“Order. Order!” I rapped my hoof against the lectern, without any real affect on the babble of conversation. “Order!”

I sighed, took a deep breath, and flared my wings. “ORDER!” I roared, blowing over a pony in the front row; a deathly silence settled over Ponyville town hall.

“Thank you,” I said, in a far more normal tone, and glanced down at my notes. “Now, as I was saying, I’d like to call to order the third, bi-weekly, meeting of the Humans in Equestria Club.”

“Objection!”

I dropped my head into my hooves, suppressing a groan. Two sentences before an interruption. Two bloody sentences. “How can you be objecting, Star Charge?” I demanded, rounding on the offending unicorn. “We haven’t even started yet!”

The black and silver dappled pony puffed himself up and stepped forwards. “I object to our name,” he declared. “After all, none of us are human now, are we?” He gestured at the assembled menagerie.

Balancing on my hind legs I rubbed my temple. I could feel a headache coming on and we were less than sixty seconds into the meeting, a new personal record for our young society, though not unexpected as dealing with the Club for more than half an hour usually made me go running to Zecora's for a case of willow bark. Star Charge did have a point, though I was loathe to admit it; there was, of course, not a single human among the audience. However, with seven gryphons, five dragons of various sizes, two cows, a deer, a donkey, a ‘pegacorn’ (which Twilight claimed it wasn’t a thing) and three changelings in the audience along with over a hundred ponies of various ilks, it was rather hard to come up with a term for our little support group without resorting to ‘those weirdos’.

“Star Charge, we have been over this; unless you come up with some alternative, please, just let it die.”

It was too much to hope for that the unicorn would just shut up. “In fact I have got a name for us, The New-”

I jabbed a hoof at him. “If you say ‘foals’ I am going to break that horn off and-” I caught myself before I said something I’d regret, and Star Charge seized the moment’s silence.

“Chances,” he completed, looking smug.

“Great, so instead of proclaiming we’re a bunch of aliens we just sound like a new age cult,” I snapped. “Motion to change our name. Ayes?”

A small group of ponies near the front of the hall raised their hooves.

“Nays?”

A few wickers sounded as some of the newer ponies failed to resist the pun, but far more raised a hoof in objection.

“Nays carry it; we keep our name.” I glanced down at my notes, stonewalling Star Charge to stop him raising some other frivolous item. “Right, well I guess I’d better get back onto the agenda. First, I’d like to welcome our newest members: ‘Lucky Drop’, ‘Moon Song’, ‘Mathew Win’, ‘Tia Brown’, ‘Aden Hunly’, ‘Lucky Gem’, ‘Yi Zhong’ and ‘Sky Chaser’. As you have probably noticed it’s a short list this time around.”

I glanced up, a couple of very sheepish ponies were the center of attention but many of the older members were keeping a closer eye on me. There had been more than a few rumors about this next announcement.

“The reason the list is so short is because Twilight Sparkle believes that the barrier is recovering somewhat. While there are still humans finding their way through the cracks, it looks like the flood is over for now.” There was a couple of loud mutters from the crowd. “Yes, I understand some of you are quite disappointed by this, but on the plus side we’re no longer facing an interdimensional catastrophe.” I put on my best election-winning smile. “You win some and you lose some.”

The grumblings grew louder. It was fortunate that I’d never run for election. I stayed in power by dint of no one else being stupid enough to take the job.

“When are we going home?” somepony, or possibly some gryphon, demanded at the top of their voice.

I sighed. “As I’ve said every time people ask. We are no closer to finding a way home. We are no closer to having human bodies. We are certainly no closer to going home as humans, and even if we could, it would probably take out Europe with the backlash.” I took a steadying breath. There were more than a few angry faces out there, but I was of the school that said it was best to rip a plaster off, not tug at it. “I’m sorry people. Sometimes there just isn’t a magic answer.”

It was somewhat dishonest to say that with wings on my back, but seven weeks in the real version of Equestria had rather destroyed the illusion that a wave of a wand, or horn, could fix everything.

“Right. Well, with that utter let down out of the way, let’s get on with things.” I glanced at my notes. “I’ll be giving the floor to our surprise guest speaker in just a few minutes, but I do have a few quick announcements to make. First, I’m sure a lot of you have noticed Ponyville is suffering from a bit of a housing shortage right now.” That was the understatement of the century; Ponyville had not been the largest of towns before the sudden influx of ex-humans, and a hundred and forty eight new ‘ponies’ taking up residence had filled the few free houses to bursting. “We have a list in the main offices of everyone who needs a place to live, and with the weather closing in we really need to find these ponies homes. Anyone who’s got a free room, or even just a sofa, please lend a hoof as the new boarding house won’t be ready for a month still.”

