I made my way from Fluttershy's cottage in to Ponyville proper. I reflected that this was the first time I was out and about in the town on my own. Everywhere I looked I was met with a smile or a wave. It reminded me of the small towns of my youth where everyone knew everyone else. Again though, I was surprised at how welcoming these ponies were to an intelligence not of their own kind. Perhaps it is my deep rooted cynicism about humanity and its treatment of the "different" and the "outsider". Though as one wise man said, "Cynicism is the the only reasonable response to the antics of humanity."

I let my thoughts trail off as I approached what was locally known as Castle Friendship. It was a rather gaudy affair by my standards, being a large crystal tree with a crystal castle woven in the branches, but it seemed fitting for a magical alicorn princess to live in. I approached the door and gave a loud knock. After a moment the door opened, I thought of its own accord, until I looked down and saw a small, bipedal, lizard. Well you don't see that every day.

"Hi, I'm Bear, I would like to speak to the Princess if I could." I said hoping I wasn't wasting my breath talking to some strange magical construct. After a moments hesitation it turned its head and called out, "Twilight that weird monkey thing is here to see you!"

I suppressed a chuckle, it sounded like a kid. "Ape, my people are descended from apes not monkeys." I remarked in a conversational manner.

The little purple thing raised a clawed paw and scratched the back of it's head, "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I'm Spike, the Princess's number one dragon assistant!"

A dragon? Seriously? Now that is cool! "Well hey there Spike! No offense was taken, I am the strange one around here after all." I said in a friendly manner; while trying to reconcile this tiny thing with popular images of Smaug, Vermithrax, Bahamut, and other dragons from film and page.

A moment later the Princess came galloping in to view, visibly out of breath, "Ohgoshyou'rehereSpiketakethedayoff!" she said in one breath.

Shaking my head I reached a hand out and placed it on Twilight's head and scritched gently. She seemed to grow calm and her eyes droop. I suppose I had learned something from Fluttershy.

"Twilight let's try that again at a slower pace shall we?" I quipped.

I pulled my hand back and Twilight composed herself, "Sorry I'm just so glad you're here, I was up all night studying and I think I have figured out some things about your magic."

She turned to Spike, "Spike this may take most of the day, go ahead and take some bits from my room and go have some fun in town."

She barely had the words out before the little dragon was bounding down the hall way. I chuckled, "Kid?"

Twilight nodded, "I raised him from an egg."

"So am I going to stand at the door all day talking about dragon rearing or are you going to invite me in?" I said.

With a chuckle and slight blush I was ushered in to the castle. It was rather sparsely furnished and it seemed Twilight and Spike were the only residents. As we walked in silence the only appointed rooms we passed were a kitchen and what looked to be an extremely well stocked library. We eventually came to a small and comfortable looking sitting room where I was bade to sit down.

Twilight began, "So after you described how you used your magic I did some research. You see unicorns and by extension alicorns use magic by rote magical formulas they concentrate on and project from their horns. To learn new magic you simply learn the spell form, picture it in your mind, and channel the magic through your horn."

I interrupted, "I however have no horn nor do I know any spells Princess."

She continued, "Please call me Twilight, and no you don't have a horn. But you have fingers. When we mapped your biology during your hospital stay we saw most of your ley lines converge in your hands, feet, and forehead. Very much in the same way they do for a unicorn. My hypothesis is you project your magic from your hands and feet and may have some latent ability to project from your head. Well if you had a horn."

I nodded taking this all in, "That still doesn't explain spell casting without knowing any spells. I mean, I accept I can do magic here. I have too much evidence of it. I also accept you say I have these chakra things in me that have been absorbing magic. I even accept I have some kind of magical circuits in my body you call ley lines. What I don't understand is how me, a being from a non-magical world, has any ability to use magic here."

Twilight leaned back in her chair and put her hooves together in a very human gesture. "I understand your confusion, it confused me too. My hypothesis is, like I said in the hospital, that humans are not magic free but instead are magically latent. If there is no magic in your world, as you say, then the ability is dormant until introduced in to an environment suffused with magic like Equestria."

I replied back, "That still does not explain how I can cast spells without knowing any."

Twilight nodded and sat up strait, "No it doesn't, but you said you 'willed' the magic to happen. Would you say it felt like instinct? Like something you could just naturally do?"

I sat thinking and she was right, it had felt like some kind of instinct. The voices and the visions though, not so much. I told Twilight that it had indeed felt like instinct and I was surprised to see a nervous look on her face.

