did no such thing!” her voice cracked as though she were hitting puberty or something. “Don’t believe him, Your Majesty!”

I took a guess at which blurry dark shape was Lucky and lazily pointed at it. “That’s the one, Celestia. She did this to me. Arrest that pony.”

Right as I said that, though, my vision decided it was the perfect comedic time to finally clear up. At least enough to realize that I was pointing at a dark royal blue pony and not a dark emerald green one. I blinked a few more times, finally bringing a bit of definition to my hazy world and I found myself staring at a frightening mare. She was right around Lucky’s height, which put her just a head and a half under Celestia’s towering frame. That, however, wasn’t what made her scary. No, it was the black bob haircut with a single white stripe in the center covering her right eye coupled with the exposed eye burning a hole into me with its blood red stare. Also her wings were bigger than mine, so I felt exceptionally unendowed before her. Yes, I’m aware I don’t actually have any wings, and that does not help my feelings of inadequacy.

“Show some respect before the princess before I show you some of the consequences,” the blue pegasus growled threateningly.

“That’s enough, Commander Starlight; you will do no such thing. You know I expect better self-control out of my Archons,” Celestia sighed, obviously unhappy with the way things were currently devolving. “I have no doubt that our guest was exceptionally difficult to put up with. I’ve only met him once and I’ve something of a grasp for just how… bizarre he can be.”

“I take objection to that, Celestia.” I turned my head her way whilst still pointing in the Archon’s face. “You should learn to be more considerate. I’m, like, right here and stuff.”

I gave a big, genuine smile to the princess who happily smiled back with a mirthful snort and a roll of her eyes. I started to further make a hammy ass of myself but Starlight distracted me by slapping the hoof out of her face. I let out a whine and rubbed the offended appendage with my other hoof.

“And you should learn to not harass every last pony you come across.” Celestia let out a laugh before shaking her head as though she were helpless to stop me. “How are you feeling?”

“Fantastic, actually, considering everything that’s happened to me just this morning.” I replied before sticking my tongue out at Starlight. “Who’s this you’ve brought with you? Does she bite? I’m not going to lie, she looks dangerous. Dangerous enough t-…”

“Have a care for whom you’re speaking to!” Starlight snapped at me, having raised her voice just enough to startle me.

“Woah! Down girl! Easy!” I leaned away from the vicious animal in an attempt to avoid getting my face eaten off.

“Oh, I’ll take it real easy after I give y-…”

Celestia cut that nonsense off with a vengeance! “Commander Starlight, apologize to our guest.”

“Pbbbhht~!” Raspberry of maturity, right here. Now, you probably assumed Celestia was the one to act like such an infant, but as amazing as this sounds, that was actually me.

“And you apologize as well,” the princess continued.

“But…” I started to protest until Celestia gave me this look. I don’t know if it was a super power or magic was involved, all I know is that I froze up like the chickens in that one episode with Fluttershy. It was stressful, being on the receiving end of that visionary assault, but I composed myself enough to do as I was told. (I wasn’t interested in finding out what would happen if I said, ‘No’ which is rather unusual for me!) “Woah… … … Hello, Archon Commander Starlight. My name is Anon-Pony. I am terribly sorry for being an inconsiderate jerk and ask your forgiveness for not showing the proper respect. Also, when I comment on just how frightening you look, I do so with the utmost of admiration. You’re exactly what I would expect a veteran guard of Equestria to look like. And yes, I really do mean this and I’m not just saying it to avoid angering the princess.”

Heavy silence was heavy. I don’t think any of them expected me to actually play ball. But Celestia has one scary glare and if there’s one thing that will help me be a little more self-aware of my actions, it’s fear of being stamped out of existence by a pony princess. Try explaining THAT one to St. Peter. Anyway, I got kinda fidgety with everyone being all shocked and stuff.

“What? Good lord, you ponies haven’t known me for more than a day! Why are you staring at me like that!?” I offered, throwing my hooves up into the air.

“See!” Lucky cried as though I had just proven some point she was trying to make. “Difficult!”

“‘See’ nothing! You dug a ditch with my face, you monster!” I snarled in return before slapping my hooves over my mouth in shock.

Starlight was the first to react, “Y… You did what, Lucky!?”

“I thought he was a thief!” she squeaked in defense.

“We can, should, and even need to just forget I said anything right then!” I hollered, throwing my hooves around madly to help capture attention. Pretty sure I just looked either stupid, amusing, or some amalgamation of the two.

“You attacked the Princess’ guest?!” Starlight was at a loss. It just didn’t make sense to her.

“It’s alright; I totally looked like a thief! She was well within her rights to smash my face into the ground!” Man, I can really say some stupid things when I’m panicking.

Celestia blinked, having not yet recovered entirely, “Smash your face…?”

Starlight was not pleased. “Archon! Explain yourself!”

“He was running away from Miss Twilight!” she whined.

“She saved the telescope!” I pointed out.

Starlight ignored the hell out of me. “What is wrong with you?!”

“No, it’s okay! Getting hit by the carriage was much worse! I’m fine, really!” Sigh… Why, self? Why must you/I do these things?

“You hit him with the Carriage?!” Go figure. She heard THAT.

Lucky looked my way, horror splayed uponst her countenance. “S-Stop! You’re making it worse!!”

“I’m just going to shut up now.” It seemed like a good idea. If only I came up with that more often.

“Archon, I will have you mixing storm clouds until the sight of rain makes you sick!” Starlight bellowed.

Lucky started to cry, to which I tried to stop her, but things were out of hoof already and I fell apart almost as quickly as she did. I grabbed the pillow closest to me and stuffed my face into it to cover my shame. Much to my surprise, everything went silent shortly thereafter. The curiosity and confusion quickly proved to be too much for me to handle and I dared a misty-eyed glance over the top of the pillow. They were all staring at me. Even Lucky, who was thankfully letting her lack of understanding override her need to blubber. AGAIN!

“What?!” I coughed out, all sorts of flustered.

“Why are you…?”

“IT’S NOT IMPORTANT!” I yelled before stuffing my face back into the pillow. “YOU’RE ALL JERKS!”

“Ladies, I think it best if the two of you left,” Celestia gently ordered, “and Starlight, spare Lucky any punishment for her actions. This is a very odd set of circumstances, after all.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Starlight replied before letting out a helpless chuckle, “come along then, Lucky. Only you could get away with attacking one of Celestia’s personal guests.”

“Sorry,” she whimpered pitifully in response.

I heard their hoofsteps clack against the marble floors of wherever I was. They continued to exchange words, but they quickly became so distant that discerning the conversation was pretty much impossible through the echoes. Celestia and I were alone at last and ironically enough, all I could do was blush in shame with my face stuffed into a pillow.

“They’re gone now,” she pointed out tactfully, “You can come out. Unless one ‘jerk’ is too much to face.”

I called Celestia a jerk. That realization was not a pleasant one.

I dropped the pillow and hastily spouted my apology, “No! You’re not a jerk, Celestia! I’m just stupid and have no self-control!”

“I deduced that much,” she replied with a smile, “Do not worry, Stranger. I can relate to the difficulty of suppressing impulses. I take it watching others cry is difficult for you?”

I let out an embarrassed sigh before giving her an answer by way of nodding.

“Do you w-“ she started to ask but I was pretty quick with the responding.

“No thanks, Celestia. I know you’re a nice pony princess and that I could totally confide in you, but digging up bad memories is what humans consider a faux pas.” I felt a little bad about interrupting the princess, but really, we’ve all got stuff that we don’t want brought up, right? I simply happen to be a little trigger happy when it comes to the shutting down of such pursuits. It helps to discourage the ‘fixers’ from messing with you, at least.

“Very well. I won’t pretend to understand, but I will respect your boundaries.” And that, people, is why Celestia is the best pony princess.

“You’re awesome, Princess. It must be hard being so amazing. Such a responsibility to live up to.” I looked up at her with a soft smile before finally taking in my surroundings. It looked like a medical ward, only extra decorative. Leave it to girly ponies to doll up a place of sickness and pain, I guess?

“Oh, I manage.” She winked, smiling back. “It’s not as difficult as it you might think.”

“Naw, you’re just that good at it,” I gushed back, happy to pull the conversation back to silliness. I hopped out of the bed and performed my best full-body cat stretch. “Ggghhnnn!! Oh, but damn do I feel great!”

“I would hope so. Princess Luna healed you after having witnessed your fall,” Celestia made mention, tilting her head just slightly to the left. “She brought you here to make sure you were alright, but was too tired to stay up for much longer.”

I dropped my jaw as I stood up straight. “Luna? She met me? And I missed it?!”

“Indeed,” she said with a nod, “Also, she made mention that you’ve quite a lovely singing voice.”

“She… She did?” For once, I was the flabbergasted pony.

“You’ll have to ask her about it tonight,” Celestia offered, giving me a helpless, if slightly amused, shrug of the wings.

I know; I already mentioned this once, but I swear, every time I see a pony shrug their wings at me, I just want to get offended. Now, I can’t rightly get on Celestia’s case for doing it, but that doesn’t mean that the urge is cancelled in return.

“Y-Yeah.” I was blushing. There was just no telling what song I was singing in my sleep. I’ve been known to do a teensy bit of sleep talking, but ever since I joined the Choir back in High School, I’d found out from multiple sources that I sometimes mumbled lyrics in my sleep.

… Y’know, I never really realize how weird I actually am until I start talking about my oddities.

“Anyway, please make yourself home here in Canterlot. If you need anything, any of the Royal Guard, Sky Archons, or palace staff will be happy to help you. I must get back to work, but I’ll be seeing you again before nightfall.”

“‘Work’?” I repeated. “You mean being a princess is not as simple as raising the sun, kicking back, and being awesome?”

She actually snorted a tad, bringing a hoof to cover her face before giggling. “Oh, if only that were the case. Take care of yourself and try to stay out of trouble.”

“My dear princess, you will not see a finer example of behavioral perfection in all the millennia to come!” I proclaimed with a goofy grin.

Oh yeah, that was so gonna happen.

“Seize him!”

Shit. Well, at least I tried. Hell, I made it until nightfall, if that tells you anything.

Seriously, this wasn’t my fault as much as it just looked like it was my fault. An everlasting victim of circumstance, I am. Still, I will concede that if I had not acted as reasonably furious as I had been, then this would not be a problem. But ‘reasonable’ was the operative word here. I had every right to become infuriated.

After all, this was pizza we were talking about.

“What do you mean you don’t know what cheese pizza is?!”

Anger.

“Exactly what I meant, sir!” the cook pony replied helplessly. “What is a pizza!?”

Rage.

“A MISERABLE PILE OF DELICIOUSNESS!” I bellowed in his face.

It just... Flames... Fla-Fl… Flames! On the side of my face. Heaving… breathless… heaving breaths.

“I don’t understand!” he replied, cowering from me somewhat.

“This can’t be true!” I seethed.

I almost exploded right there, which would have been a shame. Cleanup alone would have taken hours, and that’s only if they happened to have a load of bleach and wire brushes on hand. Luckily that was not the case. Instead, I turned around, sucked in a deep breath, increased my chi, and pivoted again to face the poor frightened chef pony. He had a slightly nervous air about him that I was undoubtedly doing wonders for with my uncharacteristically aggressive outburst.

He looked a little strange, having a rather peculiar color scheme going on. His coat was a bright yellow, almost like a Twinkie or something. Coincidentally, his mane and tail were as white as the cream filling inside of one, as well. And I had a little trouble believing he was both a stallion and a chef because A) He was not sweating at all. Cooking is hot. You sweat. No exceptions. B) His hair was long, luxurious, and shiny. He was like the bishounen of stallions, I kid you not. C) I had just walked into his kitchen and started making demands without getting my flank pummeled. You try that on Iron Chef and see how long you last. Those chefs will carve a plate of sashimi out of your ass and EAT IT, TOO.

“Okay. No, this is not your fault,” I said calmly, running a hoof through my mane to help remind myself that I had to keep a metaphorical level of chill maintained. “We can fix this. We can fix this. Alright. Okay. Sorry for the outburst.”

“I… I… It’s… okay?” he replied, confused as hell. He sounded British. Seriously. That made picking on him funnier. British Bishounen Pony is best pony?

“Thanks. That’s big of you. You’re a cool guy,” I pointed out before running a hoof over my face to help complete the combo of cool. “Alright, Cookie. We can fix this. But we should probably do this properly. First things first: What’s your name?”

“C-Cookie is my name,” he stammered, now so shocked that he wasn’t processing his brain stuff properly. “How… How did you know?”

Well, peeps, I’m not going to lie. I was definitely more than a little shocked that I had tripped over his name by pure chance. So shocked that, for a few seconds, I simply did not react as the realization began to sink in. That didn’t last long; I quickly put everything together and formed the fastest troll response ever. And thus, with the utmost of precision, I responded.

I looked to the left, then to the right. Then back to the left. And finally, I motioned for him to lean a little closer as I whispered, “Would you believe that it was… Magic?”

Well, he didn’t think it was funny, but I sure as hell did! I fell over cackling like a hyena and continued to do so for several seconds. Until “Cookie’s” assistant returned to interrupt my fun with some guards. I would say some people just can’t take a joke, but there’s this ever growing list of things you just don’t joke about. Pizza is one of them. So is chocolate, spiders, and a person’s past. Oh, and flying books, too (like I said, ever-growing).

So yeah. Now I was running from guards. All because I had an entirely reasonable outburst. Whatever. Fluttershy gets to chase a bunch of animals into the Equestria’s most noteworthy social event, but if you want to flip your shit over a pie of pizza then you’re going to JAIL! ‘Love and Tolerate’ my ass!