The response was less than enthusiastic, but then I’d been beating the housing drum every meeting. It didn’t matter than we were in the magical land of Equestria; exposure could still kill. Not that everyone seemed to realise that; convincing some of the old hands to give up an inch of their nice cosy cottages was like pulling teeth.

“On a related lighter note, Applejack informs me that, and I quote.” I lifted up a card and cleared my throat, before dropping into a butchered southern accent. “‘The next one of those feathered varmints I find in one of my trees is getting bucked so hard they’ll land in Appleloosa.’ Seriously guys, this is her business, I know it’s a running gag on the show but it’s getting beyond a joke.”

I narrowed my eyes as I read the next item. “And the same goes for those of you messing with Cutie Mark Crusaders. I get that a lot of you find them adorable.” Weapons grade adorable. “But no one wants to see six fully grown stallions crowding around three little girls trying to tell them what to do with their lives. Seriously. It’s creepy as buck and you need to stop. Just leave them alone, and for god’s sake stop giving them access to power tools.”

Fixing a few of the worse offenders with a glare I continued. “Now, with those out of the way, some good news for once. The royal princess have managed to kick some bureaucratic plot, so within the week the first stipends should be coming through.” A cheer rippled through the crowd and I held up my forehooves for silence. “Unfortunately, the gears are still grinding slow and so only official Equestria residents are getting any bits for now.” The excited muttering went deathly silent in an instant. Less than fifty members of the club were official residents and most of those were old hands. “Yeah, I know it’s less than perfect, but the princesses are working on things. Princess Twilight is still allowing us to dip into her emergency fund in the meantime so no one’s going to starve. For those who are entitled to aid -” I fixed the crowd with a glare. “- and I mean entitled right now. Come round the office in the next few days and we’ll get you your bits.”

I checked my notes again. There were a few other minor issues, but I had a good enough read on the crowd to know when to cut my losses. There was only so much bad news a pony, or otherwise, could take in one sitting without handing out the pitchforks, and too many of the Club's members could breathe fire for my liking.

“I’d also like to say that, thanks to a few new graduates volunteering their time, we now have a half dozen slots for tutoring in the basics of tribal magic. The sign-up sheet is posted in the office and-” There was a whip-crack and a dozen pegasi leapt from standing into the air and shot out of the room. “-it’s first come first served.” I shook my head, I could not tell you why a bunch of formerly land bound primates were so obsessed with learning to fly, only that I was just as guilty. “Now it’s time for me to give over the stage to someone far more entertaining than me. Please put what remains of your hands together for the one, the only, Pinkie Pie!”

A room full of ponies stamping their forehooves made a thunderous noise and a prepared spotlight came on, focusing on a side door. Which stayed shut. The applause built to a crescendo for a moment, but then began to fade away, replaced by anxious whispers and the occasional nervous cough.

“Pinkie, that was your cue!” I called out, a nervous smile on my face. I’d never known Pinkie to miss an intro. I tapped a hoof on the lectern for a moment, frowning.

“Pst.”

I glanced down. There, curled into the tiny gap behind the lectern, was a very compacted Pinkie Pie with a huge grin on her face. I managed to keep my expression deadpan. It had been a surprise to find out that Pinkie’s love/hate relationship with the laws of physics was a real thing. It had not stopped surprising me, either, but at least I’d got my startle response down to ruffled feathers from, quite literally, hitting the roof.

“Excuse me,” I sighed. Reaching down I grabbed her by the mane and hoisted the pony into few. “Theonetheonly Pinkie Pie!” I declared.

“Hi everypony!” she exclaimed, to rapturous applause. “Hi everygryph,” she continued, as I slunk away to take my place at the front of the crowd. “Hi everydragon.” She looked straight up into the rafters. “Hi changelings.” There was a alien clicking from the deepest shadows. I’d been wondering where our changeling contingent had gotten to. “And a big Pinkie Pie hi to everyone else,” she concluded.

“So, Alex asked me to do a big looong piece about new friends and Pinkie Promises. But that sounded boring so I just decided to do a song. Let’s sing up and make a grumpy pegasus smile, smile, smile!”

I rolled my eyes. It was a good job I hadn’t bothered to actually plan out Pinkie Pie’s performance. Some of us were capable of learning from other’s mistakes. An uptempo beat began from somewhere and I allowed my mind to wander as Pinkie Pie’s own brand of healing magic began to wash over the crowd. It was a silly song, but the crowd were a bunch of ex-humans in a world where magic made the sun rise, so I just let myself go with the flow.