"What's wrong Twilight? It there some kind of cultural thing about instinctive magic I am not picking up on?" I asked.

She shook her head, "Yes and no. Unicorns can really only do one magic instinctively, levitate things." She demonstrated by levitating my bag around the room from its place by the chair.

She continued, "What you did, was essentially create spell forms on the fly. Creating new magic is an exceedingly difficult process from highly educated and trained unicorns. I myself have only created a handful of spells and then they were mostly modifications of existing ones tweaked for my personal use."

I stared at her blankly, "So...I am a wizard?" Come on throw me a bone, wizards are cool!

"No Bear you are not a wizard, that is a title earned by the most dedicated and learned unicorns." She said gravely.

"What you are is something Equestria hasn't seen in almost two thousand years, a sorcerer, an instinctive user of magic." She said, her voice growing even more grim.

"OK...so is this a bad thing?" I asked.

"Every known sorcerer in Equestrian history has fallen to corruption and darkness. The last was King Sombra of the Crystal Empire. It took the combined power of two alicorns to bring him down." She finally replied.

I sat outside in the shade of a tree mulling over what I had been told, Every known sorcerer in Equestrian history has fallen to corruption and darkness. Does this make me some form of heretic in their society? I have never known magic and yet here I am going against what they proclaim the natural order. From pilgrim to apostate. Story of my life it would seem I thought ruefully.

Twilight and I had discussed the implications of my magic for much of the morning. The offer had been made to take me under her wing (figuratively) and teach me what she could of magic. Thus I had been given two books, a primer on basic spells for foals and a book on Equestrian history and customs. I had set aside the magic book for now, the idea that I might be an anathema to these people soured me. Instead I took to reading on their history and culture. Though Twilight's library was very extensive it did not really have any volumes on social interaction. I guess self-help books never really caught on here.

It was nearing noon and I was only a quarter of the way in to the copious volume when I decided I had spent enough time pondering my place in the world and decided to do something about it. I stood and dusted my pants off and stuff the books in my bag with my tablet. My first priority is to find a source of income to offset the hospitality I had been shown.

I made my way to the town hall and walked in. It was a rather spacious affair that seemed to be part courthouse, part office, and part wedding chapel. Sitting at a desk near the back with a pile of paperwork was Mayor Mare. She looked up and greeted me warmly, "Why hello Mister O'Hara! What brings you here today?"

I smiled at the friendly mare, "Well Mayor, I have been living off the hospitality of your community and I figured it was time to earn my keep. I was hopping you could tell me where I might be useful in your town either working for pay or volunteering my time. Pay is preferred of course, gotta eat after all."

The Mayor seemed to be a bit taken aback about my statement. She went on to explain that as a guest of the crown, which I came to learn was my legal status, I wasn't expected to work or payback any of the generosity the people of the town had shown me. I quickly but politely made it clear I could not abide that and would prefer to have paying work.

"Well, what can you do?" Asked the Mayor.

"Well I know IT, which I think you have no use for all things considered. I am rather talented at office work, I was a customs broker after all. Aside from that I am a moderately good cook in my own opinion and don't mind getting my hands dirty with heavy work." I informed her.

Mayor Mare pondered a moment and beckoned me over to a side room. I was met with a series of filing cabinets, all unlabeled, some of them with papers literally popping out of them. "These are the town's records." She said, "My predecessor, Red Tape, was apparently not very good at filing things. I have tried for years to get this neatly organized, but I am only one mare and this is a huge job. I just never find the time with my other duties you see."

I looked at her, "You need a clerk."

"Clerk? You mean like those ponies the nobles in Canterlot have do their work for them?"  She asked.

"I am not sure what a Canterlot clerk does but in my business world a clerk would go through, sort this mess out as special project and then when not working on it help you out with day-to-day operations and other secretarial duties." I educated her.

Her eyes seemed to light up, "Would ten bits an hour, six hours a day be enough? I think I could wiggle that in to the budget."

"Weekends off?" I asked.

She nodded.

"When do I start Boss Mare?" I replied.

I was shoved in to the filing room and the door slammed shut behind me.

The following week flew by and I settled in to a bit of a routine. Wake up, make breakfast, visit twilight in the morning for magic lessons, spend the afternoon at town hall sorting out records, come home, eat dinner, go to bed. My first week of pay had been given completely to Fluttershy. She tried to refuse it but I insisted and told her to call it my rent for the use of her room, food, and cat care. She grudgingly accepted but said that the next time I am paid that she would only talk a quarter of what I made. I agreed it was a fair price.