So I led them on a merry chase all throughout the castle, yelling obscenities back at them whenever they did that… that thing… You know the one. Where they demand you ‘stop’ or ‘freeze’ or something? Yeah, I’m running my ass away from you, but if you’re going to extend the effort to ask me to not flee, then let me be an Exemplar of Etiquette by actually obeying! Shall I also cuff my hooves together and fill out the report for you as well? Screw you, ponies! Work for your damn prisoner!

This lasted a while. Long enough for me to make the mistake of making a right turn that went straight into one of the spires. Meaning I was going in circles, up a staircase, to a place where I wouldn’t be able to get away. So… Rather than give up or something sensible like that, I decided to use their cartoon physics against them. Oh, I know that sounds like an incredibly bad idea. And it was, to be sure. But I was running out of options, and quite frankly, I was behind on my Sheer Stupidity Quota. Please, please, please keep in mind that this was a world of cartoon ponies and hopefully this won’t sound as… Well, no, let’s just be honest about it: There was no justifying this line of thought. At all.

The following line of logic is why they only let me write with crayons and not a dangerous pen (or God forbid, a pencil that’s been sharpened recently):

Brilliance #1: Oh man, I am so bucked sideways from Tuesday! These guys are relentless!

Brilliance #2: They know the layout way better than I do! Where the hell am I even going? Oh hell, I’m going up a tower. Now it’s just a matter of time before I get trapped!

Brilliance #3: Wait. This is a cartoon world! I can (Sigh…) jump off this tower and live! It’ll hurt, but I’ll escape! I’m so brilliant! And awesome!

That was it. I had signed up for the infamous Darwin Award and I was going to take the gold. I mean, there are just times you look back in life and you just cringe at what you did or what was going through your head. This one makes me want to beat my head against the wall. Like, really hard. I will never, in my many zany years, get over this single line of idiocy.

Side note: When life throws you a set of circumstances that requires you to run your sorry butt up two-hundred plus stairs, your life officially sucks. Not that your life is permanently ruined or anything, but damn. If Hell ever needs to get a headstart on making someone’s day miserable, it will involve a ridiculous amount of stairs.

Anyway, after triumphantly tackling the task of tedious tower ascension (see also: Buttload O’ Stairs), I approached a large wooden door. With four very shaky knees and a brain chock full of stupid ideas, I shoved it open and stumbled inside before slamming the damn thing shut. I turned around to take in my surroundings and locate a window, but I got distracted by the contents of the incredibly huge tower pinnacle. This had to be the royal library. The books gave it away. And when I say books, I mean this place had more shelves than my hometown’s library had individual books. I had not realized how bloody huge this spire was.

“Holy written page things, Batman!” I wheezed, somewhat flabbergasted by my surroundings. The immense room was of a circular variety with what had to be half a dozen levels, each lined with a tapering number of black curved shelves that broke apart regularly to allow freedom of movement. The floor was an indigo shag carpet, which was particularly strange. Every other square inch of the castle had been white or black marble up until this point (not to mention this was the first carpet I had seen since coming to Equestria), but the library was special, it seemed. What I eventually realized, much to my glee, was that I was not alone. In the center of this wondrous archive of literary treasure sat a pony that was too busy scribbling away to take note of my presence. This pony was the biggest reason I had not immediately begun scouring for windows to make a cartoony retreat. Because this pony was an alicorn.

I inhaled to commence my distracted freak out squee, but the sound of angry clopping royal guards was ever nearing. Also, get your mind out of the gutter.

“Crap!” I whined before turning for the door and praying for a lock. Fortune was on my side and there I found a simple sliding bar lock on the door. I slapped that sucker into place before rearing back on two hooves and cheering with my fore-hooves cast in the air.

“WOO! BEHOLD THE POWER OF PHYSICS!” I crowed loudly.

The angry hooves continued to near until making their inevitable impact with the locked barrier. It didn’t even shake from their heartfelt effort. That was one hell of a door.

“OPEN THIS DOOR!” a voice on the other side bellowed.

“KISS MY CUTIE-MARK, FLANK FACE!” I can make a pretty sweet pony insult on the fly.

“Excuse me,” said the alicorn in the center of the room.

I looked back at her and felt the urge to squee starting to boil over. The alicorn in question was none other than Princess Luna. She was right around my height with a matching corn-blue mane and tail. She stared at me with sea-green eyes that told me she just didn’t know what to make of my presence. Sitting at a table in front of a book, quill, and bottle of ink. And she was talking to me! Granted, she didn’t look amazingly pleased to see me, but that’s beside the point! I started to respond, but it did not take long for the guards to continue hollering and making an awful lot of ruckus.

“HEY!” I kicked back at the sealed threshold and snarled, “The Princess is trying to speak to me! You are being insolent by interrupting her! So shut up!”

“By Celestia’s sun! He has the princess hostage!” I heard one of them cry out in fear.

“What… I do?” I looked back at Luna, lifting an eyebrow askance. “Princess Luna, do you feel particularly threatened, withheld against your will, and-or possibly be of the opinion that your rights have been infringed upon?”

She blinked at me before tilting her head a bit and letting the slightest of smirks creep up one side of her face.

“Well, in all technicality, you have robbed me of a degree of freedom by locking us in. That could quite possibly be construed as a robbing of my rights to liberty.” I smell sarcasm.

“Right, but you have yet to try and open said door,” I pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone. “You can’t be certain that you are locked in here. Indeed, if I didn’t bother stopping you and you simply slid the lock aside, then it would be obvious that the seemingly apparent imprisonment was nothing but a misunderstanding and an assumption. And it’s very unbecoming of a princess to be so assuming!”

Her smirk. It was getting bigger. That should have been a sign. “I see. So, while you may appear to be a kidnapper, in reality you are just a friend?”

“Yes. Because friendship is magic?” I responded somewhat askance. I didn’t know where she was going with this, but she had not fed me to her stooges on the other side of the door, so I wasn’t complaining!

“Then why don’t you be a friend and open it for me, then?”

Uh-huh. Two can play this silly game.

“Because this isn’t real, your highness! Your self-perceived lack of liberties is nothing but a mental illness and this is just all in your head!” Yeah, I was going with the insanity defense. What of it?! Plausible deniability is best deniability!

“Princess Luna! Are you alright?” the ‘spokesguard’ cried out from behind the door.

Luna set down her quill and pulled herself out of the chair before cantering over my way. I could tell she wasn’t upset at the intrusion. Whatever she had been working on, it was either tedious and an interruption was welcome, or Luna really is crazy and she likes to be silly. At the time I was pretty sure it was the former but I’m going to spoil things just a little right now. Luna is crazy, okay? Absolutely bonkers. The girl just isn’t rolling with a full set of dice, if you know what I mean. If you ever see her, run in the other direction and don’t stop until her deranged giggling can no longer be heard.

“I’m not sure just yet,” she called out to the guards on the other side, “I’m locked inside the library with a stranger that claims he won’t try to stop me if I go to unlock the door. Also, I believe he insinuated that I might be crazy.”

“That’s just the insanity talking,” I shook my hoof at her, wishing I could ball it into a fist, “Those aren’t guards! They are figments of your imagination! As am I! This is a dream! Wake up, Luna!”

“Is he serious?” I heard a different pony ask on the other side of the door.

Luna just gave me a half-amused stare as she continued to approach the door. She was getting dangerously close, so I had to try one last time.

“If you open that door, you are telling your mind that it’s okay to let the madness in!” I half-pleaded, half-accused. “Don’t be weak, Luna! Oh wait… NO, LUNA, YOUR SHOES ARE UNTIED!”

Damn it, Lafter. Of all the ponies to try this on. Why doesn’t Stoic ever enter the equation where ponies are concerned!?

I didn’t expect her to fall for it when I pointed at them in horror, but I shit you not, she actually paused and looked down. Well, it only took point-four seconds of time for her to realize that her sparkly loafers had no strings. The cross look she gave me was pretty much the end of my charade as I simply could not hold it in any longer.

“YOU TOTALLY LOOKED!” I shouted before erupting into laughter. A lot of times I fall over whilst laughing just to be dramatic and silly. This time I was caught so unawares by my own audacity that I couldn’t help but laugh until I could no longer stand. For a solid minute I was doing nothing but crying, laughing, and clenching my gut in hopes that it wouldn’t give out on me.

She was patient. She waited through the entire thing, her visage a mix of shame, mirth, and annoyance. I eventually ran out of breath and had to resort to breathless giggling before finally surrendering to silence from sheer lack of breath. When I finally did give out, I wiped my eyes, tittered a little more, and smiled back up at the indigo alicorn.

“You enjoy that?” she asked sardonically.

“Oh man, you…” I snickered a bit more, still struggling to accept the amount of ham I was exuding. “… You have no idea.”

“Good, because I think I’m going to enjoy this just as much.” Her reply was sweet, sarcastic, and involved the oh-so-rude gesture of her sticking her tongue out at me.

And then she opened the door.

See, I should have had some reaction time in there to use for escaping, but those guards have some crazy reaction time of their own. Luna opened that door and they blasted through there like a pressurized hydraulic hose burst. Not that I was in any shape to run away after almost laughing myself into a coma. Coincidentally, pony beatings are not best beatings. Even if you do manage to giggle like a maniac as you are dragged to the dungeon.

“This guy’s some kind of whacko. He’s probably pretty dangerous.”

“I dunno, he’s kinda nutty, but I don’t think he’d actually try to hurt anyone.”

The guards made small talk about me as they hauled my sorry butt to the dungeon and tossed me in. I would have given my input but they had me gagged as well as fully bound. My cell was nothing spectacular. It was a lovely ten by ten with the same decorative marble floors that the ballroom sported. So either Celestia loves black and white marble and wants to share with the prisoners, or this wasn’t always a prison cell.

It wasn’t until they locked the door that the unicorn amongst them untied me from the safety of the barred window. Not that I was particularly bothered by that. After all, I still had my cell phone and cigarettes. Between those two things, I was able to whittle away a couple of hours. Angry Birds, Sangband, and Youtube are amazing time killers like that.

“Comfy?” I heard the voice of Princess Luna pop in from behind the window in the door.

“Hello, Luna!” I waved at her without ever looking away from the phone. “Are you here to bring more guards to hurt me?”

“Yes, that’s him.” I could hear Celestia’s voice from behind Luna. “I won’t bother asking how this happened. I’m almost certain I won’t like the answer and I’m even more convinced he brought it upon himself.”

“And that, Celestia, is just unfair!” I called out, still keeping my eyes fixed on the screen.

If you’re wondering why the phone was so damn important, it was because I had just mastered getting my hoof to manipulate the damn thing with a reasonable amount of consistency.

“Ugh! What is that smell? Is that you!?” Luna cried out in disgust.

“No, it’s that paper roll of his. The one in his mouth.”

“Yeah, the cigarette smells pretty damn awful,” I agreed, still happily puffing away as I began to google how to pick archaic locks. “Hey, so uh… Are you guys going to let me out or is harassing the royal pony chef a felony punishable by death and-or life in prison?”

“Harassing the… No, you’re in there because you tried to kidnap my sister,” said Celestia.

I finally looked up at the two princesses peering in at me.

“But I didn’t…” I started to say before glancing at Luna who had that look on her face that told me everything. It was the way she was pursing her lips and just barely shaking from the effort to not laugh. And then it all made sense.

“Oh… Wow, I totally didn’t see that coming,” I said with a giggle, “and I totally let you open that door, too.”

I stared right at Luna who was going out of her way to not laugh right along with me. Celestia’s eyebrow arched a bit as she considered me before glancing at her sister and realizing the situation for what it was. Huffing in frustration, Celestia threw open the cell door and (not making this up) gently bopped her sister upside the head with a wing.

“Of all the… Luna!” she cried out in anger as both myself and the younger alicorn began to cackle like idiots. “Framing my guest for kidnapping and throwing him in prison is not a harmless prank!”

Luna threw her wings up around herself defensively and proceeded to laugh as though this was the last day she had to enjoy such shenanigans. Celestia tried to apologize to me over and over on her sister’s behalf, but I had to admit, that was an awesome prank. It’s only something royalty could get away with, too! Why wouldn’t you abuse that? Still, all was good and Celestia was actually very relieved to find out that I did not try to kidnap her little sister. She even chuckled a bit when I told her about the untied shoes. We slowly made our way to what I can assume was the Canterlot castle gardens. Now, I’m sure everyone is really, extra, super excited to find out what Luna is like. Well, I’m going to be honest, peeps: You aren’t missing much.

Seriously, I can totally believe that she had a hissy fit and turned into Nightmare Moon. Hell, the only two differences now areher physical appearance and rather than inflict emotional agony on the entire populace, she limits it to just a few ponies at a time.

“So, what’s so special about this guest? Are you hiring him as a court jester?” Luna asked with a knowing smile in my direction.

I snorted with a roll of my eyes as I flopped down onto the nearest bench, lighting up a new cigarette.

“Actually, I was hoping to aim his abrasive tendencies towards you,” Celestia admitted with a smirk before yawning gracefully. Don’t ask how it was graceful, it just was. In fact, any time Celestia is mentioned, just imagine gracefulness. It almost makes me want to trip her just to see if she’ll break the laws of reality by falling over gracefully.

“Well, he’s going to have to try a lot harder,” she replied with a dark smirk. “And that’s just if he wants to keep up.”

“Oh hell, I’m being intimidated!” I cried out, sitting up and stiffening with wide eyes.

After a second of silence, I flopped back down against the bench and shut my eyes. “No, wait. That’s just gas. Carry on.”

“Dramatic little foal, isn’t he?” Luna offered.

“It gets worse.” Celestia promised with a chuckle. “Anyway, before this gets further sidetracked by immature sniping, I would make introductions…”

“Wait, let me guess. That’s Princess Luna. Damn, I’m good,” I said with a smoky chuckle.