A few musical numbers later the meeting dissolved into its usual state of meet and greet. The doors to Ponyville had been thrown open and the rush of citizens to fight the club members for the free cake had nicely mingled the crowd. It would have been pleasant to just sit back and enjoy the party, but I had duties that went beyond padding my flanks. Actually scratch that, I was quite capable of multitasking and eating cake while circulating, but the de facto leader of the club wandering around stuffing her face would have left a less than good impression.

Instead of digging in I stuck to my rounds: made sure the changelings weren’t being harassed or vice versa, talked to the dragons to make sure they weren’t having too much trouble with the locals and were finding enough gems, made sure that our newest members were about and talking to other ponies, made sure our more reclusive members were doing something other than decorating the walls and made sure to note which of our even more reclusive members hadn’t shown up. That list was quite short, thankfully, but there were still a dozen doors to knock on later, and I’d have to knock on those doors. Last time we’d missed those kind of warning signs there was an... incident.

On occasion I’d catch a flash of cottoncandy pink through the crowd as Pinkie Pie did much the same thing. How she kept up the energy to smile throughout I’ll never know, especially as she was still thirty ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ parties in the hole at last count. Though I supposed she wasn’t also having to act as a walking complaints box.

“It’s the third time,” Amelia growled, snorting for emphasis. “It’s not a problem we can just ignore.”

I fought down the urge to laugh. A creamy yellow stallion trying to look severe was going to be making me laugh for years, no matter what else I got used to in Equestria. “Amelia, I understand but really, what do you want me to do about it?”

“Something,” he snapped. “If Applejack decides to follow suit we’re going to have a lot of hungry ponies on our hands.”

‘On my hands,’ I wanted to correct, because as far as I could tell Amelia didn’t do much but spend his time at the market, but that wasn’t the diplomatic thing to say. “Both Carrot Top and Applejack are free citizens and, I checked, Equestria is a free market economy. There is literally nothing we can do beyond asking nicely.”

Amelia chuffed, blowing a strand of hair out of his eyes, and fixed me with a withering stare. “I’m sure asking nicely we be of great help when we’re starving to death.” He about-faced and made his way back through the crowd.

I sighed. Okay, well there was another story of my incompetence to add to the pot. I would have to up ‘asking nicely’ to ‘strong words’ when I got round to dealing with the pair. Between the two of them, Applejack and Carrot Top fed maybe forty percent of the entire village, and the rest of the farmers tended to follow suit when it came to prices. The influx of new ponies had driven food prices up and up and, while it hadn’t yet reached the point where we were struggling to feed anyone, I’d have to play my cards right to make sure it stayed that way.

Shaking my head I turned to find myself muzzle to muzzle with a particularly enthusiastic russet pegasus called Crystal Cog. I’d like to say I kept all four hooves on the ground, but instead I had to bring myself in to land in front of the sniggering colt.

“Heya Alex, wings twitchy?” he asked, trying to keep the huge smile off his face and failing.

“You know, for some reason they are,” I growled. Crystal Cog was irrepressible at the best of times, despite my best efforts, but was also one of the smartest ponies in the club. By some quirk, or just because the universe thought it would be funny, a seventy six year old retired electrician had ended up in the body of an adolescent pegasus. If it had had been a cruel joke, it had fallen flat; the colt gave Pinkie Pie and run for her money in smiles per day.

“Well, before you flutter along, I wanted a word about the telegraph.”

I cocked my head. “Yeah?” This was either going to end very well or very badly.

“See, we’ve got in working on the test bed, but we’re having some trouble getting the bits together for a full scale test,” he explained, bobbing his head as the words came out in an enthused rush. “Ponies seem a bit shy of investing in a company that’s only been running for two fortnights for some reason. I was wondering whether you could get a word in edgeways about us at your next royal visit.”

“You want royal patronage?” I asked, struggling to believe my ears. That was going to fly like a plucked pegasus.

“I wouldn’t say no,” he said, with a cheeky grin. “But actually I was thinking the guard might be interested in an emergency hotline between Ponyville and Canterlot that didn’t require a pair of trained unicorns to make it work.”

I frowned. Actually that wasn’t a bad sell. I had no idea whether the guard had the kind of money to be investing in experimental technology made by a bunch of former monkeys, but it was worth a shot. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do, no promises though.”

“Awesome! Oh, and you need to visit The Barn sometime, we’ve got lots of cool toys to show you.”