I had not addressed what was becoming her obvious affection. She had not kissed me again nor climbed in my bed since that one night. In fact it seemed she was trying to behave in a mostly platonic manner, though a lingering gaze or an overly long nuzzle on the cheek spoke otherwise of her opinion of me. I chose to let the matter rest, if she was giving me space I was grateful for it. If she was waiting on me to make some form of move on her...I chose not to think on it. I am still damaged goods and would not wish myself on anyone. Not until I am right with myself and right with Creation.

I was making some progress with Twilight, I could actually levitate things now in a manner similar to a unicorn and found it quite handy. I however did not have anywhere near the fine control of a unicorn, I could at best lift and move things around. Fine manipulation was best left to the digits nature gave me. Twilight informed me near the end of our second week she had compiled her report on me and was to present it to the princesses the following day. After all four princesses discussed it I would then be introduced to them. Well, this could be exciting and I was looking forward to speaking with Luna again.

I was busy at work in town hall having finally sorted out and classified all the documents and was starting to put a filing system together when a loud clap of thunder sounded outside. I poked my head in to the Mayor's office and saw her speaking with the weather team. Weather control...still have to get used to that.

After the team left I approached the Mayor, "What's going on Boss?"

"Oh nothing too major, a rogue storm from the Everfree. We get them on occasion." The weather team is going to do some minimal control since we're scheduled for a light shower Monday anyway.

"That makes sense I think." I then shrugged.

"Why don't you go ahead and head out Bear, you have done plenty today and it's almost quitting time anyhow. You can get home before you get soaked. Oh and here is your pay." She said as she slid a bag of bits to me.

I pocketed my pay and made my way out the door. A hard, chill, wind was blowing and angry black clouds were gathering. From the look of things hail might not be out of the picture for this thunderboomer. The rain was just starting to come down as I reached the cottage. I did a quick check of the outside pens and made sure all the animals were secure then stepped in the cottage.

All the lights were out and the indoor animals were hunkered down as the pouring sheets of rain came down and the thunder outside roared. I took off my sopping shirt and vest and hung them by the door to dry. I set my bag and Fluttershy's share of my pay on the table and looked around. Where was she? I hope she wasn't caught in the storm. Poor thing is so timid she might go all fainting goat on me.

As I was pondering Fluttershy's whereabouts another peal of thunder cut through the sound of the rain followed by a muffled cry. I followed the sound upstairs until I heard a faint sobbing while standing outside Fluttershy's door. I knocked. No answer.

"Fluttershy are you in there? Is everything ok?" I called out.

Again no answer. "Fluttershy I'm coming in."

I stepped in to her room, I had only been in here a few times chasing down animals or fetching some item she needed so I was not unfamiliar with the layout. What I did not expect was a lack of Fluttershy. Another peal of thunder later followed by another sob and I found her hiding under the bed.

I confess in that moment I think my heart truly broke. I laid on my stomach so I could face the sobbing ball of fluff and feathers beneath the bed, "Hey, hey it's OK Shy, it's just thunder, it can't hurt you. If it could it would have to get through me anyway."

I smiled warmly at her and she sniffed a bit and seemed to calm down some, "Y-you really wouldn't let it hurt me?"

I shook my head, "Nope. A smart man in a story in once said 'Take care of everyone smaller than you.' " I quoted. "I have tried to live my life by those words. It's gotten me in to some...trouble...but you are a fair bit smaller than me and..." I couldn't finish my sentence before a clinging ball of yellow had knocked be back against the wall in a tight hug.

I stroked her head and back whispering in to her ear that it was OK and I would take care of her for once. I carried her to my room with the intent to tuck her in my larger bed, which I learned ironically she kept for bear patients, and let her rest while I sat in a chair reading. I was very surprised when with a flap of her wings she twisted me about pinning me to the bed while she straddled me. She looked at me with her tear streaked face and said, "You make me feel so safe, like I can face the world."

"Um, OK Shy...listen I think maybe..." I was interrupted with a hoof on my mouth.

"Bear, you make me feel safe and needed. It's such a good feeling." She settled her body on top of me.

"You are so kind and so understanding to me. L-let me make you feel safe and n-needed for once....if you don't mind." She said, her voice getting soft.

As she began pressing her lips to mine my hind brain decided to throw out higher brain functions and in all honesty I can say what came next I did not mind. Next Chapter: 11 - Akashic Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 57 Minutes