Luna playfully swooned against her sister. “Woe betide us, Tia! We stand before a master.”

“Children. Focus, please. Thank you,”

“Yes, mother,” I sing-songed in response before sitting up and running a hoof through my mane, “Eh… Serious stuff, then.”

“Oh?” Luna looked at the two of us with a lack of understanding splayed on her face.

I tilted my head, somewhat surprised, “I take it you weren’t informed that The Nightmare is back in town?”

Luna’s eyes widened before narrowing as they honed in on Celestia. “I was not. It must not be that important.”

Celestia shook her head, “Stop it, Luna, the previous day and night preceding that were both very eventful and all I wanted to do was sleep.”

“Oh no, by all means. Beauty rest before Equestrian security. It’s just The Nightmare, no reason to bother me with such trivial matters.” Luna rolled her eyes before sighing helplessly. “Whatever, it’s in the past already.”

Celestia’s expression and body language in general told me that she was about to serve it right back to Luna, but I intervened. I see enough familial drama back on Earth. I wasn’t exactly eager to witness more of it.

“Time-out there, ladies!” I felt a little silly throwing up that symbol with my hooves, but it was a good silly. “Now, before we go get Dr. Phil involved, let us instead enjoy a reasonable session of Q&A! I’ll go first. First pony to answer gets to ask the next question! What is The Nightmare? I’ve never heard of the damn thing.”

Luna, as one would expect, had that answer. The way she answered it, though… I’m not going to say it was robotic, but it was certainly… I dunno. It almost sounded like she was reading a script. “The Nightmare is a metaphysical manifestation of my darker nature. A thousand years ago, I became consumed by my anger and jealousy and it took form before me. When I embraced The Nightmare, it changed me into what everyone knows as Nightmare Moon. By the time I realized the error of my ways, it was already in control and twice attempted to shroud Equestria in a shroud of eternal night.”

That… mostly fit with everything I knew. Except for The Nightmare actually being a separate entity from Luna. What was really weird, though, was Celestia’s reaction. She was almost grimacing. As though just listening was painful for her.

“My turn.” Luna didn’t even wait for me to approve of her answer. Because she’s a jerk with a horn. “How are you involved in all of this?”

“The Nightmare tried to possess him.” Celestia answered.

I took another drag before nodding. “Yeah. I’m not sure why, though. It totally knew that I was from Earth, though.”

“Not it. She. And Earth? Is there a new kingdom I need to know about?” Luna raised an eyebrow.

I started to shout something inane, but Celestia was quicker than me.

“He’s not from this world, Luna,” she pointed out glancing in my direction. “He’s not even a pony. He’s what is known as a human.”

I don’t think it was unfair of me to expect confusion on Luna’s part. I do think it was unfair that I was suddenly being regarded as a rabid dog.

“A human!?” she shrieked, jumping back a step and casting this nifty blue bubble about me that sparkled and chimed like magic seems to do in Equestria. “Tia, you’re insane! Why are you bringing humans to Canterlot?!”

“Oh goodness, this stuff isn’t radioactive is it?” I asked from within my fabulous new prison, gingerly tapping on the closest surface with a hoof. “That might be bad for my complexion.”

Celestia was not having any of this. “Luna, if this is your idea of a joke, I have been awake for far too long to be asked to laugh.”

Guys. I can’t make this shit up. Luna replied with, “Tia, just trust me! Humans are dangerous! Their ingenuity is only matched by their bloodthirst.”

That took me all of about three seconds to digest. Normally it doesn’t take so long, but that… that was something else entirely.

“Bloodthirst?” I snickered derisively before dousing my cigarette on my tongue and flicking it against my prison. If I had been less distracted, I would have just burned it or something. “Oh Christ, I’ve not had the pleasure of hearing my species described by a non-human, yet. Tell me more, Luna.”

“Luna, let him go. I can assure you, his most dangerous trait is his shamelessness.” Celestia shut her eyes and rubbed just under her horn with a hoof. “How do you know of humans anyway? Have you met any?”

“No. But I’ve seen them before. The Nightmare and I could see them. While on the moon, we saw many worlds but the humans were the only other species we had seen,” she explained, never taking her eyes or bubble off of me, “They’re so completely different than us. Even time moves differently for them. But they have incredible technology. Especially where their weapons are concerned.”

“Woah. Multiverse theory is best theory!” I exclaimed happily. Maybe the Justice League did exist out there after all! “Oh, I can think of a few scientists that are going to scream when they figure that one out. Seriously, though. You don’t honestly think…”

She quite rudely interrupted me, “All I know is what I saw!”

“Well… What did you see?”

I fetched myself a new cigarette. I could tell I was going to need it for the sake of patience. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t anger easily. But misanthropy is one of my pet peeves. I find the truly cynical to be charmingly amusing at best and depressingly annoying at worst. So I steeled myself, not wanting to snap and hurt my chances of staying in Equestria’s good graces.

“Prisons holding hundreds of thousands!” she declared as though that should explain everything.

I gave a mirthful snort before lighting back up. “More like millions but go on.”

Celestia looked back and forth between us. I guess she wanted to get some answers as well. Or maybe she trusted Luna’s judgment enough to give her a say. Either way, I wasn’t worried.

“Images of violence and war being viewed for entertainment!”

Luna didn’t sound as confident this time. Which was good, actually. It meant she wasn’t one of those idiots that assume their first guess is correct no matter what and anyone that says differently is making an attack on them and their reputation. Seriously, you know how many people out there are like that? It’s staggering, and I’m certain I’m just reiterating what you already know.

“You’re either talking about memorials or possibly movies,” I replied with a nod and a one-hoof shrug. “Any other high notes you want to hit before I give my rebuttal?”

“Your leaders dedicate vast sums of currency towards the development of weapons. I can’t imagine why one would invest so heavily in violence.” And the supreme hostility finally tapered out.

“Right; heard enough. Somepony’s been watching a little too much Fox News.” I rolled my eyes before taking another drag and letting it out with a sigh.

“Okay. We’ll start with the top. Millions of people in prison? Yes. But when you take into account that there are seven-billion people on Earth, yes, you heard right… Seven billion. That’s a seven with nine cute, little zeroes chasing after that lucky bastard. Mathematically, you could have fifty-million people in prison and still not hit one percent of the population. I’m not saying we’re saints, but I am saying that you are judging the majority based on the minority.

“Now, your next point could have some merit if it were to be taken at face value. ‘Violent images being viewed for entertainment’? Yeah, that’s something we do. Humans can be pretty aggressive and action really speaks to the majority of us. However, no one goes in and watches just violence. They want the story behind it. Most people don’t even realize that they care more about the character rather than what the character actually does. And that’s just a fact. As cool as action is, we love us a damn good story even more. In fact, a good story can sell just about anything to a human, no matter what the genre. What I’m saying, Luna, is that you’ve taken our tolerance and acceptance of violence as a sign of sadism when really all it is for the most part is a heightened degree of desensitization towards darker topics.

“And now for the fun one: Weapons development! Yeah, sorry, I’ve got to shoot this down. I’m sure to the untrained eye that this is a terrible thing and it makes us look like a bunch of warmongers, but when you have a world full of passionate, ambitious people… Well, let’s just say you have to worry about protecting what you have. And nothing deters the greedy like a little bit of self-protection. A wise man once said, and I’m loosely quoting here: The best kind of weapon is the weapon that never need be used. No one’s going to swing a stick at a guy who’s holding a bigger stick than him. But hey, that argument isn’t for everyone so let me just promise you that I know humans better than you. It’s more necessary than you could possibly imagine. Because while most humans are content with what they have, it’s still wise to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.

“Now, finally, keep this little bit of information in mind. You don’t know me. All you know is some sensationalized B.S. conclusion you’ve drawn on your own. Now I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think you’ve ever met a single human, much less an average one. What you’re doing here is judging me based on limited knowledge. Ask yourself, if you did not know that I was a human, would you feel threatened by me? I can only imagine that you wouldn’t. Why? Because the fact of the matter is that I am no threat to you, Celestia, or even Equestria. And other than annoy a few ponies here and there, I’ve not bothered anyone. So if you would be so kind as to let me go, I’ll happily forget that you found it necessary to judge me guilty until proven innocent.”

Nothing happened for a few seconds. It was kind of a high-stress situation and everyone was trying to stay cool about it. I continued smoking, Luna continued holding me prison, and Celestia stared back and forth at the two of us as though she were having some trouble deciding whether she should take a side or stay out of it.

When the silence continued to stagnate though, Celestia decided to bring it to a close. “Luna. I think it’s obvious by now that you need to release him.”

“And why is that?” she responded, never taking her eyes off me.

Celestia rubbed at her eyes whilst yawning. “Because if you did feel threatened enough to imprison him without just cause, you would have already done it. Therefore you aren’t certain that he’s dangerous; meaning you would be detaining him on nothing but fear and assumption. And it’s very unbecoming of a princess to be so assuming.”

Celestia, you are just so awesome. If you had worded that any other way, it wouldn’t have been as awesome, but unintentionally repeating that line was exactly what was needed to break the situational drama.

“HAH!” I suddenly jumped up and pointed a hoof at Luna. “I TOLD YOU SO!”

“Tia,” Luna groaned, slapping a hoof over face as I began to guffaw like a boss.

Poor Celestia was so confused, but that was okay. It was a small price to pay for recanting the tension that had been growing ever more palpable. “Is there… something I missed?”

Luna sighed as she released me from my sparkly magic cage.

It was smooth sailing from thereon. Luna, while not as charming as before, was able to stop herself from being frigid and foul-tempered for the rest of the night. It didn’t take us long to get back on the subject of The Nightmare, not that that was a great help. To be perfectly honest, Luna didn’t know much more than we did. All she knew was that A) The Nightmare was symbiotic and needed a host for a lot of things, including the capacity to just think properly; B) She (Luna refers to it as a female and I don’t know why) wants to hurt a specific something or somepony but it can’t remember who; and C) The Nightmare is thoroughly convinced that it is a destroyer of civilizations even though it doesn’t have any compelling reason to be. We all concluded that there was only one thing we could deduce from all that: The Nightmare is nucking futs. Which sucks due to the fact that there really aren’t a wide variety of ways to go about handling the violently crazy.

Upon reaching that consensus, we moved to more pleasant topics. Such as Celestia’s change of eye-shadow colors. Which was actually me sticking my hoof in my mouth. I mentioned how it didn’t look that good on her. Only when Luna began to laugh did I realize that was just fatigue starting to show on the sun princess. Celestia was possessed of a great kindness, however, and did not smite my fuzzy grey plot into the ground for my insolence. Rather, she instead excused herself to bed and made mention that morning was going to be a little late. Before taking her leave, she politely suggested that it would be a good idea that Luna and I not kill one another during the night. We made no promises. Then we had that awkward situation where you’re with someone that you’re not sure you want to be around but don’t want to make matters worse by leaving for the sole reason of getting away from them.

Luckily, Luna showed how much of a big girl she was by stepping up to the plate of apologizingness.

“Look, I want to say I’m sorry for that just then.” She didn’t sound incredibly sincere, but then again it’s really hard to just throw off your suspicions all at once. The important thing was that she was making a genuine effort, begrudged as it was.

“Eh. I’ve had worse. No big deal,” I said with a smile before yawning. “Man, what time is it?”

I summoned up my phone and checked the time. I blinked as I realized I had just pushed a finger-sized button on the back of the phone with the same hoof that it was being held with and instantly had to keep myself from wondering how I managed that just to prevent my head from asploding. Still, I got what I wanted and discovered that it was already just past midnight.

“Wow,” I said with a chuckle, trying not to yawn a second time, “Well, we can either continue this conversation with some caffeine or you’re going to have to tuck me into bed.”

“What is that…?” Luna asked fearfully, staring at my Atrix 4G as though I were about to stab her to death with it.

“This? This is a phone. You talk to people with it. It keeps track of time. And the weather. And… Well, it’s called a smartphone, actually, because it does a whole bunch of things.”

“R… Really?” Dat mystified voice.

“Yeah, check this out.”

Seriously, I thought Twilight and Pinkie had been impressed. Luna was just straight up enthralled. And that was where the blessed friendshipping started. In retrospect, if it hadn’t been Luna, I probably would have been annoyed by all the questions. It was like Twilight all over again, except the direction of the conversation was all over the place. Weather prediction would lead into radars, which would quickly segway into recon boats, which would then take a turn towards the airforce, which led towards a classic airships-heavier-than-air-can’t-fly debate. Now, you might be wondering why I was giving Luna all this information after freaking out about telling the other ponies about humanity and everything relevant. My answer is that Luna already had a decent amount of exposure to humans on her own so I was more likely to dispel her fears more than giving her nasty ideas.

I had to hold the conversation hostage to get her to stop asking questions long enough to direct us to the kitchen (slightly off tangent – the castle’s kitchen is insanely well-stocked). Much to my dismay, ponies do not have coffee. Much to my delight, however, they have loads and loads of tea ingredients. You see, I’m probably the only American male that knows how to properly blend teas in my region. And with the proper equipment, you can make a blend of Matѐ tea that outshines coffee in flavor, aroma, and even amount of caffeine. Anyway, I couldn’t remember a good mix off the top of my head, so I did what any sensible guy with a smart phone would do: Google it.

Well, that was a mistake. Rather, answering Luna’s curious question as to what I was doing with the phone was where the mistake came into play. The idea of being able to access entire archives of information with a device no bigger than a hoof was tripping her out. I thought the first questionnaire was bad? I thought I was going to have to look up how to acid-etch a circuit board before she would let me make my damn tea! Not that I minded, I was still in the middle of an ongoing geek-out that I was getting to chill with Luna. Even coupled with that enthusiasm though, I still wasn’t able to keep up with her. So yet a second time, I had to hold the conversation hostage just to keep my wits about me. I realize I’m making the poor thing sound incredibly geeky, but let’s be honest here: Technology looks as amazing to the ponies as magic looks to us. If you can keep that in mind, you’ll have an easier time of understanding why it was freaking her out so much.