“I’ll try,” I told him, forcing a smile. I was not going to make a boys and their toys comment.

“See you tomorrow then.” Cog leapt into the air and took wing.

I shook my head. I’m not kidding, there’s something in the pegasi brain that makes them just love to fly.

Furling my own wings a little tighter I cast my gaze over the party. Things seemed to be winding down about on schedule, the snacks had run out a while ago and that generally would give the hint that the party might be ending soon, and there weren’t any major incidents brewing. Pinkie didn’t have her cannon out, no one was poking a dragon with a stick, Yi Zhong was being cornered by Star Charge and his posse...

I hurried over.

“-I’m sure that’s great,” Yi Zhong said, trying to look cheery while backing away slowly.

“Star Charge!” I snapped, leaping between the two. “What did I say about politizing the newbies?”

Star Charge narrowed his eyes, stepping forwards, lowering his stance. “Please Alex, we’re just trying to explain things.”

“Yeah, you lost that right last time you reduced someone to tears,” I snarled, my wings began to creep open. “Give her at least a week to find her-” I glanced over my shoulder at the cowering earth pony. “-hooves.”

“She hasn’t even heard of the show,” Star Charge pointed out, trying to keep the menace out of his voice.

“One,” I snarled, spreading my wings wide. “Week! Got it?”

Star Charge sighed, and turned away. “You can’t keep playing tin god forever Alex,” he snapped, then turned up his nose and left, followed by his small band of groupies.

I let out a deep breath and found Yi Zhong and I in the middle of a large circle of staring eyes. “Okay, nothing to see here people,” I said, furling my wings yet again. “Just talk among yourselves.”

That at least seemed to break the ice, though I had the uncomfortable feeling they were just talking about me. “You alright?” I asked Yi Zhong.

The grey earth pony let out a sad whicker. “Yes. I think so. What did they want? They were all speaking so fast.” Her lips didn’t quite sync up to the sound she made, an unfortunate side effect of Twilight’s translation spell. Quite how one could translate Mandarin to English without understanding Mandarin had not been explained to my satisfaction, but nor had many things I just accepted were working and run with.

“Oh, he was just trying to tell you that you’ve fallen into a utopia,” I replied, was as nonchalant a shrug as I could manage. I left out the undertones to not rock the boat, Star Charge could deliver his own veiled threats.

“Right... have I?”

Another shrug. “I consider that to be a personal decision. Now how goes the introductions?”

“Well I...” The poor girl shuffled her hooves. “Umm, you see...” I waited for a beat for her to gather her courage. “I’m not a big fan of horses,” she whispered at last.

The universe always did have a strange sense of humor. I put a wing over the pony’s back in a reasonable approximation of a hug. “It’s a good job we’re ponies then.” If anything that made the poor girl’s look of horror worse. “If you’d like, you could consider us weird, quadrupedal aliens with big scary eyes.”

Yi Zhong mouth perked up at the edges, it wasn’t quite a smile but a reasonable attempt. “That actually does help.”

“Good, now let’s get you talking to some people.” I glanced around the room for a familiar face or two. “How do you feel about machines?”

“Confused?”

Right, well that was all The Barn ponies out of the window then. “Art?”

“I studied sculpture, actually.” Yi Zhong hung her head.

“Hmm...” I ran a hoof over my chin. “Well I don’t think there’s a sculptor in town, but there’s definitely some stonewrights.”

“Great,” she sighed, staring at her hooves. “Just tell me how to hold a chisel.”

I snorted. “They have magic here. A bit of practice and you’ll be kicking masterpieces into shape in no time.” Yi Zhong cocked a brow at me. “I’m not kidding. There are ponies that can buck trees and get them to drop all their fruit; you’ll be able to carve just fine, I promise.”

She looked back down at her hooves. “I guess that does sound nice.”

“Right, well let’s introduce you to some earth ponies and pick their brains.” I glanced around for any rock related cutie marks. “Any ideas what you’d like your first piece to be?”

“I hadn’t even figured that out back home.”

I shrugged. “Well they’ve never heard of the Venus de Milo here. Maybe you can make that.”

At long last, Yi Zhong smiled.

It made the whole day worthwhile.

Author's Notes:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Humans in Equestria Club. I'm going to be publishing side blogs for the story as I go along but for this first chapter I'll be skipping that, we've got to get into the meat of the story before we get to the deleted scenes after all. However, if you liked the story and wanted to help me out, I'm looking for aditional pre-readers to speed the production somewhat. If you're interested in proof-reading, and want to read the next chapter before anyone else, drop me a line and I'll put you on the list.