“Woah, Luna, stop right there,” I begged as I finished fetching the last of the tea’s ingredients, interrupting her spiel on how obsolete divination spells would become if ponies had access to a device such as my smartphone. Seriously, she’s something of a nerd. In a good way, though. She wasn’t being obnoxious as much as she was just being a skosh overwhelming. And I think you all can find it quite believable that I know what it’s like to become hopelessly and uncontrollably excited.

“Sorry!” She half grimaced, half smiled. “I’m just… I don’t think you realize just how incredible…”

“No, I totally realize! It’s nasty cool. And I get that containing so much excitement is damn near impossible. Just ask Twilight and Rainbow Dash. I went crazy when I first met them. Hell, I even lost consciousness,” I countered with a smile of my own. “I just need your help real quick. I need to heat this water up and I metaphorically suck so badly at magic that it’s comparable to a singularity.”

Luna processed that pretty slowly, blinking a bit before snort-laughing. By Celestia’s beard, that was almost too adorable to handle. The stupid mare nearly killed me some cruel mixture of heart failure and diabeetus.

“That was clever,” she snickered, hiding her muzzle behind a hoof as she tried to suppress her snorty snickers. “With the meta… Hee! Metaphorically sucking and black holes. That’s… -snort!-”

“Dude, you are like the least princess-y princess, ever,” I mocked with the most serious face I could muster for a solid three seconds.

Truthfully, I really couldn’t help but start to laugh as well. It was one of those times where you start laughing because someone else is trying not to laugh and failing so badly at it. This in turn causes a laughing feedback which escalates into a cacophony of two or more idiots laughing at one another laughing at one another. Laughception!

It took us awhile to get a hold of ourselves, but not before we’d spent a solid minute or more hooting it up like a pair of dumbasses.

“Oh wow,” she murmured before wiping her eyes and shaking her head at the current level of ludicrousness. “So you really need help with just warming some water? That’s pretty basic stuff, actually.”

“Umm… Yeah, I haven’t been a unicorn for a whole two days yet, so I know next to nothing, really.” I admitted, blushing as I showed her my most apologetic grin.

She jokingly rolled her eyes before letting out a sigh of faux exasperation. “Well, since you were nice enough to answer all my questions, I suppose can be bothered to do the same for you.”

“Awesome.” I floated her the cup of water and nodded eagerly. “Even if you were rude just then.”

She took that as a slight which was actually a perfect setup. “I was not!”

“Oh yeah? What’s my name, Princess of the Night?” I stuck my tongue out at her before pointing at the cup. “And heat the bloody water already.”

The shock on her face was rather entertaining. Crazy how such incredibly large details like that can be overlooked.

“My stars! Celestia never introduced you!”

Heh… ‘My stars,’ indeed!

“Nope,” I responded with a big grin before looking back at the top and frowning, “Hey, don’t forget about the water.”

“I’m sorry, how ru-…” Damn it, she almost said it, too! But unfortunately, she caught herself just before letting the damning word pass her lips and instead just gave me a sly look. “Nice try there, smart guy.”

“It almost worked. And seriously… I would totally be grateful for that water.” I should have just shut up after that. Really, I should have. I mean, her horn started to glow and she looked down at the cup of water in her hoof and I was about to have my hot tea. Instead, I opened my big fat mouth and distracted her again. I’m, like, my own worst enemy! “And on the offchance that you actually care, the name is Anon-Pony.”

She looked at me and the twinkly magic around her horn dissipated. She arched an eyebrow and stared at me as though I were speaking communism or something. “‘A Non Pony’? Really?”

“No, the water!” I cried out before face-hoofing and letting out a helpless sigh. “Anon-pony. As in a portmanteau of ‘anonymous’ and ‘pony’!”

“What…? Why would your parents name you that?”

I think it was on purpose. It had to be. She was just screwing around with me and I was too distracted by being too tired to notice at the time. I mean, she may be a pony, but make no mistake, Luna’s a master troll. I didn’t know this at the time, sadly. All I knew then was that I wanted my caffeinated tea and she wouldn’t give it to me! She wouldn’t give it to me! Why wouldn’t she just give me the damn tea?! Why was I stupid enough to continue answering her stupid questionnaire rather than do as I did before and just hold the conversation hostage?! Why did Rainbow Dash yell at the stupid stack of rocks in Party of One?!

“Luna, please,” I whimpered, sticking out my bottom lip, “The water.”

“Oh!” She was acting innocent, but I swear, I saw her struggling to not smile. Maybe it was all in my head, but I wouldn’t have put money on that being the case! The important thing, though, was that she began to heat the water and I did not speak again until it was good and steamy. “Have some.”

“Wee!” I squealed in delight, taking hold of the piping hot cup and setting it beside the tray of tea ingredients. “Finally. Let it… begin! Let it begin!”

I glanced back at her as I gathered everything in a steeping pouch and set it in the water.

“Sorry about that, I was just… Well, it just doesn’t make any sense.” And then she channeled Twilight… “You don’t lack identity. At worst you merely lack a moniker.”

Oh, that struck a nerve. I felt my bottom left eyelid twitch in fury as I continued to stir the tea bag around.

“What I mean to say is that, technically, you’re not anonymous,” she pointed out as politely as she could.

“This again?!” I lost my temper, flinging my hooves up into the air and unintentionally knocking over my teacup. I gasped in horror and dived to save it, but all I managed to do was smack the tray that held all the ingredients prepared on it and flip it on a fulcrum angled perfectly to fling it all on Luna.

“NOOO, MY BABIES!” I roared in protest despite being unable to stop the madness from happening. On instinct alone, I dived to catch the tray, but all I really managed to do was tackle the poor princess and send us smashing into a cabinet full of what was probably more precious china than the entirety of my apartment’s dish and silverware. I’m not going into details about what was said afterwards, but your hint is that Luna has quite the potty mouth. Also, some pony out there with a china teacup for a Cutie-Mark was able to retire, assuming half the shit we broke got replaced.

Well, it had been an interesting night to say the least. After cleaning up and cooling off my burning ears, - She called me a motherless blank flank! What the hell! That’s probably six times as offensive as it sounds, and it sounds downright hurtful! - I decided I would explore the atrium. I figured Luna would go do her own thing, but instead she elected to continue pestering me. Well, it wasn’t really her pestering me as much as the other way around, but she knew the risks when she chose to continue hanging around me. To be straight with you, I was actually trying to ask her questions to keep her from asking me a bunch of questions. I didn’t mind answering them, I was just afraid that things were going to take an inevitable turn towards the uglier side of humanity. Besides, Stupid Tissy Bird seemed to stay away when I wasn’t alone and I was just dandy with that.

As we walked out into the courtyard, I couldn’t help but spot the statue that I had so gracefully cracked my skull upon. I had not seen it without double vision until just then, so I was kind of shocked by its majesty. Seriously, it was huge and made of petrified wood and marble, with big dazzling sapphires for eyes. The armor was unique, and a bit flared at the edges with the helmet removed. The wings were outspread, proving to be just as large as Celestia’s, if not even moreso. I found myself wondering just who this guy was and I’d been running out of questions anyway. Besides, there were obviously a few differences between the continuity I was familiar with and the actual history of Equestria; so I figured, why the hell not, right?

“So,” I said as we approached the statue. “Who is this big ol’ hunk of pegasus?”

I moved closer to the memorial plaque that was set on the pedestal in front of the statue. It was very simple, surprisingly. No special inlays or anything, just that weird wing-ding language that the ponies have engraved into a plain plate of what was either bronze or gold. Couldn’t be certain in the dim night lighting.

“Oh. Him,” Luna replied. Her voice struggled to break flat, but there was a slight crack in her words.

I faced her somewhat, taking note of the regret that had suddenly stained her demeanor. “Memories much?”

“Bad ones,” she confirmed with a soft sigh, lifting her head a bit to look the statue in the eyes.

“Oh.” Well, shit. I didn’t want to dredge up the rough times; I just wanted to ask a few questions.

“Well uh… I know what it’s like to not want to dig up a rough past. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Never let it be said that I am a hypocrite, even if I sometimes tend to be one!

“No, it’s fine.” She narrowed her eyes a bit before glancing my way with a sad smirk. “I had plenty of time to think about what I had done. A thousand years, in fact.”

Well, they say time heals all wounds, right?

I let out a soft chuckle. “Yeah, I guess if you aren’t going to get over it with that much time, chances are you just aren’t going to get over it.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Indeed.”

“Well, if you’re sure it’s okay to talk about it, then who is he?” I looked back at the gibberish engraved onto the plaque. “I can’t read your freaky pictograms here.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me,” she replied with a snicker before glancing at the pedestal in front of me. “Well, since we don’t we don’t have any six-year olds to translate for you...”

“Oh, we’ve got us a six-year old!” I interrupted her, complimenting my sarcasm with a roll of the eyes. “She just happens to be older than dirt in all actuality.”

Her snicker graduated into a full-on laugh for a few moments. I had to listen to the whole thing, too. Not that it lasted especially long, but damn, it sucks to be the butt of Luna’s humor. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.

“You done yukin’ it up over there, chuckles?” I facehoofed, unable to resist letting a snort of my own.

“Oh, I suppose,” she said with smile before looking back at the commemorative inscription. “It says ‘Winter Sky – Hero of Equestria – May the worth of your sacrifice be reflected in all our actions’.”

“Sacrifice?” I tilted my head, looking back and forth between her and the statue.

“We did battle a thousand years ago when I let The Nightmare take control. She… We killed him,” she answered, raising her gaze to stare up at the statue and letting out a remorseful sigh. “His sacrifice gave Celestia the time she needed to save Equestria from us using the Elements of Harmony. I… Well, we thought she wouldn’t be able to use them without me. I’m glad that wasn’t the case.”

If you heard the squeal of tires just before a tumultuous explosion, let me assuage your fears by saying that was actually my perception of Equestria’s cartoonyness flying into the jagged rocks of reality whereupon it detonated violently. Seriously. My jaw dropped. Not only was this a memorial to a pony that died, but the pegasus in question actually perished by way of violence. Holy hell. I just wasn’t ready for that! I wasn’t ready for that at all!

“Woah.” My eyes were not wide enough to properly displayed just how floored I was, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t as wide as they could get.

“Mmm,” she commented, still staring at the statue.

I don’t think Luna realized I wasn’t making observations about her and her past, but rather was still trying to adjust myself to the reality that there was honest-to-God tragedy here in this world. I’m serious, the idea of a pony dying to save all of Equestria was mind fragging. I’m sure it was an awesome, noble story and everything but still. Ponies dying. I guess there are some harsh facts about life that one simply does not escape from, no matter how wonderful a society you live in.

I let out a soft whistle before looking back up at the statue.

“Uh-huh.” Luna turned away from the memorial and began to trot away.

I moved to trot alongside her, blinking as I continued to struggle with the acceptance of what I had just learned. “That’s… Wow.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t have a complex related to it or anything, else you might be upsetting me.” The sardonic edge in her voice was more than enough of a hint to realize that I needed to get a grip and stop freaking out.

“Sorry. But… Can you really blame yourself?” I asked, hoping to be helpful in any way possible. “I mean, The Nightmare was the one in control, right?”

“I guess if you were one to argue semantics or were looking to dodge responsibility, then yes. It wasn’t directly my fault,” she mused aloud, keeping her voice level and calm, “But the facts are that I let my petty jealousy consume me enough that I gave myself over willingly. I may have not have swung the sword, but I was the only one that could draw it. It was a… grave mistake. One that I will never repeat within the eternity of my life.”

This was the moment in life where Luna stopped being a half-nerd, half-smartass princess to being a deep, strong-hearted individual with a silly edge and a rough past. For me, that was totally relatable. I don’t think I’m nearly as deep or strong-hearted, personally, but I can definitely say that I know where that kind of thinking comes from.

“Damn, that’s…” I struggled as I contemplated Luna’s desire to accept responsibility. “I… I don’t… Shit, I don’t know a lot of people that would own up to their actions like that. I suppose asking if you’re alright would be a stupid thing to do.”

She smirked a bit, before looking at me out of the corner of my eye. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Alright. Are you sure you’re okay with me knowing all this, though? This is some pretty candid stuff, so… I mean, I know I’d be a lot more hesitant to air out my closet like that,” I murmured, lowering my head. She made it look so easy, but anyone with a tough past can tell you that it’s a hundred times harder than it looks. And that’s with the knowledge that it doesn’t look easy to begin with.

“Well, it’s rather common knowledge. I’m sure you would have stumbled across it one day eventually,” she offered dryly.

We walked in silence for few more minutes. It was a nice break from all the zaniness I was prone to causing. I almost commented that this had to be a hallucination simply for the fact that I had not been painfully injured within the last hour. Though I will admit, that was mostly due to poor, defenseless Luna cushioning my assault on the fine china cabinet. Which was still her fault, by the way.

“Well, you suddenly make a lot more sense, at least,” I said suddenly, surprising even myself.

She arched an eyebrow at me in suspicion as we made our way out of the atrium and up the steps leading into the palace itself. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” I turned right around halfway and gently laid back on the steps, throwing my hooves behind my head and staring up at the moon. It was so much bigger than the one back on Earth. Well, it was likely the same size and just a bit closer instead. Whatever the case, it was pretty mystifying.

“And why’s that?” Luna did that pony sitting thing where they sorta just curl their legs under themselves. And it looks un-freakin’-comfortable to say the least.

“Humor as a coping mechanism,” I pointed out as I conjured myself another ‘Smokey Treat’ and lit up. “I do the same thing. Like… For everything. It takes the edge off of life’s nastier side. Helps to get me through the day. And helps a lot of other people, too.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t deign to sit, but rather conjured herself up a dark cloud to perch herself upon. “Y’know, you aren’t as stupid as you act or look.”

I stuck my tongue out at the moon. It wasn’t actually Luna, but close enough. “Well, unfortunately I can’t say the same about you.”

She snickered a bit. “Okay, okay, I’ll admit, I walked into that one. Are all humans as quick on the retort?”

“Hah!” I snorted, letting one side of my mouth curl up with a bit of arrogance. “They wish. Some are. Not many though. The best ones know how to sing or add rhythm to their comebacks, though. Those are fun. Most humans, though, don’t know how to string together a derogatory slur well enough to agitate a sink full of dishwater.”

“Huh.” She smiled down at me from her cloudy perch upon high. “You know, I’m glad I didn’t go with my gut instinct of imprisoning you without cause. You’re nothing like the humans that The Nightmare showed me. Just as dangerous, though; I’ll be lucky if I don’t have a bruise for the next week!”

“That’s because no two humans are the same.” I took another drag as I looked back up at her. “We’re so freaking diverse and numerous that there are hundreds of countries; dozens of religions; hundreds of thousands, if not millions of towns and cities.”

“I had no idea,” she mused, smiling a bit. “It’s incredible, really.”

“Hah!” I replied dryly before shaking my head. “No, this place is incredible. I mean, do you guys have wars?”

“Never.”

“Plagues?”

“Not with the aid of magic.”

“And crime, I hear is almost nonexistent.”

She considered that for a moment before giving a helpless wing shrug. I just wanted to punch those feathery attachments. I think you know why by now.

“It does cause quite a stir when it does come up, I suppose,” she admitted.

“Right. I hear about hundreds of crimes every week. Just within my region,” I pointed out with a tired sigh. “This place though? This is a utopia. This is where it’s at.”

Luna began to absently pick at her cloud with her hooves, glaring at it as though it were offending her. She spoke just as I began to take another puff off my cigarette, “It’s boring.”

“Objection!” I tried to croak through the smoke in my throat, causing me to hack up a lung for the next several seconds. After recovering, I defended my statement with watery eyes and a cracked voice, “This place is the shit! It’s an entire society that believes in altruism! How amazing is that?!”

“But humans have such drive and aspirations!” She sat up and directed her glare at me, throwing a hoof out as though to indicate everything around us. “Without magic, ponies would pale in comparison. Look at your technology! It looks more magical than what we use! And we use actual magic!”

If I had thought more on the matter, that would have made more sense. But my initial reaction was to dismiss such a ludicrous notion. “No way.”

“That glass of yours. The one you called a ‘Smart Phone’ earlier,” she said as she hopped off her cloud, casting a second spell to create a breeze to push away my cigarette smoke. “I saw the date, time, and weather! You may not realize how incredibly useful that knowledge could be, especially the last one. Unicorns would exhaust themselves if they tried to cast three divination spells within an hour.”

I started to contemplate the implications that she was getting at. I mean, if you were a farmer and didn’t need to guess the entire week’s weather, it could end up saving you plenty of time and hardship. And that was excluding the more impressive technology that we had access to. But a lot of it could be worked for ponies to use. Such as crop-dusting. Hell, it would cost a lot less for a pegasus to crop dust than some expensive plane with expensive fuel, not to mention you would still have to hire the expensive pilot. Anyway, this was all going through my head so I kinda-sorta forgot to pay attention to the conversation. It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally ideas will race through my head so rapidly that I am no longer aware of everything that’s going on around me.

“Hellooo? Stupid human?” Luna waved a hoof in front of my face.

“Wh…?” I blinked before coming back down to Earth… Err… Equestria and looking back at her, “Oh. Hi, Luna. Have you considered pegasus crop dusting?”

“What!?” She’s so cute when she’s frustrated. “What is that and how does that have anything to do with what we were just talking about?!”

“Everything,” I said before taking one final drag off my cigarette and then held it up in my hoof. I began staring at it as hard as I could until it poofed into flame. It was getting easier, but I was still having some difficulty. It wasn’t until I saw Luna on the other side of the ashes that I got an idea. I immediately sat up with my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open.

“Wait! I got it!” I cried with a bubbly sensation welling up from the inside of the happy spot in my brain. “Okay! Get this! Since I’m going to be here in Equestria for a while, why don’t we help each other out? I’ve got the magical know-how to basically flip a pancake and that’s about it. I barely managed to grab three things at once this morning, and that was just a spur of the moment mixed in with a little bit of awesome.”

Luna raised an eyebrow and tilted her head as though she were struggling with the implications. “Wait, you want me to teach you magic? Me. The Princess. Not somepony more professional?”

“Maybe if I wanted to go about it in the most boring way possible.” I’m not going to lie. Learning magic from some stuffy professor sounded about as exciting as a prying off my fingernails with a crowbar. Which, amusingly enough, would get my heart rate up and going, but not in a good way. “And in exchange, I will answer any… Well… Most questions about humans.”

“Why only most!?” she cried with an adorable voice crack. Seriously, it was brutally endearing.

“Because there are some things I don’t want to expose ponies to,” I murmured sheepishly, “Humans can be really freakin’ horrific, Luna. And not even on purpose half the time.”

She cut a glare back at me that let me know she wasn’t satisfied with that argument. “That doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”

“You can always ask some other human… OH WAIT!” I can be a jerk sometimes.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re a jerk.”

See, even Luna agrees.

“C’mon. It’ll be fun.” I got to my hooves and hopped a couple times to emphasize my excitement. “We’ll both learn stuff and if things go well enough… That is, if you can handle some slightly grittier stuff, then maybe… Keep in mind, ‘maybe’ does not mean promise! Maybe… Just maybe we can start going into the darker subjects. Maybe. MAYBE!”

She mulled that over, pursing her lips as she considered the offer with half-lidded eyes aimed off to the side. One smirk later and I knew my fate been sealed.

“One condition,” she said, her eyes meeting mine with sinister intent, “When magic training makes you cry, and it will, you have to do it in front of me so I can laugh.”

AND LIKE A DUMBASS I SAID: “Deal!”

Remember when I said that I read the fine print? Yeah, this is proof that I was full of shit when I said that.

Chapter Five - Part One: Burning Books and Tech for Fun and Profit!

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

Patty Cake. A damnable pony if ever there was one. She advertised herself as a celebrity chef pony but the fact of the matter was that she had been created for the sole purpose of driving me insane. How? Oh, well it’s simple. The stupid mare took such pride in her work that she had enchanted all of her books to make them resistant to damage of any kind, thus keeping resale value high. Or so she said. The truth was that she was somewhere out there, rubbing her stupid villainous hooves together as she snickered at my feeble attempts to defeat her magic. I know that’s why Luna chose this book. Because it was amusing for her to give me impossible tasks and watch me fail at them.

“Last try, Hot Head,” Luna reminded me for the umpteenth time.

I glared at that *#&^ing book with all the anger I could manage. I was dis-frigg’n-pleased with its existence. The Incredible Edible Hay was the bane of my happiness. It wanted nothing more than to ruin my life, and I’ll be damned if something wasn’t doing a good job of it. Maybe it was the humid, greenhouse-like air that the garden seemed to have at all times, day or night. Maybe it was the annoying ringing song of Patty’s protection spell that kept me from directly burning the book. Most likely though, it was that damn brown pony (no doubt the villainous Patty Cake) staring off the cover art at me as though she were the most badass mare to ever have her countenance printed on paper and sold next to the ‘Cooking for Dumb Ponies’.

I’m being awesome and nopony can stop me, it practically screamed at me. Oh, I wanted to prove it wrong so badly. So very, very badly.

“It vexes me,” I growled, resisting the urge to grab the book and futilely attempt to rip it in half.

I guess I should explain why it was being such a successful source of fury. Well, put quite simply, I was trying to cast a spell on the book. The book was trying to resist the spell because it didn’t like the idea of being transformed into a small pile of ashes and an intangible archive of information within my mind. Handy spell, eh? Do all of your reading all at once. Woo! Awesome! Unfortunately, though, I had yet to make the spell work because, as I said, the book objected to my attempt at fiery destruction/transformation. But last I checked, the book itself did not have rights. I, on the other hoof, had rights. Like the right to happiness. And this book was getting in the way of that right. I’m pretty sure you get the death penalty for that back in Australia or Canada or something. I know they do it in Sweden, at least.

“Please hurry up and fail already.” That was Luna being supportive. Usually she just screamed at me until I ran away crying. And then she would beat me with a bar of soap in a sock. Or maybe I dreamed that all up, but it’s not like that would be out of character for her or anything. “It’s almost time for me to go to bed.”

“Seriously, I’ve yet to successfully singe the book!” I cried out in frustration, slamming a hoof down in anger. “How am I supposed to incinerate it and slurp up the words!?”

She perked up a bit before reaching up a hoof to gently tap her chin.

“Y’know, I never thought about it that way,” she mused aloud before suddenly tensing up as if she were straining. “If I can just… Wait… Wait… I just...!”

I took a step back. Sorry, but there’s just no reason to take unnecessary risks. For all I know, she might be trying to turn me into a newt. As it turned out, she was just being stupid.

“Nope, sorry.” She relaxed before smiling back at me. “I couldn’t bring myself to care.”

“How unfortunate,” I droned sardonically.

“Cast the spell,” she ordered with a soft yawn, waving a dismissive hoof at me.

I sat up and crossed my hooves angrily. “You cast it!”

“I did. Twice,” she pointed out dryly. “Hurry up, already. It’s almost time for me to go to bed.”

I blinked and looked behind me at the horizon. Sure enough, the sky was starting to take on a telltale greenish tint.

“Word?” I murmured.

“Word,” she confirmed after lifting a foreleg up for random hoof inspection.

Oh, there’s a story behind that, if you care. See, I tend to use a wide variety of slang, and Luna’s smart enough to discern the meaning of each one nearly every time. Now, I had said ‘word’ once before and for some unfathomable reason, it had amused her. A lot. And so it stuck. Which led to a lot of silliness. All that was lacking were fingers to throw out ‘deuces’ with. And shutter shades. That girl needed shutter-shades so badly. Because you… Well, y’know, every punk needs a pair of shutter-shades. u c wut i did thar?

“Um. Right.” I was feeling a little on-the-spot; I’ll admit it. “Uh… Third time’s the charm?”

“Right. Incentive then!” she remarked with a cold, crooked smile crawling up the side of her face. “I’m going to chain you to Lucky for a week if you don’t cast the spell successfully before I count to ten.”

Oh, the unmitigated horror that manifested onto my face. If you think she’s kidding, then you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. Holy accidental homicide (Hippocide?), Batman! Last week she literally chained me to Lucky for a day and gave us a list of errands to do throughout the day. Never again. Understand? Not for all the gold in Fort Knox. Not for Half Life 3. Not for anything, alright? You feel me? I barely survived. It was brutal. Bless Lucky’s little try-hard heart, she did her best to prevent harm from coming to me but there was just nothing that could have saved me. But I’ve figured it out. Lucky isn’t just lucky. She’s what we will from now on refer to as a Good Luck Singularity. That’s how she does it. She takes everyone else’s good luck and leaves only bad luck around her. If Lucky were to stand in a freakin’ crowd of ponies, a meteor would smash into the crowd with a Lucky-sized, Lucky-shaped hole in the middle that would spare her life. But the worst part? She’ll assume every bad thing happening around her is her fault and cry about it. And as annoying as it sounds, it’s equally heartbreaking to actually watch because there is no way to convince her that she’s wrong. Because, in all honesty, she probably isn’t.

“W-What?!” I gasped as my eyes widened in terror. “Don’t you mean ‘if you try to cast it successfully’?!”

“Nope.” She set her hoof back down and turned that demonic smile my way. “Your belligerence has worked a nerve. It’s do-or-die time. One.”

“C’mon!” I begged, “That’s not even fair!”

“Two.”

“Luuunaaaa~!” I whimpered with all my might, “I suck at magic! There’s no way I’ll be able to cast it!”

My pleas fell on deaf, trollish ears. “Three.”

“Wait… This is all just your plan to watch me suffer for a week!” I shoved an accusing hoof in her face.

“Four,” she continued, a smirk slowly sliding up the left side of her face, utterly unperturbed by my hoof invading her personal space.

“AGH! You’re EVIL! You’re so evil, I’m going to write a song about you!” I roared in defiance.

“Five.”

“You’re an evil enchantress and you do evil dances!” I did the dance, too! “And if they look into your eyes, you’ll put them in trances!”

“Six,” she replied, undaunted.

“YOU THREW OFF MY GROOVE!” I might have been getting desperate.

“Seven.”

“Ahhh… Ahh!” This is where sincere panic began to finally settle in. “FINE! JUST STOP COUNTING, I’LL DO IT!”

“Lenience denied.” Her voice was so calm. So pleasant. And @#%*ing evil. “Cast the spell. Eight.”

“B-But!” I stared down at the book. Patty Cake. It was all her fault. God damn it, I would not let her be the death of me.

“Last chance. Give it a shot or suffer slowly at the hooves of Lucky’s aura of entropy,” she reminded me, “Nine.”

“AAAGH!!!” I reared up and slammed my hooves down around the book. I’d seen Luna cast this spell at least twenty times over the past several days and I had yet to even toast a piece of paper. But I was not going to spend another day chained to Lucky, much less a week. That just wasn’t going to happen. Period. I would be taking a flying leap off a high diving board into an empty pool before that happened. So this was it. Me. Or Patty Cake.

I won.

This was quite literally the most rewarding lesson ever. Seriously, the laws of magic are so frick’n numerous and contradictory that only brain-tanks like Twilight Sparkle are able to memorize them all and apply them with theory alone. I am not that intelligent. Sure, I may have decent judgment, but that means nothing when I need to open a book and use the information within to build… Well, anything, really. However, Luna’s old enough to know that there is more than one way to skin a cat and teach a pony for that matter.

When I first asked Luna the science behind it, she told me that I would never actually be able to keep it all straight; specifically that the academic path was beyond me. That really irked me, to be honest. I mean, she all but said that I was too stupid to learn magic in a traditional sense. Instead, I would be learning the ‘artistic’ way. I call it that because the only way she was able to make a comparison was learning how to draw. You first start out unable to curve your lines just right and because of this, you pretty much suck at it. But then you practice and you practice and you keep practicing and before you know it, the same hand that refused to do exactly what you told it to do is suddenly obeying you.

Anyway, back to the dreaded countdown. Hmm. How shall I describe this? Well, try this on for size: Eat four crackers without any water before, in between, or after. And then grab a peanut butter sandwich on white bread with no jelly and cram that down as fast as you can. You (probably) won’t choke to death (Actually, don’t try this…), but it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Now imagine trying to do that with your brain. It’s like seeing and hearing way too many things at once and neither covering your ears nor closing your eyes is going to help. That’s what happened for about ten seconds straight. I wasn’t even able to perceive what was going on around me until Luna finally tapped my shoulder with a hoof. I startled a tad before blinking and looking at her with was likely the most dumbfounded expression I’ve ever had.

The smirk on her face grew a little bigger as I realized that I suddenly had access to everything there was to know about cooking with hay. I didn’t ‘know it’ per se, but I could ‘open’ the book within my mind and reference everything as though I had committed a picture of every last page to memory. If I had not been so overwhelmed I would have dropped an awesome line, like… I dunno… ‘I know Cook-Fu’ or something clever like that.

“Faith, focus, conviction and imagination.” She tapped her hoof on the ground for each word she cited (which made me think of that stupid counting donkey). “Those are the four legs upon which unicorn magic stands. Do you understand why the spell worked this time?”

I shook my head, staring down back at the small pile of ashes that had once been a cook book.

“In the past, what were you lacking?”

I started to answer, but I instead found myself chuckling. The magic found my lack of faith disturbing. I guess I should be glad it didn’t attempt to choke me to death or something.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I replied before facehoofing and giving her a nod. “Lack of faith, right?”

“Exactly. I didn’t give you time to truly contemplate just how futile this last attempt would be, so it worked,” she smiled before returning my nod with one of her own. “Congratulations. You’ve graduated Luna’s Magic School. And you only cried once!”

“I did not c-… Wait, what?” I tilted my head in shock. “That’s it? We’ve only been at this… what, two weeks?”

“Yup. That was the final test. You passed!” she said with faux excitement before casting a silly little cap and gown on me. “I’ve never been so proud! My first magic student graduated in record time.”

She then gasped teasingly, holding a hoof over her mouth, “My goodness! That means you’re a prodigy! Wow, I’m good.”

“I don’t get it! I can’t even pick up an egg without breaking it!”

Luna suddenly glared at me before conjuring a thin wooden ruler and breaking it over my head.

“AGH! What the hell, Luna!” I cried, rubbing the offended spot as I glared at her.

“Faith, focus, conviction, and imagination, my former pupil,” she growled before pointing at the pile of ashes yet again. “That spell was one of the most difficult spells I could have made you cast. Not only were the effects lacking a physical display, but you had never cast a spell that affected the mind before in your entire life. Do you know what that means? That means you can cast anything easier than that. You just have to have the faith. That’s all you were lacking, my silly little grasshopper. If that was a nine point four on a difficulty scale of one to ten, then a nine point three is well within your grasp. And every time you say the word can’t, you are only making it harder on yourself.”

I continued to rub the newly-formed welt on the back of my head before glancing back down at the pile of ash. Without meaning to, I began to wonder aloud.

“But what can I cast then?”

“I can’t tell you that, silly. That would prevent you from using your imagination,” she trotted up beside me and mussed the front of my mane. “Try to stick with what you know and branch out from there.”

I poked out my bottom lip and thought on that for a bit before being struck with a random idea.

“I already do lots of fire!” I exclaimed excitedly before looking at Luna, “Watch this! Fire-breathing pony!”

I think she facehoofed, but I wasn’t paying close attention. “No, you can’t ac-…”

And then I roared out a wave of fire that had to be at least a good twenty feet long. My reaction? Hop around like a maniac before squealing in delight and hugging Luna’s neck excitedly.

“I’M A PYRO PONY!” I shrieked as I continued to hop whilst continuing to be attached to the silly night pony.

“You’re a freak of nature is what you are,” she replied before covering her mouth for a yawn. “And that’s my bedtime. Be sure to tell Tia that you mastered magic faster than her beloved Twilight Sparkle.”

“I think I’d rather be chained to Lucky for a week,” I replied, detaching myself from her before turning to watch her depart. “Sweet dreams, Princess.”

“Don’t call me that,” she quipped as she waved a wing in farewell. “and put that bench back.”

Yeah, I stole a bench from the courtyard and dragged it to the garden because, strangely enough, the warm air combined with the shade of the trees was, without a doubt, the most comfortable place to crash. It was stuffy as hell at night, but there was an awesome breeze during the day and one could just fall asleep standing straight up.

And no, I wasn’t going to put it back.

Well, the following night was pretty damned crazy if you ask me. I had slept through most of the day (because my stupid phone alarm won’t wake me up unless I leave it out in the open), successfully made my first Equestrian cheese pizza (I thought Cookie was going to explode in jealousy when Celestia commented on the tastiness of it), burned a map of Canterlot into my brain for navigational purposes, and squee’d at Lyra and Bon Bon (both of whom I’ll forgive for calling the guards on me). I hadn’t seen Luna, yet. Not that I was crazy to butt heads with her that night. It had been all fun and games so far, but today was the day when Luna got her turn in the education trade. And she was not going to like being told ‘no’ when she asked some of the questions I was expecting to inevitably come up. Still, I was going to be fat, happy, and sassy until that moment arrived.

“My little pony~! My little pony~! Ahhh~ Ahhh~ Ahhh~ Ahhh~!” I sang as I bounced around the Royal Canterlot Kitchen of Ponyness (Name Not Yet Official (But it will be)) . “D’ya know you’re all my very best frieeennnds~!”

Winter was fast on approach and I was high on illegal amounts of happy. I’d been in Equestria for all of half a month and becoming homesick wasn’t even starting to possibly be a problem in the foreseeable future. I mean, I don’t hate my life back where I’m from, but I was digging the magical world of friendship. I had yet to get my cutie-mark, unfortunately, but that’s okay. I had magic. And the know-how to make tea. And the capacity to combine the two into a practice exercise. And the capacity to GEEK THE HELL OUT.

“Why do you sing so much?” Starlight asked me from her perch atop the new china shelf as I continued with the making of my tea by setting the teapot atop my hoof. Much to the happiness of my inner-squee (AKA Lafter), using magic was getting easier. I mean, I didn’t even have to try hard for it to turn red like a stove-iron. Hot Hoof Magic~! You are so awesome~!

Luna had given me unlimited access to the kitchen, provided I only used magic whenever I wanted to make anything. That had really cut into my snacking for nearly ten days straight, but now I was getting pretty dang good at whippin’ those ingredients around.

“Singing is good for the soul, my violent blue friend!” I replied cheerfully as I continued steeping the bag of tea, separately using a spoon to gently stir the ever-darkening water.

“Right.” She sighed, bored as usual.

Starlight was second-in-command of the Sky Archons. As such, she was trusted with the night as the Captain, named Storm Wing, took care of the day. Whereas this ‘Storm Wing’ was Celestia’s go-to pony, Starlight served directly under Luna. You would think that would mean that both Luna and Starlight would, at the very least, come to an agreement to have a professional standard to which they adhered in an effort to make working with one another a neutral experience at worst. Such was not the case. Fact was they couldn’t stand one another. Both of them were intelligent, stubborn, competent, and very opinionated. That last one wouldn’t be a problem if they shared an opinion or two. Safe to say, they do not. However, being that literally only one out of every fifty ponies stays up past ten at night, there isn’t a wide variety of neighbors to chillax with. Me? I can stay up twenty-four hours straight before losing consciousness, so I’m all over the place, any time, day or night. And since Starlight would rather talk to anyone but Luna, she hangs around me when I’m not having magic lessons. Even if she finds me incredibly annoying.

“You should sing!” I exclaimed as I made her a cup of her own. “One lump or two, Miss Killer?”

Starlight decided she felt like being a fussybritches. “I don’t drink tea. Tea is for little fillies. So is singing. I think that makes you a little filly, No-Name.”

No-Name was pretty much my adopted moniker because nobody would give me a good pony name. Luna tried a few ideas, but they all sucked hard enough to strip the paint off your bathroom walls. The only reason I liked No-Name was because it was close to Anon-Pony and fairly unique. The only pony that didn’t like it was Celestia, and even she’d slipped a few times (not that she would ever admit to it).

“Yeah, well, your face is a little filly, so let us fill it with tea and song,” I counter-grumped, putting two lumps into her cup and floating it her way. “Enjoy or suffer. Your call.”

She grumped a bit more, glaring at the cup before reluctantly taking hold of it and snagging a sip. I make awesome tea, okay? It breaks your will and forces you to drink it. It suffers no intolerance to pass.

“I’m only drinking this because I don’t like to waste,” she said with a ghost of a smile.

“You’re so noble.” I stuck my tongue out at her before moving to the closest window and lighting up with my tea in hoof. “So, Starlight, were you part of the Sky Archons when Nightmare Moon attacked Equestria last year?”

“Yes, indeed,” she answered, giving her wing a flap to create a breeze that helped to push my cigarette smoke outside.

Sky Archons, I’ve come to discover, are pretty much the pony equivalent of America’s Marines or Russian Spetsnaz. Straight up. They are always pegasi, and are comparable to Wonderbolts on crack. They’ve special weather-control training that borders on the WMD scale when working in cohesion with one another. Once, I saw them make a tornado. It was big. I was frightened. I hid behind Luna. I feel no shame. From what I understand, not even Celestia and Luna are as combat capable as these guys. That in mind, I just had to know one thing…

“Where were the Sky Archons when that happened?” I asked, turning a curious stare her way.

Starlight’s eyes rolled so hard that they ran the risk of popping out of her head. Also, I exaggerate. Seriously, though, I can tell that she did not appreciate the question, but only because of the answer.

“Sitting on our flanks in Canterlot; that’s where.” Her words were dripping with venom, as though she still felt insulted by the situation. “Princess Celestia ordered us to do nothing.”

I blinked before tilting my head to the side and taking a drag off my cigarette. “For real?”

“Mmmhmm.” she answered as she slurped the rest of her tea. “Told us that there was nothing we could do to help and that we might even make things worse. Well, she worded it more nicely than that, of course. But that’s the gist of what she told us.”

I whistled throughout my exhale. If the rest of the Sky Archons had half the pride that Starlight walked with, then I could only imagine that they were pretty flank-flustered about that.

“Must have been a hard pill to swallow,” I commented flatly, not wanting to show any bias for or against Starlight’s viewpoint.

“We weren’t happy, but orders are orders,” she sighed before hopping off the shelf and giving her wings a stretch. “Ahhh~! Not that we did so without question. Well, mostly, anyway.”

“Mostly, eh? I take it you guys weren’t happy about relying on a bunch of teenagers to save the day? I mean, a lot of the obstacles that the Bearers of the Elements faced would have been a lot more easily overcome if just you were there.”

She nodded as she poured herself another cup of tea. “I still hate this stuff, just in case you forgot.”

“Right, I can see the disgust in your eyes whenever you chug it down.” I nodded with a chuckle. “So, I take it not everypony obeyed.”

“Oh, we all obeyed. But the Captain was so angry he could’ve whipped up a hurricane on his own. Him and Celestia weren’t far from having it out,” she said with a humorless chuckle before blinking and turning giving me a suspicious glance. “How do you know about all this, anyway?”

Oops. Yeah, the ponies still didn’t know about the show. I’d already unsettled Luna and Celestia with my bizarre knowledge of events, not to mention Twilight Sparkle. Big surprise, my mouth will oftentimes move faster than my brain. I gave a chuckle that was convincing enough to not betray my sudden nervousness as I spat out the first reasonable thing I could think of.

“Oh, um… Luna told me about it!”

“I must not have been there for that,” Luna’s voice piped in from the window I was leaning on.

“Eeep!” I shrieked at the unexpected interruption, jumping away from the window. To my surprise, there was nothing out there.

“I thought I smelled delinquent royalty nearby,” Starlight murmured as the light in front of me twisted and warped until it took on the shape of a pony. It eventually defined into the likeness of Luna, smirk and everything.

“Then next time, warn a guy!” I hollered at Starlight, before going to take a sip of my tea and realizing it was empty, having spilled it onto the floor when I got startled. I looked at the puddle, then into the cup, back at the puddle, then finally at Luna. She was trying to hold in the scornful laughter and that did wonders for helping me maintain a balanced level of chi.

It wasn’t until I put a hoof to her nose and gently pushed her out of the window that she started laughing. Very slowly, very deliberately, I shut the window, all without ever taking my eyes off her. That’s a good way to help communicate a copious amount of anger, you see.

“I’m sorry, we don’t accept jerks in the royal kitchen, princesses or not,” I informed her as I locked the window with a bit of magic before taking a deep breath and realizing my cigarette was still lit. Which meant I had to open the window back up (I’m so courteous!). I very seriously considered blowing smoke in her face, but decided against it. Mostly due to Stoic grabbing me by the ear and pulling me away before I could commit.

“What do you want?” I huffed.

She inhaled to speak but Stoic decided that it would be a good idea to give her some shut-up juice first. I agreed. So we slammed the window shut before she could get the first syllable out. Starlight found this to be incredibly amusing. I don’t blame her. If it was half as funny to her as it was to me, I’d be laughing, too. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t, mind you. Laughing, that is.

Luna then opened the window, took my cigarette and made it disappear. That made me a little sad, but I saw for it the petty act that it was. She was flankhurt. I was amused. And that’s the important thing here, boys and girls. Tee-hee~!

“What I want,” she calmly stated as she leaned up on the window, setting her chin on her up-propped hoof before continuing, “is for you to tell the truth. Because I don’t remember telling you anything about what happened at last year’s Summer Solstice. Probably something to do with the fact that I purposefully didn’t bring that up. I mean, who wants to talk about getting shown up by a handful of fillies and the ‘magic of friendship’, after all?”

Boy, were my cheeks red or what. I’d been caught red hooft’d… or something.

“Ah, hell,” I sighed before facehoofing and letting my shoulders sag a bit. “Okay, fine. Easiest way to explain this. Err… I… uh… I wasn’t there, exactly, but um… I saw the whole thing. Well, most of it, anyway.”

Luna’s expression remained blank and for several seconds, nothing was said. She finally let her eyes drift over towards the Sky Archon.

“Commander Starlight, could you give us some space?”

Starlight didn’t like being dismissed, but she wasn’t about to disobey a direct order from Luna, even if they weren’t especially fond of one another. She sighed and gave a somewhat informal bow before turning to leave. So then we stood there. Together. In silence. It was some kind of awkward, being under the scrutiny of a stuffy, mean pony princess.

“So, um,” I coughed, looking around nervously, “How’s your night?”

“Fairly boring, but I’m anticipating that it will become much more engaging quite soon,” she replied with a humorless laugh. “Walk with me, No-Name. It’s time we had a talk.”

Ironically enough, we didn’t talk at all as we stepped back out into the Royal Canterlotian Animal Garden (Unofficial name) where the spider monkeys decided they didn’t enjoy our presence. They decided to screech at us for the intrusion as they did every night that we showed up before midnight. Luna threw a few pears at them to scare them off for what was probably the tenth time since I’d been here. She’s pretty blah about animals, actually. So unprincess.

“One day, those monkeys are going to revolt,” I ominously warned, “That will be the day when you find yourself with your back to the wall and thinking to yourself… ‘That damn human was right again!’ And then the ninja will steal your fish. And you will be sad.”

“The surface of the sun will freeze before I let such horrific events take place,” she overdramatically stated with an overly dramatic hair flip.

She then turned to me and narrowed her eyes somewhat. “Now, the first question should be rather easily answered. What are you so afraid to tell me?”

“Where do I start?” I chuckled before looking about the garden for the bench. “I can’t rightly tell you without telling you, but I don’t want to not try. Hmmm, well, how about this: Why don’t we delve into something enjoyable with a wide variety of flavors to choose from? That way, we can slowly move into deeper and deeper waters until one of us backs out like a scared little filly.”

She mulled that over as I continued to scratch my head. I did something with that stupid bench and for some reason, I could not remember just where I had left it. Luna started to comment on my proposition but was infected by my distracted demeanor.

“What… are you looking for?” she began to glance about as well. As though she would succeed in finding a bench that I was actively seeking that she was not. Mares don’t make any sense.

“The b… Oh!” I glanced at Luna and quickly remembered that I had hid it behind some bushes to keep her from finding it later and putting it back where she deemed was its proper place.

I pranced over to the aforementioned bush, locating the desired furniture exactly where I had left it. I grabbed it with my teeth and began dragging it out, which almost immediately incited Luna’s ire.

“I thought I told you to put that back where you found it.”

Apparently, Starlight wasn’t the only fussybritches today.

“Oh hush!” I growled through my clenched teeth as I finally moved the bench into a good spot. Just on the edge of the tree cover; Where the dew wouldn’t pile down onto a pony, but would still be brisk enough to take the edge off the warm, humid air. “I’m no citizen of Equestria. Ya can’t boss me around, Fussyfeathers. Besides, we need something to chill out on whilst we take care of your education. First order of business! Play some video games! We’ll start on something pretty harmless and that should give you plenty of questions for me to answer for tonight.”

I sat down onto the unreasonably comfortable, wooden bench and whipped out my phone. Luna’s irritation was overwhelmed by her eagerness to start and rather than rev up her righteous indignation motor, she instead hopped up onto the bench with me. She peered into the phone with big turquoise eyes that wanted nothing but to see what nopony before her had ever seen.

“‘What’ games?” she tilted her head in confusion.

That’s when things got crazy. We busted out the universal smartphone-game. The most infuriating concept to ever grace the mobile platform: Angry Birds. Thank whatever divine power is out there that my phone had infinite power, because after her first red bird scream, she was hooked. Badly. And it was so sweet to watch her fail, too. Because karma’s a bitch, okay? Straight up. Poetic justice and a half. She couldn’t use her magic at all, and that was her biggest weakness. Eventually, she got too frustrated, and I decided to bend my rules a little by showing her the magic of Google. More specifically, I was showing her everything that she could learn by way of using a powerful search engine. I did my best to keep her searching safely, not wanting her to see anything bad.

It gets worse. I think the most shocking thing was that Luna hated cat videos. She found them utterly lacking in substance. She did, however, love the ‘Friendship Is Magic, Bitch’ Youtube movie. Oh man. She had tears rolling down her face she was laughing so hard. If she had not been actively using the phone, I would have recorded that and put it on Youtube because I can’t stress to you just how much she loved that thing. I mean, I was scared to death when I clicked on it. I was able to steer her away from the actual show, but when she saw the thumbnail of Celestia cackling into a foreground of fire, she was adamant that we check it out. I mean, I was thinking that it would offend her, but she explained afterwards how it was something of a parody of bad days.

I didn’t get it at first, but she was actually stuttering a little as though she were embarrassed by finding the levity in it. She kept trying to explain how it was a bizarre humor that she found incredibly amusing, even if most ponies would be horrified by it. Then it clicked. Luna liked darker humor; especially the clever or intelligently random. And that totally fit with the psychological profile of a person (or pony) using humor as a coping mechanism. It was a classic side effect, really. If you take solace in the more sinister humors, you won’t often be bothered sinister events.

Anyway, the night blew by fairly quickly. Youtube videos have a tendency to do that, after all. We were a good thirty-percent of the way through Red Vs. Blue when I actually nodded off. I think I was only out for twenty minutes or so, but when I came to, I realized that Luna had taken it upon herself to do some unsupervised web surfing. I think she must have been digging through my Youtube history because when I awoke, she was already ten minutes into the first episode of season one. Yeah, that episode. That season.

“I know you. You’re the Mare in the Moon; Nightmare Moon!” Twilight Sparkle quoted through my phone.

“WOAH!” I was suddenly very awake and very panicky. I snatched that phone out from in front of her and immediately powered it off.

She didn’t bother getting upset about me taking the phone. She just moved straight to glaring at me askance.

“What was that?” she kept her voice level but her suspicion was certainly putting her on edge.

“Look, it’s really hard to explain. I mean, I know it looks really strange, creepy, and downright surreal.”

“Well, why don’t you give it the old college try,” she growled, “and we’ll see just how much of an effect that’ll have on my disposition.”

Panic. Panic. Panic. THOUGHT! “Um… Well… What did it look like to you?”

“It looks like humans have somehow been watching Equestria. Incredibly closely and have somehow managed to avoid being noticed while doing so.”

“Well, that’s… actually exactly what’s going on here,” I admitted, letting a bit of relief wash over me. I was afraid she had jumped to a much worse conclusion. “Um… It’s not as bad as it seems, though.”

My relief must not have gone unnoticed, seeing as she also eased somewhat before speaking, “I’m listening.”

“Okay, okay. Lemme light up, this is going to take a while,” I stated as I retrieved myself a delicious smoky treat. I cantered over to the bench and hopped up on it, planting my butt down onto my stolen sanded furniture and lighting the cigarette with a bit of magic. “Okay, first things first: Believe me when I say, I don’t know what the connection between our worlds is, or if there even is one. But… This is… sorta… You know the video I just showed you the tyrant Celestia?”

“Mmmhmm.” She nodded before giving her horn a quick wave to summon up a dark cloud.

I hesitated for a few seconds. I was caught between fabricating a lie and coming out with the truth. Both my inner halves were at a loss for what to do, but the one thing we agreed on was that if Luna caught me in a lie, there would be beatings. Beatings as far as the eye can see. And I’ll be honest with you; regardless of the consequences, I kinda respect Luna too much to feed her anything but the truth. I mean, yeah, we may habitually abuse one another, but whatever, right? Luna has always played it straight with me as far as I know, so really there wasn’t any reason I shouldn’t do the same for her.

“That video was made by a human because he wanted to provide some entertainment for other people. And maybe show off a bit, who knows. And that’s… That’s sort’ve… the same thing.” I gestured out towards the entirety of Canterlot. “This world is like… Something humans watch for… Well, for entertainment.”

She arched an eyebrow would have made Spock proud. “How?”

“Hell if I know,” I replied, giving her a helpless shrug.

Well, she sure as hell didn’t like that answer! “Right. Starlight!”

“Luna, I’m not shitting you!” I hissed, looking about frantically for the inevitable face-grinding tackle. I’m scared of Sky Archons, okay? They find new and inventive ways to cause you pain. “Why do you think I’m so crazy about being here!? Because I’m living inside one of the coolest worlds I’ve ever seen!”

“You honestly expect me to believe that?” she glowered at me. She must have thought that I was treating her as though she were an idiot. But I can’t help the truth, right?

“Luna! Look at this damn phone and everything I’ve been showing you!” I threw up my hooves in exasperation. I was starting to fear that there was nothing I could do to convince her. “I could show you hundreds of pictures of just you and you’ve only appeared in the first two episodes! Mostly as Nightmare Moon!”

Me and my big fat mouth. Technically, I got what I wanted in that she believed me, but she got all butthurt about not being a larger character in the show. I had to calm her down and explain the WHOLE thing, how the show was focused on the magic of friendship and how it was centered on the six Bearers of the Elements. Then she got even more agitated when she discovered that Celestia played a significant role. After that, I just started rubbing it in and called her ‘Princess Footnote’ which brought about the status quo of verbal sparring between us. Luna has some of the most interesting insults that you’ll ever hear. “Talentless, Horse-Hued Mouthbreather” was that particular day’s masterpiece. Wow.

It took us a good while to get it all out of our systems; I mean, we were yelling at one another for a solid twenty minutes, but it was silently agreed that there wasn’t a problem here. Or hell, maybe I was just being wishful. It eventually got back around to the phone and hammering out an agreement. I would trust her if she would trust me. Specifically, I would trust her to do a little surfing on the good ol’ Motorola Atrix 4G without me breathing down her neck and in return she would trust me enough to not jump to conclusions or throw me in the dungeon. No, I didn’t actually agree to this, Luna was actually bringing me a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Not very polite of her, but I really couldn’t blame her. I mean, this looked really bad and for her to take me at my word was asking for a lot.

“Okay, the deal is I give you the phone during the day to mess around with until you pass out and you give me the phone during the night,” I reiterated for clarity’s sake.

“Mmmhmm.” She was so smug. So bitchy. Well, I was going to show her.

“You promise? You’re not going to alter the arrangement the moment you can’t figure something out, right? You can’t have me around to fix your problems and then send me away as soon as I got you back on track. All or nothing, right?” I gave her a suspicious glare.

“Yes, yes. Whatever,” she huffed before holding up a hoof. “I promise. Princess’ honor.”

“Right. Okay, Footnote. You’ve got yourself a deal.” I hopped off the bench and cantered over with a smile, holding out my hoof.

And then we brohoofed to seal the deal. I got a little dizzy from the giddiness that was surging forth within me. Squee-ness aside, Luna had made the mistake of underestimating me. I gave the western skies Equestria a glance and spotted the barest of pinkish glows tracing the horizon.

“Okay. Your first obstacle will be to figure out how to unlock the phone,” I knowingly informed her as I resummoned the device.

Dat look of shock.

“What?!” she cried before immediately slapping a hoof over her face and grunting in frustration. “You mean you… I should’ve… Augh!”

She almost immediately brought herself back to a perfect level of calm after taking a deep breath and letting it out through her nose.

“Fine. No, we’re going to work through this,” she told herself before casually brushing back her mane and holding out her hoof for the phone, “Hoof it over.”

I ‘hoofed it over’ as I let out the one hell of a yawn. “Welp! I’mma go lose consciousness for a few hours. I imagine you’ll probably stay up trying to fight with the security lock for a while. Try not to forget to set the moon before Tia gets up.”

She rolled her eyes before giving the phone a once over and letting out a dreadful sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I should probably get that done sooner rather than later, really.”

“Yeah, go work. Do celestial stuff. Keep the circle of life rolling,” I yawned tiredly before cantering back over to my stolen bench and flopping down onto it. I went to ask Luna if she could set me up a wake-up call spell or something. I didn’t want to miss everything due to being able to sometimes sleep anyway entire days at a time. When I rolled over to look at her, though, I found that she was already gone.

“Goodnight. Morning. Whatever,” I grunted tiredly before surrendering to the sweet, sweet embrace of slumber.

I am actually a restless sleeper. I roll, flop, kick, tuck, tumble, and dance in my sleep; or so I’m told. It’s not like I pay attention when I’m out like a light, right? All I know is that I fell off that stupid bench just as the sunlight fell onto my face. I cursed the bench for its inability to save me from such an unfair fate before grumpily fetching a Mareboro and pulling myself back onto my perch. I began to wonder what time it was after the first drag and started to reach for my phone, only to realize that I no longer had it in my possession. I actually started to go the irresponsible route of falling asleep with my smoke still lit before thinking about the phone and cheating Luna on the deal. My Lafter half kinda felt like I had been an ass in that regard. I mean, yeah, she was kinda being a bitch by twisting my arm like that, but she had also been happy enough to uphold her end of the bargain. Stoic reminded me, though, that while it may have been pretty low, the results had been worth it. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to show her lots of cool stuff during the night anyway, right? Right.

~Of all the humans I could have chosen to represent my interests, I had to choose you! You are, without a doubt, the most incompetent, immature, short-sighted dumbass I have ever had to deal with!~

Oh great, even Stupid Bird is here.

“Tissy, go away,” I groaned irritably.

She materialized on the rail of the bench and began yelling at volumes that were not fit for a creature her size. I wasn’t listening to her at first. I mean, it had been half a month since I’d heard from the damn thing and that just wasn’t long enough in my opinion. It wasn’t until she’d said something about the consequences of my actions that I remembered the dragon-sized migraine that had been inflicted upon my innocent, if somewhat underdeveloped brain that night on Twilight’s balcony. There was only one fowl that would answers concerning that.

“Hey!” I snapped as I sat up, “What the hell was that brain pain back in Ponyville?!”

“You have more important matters to attend to, you idiot!” she snapped, pointing a wing in my face and ruffling her blue feathers in frustration.

I lowered my head and narrowed my eyes as I met Tissiphone face-to-face. I took a drag off my cigarette and exhaled through my nose, keeping my eyes locked on her.

“Tiss. You’ve got five seconds, starting now, to explain what you did to me. ¿Comprende?” I snarled as I leaned in a little.

“Perhaps you did not hear me the first time, you dolt,” she quipped right back, her voice and demeanor unaffected by my hostility. “But I said you have more important matters to attend to! Such as your precious Night Princess.”

And just like that, all the hostility within me evaporated. I quickly sat back up and blinked as I tried to think of what could possibly threaten Luna.

“What…” I started to ask.

“Why don’t you find out on your own rather than delay yourself by asking me questions,” she preempted with a roll of her birdy eyes. “I’ll come for your apology later, should you make it in time. You might not make it even now.”

“SHIT!” I jumped up, spoiling the pure pony air with my profanity, “LUNA?!”

Well, as much as Tissy annoys the shit out of me, I wasn’t about to risk Luna coming to harm just to get the last word. I’m only that petty when it’s me or something of mine on the line. Jumping off my special stolen bench, I felt the panic set in as I broke off into a gallop for the entrance into the palace. I knew the castle pretty well by now so I had no difficulty navigating my way through the vast corridors and winding staircases (Seriously, there’s not a straight staircase in the entire castle unless it’s just to elevate some part of the room - That’s stupid, by the way). I kept shouting Luna’s name as I approached the only wing of the castle that sported indigo marble rather than the traditional black, white, and gold motifs. As I turned down the corridor (it was more of a sliding crash, really), I saw two Sky Archons standing in front of her door. That right there was a dead giveaway that something was wrong. Luna hated formalities such as being guarded.

“Stop!” the female on the right shouted. Her voice was stern and carried strength. Her eyes, coat, tail, and mane were all silver, varying only in brilliance.

The other was royal purple in color with a neatly cropped gold mane. He narrowed his sky-blue eyes at me and moved to stand in my way. I did not feel confident about trying to smash into a Sky Archon, but I’ll shamefully admit that I had sorta entered sheep mode. See, this is what happens when I stop being funny. I’m either too furious to think straight, or I’m panicking.

“Don’t do it, buddy,” said Mister Goldy as I closed in.

Well, all my panicky brain was able to ascertain at the moment was that Mister Goldmane and Miss Silverflank were standing in between me and someone I cared about. Naturally, base reaction was to get said obstacle out of the way. Ergo, I had to get them to move. That was surprisingly easy. Just breathe fire in front of me as I closed the gap.

“Ack!” cried the blonde stallion as both he and his companion flung themselves out of the way. I didn’t even bother with grabbing the latch on the door, I just smashed into that sucker. I think I’d unintentionally employed some magic in knocking that thing open, because looking back, there was no way I should have been able to do that. I mean, it had to be ten feet tall and just as thick as the library door that had blocked those guards my first night in Canterlot.

“Luna!” I gasped, rather thoroughly winded by the time I’d made it inside. I don’t even really remember what Luna’s room looked like, I was too busy trying to locate the source of danger. She was standing in the middle of the room, wide awake. I was somewhat relieved until I realized she wasn’t reacting to my presence. Instead, she was just staring at the phone. Not just staring at it, but taking it in. Her horn was glowing and her body was tense. It was then I realized what she was doing.

And then BAM! Tackled by Archons! Jesus, they are some kind of strong. I kinda just crumpled under them like tin foil as they restrained me in record time. That isn’t very hard to do to a unicorn already on the ground, actually. You just step on their horns and apply a little pressure, which is what Goldilocks did. And man, that’s the ‘I Win’ button against unicorns. I mean, holy shit, that hurts almost as much as a Roshambo.

“NO, STOP HER!” I screamed at them in pain and desperation, frantically begging them to stop Luna from making an incredibly huge mistake. “SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT SHE’S DOING!”

“I have to know,” Luna murmured as her horn beginning to glow all the brighter. “I’m going to get the truth. No matter what it takes.”

“Archons!” My hero! Starlight’s voice dwarfed all other commotion in the room and even distracted Luna for a moment. “What’s going on here, Silverheart?”

I could see a timid-looking Lucky hiding behind Starlight who looked like she’d just been unhappily pulled from bed to handle an immediate crisis. She wasn’t wearing her armor or anything.

“Commander, this unicor-…” the (surprise!) silver Archon started to explain, .

“Starlight!” I pleaded, “Stop Luna, she’s about to do something incredibly dangerous!”

Hoo boy, I could already tell she wasn’t going to do it. The conflict was there on her face and the fear was in her eyes, but when she looked at the princess, I could tell the resolve just wasn’t there.

“Commander Starlight.” Luna lifted her eyes from the book to glance at her. “I would like to be alone. Please escort our friend to his pilfered bench in the castle gardens and make sure he stays there.”

And then defiance kicked in. Maybe Starlight was feeling cranky and wanted to be a pain in Luna’s ass, or maybe it was the way Luna was ordering her to basically get out of the way, but whatever the case, Starlight didn’t feel like cooperating.

“Apologies, Princess, but I can’t do that in good faith,” answered the dark-blue Archon, “Lucky, go intercept the Captain, he should be getting ready to leave for First Responder Patrol with Snowfall. Whirlwind, interrupt whatever Celestia is doing and tell her we have an emergency here. Silverheart, don’t let him up just yet.”

Lucky and the purple Archon that I was able to determine as Whirlwind departed as quickly as they could. I’ll admit, I was a little surprised that they did not hesitate in the slightest.

Luna shut her eyes and breathed in sharply, as though trying to force herself to remain patient. “Commander Sta-…”

“Oh, stow it, Luna!” Starlight snapped, surprising us all with her incensed attitude, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t trust either of you farther than I can buck you. So I’m putting a hold on this until somepony with better judgment than I can decide what to do. In essence, you don’t move; you don’t cast; you just sit there, be pretty, and be quiet. Understand?”

Who’s a badass filly? That would be Starlight. Just saying.

I looked back into the room to see Luna still staring hard at the phone. I don’t know if she had already decided not to go through with it or not, but with the situation now under control, I was able to calm down a bit. Not to mention I was able to think a hell of a lot more clearly without Whirlwind grinding my horn into the floor.

“Please, Luna,” I murmured, turning my head to face her more. “It’s not worth it. Yes, that device holds vast amounts of knowledge, but the price is not something you want to pay.”

Surprisingly, Starlight did not rebuke me. Looking back, I think she was actually on my side in this ordeal, she just couldn’t outright say she was if she wanted to keep her position. She was definitely risking it already with having yelled at a princess, but she could justify that by way of answering the call of duty.

Luna looked at me, conflict apparent in her eyes.

I sighed softly, slumping a bit, “Remember last night? What I showed you wasn’t bad at all, right? I know it must be frustrating for things to go so slowly, but what you’re thinking of doing could hurt you.”

“I know,” she replied, turning her gaze back to the phone, “But I have to know. And you don’t want to show me everything. And even if you did, there’s just no way to know for sure. I just… I want to know now.”

Then the big guns rolled in.

“What’s wrong?” Celestia’s voice prevented me from responding right away. “What’s happened here? Silverheart, release him at once.”

Silverheart glanced back and forth between Starlight and Celestia, uncertain if she should obey Celestia’s hasty order.

“That isn’t what I would classify ‘at once’ as, Lieutenant,” she gently pointed out, the barest hint of terseness on the edge of her voice.

Silverheart hesitated only a moment longer before hopping off of me. I don’t blame her; even I was shocked to hear that from the Sun Princess. Why the hell did Celestia trust me so much? I’ve not a clue. There’s no way anyone could convince me that Celestia was just being arbitrary or stupid. She had her reasons, of that there’s no doubt.

“Now, No-Name.” She fixed her eyes upon mine as she spoke, “Tell me honestly. What is happening here?”

All attention was on me and I was feeling a little nervous. Just as I opened my mouth to begin explaining, my stupid morning alarm went off. The same one that seems to spectacularly fail to wake me up. Well, that pretty much dispelled all of Luna’s desire to deliberate any longer. Before any of us could reasonably react, she reared up and slammed her hooves down as her eyes flared bright white. My poor Motorola Atrix 4G (all six-hundred dollars of it) went up in flames as she absorbed it and everything it had access to. The amount of magic she’d cranked out to get it done was incredible. I mean so much was focused onto that device that it distorted the colors around it. I know this won’t mean much to you, but I’ll try to put it into perspective by saying that a spell that literally had no display other than a bit of fire was distorting everything around it. You could use half the power required to do that to, oh, I don’t know… power an aircraft carrier? No, that’s not an exaggeration.

The ensuing explosion was caused by Luna failing to completely contain the following dispersion (magic still has to go somewhere after you’re done using it, after all). Don’t get me wrong, I’m still floored she didn’t vaporize half the castle. The fact that she was able to limit it to just knocking everypony back to the closest wall spoke volumes of just how talented she was.

Now, I don’t know precisely what happened next, but what I think happened was I got shielded from the blast by either Luna or Celestia, or hell, maybe even Tissy. Whatever the case, wherever it came from, I was the only one that wasn’t punted away like a ragdoll. Even Luna was knocked back through her bedroom window and my immediate (some would call it idiotic instead) reaction was to dash right after her. I don’t even know how I was able to get there so fast, or how I was able to catch hold of her. I just know that I did.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I don’t like to make a habit of defenestrating myself. In fact, I find it downright silly, even in a cartoon world (yes, I know I considered it my first night in Canterlot – We shall avoid mentioning that ever again). For some damn reason, though, that did not stop me from doing what I just did and now I was suddenly plummeting to the ground with a trembling Luna in my hooves. Further stupidity compelled me to twist us around so that I take the fall. Christ, even I can’t believe I did that.

I will never do this ever again, I whimpered inwardly just before smacking into the ground.

“Luna,” I wheezed as waves of agony wracked me from horn to tail. It was only two or three stories, but damn did it hurt like a mother. “G… Gonna kill you… Just a… Just a heads up.”

Luna began to stutter something as she shakily rolled off of me and brought herself to a slightly unstable stand. I groaned pitifully, not nearly as quick to get up as her thanks to her less-than-successful attempt at flight. She continued to shake for several seconds before looking back down at me. I started to ask her if she was okay but she had other plans that did not involve sticking around. She suddenly broke off into an unsteady gallop towards the castle courtyard. Out of pure determination, I somehow forced myself to get up after a frustrated whine and chase after her. I was calling at her, but she either wasn’t listening or was just too far gone to care. I was hoping and praying that it wasn’t the latter.

The chase didn’t last long, though. It got as far as the main street in Canterlot before it came to an abrupt end. Not because I caught her. Heavens, no, it couldn’t be that easy. Remember when Starlight told Lucky to go get some jackpony named Captain Storm Wing? Remember also when Celestia said that only a select few of her oldest guards were combat worthy? Remember that one electric pegasus from the show that served as Celestia’s right hand pony by beating the everliving hell out of anything that opposed her will? Oh, you don’t remember that last part? No? That’s because he wasn’t in the show! BECAUSE THIS GUY IS TOO FREAKIN’ SCARY FOR CHILDREN! Seriously! We’re talking the Sword of Celestia in the form of pony!

I saw a bluish streak approach like lightning out of the corner of my eye. I would have looked at it if I had ANY reaction time whatsoever. Suffice it to say, I did not. I got tackled. It was like getting hit by a car, or so I can imagine. Now thinking back, I’m pretty sure cars don’t hit that hard. It wasn’t actually a tackle, even; it was more of a body check, like in hockey. Only I didn’t fall over. I flew over. Into a stonemason’s building. I stumbled out of the pony shaped dent and remembered turning to see a blurred bluish-white hoof smack right into my face.

Not sure how long I was out (THANKS TO NOT HAVING MY PHONE!), but let’s just say I didn’t need any more rest for the entire day. I would, however, end up needing quite the band-aid.

Also, screw Captain Storm Wing. (S.C.S.W.C. - 1)